Most mystery and thriller writers joke about their search history, but we’re really telling the truth. In the wrong hands, every one of us would look like psychopaths plotting our next murder.

Lucy Kendall is my very own serial killer, and she doesn’t like getting her hands dirty. After all, she still believes she’s killing for the right reasons. So Lucy uses a variety of drugs to get the job done.

In today’s Confessions of a Thriller Author, I’m sharing what I know about some highly dangerous substances.

Cyanide

In All Good Deeds, Lucy’s weapon is cyanide, based on The Iceman, who used to carry around a nasal spray bottle filled with the stuff and squirt it on his unsuspecting victims. In my research, I found that his methods weren’t just the stuff of legends. Cyanide does absorb through the skin and very quickly. Death would come in minutes, and while it won’t be pretty, it often mimics a heart attack. According to Dr. DP Lyle (Howdunit Forensics), cyanide poisons the cell’s ability to use oxygen. They begin dying immediately, causing chest pains, shortness of breath, etc. And the clues that cyanide might be involved–cherry red hue to the skin and internal organs and the faint smell of almonds–aren’t always detectable. In many cases, a medical examiner will only find cyanide if they suspect a poisoning and do the necessary toxicology.

Ketamine

Known as Special K, this stuff is a recreational drug that can quickly turn nasty. In See Them Run (Lucy Kendall #2), Lucy needs a complacent victim she can easily overpower and force to give her information. Ketamine works wonderfully for this, because while the victim is on their trip (also known as “going through the K-hole by hardcore drug users), he won’t struggle or put up a fight and would be highly suggestible. The drug is perfect for Lucy to get her answers, and there’s no need for sedation or restraint. Even better, the drugs wipe out the memory.

Succinylcholine

This one is very dangerous, and Lucy hasn’t used it yet. But it’s definitely in her back pocket. Known as SUX, Succinylcholine paralyzes the muscles to the point where the person can’t breathe. When used in anesthesia the doctor gives just enough to paralyze the patient so they can pass the breathing tube. An extra dose means the person will essentially suffocate. However, it can be found during autopsy, so it’s definitely not the first drug of choice.

Insulin Overdose

I’ll let you in on a little secret. Lucy uses this one in the first 20 pages of See Them Run. An insulin injection works by causing a fast and dramatic drop in blood sugar, and low levels causes loss of consciousness and rapid brain damage. So insulin is a great weapon for Lucy.

According to Dr. Lyle, 100 units of insulin would be sufficient, but killers often use more. The dose could be placed into a syringe and injected. An insulin overdose would work within a minute or two by this method, and the victim would likely die within 10-15 minutes.

Because injection sites can be hard to see on corpse if they’re in an out-of-the-way area, the mark could be easily missed by the medical examiner. A 27 gauge needed is very small and leaves behind very little mark.

The medical examiner would most likely discover the low blood sugar and jumpstart an investigation, but if your killer is good, she can cover her tracks.

And that’s today’s confession: I know way more about drugs that can kill than I should, and I’m constantly researching more.

Lucy is a vigilante killer of pedophiles, and her preferred method is cyanide. In the first few pages of ALL GOOD DEEDS, it’s mentioned that she’s taken this idea from Richard Kuklinksi, also known as The Iceman.

Kuklinski, according to the undercover detective who spent 18 months building a case against him, liked to carry a nasal spray bottle filled with cyanide and give his victims a spritz. When I first starting researching for ALL GOOD DEEDS, I had my doubts about this method, so I contacted the writer’s go-to forensic guy, Dr. DP Lyle. He confirmed that cyanide absorbed through the skin would definitely kill in a matter of minutes, and that many times it’s missed at autopsy unless it’s being specifically looked for. So Kuklinksi’s method worked, but his cyanide trick was just one of many. He administered it by injection, putting it on food, by aerosol spray, or with the Lucy Kendall method: spilling it on the person’s skin.

Enjoying his notoriety after his arrest and subsequent conviction, Kuklinksi appeared in two HBO documentaries. He also met with a number of writers, psychiatrists and criminologists. He liked to list his methods of killing: firearms; ice picks; hand grenades; crossbows; chainsaws; and a bomb attached to a  remote control car. The Iceman nickname appeared after his claim that he froze corpses to disguise time of death.

