Insights from the Couch - Real Talk for Women at Midlife

Ep.69: Mothers Gone Wrong: The Psychology of Unknown Number and the Most Notorious True Crime Cases

• Colette Fehr, Laura Bowman

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In this intense and emotionally charged episode, we dive deep into some of the most chilling and perplexing true crime cases involving mothers who committed unimaginable acts against their own children. From psychological abuse to cold-blooded murder, we’re peeling back the layers on what happens when motherhood takes a dark, dangerous turn.

We explore the twisted motivations and complex psychopathology behind cases like Unknown Number, Casey Anthony, Lindsay Clancy, Ruby Franke, and her notorious partner Jodi Hildebrandt. We’re not just recapping the crimes—you’ll hear our raw reactions as therapists and mothers, and we’ll take you into the murky territory of trauma, sociopathy, narcissism, and the haunting dynamics of parent-child bonds gone horribly wrong.

 

Episode Highlights:

[0:00] - Kicking off with our Midlife Masterclass and a true crime deep dive
[1:24] - “Mothers Gone Wrong” intro and a therapist’s disbelief at these cases
[3:00] - Breaking down the “Unknown Number” Netflix documentary
[5:54] - The big reveal: a mother as the digital abuser of her own daughter
[10:22] - Exploring Munchausen by proxy, sociopathy, and attention-seeking behavior
[13:32] - Control, puppet-mastery, and compulsive lying
[19:31] - Is pathological lying an addiction?
[22:41] - Shifting to Ruby Franke and the cult-like influence of Jodi Hildebrandt
[26:14] - Exploitation, rigidity, and mental manipulation in parenting
[30:16] - The horrifying rescue of Ruby Franke’s emaciated son
[32:47] - Discussing Lindsay Clancy and the reality of postpartum psychosis
[36:52] - The tragic consequences of untreated mental health struggles
[38:45] - Revisiting Casey Anthony from a therapist’s lens
[42:12] - Sociopathy hiding behind maternal faces
[45:01] - Wrapping up with empathy for victims and a plea for prevention
[46:50] - Community callout and how to stay connected

 

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Colette Fehr:

Marc, welcome to insights from the couch, where real conversations meet real

Laura Bowman:

life. At midlife, we're Colette and Laura, two therapists and best friends, walking through the journey right alongside you, whether you're feeling stuck, restless or just unsure of what's next. This is a space for honest conversations, messy truths and meaningful change.

Colette Fehr:

And our midlife master class is now open. If you're looking to level up, get into action and make midlife the best season yet. Go to insights from the couch.org and join our wait list. Now let's dive in. All right, welcome back to insights from the couch. Everyone you're gonna love what we're talking about today, or at least, I love it. I sound ridiculously gleeful in light of the topic mothers gone wrong, we are going to be talking about the psychology of some of your favorite true crime cases with mothers who have just gone so deviant, so dark, murderous, of course, the most famous of late is unknown number and Kendra lacrari. I mean, I think that keeps people up at night. So we're going to dive into that one first. Then maybe a little little Casey Anthony, even though that's older, a little Lindsay Clancy. And we want to talk about Ruby, Frankie. Is it Frank or Frankie?

Laura Bowman:

I've heard it said, Frankie. Okay, you know, I got to tell you, as I'm going into some of these cases, and I'm a therapist, so I should be, like, very well versed with, like, psychopathology. But there's a piece here with some of these cases where I'm just, like, you gotta be kidding me. Like, like, really? Is it? Like, how dark does it go? Like, I It's hard for me to wrap my brain around that some of these women can get as dark as they get. Like, I just can't even, I can't even fathom it.

Colette Fehr:

Yeah, I think it's antithetical. We're both mothers and therapists, and it's antithetical to see mothers harming, in particular, their children, and in all of these cases we're talking about today, that's what's happened, whether it's murder or abuse, physical abuse, psychological abuse. And I think the reason this unknown number that some of you guys may have seen on Netflix, and if you haven't go watch but spoiler alert, pause now and come back, because I can't hold it in. By the way, you Laura, spoiled the episode. Spoiled the punch line for me, that the whole time it was the mother who was harassed. You

Laura Bowman:

know what I want to see? Well, I'm sort of like that. I always read the end of the book before I read the book. I know I just can't, like, I can't with the the the anxiety of like, not knowing. But I started, I watched that knowing it was her too. So I guess I just thought, like everybody knew,

Colette Fehr:

no, no, no, no. Because I think that was a big reveal, especially since she participated. So just to recap quickly, even though, if you're listening right now, you probably saw the episode this woman small town in, I think, Michigan, yes, and one of those towns that revolves around the school and the kids and the kids sports, there's not much else to do. One Stop late town. All the families know each other, and these 2/8, seventh, eighth ish grade kids, adorable kids, Lauren, I forget the boyfriend's name. Do you remember? I can't remember. Okay, well, he's not that important American, yes. Kid, two little, cute blondies, and they are dating. Their mothers become friends, their families hang out together, and all of a sudden, Lauren and the boyfriend start getting really harassing texts that range from sexual innuendo to downright explicit sexual material. They're probably about 12 or 13 at the time, and then the texts turn into kill yourself slut whore. I mean, it's really

Laura Bowman:

nobody likes you just kill yourself, right? Yeah, and he doesn't want you like dark.

