Prison Penpals VIII

Antezz Dieffenderfe (rape)

What's up All. My name is Antezz Dieffenderfe. I'm 22, B-Day July 4. I'm from Knoxville, TN so first off, I made a big mistake 16 that I have to live with for the rest of my life, yeah, rape, besides that, I'm a good man, down to earth, funny, and business minded. So I love white girls. I'm looking for woman to write this time. So we can ride out when I get out. I'm looking for someone between 21-29. Well till then, keep your head up. Please send pics. :-)

Google Antezz and you'll find, first, that his first name is spelled with just one "z." Secondly, you'll see that his crime was that between November 2007 and January 2008 he had incestuous sex multiple times with a family member whom he knew was "mentally defective and physically helpless." 

Antezz was evidently a standout defensive end for his high school in Knoxville, Tennessee. He also wrestled and ran track. As you can see from the picture above, he has the mesomorphic build of a natural athlete. He evidently has the sex drive of one too. You have to be pretty driven to have sex with someone who is in a semi-vegetative state. 

Antezz points out that he loves white girls. But if he had sex with a family member, he must like black girls too. 

Christopher Flake

I am a 40-year-old heterosexual single male at Lois Deberry special needs facility in Nashville,TN.
I have been incarcerated for the past fifteen years and feel lonely and disconnected from the rest of the world. I am a sensitive, caring and kind person who is seeking a female penpal who can relate to me and my circumstances.....Hope to hear from you soon. 

I was initially drawn to Flake's ad simply because I thought he looked evil. He also had that usual telltale sign of sociopathy, talking about what a "sensitive, caring and kind person" he is.

Flake didn't list his crime, but did say in his ad that he was serving a life sentence. That usually means murder of some sort, and when I looked him up, sure enough, he had shot two people to death. He didn't seem to have any strong motive for his crime, which makes it sound even more sociopathic.

Flake had a gambling problem, which often spells sociopathy (most people with the usual level of inhibitions don't become "addicted" to something which isn't really all that addictive). And he was an alcoholic and drug addict, things a sociopath is more likely to become. 

Finally, it sounds as if Flake pretended to be crazy in order to mount an insanity defense. Feigning schizophrenia has all the hallmarks of sociopathy: it is dishonest, it is a play for sympathy, and you only do it when you've done something dastardly for which you're trying to avoid blame. The jury saw through his insanity defense, hence the life sentence. 

Another striking thing that came out during Flake's trial (linked above) was that he feared homosexuals, since he was somewhat confused about his own sexual identity. And he hated one of his victims since the victim seemed effeminate and touched him. Note the ad above: "I am a 40-year-old heterosexual single male..."

Most heterosexual single males don't feel obliged to point their sexuality, especially if they already said they want to correspond with women. Everything about Flake seems to be a lie, but that is often the case with sociopaths. 

John Fratus (assault with a gun)

I am looking for the woman of my dreams. I keep dreaming about you. In my dreams we are together spending time, chillin, together, kissing, hugging, getting freaky, just being with you spending time just to be with you it feels so good like heaven ecstacy words can't describe the way you make me feel when I'm with you just being in your presence it feels so real. It's like a high I never want this feeling to stop. I never want this dream to end then "BOOM"!! I wake up in a cold dark lonely prison cell all by myself...

I am a 32-year-old White and Puerto Rican young man in California prison for allegedly shooting somebody with a gun but he didn't die, it's only assault....I've been in prison for 7 1/2 years. I have a real good chance of getting out on my appeal in the near future. I'm hoping to find a female from California who will be close enough to visit. I can always try to get a transfer closer to you. We can do a lot on visits.

I'm single, I'm sincere, honest, good personality, love to have fun, attractive, athletic, good lover, good friend to have. I can rap, sing, dance....

Fratus doesn't pretend to be romantic, he just wants a woman to get freaky with. But he does set up some pretty high expectations for this woman of his dreams. (Wouldn't a woman find that a bit intimidating?) 

It's not clear why Fratus wrote "allegedly" in his ad: if he didn't shoot anybody, why would he bother to add that the guy didn't die?

In 2005, Fratus was convicted of firing into an inhabited residence, and assault with a firearm. He has also been convicted twice of assaulting a peace officer. He was also accused, back in 2006, of having head butted an officer who was escorting him to an exercise yard, though he denies that. Fratus claimed that the officers escorting him just wanted an excuse to beat him up since he had been written up at his previous prison for masturbating in front of female officers. Fratus may have been telling the truth there; another prisoner corroborated his account of the incident. 

What Fratus doesn't deny is masturbating in front of the female officers. You hear of prisoners who do this every now and then, and it always strikes me as the height of uninhibited degeneracy. In any case, if Fratus is willing to do that, he certainly isn't kidding about how "we can get a lot done on visits." 

Verdict: probably a sociopath, given his completely uninhibited, impulsive nature and his talk of how he is "sincere, honest, [and has a] good personality."

Christopher Hafford (sexual assault/murder)

Hafford didn't include any copy with his ad, just an address, but he is interesting for two reasons. First, his pictures shows him posing with two poodles and a Cairn Terrier. He's cuddling the Cairn, evidently to show what a nice, affectionate fellow he is.

Hafford listed "women" as his desired pen pals. But if you look him up, you'll see that he is in for having murdered Theresa Rafferty in a five minute attack during which he used a knife, shovel, and ice chopper to inflict more than 60 wounds on her. 

His defense, if you can call it that, was that he suffered from "sexual sadism," which gave him violent, erotic urges over which he had little control. Given this, what woman in her right mind would want to be his penpal?

A lot of heart

I saw Zsa Zsa Gabor's name recently and was reminded of the post I wrote about her back in August of 2010. At the time I wrote that post, I thought she was about to die.

But she is still alive at age 95, after all those health problems and the amputated leg. She must have a very strong heart.

Is that where the expression, "a lot of heart" comes from? "Heart" is a metaphor for courage, but perhaps it's an even better one for energy and vigor. After all, whenever I get scared, my heart starts to beat more rapidly -- which is hardly a sign of courage. But it is in fact an adaptive "fight or flight" response.

Every now and then, I read the obituary of someone who dies at a very advanced age. It occurs to me that that person must have had a strong ticker. I then look at their lives and accomplishments and "see" a lot of vitality reflected there.

Of course, that may just be a matter of perception. You can look at Zsa Zsa's life, with those nine husbands, and see the resume of a woman with a lot of energy. Or you can just see someone with a need for attention.

Then again, maybe drama queens are drama queens simply because they have excess energy to work off. This isn't a politically correct thought, but I often think that if you gave some of these drama queens six orgasms in a row, it would drain the histrionics right out of them.