As a contract killer for Newark’s DeCavalacante crime family and NYC’s Five Families of the America Mafia, Kuklinkski claimed to have murdered between 100 and 250 men. The crime families dispute his role in any contract killings.

Kuklinksi told police he dismembered his victims, as well as burying them, placing the body in the trunk of a car and having it crushed at a junkyard, leaving bodies on park benches, and placing them in a 55 gallon drum.

Although Kuklinksi had a flair for the dramatic and claimed to have a role in killing Jimmy Hoffa–a claim with zero evidence–the undercover investigation into his activities resulted in enough evidence for him to be convicted of five murders in 1988. He received consecutive life sentences for these murders.

Kuklinksi died in March 2006 in the prison wing of St. Francis Hospital in Trenton, New Jersey. He was 70 years old.

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I’ve written a couple guest posts for my friend and colleague, Stacy Green, over at Get Twisted on the topic of psychopaths. In those posts, I talked about how they develop and how they are different from narcissists.

Another question people often ask is how treatable psychopaths are. Can they be cured?

The short answer is ‘No.’  But have you all ever known me to settle for a short answer.

Read the rest HERE!

Five Differences Between Narcissists and Psychopaths

Thanks so much, Stacy, for inviting me to Thriller Thursday.

One of my all-time favorite TV shows is Criminal Minds, but every now and then they tick me off. The other night, my husband and I were watching an episode (from Season Five) and the BAU team kept referring to the serial killer as a narcissist. Never once did they point out that he was also a psychopath.

What’s the big difference, you might be wondering. There are some pretty significant differences. In this particular Criminal Minds case, narcissism was the motive, but being a psychopath was what allowed the killer to ruthlessly murder random women to fulfill his narcissistic needs.

And no, this isn’t a semantic hair split.

First let’s clarify what narcissists and psychopaths have in common. They both have personality disorders (narcissistic and antisocial). This means that their unhealthy behaviors and attitudes are very deeply ingrained. They are part of their basic personalities.

Second they are both egocentric. They are very focused on themselves–their feelings, their needs, their desires. It’s all about them. Now to how they are different.

1.  Empathy: Psychopaths have none. They are incapable of experiencing and don’t care about other people’s emotions. Their own feelings, on the other hand, are all important. They view other people’s feelings as something to be manipulated.

Narcissists are so totally focused on their own feelings that they almost always miss the cues regarding others’ emotions, even when the other person tells them what they’re feeling.

“Honey, when you do such-and-such, that really hurts my feelings.”

“Yeah, I’m sorry, but…”

Narcissists can be masters at “yeah, butting” their way through a discussion of feelings. However, if you can get them to realize how their behavior is affecting someone else, they are capable of empathy. But you may need to smack them upside the head with a two-by-four a few times to get their attention.

2.  Remorse: Narcissists have a conscience; they feel guilt and remorse. Psychopaths do not.

Are narcissists capable of violence? Most definitely! A fair number of wife-batterers are narcissists. Are they capable of murder? Oh, yeah, especially in a fit of rage. They may even commit cold-blooded murder but they would have to be able to justify it to themselves, because they would feel remorse. They might tell themselves that the person didn’t deserve to live. Or they wouldn’t have gotten hurt if they’d just done what they were told to do, say in an armed robbery situation gone bad.

The psychopathic killer doesn’t have to rationalize to appease their guilt, because they don’t feel any. They may even get off on the power that violence gives them over others.

3.  Can they change?  Narcissists, maybe. Psychopaths, extremely unlikely. Because narcissists are capable of empathy and remorse, once you get their attention, they may be motivated to change. But personality disorders, by definition, are very hard to ‘cure’ because they are so deeply ingrained in the person’s basic make-up.

