the_psychology_of_an_instigator_the_person_who_hires_a_hitman_case_study_diala_dippolito_1

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Forensic Psychology is a podcast that provides an illuminating window
into the workings of the criminal mind. Now here's your host,
doctor Carlos.

Speaker 2 (00:17):
Welcome everybody to Forensic Psychology. Today is December sixteenth. Then
are back on again to talk about hiring a hit man.
That's right, So what is that all about. We'll take
a look at some case studies and find out what
happened with them, and we'll look at some kind of
give us some kind of a psychological analysis of why
somebody would hire a hit man. Criminologists have a name

(00:41):
for a person who hires a hitman. They call them instigators,
and we'll learn a little bit more about that a
little bit. They also confirmed what news stories suggests lots
of instigators get caught because they don't know what they're doing.
After all, most of us don't socialized professional killers. The
average person therefore looks to acquaintances or neighbors for referra,
or they find their way around to criminal bottom feeders

(01:01):
who are likely to be inepted and experienced. The former
may be inclined also to call law enforce path while
the latter may lose their nerve or botch the job. Altogether,
which helps explain why so many murders were hire. Don't
produce any dead bodies.

Speaker 3 (01:17):
That's a good thing. In nineteen eighty.

Speaker 2 (01:20):
Three, while back this is not a very studied concept
to deets to study identifying a number of processes involved
in contract killing. The first which involves the setting up
of the contract. In the US, it's called or, at.

Speaker 3 (01:32):
Least in Detroit, putting out a paper.

Speaker 2 (01:36):
This is the initiating stage where the instigator, as you
mentioned earlier, the person who hires a hitman, decides that
they wish to hire the services of a third party,
the contract killer. Another study done more recently in two
thousand says the solicitors all have what they perceive to
be some type of intractable, if not insurmountable problem that
can be best resolved by the target of the problem

(01:56):
being killed by someone other than themselves. However, for instigators
hiring freelance killers, there are three main methods in which
the instigator and killer can come together.

Speaker 3 (02:09):
I would take a quick look at that.

Speaker 2 (02:12):
The first method involves the instigator announcing that they're looking
to hire the services of a killer. A friend or
an acquaintance acts as an intermediary between instigator and killer
and informs the insticator the.

Speaker 3 (02:22):
Killer accepts the contract.

Speaker 2 (02:23):
The second method involves the instigator directly approaching a known
contract killer and providing details of the target and determining
whether the killer is interested in carrying out the contract.
This is usually arranged over the phone, at least in
nineteen eighty one.

Speaker 3 (02:36):
The third method.

Speaker 2 (02:36):
Also involves the instigator approaching a third party. However, this
third party is known to be a contract not known
to be a contract killer as such, but rather someone
was a violent criminal history. The instigator asked this person
whether they would be interested in a contract.

Speaker 3 (02:50):
However, in most cases, the instigator and contract.

Speaker 2 (02:52):
Killer do not meet to the actual hit has been
carried out. Studies have been done around the world. In
Australia's way of them were common Sited Sources where they
did a large study on contract killers and they found
that the average price for a contract killing was sixteen
thousand dollars.

Speaker 3 (03:11):
The UK decided to do one as well.

Speaker 2 (03:14):
They found it anywhere between two hundred pounds to one
and a half million pounds. Now let's get a little
bit more into the psychology of the individual who hires
the hip man. We don't want to talk about the
hitman in this episode, so we're not going to talk
about Ko Kolinski or other individuals who were contract hip men.
We can do that in another segment, but today we're
going to look at who would possibly hire these individuals

(03:35):
to kill their significant other people they once loved. In
a study in Tennessee, they found that instigators were pretty
evenly split regarding its gender, so between men and women.
This is notable given that almost all conventional murders are
committed by men, but attracts with the fact that women
are almost as likely as men to wish someone dead.

(03:55):
David Buss and Evolutionary Psychologists reports that one percent of
men and eighty four percent of women have had at
least one vivid fantasy about killing someone. Have you, Well,
it seems to be kind of normal, just depends on
how far it goes. One of the people who hired
to kill read Maloy forensic psychologists who's consulted in a

(04:17):
dozen murder for higher cases. Many people know him. He's
his vast experience when it comes to psychopathy. That's Read Maloyloy.
He told he was saying that contract killers display moderate
to severe psychopathy. Psychopathy is a constellation of personality traits.

(04:40):
It gives them both the aggression and the emotional detachment
to be able to carry out and act like this.

Speaker 3 (04:45):
This is one of the interesting things.

Speaker 2 (04:47):
One of the characteristics of a psychopathis is they don't
have empathy.

Speaker 3 (04:51):
They really don't.

Speaker 2 (04:51):
They don't have empathy, so the emotional detachment, it's quite
easy for them to hire a contract killer and not
worry about it. They don't think of the cons quances.
They don't have emotional connections to the person. So I
can definitely see how this would be the case. Other
experts say with the both parties to a contract killing
are engaged in psychological distancing. The contractor cuts some comforts

(05:15):
himself by saying, this is my job. I'm just following
orders the instigator.