For a while, at least.

Zsa Zsa evidently still has a little bit of drama left, which is a testament to her vitality.

Murder victims' ages

The law draws distinctions between different forms of homicides, from accidents to negligent manslaughter to murders of passion to premeditated murder.

But one thing the law does not make distinctions between is the age of the victims. Manslaughter is manslaughter, and murder one is murder one, no matter the age of the victim.

There's something about this that doesn't seem quite right. The reason the nation was so horrified about the recent killings at Sandy Hook Elementary School was partly the number of victims, but even more, the age of the victims.

Part of what is so horrific about slaughtering innocent five and six year olds is that they are so defenseless. But a large part of it is that they haven't even gotten a chance to live their lives yet.

If someone murders me, my last thought -- in case I am unable to return the favor -- will be that I want him to fry. But my death will simply not be that tragic. At age 58, unlike those elementary school students, I've already lived most of my natural span.

Ditto for any 58-year-old. He's already gotten to go through puberty and discover how magical girls can be. He's gotten whatever satisfaction is to be gotten from an athletic career. He's had an opportunity to marvel at art, literature, science, etc. He's gotten a sense of human history, and the chance to understand -- in a limited way -- what he was part of. He's had his shot at romance. Whatever career he was going to have, he's had. And most importantly, he may have gotten to experience the joy of children of his own.

So if you kill a sixty-year-old, you're robbing him of his "golden years," a euphemism for a couple of low vitality decades. Kill a child and you're stealing far, far more.

The families of 9/11 victims were compensated according to how much the dead person could have been expected to earn over their lifetimes. I'm not sure I agree with that approach.

But if that compensation should vary, then certainly the severity of the legal penalty should vary according to the age of murder victims.

The Marquesas

I've always had a romantic, almost schoolgirlish yearning for the South Pacific. It's a little embarrassing, but there it is.

There are basically two types of Pacific islands. The first are atolls, which consist of rings of coral surrounding a low-lying, sandy island. These are the type which used to be featured in New Yorker cartoons. (As in, if you were stuck on a desert island with one other person...) The second are the volcanic islands, like Hawaii, or Tahiti, or the Marquesas Islands, which are pictured above and below. These rise straight up out of the sea, and generally have a more majestic, or, perhaps, forbidding aspect. Sorta like Skull Island in King Kong.

The Marquesas, located halfway between Australia and South America, are not just specks in the sea, but have a combined land area of 405 square miles. This is considerably smaller than the Hawaiian Islands, which are by far the largest in Polynesia and total 6423 square miles. But it's still substantial. (Most people don't realize that the Big Island of Hawaii, after which the state is named, is larger in area than the state of Connecticut.) Rhode Island, by contrast, has a total land area of 1045 square miles. Tahiti totals 403 square miles, but has a population of 178,000, compared to the Marquesas' 8000.

This wasn't always the case. Back in 1600, when the Marquesas were first "discovered" by whites, they had a population of roughly 78,000. But the whites who arrived brought their usual gift of smallpox, and by 1900 the population was only 2000. During the 20th century the population gradually rebounded to a little more than 8000.

Hawaii is an incredibly beautiful place. But it's part of the US, and has a population of 1,275,000. It has one of the busiest airports in the world, a huge tourist industry, and a completely bastardized culture. It averages 188 people per square mile, compared to 440 for Tahiti, and 20 for the Marquesas.

In all three places, the air just smells better: bougainvillea, hibiscus, and frangipani all give off a distinctly sweet, tropical scent. Any pollution just gets blown offshore. And gentle Trade Winds deliver moist, 78 degree air.

While researching this post I found out that a season of Survivor was shot in the Marquesas a few years ago, which somehow lessens the attractiveness of the place. But not by that much, because it actually underscores the fact that the Marquesas are one of the most remote places on earth. There is simply no place in Hawaii or even Tahiti where they could have shot that show.

Part of every Polynesian dream is the idea of leaving one's cares behind. But another traditional part of the dream has been the beautiful native girls. Polynesian women, especially those with a little Caucasian admixture, can be beautiful when young. But that window tends to be narrow: by the age of 35 or 40, most are obese. A Marquesan woman:

I'm generally not one to be influenced by a woman's wardrobe. But if I saw the Marquesan above in tight Western clothing hanging out in a bar in South Norwalk, I might not give her a second look. But in that sarong, with that flower behind her ear, in that Polynesian setting, she evokes dreams of paradise. Silly me.

Realistically, I'll probably die without ever having visited the Marquesas.

Still, it's nice to know such a place still exists.

Mark Sanford

Mark Sanford, the former Governor of South Carolina whose political ambitions were sidetracked in 2009 after it was revealed he had an affair with an Argentinian woman, was in the news again yesterday. He is evidently likely to announce that he will run for the Congressional seat vacated by Tim Scott, who was selected by Governor Nikki Haley to replace outgoing Senator Jim DeMint. (All are Republicans.)

Sanford became somewhat of a laughingstock after his affair became public. He had claimed to be on a solo hike on the Appalachian Trail when in fact he was in Argentina visiting his girlfriend, Maria Belen Chapur. The fact that he was Republican of course spurred the media to mock him in any way they could.

With all politicians, the possibility of sociopathy always looms, and I wondered about that after Sanford's lies surfaced. But those suspicions disappeared the moment I saw a clip of his press conference.

There he stood, wearing a sad sack expression, seeming genuinely contrite, telling the world that Chapur was his "soulmate." Sanford was 49 when he said that.

Anybody who believes in the concept of a "soulmate," especially at that age, is a sap. And sappiness and sociopathy simply don't go together.

Sociopaths are the opposite of sappy.

Maybe the media was right to mock Sanford, but at least he's not a sociopath, which is more than can be said for a lot of politicians.

Do Aspies span the full range of morality?

Most people with Aspergers, or with any form of autism, don't shoot up elementary schools the way Adam Lanza did. In fact, most Aspies are harmless dweebs.

So the immediate temptation is to conclude that Adam was not only autistic, he was a sociopath as well.

But most Aspies are so socially inept that they couldn't be manipulative and backstabbing and skillfully dishonest even if they wanted to be. The ones I've known have been sort of pathetic and child-like. They don't understand what makes others tick, have no idea how to banter or joke around, and certainly can't bend others to their will. Most seem almost incapable of lying. And they tend to be the targets of bullies. All of which, in a way, seems to preclude sociopathy.

But it's hard to imagine anything more evil than mowing down a bunch of five and six year olds with an assault rifle. How could you do that without being utterly lacking in conscience? Has any sociopath ever done worse?