I have ‘cured’ a couple personality disorders in my career as a psychotherapist, one of them a narcissist. And I know firsthand of another case of narcissism where there was considerable change. This latter case was the husband of one of my clients. (Note: I have changed several details in this story to protect confidentiality.) Over the first couple years of their marriage, his behavior became increasingly emotionally abusive. His new wife told him repeatedly that this was not okay. Finally she’d had enough. While he was at work one day, she moved out. He came home to a completely empty apartment–no wife, no furniture, no dog. That was the two-by-four upside his head!

He begged her to come back to him but she stuck to her guns. (I was very proud of her.) He agreed to go into therapy but she still wouldn’t move back. They remained separated for almost a year while he worked with a therapist and they saw a couples counselor together. After she moved back in, he continued in therapy until he had healed from the childhood experiences that had warped his personality development in the first place. Last I heard from them, this couple was still happily married.

I have never heard of an actual case of antisocial personality disorder (i.e, a psychopath) being cured. The best a therapist may accomplish–and this is a long shot–is to get the person to change some of their behavior by convincing them that behavior is not in their own best interests. In other words, it’s still all about them.

4.  The underlying emotions and motivations: Both narcissists and psychopaths come from bad childhood situations, often with some kind of abuse. The outcomes of these experiences are different however. Narcissists are riddled with self-doubt. They are trying to build themselves up to compensate for this. They are needy little kids in adult bodies who put on a false and often arrogant front.

Psychopaths genetically start out with different wiring (see my previous guest post, The Making of a Psychopath). They have more difficulty feeling remorse and empathy than other children do. Add to that a bad home environment and what little bit of these feelings they were capable of is drummed out of them.

They certainly aren’t confident people but they aren’t blatantly concerned about their self-image either. They usually lack introspection. They really don’t think about it.

5.  Seeking attention/adoration vs. seeking thrills: Narcissists care what others think of them. They may cover this up with false bravado but they really want praise and adulation. They are often braggarts, exaggerating their own accomplishments while envying others’ success.

A psychopath may also be full of themselves and they aren’t going to tolerate anything that strikes them as a putdown, but for the most part they don’t give a flying you-know-what about what others think of them. Their showing off or bragging is more about power. They are getting off on feeling superior to others, and especially if other people are afraid of them.

Another problem with the psychopath’s initial wiring is that his/her (more often his) nervous system is under-responsive to stimulation. It takes a lot to get them excited. Normal everyday life, that makes most of us feel fairly happy, is totally boring and leaves them feeling dead inside.  They’re constantly seeking high levels of stimulation–the adrenaline rush, the thrill that will make them feel alive for a little while.

I’ve had narcissists vs. psychopaths on the mind lately because a key character in my latest novel is a recovered narcissist. He is a former client of psychotherapist Kate Huntington and when she first started working with him years ago she thought he might be a psychopath. (The line between the two is fuzzy sometimes.) After a lot of hard work in therapy, he transformed himself into the person he wanted to be and built the good life he’d always wanted.

And then his past comes back to haunt him. He meets a man at a party whom he used to know years ago, by a different name and under very different circumstances.

I hope I’ve intrigued you enough to check out the book. And then feel free to ask any questions you may have about narcissists vs. psychopaths.

COLLATERAL CASUALTIES:

When a former client reaches out to psychotherapist Kate Huntington and reveals a foreign diplomat’s dark secret, then dies of ‘natural causes’ just days later, Kate isn’t sure what to think. Was the man delusional or is she now privy to dangerous information?

Soon she discovers her client was totally sane… and he was murdered. Someone is now trying to eliminate her, and anyone and everyone she might have told. Forced into hiding, she and her husband, Skip, along with the operatives of his private investigating agency, struggle to stay one step ahead of a ruthless killer. Skip and his P.I. partner are good investigators, but this time they may be in over their heads… and they could all end up drowning in a sea of international intrigue.

(This book is part of a series but is designed to work quite well as a stand-alone.)

BUY LINKS:

AMAZON USA

AMAZON UK

Barnes and Noble

Thank you, Stacy, for inviting me to appear on Twisted Minds and Dark Places. I always love your Thriller Thursdays, and I’m honored to have the opportunity to write one.

When I sat down to create the villain in my paranormal mystery, Forever Road, I drew heavily on my fascination with true crime cases. I used a total of three true crime cases for my inspiration. Today’s post is only one of them.

