Stalking and the Connection to Serial Killers & Violent Offenders

This podcast discusses the definition of a stalker and the connection that stalking has to serial killers and violent offenders

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:08):
Hey, Composition of a Killer Fans Doctor Cassidy. Here today
we're going to be talking about stalking and then the
relationship between stalking and serial killers or violent offenders. As always,
everything that we discuss in this podcast is not meant
to be a clinical diagnosis. It is just my professional opinion,

(00:32):
so excuse me. First of all, we're going to look
at an article here in psychology today that really gives
us an idea of what stalking is. Stalking is a
pattern of unwanted contact and behavior that leads someone to
feel upset, anxious, or scared for his or her safety.
And I addressed this a little bit when I was

(00:54):
doing my doing my post for the stalking. You know,
I've had several stalkers, and most of you have probably
had stalkers, and maybe you didn't even realize it at
the time, but as far back as grade school I

(01:19):
had I've had a stalker one of the and I
said I would share some of these tories. This one
I was much younger, I'm gonna say seventh or eighth grade.
And of course I grew up on a farm and
we would raise tobacco because I mean the community that

(01:41):
I lived in, I mean, everybody raised tobacco and I
had pretty bad allergies. So most of the time my
job was to work in the house, clean the house,
cook our meals, those kind of things, do laundry whatever.
But other times, especially you know, when the weather was
nice and so forth, get to work out in the
field picking up tobacco leaves, things like that. But we

(02:08):
would have to hire from time to time, we would
have to hire people to help us. And there was
a man who lived in the community and he was
a pretty well we know now, he's a pretty horrible person.

(02:30):
Came from a pretty dysfunctional family. His sister and his
father lived like man and wife, and they had a
child together who was extremely disabled. And it was really

(02:53):
just a messed up situation. And you know, this is graphic,
and there's a lot of things that disturbing about it,
but this is reality for me. Anyways, you know, I've
experienced it when we were working in tobacco. One day,
me and my best friend, we were walking behind the
tractor and this man was working for us, and we

(03:20):
really didn't talk to him. I can't even remember a
situation where I spoke to him, but he asked one
of our neighbors about me and how old I was. Well,
that neighbor told him, you know, don't worry about you.
Better not worry about her. Her dad will kill you,
which is true. If you knew my dad, you would know.

(03:45):
But it didn't stop there. He actually at that point
in time at our house, we were having a swimming
pool put in, and of course it was really muddy
out back. If it ran into whatever, it got really muddy.
And my father worked shift work. So one night we
heard something outside, me and my brother and my mom.
We never could see anything, but that next morning when

(04:07):
we went out back, there were footprints in the mud
of somewhere someone standing at the kitchen window looking in.
And this man was i'd say six foot five, three
hundred and fifty pounds, and he had a huge foot huge,
So we pretty much gathered that it was him that

(04:31):
had been creeping around the house. And so my dad,
and you have to remember this was forty years ago,
my dad told the neighbor who was actually who would
actually work with this man, and he hired him to

(04:52):
work with him. Because he's a big man, he could
do a lot of work, even though he was mentally unstable,
and so he told him if he ever came round
to our house again that he would kill him. And well,
basically what he said was, I'll shoot a hole in

(05:16):
you so big that a calf can walk through it.
Kind of a look, that's a local colloquialism. And he
knew my dad was serious. My dad was a marksman
in the military, and everybody, everybody knew if they knew
our family, they knew my dad and his love of guns,
and not that he had a propensity to hurt people,

(05:37):
because he didn't, but he was a fierce protector, right,
He was a fierce protector. And I'll be honest with you,
in my lifetime, since my father died, I've never felt
as safe as I did when my father was alive,
because even when he was in his you know, sickest day,

(06:01):
I know he would have gotten up and protected me.
So just just a little bit of a family thing there.
But so he told him that, and the neighbor told
this guy that. Well again, you know, I say, he's
mentally unstable, really not the smartest person to deal with.