One thing Aspies do have in common with narcissists (sociopaths are a subset of narcissists) is that they don't take criticism well: nothing is ever their fault. But whereas sociopaths are adept at coming up with glib excuses, Aspies come up with lame ones. Aspies also have little self-control, and get upset easily. Thus, they are the opposite of cool -- which would also seem to preclude sociopathy.

Lanza also had that weird medical condition where he couldn't feel pain. Given that Aspies always seem to have a hard time imagining people being different from themselves, maybe he had no concept of the pain that he was inflicting on others.

And who knows, maybe you don't even have to be on the autistic spectrum not to be able to imagine what you can't feel. Maybe it's a little like understanding colors when you're blind.

Which puts Lanza a little less in the evil camp, and more in the crazy camp.

From what we've heard so far, it sounds as if Lanza's parents genuinely loved him, which also generally means a child will not be sociopathic. (That's a hard one to measure, though: there are plenty of families which look good from the outside but which produce sociopaths because the parents were only going through the motions.)

It's a bit of a quandary. It's impossible to imagine someone with Aspergers as a functioning sociopath. Yet it's hard to imagine someone with a conscience killing those innocent children.

I just don't know.

If the media reported on these mass killings responsibly....

...They'd emphasize what pathetic little dweebs these killers really are.

There's a certain copycat element to all of the schoolyard shootings. The typical maladjusted shooter thinks -- knows, actually -- that he will become a larger than life, dark, sinister character whose very name inspires fear. And he wants that infamy, even if it comes at the cost of his life.

The way to discourage copycats is to report these mass killings in a belittling fashion.

Here's how I would have liked to have seen the Newtown killings reported:

Twenty year old Adam Lanza, who never once went on a date in his entire life, decided to end that miserable life yesterday. While Lanza is unlamented, tragically, he took the lives of as many five- and six-year-olds as he could, an incredibly cowardly act.

Adam killed his mother, reportedly because she had been thinking of institutionalizing him, since he was such a misfit. Then he went to Sandy Hook Elementary School, partly because that's where his mother volunteered, and he was jealous of the kids whom he thought his mother preferred to him. (He was probably right.)

Part of the reason Adam went to Sandy Hook was because he knew it was a "gun free zone." He knew that nobody there could shoot back at him, and, hero that he was, he also knew that first graders would offer no resistance.

You can see from these pictures that Lanza actually bears a slight facial resemblance to Michael Phelps, even though Phelps is 6'3" and a muscular 190 pounds, while Lanza was only 5'8" and a scrawny 135. But Phelps made something of himself, and now is reportedly one of the world's most prolific womanizers, while Lanza could only stay in his room and masturbate, a virgin to the end. No girl would have ever even considered going out with Lanza, given his extreme awkwardness.

Lanza didn't even have any male friends because of his Aspergers Syndrome. "He was the most lame, rigid person you could ever imagine," said one former classmate who asked not to be identified.

Lanza's family is now mourning the loss of Nancy Lanza, his mother, and wondering if they will ever be able to live down their association with this pathetic wimp.

People across the country are now shaking their heads and wondering if there's a more eloquent way of stating what a loser you are than to shoot a bunch of defenseless kids and then take your own life.

Now, how many copycat killers would that inspire?

Not letting this crisis go to waste

The gun control advocates are certainly doing their best to capitalize on the tragedy in Connecticut. President Obama traveled to Newtown himself to declare, "We can't tolerate this anymore. These tragedies must end....In the coming weeks, I'll use whatever power this office holds to....[prevent] more tragedies like this, because what choice do we have?"

He's got a point.

But speaking as a non-gun aficionado, I understand the basic quandary outlined by the gun rights advocates: if you take guns away from law-abiding citizens, the only people with guns will be the outlaws. In which case it will be open season for them.

If I could wave a magic wand and have all weaponry disappear, I would. But I can't, and there are currently 300 million guns in the country (we have a population of roughly 312 million). That makes the gun problem a little like the illegal alien problem: they're here, and they're not going away, so what's the most realistic solution?

I'm not sure. We already have laws in place (at least in Connecticut, Adam Lanza's home state) to keep people like him from obtaining guns (he was turned down by Dick's Sporting Goods three days before the massacre). But what good did those do?

Liberals say, no private citizen needs a civilian version of military-grade weaponry like the M-4 or M-16. (Adam's mother had a Bushmaster .223, which is such a clone, and although Lanza also had her two handguns with him, it appears he did all the killing with the Bushmaster.) I tend to agree with this.

Gun rights advocates say that people certainly ought to be allowed to have guns in their homes to protect themselves. Potential home invaders are certainly going to think twice if they think that a homeowner may be armed. I agree with this as well.

The Constitution actually makes provision for an armed citizenry -- to protect themselves against a tyrannical government, if necessary.

Gun control advocates say that the Constitution was written in the era of the musket, and that the Founding Fathers did not foresee the era of semiautomatic weapons. True, but given that we are in an era where criminals have semiautomatics, we can't expect law-abiding citizens to defend themselves with muskets. It's too late to close Pandora's Box.

Sandy Hook Elementary School was a gun free zone. The idea is nice -- a peaceful place with no weapons. But it's a dirty little secret that such zones attract people bent on mayhem. Lanza knew he would encounter no armed opposition when he went to the school. And James Holmes, the Aurora shooter, didn't go to a much larger theater closer to his home because it was not a gun free zone. He knew he would have a higher toll if he went somewhere where people were defenseless. The death toll in Clackamas was low this past weekend because the shooter at the mall was confronted by someone with a carry permit; the shooter subsequently went into an area which had already been evacuated and just shot himself.

There is ample evidence that the murder rate is lower in places which have right-to-carry laws. This has been demonstrated in Florida, Texas, Michigan, Washington DC, and Chicago. These statistics are somewhat muddied by the fact that the handgun bans often coincided with the peak murder rates in the US during the height of the crack epidemic; but they are still convincing. In a way, these statistics are the gun free zone phenomenon writ large.

Liberals always cite the example of Canada, which has much stricter gun control laws, and which also has a much lower murder rate. They also have vastly different demographics than we do -- but of course you're a horrible person if you bring that up. The counterexample to Canada is Switzerland, where every male over the age of 21 is required to own the assault rifle he was issued as part of his Swiss militia service. Yet the murder rate there is far lower than even Canada's.

There is also plenty of other evidence that legal gun ownership correlates with a lower murder rate, as described here by Thomas Sowell.

