Customer Reviews

Inside the Mind of Scott Peterson

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Why would a man who is seemingly normal, and has never been in any trouble, kill his very pregnant wife and dump her body in the bay? The Scott Peterson trial leaves this question unanswered. Dr. Ablow's book is an attempt to answer it. Ablow, a forensic psychiatrist, presents the thesis that the roots of Peterson's sociopathy lies in the murder of his maternal grandfather sixty years ago. Unable to care for her children, grandmother Peterson placed her four children, including Scott's mother Jackie, then two years old in a Catholic orphange to be raised by nuns and priests who routinely physically and sexually abused them. After leaving the orphanage around the age of 18, Scott's mother had three children out of wedlock with different men who left her. Two of these she placed for adoption. A third she reluctantly raised and then sent away when he began being troublesome. Then along came Lee Peterson who married her and the birth of Scott her "Golden Boy".

Raised by a mother who seemingly had not much feeling about the three children she sent away, and a father who left his own children by a previous marriage, Scott developed into a sociopathic monster - hollow at his core. He was incapable of feelings and could only imitate real feelings, which was the reason he appeared emotionally wooden in his behavior after Laci's disappearance. In addition, Ablow argues, Scott was damaged by his separation from his parents when he contracted pneumonia shortly after birth and had to remain in the hospital in an oxygen tent for several weeks. Jackie demanded perfection in her growing boy, thus to survive he had to approximate perfection, deadening himself to who he really was. Ablow argues the closest Scott came to feeling alive was during sex, resulting in his numerous infidelties after marrying Laci. Laci is presented by Ablow as being emotionally shallow, someone who always wanted everything to be 'pretty'. As a result she and Scott were lacking in even the spark of any real emotional connectedness.

Then came Amber Frey, who Ablow maintains provided such a spark in the deadened soul of Scott, resulting in what he calls 'a perfect storm' inside him that caused him to kill his pregnant wife. There were very suble hints to others that Scott was unhappy about his impending fatherhood. It took Laci a long time to become pregnant and he indicated he would have preferred her infertility. As a man incapable of feelings, he was unable to feel anything for his soon to be born son. To Scott, Ablow argues, birth equals death. Jackie 'killed' her three previous children by giving them away. She 'killed' Scott by putting him in the 'Golden Boy' straight jacket'.

I agree with Dr. Ablow that Scott was dead inside, although I'm not sure the blame can be placed do neatly on Jackie Peterson. Many people have significantly worse childhood's then Scott and don't become killers. Nor is the hospital separation a cause. Many premature and ill babies remain in hospitals and don't grow into killers. What Dr. Ablow ignores is what is ineffable in the souls of human beings like Scott Peterson - that 'something' that we call evil. In Ablow's world no one is born evil and we must understand these damaged souls. He tells us if he had been called in to testify he would have labeled Scott clearly 'insane' at the time of the murder.

But where I really disagree with Dr. Ablow is that Scott killed Laci and Connor because of the spark of life Amber ignited in him. It is difficult for me to believe that a man as deadened to feeling as Scott would kill his wife and unborn child only to replace them with a relationship with another woman and her child by another man. No, Scott was too selfish for that. My instinct tells me that Scott was a selfish man who wanted to be free of all encumbrances. He wanted to be free to continue his many infidelities. The birth and financial responsibilities for a wife and child would severely limit such freedom in the future. What Amber was, was a reminder of that freedom - a freedom to flirt, have sex and 'feel' the false "high" of incipient romance. But Amber would have eventually been dumped by Scott (or worse) when the noose of responsibility began to tighten around his neck. It was the confluence of his meeting Amber with it's attendant reminder of what freedom tasted like, with the tightening noose of fatherhood that caused the selfish and emotionally dead Scott to commit his crime. Ultimately Scott's single minded desire for freedom resulted in the ultimate loss of that freedom forever.

Dr. Keith Ablow is a forensic psychiatrist whose specialty is profiling, analyzing and exploring the black holes that seem to comprise the minds of criminals who have committed the most heinous crimes. His mission is to find out what happened in the formation and life of these felons in order to determine why they act the way they do.

Ablow is also a prolific author who writes both nonfiction books and a series of novels that star a fictional forensic psychiatrist (his alter ego, perhaps?). His new book is titled INSIDE THE MIND OF SCOTT PETERSON. And if truth is stranger than fiction, the theories expounded here posit a very frightening account of the murders of Scott Peterson's wife and unborn son. Ablow was pulled into the case on a professional level and a human concern. He feels there are some questions that still haunt the people both inside and outside of the Laci and Conner Peterson murders: Why did this awful and senseless killing happen? Why would a seemingly happily married father-to-be destroy his wife and unborn son? Why didn't this clean-cut, soft-spoken young husband completely dissociate himself from the searches for Laci and adopt the persona of a man on the run?