Colette Fehr:

And the texts happen all day, every day, at first, of course, they think it's other kids doing this. This goes on, and I'm really summarizing here, because in the episode, they keep you in suspense of who this could be. And Lauren's mother is participating in the documentary. She's doing interviews about how this was so hard and they were all so stressed. Well, this goes on for 20 months, to the point where some days there are 40 texts. The kids finally break up because they can't handle the pressure. The boyfriend starts dating a new girl. She gets harassed, and then Lauren continues to get harassed, even after they're broken up. And some days, it's all day, telling her eight hours a day, yeah, yeah, yeah. And they don't want to get new phones because they shouldn't have to get new phones. We'll come to find toward the end of the episode that the police finally, way too late, in my opinion, trace the VPN. I sound like I know what I'm talking about technologically, but I don't, and they figure out it's like the 70s movie, like the call, the calls come inside the house when a stranger calls, yeah, so it is the mother who has been harassing her daughter. So first of all, and this other boy and this other girl, so these are sexual crimes. Perpetrator perpetrated on minors. It's like pedophilia, because you're not allowed to do that to a child, not that anyone would want to. And you are literally like this girl, her daughter could have killed herself, could have harmed herself, yep.

Laura Bowman:

And and then the like fall out reaction to this from the mom is like, you know, she's gets confronted in her home by the police officers, which I felt like, Oh, can you imagine being the cop that has to go in and, like, level that charge. Wasn't

Colette Fehr:

it such a strange scene, though? The way she reacted,

Laura Bowman:

well, you could see that she was like, trying to both confirm and deny the charges all at once. And like, you know, just couldn't quite absorb the impact. And then, as it's all coming out, her daughter's there, and her daughter is so sullen and, like, withdrawn and like, you can tell

Colette Fehr:

that whatever blank, she's kind of blank,

Laura Bowman:

blank, yeah, very blank. And the mother is like, grabbing a hold of her and, like, touching her and trying to protect her from this information. And the daughter really, like, it's, you get this sense, like, did she know? On some level, is she in shock? On some level,

Colette Fehr:

I don't get, I don't get the sense that she knew at all, but she

Laura Bowman:

didn't seem like she was falling off her chair. But who I mean, I think it can be like a total freeze state,

Colette Fehr:

obviously. Yeah, I did read, though, to your point, I did read later that at times, certain people, including maybe the daughter, were like, Could this be my mom? And then they were like, No, we get a little bit of history from a couple people in Kendra's life that she was always very attention seeking, but that she mostly seemed like a happy go lucky, good friend, mother, very involved mother, but it's also revealed that she has a history of pathological

Laura Bowman:

lying. She was fascinated by that, yes, fascinated by that. Like, did you catch the one like reference where she's like, refping a game, and the parents are like, where did the mat go? We don't know where the mat went. There was a mat here, and she knew the whole time. And like, they're like, We can pull up the footage, and then, and only then, does she cop to knowing where it went.

Colette Fehr:

So that's whole psychology in and of itself, the pathological liar. But she pretended to have a job for more than a year, and she claimed she went to this job and she didn't. She spent the whole day text harassing her daughter. And there's so many pieces of this that are so messed up we have to touch on. And then she also put the family into financial ruin, and because she was the bookkeeper, kind of concealed that from the husband. So before we analyze what's wrong with this woman, I have to say I was this is the most disturbed in some of these other cases, the women killed their kids. I've never been so unsettled and perplexed by a person, and I've never seen so many people so deeply affected. I think it goes beyond just somebody hurting their child. She doesn't seem to fit neatly into perfect diagnoses. I think there's a bunch of stuff going on that we can talk about, but the trauma to this kid, you know, you can see, not only does the kid have this blunted affect, but her mother ultimately goes to jail for a couple of years, and she's love bombing her from jail, and the kids eating it up with a spoon. And we know psychologically that children the bond is so strong to be loved by a parent, that even when kids are abused for the most part, they still long for that parent. So the daughter is just desperate for her mom and doesn't seem to be able to fully absorb that her mother the harm that her mother has caused now they're not allowed to talk.

