Some women just seem to be into this
Actually, I wouldn’t recommend marrying a twice-murdering psychopath, but my advice has not been solicited.
Note that the prospective bride, Leydi Figueroa Uceda, seems to have a pattern of prison romance. The couple is planning a June wedding, if authorities consent.
In doing some research for this post, I encountered a number of rumors about the couple, such as for example that Uceda has already had Van der Sloot’s child, and that they were allowed conjugal visits, which I find shocking if true. One fact that does seem to be true is that he was only given a 28-year sentence. I don’t know much about the Peruvian justice system, but that’s terribly light.
This is especially relevant to the story at hand:
Since his incarceration, [Van der Sloot] has only consented to interviews to De Telegraaf, in which he admitted to extorting the Holloway family and said that he received a number of marriage proposals in his cell, including one from a woman who wanted to have his child. Van der Sloot reportedly receives fan mail from around the world, though mostly from women residing in the United States and the Netherlands. According to sources within the prison, Van der Sloot sought US$1 million in exchange for an on-camera interview.
Shedding some light on the phenomenon:
In her book, Women Who Love Men Who Kill, Sheila Isenberg examines the phenomenon of prison lovers and finds genuine and universal bewilderment among the women at their situation. Even if they have had a series of romances with prisoners or, like one British woman, been engaged to several death-row inmates – all of whom were executed – they still claim not to have chosen that course for themselves. Karen Richey’s partner, for instance, is on death row in Ohio. Karen says that she wasn’t looking for a love affair when she made contact with Kenny, a 38-year-old Scot: “My war cry is that I only wanted to be a pen pal. Kenny insists this is going to be on my grave stone.”
It takes considerable effort to meet men in secure containment facilities. Many women will write to a number of prisoners before they finally make a sustainable connection. They may even take on voluntary jobs in prison, or go on blind-date visits with men they know only by reputation.
Various theories are offered: attraction to the famous, violent tendencies in the woman herself, fantasies (sometimes religiously oriented) of the redemptive power of love, and the fact that often the couple never has to face living together day in and day out and so can remain in the courting stage. But I think the words of a lawyer quoted in the article offer what is probably a better explanation:
There are lots of sad relationships in prison. A lot of opportunistic, shallow, revolting relationships and a lot of sad, hopeless people clinging to each other.
Although in the case of Van der Sloot himself I think its mostly the “opportunistic, shallow,” manipulative, and psychopathic elements that are in the ascendance.
Democrats!
I do not find this fascinating, interesting or even curious. I do wonder about those who authorize conjugal visits-Orgasm uber Alles- and agree with KL: “Democrats!”.
I am thankful there is something in me that prevents me from being interested in psychopathology, with its roots in Freud, who misdiagnosed a lot of folks decades before MRIs, and whose formulations have become common folk wisdom.
I suspect some people are obsessed with their determination to attain victimhood. It’s not so much a case of “I’m not worthy!” as it is a case of seeing through the judgement they’ve already placed upon themselves. It’s opposite might well be, “It is not enough to succeed. Others must fail” Gore Vidal
“…he [Van der Sloot] was only given a 28-year sentence. I don’t know much about the Peruvian justice system, but that’s terribly light.”
You think so?
I watch lots of those American true-life crime shows, stuff like the Investigation Discovery (ID) channel serves up all day. After detailing some horrific murder(s) followed by the investigation and capture of the killer, the story climaxes when the prosecution wins its guilty verdict. Great! Justice has been served. But as the credits roll, they blandly mention that the triple-murderer has been sentenced to 18 or 24 years, and I’m thinking WTF!?? What’s a guy gotta do to get life or the death penalty, open up a concentration camp and kill thousands?
I understand that sometimes it’s necessary to go for a lesser charge like second-degree murder, manslaughter, etc. But I’ve seen too many cases that go something like I described above. I hope it’s a rare phenomenom, but it doesn’t seem to be.
Gore Vidal said that? Really?
That would make a good epitaph for socialism.
Or maybe “slogan” is a better word.
Creepy.
Keeping with the meme… Democrats!
It is hard to imagine what Will Rogers would have thought of this, but he did point out that God made idiots for practice and then he made congressmen. Apparently, the supply of idiots has not declined despite nearly a century of progress.
Gary,
“The convicted murderer in the United States serves, on average, just six years in prison.”– (Atlantic Monthly; Sept. ’97, “A Grief Like No Other”)
rickl,
Really. Multiple sources confirmed that quote as accurate. Other Vidal quotes reveal a deeply disturbed individual. As those of us ‘of a certain age’ know, Vidal was William F. Buckley’s intellectual foil, his articulateness somewhat concealed the outrageous nature of his premises and assertions.
