Sociopath alert: Julie Miller

Every now and then someone cheats during a long distance race by skipping part of the course. There's only one type of person who does this, a sociopath. No one else could possibly get satisfaction from the false glory they get from supposedly winning a race they haven't won, and feels no guilt about cheating the rightful winner out of their moment of glory. 

Rosie Ruiz was the trailblazer in this field, so to speak, who faked winning the Boston Marathon back in 1980. 

Last year Kendall Schler faked winning the St. Louis Marathon. 

Now we have Julie Miller, who faked winning her age group at the 2015 Ironman Canada Triathlon. Since that race, several of her previous "victories" have been called into question as well. 

The NY Times had a long article about her today. Here she is: 

One of the striking things about Miller is that, like Ruiz and Schler, she simply doesn't look like a world class endurance athlete. Such women tend to have a lean, chiseled look, with muscles in the right places. Miller is somewhat pear-shaped, and there is little definition to her legs.

Ironically, Miller is a mental health counselor specializing in body-image disorders. She herself appears to have the opposite of body dysmorphia: she thinks she can pass as a world class athlete even though she can't.

The Times explained at length how it would have been impossible for Miller to have hit the various checkpoints in the race with the times required for her splits to have made any sense. Miller claimed that her timing chip had fallen off of the velcro band to which it was attached, but that was near impossible. (In an earlier cycling race she claimed to have lost the identifying number from her bicycle; she was the only one of 800 competitors to whom this happened, and the people who trained with her were all astonished at her time.)

It goes without saying that Miller is a sociopath. Unfortunately, the Times didn't give any particulars about her personal background. But it was still interesting to the other ways her sociopathy manifested itself. Her denials were classic sociopathy. As per the Times:

Miller denies it all, in the most emphatic tones. She says that she is the victim of a smear campaign by envious, spiteful athletes who cannot cope with her success and high profile and that the only thing she did wrong, besides winning too often, was to lose her timing chip in a couple of races.

“I did not cheat in the Whistler Ironman competition,” she said in an email, “nor would I ever cheat or have I ever cheated in any competition...”

Key here is "in the most emphatic tones." This is exactly how sociopaths lie -- with great conviction. With Miller, it wasn't enough to merely deny having cheated in the 2015 race; she insisted she has never cheated, nor would she ever. (Think of OJ Simpson saying, "Absolutely, 100% not guilty." Think of Bill Clinton wagging an angry, admonishing finger at the press and saying, emphatically, "I did not have sex with that woman.")  

While she kept a low profile in Squamish this past fall and winter, Miller vociferously maintained her innocence to some friends and neighbors. For a time she was active on social media, criticizing people who she said were targeting her unfairly. She positioned herself as a victim of cyberbullying, at one point blaming “mean girls” for the accusations.

Sociopaths tend to position themselves as victims, even when victimizers. And note, once again, the "vociferously." This is how sociopaths fool people: by appearing as angry as someone who has actually been falsely accused.

“After achieving a goal I had set for myself years ago, for reasons I will never know, a hateful and false rumor was started by another woman that dampened my celebration,” Miller said on Facebook. “Ultimately, I and others close to me know my integrity, and that is what matters to me.”

Sociopaths often describe others (or their actions) as they themselves are: "hateful and false."

In several email exchanges, on the telephone, and in a brief conversation at the front door of her house in Squamish, Miller declined to be interviewed for this article, saying that she would derive no benefit from trying to explain how she completed the races in the times she claimed. Her critics would find a way to rebut her story no matter what, she said. At one point she promised to provide evidence that she had completed one of the suspect races, but she never followed through with the complete information.

In every exchange, she portrayed herself as an innocent victim who had just wanted to train and compete.

“I do know for certain in my heart — and people who know me know this, too — that I would never, ever knowingly do anything to disrespect or disparage my fellow competitors, the race organizers and volunteers, myself, my friends or — most importantly to me — my children, husband and family,” she said in a written statement she provided for publication. “We are moving on with our lives, I continue to train and compete and I wish everyone the joy that family and sport bring to me.”

This is pretty much standard boilerplate, but all of the cliches ring particularly hollow in light of the fact that we know she cheated. How can Miller wish everyone the joy that her sport brought to her when she robbed the winners in her age group of their rightful victories?

Miller's type of subterfuge is, in a way, quite similar to Munchausen's Syndrome: the sociopaths want attention and admiration or sympathy so badly that they will lie in order to get it. But you have to be utterly shameless to obtain any of those things by living a lie this way, and those are two of the defining traits of sociopathy: dishonesty and shamelessness.

Nonsociopaths will sometimes employ dishonesty if there's a tangible reward in return, as on Wall Street, though a sociopath is more likely to do so. But only sociopaths will consistently lie in order to gain sympathy, as with people with  Munchausen's Syndrome, or to gain admiration, as with Miller.