Barbara Bentley and John Perry

I became interested in Barbara Bentley’s story about her husband, John Perry, after seeing a true crime documentary. I made a point to read her book, A Dance with the Devil.

Barbara survived being married to a psychopath at great financial and emotional cost. As a result of her experiences with John Perry, she worked to change inequitable divorce laws and became a motivational speaker.

John Perry presented himself to Barbara as a retired Navy Rear Admiral. John claimed he was a Blue Angel, a Congressional Medal of Honor Winner, a fluent speaker of five languages, and had been the best man at Frank Sinatra’s wedding…and the list goes on. John appealed to Barbara as a sophisticated man who knew about gourmet food and expensive wine.

Even John’s family was extraordinary. He told Barbara about a father and who had been a well-known Naval officer and a grandfather who discovered the North Pole. John claimed his adult children were an astronaut and a musician.

During Barbara’s marriage to John, the couple attended Navy events as VIPs. At one of these, John was saluted by the President of the United States. According to Barbara, John would flash this ID, that had neither his name nor his picture on it, and they’d be whisked to the VIP seating. When she asked him about this ID, John alluded to the CIA, but never gave an explanation.

The mysterious ID was only one of the pieces of John that didn’t add up. It never worked out for Barbara to meet John’s super-accomplished family. And, when the couple visited John’s father’s grave, John couldn’t find it.

Then there was the money. John convinced Barbara to do things like take out a second mortgage on her house to buy a $75,000 painting. Money John was owed from supposed employers never materialized.

Barbara Takes A Stand

The stress from the debt led to disagreements and culminated with a violent incident in which John tried to kill Barbara. She later pressed charges, and John was convicted of first-degree attempted murder. He was sentenced to five years in prison but was out in one.

On her own, Barbara investigated John and learned the majority of his impressive history was a lie. John—or whoever he really was—had several known aliases and had been arrested for auto theft, credit card fraud, and passport fraud. He was under investigation by the FBI for impersonating a Naval Officer.

After Barbara got away from John, she finally tracked down his family. They had distanced themselves from John who, after a head injury, began behaving erratically.

John, once out of prison, manipulated himself into another woman’s life and got right back to his old tricks. Eventually, he died of a drug overdose. Barbara believed he caused the overdose by ingesting a combination of drugs to help him fake a heart attack. (The fake heart attack was something John pulled during his marriage to Barbara.)

If this is remotely interesting, I highly recommend Barbara’s book, A Dance with the Devil. There have also been several TV documentaries about her experiences, and there are several online sites that feature a more detailed account of the information in this blog post.

I won’t delve deeply into how John Perry’s story fits into my paranormal mystery, Forever Road. If I did, I’d give away the mystery. But I will say that my heroine, Peri Jean Mace, is up against a villain every bit as deceptive, manipulative, and conniving as John Perry.

Seeing ghosts is rough, but owing a ghost a favor flat out sucks.

My name’s Peri Jean Mace, and I’ve seen ghosts ever since I can remember. Don’t get too excited. Seeing across the veil branded me as a loony during my growing up years, and I learned to keep my yap shut about it.

Now I’m not sure I can anymore.

See, my cousin up and got herself killed the very same day I promised her a favor.  Now she’s back in spirit form and determined to make me pay. If I don’t solve her murder, she’s going to haunt me forever. Talk about the debt collector from hell.

That’s not my only problem. An obnoxiously hot cop wants to arrest my best friend for the murder.  My bigmouthed archenemy holds a clue to the killer’s identity. And there’s this mean—and ugly—woman who wants to beat me up.

None of this can turn out good.

Purchase FOREVER ROAD on Amazon

Catie Rhodes decided to turn her love of lying into writing fiction after she got fired for telling her boss the President was on the phone. It didn’t take Catie long to figure out what she wanted to do when she grew up. Drawing on her East Texas roots, her love of true crime, and her love of the paranormal, she writes the kind of stories she wishes the book stores sold. With her faithful Pomeranian, Cosmo, at her side, Catie relishes being that kid your mother warned you about, the one who cusses and never washes her hands after petting the dog.

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