Laura Bowman:

That's a great thing, and hopefully, over the course of years and good therapy, that child will be able to unpack all that happened there. I think that's something that's going to have to happen in phases, as that child has her own children, perhaps, and it hits her in a different way. But I one of the things I was reflecting on is that, and like you said, there's so. Parts to this woman, but it felt like there was she was using her daughter, and this situation almost like a two sided supply, like the relationship with her daughter and the fact that her daughter was in distress was like this Munchausen situation where it's like, oh, you're suffering. You know, we're in this together. I'm your cheerleader in your support system. So she's

Colette Fehr:

getting attention from the community for like, Oh, your poor family or poor kids. So like a Munchausen by proxy, tech version, as the cop said,

Laura Bowman:

the other side is like, this obsessive like, and you wonder, like, does the financial situation leave her vulnerable and empty to like, pursue something like this, or does the obsession that she gets involved with because, remember, she's doing this, like eight hours a day, make her vulnerable to having her life fall apart financially? I just don't know chicken or egg exactly what

Colette Fehr:

I agree. It's hard to know, yeah, but maybe a little bit of both, just kind of feeding each other, I think a big part so the Munchausen by proxy, tech edition makes sense to explain the attention seeking. I feel like there's got to be some kind of like sociopathy, missing limbic system, fundamental lack of empathy. I also think a part that was not given I went into a deep dive, like I almost always do after my true crime. Because you guys, some of you listeners, know I am obsessed with true crime. I am the middle age cliche, yes, like they, like they punk on SNL, I love it. I can't get enough of it. I literally fell asleep to date line, which I'm sure isn't mentally healthy, but I love it. So this one, I went on such a deep dive, I scoured the internet for every article because I just felt like there was a lot missing. And there were some articles that gave a lot more information about the mother and the relationship with the daughter's boyfriend and his mother said, because these two mothers were friends, that she often felt a sexual vibe toward the boyfriend, who would have been 13 at the time. So I think some of the psychology of this mom is the underdeveloped, the same kind of woman who's a teacher and ends up having an affair with her student. I think the mother was competitive with the daughter. The daughter is very, very pretty. I'm not blaming it on that alone, but I think she wanted the attention of this boyfriend. She had a crush on him. And I would even go so far as to say, and of course, this is just a hypothesis, that that's what started. It was like a little way to try to needle them and mess up. And then, like you said, she started to get all this attention from what the scandal generated. So then it's like, I'm perpetuating this and sort of trying to, like, get that boyfriend to pay it like she would show up at his games when the daughter wasn't there. In these articles I read, the boy's mother said she found the behavior disturbing at times and didn't know what to make of it. Yeah, so she became like her

Laura Bowman:

puppet master, like to this entire situation. She's got everybody on, like Tinder hooks. She's got the the whole administration and the principal and the parents and the kid, she's going after the kids intentionally. She's setting them up. Yeah, in these, in these text messages, I think she's

Colette Fehr:

getting high on the control, yeah, the puppet master aspect, right? Like I'm in control, and nobody knows. It's a massive jolt of dopamine to perpetrate this. Yes, just like a, like a Ponzi scheme, like a Bernie Madoff, where you're like, there's a thrill for some of those people. Some people just get into the Ponzi scheme because they think they're going to pay it back, and then they never can. But some people really love getting away with it.

Laura Bowman:

You wonder how, like, how much she had really lost touch with reality, like, how far, I mean, how much she was really in control of this thing, and how much was just, like a massive fantasy world in her own head, like I just escaped, I think she really lost the thread and and obviously one part for me that was so telling, and I've told you this, is when the cops come and they are trying to confiscate her devices, and she still gives them the iPad, and she gives them her phone, and it's the husband who has to say she has another phone. Yeah, she's still lying, yeah. And they're like, where is it? We'll toss this whole damn house, and she's like, it's on the side of the house. She is protecting it like an addiction, yeah, all the way to the end, yeah.

Colette Fehr:

And she lies at the Yin Yang. I thought one of the most telling details was the way she reacted in the documentary after it's been revealed. First of all, she's. Very underdeveloped, very childlike, like, almost like a six year old at times, yes, giggling and Tee hee hee and I read somewhere that the producer of the documentary said, oh, you know, Karen seemed to Kendra, sorry. Seemed to really have fun doing it. It does seem like she's enjoying the attention. And then when she makes to me, this was the moment that I was like, whoa. She's like, you know, people don't really know my whole story, so it's easy to judge me. But like, I bet, if you're honest, you've broken the law too. I mean, people drive drunk and they just don't get caught. Like, dude, you almost

Laura Bowman:

like, drop oranges, right?

