'Till Death Do Us Part: Love, Marriage, and the Mind of the Killer Spouse (16 page)

Unlike the narcissistic killer, who harms those who no longer fill his needs, the Temper Tantrum Killer, having never developed a mature manner of reasoning during difficult or stressful situations, explodes in a fit of rage when things don’t go his way.

When you mix this kind of personality defect with a series of frustrating or undesirable situations, the combination can be deadly.

* * * * *

S
UCH
was the case of
SCOTT PETERSON
.

His was a story unlike any other, a tragic tale that captured the attention of the American public like no case since the O. J. Simpson murder trial. Scott and Laci Peterson were a beautiful couple, often described by family and friends as the object of envy. But like many marriages that end in murder, underneath the picture-perfect façade was a dark and ugly truth that no one saw or even imagined.

We are very often fooled by attractive couples. If they appear beautiful and happy, we are inclined to believe our eyes. Scott and Laci looked like that cute couple in college who could be friends with anyone. They could have been our next-door neighbors. It was not hard to see why Laci found Scott appealing. He was good-looking, confident, sexy, and very romantic. He had a magical way about him, and Laci fell head over heels in love. Every conversation they had seemed intimate and intense. Laci felt elevated and adored; the connection between the two of them was impossible to miss. It’s ironic that their first date took place on a boat and that she became seasick, an ominous portent of her fate.

After meeting in college and marrying, the couple settled in northern California, where Scott worked as a fertilizer salesman and Laci as a substitute teacher. Laci was happy and bubbly, with an infectious spirit. The couple was expecting their first child when, on Christmas Eve 2003, Laci disappeared.

Scott said he had last seen his wife that morning when he left their Modesto home for the ninety-minute drive to San Francisco Bay, where he went fishing. Laci, he said, was planning to go grocery shopping. But when he returned home, she was gone, though personal items such as her cell phone and purse were in the house. A massive search ensued, involving police and hundreds of volunteers. Laci’s family even posted a $500,000 reward for information about her whereabouts.

Scott played the role of the distraught husband, taking part in the search for his missing wife, but within weeks the shocking truth about Scott came to light as police learned that he was involved with another woman, Amber Frey. It was Amber, a massage therapist previously unaware that Scott was married, who recognized him from the daily TV reports and who called police.

In mid-April the body of Laci and her unborn son Conner washed up on the shoreline near where Scott claimed he’d gone fishing the day Laci disappeared. He was arrested a week later, near his parents’ home in San Diego, and charged with two counts of murder. In 2005, as the world watched, he was convicted of murdering his wife and unborn son and sentenced to death.

* * * * *

I
T
has been said many times that part of the reason many of us found this case so compelling was the appearance of the Petersons, who looked like a couple that had everything going for them. In essence, they seemed like the all-American couple “next door,” and that they weren’t at all served to underscore that things are rarely what they seem.

The Peterson case also raised a very important question: How well do we really know our brother, our friend, our family members? What really goes on in the lives of people we
think
we know? This case was a brutal reminder that much in life is often nothing more than an illusion. For example, Scott suffered from low self-control and egocentricity, and yet part of what made him so exciting to Laci and the people who loved him was his hedonistic approach to life.

One of the down sides to this pleasure-seeking approach to life is that it made Scott completely self-absorbed. He vehemently demanded that his own satisfactions be met above everyone else’s. Scott’s self-regulation skills were greatly impaired. He had the classic narcissistic and sociopathic personality features, which made him dangerous under the “best” conditions. What his wife, friends, and family did not know, at least at first, was that his ability to tolerate frustration was no better than a toddler’s. When a toddler cannot have a toy he wants, he will fly into a rage and then imagine annihilating the outside source of that rage.

Scott exhibited several characteristics which, in retrospect, seem all the more alarming. His approach to life was shortsighted, and he had poor judgment and planning skills. He sought immediate and easy pleasure and avoided pain whenever he could. When his behavior was not tolerated he thought nothing of lying, hiding, suppressing, or disguising his self-serving approach to life. His charismatic social presence helped to camouflage his moral impairments. His charm was the equivalent of a local anesthetic, to help ease the pain he invariably caused. Such characteristics are a recipe for disaster if they aren’t dealt with at an early age. In Scott Peterson’s case, the combination turned deadly.

