Bonnie and Clyde Syndrome

Why would a female guard help a male convict break out of prison and then go on the lam with him until the tragic end? Dr. Saltz looks at the not-uncommon syndrome—an extreme version of the good girl/bad boy attraction—behind this week's jailbreak saga of Vicky White and Casey White.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:05):
Bees are challenging times, but you don't have to navigate
them alone. Welcome to How Can I Help? I'm doctor
Gale Sault. I'm a clinical Associate Professor of Psychiatry at
the New York Presbyterian Hospital, a psychoanalyst, and best selling author,
and I'm here every week to answer your most pressing questions,

(00:26):
hopefully with understanding, insight and advice. I've actually heard from
a number of people following the eleven day manhunt for
Casey White and no relation Vicky White, who together plotted
his escape from prison and went on the run. At
the time of this podcast, they have just been apprehended

(00:50):
and Vicky White appears to have died from a self
inflicted gunshot wound. What people are wondering about is not
how can an escape happen? But how can a woman
develop a romantic relationship with a known criminal, in fact,
a known murderer. How can a woman who is a
prison guard and understands therefore many things about criminality, violence, danger,

(01:17):
and criminal personalities of all women, seem to fall in
love with the prisoner she is supposed to be guarding
and throw away everything that she has done and built
in life to break the law herself and try to
help him escape. Today, I'm going to answer one of

(01:39):
these questions. The American Psychological Association defines hybristophilia as sexual
interest in an attraction to those who commit crimes. In
some cases, this may be directed toward people in prison
for various types of criminal activities. Hybristophilia is a common

(02:03):
form of a paraphilia. The APA goes on to define
paraphilia as any group of disorders in which unusual or
bizarre fantasies or behavior are necessary for sexual excitement. The
fantasies or acts persist over a period of at least

(02:24):
six months, and may take several forms. Preference for a
non human object such as animals or clothes of the
opposite sex, repetitive sexual activity involving real or simulated suffering
or humiliation as in whipping or bondage, or repetitive sexual

(02:45):
activity with non consenting partners. Paraphilias include such specific types
as fetishism, broaderism, hetaphilia, exhibitionism, voyeurism, sexual massacre, is um,
sexual sadism, and necrophilia. Hyperstophilia is on this list. In

(03:07):
d s M five, a paraphilia is considered a paraphilic
disorder only if it causes distress or impairment to the individual,
or if it's practice has harmed or risk harming others.
Hypristophilia is a disorder. It is not a crime nor

(03:28):
an offense. However, actions stemming from being hybristophilic often lead
to serious criminal involvement when the woman, and it is
predominantly women, aids, a beets, or otherwise helps the mail
she's infatuated with carry out his crimes. It is also

(03:50):
referred to as the Bonnie and Clyde syndrome. Hybristophilia derives
from the Greek words gubrazine, which means to commit an
outrage against someone, and philo, which means having a strong
affinity or preference for. In pop culture, it's the Body
and Clyde syndrome, which includes prison groupies who fall for

(04:14):
dangerous inmates. The broadest sense of hybristophilia is a general
attraction toward partners who display what's called the Dark Triad
of personality traits. Basically, it's good girls loving bad boys.
The dark triad refers to three dominant personality traits, and

(04:38):
they are all of a callous manipulative interpersonal style, the
first being narcissism, which is characterized by grandiosity, pride, egotism,
and a lack of empathy. The next is machiavellianism, which
is characterized by manipulation and exploitation of others, an absence

(05:03):
of morality, an unemotional callousness, and a higher level of
self interest. And the third is psychopathy, which is characterized
by continuous antisocial behavior, impulsivity, selfishness, callous and emotional traits,

(05:24):
and remorselessness. So hypristophilia refers to women who find men
that have these dark triads of traits sexually super attractive.
At the same time, women may feel they can be
attracted to and involved with such a man if they

(05:46):
are in jail, and therefore they are actually safe from
the man and also don't have to really participate in
any sort of ongoing, consistent intimate relationship. They don't have
to risk seeing any downsides, like at night the man
who leaves his clothes on the floor or gets drunk

(06:07):
it hits her. She can keep this romanticized version of
her tough man, but preserve it behind bars. Numerous high
profile murderers and serial killers that are known to have
received sexual fan mail include Charles Manson, Geoffrey Dahmer, Richard Ramirez,

(06:30):
and Ted Bundy. Some experts describe two types of hybristophiles,
passive hyperstophilia and aggressive. Passive hyperstophilia comprises those individuals who
have no desire to participate in criminal activity themselves, but

(06:51):
are sexually attracted to criminals, the so called prison groupees
or serial killer groupies. These women will try to find
excuses for what the criminal did. They will develop relationships
with a criminal and feel that they are special that
even though their lover may have killed numerous people, he

(07:13):
would never harm her. They usually feel that they can
change their lover and they have rescue fantasies. Passive abristophiliacs
tend to put themselves in positions to be seduced, manipulated,
and lied to by the people that they fall for.
Aggressive abristophilia, however, comprises those individuals who actively help, typically

(07:40):
male criminals to commit crimes. They will help their lovers
with their criminal agenda by luring victims, hiding bodies, covering crimes,
or even committing crimes. They are attracted to their lovers
because of their violent actions and they want to receive love,

(08:01):
yet are unable to understand that this man is a
psychopath who is manipulating them. Both passive and aggressive hy
bristophiliacs tend to end up in abusive or unhealthy relationships.
In general, many women, and again it is predominantly women,

(08:23):
have been themselves victims of abuse or trauma in the past.
They may suffer with low self esteem and have difficulty
maintaining a more normal romantic partnership. So with that, right
after the break, we'll get to my listeners question. Welcome back.