Colette Fehr:

She's She can't own the behavior. And then they also say, did you ever worry they're so kid glove with her? I wanted to reach the screen and, like, grab her by the neck and choke her. I

Laura Bowman:

think a lot of people felt like the Netflix special was so like, coddling of her everything and just so. I mean, I think she was fully under charged. In this case, she got off like scot free. In my opinion, I agree. I

Colette Fehr:

think she should be in jail forever. I don't think she should ever be near another human. She's such a damaging person. But when, when they said to her the documentary, The interviewer said, you know, did you ever worry because exactly they're soft pedaling like there's no tomorrow. Did you ever worry that, like, your daughter might harm herself in some way when you're telling her that she's like a whore and to like, Deep Throat her boyfriends? Like, I mean, it's nasty. It's nasty language that you just wouldn't say to anyone, much less your own 1314, year old child, and she's like, No, you know, I think if I I know Lauren and I know, like, how strong she is, maybe if I didn't think she was so tough, and she doesn't use that language, but it's basically like, I knew she wouldn't hurt herself. So you I mean, I would actually have a mental breakdown if I was

Laura Bowman:

years of, like, systemic abuse. And you like, think she's fine, like, she's losing friends, she's lost her boyfriend, she feels like, totally besieged by something outside of her control. And you think she's fine, like, and then it makes me wonder, Colette, like, is this woman just di D, is there like, a dissociative identity in this woman, and she has, like a part that is like, because she seems so out of it when you like, you know, kind of like you said, childlike and and detached. But it seems I mean the voice, yet saying some of those sexually aggressive things, it feels like something very ugly. And,

Colette Fehr:

oh, I agree. So okay, I'm with you on and we both operate from a parts lens, just for you guys, Di. D is really the formal diagnosis for what people tend to think of as, like multiple personalities, but a big marker, and people, let's just say, with a DI D diagnosis, are not out there harming people. That's not like the way this looks. It just could explain if somebody has one part that does certain things and another part that acts very differently, sometimes, with a diagnosis of a dissociative identity disorder, there isn't really the ability to know the difference between the parts, like, they don't retain the information. I don't know that she would all the way meet, that I saw it as parts, for sure, but not necessarily, D, I D, like dissociated parts, yeah. Like, I don't think you know how she like the apparently normal part, and then you have these emotional parts that don't have access to the information of the main part, like somebody can have di D and not even know for years, it usually forms his reaction to extreme trauma in childhood that in order to tolerate abuse or things that a child just literally should never be subjected to, the child develops another part to absorb that pain, and that part gets cut off and there's amnesia between that part. I feel like she goes into these parts, but she knows exactly what she's doing. And I don't even think she thought the daughter was so strong. I think she didn't give a flying fuck. What happened to the kid?

Laura Bowman:

The kid to an end, yeah, her attention. Needs. Supplies.

Colette Fehr:

Definitely massive narcissism, maybe some sociopathy, extremely underdeveloped parts, pathological lying.

Laura Bowman:

Do you feel like pathological lying, in and of itself, is like an addictive

Colette Fehr:

process, I think for some people, I mean, I mean her clients,

Laura Bowman:

yeah, right. Like, I think that it, it felt that way in this, like it was almost like such a thrill for her, yep, to, like, get away with this, or sit in the like she would drive up to the school and have her like, shirt from her job that she didn't attend, like it was all like a great thrill.

Colette Fehr:

And one hour. More of that would drive me Berserk with stress and anxiety. So it's really, really mind blowing, but I actually think she's a very dangerous person. I don't think there's any empathy. I didn't hear any genuine remorse or ownership. And I think, like you, that her daughter Lauren, is going to go through many different phases and iterations of coming to terms with this. And one day, my suspicion, if I had to gamble on it, I would say, one day, there's no relationship, and she's absolutely mind blown at how horrific this person is. I don't think they're I don't think she's going to be rehabbed,

Laura Bowman:

no. And I think that that kind of, whatever's happened here, will show up, like, get recycled again and again in different ways when, you know, Lauren gets married, when she has children. And I think it's going to take Lauren seeing her mother treat her child in like, just just a sideways glance that she's going to be like, I am done with this ram once

Colette Fehr:

she's a mother. You know, as a mother, I couldn't even, like, kill a fly if it was on my daughter's leg. You know what? I mean, it's just, it's so unconscionable. So, you know, the jury's out on that one. I think it's impossible to know or to diagnose her with any one thing. I don't think Munchausen by proxy, explains the whole clinical picture part of it. Yeah,

Laura Bowman:

it's super multi layered. I wonder. I wonder, just because we can't run this experiment. But I do wonder, like, if she were to have had, and she had, like, a, really, like for a, you know, a middle class, I don't know if that's middle class, I don't know what that is, but it's like, this Michigan tight knit community, like she was really getting her needs met. I mean, she had, like, a nice situation with the community, and, like, her daughter's got this great boyfriend, I know. I mean, I don't know. I don't know, but if all her needs were met financially, romantically, I think this would still be at play. Wonder, yeah, Oh, me too. I would like, I've done something like Ted.

