Loving the Psychopath (and Narcissist) Why Women Are Drawn To Serious Criminals?

In the past, I have written  about how Chris Watts, the narcissistic psychopath, continues to assert control, draw fuel and gain stimulation and accumulation while hoovering various women from his prison cell through pen letters. This also included a 72 year old grandmother who took to believing that she provided a mother role for him as he then boasted about his various sexual activities with his affair partner Nicole Kessinger and talked about his crimes of murdering his wife and his two children. He’s not the first individual of course that has drawn female attention despite the fact that he has committed very serious crimes, murdering his wife and two children. There are many instances of this, for instance Ted Bundy, one of America’s most infamous serial killers, was convicted of numerous murders, rapes and kidnappings across several states, confessing to at least 30 victims. Bundy, acting his own attorney, proposed to Carol Ann Boone, a twice-divorced mother of two and former co-worker from Washington State. Boone had reconnected with him, smuggled money to aid his earlier escape and staunchly proclaimed his innocence. They married in open court during the penalty phase when Bundy exploited a legal loophole allowing self-representation to create a public declaration. The marriage produced a daughter conceived during conjugal visits or prior contact depending on which account you believe. Boone later divorced him amid growing evidence of his guilt and as you know Bundy was later executed. But here we have a woman who married and had a child with a convicted serial killer.

Richard Ramirez, the Night Stalker, he terrorized California in 1984-1985 with the spree of at least 13 murders, 11 sexual assaults and numerous burglaries, often involving satanic symbolism. Convicted on 19 death sentences and sent to San Quentin, he received thousands of fan letters. Doreen Leoy, a freelance magazine editor, began corresponding with him after seeing his mugshot on TV. She wrote over 75 letters and visited regularly. Despite his crimes, which included attacks on children and elderly victims, they married in 1996 at the prison. Lloyd described Ramire as as a sweet, kind person, defended him publicly and remained married to him until his death, although they had separated informally earlier. Her family reportedly disowned her over the relationship.

Charles Manson, the cult leader convicted of orchestrating the 1969 Tate-LaBianca murders, seven victims including the actress Sharon Tate, spent decades in prison. In his later years he attracted young followers. Afton Elaine Burton, known as Star then in her 20s, began visiting him as a teenager, moved near the prison and managed his social media presence. After years of contact they obtained a marriage license in 2014 when she was 26 and he was 80. The wedding never occurred. Manson reportedly suspected her motives including profiting from his corpse for burial rights and he died in 2017 before it could actually take place. The case of course received huge media attention as an extreme example of devotion to a notorious manipulator.

Oscar Ray Bolin was a carnival worker convicted in Florida of the brutal murders of three young women in the 1980s with additional cases linked. Sentenced to death row, he married Rosalie Martinez, a legal assistant on his defence team in 1996. They exchanged vows over a speakerphone while she wore a wedding dress at her apartment, with a framed photo of him standing in as a proxy. Martinez, who had children from a previous marriage, became a vocal advocate for him, visiting regularly and fighting his appeals. They remained married for years despite his eventual execution. The case stands out because his wife was directly involved in his legal defense before romance developed.

Four examples of individuals convicted of very serious and horrific crimes and women that not just struck up a friendship with them but ended up actually marrying them. Are they absolutely stark raving mad? Are they under the sway of a manipulator? Or is something else going on? Well it is a peculiar phenomenon when this happens that what appear to be ordinary individuals, disproportionately women, initiate contact with incarcerated people, often those convicted of awful crimes such as murder, rape or serial killing and then develop intense romantic attachments.