Men who kill their wives typically have not killed anyone before and probably will not kill anyone else. If you look closely, you would find a certain derogatory set of feelings and attitudes toward women in general. For example, women are often viewed as property that has no rights. This attitude can be manifested in many different ways, including cheating (which is a form of psychological abandonment and abuse), verbal abuse, and physical expressions of anger and aggression.

Very often such men wish that their wives would die, or at the very least they like the idea of having a dead wife. Scott told Amber Frey a few weeks before his wife went missing that he was a widower and that the upcoming Christmas would be his first without her. If you look at the fantasy life of these intimate-partner killers, you may even find that they think about violently evening the score against anyone who crosses them.

Scott Peterson’s story did not ring true from the very beginning. If he did not want his wife dead, who did? Laci was a young woman eight months pregnant and readying herself for a magical moment in her life. Her husband was clearly the most likely candidate. His television interviews revealed an oddly “fake” emotional quality. His tears seemed false, badly acted, typical of people with antisocial personality disorders. They don’t feel things like the rest of us, so when they pretend to have a strong emotion, it appears false.

After Laci’s disappearance, Scott’s behavior was also unusual in other ways. He said he went fishing alone, on Christmas Eve no less. He then tried to sell their house and car right away and even ordered porn movies, something Laci would never have allowed. Laci’s family also had their growing suspicions, especially after learning their son-in-law had an affair prior to his pregnant wife’s disappearance.

The motive for removing Laci from his life was now coming into full view. Scott didn’t want to be a father or a husband. He wanted to be free.

* * * * *

S
COTT
was the only son of Lee and Jackie Peterson. He had several half siblings, but Scott was the youngest. He would be described by his half-sister, Ann Bird, who had been given away by Jackie Peterson at birth, as the “special child” or “golden boy.” He could do no wrong and the family treated him like a little prince. Such treatment gave young Scott the idea that he was, in fact, special and
should
receive special attention and abide by a different set of rules than everyone else. Naturally, over time, Scott’s sense of entitlement warped his view of the world. If his own parents did not say no to him, he figured, why let anyone else say no to him?

This type of character defect makes it very hard to tolerate frustration. Criminals tend to have two extreme family dynamics; either they were terribly abused as children and therefore feel entitled to whatever they can take in later life, or they were overly indulged, giving them the idea that they deserve whatever they desire. Scott learned early on that he was entitled not for
doing,
but for
being.
It was his Peterson birthright. He was an aristocrat in his own mind.

According to theorist Karen Horney, the spoiled or smothered child is really dehumanized and instrumentalized. The parents love the child not really for what he/she is, but who they want or imagine him/her to be. The child is there to fulfill their dreams, and becomes a way to magically transform the parents’ dissatisfied lives into successes. As a result spoiled children often give up reality to adopt their parental fantasies. In the womb of these fantasies they feel worthy, perfect, and entitled. Such children are unable to realistically assess their true abilities and limitations. Neither can they understand the expectations of others, the value of teamwork, and perhaps most important they do not have the ability to postpone gratification. The family is the first and most important teacher of our identity and source of emotional support. It is the place we learn to feel cared for and loved, and it forms the template for all future relationships. Therefore, as the spoiled or smothered child grows up, he almost always feels rage when people repeatedly fail to live up to his very high and unrealistic expectations.

In many ways human development is very much like that of a tree. If a tree cannot grow in one direction, it bends and shifts its branches around whatever obstacle is in the way until it finds balance and equilibrium. Psychopathology is a result of a disturbed growth. It is an adaptive attempt to grow around obstacles. Psychological growth crises stunt human development. With this in mind, Scott Peterson was no different from a two-year-old screaming to get his way. Of course a screaming two-year-old is far less lethal than a tantruming adult.