(06:22):
But at this point in time, we had a carnival
in town, and of course I went to the carnival,
everybody did. So we were at the carnival, me and
my friends. We were all at the carnival. And during
that time, keep in mind, we didn't have cell phones
or anything, so our parents would just drop us off

(06:43):
and it was relatively safe, you know, And it was
at the city park, so there were cops there and
everybody you know, was there. So they dropped us off
and we would stay two or three hours til our
money ran out. And during this time, that man called

(07:04):
my house and asked to speak to me, and my
mother was home and she recognized his voice because again
he was a part of our community. Everyone knew him,
and my dad was at work, so mom told him

(07:27):
never to call back, and then she called my dad
and then she of course came straight away and picked
me up. And I had to leave the carnival because
of him, and it was really scary. I mean, he
was very aggressive, and let me say so aggressive and
so dangerous that shortly after this, he was caught in

(07:53):
a neighbor's filled with his cows and he sexually molested
a calf and the calf died. So I don't know
if you can hear that in the background, that would
be my dog's playing with a stuffed porcupine, making all

(08:14):
kinds of noise, but horrific, horrific. The family was horrific.
But honestly, even though they called the police, even though
the you know, they tried to take care of this man,
get him off the streets, they wouldn't do anything to him.

(08:36):
And to my knowledge, he is still alive. I have
always said I will never feel safe until he's dead,
because you can't you can't tell what he's gonna do.
He's it's just uncertain. Now. I've done very well keeping
out of his radar all these years, and I'm not

(09:01):
sure why they decided not to do anything to him.
They didn't charge them, charge him for killing the cow
or anything of that nature that I'm aware of. But
you know, I do think, and you know, I say
this a lot. There's a lot of failures in the
judicial system. There's a lot of failures in the mental

(09:21):
health system. When you allow people out of prison who
are not capable of being normal in society, that's a failure.
You know, this man should have been locked up. And
I mean, I hope he didn't hurt anyone. I know

(09:44):
he hurt that cow, but you know, We don't really
know what all he did. I can tell you that
people just didn't really want to mess with him, and
I think that included the police. So really dangerous man.
And that is a form of stalking, right, that is

(10:05):
direct contact. You know, he knew where I lived, he
knew it's just our small community. Most people knew everything
about everybody, which can be dangerous in and of itself.
We don't really think about things being you know, let's

(10:25):
not let's not tell everybody where we're going. You know,
we live in a society now where everything is put
on Facebook and or Instagram, and you're telling people you're
on vacation, so your house is empty, you know, and
you wonder why you get broke into. So I think
we have to be very smart, especially in today's society.

(10:46):
We have to be very smart about how we portray ourselves,
how we who we deal with, and how we deal
with him. It can make a big difference in our life.
I mean, you know, I do not ever want to

(11:08):
live like that again, because I was scared all the time.
And that's what stalking is. Stalking is a pattern of
and what a contact or behavior that leads someone to
Philipset anxious or scared for his or her safety. And
that is the best definition that I've ever read. It's
a consistent and intentional pattern of behavior as supposed as
opposed to one or two isolating incidents. And you know,

(11:35):
in this particular situation, it was those three particular events
that we were aware of. One where he asked the
neighbor how old I was. And also he also asked
if he thought my dad would let him take me
out because he liked me. Very simplistic mindset that he had,

(11:59):
but is just the same. And you know, he was
told to stop. But again, we didn't have the word.
We didn't really talk about stalking back then. We just
thought he was a pervert and a dangerous one at that.
And I don't know if my dad ever went to

(12:21):
the police about it, but I do have another story
about that. I'll probably tell that in another podcast where
we did have the police involved in security. It was
a pretty extreme situation when I was in college getting
my undergrad So this article says what is stalking. The

(12:44):
legal definition varies by state, but the United States Department
of Justice defines the term as a course of conduct
directed in a specific person that would cause a reasonable
person to fear for his or her safety or the
safety of others, or suffer substantial emotional distress. In addition
to instilling deep distress, stalking can also escalate to a

(13:06):
physical attack, sexual assault, or a murder. It's difficult for
a target to determine a stalker's trajectory or identify if
and how stalking behavior will intensify. Stalking constitutes one form
of intimate partner violence according to the CDC, along with
physical violence, sexual violence, and psychological aggression. So how common

(13:33):
is stalking? About fifteen percent of women and six percent
of men in the US have experienced stalking at some
point in their lifetime, according to the Center for Disease
Control and Prevention, representing eighteen point three men women and
six point five million men. When stalking occurs, it's frequently
in the context of a breakup, So they're stating that stalking.