This isn’t mere curiosity or charity. It frequently evolves into love, marriage proposals and lifelong devotion. It’s no fringe aberration either. Penpal websites like writerprisoner.com and Inmate Connect thrive on it with thousands of correspondences annually. A study that was undertaken in 2014 surveyed 89 women in such relationships aged 19 to 62 and over half were engaged or married to inmates. Of those individuals 40% of the women reported prior victimisation and roughly 25% had childhood abuse histories. There is a condition. It’s called hybrystophilia. This was coined by sexologist, there’s a title, John Money in 1986. It comes from the Greek ὁπριζήν, to commit an outrage, and φίλο, affinity. It’s popularly dubbed Bonnie and Clyde syndrome and it manifests in fan mail, prison visits, and even weddings conducted behind bars. While men occasionally engage in it, for instance with female offenders like Jodie Arias, the dynamic is overwhelmingly female driven and I just earlier given you some examples of that. At its root, hybristophilia blends paraphilic arousal with maladaptive coping. The DSM-5 classifies it as a paraphilia that can disrupt normal relationships where the partner’s criminal history itself becomes the erotic trigger. A lot of it may be to do with evolutionary psychology because the dominance of the offender signals a warped kind of protection for the woman, a primal instinct which is misfiring in modernity. The woman may consciously reject the danger but nevertheless feel drawn anyway. Trauma does indeed play a central role. Many women who find themselves in this dynamic have histories of abuse, leading to anxious or disorganized behaviors. In the sense the prison walls then provide a safe container. There’s physical distance which prevents them actually suffering harm while allowing them to access vulnerability. The inmates controlled availability satisfies the victims craving for closeness without actually being engulfed and then you have rescue fantasies which amplify it. It will often be the case that the woman will position herself as the redeemer, tying her own self-worth to fixing the irredeemable.

Naturally those that would engage in this might of course be drawn from narcissists. That their magical thinking causes them to believe that they are able to somehow cure this degenerate human being. That their grandiosity powers it, driving them to engage in this behaviour, as it allows them to assert control over an inmate who’s grateful for the attention because they may well be a narcissist themselves and receiving fuel etc. or they’re just grateful because it breaks up the day even though they’re not a narcissist or psychopath and it caters to the ability of that narcissist to assert control over the offender because they’re not going to go anywhere. They’re not going to cheat on them. They can’t leave them. They’re a captive in a prison cell and therefore the narcissist can treat them in the shelf dynamic, interacting with them as and when they see fit.

In other instances, the female victim may very well be an empathic individual that is being affected by emotional thinking which corrupts their desire to get to the truth of the matter a belief that the individual is perhaps innocent, or where they recognise that they are guilty, that they somehow want to fix and heal them a corruption of their empathic trait of the desire to fix and heal. There’s also the case of course that there’s the romanticization of the misunderstood anti-hero creating a halo effect where many of these offenders exhibit charisma which overshadows their actual deeds. The inmate becomes a celebrity and therefore aligning with that inmate confers status, which of course is something which is particularly appealing to a narcissist to become involved with such an individual by way of triangulation and character trait acquisition. the individual feels the ability to bond with danger and by being chosen that it could neutralize their own fear of that individual. If he chooses me I’m therefore special and invulnerable.

You have sociological and cultural drivers so for instance modern culture turbocharges the phenomenon. True Crime podcast, TikTok, Netflix series, these glamorize killers, turning mugshots into thirst traps. Social media algorithms reward engagement with violent offender content, correlating with higher hybristophilia scores and surveys. Penpal cites market inmates as lonely souls needing connection, downplaying their crimes. That, of course, may elicit sympathy from certain individuals. Incarceration’s isolation, the US prison house, more people than any nation, then creates a supply of eager correspondents who idealize outsiders for a variety of different reasons. The narcissist by virtue of their narcissism of course, the psychopath’s seeking stimulation, and individuals who are neither of those desperate for there to be some form of connection with someone on the outside because it makes the prison day go quicker. But they still crave some form of human connection. And therefore having a ready-made audience sat in a prison can prove particularly appealing to different types of person. So, what different types exist?