In order to understand the premise upon which his ideas are built, readers need to have a sense of how Dr. Ablow works and what he believes is the basis for the creation of a sociopath (psychopath). He explains: "My work has included evaluating dozens of murderers, rapists, pedophiles, and other violent criminals and testifying about them in district, state, and federal courts. Without exception, my task has been to find the story that explains not what happened to victims but why it happened --- why some people destroy others. In order to do so, I have had to journey deep into the psyches of men and women without empathy, capable of brutal acts. And I have become a relentless burrower for the truth about such people. My mind does not rest until I find it. Because once I do, I have my reward: I realize again that nothing and no one is beyond human understanding --- not even those we call monsters."

For this book Ablow conducted an extensive investigation, interviewing members of the Peterson family and extended family, friends and acquaintances, which helped put much of their history into a clinical form for analysis. Ablow even created a website dedicated to learning about early traumas in Scott's life and reading and watching everything he could find about him. He says: "I am convinced that Laci and Conner lost their lives to a psychological 'perfect storm' that began gathering over the Peterson family over five decades ago and reached hurricane strength in the psyche of Scott Peterson. The road to the 2002 murders of a young woman full of life and the innocent child she carried" was pre-ordained when, just before Christmas in December 1945, his maternal grandfather was murdered. To bolster his theories, Ablow goes into detail about that killing and how it and its ramifications affected Scott's mother, Jackie. He writes of those events and believes the force of that moment in time became the genesis for every event that twisted Scott into a sociopath.

Dr. Ablow's observations can be loosely summed up as such:

1) Jackie Peterson's father was killed just before Christmas. Thus, for her, the holidays became a conflicted and an emotional time.

2) Jackie and her siblings were pushed by their mother into an orphanage, and Jackie was separated from her brothers for ten years.

3) While it is not known whether or not Jackie suffered emotional, sexual or physical abuse, documentation now proves that the place where she lived all those lonely years was a "cesspool of pedophilia."

4) We do know that soon after arriving at this place Jackie developed debilitating asthma and was at the mercy of her keepers --- not only for her day-to-day existence, but also for her very breath since they had control of her medications.

5) Jackie left the orphanage to care for her ailing mother who soon died, and again she was left alone. Did she have expectations of a "family reunion" that turned into another loss?

6) In the next few years Jackie gave birth to two children with two different men and gave up both for adoption.

7) Jackie kept her third child conceived with a third partner because her doctor shamed her into it.

8) A few years later Jackie married Lee Peterson, a man who left his wife and three children because he was not comfortable in the company of his offspring. In this context, one may wonder why they have Scott Lee Peterson, the only child to come out of their union.

9) The newborn Scott was very ill, and the way Ablow describes this experience, he was torn from his mother and put into a plastic bubble as he struggled to breathe (don't forget his mother's ordeal with asthma.) That early trauma was the beginning of the end for Scott Peterson because it laid the foundation for Jackie's subsequent emotional and spiritual "murder" of Scott; the creation of his desperate need to be a perfect child, which led him to become a pathological liar when reality failed to live up to his fantasies; his craving for sexual excitement, and hence his multiple infidelities while married to Laci --- which Ablow argues was the sole way he felt he was alive at all; and the enormous psychological threat that the prospect of having a child posed to Scott.

10) As a result of the Petersons' objectification of Scott, Ablow says, he learned early that his humanity didn't matter; he needed to suffocate himself and drown himself to death spiritually to be in this family. He was never allowed to become a mature "self" with his own ideas, realities, needs, goals and loves.

11) And what creeps into this jaundiced view of life is that "there's a psychological threat to him even being a person. So he becomes a person imitating a person," Ablow opined in an interview on CBS. Thus, the mask he has hidden behind for thirty-plus years is permanently set in place and never ever removed.

12) Remember how easily his mother and father "gave up" the children they had before he was born? These events skewed Scott's feelings about fatherhood by leaving him with the distorted view that children could be such terrible threats to parents that they simply could be given away, and that fed into Scott's fear at the prospect of becoming a father. For him "birth equals death."

The world knows that in the early evening on December 24, 2002, Scott phoned his mother-in-law, Sharon Rocha, and said, "Laci is missing!" Keep in mind that Laci was nearing her due date and was complaining of fatigue. Where could she be? Despite the holiday, everyone who could gathered at Peterson's Covena Avenue house and began an immediate search for Laci. The only one who seemed removed from the panic and the desperation was Scott Peterson. Those who were close to Laci were puzzled at his lack of affect and the "rigor mortis-smile" plastered on his face. This is only one of the "symptoms" that served to unnerve and alienate everyone he came into contact with, because he never showed any grief or emotion in this sad and compelling case.

In April two badly decomposed bodies washed up on the shoreline of the San Francisco Bay. DNA tests confirmed that the baby boy was the child of Scott and Laci. Other tests confirmed that the headless, armless and legless torso that washed up the next day was Laci. When he was arrested the DNA results had just come in --- he asked no questions about the bodies, and his demeanor was detached and cold. The only thing he said was that he wanted "a double-double hamburger and a vanilla shake," which he ate as though he was on an outing with friends. Scott was arrested on charges of capital murder one, and he was in the back of a squad car on his way to a cell in Modesto.

Ablow says that Jackie's early trauma set in motion the domino effect that Scott couldn't escape and "marred" him from the time he was born. He describes this theory over and over in his text; sometimes it sounds logical, but too often it carries with it a shadow of incompleteness, using one eye and making generalizations on only certain experiences in a person's life to make his point. He clearly ascribes to the philosophy that nurture or lack thereof is what makes someone a killer.

While his colleagues may still be cautious about coming down on one side or the other in the controversy of nature vs. nurture, when commenting on what goes into forming an individual's personality traits Dr. Ablow firmly comes down on the side of nurture --- in other words, the parents (and collective family history, et. al.) are always to blame. This, despite all the research and data that show (through PET scans, MRIs and CAT scans) that the brain of a sociopath is different from that of a more ordinary person.

Readers will have to make up their own minds as to whom or what "created" Scott Lee Peterson, a man who was found guilty of the murders of his wife and son. Scott now sits in San Quentin prison, which looks over the bay where they were submerged for months. What can he be thinking as he catches a glimpse of the cold, deep grave in which he dumped Laci and her unborn child?

--- Reviewed by Barbara Lipkien Gershenbaum

Forensic psychiatrist Keith Ablow's thesis here is that "Laci and Conner lost their lives to a psychological 'perfect storm' that began gathering over the Peterson family over five decades ago and reached hurricane strength in the psyche of Scott Peterson." (p. 8)

In concrete prose (which is not Dr. Ablow's strength) the beginning of the storm was Scott Peterson's maternal grandfather being murdered by a disgruntled ex-employee. Following this his maternal grandmother gave her children to an orphanage run by catholic nuns. Jackie Peterson, Scott's mother, was then two years old. She endured a childhood filled with abuse. When she had her first child the father left her. She then gave up that child for adoption. Another man, another child. He left her too, and she gave that child up for adoption. A third man, a third child. He too abandoned her, and she would have given up that third child, but was persuaded not to by her pediatrician. And then along came Lee Peterson who stayed, and they had Scott. Shortly after his birth he contracted pneumonia and had to be placed in an oxygen chamber.

At this point Dr. Ablow remarks that researchers believe "that the roots of a sociopath's twisted personality...can sometimes be traced to early, sudden separation between an infant and his or her mother." (p. 39) He adds on the next page that "with the cold reality of masked nurses and doctors peering at you, their eyes filled with worry that you will die, your body pierced unpredictably and uncontrollably by needles, it should come as no surprise that you may wish to 'disappear' psychologically from the earth, to crawl back inside a womb..." This is the infant Scott that he is talking about, but one wonders what a newborn infant's eyes can see. They focus on faces as they learn to see, but (as Ablow should know) that takes months. It's hard to imagine that a newborn can read the faces of "masked nurses and doctors."

Ablow's argument is that Scott Peterson is a sociopath more made than born. This is crucial. At another point Ablow speculates that Jackie Peterson might have wondered (referring to Scott Peterson's half brother Don who was put up for adoption) if her "baby would be better off dead rather than abandoned by its father." He asks, "Did Jackie Peterson ever think that before she sent her baby boy away forever?" And then he asks the clincher: "Did Scott Peterson think that before he sent his baby boy to the bottom of the sea?" (p. 33)

The lurid prose aside, here I think Ablow is beginning to make the right connection. On page 89 he quotes Scott's half-sister Anne Bird as saying, "Scott and Jackie seem very similar to me...She was able to dispose of her children without much thought or emotion, and he followed suit. He disposed of his child."

At another point, Ablow quotes a "family source" as telling him, "Jackie lies about anything and everything." (p. 47)

This is the key: a genetic predisposition toward sociopathology inherited from the mother. Scott Peterson's sociopathic personality had nothing to do with his grandfather being murdered or with his being in an oxygen chamber after birth. It had everything to do with inheriting his mother's sociopathic genes and being raised by a mother who is a sociopath herself. That's nature and nurture working together: like mother, like son.

How did the other children escape being sociopaths? They did not inherit the same combination of genes, and their childhoods were not under the direction of a sociopath. It takes both a genetic predisposition and an enabling environment for the sociopathic personality to be expressed.

This is the weakest of the books on the Peterson case that I have read, although there is some interesting material about Scott Peterson growing up. Both Catherine Crier's and Amber Frey's are better, particular Crier's. The problem here is (1) Ablow's failure to understand sociopathology in evolutionary biological terms; his reliance on outdated psychologies that put too much blame on the environment and not enough on biology; and his overly rhetorical and speculative prose. As a final example of the latter he writes on page 150 imagining Scott Peterson moments after he had killed his wife and unborn son: "Then he stepped into the bathroom, looked at his face in the mirror, and smiled a defiant, unrepentant smile...He felt utterly and intensely alive."

Perhaps, but he might also have felt terribly afraid for himself since he had now done something that could not be undone, something he could not talk his way out of; and therefore there was the very real chance that he would have to suffer the consequences. I imagine that after he had murdered Laci, Scott Peterson felt sorry for himself.

Ablow's idea that Scott Peterson was unmoved by his plight when arrested and then when sentenced to death is almost silly. Scott put on a stoic face, but Scott Peterson cares deeply about Scott Peterson. All sociopaths care only about themselves, first, foremost and exclusively. Since they don't know how normal people feel (not having those feelings themselves) they are always acting in public, and Scott was acting when the sentence was announced. He was telling himself as he later told Anne Bird that he would get out on appeal and that she shouldn't worry.

Ablow's explanation for his unworried demeanor goes like this: "Scott Peterson had already been spiritually dead a very long time. He had walked among us as an emotional vampire feasting day-to-day on the life force of others, particularly women." (p. 17) Yes, Scott used women, but he did so with a great sense of entitlement and lust. And yes he can be said to be spiritually dead because he was never spiritually alive, but he doesn't care about that. He is a pure sociopath.

I enjoyed this book very much, but I do wish Dr. Ablow had given a bit more background/detail about other members of Scott's family, i.e., his sisters-in-law, and the reason for the break-ups of his borthers' marriages. This might possibly shed more light on Scott's personality, especially because his brothers are significatly older than he, and it would also fit in with the family's code of denial. (Remember how his one sister-in-law, Janey, kept coming to Scott's defense to the media?) As a mental health professional myself, Iwas impressed at how Dr. Ablow was able to fit the pieces of Scott's family background and show us how Scott came to be the cold blooded killer he is. However, I must say, I do not agree with Ablow's diagnosis of insanity. Someone who was able to pre-plan his pregnant wife's murder to the degree that Scott Peterson planned Laci and Connor's murder is very calculating. Scott knew exactly what he was doing. He is a sociopath, but he is not insane.

Ablow's book "explains" Peterson's actions sociopathic and being caused by events mostly prior to his birth. The first was his maternal grandfather being killed by a blow from a lead pipe, leading to his wife's inability to care for their four children and abandoning them at an orphanage - thus leaving Scott's mother unable to feel emotion. (Her initial reaction to being re-united with adopted-out daughter Anne was decidedly strange, and she definitely had early problems staying attached to men.) However, Ablow omitted the fact that Anne Bird - Scott's half-sister had no problems, nor did his half-broth John.

On the other hand, Scott's father also took psychiatric medicines.

Ablow goes on to report that many men worry that their wives will lose interest in them, and/or sex will seriously deteriorate upon pregnancy. Apparently murder is the leading cause of death for pregnant women, and Scott had stated several times to other women previously that he did not want children.

Scott's dates were elaborate, planned affairs - almost productions. In any case they were always built on a large platform of lies - Scott was able to snow them. Modesto detectives, however, were another matter. They were not interested in him personally, and had plenty of experience dealing with lies.

Scott's lack of emotion and strange reactions to Laci's death and investigation fits Ablow's thesis that Scott was a sociopath. Unfortunately, I was also left with the feeling that Ablow may well have been selectively reporting fact to fit his hypothesis. The book would have been more credible had Ablow begun with a general presentation of sociopathic characteristics and causes, and then compared Scott's life to the model.

Bottom Line: The book's reasoning was tenuous, and I gained a sense of why analyses have found that psychiatric help is generally no better than no help at all.

Instead of being a book about the psychological mindset of Scott Peterson, it seemed to portray a bit of the author's own psychological bent and his quest to have his part of the "Laci" cash cow. Without ever interviewing Scott Peterson or Jackie Peterson, he seems to arrive at conclusions that seem to be a far stretch at best. If the murder of Scott Peterson's grandfather decades before Scott's birth are what caused him to become a sociopath, then society on a whole is doomed. How many people have murders in their family? How many have had traumatizing childhoods growing up in foster homes or single-family homes where one parent has walked out and abandoned their children? Do these circumstances mean that every single child born to anyone who had the misfortune of experiencing it will end up a psychopath/sociopath, doomed to killing their spouse or children somewhere in their life?

Please...we're not all that gullible to believe that his conclusions are based on his training, education, and expertise in clinical psychiatry/psychology. This book is nothing more than page after page of his biased opinions and theories. In fact, it is hard to tell where his own narcissism ends and where Scott Peterson's picks up as there are so many inferences of himself, his life, and his own feelings in the book. It may have been cathartic for him to write so much about himself, but it is an insult to use the murder of Laci Peterson to do it.

Using his extensive background in forensic psychiatry and experience in criminal profiling, Keith Ablow has written a book on the "why" of Scott Peterson rather than the "how".

With information from the trial, police records, and close relatives, Ablow makes some pretty broad strokes painting a picture of Scott's upbringing and how that effected him later in life, especially during his marriage to Laci. He speaks at great length as to why Scott Peterson is a sociopath, empty and dead inside, and postulates how his psyche could develop into such a deserted wasteland void of emotion.

I believe Ablow put a lot of unfavorable weight on Scott's mother Jackie, though she undoubtedly played a major role in Scott's emotional void. Jackie Peterson gave two former children up for adoption, and only reluctantly kept a third child before marrying Lee Peterson and giving birth to Scott. It does seem as if children were disposable to her. Ablow even tracks back through Jackie's past, bringing to light events in her life that may have triggered her feelings toward 'disposable kids'. But, in my opinion, nothing concrete is offered here.

Albow has written an in-depth study in an easy-to-read format that is both entertaining and informational, though he pulls much of the information from three previously released accounts: 'A Deadly Game' by Catherine Crier, 'Blood Brother: 33 Reasons My Brother Scott Peterson Is Guilty' by Anne Bird, and 'Witness: For The Prosecution Of Scott Peterson' by Amber Frey. Unlike these other books, Ablow gives over half his book up to studying the upbringing of Scott Peterson, and not just the murder and trial.

If you want to know more about the subject of Scott Peterson, then this is a good book to add to your collection. If you are looking for a more meat-and-potatoes account of the murder and trial I would recommend reading 'A Deadly Game' by Catherine Crier first, and using 'Inside The Mind Of Scott Peterson' as a fill-in-the-blanks information source. The book is well written and a fast, entertaining study of a pathologically sick mind. Enjoy!

This book is an absolute joke. After watching Keith Ablow on Court TV being interviewed by Catherine Crier, I could not wait to get this book. It was a complete disappointment. The writing was poor including the grammar. He repeats himself time after time to take up space in a book that is full of blank pages. Save your money. This book is not worth reading.

I was extremely disappointed in this book, especially after all the hype on Oprah about Dr. Ablow's searing glances at Anne Bird.

There were at least 40 blank pages among short chapters and large text. This book resembled something a child would read.

It was monotonous, repetitive and dramatic. It should have been insightful, well researched and substantive.

It was a big letdown and I hope Ablow is sufficiently embarrassed.

Your parents can certainly screw you up, and there is good reason to think Scott Peterson's parents did. But must the author take so many pages to say so? The discussion of the various generational dysfunctions was interesting, but really one can draw one's own conclusions. The author is so in love with his own theories and catch phrases that he repeats them over and over and over and over - Scott was dead, dead, dead, birth equals death, he's dead inside, okay we get it already. Despite the fact that lawyers are always saying it's not necessary to prove motive, motive IS one of the most interesting parts of murders. The author does come up with a plausible theory, but it seems to be drawn from other books and articles, and not one scrap of direct dialog with anyone involved. Also the style is annoyingly melodramatic. Of course there are theories that Scott didn't even do it - one of his lawyers wrote a book about how it was a probably a satanic cult supposedly operating in the area at the time. I guess this theory is no less possible than that one, but it was a lot more redundant and I would rather not have read the part where Scott "moans like a girl" during sex. Ew.