There's been a fairly deafening silence over the past several days from liberals regarding the stop and frisk tactics of the NYPD which has been so successful at taking guns off the streets. (The NYPD, so often the target of outrage, ought to heed Rahm Emanuel's famous dictum here too.) And those are all guns taken from criminals (anyone carrying an illegal gun is by definition a criminal).

And there's a certain hypocrisy when those who are well protected -- say, by Secret Service personnel -- wanting to take away others' carry permits. Arthur "Pinch" Sulzberger, the publisher of the New York Times, which favors strong gun control, has a carry permit himself, and those are almost impossible to obtain in New York City. The NY Times actually came out with no fewer than four editorials today calling for stricter gun control -- and that doesn't even count their front page, which is basically another editorial section. (Strangely, they neglected to mention that their publisher carries a handgun.)

The existing laws don't seem to deter mass killers. James Holmes, the Aurora shooter, bought his guns legally in Colorado, from a Gander Mountain and a Bass Pro Shop. Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, the Columbine killers, purchased their guns illegally from acquaintances -- who had purchased them legally. Seung-Hui Cho, the VA Tech killer got his guns legally in Virginia, where it is easy to do so. Jiverly Wong, the Binghampton shooter, had a New York state pistol permit. Jared Lee Loughner, the Tucson shooter, purchased his guns legally.

You can see who has a criminal record, but you can't predict who's going to go crazy.

It is true, as the gun control advocates say, that a would be mass murderer with a knife couldn't do as much damage. How far would any of the wimpy guys in the paragraph above have gotten with a switchblade? Not far enough for us to have ever heard of them, that's for sure.

But, if you're really hell bent on destruction, you don't need a gun. Think of Timothy McVeigh.

Enough blather. Here's what we should do: increase stop and frisks. Increase penalties -- drastically -- for being in possession of an unlicensed gun. Increase waiting periods for prospective gun owners (this is otherwise known as the "cooling off" period for those who buy with some sort of revenge in mind). Make it somewhat harder to buy a military clone like the Bushmaster Adam Lanza used. (It's already near impossible to legally acquire a fully automatic weapon.) And we should not only end gun free zones, we should require the presence of at least one armed -- but unidentifiable -- person at every public school, similar to the presence of the federal air marshall on most flights. (This person need not be an extra employee, it could simply be a teacher -- or two, or three -- who's assigned the task.)

It might not be a bad idea if they upped the minimum age for owning a gun to 25. The age range for the onset for schizophrenia is generally 17 to 21, so if you make it to 25 without symptoms, you're pretty much home free on that score. And if you look at the murder statistics, a large percentage are committed  by young people. (Come to think of it, maybe we should raise the minimum age to 30.)

We should also institute a penalty for those who, through any sort of sloppiness, allow their guns to be taken by those who commit mayhem. It's too late to prosecute Nancy Lanza, but she definitely deserves part of the blame for last Friday's massacre.

The Newtown killer

Yesterday evening the only thing that had come out about the Connecticut killer, Adam Lanza, was that he was "troubled." That adjective is often used to describe young sociopaths as well as other types of misfits, so it didn't really convey any useful information.

Yesterday's mass killing sounded more like the work of a crazy person than a sociopath. (Serial killers are always sociopaths, whereas mass shootings are often committed by people who are genuinely crazy.)

Last night one news service reported that Lanza's mother, whom he had murdered at home before going on his rampage, had been described as "extremely rigid." Rigidity is one of the defining characteristics of autistics, and it is often runs in families. And then someone else was quoted as describing Adam as "shy," which pretty much ruled out sociopathy.

Sure enough, this morning it emerged that Ryan Lanza, Adam's brother, had told authorities that Adam was autistic.

Adam lived with his mother in Newtown. His brother lived alone in Hoboken and worked for a financial firm. His father, who works in finance for GE, had divorced his mother in 2008. So it was just Adam and his mother, who sounds as if she too was somewhere on the spectrum, living together.

Just as two sociopaths will almost never get along (each prefers pliable victims he can bend to his will), two autistics will not get along either. Each will have his own set of rigid beliefs and habits which he will not bend to accommodate the other, and explosive arguments will ensue.

Yesterday's argument tragically ensnared a lot of innocent bystanders.

Geography question

Someone asked me the other day, "How many states lie at least partially north of the southernmost point of Canada?"

I thought of Ontario dipping down the way it does, counted the border states, and replied, "Ten." (I forgot the panhandle of Idaho.)

What's your answer?

(Scroll down for the correct answer.)

















The correct answer is 27. The US-Canadian border goes through the middle of Lake Erie, and there is a tiny island called Middle Island which lies just north of that border. There are 27 states, including California, which include area at a higher latitude than Middle Island.

(You can probably stump others with this just as you and I were stumped.)

Prison pen pals VII

A few more prospective correspondents:



Frederick Baer (murder)

I've been a death row prisoner since June 2005. My precious baby girl of a cat, Lucky, it is next to me sleep, she's my heart, soul and world. We're looking for, wanting to meet some new people who'd be interested in getting to know us, on a steady, consistent basis, to keep us company, to let us know we're wanted and needed. No head/heart games please. Is this you??

Interests are-drawing, reading, poems, tattoos, nature, fishing, writing letters, getting mail, and all things naughty in nice. I'm a down to earth guy who's made mistakes in my past, and I'm paying for them all now-with my life. We all have and carry regrets and mistakes from our past we've done and that's happened,-were all human and are not perfect.

I'm just trying to enjoy what's left of my life, and the best ways I can and that's possible now, and desires/want/need to be needed, wanted and a part of- (??). To have and share some laughs, smiles and life together for a wild. Know what I mean?? So give Lucky and I chanced to share some laughs and smiles with you together. Thank you :-)

You don't end up on Death Row for an accidental killing. Sure enough, Fred's in for a double murder. He broke into a house and attempted to rape a young woman, then killed both her and her four year old daughter by slashing their necks. He almost decapitated the little girl.

Frederick's story is a depressingly familiar one. His mother was an alcoholic, a common theme among sociopaths. (Alcoholic mothers care more about their liquor than their babies.) By age 32 he was on his third marriage, abused a lot of drugs, including methamphetamine, and was constantly in and out of trouble with the law. Of course, all this is superfluous; the double murder alone more than proves his sociopathy.

But what are the clues in his ad that betray his sociopathy?

Sociopathic inmates often pose with an animal; they feel it shows what a "affectionate" person they are. They know that most pet lovers are nice people, so they pretend to be one themselves as they cuddle up with their "beloved" pet. Baer underscores this with the second sentence of his ad, referring to Lucky as his "precious baby girl." Aww, what a sweet guy. (How did he feel about the precious baby girl whose throat he slashed?)