(14:00):
The root of stalking is someone broke up with their
you know, sexual partner, and then that partner becomes a
stalker and is obsessed about it. Obsessive is one of
the best words to describe a stalker. They're obsessed. They
want to be with that person, they want to be

(14:24):
a part of their life in whatever way they can be,
and it's dangerous, you know, it's a dangerous mindset. But
in my particular case, none of my stalkers have been
anyone that I've ever dated. Most have been strangers, and
so I think that there are different categories of stalkers,

(14:47):
while I know there are, and it really just depends
on the situation. Now there's also cyberstalking, and that refers
to any form of stalking that relies on technology, and
that's fairly to us. Even though we've had technology for
twenty years or so, cyber stalking wasn't really a terminology.

(15:14):
I'd say about ten years ago. I'm looking it up
because now I'm curious. It's typically it's been around since
the early twenty first century due to the growth of
social media. So maybe they don't have a specific date,

(15:40):
but at some point in time, what has happened, which
is exactly what happened with this with the Behavioral Sciences
Division of the FBI, is they realized these things were happening,
and they started this focus group on it, or this
research group, and they started putting new words, a new

(16:06):
vocabulary to describe what was happening, and that's what's happened here.
Someone has defined it as cyberstalking, which is a good way.
I mean, perfect example, perfect example. Some of the ways

(16:31):
that you can do cyberstalking repeatedly sending unwanted messages via
email or a social media platform, tracking someone via GPS
without their consent, monitoring online activity without consent, releasing sensitive
or personal information about a person online, impersonating the individual
in chat rooms or online platforms, or installing a camera

(16:53):
on the person's computer to view or record them without consent.
That's all bad, right. Although victims or loved ones sometimes
minimize the stalker's behavior, it can often lead to violence.
About one third of stalking victims were eventually physically or
sexually assaulted in one study. Potential indicator indicators of violence

(17:15):
include previous instances of violence, destruction of property, loitering around
the victim's home or workplace, and whether the victim feels
intense fear. So I'm going to say that in my situation,
in the story that I told you, we know that
there were previous instances of violence with him. There was

(17:38):
destruction of property if you look at it in that sense,
because a cow is owned by someone, and he raped
it and killed it lording around our home, which he did,
and I certainly felt intense fear, to be honest with you,
after that, I was never out much after dark by myself.

(18:00):
My parents wouldn't let me go anywhere by myself, and
I understand why. And when my father would work with
the graveyard shift at Eastman, where he would be, you know,
gone all night long, we would typically go spend the
night with my grandparents up the road, just so we
would have you know, my grandfather. And then when my
brother got older, we started staying at home. But when

(18:23):
we were much younger and that occurred, we would go
up to my grandparents' house, so it changed our lifestyle.
We you know, we took that very seriously. So it's
important to keep in mind that once these things happen,

(18:44):
even if the person is caught, put in jail, maybe
they die, whatever it's still had that you have, they
have totally changed the mindset of the person being stalked.
You know. I'm very cautious now, and my husband jokes
around about it sometimes, he's quite serious about it. I

(19:05):
don't take it as seriously as I should, probably, but
the thing is it's hard to be nice to people.
It's hard to be nice to people and them not
take it the wrong way. I've gotten to the point
where I rarely make eye contact with people. If I'm
by myself, I completely ignore people around me. I don't

(19:31):
want to encourage conversation. I don't want to appear like
I am focused on something else to where they might
think that I'm not paying attention to my surroundings. I
am intensely paying attention to my surroundings. So it is
all of my experiences has changed my way of thinking.