Colette Fehr:

Bundy was good looking and was in law school and had lots of friends, and he decided to kill, you know, almost 100 people or more. So I just, I think it's, I think there's something really crossed in the wires there that I think is probably not even solely explained by trauma or what she experienced. I think there's something, it's like a human malfunction, yeah, and that woman, I

Laura Bowman:

agree. We're in agreement. There's a lot of layers of malfunction

Colette Fehr:

there. Okay, so let's talk about Ruby, Frankie a little okay, because this one, there's just a new show on HBO. There's a show on Hulu. I've seen a date. I mean, I've seen all that. I read her daughter's biography, autobiography. So this one, I've not

Laura Bowman:

gone as deep into this one is you have I've seen, like the 2020, special. I've seen, like an hour long thing that explains the trial and how they found the children, but the psychology of it, like you might know more about through, like reading the memoir.

Colette Fehr:

Curious what your opinions are. So to tee this one up, in case you don't know, I think a lot of people have heard of it. But Ruby Frankie, this one's got an interesting element, because she became an internet celebrity, which is a whole addictive process in and of itself. They had a YouTube channel at a time when that was the up and coming thing, and it was like eight passengers or something, and they're Mormon, yeah, that's a big piece, and they were really into being Mormon, and like real Mormons who abided by the Mormon principles, and that was part of the whole show, was look at us, our perfect Mormon family, two parents and six kids. And Ruby Frankie was an attractive, thin, blonde woman and her husband was, I guess, reasonably handsome, not my type. Yeah, yeah. And also, I, like, just lost all respect for the husband, but I try to understand that a brainwashing element was going on here. But basically what happens is, I think they're all a little off to begin with, and I'm not conflating that with Mormonism, just to be clear to the listeners, but I think these particular people, when you read about their family background and some of their behaviors, like there was some extreme rigidity going on, and flexibility is a marker of psychological health, yeah, so I think there was some of that. And Ruby was very impressionable, but she starts getting all this attention. I mean, their YouTube channel has millions of viewers. They don't really have to work anymore. They're making tons of money off of sponsorships through this show. And before you know it, every moment of their life is content. And these children are being exploited in the sense that they don't have any interaction, right? And they don't have any moments that are just pure. They're always on camera. And it's like, oh no, let's do that again for for the video.

Laura Bowman:

And she's like, you know, recorded saying things like, can you just fake it? Like the kids, like, I'm not in the mid Can you just fake it? And she gets very sharp with them and very directive, and like in this eight passenger situation, there's a lot of people who are watching, who are saying that abuse is happening right there on camera.

Colette Fehr:

Eventually, yes, and one of the big turning points is when she kind of jokingly, with her son, refers to the fact that one of his punishments was to sleep on his bean bag. And he's been on the bean bag for eight seven months. Yeah, seven or eight months.

Laura Bowman:

So people's jokes, I mean, like, he just jokes with her, like, it's like, of course she would be sleeping on your bean bag for seven months, right? Like, I did something wrong.

Colette Fehr:

So at first, the people like, think they're such a cute family and love them. And then people start to push back, like, hey, some of this doesn't seem healthy. At some point, she gets involved with this woman, and this part makes me cringe, because she's a therapist.

Laura Bowman:

This makes me cringe so hard, it makes me hate our job and like, just and she like becomes, what a mind cleansing coach or mental mental fitness coach like she's the last person in the world.

Colette Fehr:

Well, she's Marc cult leader, definitely a sociopath, right? I mean, Oh, totally. And she just does these groups and these marriage encounters, and she basically takes control of people's lives. She starts to brainwash them, and she starts to do extreme, prescribed, extreme interventions for all the people who go to her programs, like your husband has to move out, he can't see the kids. This is how you're going to discipline the kids. And it's not just the Frankie family, it's all these people who are following her in one of the shows. I don't know if it's the one you saw, but they interview other people where the husband hurt by her. Yes, I was kicked out of my house for nine months, like my wife

Laura Bowman:

couldn't find other therapists. Like they she's blackballed people in the community or labeled people as like, family predators. Yeah, she did,

Colette Fehr:

yeah, to an extreme. So it's not just Ruby, but she and Ruby become sexually involved the house.

Laura Bowman:

Is that true? Because, like, I couldn't, I didn't get that clearly,

Colette Fehr:

definitely true. They were sleeping in the same bed. I mean, I can't say that I like witnessed video of cunnilingus, but the implication is strongly, they were definitely in the same bed. And then Ruby starts appearing in Jody's videos as like her little therapy sidekick running the programs. It's all got this very sick, cultish, multi level marketing thing, like, now you're this coach. Now you have to go find new coaches and ruin their marriages, and before you know it, the husband's out of the house, Jody's in Ruby's bed, and the parenting has gone from strict and inappropriate to downright diabolical, diabolical physical abuse and starvation.

Laura Bowman:

Can I ask? Is it your opinion that that Ruby, Frankie is your run of the mill, kind of like, attention seeking, narcissist, B flavored woman who just wants to, like, be like, Look at my perfect life. And that Jody Hildebrandt is, is really like the sociopath, diabolical, that's exactly Bengali of the whole thing.

