There’s a blog headed,
JEREMY BAMBER : THE WHITE HOUSE FARM MURDERSby Richard Bevan (Jan 2019)
A couple of excerpts read,
PATHOLOGICAL LIARS & BPD (BORDERLINE PERSONALITY DISORDER)Pathological lying and extreme delusional self-belief are traits recognised in countless murderers and serial killers over the decades. Andrew Cunanan, infamous for several brutal murders before shooting and killing Italian fashion designer Gianni Versace in 1997 in Miami is a test case example of Borderline Personality Disorder.
However, a psychiatric disorder such as BPD does not necessarily relate to violent behaviour. It is generally a mental health condition that affects around one in 150 people in the UK and is, for the most part, identified with ‘split personality’ and not schizophrenia. Even the latter, outside of horror movies and 70s TV thrillers, is rarely associated with violent and dangerous behaviour. But intense, inappropriate anger is one of the most troubling symptoms of borderline personality disorder, in fact so intense that it is often referred to as ‘borderline rage’. Cunanan, who eventually committed suicide at a Miami beach-house while under siege by the armed police is the kind of psychotic killer associated with both BPD and acute pathological lying which enabled him to create a fake persona and convince the unsuspecting of being someone or something he wasn’t.
UPBRINGING AND EMOTIONAL TRAUMAPsychiatric illnesses and syndromes such as BPD, Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD) and Anti-Social Personality Disorder often have their roots in childhood and early experiences both within and outside the family unit. Dr Scott Carroll explains. ‘Such people have usually had childhoods filled with abuse, neglect, and loss of caregivers and grew up in foster care or an orphanage’.
Serial killer-in-the-making Cunanan was raised in a household where his mother was terrified of her violent, authoritarian husband, a status-obsessed bully who is also believed to have sexually abused the young Cunanan as a child. Creating fake worlds by the traumatised may be one strategy to cope with anxiety, emotional violence and fear as Dr Michele Barton, director of ‘Psychology Life Well’ underlines. ‘Pathological liars are usually very insecure individuals raised by very authoritative and strict parents who were not excepting of that individual as they were. Therefore the [person] had to create a persona that was lovable and acceptable by their parents to avoid punishment, embarrassment, and vulnerability,’ says Barton.
NARCISSISTIC PERSONALITY DISORDERLie detector results exempting, the one factor Bamber and Cunanan share in common with their pathology is Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD) or strong narcissistic traits where they compulsively lied just to make themselves appear more glamorous and impressive. Those with NPD often display an exaggerated sense of self-importance and the more clever of them, such as Cunanan, can con others into believing their boashut upl tales. Before Cunanan’s dramatic death as he was holed up in a Miami beach-house he had at times, lived the lifestyle of a millionaire, socialising with the rich and famous, all on the back of presenting an image of himself that wasn’t factual. Bamber himself created a delusional world for himself, an alternative alter-ego as a ‘playboy’ and a self-belief of being intellectually superior to those aro,und him. Although Bamber’s childhood and social background was different to that of the power-crazed Cunanan, he was brought up in a strict ‘moral’ home environment by disapproving parents and in the case of his mother, June, her religious fervour and puritan mindset was controlling and may have contributed to Bamber’s sister Sheila’s mental breakdown.
The blog can be read in full here
https://www.crimeandinvestigation.co.uk/article/jeremy-bamber-the-white-house-farm-murders