Speaker 3 (05:19):
I'm not a murderer.

Speaker 2 (05:21):
He's the one pulling the tigger, which is very common
of psychopaths. By the way, they like to rationalize things
because that's what they do. Now, we mentioned Deetz, who's
another scholar. He's a forensic psychiatrist and he did a
lot of research in this area.

Speaker 3 (05:35):
He doesn't believe it's fascily that all the other theories.

Speaker 2 (05:39):
He actually thinks in a world we're entertainment gives the
illusion that the service of being a hit man or
contracting a killer.

Speaker 3 (05:48):
Is available to anyone in a world where dangerous or.

Speaker 2 (05:51):
Unpleasant tasks or routinely outsourced, well I viewer might think, well,
why not this too.

Speaker 3 (05:57):
So basically he believes that media.

Speaker 2 (05:59):
Can influence this social learning theory. And this is problematic
because this could lead to anybody to do it.

Speaker 3 (06:07):
And one thing people.

Speaker 2 (06:07):
Trying to get confused is murders murder for higher masterminds
can be richer than sin or poorer than dirt. They
can be husbands, wives, exes and laws, business partners or whatnot.
What they do have in common is a relationship with
their target. And victims of murder for hire are not
chosen randomly. They're chosen for a specific reason. Again, as
we mentioned earlier, usually trying to solve an intractable and

(06:29):
surmountable problem. Some do it because of the shame of
having a divorce, and they figure this way might be
easier to not have to deal with that. That's a
severe case of shame, by the way, but still it's there.
In some cultures, this could be similar to honor killing.
A person who hires a contract killer could be desperate, greedy,

(06:50):
as we mentioned earlier, psychopathic and nature drug addicted, but
not technically insane, which is not a psychological term. It's
more of a criminal justice term. But they do have mentalpancy.
In other words, they understand what they're doing is wrong,
and that's important for the court. She or here clearly
understands that the idea behind the intended action is wrong
and could lead to some serious jail time. She's also

(07:12):
not seriously mentally ill. More likely, the person behind the
plot is angry. They're angry at the thought of giving
half their assets to a woman he can't stand. One example,
she may be sick and tired of her husband's ex
interfering in their lives and turning her stepdaughters against her, or.

Speaker 3 (07:29):
Maybe domestic violence.

Speaker 2 (07:32):
He's fed up with having to wait for his elderly
mother to die so he can get the inheritance.

Speaker 3 (07:37):
All these, believe it or not, are factors that have
been found in past cases.

Speaker 2 (07:42):
We're gonna look at a past case in a little bit,
But why do they fail? Fortunately for us, caring, trusting,
and law abiding citizens. Murder for higher homicides are rarely
or rare. While we don't have any US statistic research,
the Australian Institute of Criminality estimates about two to four
percent of the murders of their murders are for hire.

(08:03):
Almost twenty percent of the successful contracts the target died
we're motivated by a romantic relationship gone wrong.

Speaker 3 (08:09):
Sixteen percent were financially motivated. That's pretty close. So you
have this.

Speaker 2 (08:13):
Emotional issue, the romantic relationship, which, of course, folks, your
identity is wrapped in these relationships.

Speaker 3 (08:21):
And if someone hurts you, that's.

Speaker 2 (08:23):
Really painful, especially if you don't have the resilience or
the coping skills to deal with it, or depending on
the individual and how they hurt you, these could be
really really painful. I'm not advocating for hiring a hitman,
but you can definitely see how extreme it can be
for an individual. On top of that, but look how
close financial incentives were. I mean, it's sad money plays

(08:45):
such a big role. Even more, fortunately, most plots did
not result in the death, and even when they do,
the plotter rarely gets away with it.

Speaker 3 (08:54):
Here's a couple of reasons.

Speaker 2 (08:55):
Because few murder of asterminds have a criminal background, They
don't know where to find someone willing to kill for money,
intend to look for other people to help them out,
which usually get inexperienced people to do the dirty work.
Most acquaintances, our neighbors are not willing to do this
dirty work and call law.

Speaker 3 (09:09):
Enforcements who express the concern.

Speaker 2 (09:13):
The masterminds are ready several people, which increases their likelihood
of getting caught. In most contracts for higher plotters are
under the mistaken believe that if someone else does the
actual killing, they're somehow free from responsibility.

Speaker 3 (09:27):
And that's not the case.

Speaker 2 (09:28):
We've seen that a lot of times in court cases
we have robbery gone bad, or they.

Speaker 3 (09:32):
Win an individual. Maybe there's three individuals and one of them.

Speaker 2 (09:34):
Kills the cashier, for instance, all three can get saddled
with that murder. So in this case this is actually intent.
He's just hiring somebody else to do the killing. So
it doesn't fall too far away from you either. Here,
So let's look at a case. We're going to be
looking at a couple of cases really quickly. Megan Daniel
Zach couldn't stand living with her husband, but couldn't afford

(09:56):
to live without him.

Speaker 3 (09:57):
This is our case study, folks.