(19:55):
It's not something that's wanting done, for sure. So what
leads to this stalking behavior. Stalking encompasses a desire to
exert control over a victim. That drive can emerge from
a romantic relationship, for instance, warding off suitors or trying
to win over a new partner. It could arise from

(20:16):
the fantasy of a relationship formed entirely in the person's mind,
such as in the case of celebrity stalking, or it
could have its roots in a mental health conditions such
as borderline personality disorder. You will see in this Mind
Hunter show. I talked about it on my real on

(20:39):
Facebook If you get a chance to watch Mindhunter on Netflix.
It's two seasons and it's the story of how the
FBI brought about the Behavioral Sciences Unit that now is
you know, who created everything we know about Syria. They

(21:00):
came up with the jargon, the protocol. They interviewed all
of these serial killers, Ed Kemper, son of Sam, all
of these people they've interviewed, and it has really, you know,
it developed this department that has changed the way society

(21:25):
views stalkers and serial killers violent offenders. It's really quite amazing.
It's a great show if you get a chance to
watch it, but you'll learn stalking is an integral part
of an organized serial killer. There's two classifications in this regard.

(21:45):
There is organized and unorganized. Son of Sam would be
unorganized because he did not pick out a person and
stalk them. He would just drive around until he saw
someone who he thought would be a good victim. Situation
had to be right. And then you have someone like
bt K, who was incredibly systematic in what he did,

(22:12):
and he did stalk the people. He would go in
their homes and learn the lay out of the house
before he ever came back to do the attack. So
he was very organized. And so again you have organized
and unorganized serial killers or violent offenders. And we can
look at different characteristics of people and determine which one

(22:33):
they are, how they react to things, how they go
about it, what their mo is. All of this because
we have this wonderful department in the FBI who thought
it was important enough to invest the time and money
into this research. As researchers continue to study this topic

(22:56):
of stalking, they've put forth different categories such as romantic,
which is stalking a former partner, lust which is a
serial predator, love scorn someone who's rebuffed after expressing interest
in someone, celebrity which would be stalking a famous figure, Political,
political which is motivated by ideological agreement or disagreement. Revenge,

(23:19):
which is fueled by anger or resentment in cases of
murder for hire. What leads to stalking after a breakup?
Ex partners who engage in stalking tend to be those
who are emotionally a verbally abusive, research suggests, but post
breakup pursuit is also into a form of a dependency
called relationship contingent self esteem. You've ever met somebody and

(23:42):
said they always have to have somebody. They always have
to have a man, They always have to have a woman.
They can be aligned. That is someone who has relationship
contingent self esteem, in which people define their worth through
their relationships, So if they're not in a relationship, they
don't feel like they have any self worth. If people

(24:02):
are high in relationship contingents self esteem and react poorly
to a breakup with intense anger or jealousy, they may
be spread to obsessively pursue their partner. So you're looking
at a person typically who has low self esteem when
they when they are rejected, if they feel it very
deeply and they can't get over it, and they figure

(24:26):
if they prove their dedication to someone through stalking, they
don't consider it stalking, but but they can prove they
love them and no one will ever love them better,
and they can gain that relationship back. If you watch

(24:46):
that show Woman of the Hour, I talked about it
last week, it's crazy. It is the story of the
aiding Game killer. And of course he was called that
because he was on the dating game that was so

(25:07):
popular back in the sixties and seventies, I think the seventies,
And you know, he ended up being a serial killer.
But it was you know, it took quite some time.
They didn't really have these things going back then. Great
show to watch also just to learn how a stalker

(25:30):
works and how someone with this mindset, how they manipulate people.
He had it figured out. I mean, he was he
was good looking, he could charm someone. He was a photographer,
so he took that. He took that angle where he

(25:50):
would tell women they were beautiful and they would be
the perfect, you know, subject for him, and he would
take him to the mountains the desert there and they
would kill them. But strange story. It's about an hour
and a half long if you get to watch it.
I believe it's also on Netflix. But very good show.