Then Baer says the usual, "No head/heart games, please." Before his trial, he was recorded on the prison telephone telling his sister, in anticipation of preparing an insanity defense, "Oh yeah, and while we're at it to boot, here let's go ahead and say you're stupid and insane so it'd make it a little bit easier. I don't think so. . . . Matter of fact, I ain't got to worry about that cause I'm getting ready to go out here to the f***ing doctor and tell this stupid son of a b**** a bunch of stupid-a** lies."

It's usually the people who play "mind games" who say they prefer people who don't. (Straightforward types are more likely to be suckers.)

 Baer's second paragraph is classic sociopathy: "We all have and carry mistakes and regrets from our past we've done and that's happened. We're all human and are not perfect." What he's doing here is equating his "mistakes" with yours: remember that time you were unnecessarily cruel in your criticism? And the time you cheated on your girlfriend? Well, those sins are pretty much on the same level as his.

 Sociopaths always describe their monstrous deeds as "mistakes."

 Writing to Baer would certainly be one.

 ------

I couldn't reproduce the photograph for Robert Baker, since he included a (non-copyable) revolving montage of them in his ad. He also had another original idea for his ad: instead of writing anything himself, he simply attached a newspaper article about his career as a master jewel thief in Beverly Hills. But his ad is definitely worth taking a look at.

A few of the things that give Baker away as a sociopath:

Baker had tremendous nerve, a specialty of sociopaths. Most people simply wouldn't have the gall to be able to easily mingle with the hotel guests without betraying any nervousness.

Baker is described as "a likable fellow who could charm his way out of sticky situations and managed to ingratiate himself with at least one of his victims." Glib charm is another sociopathic trait, and the willingness to "befriend" and then take advantage of someone is another.

Baker represented himself in court at his trial, another sociopathic hallmark. The only people I've ever heard who've done this -- like Ted Bundy, and Colin Ferguson, the LIRR Killer -- have all been sociopaths. (How incredibly arrogant do you have to be to think you'd be better at the job than someone who has a law degree and has passed the bar and does it full time?)

Once, when spotted by a security guard, Baker slipped into a guest room, jimmied open the window, slithered along a seventh floor ledge, and leapt from there onto a fire escape. This sort of fearlessness is also characteristic of sociopaths.

Finally, when he was caught, Baker tried to shoot the man who was holding on to him. But the jury deadlocked on that charge (Baker claimed the gun went off by accident) and Baker escaped the attempted murder rap. But as a sociopath, taking another's life would in fact not have bothered him.

Baker obviously saw himself as a character out of the movies, perhaps along the lines of John Robie the "cat thief" (the Cary Grant character) in To Catch a Thief. Or maybe the George Clooney character in Oceans 12. To a certain extent, he was. But what most people don't realize is that in order for someone to be as cool as those characters, he would almost certainly have to be a sociopath.

William Blanscet (kidnap of wife)

Am 42 years old, 6'6" and 220 lbs....I am single with 2 children. I have a son 18 and a daughter 11 which I am unable to see because of our situation. I have 1 brother, and a mom and dad. My family lives in California so it is hard for them to visit....I would describe myself as a mature/friendly guy who likes to have fun...

Blanscet looks bland enough, and there's nothing about his ad -- other than his crime -- which makes him sound unredeemable. But the following excerpt from the Oregon Court of Appeals shows that he is in fact the stuff of nightmares:

Unless noted otherwise, the relevant facts are undisputed. Defendant and the victim met in the fall of 1999. About a month after they met, he assaulted her, and she had to be hospitalized. Defendant and the victim married in 2000. She became pregnant, and defendant assaulted her again, resulting in a miscarriage. The victim became pregnant again and delivered a child, but defendant had to be removed from the hospital because of his poor conduct. Defendant and the victim separated after that incident.

In 2002, defendant broke into the home where the victim was staying. She attempted to call 9-1-1, but defendant prevented her from completing the call. He was convicted of burglary, menacing, and interfering with a 9-1-1 call for that incident and sentenced to probation on condition that he have no contact with the victim. Defendant nevertheless contacted her and again acted violently toward her. She reported his conduct to the police, his probation was revoked, and he served 19 months in prison. While in prison, defendant wrote letters to the victim. At first, the tone of his letters was threatening, but later it was apologetic. He pledged that he had reformed and expressed his desire to be part of their child's life.

Defendant was released from prison in April 2004. A condition of his post-prison supervision was that he have no contact with the victim. Over the course of the next few months, he violated that condition several times. In October 2004, defendant pounded on the victim's door late at night, and she called the police. For the violation of the no-contact condition of his post-prison supervision, defendant served 45 days in jail.

Defendant was released on December 8, 2004. Late the next night, he went to the victim's apartment and pushed his way inside. Over the course of the next several days, defendant brutally assaulted the victim. Throughout the ordeal, defendant repeatedly referred to the fact that she had previously "snitched" on him. At one point, the victim attempted to call 9-1-1, but defendant thwarted the attempt, stating that she would get him thrown back in jail. On the basis of those events, defendant was charged with multiple counts of rape and sodomy, as well as assault, kidnapping, and unlawful use of mace.

This account leaves one wondering why Blanscet's initial sentences for violating the restraining orders, especially that 45 day sentence, were so light. 

If you want to look at it from a different angle, you could view Blanscet's ad as a triumph of the human spirit. Despite his violent, temperamental history, he is still able to describe himself as "a mature/friendly guy."

Always good to have a positive self-image.

Cheyenne Brown (murder)

I'm mixed raced between Lakota, Cherokee Irish, German, French, Scottish.I'm 6 foot tall, I have long brown hair, and Hazel eyes.I like to rock climb, snowboard, and ice skate, skateboard, and rollerskate, work on old cars, and trucks, and raced them after I fixed them up.I like to go camping, and fishing and swimming in and around lakes a lot. I like to do woodworking, and beadwork and I'm in here and I like to read and write poetry, music. I do some artwork for my beading. I read a lot of books, and I like to look at the stars, and try to see the shapes in them.

That is Cheyenne's entire ad. There are eleven I's in his seven sentences. (Does he remind you of egotists you've known?) Not a word about what he might be looking for in a prospective pen pal, and not a word of regret about his past misdeeds. His crime proves his sociopathy, and his ad certainly shows his narcissism (which is part of every sociopath's personality). 

Cheyenne doesn't sound like a guy who thinks a whole lot about others. He certainly couldn't have been too concerned with others the night he and a buddy killed an elderly couple with a shotgun blast in order to rob them.

