case study of psychopath

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Zakia Ali 97677

Task 5 IVA

James Mitchell DeBardeleben was on the wanted list by the American secret service. He was wanted for counterfeiting and frauds. After being caught the investigators realised there was more to James Mitchell than just counterfeiting, he was wanted for bank robbery and murder. DeBardeleben’s criminal profiler former FBI Special Agent John Douglas, had been on his trail for years. DeBardeleben passed $30, 000 in fake bills, he visited many stores and bought cheap stock in order to receive large amounts of change in real cash. He was constantly on the move for which reason it made it harder to catch him. The investigators observed his attendance patterns at the stores and predicted were he may go next. Their prediction was right and Debardeleben was caught.

DeBardeleben’s car was searched residing in his car were several guns, counterfeits, fake number plates, prescription drugs, fake drivers licence and a pile of pornography. Besides all this the main piece of evidence which needed to be found was the printing press. This would prove he counterfeited the notes himself. They found the address to his residence and conducted a search, the search led them to a mini warehouse. A storage space was found within were it was discovered that Debardeleben was a sadistic murderer. Amongst his things in the storage compartment was a police uniform, a list of women’s numbers and addresses, counterfeiting material and a bag. The bag contained handcuffs, a dildo, shoelaces, a chain, bloody panties, and lubricant.  There were hundreds of sexually explicit photos of females, and several audiotapes. The tapes recorded extreme torture were the female victims begged to stop or to be murdered.

 Early victims who survived the torture say they did not come forward because DeBardeleben threaten to show explicit pictures of them and some simply did not come forward due to shame. Many say he spoke of his wife and mentioned his hatred for her, he swore, yelled and could not maintain an erection. Special agent John Douglas described his profile of James Mitchell DeBardeleben as:-

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  • Weak father and domineering mother
  • Record of previous offences, including voyeurism and burglary
  • Adjustment problems in school and the military
  • Difficulty with females
  • Believes that his victims desire what he does to them
  • Fantasies influenced by sadomasochistic pornography
  • If married, he degrades his wife and experiments with her
  • Cagey and intelligent
  • Likely to be a police buff
  • May stalk the victims to relive the experience

His previous life was revised by the police it seemed that Douglas was not far of. He had committed various crimes. He never ...

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