Speaker 2 (09:59):
So she came up with a pl and there was
boiler point, boiler plate noir can get this at the Atlantic.
It's where the story is coming from. Hire a killer
to murder him and collect a life insurance payout. She
met the hitman in a Walmart parking lot on Valentine's
Day last year and give him a down payment. Get
this the three gold wings and four hundred dollars in
cash and.

Speaker 3 (10:17):
Another a promise for forty five hundred dollars. At the
end of it.

Speaker 2 (10:21):
Fortunately for Daniel Zack's husband and unfortunately for her, the
hitman was an undercover cop. She is now serving two
years in a Wisconsin prison, having been convicted of solicitation
to commit first degree intentional homicide. We have another case,
it's a little bit more current, which is Dahalia dipp
Alito's murder for higher case, which now will not be

(10:42):
reviewed by a higher court. Dahalia dipp Alito, South Florida's
a notorious murder for higher schemer. She's running out of appeals,
doesn't surprise me. She's trying to appeal that she's not
culpable in this case. She's currently serving about sixteen in prison,
so she'll be in there to at least twenty thirty two,

(11:03):
but she continues to try to appeal it. Hey for effort,
I guess let's take a look at this case. The
history of this highly publicized case is all the staples
of a maid for TV courtroom drama. Dahlia Mohammad and
Michael Dippolito married in February two thousand and nine, four
months after he says she showed up at his door
as a paid escort. The romance faded quickly. Prosecutor portray

(11:25):
her as a manipulative seductress motivated by greed, stealing more
than one hundred thousand dollars from her spouse and taking
the title to his townhouse. Her lawyers tried to cast
Michael da Polito as an abusive husband and a thief.

Speaker 3 (11:38):
His record includes a two thousand and.

Speaker 2 (11:39):
Three Broward County fraud conviction for luring investors, many.

Speaker 3 (11:42):
Of them elderly, into her foreign currency scam, so they
both have issues.

Speaker 2 (11:46):
At her last trial two years ago, jurors heard accusations
that after the wedding, Dhalia Daplito tried for months to
get her husband arrested and thrown in jail for a
parole violation. She spoke with a potential Riviera Beach hit
man named Larry, and also attempted to get her own gun.
She tried to poison her spouse by spiking his tea
with anti freeze, exchanged racy text messages with a boyfriend

(12:07):
about her intentions to destroy her husband.

Speaker 3 (12:10):
Police got involved.

Speaker 2 (12:11):
Late in July twenty nineteen hundred different lover, Mohammed Shahede
called police and said to say he was concerned either
Dippleat or her husband would wind up dead. Shahide immediately
went to work for police as a confident to inform it.
In one video, dipp Alito told Shahide she wanted her
husband's life to end. She handed over twelve hundred dollars
that we used to be that was to be used

(12:31):
for the hitman was actually an undercover officer. Dip Pallito
also gave Shahada a few photos of Michael Dippallito.

Speaker 3 (12:40):
I'm sorry the lady. The wife.

Speaker 2 (12:42):
The jury also watched a video of her meeting the
pretend hitman, telling him she was like five thousand percent
sure she wanted Michael Dippolito to get two bullets to
the head.

Speaker 3 (12:53):
Police made sure to keep him alive and well.

Speaker 2 (12:55):
Officer staged a murder scene at the couple's home and
filmed officers confronting her on the morning of August fifth. Listen,
we had a report of a disturbance at your house
and number fire shots, and officers said with a straight face,
as your husband, Michael, Okay, I'm sorry to tell you, ma'am,
he's been killed.

Speaker 3 (13:08):
As soon as di Belta was taken to.

Speaker 2 (13:09):
The police station, the agency posted the video on YouTube,
where it went viral with almost a half a million views.
In a final video, depilit to learn she's not a
young widow and then her encounter with the undercover officer
fake hit man had been secretly recorded that Belita was
convicted in twenty eleven and sentenced to twenty years in
prison that was later overturned an appeal, and while on

(13:29):
a house arrest awaiting her retrial, did believe it gave
berr to her son in twenty sixteen. The second trial
ended in a hung jury, but the third trial in
twenty seventeen resulted in a swift guilty verdict on a
solicitation to commit first to be murder charge and she's.

Speaker 3 (13:44):
Been locked up ever since.

Speaker 2 (13:46):
So here we have another case where you could definitely
see there's a lot of animosity. I mean, here's somebod
who's trying to poison their husband at the time and
putting any freeze in his teeth, and she had quite
a bit of attention she did. That is because it
has no color or smell, so she was really plotting
and really trying to do harm to this individual, mainly

(14:08):
for money.

Speaker 3 (14:08):
Also sounds like revenge. So see a psychopath, you ask.

Speaker 2 (14:11):
I have no idea. We don't know exactly. We can't
diagnose her. But there's also psychopatheist. Psychopathy is on a gradation,
so you don't either have it or you don't. It
could be a different degree, So there might be some
level of psychopathy she might have and that's problematic. Well
that's the end of today's forensic psychology. The psychology of

(14:31):
an instigator, the person who hires a hit man.

Speaker 3 (14:34):
Thanks for joining us. I hope you enjoyed the show.