(08:55):
Let's get to my listeners question and see how can
I help, Dear doctor Saltz. I have been following the
Casey White and Vicky White case and his escape from prison.
Everyone who knew Vicky White says they are totally stunned
by what appears to be a romantic, long term relationship

(09:18):
between the two and her long term plans to break
him out of prison and run away. Her colleagues say
she was this amazing employee and trustworthy and they can't
believe she plotted to break him out. What could make
a woman, after so many years guarding prisoners fall in

(09:38):
love with a murderer and be willing to break the
law and leave her entire life behind for him. You
can never really know what goes on in the mind
of someone who doesn't reveal their inner thoughts to you.
It's pretty clear that many of the people in this
woman's life didn't really know what she was thinking and

(10:01):
what she may have been struggling with. Many women become
security or guards of some sort and have no particular
affinity for the people they are guarding. But sometimes a
person is drawn to a line of work because unconsciously
they are very drawn to the people or the task

(10:23):
involved with the job. For example, and this is not
a direct comparison, but there is a concern that sometimes
people with pedophilia are drawn to teaching or coaching or
any vocation that has them interacting with children. Not most
people who do these jobs, by far, but some people

(10:45):
who do so. If a woman with for example, low
self esteem, who is attracted to men who are dominant, cruel, dangerous,
is unaware how much she is drawn to being a
prison guard for that reason, and yet what she is

(11:06):
doing in her job is containing them and keeping them
and others safe, then it may feel like an admirable job,
a very reasonable job to be doing, and a good
job for her. And of course if she's not doing anything,
that is the case, but the attraction may still be there,

(11:29):
and she may be susceptible to manipulation from a good manipulator.
She could come to believe, as women with hybristophilia do,
that she could save him, nurture him, turn him around,
or that she is special and she's been doing this
a long time and she could tell the difference, and

(11:52):
because she's special, he would not harm her, that she
could rescue him, that she sees in him what others don't,
and that she's fallen in love. Sadly, it is a
path toward committing crime herself, and it's possible that her
threshold for the horror of breaking the law could be

(12:13):
diminished by her constant exposure, day in and day out
to people who do break the law. Romantic love and passion.
It changes brain chemistry. It affects the neurotransmitter dopamine, and
many people become capable of doing all manner of things

(12:35):
they normally wouldn't in order to preserve it. After years
of seeing, dealing with, and managing many criminals, she may
have come to believe that she could and had changed him,
but that she told no one and even those closest
to her had no idea means she knew that what

(13:00):
she was doing was wrong, criminally so, and in fact
that may have been part of the thrill. It may
have been part of the drive to do it. That
their love was illicit, that it was secret, it was dangerous,
making it all the more compelling. And while this may

(13:20):
have been a case of hybristophilia, a person whose psychiatric
illness does not impair their ability to know right from
wrong and knows what they are doing is wrong, is
still legally responsible for their crime. The sad part is
that when a woman comes to know that she is

(13:42):
struggling with a repeated pattern of attraction to essentially bad men,
and gets treatment and gets help and makes what is
unconscious conscious, she can repair her path and not have
to continue on the way that sadly this woman did.

(14:04):
I hope that was helpful. Women with this condition, as
is the case with many paraphilias, lose perspective and reasoning
and will take risks and break the law to maintain
their connection. Some actually are thrilled at the idea of
breaking the law and joining their partner in being powerful.

(14:25):
This is why it's so important when a woman has
a repeated pattern of very self destructive relationships or attempts
at relationships, that she seeks treatment. Bonnie of Bonnie and
Clyde was a fatalist. She knew their run would end,
and Bonnie wrote so in a poem sent to her

(14:47):
mother that was titled end of the Line. They don't
think they're too smart or desperate. They know the law
always wins. They've been shot at before, but they do
not ignore that death is the wages of sin. Some
day they'll go down together and they'll bury them side
by side. To a few, it'll be grief to the

(15:10):
law or relief, but it's death for Bonnie and Clyde.
Yet she remained driven to the end in pursuit of
her romantic desires. Do you have a problem I can
help with? If so, email me yet? How can I help?
At Seneca women dot Com, all centers remain anonymous and

(15:31):
listen every Friday too. How can I help with me?
Doctor Gale's Salts