Colette Fehr:

Yeah, and not to absolve Ruby of guilt, but I think she was more impressionable, mentally weak, narcissistic, and I think she became like, right? She just was sort of a lost soul who was really the perfect supply for somebody as malignant as Jody Hildebrandt.

Laura Bowman:

I just don't know this is where I just go. What like, what? How does, I guess they're like a frog in boiling water. But how do you like watch? Because they found that one daughter like head shaved, sitting in a room by herself for months having not eaten. I just don't know what kind of like fog you have to be in to go, yeah. Let's do more of this. Yeah.

Colette Fehr:

Well, it became that Jodi had control of her, so whatever Jody said went, and you know, it's also possible right now, Ruby is saying as part of her reduced sentence, or, I don't even know exactly what she got, but she's acting remorseful. I lost my way. I was wrong. I'm gonna repent. I can't believe I allowed myself to get so brainwashed. I don't know that. I really totally buy it. I think she's saying whatever is like expeditious for her, but I do think she got brainwashed. Some of the abuse of the kids was so bad. I couldn't even watch the parts of the show. It was just too upsetting. And the one scene where the little boy manages to escape and go to a neighbor, and he's emaciated, and in one of the shows, they said that the kids probably wouldn't have lived another couple of weeks.

Laura Bowman:

That is so heartbreaking and like, it's just bizarre, because you see, like, this enormous house they live in, I mean, like, it's like, this compound, like, resources aren't an issue. They're like, I mean, it's like, I just don't know who turns their whole world into, like, a prison camp for kids. Like, what headspace you have to be in?

Colette Fehr:

And the father, okay, supposedly, he was cut out. He didn't realize how much abuse was going on, but he allowed himself to just be no agency. I mean, I just, that's another one I really wanted to punch. I mean, I know, here I am saying I want to strangle someone and punch someone. It's just so maddening to me. And the daughter

Laura Bowman:

the Dexter only kills the good people, you know, like Dexter's the good like serial killer, we just kill the people who deserve it,

Colette Fehr:

right? Of serial killers, right? The daughter is very forgiving toward the Father. The oldest daughter writes the book, yeah, I'm interested in that, yeah. And she says, I think her name Sherry, that she started to see what was happening with her mom, eventually broke from her mom, and also multiple times called the police because she was so scared for her younger siblings and the police really didn't do much of anything. She's not forgiving of her mom, and I don't think I would be either. No, I mean, it's really and she basically talks about in her autobiography, or memoir. I don't know what she would call it exactly, that, you know, her mom is a narcissist, and that they really just existed to orbit around the mother, the mother's needs, the mother's needs for attention,

Laura Bowman:

you know, and I know we're going to talk about the is it Lindsay Clancy, I hate to say that, like, it's these women that we've talked about, first, the unknown caller and Ruby Frankie and Jody Hildebrandt that I find more abhorrent. And I know that, like, this woman killed her kids, which, like, that's awful, but like, postpartum psychosis is real. It's like a It's a mental condition. I've seen people kill themselves, yeah, in this state, who you would never think would kill themselves. So it's that, to me, is actually more explainable than like, these sort of malignant low grade narcissist will not even low grade, but narcissistic women that like just infect their whole families. Yeah, I can't I have no patience.

Colette Fehr:

Yeah, it's hard to understand, and I don't think we ever will understand, and I don't think it's easily diagnosable. It's just this really pathological stew of a chip is missing. Like a fundamental chip is missing. Now, the Lindsay Clancy thing just really in brief. And some of you guys might not even know about this one. This happened, what, a year or two ago, maybe a year ago. So she's in Boston. She was a labor and delivery nurse of all things, happily married, three kids, I think the youngest one was eight months, nine months, maybe a two year old, a four year old, something like that. They were very little, all of them, she had had postpartum she had been diagnosed with postpartum depression, PPD, and she was on medications. Her husband ran out to get some medication, but supposedly, she sent him out, which are some people are saying is premeditation. And then she, you know, I don't want to really upset everyone, but she strangled the three kids with exercise bands, yeah, in the basement, and then she jumped out of the second story window of the home, and she's now paralyzed, and I don't know what the sentencing is. What's interesting, we know that PPD. So first of all, not everyone who has PPD, and there's PPD, like, an anxious variety that I believe I had after Charlotte was born, that doesn't manifest in the Depression. Also, a lot of people, like, not everybody has the psychosis component. That's a different thing. But when people have the psychosis, like Andrea Yates, who drowned all of her kids in the bathtub 20 years ago, that was one of the most famous, I think, first big cases of notoriety. There are voices telling the psychosis is that they're not in touch with reality. And there are voices saying, kill your kids, this would be better. There's all kinds of narrative that they're struggling with, yeah, and I think it's really hard to understand, because, again, you just feel like, how would you ever hurt your kids? But psychosis, the very nature of it is that you're not in touch to reality. Yeah. Yeah, and her husband has stood by her, which

