Laura Schultz

<p>Laura Schultz is a licensed psychotherapist (LMFT), life coach, and freelance writer. As a marriage and family therapist, she has been assisting individuals and families in crisis for 25 years both in the nonprofit arena and in private practice. Her areas of specialization include relationships, sexuality, addiction, and childhood trauma. She has a particular interest in psychopathology, including the antisocial personality disorder and more specifically, serial killers. She has written for national magazines on topics such as mental health, relationships, communication skills, sexuality, and health and wellness. She developed and wrote two advice columns entitled “Counselor on Call” and “Ask Therapist Laura”. She also currently writes book reviews for the <em>New York Journal of Books</em>. Ms. Schultz e-mail is <a href="mailto:bugsyyy@sbcglobal.net">bugsyyy@sbcglobal.net</a> and her website is <a href="http://www.lauraschultznow.com/" target="_blank">www.lauraschultznow.com</a></p>

The Casey Anthony Murder Trial: A Modern American Tragedy

Dec. 5, 2011

by Claudette Walker & Matrix Filia

With Postscript by Laura Schultz, MFT

Excerpt from Chapter 1

WHY?

No other single word is less relevant or more relevant in the death of Caylee Anthony. A lovely child, she was allowed only 34 months to dance on this earth.

Caylee Anthony, not quite three years old, had been missing for 31 days before a police report was filed. That, we believe, is what brought worldwide media attention to this case. Since that day, the media has brought every detail they could find to the attention of the public, including the arrest of the child’s mother, who will be tried for first-degree murder over the next month.

The media has provided us with everything from pictures of the beautiful child to pictures of the mother out dancing during the 31 days she did not report her child missing. We have heard the 911 calls and seen thousands of pages of discovery documents filed in the court by the prosecution and defense for the upcoming criminal case. All which are available online in a click, from the media. TV coverage from the Discovery Channel, 48 Hours, Geraldo Rivera, True TV, and Nancy Grace has played week after week during the three years the criminal charges have been pending. Some of that coverage has been because of the peculiarities of the case, some of it because the defendant is a pretty young white woman, and some of it because of Florida’s position among the top five states in both death row population and the imposition of executions.

The mother, Casey Anthony, has been tried in the media and presumed guilty by most who have heard the massive media coverage. Now the questions are what of this information will be admissible and what other evidence yet unknown will make the courtroom? Who will judge her on that evidence and what will the result be under the judicial system of the United States of America?

Lawyers have debated this case on national TV. The defense team’s lawyers have granted interviews for pretrial publicly. To us, that is simply stunning – their job is not to aggrandize themselves but to defend their client, and most of the media interviews seem to be the former and not the latter. Casey has a legal dream team that has been paid in part by her parents, in part by her sale of photos of her child, in part by taxpayers, and in part pro bono (without pay) except for the massive media advertising the lawyers are receiving for free. And the people of the State of Florida are paying for all other costs: investigators, costs of prosecution, discovery documents, hearings, judges, bailiffs, and so forth. The list is unending, and the dollars spent are said to be in the millions.

Hiding in Plain Sight: The Psyche of Serial Killers

June 20, 2010

Jeffery Dahmer

by Laura Schultz, MFT

“You feel the last bit of breath leaving their body. You’re looking into their eyes. A person in this situation is God. Sometimes I feel like a vampire and I like to kill. I’m the most cold-blooded sonofabitch you will ever meet. We serial killers are your sons, we are your husbands, we are everywhere. AND there will be more of your children dead tomorrow. I wouldn’t trade the person I am or what I’ve done for anything. So I don’t think about it. And at times it’s a rather mellow trip to lay back and remember”.

---Ted Bundy

“I love to kill people. I love watching them die. I’d shoot them in the head and they would wiggle and squirm all over the place and just stop. Or I’d cut them with a knife and watch their faces turn real white. I love all that blood.”

---Richard Ramirez, aka The Night Stalker

“I am a monster. I am the ‘Son of Sam’. I am programmed to kill. I love to hunt, prowling the streets looking for fair game – tasty meat. I live for the hunt—my life. Sam is a thirsty lad and he won’t let me stop killing until he gets his fill of blood”.

---excerpt from letters of David Burkowitz, aka “Son of Sam”

Each of these killers “hunted” by night in the shroud of darkness as a deer hunter might stalk his prey. One can only imagine the horror and agony each of the human victims experienced as they were being bound, beaten, choked, raped, shot and/or tortured. For some, death was a release that ended the unspeakable horror, the utter horror of it all. Others scratched, screamed and fought back with all their strength until the inevitable last gasp. But very few escaped with their lives. Those who did live to testify and talk about what they had endured, constantly replayed the tape of the lurid details in their minds for years to come. Never again could they return to the life they had known before being captured in the clutches of their worst nightmare – a human killing machine.