(26:11):
But the rise of social media and influencer culture has
made it easier for people to feel attached to celebrities.
Famous figures can regularly communicate directly and intimately, seemingly to
their followers via youtub or Instagram live. They can respond
to comments or messages, and this can create the illusion
of having a close, real relationship with celebrities when the

(26:32):
reality is that the relationship is completely one sided. Those
are people who have those delusions, you know, I joke
about a couple I don't know. Months A couple months ago,
I got a message from someone who was acting like
they were post malone, and it said post malone wants

(26:55):
to send you a private message, you know, And I
thought that was hysterile, But of course I said no
because I know better, right, But there are some people
who would legitimately think that post malone is trying to
contact them, And you know, I'm sure that had I responded,
it would say something like I saw your information on

(27:18):
Instagram and I thought you were pretty and or whatever,
you know, and that would have kicked off a relationship
in that person's mind. Right. It's very dangerous. Women can
also be stalkers, though, but it's often perceived as a

(27:40):
crime that's committed only against women. But although three times
more women than men are victims of stalking, women, women
are also perpetrators of such behavior. About half of male
v victims of stalking reported having female stalkers. Most men
aren't going to talk about being stalked because we contribute that,

(28:02):
or we we categorize that as being something that happens
only to females, But it's very much something that happens
to it doesn't matter who you are, you can be stalked,
doesn't matter. There's no consensus on why women are stalked
more so than men. I don't know that you know,

(28:26):
the numbers may actually be closer than we think, but
that you know. The drive to pursue may differ by gender.
But women may be motivated by the desire to prevent
a partner from leaving, to win the person back, or
to scare away perceived rivals. Men may be more motivation
motivated by the desire to win over a potential new mate.
Because the male saki is naturally inclined for competition. So

(28:55):
if a male perceives that whoever he desires, he has
to compete with someone to get that person, that may
kick off stalking like behavior. And let me say this,
if you think you're being stalked, I would always err
on the side of caution. I would contact the police.

(29:18):
I would say, this is what is happening, and I
feel threatened. You know, the fact that you feel threatened
is enough. It's not enough for someone to say, well,
that's not a big deal. Happens all the time, or
they'll lose interest. Eventually they'll stop doing that. It does
not always happen, and I know because I've experienced it
several times. And you can't even be mean to people.

(29:45):
You can't even be mean to people and them go away.
It doesn't work. So it's interesting that that people have
that mindset if I ignore it will go away, or
if I mean to them, they'll get the hint and

(30:05):
they'll go away. It doesn't work that way, not at all.
So there are things that they recommend. This article is
from Psychology Today, and there's things that they recommend we
can do if we find we have a stalker and
we report that stalker, you are considered a victim. At

(30:26):
that point, you're a victim of stalking. You first and
foremost want to avoid the stalker as much as possible
and explicitly state that communication should end and do not
respond to further communication. That means blocking people. That means,
you know, blocking them on social media. I've often I've

(30:47):
blocked a lot of people. But I sometimes get scared
when I'm blocking people because I'm like, what if it
makes them mad? You know, I don't want to make
it mad and it escalate. But you know, so far
knock on wood, that is not happened. I just block
people and move on. And it's easier to do that
than it is to get into conversations where people are

(31:19):
they don't listen to logic or reason, so there's no
point in trying to get them to understand. It doesn't
matter if you're married, not married, have a boyfriend, have
a girlfriend, doesn't matter. Maintain a log of the stalkers' actions,
including the communication and wanted visits and police reports filed.
Become educated about technology related security measures, and then find

(31:41):
a local organization for support, information and safety planning. I
don't know if I personally don't know of any local
support groups that talk about just stalking. Maybe in larger
areas they have that. I can imagine that a person

(32:01):
might need psychological help after being stalked, because it makes
you so paranoid. I literally live my life always feeling
like I'm being watched. I have been that way since
I was young, and I do think that it is
a remnant of the stalking that I've experienced. You know,

(32:21):
I always feel like someone's watching me, and I always
try I act accordingly. You know, I don't feel like
there's ever too many times that I'm by myself, and
we know statistically that the average American is on film
at least thirty two times a day. If you're out
in public, you are on someone's camera. Now, it's not

(32:42):
necessarily being stalked, it's just security cameras. But if you
keep that in mind, it can make you very paranoid,
you know, And I try not to be paranoid. I
just try to be very aware of what's going on
around me. So stalkers seek to wield power and gain