Laura Bowman:

is like, I mean, and I just the reason I have, maybe, and I have, obviously, no, you know, I don't endorse killing your kids, and I don't ever want to make that, I don't want to make that unclear. But I've worked with women who have been in the bowels of postpartum depression, and it's really, really rough, and it's really distorting on who they think they are and the way they care for their kids and the way they care for themselves. And I've been a part of cases where, like, women have killed themselves in bouts of postpartum psychosis, and so it's like, this thing is real, and I don't think we're as careful with women sometimes as we need to be in these hormonal fluctuations. And how at risk, some women are like, particularly when you've had a really bad postpartum depression, and, you know, you give birth again. And like, nobody's watching those women, or nobody's thinking, Oh, they'll be fine. They kind of got through it the last time. No, it's like, if you struggle with this, if you've ever struggled with this, you should be watched really carefully, you know? And well, the

Colette Fehr:

sad thing is, she was watched carefully, and she was medicated, and I've seen some of the defense strategy is blaming the medications that she wasn't treated properly, that what happened was a function of being on too many or the wrong meds. Of course, people are so not informed, and they want to just quickly glom on and blame people. Blame the husband. Why would you go out if

Laura Bowman:

you don't know what you don't know? Right? Right? I mean, nobody thinks that you're like, No How, matter how bad things are, that your wife is going to kill your three kids, exercise, band. I

Colette Fehr:

don't have the imagination for that, right? And I think what will be interesting to see, did she get I'm going to look really fast. Did she get her sentence yet? I don't know. Yeah, I can't remember. The trial date is set for December of this year. So it's going to be interesting to see what happens. I agree. We have the mental health perspective to know that this is real. This does happen where people are hijacked. This is a completely different thing. Their mind, their brain chemistry, goes awry due to major hormonal shifts, and something happens where they're not in touch with reality anymore. I mean, the husband has said she loved her kids. This is not her. She would not harm her kids. Something came over her. I just don't know if my spouse harmed, killed my kids, even if I could under I don't know that I could ever look at that person

Laura Bowman:

again. No, no, I think something fundamental is broken in that moment. Yeah, all right, so before we

Colette Fehr:

wrap up, let's just quick, quick touch on Casey Anthony, because, you know, we're in Orlando. This was the biggest case here. I went to the trial multiple days because I was working at the courthouse at the time with harbor house domestic violence shelter. Went on opening argument day. And you know, Casey still stirs up some news down in South Florida for dating married guys getting into bar brawls. I have a particular opinion. Doesn't mean I know anything. It's just my opinion. I'm curious what your opinion is on her. Do you think she did it? Do you think it was premeditated? And what would you diagnose her? And when we say, did it, if anyone doesn't know this case, her daughter, Kaylee, was killed, was murdered.

Laura Bowman:

You know, it's funny, I like, I don't have the same fascination in these cases that you do. And when this happened, my son was the same age as Kaylee, and it like, really bothered me to watch, like, it really, I had to, kind of, like, soften my gaze on this one. But I do think she did it, and I do think it was premeditated. I think there was, like, evidence that she was looking things up about, like, how to dispose of bodies, and chloroform use and all kinds of things to, like, at the very least, put her daughter down so she could, like, go out and party.

Colette Fehr:

I think that's the thing. Some people think she just wanted to knock her out so she could go out. I actually, I think it was premeditated too. I think she said about to kill her.

Laura Bowman:

And the pathological lying was like, next level, next level, and the fact that she continued to kind of, I mean, obviously in her, in her like private moments, but she just continued to spin plates and function as if, you know her daughter's body wasn't decomposing in the woods

Colette Fehr:

and she didn't know it. She made up the nanny pretended the nanny kidnapped her, and then ultimately, when it came down to it, had no problem. Him. I don't believe her dad ever harmed her. Of course, we don't know. I'm not in the business of doubting survivors who come forward to say they were abused, but I just it was all too convenient. Nothing of this was said until her ass was on the line, and then suddenly it's, oh, my father has been abusing me forever, and he masterminded this whole thing. And because he was my abuser. She drowned and I didn't tell I mean, it's just one convoluted lie after another,

Laura Bowman:

which is what people like that do. It's a lot of like confabulation and word salad and like direction shifting, like blame shifting. So she fits all of that, and I feel like the parents of her were really, like maligned by our community. I feel like they were treated so poorly. And it was, it was like people with pitchforks outside their

Colette Fehr:

house, and these poor people, they didn't know what was happening. They don't know what their daughter is. You know, it's really and she did this recently. About a year ago, she did this peacock special Casey Anthony, where it's like her side of the story. And I saw online, some people were like, oh my god, I now see this so differently. To me, it was so obvious that it was a performance. It's just like sociopath of the century.

