how do these evil kidnappers get away with it for so long?

By alice | October 7, 2009

This Times article about famous serial kidnappers and child-abusers, How evil goes undetected in our midst, points out, accurately in my view, that most of these cases are preventable, with the fairly obvious signs going uninvestigated:

the media, and even the authorities, were quick to create a myth of a highly intelligent villain who operated with diabolical precision. A closer look always revealed that the perpetrators were in fact sloppy and predictable, compulsive criminals of limited ability. Garrido, like Fritzl and Priklopil, managed to get away with his crimes for many years not because of any sophistication or superior intelligence, but simply by sticking to his brazen lies long enough for people to avert their gaze from what should have been plain.

It ends on this note, referring to the fact that victims often make no attempt to escape:

Some commentators have referred erroneously to Stockholm syndrome, whereby hostages bond with their captors. But science has yet to come up with a description of what happens to a child growing up or spending decades in the hands of a sexual predator.

I’m currently reading Anne Heche’s memoir of her abusive childhood, Call me Crazy, and it is a gripping, vividly-written read, positively overflowing with energy and vitality, including the blackest of humour. Heche seems to have remained unbroken by her experiences; in fact, her learned denial, which led to mental illness, seems to have protected her, up till the time she was able to face all the demons. A kind of “self-medicating” that she says her mother has never stopped doing. But sometimes “self-medicating” keeps you alive, when the alternative is suicide- or perhaps the kind of emotional surrender that leaves one broken forever?

Heche tried to run away from home at the age of two. Clearly, different people respond to abuse in different ways, and we don’t really know what makes that difference. But when the victim is broken, feels unable to get away, even when they have the mobility to be able to do so, I think maybe the term we need is something like “brainwashing”. That certainly seems to have happened in this recent British case, where a daughter was abused for 33 years. It’s also something that often happens in the “normal” kind of abusive relationships between adults: the victim is gradually acclimatised to being attacked, in a way that undermines her sense of self, and her ability to act independently. She commits a kind of emotional suicide- more reversible than the physical kind, but a surrender to evil that destroys the sense of self in return for that survival.

Power is a complex thing. It’s nice to think we have it inside ourselves, like a kind of permanent spiritual wellspring, but how many of us really believe that? Lucky people grow up with a sense of themselves that is confident, cheerful and optimistic. The rest of us have to get out there and find it, somehow. I think that’s why my generation is so fixated on good parenting- we want to give some kind of confidence to our children that wasn’t around for kids when we were growing up.

3 Comments »

3 Responses to “how do these evil kidnappers get away with it for so long?”

gcotharn Says:
October 7th, 2009 at 4:19 pm

I ran away when I was seven. I was furious with my father. When there was a squabble between me and my brother, my father would usually not get any details of the cause, but would automatically punish us equally. My brother took advantage of my father’s system. I tried to explain this to my father, but he was not interested. Finally, upon another application of unfair punishment, I took off. I made it for 2 hours or more before they found me. I hid in bushes, and would run when the coast was clear, putting more distance between me and my house. They found me b/c I only knew a couple of places to run towards, and they found me there. And my father never asked why I ran.

I think he knew, b/c his method of punishment changed slightly: just a bit, he began to inquire as to what caused a squabble which he was breaking up. Running away was cathartic for me. It got out a lot of anger which had built up. And I was terrified for the last hour or so in which I was running. And so I didn’t want to run away again.

Nancy Rommelmann Says:
October 14th, 2009 at 12:47 pm

Fascinating what you say about Heche, who has always struck me as untrustworthy; someone who knows how to shape-shift in order to get the most sunlight on her skin. The NYT mag article about her, which appeared several months ago and was written, terribly written, by Alex Witchel, did nothing to improve my opinion of Heche, or Witchel, whose work I usually like but who completely fell apart on this one. Here’s the link; let me know what you think:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/02/magazine/02heche-t.html

alice Says:
October 14th, 2009 at 4:03 pm

That’s exactly my impression of Heche. She seems unlikeable when interviewed- I dislike that seductive personality, and it seems learned and messed up to me, however useful. Perfect for the world of acting, glamour and things not being what they seem, of course. (At the same time, I’m not judging her for being who she is if what she says is true, and how would I know.)