(33:02):
control over their victims. Persistent communication, tracking and threats lead
the target to feel unsuttlment on edge. Stalking can lead
victims to feel nervous, stressed, and anxious. They may have
trouble sleeping or experienced not mares. They may lose their appetite,
and they may experience symptoms of post traumatic stress or depression.
Research suggests that many women who have been stocked experienced

(33:26):
symptoms of depression and post traumatic stress disorders, such as hypervigilance, flashbacks,
and avoidance. The unwanted behaviors most associated with these symptoms
are receiving threatening calls and texts. Victims may also take
measures to protect themselves that fundamentally alter or interfere, or

(33:48):
take time away from work or school. So what is
the emotional cost of stalking the mental conditions. The mental
health conditions that result from stalking tend to be depression,
post traumatic stress disorder, with symptoms such as difficulty sleeping
and avoiding certain locations. That is the truth. The two

(34:11):
factors that seem to exact the greatest psychological toll on
women facing a stalker are whether the pursuit is active,
like if the stalker follows the prisoner's shows up unexpectedly,
and an aggression if the stalker threatens or commits violence
towards the victim, her property, or her loved ones. The
other show that I watched a few weeks ago was

(34:33):
called and I Am a Stalker, which kind of kicked
off my interest in stalking as a psychological trait. And again,
if you keep up with you know my post on
Facebook as well as my podcasts, people who are stalkers
don't think they're stalking people. None of those people on

(34:56):
that show thought they were stalking. They thought it had
been way out of proportion, even though some of the
things they were doing were just horrific. One of the
men had gone to this lady's house, busted her window, out,
busted her dorian a lot of property damage. She ended

(35:16):
up having to move in back in with her parents,
and she was you know, late I'd say, late twenties,
early thirties. They did not consider themselves stalkers. A couple
of them just blew it off. They thought it was
stupid that they were even in jail or had any
consequences because they did not think they were stalkers, even

(35:38):
though they were committing violence towards the other victim or
the threat of violence, just the threat of violence to
another individual is stalking. You know. It is that impact
that you have on that person. And many of them
would say, why I I didn't mean anything by that.
I was just talking. You know, we don't know that.

(35:59):
We don't know that you're just talking. We don't know
what you're capable of. You know. It's the ones we
hear about who go who move forward and kill someone.
Now we know what their intention was. Oh my goodness,
hindsight's twenty twenty, right. We have to be that cautious
before we ever know what someone's truly capable of. And

(36:22):
that's scary. You know, I would much rather be over zealous,
maybe even be considered irrational about it than to put
my guard down and then someone kill me or hurt me.
You know, you just don't know people. You don't know people.

(36:45):
There's a lot of different support systems for people who
have been stopped, and what I mean by that is
you can go there's all kinds of mental health professionals
that can help you through that. I don't like I've
ever needed that. I have a pretty strong psyche in
that I don't I don't particularly dwell on things. It

(37:10):
doesn't mean that I pushed them aside and don't think
about them ever again, but I certainly don't get to
the point where I'm you know, nonchalant about it or
I just I brush things under the rug and I
don't don't think about it. I learned from these things,
you know, I learn and I do a lot of research. Obviously,

(37:34):
if I had known years ago what stalking was when
I was experiencing most of those, I would would I
have acted differently. I don't know. I probably would have
contacted the police. Again, I've only had well, I've had
two situations where the police got involved. One and again

(37:55):
I'm not going to share both of those today, but
one was on campus. And it involved someone who I
had to fail in a class. That was pretty disturbing
because you really did not know what he was capable of.
And then another was when I was a student in

(38:16):
a class and was stalked by someone, and that that
was I didn't even think about it being stalking or
anything violent in nature. I thought it was kind of funny.
And then when I was telling some of the people
I lived with in the dorm, one of them went

(38:41):
downstairs and told the dorm we had dorm mother. Dorm
mother's way back then, tell the dorm mother about it,
and she's the one that made me call my parents
and we called the police and all that stuff. So
I didn't even know enough about it to take it seriously.
It ended up being an incredibly serious situation and the
person got he got kicked out of school. But that's

