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Anatomy Of A Preditor

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This page should not be taken as legal or medical counsel , but only as recommendation from a collection of sources.

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We discuss stalking in our Intro to Stalking class; and what to do when stalking victims come to us for help in our Responding to Stalking Victims Class.

This is a little different. What we're going to be dealing with is a little psychology.

Much of what we can presume about stalkers comes from their victim preferences, and we talk more about them in our Who is a Victim class.

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Before 1994, in the USA police weren't required by Congress to track stalking statistics with their other crime data. In 1994, Congress passed the Crime bill, mandating that tracking. So before that, the data is sketchy.

Add to that the likelihood that many stalking incidents are not reported or taken as seriously as they might, and the statistics are bound to be a little messed up.

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Stalking itself, and that kind of behavior, is as old as humanity. It's just the methods that have changed, and in fact, probably the most new thing about it is that now we are calling it a separate behavior type.

In the 1980s and since, we've heard a lot of high-profile cases of stalking. Celebrity stalkers like that guy who tried to assassinate the president to impress Jody Foster or the Lady who insists she is David Letterman's wife, for example.

The David Letterman lady has real personal problems. She keeps going to his property, even drives his car. She keeps getting arrested. She can't stop herself.

Is she in love? Maybe. I would say she is obsessed.

The movie with Michael Douglas and Glenn Close, Fatal Attraction, deals with the subject of love-obsession stalking. It's a fairly old movie. You might also check out Cape Fear and Sleeping with the Enemy.

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Legal definitions of stalking vary from state to state, compounding the problem of trying to figure out what makes a stalker tick.

Even though these definitions vary, pretty much they do have at least this in common: stalking makes a person fear for their safety.

That's pretty broad, which is what happens when we get all the laws and try to distill them into one definition.

There is a survey you can read, if it is available in your library, The National Violence Against Women Survey (US) by Patricia Tjaden and Nancy Thoennes. (I stuck the US in there, it's not part of the title).

In 1990, California became the first US state to make stalking a crime. They have a lot of celebrities in California, but you don't have to be a celebrity to be stalked.

Stalking statutes address a pattern of seeking to harass or threaten the safety of another person. In the past, much of this behavior was lumped in with Domestic Violence, and indeed it still may be. In fact about 80 percent of all stalking cases involve a previous personal or romantic relationship between the stalker and the victim BEFORE the stalking started.

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So let's talk about who the stalkers are, and about what makes them tick.

Demographically speaking, stalkers can be male or female. You should know, however, that 75-80 percent of stalking cases are men stalking women.

Most of these men are young to middle-aged. Most are above average intelligence. They come from all kinds of backgrounds, jobs, and kinds of families. Anyone can be a stalker.

And anyone can be a victim.

There is no one single psychological profile for stalkers. The psychologists who study this kind of thing believe EVERY stalker is different. That means it's hard to peg them into categories, and even harder to deal with the behavior.

One field in criminal justice deals with studying criminal behavior. The job category is forensic psychology. They are just now starting to study what makes these stalkers tick.

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What the forensic psychologists have done is divide the stalkers into two broad categories: the love obsession stalkers and the obsession stalkers.

Most of the cases you hear on the news are love obsession, yet they make up only about 1/5 of all stalking cases. The stalkers who go after celebrities are love obsession stalkers, but love obsession stalkers also go after regular people like you and me.

Most of the love obsession stalkers suffer from mental disorders like schizophrenia or paranoia. Even if they have a different mental illness, they all tend to show some delusional behaviors and ways of thinking.

Most of these people are, sadly, unable to develop normal personal relationships in the ways that we usually think are acceptable to society. (Dating, etc.)

So they move into a fantasy world with people they may not even know! They make up complicated scenarios, then they try to act out these scenarios in the real world.

That lady who was stalking David Letterman really believes she's his wife. She even showed up at his house bringing her own kid--ostensibly to play house there.

She gets arrested over and over. Obviously she has to have been offered help when she gets in prison.