This also explains Scott’s disenchantment with his impending fatherhood. He was still emotionally a child himself and felt unable to tolerate the responsibilities inherent in childrearing. Laci’s pregnancy had been more
her
idea than his anyway. She was always far more ready to jump into the next phase of their lives than he was. Her pregnancy made him feel trapped, edgy, and ultimately violent. He also felt Laci was acting different. In the past she had been far more lenient about his “flaws and imperfections.” He could get away with having affairs more easily. It was much easier for him to please her by doing nothing much in particular. But now she was turning into Martha Stewart number 2. She was on his case all the time. Their marriage was like
House Beautiful
meets
Animal House.
Her demands were getting more intense and he hated it. If this was the way life was going to be, it was like death. It was miserable.

Scott never had to deal with pregnancy in his primary family. He was the youngest and he liked it that way. Who wants to deal with the competition of another child, anyway? His mother never made him do that; neither should Laci. After all, he was his mother’s son. Jackie Peterson was no stranger to problems and controversy. She had a difficult life and had given away a few children for adoption. We don’t know the impact of Jackie’s choices on her son’s behavior, but it would not be much of a stretch to say that Scott got the idea from Jackie that you get rid of anyone you don’t want in your life.

Messages in families can be communicated in all kinds of ways, in some cases on an unconscious level. Modern psychoanalysts believe that a person’s basic sense of himself predates cognitive and verbal abilities, and hence even surpasses the subjective sense of self. Once established, this basic identity is lifelong.

On some unconscious level did Scott believe that unwanted individuals should be disposed of? That there was no place for them? Perhaps this is where Amber Frey came in. She was more like his mother Jackie: She already had a child. Scott could idealize her and imagine that she would not ask him to give up his childlike status. He could even be easily and effortlessly Amber’s knight in shining armor, like his dad was to his mom.

Of course Amber Frey was by no means perfect—she had her share of hard knocks in the world. She was lonely and had a history of looking for love in all the wrong places. Scott was not the first married man she had been involved with. In fact, the man she was involved with prior to Scott was also expecting a child with his pregnant wife. It seemed Amber had a propensity for dating men with pregnant wives. That being the case, it still seems that when she met Scott, Amber was trying to make better social choices for herself. Scott presented himself to Amber as the romantic ideal. His charming and glib words were used to assuage the pain he felt he would ultimately cause in his relationships. As this always worked for him in the past, he had no reason to think that it would not work for him now.

Yet it was Amber who sealed Scott’s fate during the trial. Their taped phone conversations showed how easily and effortlessly Scott could lie. And his lies were elaborate. In some of the phone calls he sounded weak and pathetic. It was not difficult to imagine that his relationship with Laci paralleled that with Amber Frey.

People who have poor impulse control are also more likely to have multiple affairs. Scott’s relationship with Laci was filled with too much responsibility and reality. It was a drag. With Amber, however, Scott could be anyone, not unlike his role in his primary family. There was a “high” to the affair that helped him escape the pressures of his daily married life. The eventual problem with this new fantasy relationship was that Scott actually expected it to work out. During his affair with Amber his feelings of bitterness and recrimination toward his wife and unborn son increased. And yet Amber was ultimately victimized by Scott, just like Laci was.

Scott’s life was all about him and his pleasure. His purchases underscored this point: the boat, the motorcycle, the pickup truck, all were impulsive, pleasure, id, and phallic purchases. He felt easily intruded on by others, especially when he found them too demanding. For a while, Laci allowed him to buy whatever he wanted, but that all changed when she became pregnant with their first child. Her maternal instinct intensified and Scott felt the pressure and the heat. All his past sexual indiscretions were no longer acceptable to Laci. She knew her husband was desirable to women and that he had a roving eye. She had protected him in the past when she found out about his affairs. She did not even tell her closest confidante—her mother—about them. She did not want to present Scott in a poor light and furthermore, she wanted to protect herself from hearing what she didn’t want to hear, that she had married a cad.