Well, there are distinct categories among those who pursue bonds with those in prison, with the psychopaths, with the narcissists. There are the rescuers, saviours, the nuturing type. These individuals are invariably high in emotional empathy and also exhibit traits of codependency. These women tend to view the inmate as a redeemable little boy scarred by circumstance, and they believe, through misguided emotional thinking, that their love alone, love devotee, can reform the individual. Childhood abuse survivors often re-enact saving dynamics, projecting maternal instincts. For instance, with Chris Watts, who was a family annihilator, those corresponding with him would fall prey to his blame-shifting in relation to Nicole Kessinger, whereby in effect she provoked the murders, or even blaming Shannon Watts herself, whereby the murders were seen as a mistake provoked by his victim. The individual are the very high-nature-ing type who feel that they can save someone and it assists them by way of self-worth increasing as a consequence of the perceived redemption.

Another group are the controllers, the power seekers. These are more likely to be the narcissists who thrive on asymmetry. The inmates confinement grants them dominance. The narcissist for instance can schedule a call, dictate the terms, feel superior and this allows a woman to expend energy for control over limited partners. In some instances it doesn’t necessarily mean however that they are a narcissist. It’s often the case that those formed bonds with inmates are individuals from abusive pasts. 90% had verbally dominant prior marriages in one study and therefore what they’re doing is they’re inverting the powerlessness. Essentially their position is I decide if and when we connect. Therefore, the serious crimes of the inmate enhance the conquest. They’re taming the untainable. This means that the woman cultivates an illusion of mastery, either as a narcissist that needs to seek control and draw fuel, or as a non-narcissist that is dealing with the weaknesses and the abuse that they’ve passed by inverting the situation and taking hold of control.

Others are trauma-bonded. They are marked by negative self-image and loneliness and this often will include the empath that is addicted to the narcissist and drawn to the familiarity in chaos. Often these empathic individuals are abuse survivors and the prisoner mirrors past partners but for the empathic victim feels safe because they’re behind bars. They’re also made to feel special because they’re the inmates’ sole lifeline. Next you have the thrill seekers. The rebellious. They’re drawn to danger’s erotic charge. Here it’s more of an evolutionary pull to a dominant protector meeting forbidden fruit. These individuals vicariously rebel against societal norms, and they live through the partner. It’s here where hybristophilia peaks. The arisal of these women ties directly to the crimes, for instance, women sending explicit photos to Britain’s most violent prisoner Charles Bronson. Serious offences amplify the adrenaline kick for the woman in essence loving a serial killer feels transcendent. Others are fame and status seekers. This of course could be driven by a narcissist also. Association with notoriety yields attention. Interviews, books, social media clout. These individuals chase tabloid killers for the spotlight. Some profit monetarily, others bask in reflected celebrity character trait acquisition. Manson’s young fiance sought media. The Menendez brothers’ wives gained visibility. Media romanticisation then feeds it.

Finally, there is the rarest but purest grouping who are pure hybristophiliacs. They are simply sexually excited by the violent history of the offender themselves. They’re not interested in reform, they’re not interested in control, they’re not interested in saving the individual, they’re not interested in thrill-seeking or fame or status, they’re not trauma bonded. Quite simply, they are drawn to the outrage that, quite for them the behavior of this individual eroticizes their transgressions become a sexual charge. It’s certainly less common than the blended forms that I’ve mentioned earlier on but it can be seen in explicit prison correspondences that that individual has the paraphilic core, they are pure hybristophiliacs, and they become sexually aroused by the violent behaviour of the offender, and that’s what draws them towards the prisoners. Accordingly, there are a variety of different reasons which cause predominantly women to want to interact with them, and they’re drawn from the ranks of normal people, empathic people, narcissistic people, and narcissists. At the core, there is the psychological condition of hybristophilia, but there are sociological and cultural drivers that I’ve explained and largely these individuals are broken down into those the rescuers and the saviors, the controllers and the power seekers, the trauma bonded, the thrill seekers and the rebels, the fame and the status seekers and those who are pure hybrystophiliacs.