(39:07):
a story for another time. Probably my most severe, if
I'm going to rank them, maybe, but you never know
how people are going to react, and you never know
how people are, how desperate a person is, so stalking
can be if it damages you in any way, if

(39:32):
it makes you feel scared, concerned, worried, gives you PTSD,
all of those things. That's stalking, and you need to
take it seriously. Now, one of the one of the
most famous serial killers who is considered a stalker is

(39:58):
Dennis Rader BTK. And again they throughout that entire show
Mind Hunter, you see glimpses of what's going on with
Dennis Rader, because you know, he was active for well,
he was active for so many years and then over
the course of thirty years he was active, inactive, active,
inactive in which talk Kansas and he really is like

(40:26):
stalking personified. He was. One of the reasons he's considered
an organized serial killer is because he was so meticulous
in what he would do. It's just it's just unparalleled
how well Dennis Raider could stalk someone and they would

(40:47):
never know. And of course, you know, he killed his
he was successful in killing his victims, and so they
would never really get to the point where they even
I mean maybe once they faced him, you know, they

(41:09):
might have known. But honestly, he got away with stalking.
And we call it stalking because that's what it was,
but he didn't consider it stalking. He was developing his plan.
He was developing his plan, and to do that he
had to be very meticulous about where he was going,
what he was using. Had his kill kid just so

(41:34):
well planned. He was just so organized, and you know,
he was an organized serialclub with psychopathic traits, and he
still has no remorse. If you watch video as a
BTK talking about when in the court system where he
had to actually talk about what he did, it's just like,

(42:00):
it's just like if you and I were going to
sit around and talk about the weather. I mean, how
much noted you all get? How cold is it there?
We're talking about things that were so normal, so innocuous,
and he is talking about binding, torturing and killing these

(42:21):
people through strangulation or suffocation, torturing them in so many
different ways, and then getting off on it sexually as
I mean, just like you're talking about anything unbelievable. But
that's that's that delusion that they have. They don't feel empathy,

(42:44):
they don't feel you know, violent offenders, the majority of
violent offenders and serial killers do not have empathy. Right,
You've heard me preach that what they do have is
this innate ability to seek out what they want and
get it at whatever the cost, doesn't matter what it costs,

(43:07):
I'm going to get it. I don't care if it
scares them to death. I love them, they don't realize it.
Therefore I'm going to continue to do this. They're misunderstanding me.
They don't understand me, but they'll understand when they figure
it out that I love them more than anyone else.
And then when they air mind, they'll understand it. Their

(43:28):
mind isn't right, so there is no talking to them
and no making things makes sense. That's why we have
a Department of Behavioral Sciences. That's why we have experts
who study these people and try to figure out what

(43:50):
it is you know. And this, let me say, let
me say this. We can talk about it all day long,
but if what the FBI did wasn't beneficial, we wouldn't
have We would not have stopped many of the killings
that have that we know of today. That it would

(44:11):
have just continued for years and years. And we are
seeing a decline in serial killers, and we're not sure
if that's because they know that it's almost impossible now
to get by in this world without being recorded somewhere.
DNA evidence is far too powerful. If you leave anything,

(44:35):
they're probably going to catch you rather quickly. And the
ability to be I don't know what the word is.
I'm looking for, you know, to stealthily get around where
people don't see you, where people don't know you're around,

(44:58):
you know, walking through a neighbor going through someone's backyard
to get into their house. There's too many people. They
see things happening, there's too many eye witnesses. And so
that really has helped, you know, bringing this to the
attention of everyone. It's at the forefront of their mind.
Why is that weird person walking around their house. I've
never seen them before. Why is that person parked in

(45:20):
front of their house. They don't live in this neighborhood.
That's a weird car in the neighborhood. Let me look
at some video footage. And you know, just the other day,
my mother has a ring camera on her front door
and she was like, Kim, somebody was here at like
six o'clock looking, you know, looking at all my porch
furniture and going under my cushions and stuff. And we