Nah, that night he was probably thinking about how he likes to ice skate. Or skateboard. Or work on old cars....

....all things he won't be able to do in prison. 

Prison pen pals VI

A commenter kiddingly asked if I intended to continue this series, and I replied that I was debating whether to continue with the men. I said, "Somehow I find them less intrinsically interesting, I looked at a few and they are for the most part just obvious lowlife animals, with very little subterfuge involved. Somehow it's more surprising -- and therefore interesting -- to find out that a sweet-looking girl is a sociopath. Making that diagnosis for yet another 6', 210 pound male who looks like an out-of-shape MMA fighter and is covered with tattoos and is in jail for robbing a bank seems too obvious. It's far more interesting to figure out that a Bill Clinton or a Newt Gingrich is a sociopath, because that's unexpected."

But I just took a closer look, and there actually are some interesting -- if creepy -- ads for the men. And these ads always feature useful instruction about the ways of sociopaths. A few for your enlightenment:

Christopher Lewis Adams (Child molesting) 

180 pound 6'1" transgender bisexual white female with blue eyes and brown hair seeks a bisexual female or bisexual black male with no kids for love and support in open marriage or friendship to help me change my life to show me love for the way that I feel about myself inside to turn me out. Looks are not as important to me as personality and charm for the crime that I did.

A.K.A. Christina Lynn Adams

At first, Christopher seems quite confused. He says he's a "transgender bisexual," yet he can't decide whether he's attracted to bisexual females (presumably of any race) or bisexual black males. (Why not straight black males, if he's serious about getting an operation?) And he's in the clink for child molesting. Also, his last sentence makes no sense: he wants someone with "charm for the crime that I did"? What??

Adams has evidently brought suit against his Indiana prison, saying his rights to medical (including mental) health care have been violated. An excerpt from the United States District Court's summary judgment against that suit is enlightening:

Adams claims he suffers from Gender Identity Disorder (“GID”) and that a sex change operation and hormone therapy are necessary to quell his desires to have sex with underage girls.

Adams does not suffer from GID and therefore would not benefit from a sex change operation or hormone therapy.

Adams has an anti-social personality disorder. The appropriate therapy for this disorder is group therapy.

Adams has claimed he has trauma-related anxiety. However, he does not have trauma-related anxiety. Adams has claimed he has depression. He refused antidepressant medication and it has been determined that Adams does not have ongoing depression and does not need antidepressant medication.

In other words, he is a sociopath (anti-social personality disorder is basically another word for sociopathy) who is simply feigning various other disorders, and the penpal ad above is merely part of his scam. He has no desire to connect with bisexual (grownup) females or bisexual black males. He still only wants underage girls.

Walter Anderson (Importation/drug smuggler)

Internationally known drug smuggler featured on many TV shows.America's most wanted, Man Hunter, Final Justice the Discovery Channel did a documentary on maximum security prisons in which I was featured.

I'm 6'4", 225 lbs. in real good shape. I'm a former amateur boxer who has fought in the New York State Golden gloves tournament. I was born and raised in Harlem, New York. I lived in Miami, Atlanta, San Diego and Los Angeles. I have also lived abroad, the Philippines, Mexico, Columbia, Bahamas and all through the Caribbean.

I am in prison for importation. I was smuggling drugs into theUnited states....So if you're that special lady then holler at me your private gangster. Gold diggers don't waste my time or yours. I can call you and it won't be collect.

Not exactly consumed with remorse, is he? Well, at least Walter's not uttering that stale line about having made bad choices. 

At the end he says he can call you and it won't be collect; but he also says in his ad that he's seeking "women, donations" so that seems like a bit of a contradiction.

I don't think Walter has to worry about gold diggers; they generally don't hang out on prisoner pen pal sites.

Walter is 51, so if that's a recent photo he's not kidding about being in good shape, especially at 6' 4" and 225. Glad I'm not his cellmate.

Cody Allen (Indecent liberties)

Heyy! I am serving and 86 month sentence. I have around 54 months left. I like to work out and be active. The kind of girls I like are blondes, around 5'8". My height. I'm looking for just talking for a relationship. Either one is fine with me. I like skinnier girls. At the most, I would say around 150 pounds. Maybe more. I like it when you have a sense of humor. I like either short or long hair. Preferably long hair because it's fun to play with. I think it would be nice to actually have a relationship with someone. Maybe it will turn into something. Who knows.

Could Cody possibly have written a creepier-sounding ad? (Especially for a guy who's in for having had sex with a 14-year-old girl.) 

Cody is only 22, so hasn't yet learned how to disguise his true self. Had he eliminated all the references to what he is looking for physically, he would have sounded more normal: "I like to work out and be active....I'm looking for just a talking relationship right now....I like it when you have a sense of humor."

But Cody's inner pervert kept popping up in every other sentence, like the embarrassing second head that alien had in Men in Black II. Even his last sentence, "I think it would be nice to actually have a relationship with someone" sounds creepy, as it makes it quite apparent that he's never even considered the human aspect of a "relationship."

He would have been better off with two paragraphs, one with the normal-sounding comments and one listing his tastes. Interlacing them the way he did made him sound as if he was hiding somehow.

But Cody will undoubtedly learn. Another year or two of hanging out with the other inmates and he'll learn how to present a better false face to the world.

Jerome Angwin (crime not listed)

I want to thank you for taking the time to read my profile. It is my wish to earn the attention of that special someone that was destined to be my friend, lover and companion, the mate to my soul. The woman to complete me as I will complete her.

I am divorced with no children. My profession is System's Analyst and Administrator, though I have many skills and abilities. A few of which the ladies find most pleasurable.

I consider myself fair and reasonable with an open mind. I don't judge people for being different. I am healthy, I stay active, I shower regularly and all my teeth are real. I am very passionate and hands on. I love the taste, sound, scent and feel of a woman.

Communication, trust and great sex is the key to every relationship. I need her to be happy and fulfilled in mind, body and soul. She will be a woman that enjoys being a woman for her man. A woman to be cherished, loved, thoroughly taken and appreciated as the precious gift she is. She should be adventurous, spontaneous and open minded. Enjoying frequent passion for hours at a time.

If you feel any chemistry and want to know more, please feel free to write. I will respond to all, don't be shy. He bows to the ladies. HUGS and Peace.

Jerome certainly takes pains to emphasize how much he likes the ladies -- and how good he is in bed. But when a guy is that emphatic, you have to be suspicious. Especially when he doesn't list his crime in the ad. 