I’ve heard that many women like “bad boys”. Maybe shtupping murderous psychopaths is more entertaining for their fantasies than hanging out with a guy who just drives over the speed limit or humiliates the waiter.
Geoffrey:
I’ve heard of statistics like the one you mention about murderers serving an average of only 6 years in prison. It is really frightening to see how little our “justice system” values human life. It also does not seem to get terribly bothered about the grievous injuries inflicted upon people by brutally violent criminals.
Geoffrey Britain, Gary:
About that quote about convicted murderers in the US serving on average six years in prison–
I’d love to see the sources that confirm that statistic. It appeared in that Atlantic article in 1997, but there are no footnotes in the article; it’s just an assertion that doesn’t appear to be otherwise sourced.
When I tried to independently corroborate it, I found nothing. There are many articles about Great Britain and its commonplace early release of muderers, and a couple about Canada, but nothing about the US (except ones that are close to twenty years old or more), although I imagine such statistics exist somewhere. The most I could find in a fairly short amount of time was this from 1999, which seems to be describing efforts to make sure that murderers and other violent criminals serve the bulk of their time.
It may be that when that Atlantic article was written, murderers were commonly released quite early (although 6 years seems really short even back then). But by 1999, when the other article was written, this was the situation:
Unfortunately, the article doesn’t break down the statistics and separate out murderers from other violent offenders such as those convicted of robbery or aggravated assault. But the key seems to be truth in sentencing laws, which have mostly been passed during the 90s and after. This Wiki article indicates that as of the last update, 35 states and DC had laws that required serving 85% of the sentence for violent offenders.
Neo:
Regarding the alleged fact that murderers serve an average of only 6 years in prison: I can only tell you I’ve heard some variant of this–usually 8 years, I think–repeated several times in the last few years. I do not recall mention of the source other than possibly vague talk like “studies of DOJ statistics show…”. This is suspicious.
You wrote of the 1997 Atlantic article that “there are no footnotes in the article; it’s just an assertion that doesn’t appear to be otherwise sourced.”
Here’s the entire paragraph from the article:
The citing of sources is about as ambiguous as can be. A Justice Dept study is cited in the sentence after the one that mentions the six-year average stat. The way it is written, it sounds like the study is the source of facts other than the six-year average. It is unclear to me if the study supports the several statistics given in the remainder of the paragraph.
For the sake of argument, let’s assume for the moment that The Atlantic writer did not just pull the above paragraph from his rear end (and I’m pretty sure this magazine is not known to be a bastion of conservative, hard-on-crime types). Not exactly reassuring, is it?
I believe that part of the explanation why convicted murderers might serve surprisingly little prison time on average is simply the vagueness of the term “murderer,” only a fraction of whom fit into the first-degree homicide category. The term includes a whole spectrum of others, including second-degree murder, voluntary manslaughter and involuntary manslaughter (“…when someone dies as a result of the defendant’s non-felonious illegal act or as a consequence of the defendant’s irresponsibility or recklessness.” according to findlaw.com). So when you dump all these disparate crimes into a blender and average them out, the sentence will be something far less than what a Ted Bundy deserves. But that still doesn’t get us all the way down to an average of 6 or 8 years. No way. I’ll do some poking around the internet to see if I can find some solid facts that confirm or refute this thing.
The big block quote in your comment mostly had to do with “truth-in-sentencing” and began as follows:
Three reasons why I do not find this particularly reassuring:
1) The elastic phrase “substantial portion of their sentence” required by 13 states sounds like something begging to be abused–and probably is.
2) What about the remaining states, especially if they’re big ones like California, New York and Illinois? That could mean that a large fraction of cases occur in places that don’t even try to reach the arbitrary 85% goal.
3) Most importantly, what if the actual sentence is extremely mild? I’m not impressed by truth-in-sentencing if all it means is that a state adamantly refuses to release a horrific murderer before he has served at least 85% of his 12-year sentence. I admit this is an extreme example, but that’s what I was writing about in my initial comment, appalling murders that result in remarkably gentle sentences–and the fact that one needn’t go all the way to Peru to find such cases.
I don’t want to give the impression that such things are typical on those true-crime TV shows, but they’re not terribly unusual either. I’d estimate that 10% – 20% of the cases result in a sentence that falls somewhere between noticeably lenient and spectacularly indulgent.