Unknown:

Yeah. And

Colette Fehr:

I think this is something that you know, with such a large part of the population, potentially sociopathic estimates of anywhere from one to 4% most sociopaths aren't killing people. They just don't feel a lot of empathy for others. Their brains are different. We know this to be true. So they're usually CEOs or successful people who don't have the angst that some of us might have about managing people or taking risks or what happens. But I think it's so hard for us sometimes to believe that these sociopathic or even psychopathic, in some cases, minds are concealed within these seemingly fragile, feminine, soft, spoken, maternal bodies.

Laura Bowman:

That's it. That's the piece. It's just hard to bridge. You know the difference there? And I think even the parents, like really didn't know what they had on their hands. And there's these really, like, weird blips, I think, even in her childhood, that they refer back to about her lying about things and and I think you don't know what to make of those things in real time, right? But Hindsight is like 2020,

Colette Fehr:

and what she put people through, the resources months spent looking for the kid, her parents everything when she knew where the daughter was and really didn't. I mean,

Laura Bowman:

could you imagine like I could not, can if, if that were me? I mean, of course, I wouldn't premeditate a murder, but say like an accidental drowning. I mean, can you imagine trying to cover that up? I mean, I guess people drive away from hit and runs, but, like, I would just be like, such a hot, blithering mass,

Colette Fehr:

you know? But there are those people who don't reach the sociopathic level or the the kind of stuff we're talking about, who do lie and they compartmentalize so effectively, they just shut it off. They've come to believe their own lie. That becomes the reality, and somehow, right? They just really dig in. But I couldn't do it either. If I, God forbid, ever did anything, I'd like run to the police station. Yeah, I wouldn't even be my face shows everything like I would be so anxious and guilt, you wouldn't be

Laura Bowman:

able to, like, go to a party. I mean, wasn't she at like, a fourth of July party?

Colette Fehr:

Party, like, an acute outfit? Yeah, yeah. She got some tattoo about, like, La dolce VITAS, and I can't remember exactly what it was, but there are people, still, I don't think many, but who maintain that she was innocent. There are people who believe her, and there are a lot of people who believe the kid drowned, she got scared, and she made all this up because she was young and she couldn't handle it. I don't think any of that's true. Maybe we'll never know. Maybe one day, like OJ, she'll write, if I did it, and we'll get she'll

Laura Bowman:

be like a you're on vandersloot, and she'll have another like crime to

Colette Fehr:

like, I could see that this one, I could see that I think, I mean, these people don't, yeah, he's a great example. He's a great male counterpart for her right, seemingly normal. She was attractive. He was attractive. Seems like a nice family. I think it was a nice family. And then you just don't expect that what's under the hood is going to be so malignant.

Laura Bowman:

And for people listening, your own van der Sloot was the one who killed Natalie Holloway down in what was it like a Ruby or something? And, yeah, and then it was like, it seemed like a one off that, you know, maybe he wasn't really guilty. And then it turned out that you. Years later, he killed a couple

Colette Fehr:

more people, yep, yep, and he finally the way he got busted, really, I think it was a messy crime scene somewhere in Latin America, but some reporter had followed him forever and got him to confess in his car on camera, and now he's rotting in a jail cell where he belongs, yep, but let's remember before we say goodbye, that even though I do get very interested in these cases, because the psychology, to me, is just so fascinating of what's possible in the spectrum of human behavior, I think that's what I'm drawn to. But I don't forget that these are real people, and lives are ruined, and it's just absolutely horrific, especially when children are harmed. They have no control, they have no agency, and to be harmed by your mother. There's nothing worse I can think of. So hopefully we won't have any news stories to talk about for time to come, and I will never forget unknown number. I don't think anyone

Laura Bowman:

will. I think it's blazed into all of our brains. And I do, unfortunately, I think more of this stuff will come down the pike, as it always does. And I mean, I always marvel at the depth of psychopathology in some people that's just hiding in plain sight, which kind of shakes me up a little bit that, like, we don't know the half of what some people are really capable of, and that's hard, yeah, that, like, that's hard for me. Like, where's the line? Me too, that this person needs to be, like, escorted out of the general population,

Colette Fehr:

right, right? And could we have a test for that? So I know, can we test for that. Like you have to walk through the airport TSA, and if you're a legit sociopath, the alarms

Laura Bowman:

go off, yeah, like we're gonna have to take you out and put you somewhere.

Colette Fehr:

Helps. All right? Well, thanks you guys for listening. We will see you next time. And if you have any thoughts or questions on this one, hit us up. Our email is info at insights from the couch.org. We also have a great group for our community on Facebook, the midlife chat. You can find us there and join the chat if you're a woman in your 40s, 50s, 60s and you want to talk about these episodes, share resources. It's really important to us that we all have a place to kind of come together and support each other. So find us in those places, and we will see

Laura Bowman:

you next week. Yeah, and we all know you have an opinion on this, so you know what us up? All right. All right, guys, you.