Sure enough, it turns out he's a child molester. He was arrested in an FBI sting in which an agent posed as the mother of two girls, aged 7 and 12, and offered them up for sex. Angwin was evidently very specific about his desire to have sex with the 7-year-old as well as the other two.

This advertisement for how much Jerome loves (full-grown) women is reminiscent of another pattern that runs through these ads: the more evil a person is, the more he will talk about his love for humanity.  

Note Jerome's last line: "He bows to the ladies. HUGS and Peace." What a gentleman! 

A white-haired perv like Jerome has a lot more experience hiding his true nature than does a young one like Cody.

But really, is this all that different from a 35-year-old guy -- with a normal sexuality -- being slicker with women than your average 20-year-old?

We must all live and learn.

Prison penpals IV

Still searching for a correspondent on Prisonpenpals.com. My latest findings:

Crystal Lewis (carjacking)

Single, 28 yr. old W/F is a mistress. Seeking submissive correspondents. Very outgoing, open-minded, enjoys music, movies, cooking, traveling and obedience.

Seeking good fun correspondence, also seeking that special someone.
I enjoy sense of humor and laughter as well as non-judgmental open-minded people. 

Made poor choices in the past led to my imprisonment but I yearn and desire a better future and lifestyle. Will you accept me with open arms? I am up for visits and willing to relocate upon release.

Somehow the crime of carjacking seems appropriate for a dominatrix: "Get out of the car now, you sniveling little worm! You don't even deserve to have this nice car! Get out! It's mine now, you piece of garbage! Now kiss my feet before I get in the car!"

I'm not sure exactly what sort of circumstances turn women into doms, but I suspect that they are not dissimilar to those which make a woman feel she is entitled to another's car.

Note to all prospective parents: please don't name your child Crystal (no matter how much you enjoy crystal meth). I've never seen a single Crystal who's turned out well.

Elizabeth Miller (2nd degree murder)

My name is Elizabeth. I have blue eyes, brown hair, 5'3" and weigh 155 lbs. I am a very artistic person who loves to sing, act, draw, dance, to craft work....I'm very kind, caring and have a big heart. I would like to be an international  pastry chef in hopes to own my own bakery. 

I'm open to all types of people. I always get to know someone before I form an opinion. Family is a very port (sic) part of my life...My heart is full of compassion and is very empathetic. I'm very open-minded, optimistic and determined person with lots of goals in life... 

Note that Elizabeth is kind, caring, and has a big heart. On top of that, her heart is full of compassion and she is very empathetic.

Those qualities must have been missing the day she smothered a 2-year-old boy whom she was baby-sitting. Elizabeth held Ashtyn Lynn face down on a couch while he struggled and screamed and slowly died. 

A perfect example of how the worse a person is, the more she talks about how good she is. 

Lavender Perkins

Lavender didn't write any copy for her ad, nor did she list her crime. But if you Google her, you'll find that she stabbed her boyfriend to death four years ago, at age 40. I include her ad because her picture is rather fetching, and will probably get a lot of men excited. 

But they should realize that the picture has a certain professional quality to it that often implies retouching, and the woman portrayed certainly doesn't look 44, Lavender's current age. They should also realize that she was given a 25 year sentence, which means that she won't be out until she's 65 (possibly earlier with parole).

Lavender certainly won't look like that photo when she's 65. The good news is, at that age she is less likely to be the kind of spitfire who will sink a knife into you if you displease her. 

Meghan Powell (burglary/murder)

I have been locked up since I was 16 years old. I was a kid who made terrible decisions that landed me here. I have grown up and have changed from the kid I was, to the woman I am today. I have learned the difference between right and wrong....

I'm currently in college, working on getting a degree through correspondence courses. When I get out my ultimate goal is to get into law, I will be devoted to helping young people.

If I sound like someone you would like to get to know please write and if ot just take from this that if you or someone you know are on a bad path it is very easy to end up here. Any felony, even say for example you know about a burglary, you weren't even there, but someone dies, you get murder. The justice system can be very cruel...

Meghan has such a sweet face, I just had to look her up to find out more about what landed her in jail. It turns out that she and four friends plotted the murder of her own mother. (All of this happened right off Highway 299, which was mentioned in the previous post.) 

She says that she has learned the difference between right and wrong. Did she not know at age 16 that murder is wrong?

She says she's "currently in college." Ahem, she's actually in jail, she's just taking correspondence courses to get a college degree.

Meghan says she wants to "get into law." I assume this means she wants to be a lawyer, since she doesn't really have the kind of background that law enforcement generally looks for.

Funny, the way she says "someone dies." She neither uses the word "kill" nor mentions that the "someone" happened to be her own mother. A minor oversight, I'm sure.

Also, she says that the justice system can be cruel. True enough -- but at least the justice system didn't kill its own mother.

If Meghan and I were to walk down the street together and it was announced that one of us was a murderer, 99 people out of 100 would assume it was me. I should be walking around with her face and she with mine.

Luckily, she won't be walking down any streets until 2020.

Jacquiline Reynolds (2nd degree murder)

I am a young attractive woman who is honest and open about herself. I have long brown hair and green eyes....I'm 5'6" 145 pounds and 32 years old....I love animals and children. I love to learn and explore new things. I am single and have no one special in my life. I have about 3 years left to do and look forward to starting a life beyond prison. 

Feel free to ask me anything you want. I have a void in my life that needs to be filled and I'm also seek to fill a void in someone's life. I'm a very happy, positive person. Please do not mention this ad when responding.

Jacquiline is in jail for having, at age 17, stabbed her mother to death after an argument. (She had planned to kill her father and ex-boyfriend too, but gave up on that plan when she realized how physically demanding it was to stab someone to death.) According to neighbors, both parents were nice and the mother was proud of Jacquiline.

There seems to be a little bit of a contradiction in her second paragraph: she starts out by telling potential penpals to feel free to ask anything they want. But in the last sentence she asks them to not mention the ad when responding. 

Jacquiline also says that she is a "very happy, positive person." At her trial, her lawyer, angling for an insanity defense, said that she suffered from serious depression.

But the most interesting thing about Jacquiline is that she was adopted. It seems that in an awfully high proportion of these cases where a child murders his parents, the child was adopted. (It does make more evolutionary sense that way.) 

Adopter beware.

Prison penpals III

Am continuing to make my way through the list of prison pen pals. Haven't found the perfect correspondent yet, but there are a lot of interesting ads. A few for your edification:

Cherri Frazier (conspiracy to commit murder)

Cherri didn't write an ad, merely put her picture in. But when I Googled her, I found a record of an appeal filed for her which presents a stark look at a seamier side of life (read from page 3 on). Cherri was in Hawkins Bar, California, located on Highway 299 in Trinity County, California. She was staying with a group of transients at a campground adjacent to a trailer park, and got -- or didn't get -- involved in a plan to kill a local man accused of child molesting.

I've been on Highway 299; it's an incredibly beautiful drive. In my opinion, it's far prettier than Appalachia -- but the local culture is evidently not dissimilar. Reading the link is enough to make you never want to go camping again.

Tammitha Fuentes (complicity to murder)

I'm a voluptuous 180 lb. About 5'7", big blue eyes, med length dark brown hair. No playing mind games. Must be upfront and honest....Gardening seems to be my current hobby. Open to adventurous and different ideas.....No inmates please.

Tammitha's ad is interesting in that it reflects so many common themes. A lot of the inmates say they don't want anyone who "plays games." Many insist upon openness and honesty, although it seems few of them offer the same. And many of the female inmates don't want to hear from male inmates, even though many of them say they're looking for someone who is "nonjudgmental" about her own past. Finally, I've never heard a fat woman describe herself as fat. They are either a "big beautiful woman" or "voluptuous."

I like the way Tammitha says that gardening "seems to be" her "current hobby." Translation: her current job is working in the prison garden.

Her crime is also illuminative: her mother, April Rine, killed her baby daughter Dianne, and even though Tammitha heard her daughter's cries for help, she couldn't be bothered to "get up" to help because she was too stoned on drugs.

Tammy Holycross

Tammy's ad on Prisonpenpals.com doesn't include any copy, only her picture, but Google her and you'll find a Sacramento Bee article dated June 23, 2008. An excerpt:

He died in poverty and torment, a little boy buried in a new suit donated by a department store. A dozen years later, the 3-year-old child is still remembered by many in Sacramento and beyond. His 1996 death became a rallying cry in the community and a benchmark for Sacramento County's Child Protective Services, forced to change its policies after numerous warnings to the agency failed to protect him.

So what became of his mother?

Tammy Holycross, who pleaded guilty in 1998 to second-degree murder and torture, is serving her sentence of 23 years, four months at Valley State Prison for Women in Chowchilla. But the 40-year-old woman said recently she has a "new witness" and "new evidence" in her case, according to a letter to The Bee.

Her attorney, Eric Escamilla of Fresno, confirmed that he has newly discovered evidence but plans to appeal her case based primarily on what he called "procedural errors." The attorney said he believes there was a rush to judgment by police, and that her case should have been moved out of Sacramento because of publicity.

Even in state prison, Holycross retains some visibility. She is featured on several prisoner pen-pal Web sites, saying she is a "lonely California woman" seeking a man. Several include provocative pictures of a partially clad blonde alongside a snapshot of a more modestly dressed woman, who more closely resembles the mother photographed after Adrian's murder.

"I am looking for a mature man that's settled, likes to laugh, cuddle & be wild behind closed doors," reads one passage under her name, photo and prisoner identification number. "I had a witness that came forward that can totally clear me ... so we have plenty of time to get to know each other."

On another site - in which she describes herself as "easy-going, open-minded, fun, loving, sincere and family-oriented" - the text states that her lawyer has found "stronger evidense (sic) of a case mess-up to get me out. He said within a year we will be done!"

Holycross' relationship with men was an undercurrent in Adrian's murder investigation. At the time, the young mother reportedly told police she "had something against men," and Adrian became the scapegoat for that hatred, The Bee reported. Holycross then was a pregnant single mother of two older daughters, ages 6 and 11, and 3-year-old Adrian, each by a different father.

Only the boy was physically abused. When Adrian was rushed to the hospital on Jan. 21, 1996, his body had been brutalized. The boy, who weighed 26 pounds, was malnourished and had skull fractures, extensive bruising, numerous cigarette burns, older scarring and marks on his neck, penis and right ankle suggesting he had been tied, the forensic pathologist found.

The police detective who entered the roach-infested home in Del Paso Heights found garbage strewn about the yard and a "terrible" smell in the house that he determined to be fecal matter throughout, including in the kitchen, according to appellate court papers. In the last week of his life, the boy had become violently ill after drinking from a bowl of water he found behind a dripping, rusty toilet, the documents show.

Tammy looks like a PTA mom; she is living proof that monsters don't necessarily look like monsters. My guess is, she couldn't possibly hate males that much unless she'd been molested by her father.

Celeste Beard Johnson (murder)

After nearly a decade of working towards my Masters degree and focusing on my braille transcribing, I have decided to seek companionship from penpals. I'm interested in corresponding with intelligent people who have compassion for the wrongly convicted....

I enjoyed collecting fine art and antiques. I love education and discussing politics (or not). I have learned to be patient when dealing with life's problems. The letter is the original form of corresponding with friends and family and now sadly, it's a lost art. 

Currently, I am working on my case to have it overturned and feel confident in this happening due to the obvious corruption in my county. My D.A. made the person who is actually responsible for the crime a TRUSTY-totally amazing that someone can commit a heinous crime and get a special privilege. Then, they gave her a sweetheart deal of only 20 years. She was paroled after only 10 years behind the fences and now she is free. There is new evidence surfacing to prove these allegations. 

I am not bitter because I know that God will turn this around for His glory! Status has made me humble, and I have learned the value of true friendship, true love, and truth in justice. I am looking for honest, stable, pen pals who do not judge and enjoy a sense of humor.

It turns out that Celeste, like Tammy Holycross above, is infamous, and even has a Wikipedia page about her. Two books have been written about her crime. She's been married five times (that alone would be enough to set off an alarm). Celeste divorced her first, second, third, and fifth husbands, and had a female lover kill her fourth. (The female lover is the one she is referring to two paragraphs above.)

Celeste isn't joking about enjoying collecting. During October and November of 1999 she spent $321,000 of her husband's money, and by December 10th had spent another $249,000. In the six weeks ending March 31, 2000, she spent another $100,000. According to the prosecution, she only married Steven Beard -- the husband she had murdered -- for the money.

There are other clues to Celeste's personality. She mentions her Braille transcribing, to let us know what a good person she is. (Sociopaths will often do something "noble" in order to be able to talk about it later.)

I've seen other inmates say about letter writing that it is, "sadly, a lost art." This is a subtle form of manipulation: yes, let's bring back this lost art!

After a third paragraph betraying great bitterness, Celeste states disingenuously at the beginning of the fourth that she is not bitter.

Then Celeste tries to appeal to religious people by saying she knows "that God will turn this around for his Glory!" -- even though there are probably better ways for Him to burnish his Glory than freeing sociopaths and seeing justice undone.