(45:40):
found out who it was. It was no big deal,
but she didn't know that and it terrified her. But
think about that person didn't even think about being recorded.
They were being recorded on her phone on her camera,
which is one reason we have it, you know, so
we can, you know, watch what's going on there and

(46:01):
ensure that she's safe. But and we have cameras all
over ours so God help you. If you decide you're
coming here, you're going to be on camera regardless. So
it's just too common now. So that may be one
reason we're seeing a decline in serial killers. The other
reason could be that they're getting so good at it

(46:24):
that they haven't even hit our radar yet. You know
how many people are missing in the United States, how
many children? How many people are gone in this world

(46:44):
and we have no idea one hundred and ten million.
This is worldwide, not just the United States, but worldwide.
One hundred and ten million individuals. Are some of those
missing persons victims of serial killers? Absolutely absolutely right now,

(47:05):
they think that there are thirty five active serial killers
in the United States. Maybe they've figured out how to
make it work for them. Other reasons could be kidnapping,
like child abduction. Human trafficking is huge right now, so

(47:25):
people are missing because of that. Forced disappearance is due
to correct government agencies or agents I mean, or criminal
activity where people are put into hiding missing an action
like in the military, voluntary disappearance like juvenile runaways, people
who are avoiding law enforcement, or for whatever reason, involuntary disappearance,

(47:51):
someone with dementia or other regulated incapacity mental disability accident
while alone and away from home. Kevin is actually in
Greenville today on a search for a missing elderly man.
He called me just a moment ago, and they did
find him and he was fine. But that that happens

(48:14):
so very often. We have the Silver alerts. Those people
are in this number, you know, So one hundred and
ten million also includes people who have just don't even
know where they're at. Right Different places have different statistics.
Mexico's numbers are much higher than let's say, Nigeria. Mexico

(48:39):
has more than one hundred thousand people reporting missing, but
that you know, Mexico is also a very high violent
place with lots of victims, so there's a lot of
reasons why they people could go even unreported. And then
like in Nigeria there's like three thousand missing people. Is

(49:01):
that because people are not reporting it or is it
because they have just a different setup. People don't do
that over there in the United States right now, we
have ten thousand and seventy people this is in twenty
one who are being trafficked, and that's sickening, sickening, you know,

(49:31):
in twenty twenty, I don't believe this actually, but it
says in twenty twenty that the United States did not
have anybody being trafficked and then ten thousand, seventy and
twenty one. I think that they were unreported. They probably
didn't even start these statistics until then. That there's no
way that's true because trafficking has been an issue for

(49:55):
more than four years. But again, when you're looking at
different statistics, you have to see what is the context
of those and what category do they fall in? Are
these people who are vulnerable? Do they live in an

(50:16):
area where there's a lot of you know, serial killings.
Do they live in an area where there's a lot
of people missing. Atlanta is a place where a lot
of people go missing, and part of that is because
their population is huge, it's very concentrated, So they may
have a hundred people go missing. I'm just throwing numbers out,
like a hundred people go missing a day because their

(50:39):
population is so concentrated. But we may have here in
Hawkins County, we may have ten people go missing a day,
but we have more people missing per capita because we
have a smaller number of people in our area. So
you have to look at the context of of what
you're looking at. But there's tons of things to look

(51:01):
up if you're interested in that. Look at stalking and see.
I mean, you can literally just pull a BTK and
it talks about stalking and how he was successful in
his methodology. So always an interesting read. BTK is one
of those people who, unfortunately is almost a household name.

(51:26):
If you say it, people know it, and it's because
he's exceptional, you know, and not in a good way.
All right. So there's my first story on stalking and
we will do another one. There's a bunch of other
there's tons of information about it, but specific I'm going
to dive into some specific serial killers like BTK, who

(51:49):
pretty much mastered stalking and that's why they were so
successful in their endeavors. So we'll talk about that next.
Do you have any thoughts and questions? As always, please
feel free to reach out to me. My email is

(52:09):
doctor Kimberly Cassidy eighty nine at gmail dot com. Stay
safe out there, and as always, and stay warm because
it's really cold here. Have a good one.