These love obsession stalkers don't just try to live out their fantasies. They expect the victim to live the fantasy also. They try so hard to make their fantasy a reality, and want the relationship to be a positive one--real love. But when the victim doesn't play along, they may threaten or intimidate or use other force to get the victim to do what they want.

If the threats and intimidation don't work, then violence could be the next step. They seem to figure if they can't be part of the victim's life in a good way, they will be part of it in a bad way. They might even kill their victim, trying to make themselves part of the victim's life forever.

The majority of stalking cases is by simple obsession stalkers. But don't let that name fool you, simple doesn't mean easily stopped or less dangerous.

70-80 percent of all stalking falls into this category.

As we said before there is usually some previous personal relationship or romantic relationship in these cases.

These stalkers might not have serious psychological disorders like the love obsessions stalkers--the schizophrenia or paranoia. But they are obviously not well-adjusted. They definitely have personality disorders.

The forensic psychologists who study the stalking phenomenon have tried to list some common personality traits of simple obsession stalkers.

Here is what they say about the simple obsessions stalkers

It is a lot of people...Current estimates are that there are 200,000 real life stalkers in America today, out of a population of around 250 million, that is 0.008% of the US population: in other words roughly 1 in 1250 persons is a stalker.

The self esteem of these kinds of stalkers is heavily dependent on their victim. Lots of times, they try to build their own self-esteem by dominating their victim or intimidating her. They exert power over their victim in an attempt to muster some power over their own lives.

Without the victim, this kind of stalker feels powerless. Some of these stalkers try to control EVERY aspect of their victim's life.

...When and if they can go out Whether they can have money and how much On what they can spend what money they are permitted Who they can talk to, including family members Whether they will or won't work outside the home When they can pursue leisure activities What these may consist of Who they may associate with including friends and family

These rules the controlling stalker insists on may change at any time and without notice, yet the victim is required to comply without complaint.

The victim is the main source of the stalker's self esteem. If the victim leaves either by choice or by force, the stalker may feel his own life is worthless.

This is similar to what happens in many domestic violence cases. The stalkers are the most dangerous when they are first separated from their victim: when they are first deprived of their source of self esteem.

Losing the victim is the stalker's greatest fear.

Stalking cases often grow out of domestic violence cases. These are actually the most common stalking cases. They are also the most commonly fatal (to the person being stalked).

Domestic violence victims who leave an abusive relationship run a 75% higher risk of being murdered by the stalker than other people leaving a relationship.

So the stalker is holding on out of fear of losing his/her self worth. And at the same time the victim is holding on out of fear for his/her life or safety. It's difficult to leave a domestic violence relationship.

We said stalkers are different and hard to peg. But the forensic psychologists are trying hard to identify patterns.

Since stalking is most like domestic violence, if you are looking for a way to understand this behavior, you may want to do some research into domestic violence as a start.

The stalking behavior usually starts when the stalker is somehow frustrated in his attempts with his victim. It doesn't make a difference whether it is a previous relationship they want to continue or if they want to start a new relationship with a victim.

The stalker may go through a "courtship period", sending love letters, gifts, candy, or flowers, for example. They are trying to prove their love.

When the stalker tries to send the flowers and candy or otherwise court the victim, if the victim doesn't accept or encourage these attempts, the stalker often next tries intimidation.

This is similar to the love obsession pattern. The intimidation is usually unjustified, for one thing. Jealousy for no reason. The contacts increase, and become more jealous over time. The stalker may exhibit jealousy of family, friends, co-workers, children, or hobbies.

Soon the jealousy becomes persistent harassement. Harassment escalates to threats. They don't have to be direct threats, such as I will kill you.

Threats may be only implied, like the action of a finger across the throat implies killing with a knife, or "Do it, or else..." Or else doesn't have to be clearly stated to scare the victim into compliance.

When stalking reaches this point it usually ends in violence or murder.

What they do is... they can't reestablish that sense of power that their own self-esteem is so closely tied to. So in order to get that power back, that feeling of being in control, they resort to violence and reassert their dominance that way.

As with the love obsession stalkers they might even kill the victim in a last-ditch attempt to dominate. The thinking seems to go this way: