Devil of Death
We’ve heard the story before–a so-called “Angel of Death” cuts people’s lives short by sinister killings in a medical setting because they have access and ability. It’s happened again this time in Italy. Daniela Poggiali is thought to have killed 98 patients in the course of a year (source), and as many as three in one day!
While the story is mortifying, Daniela took it a step further and took selfies with the victims smiling. Yes, smiling!
It’s absolutely chilling.
Don’t search for the pictures unless you want to feel really creeped out! I warn you. I’ve seen them and they are flat out awful. Thankfully, they do blur the victim in the one photo released.
Charles Cullen was a U.S. nurse that is suspected of killing upwards of 400 people over a 16 year period. Sadly, hospitals became suspicious of him, but simply let him go, and he was left to continue to murdering more people at different hospitals each time he was let go. And he was let go multiple times after suspicious behavior.
Cullen told 60 Minutes that he killed people because he felt sorry for his patients, but that was one big fat lie with hot spots to prove it.
I think these people should be called the devils of death, personally.
The “source” link is not working.
Fixed! Thank you!
Hang this lunatic from the rafters
I wonder if from the selfies, if you did not know context, you think you would be able to conclude anything about her, such as “cold” etc. I am so creeped that people like this can hide. I want to think there is some obvious clue on their face!
She is very glib and arrogant, and *extremely* full of herself in the two photos I saw (as well as in several others that weren’t the ones with her deceased victims). Like scary full of herself. Jodi Arias-level full of herself, if not even more so. Anyone exhibiting that level of arrogance is someone to stay as far away from as possible under any circumstance. Someone like that is very unpredictable and could go off over nothing like a stick of dynamite (and then switch it back off in an instant like a light switch if necessary). She is a very dangerous person going by many of her photos.
I definitely get the sense of “self-assured, pleased with herself” from the pics. I wonder if I’d pick up on the truly sinister side of her without context. Guess what one could notice is the mismatch between how she seems and what you would expect in a person that chooses nursing as their calling. SCARY.
Arrogance is always sinister, so-to-speak. It never bodes well for others, and is a big predictor of people who will hurt others from basic to more complex things. It never ends well with arrogant people and its the first clue to RUN, and FAST.
A few weeks ago I read an old post of yours about arrogance (Justin Bieber) and I had to look up the term to try and understand what it is. I actually looked at pics of Justin Bieber in a google search to see if I could see the arrogance versus “pleased with self”. These two things must be a lot more equal than I realize. Guess it’s not normal to often feel pleased with self in a manner that is detectable by others.
Actually, that is incorrect. One can be humble and pleased or proud. There is a huge distinction though in the look and behavior. Perhaps you struggle to see the difference…
I struggle to see the difference. You know how you say you go by all the people you know in your life? I think my problem is not knowing if I know arrogant people or not. If I could just call someone I know in my life arrogant, then I could map other people to these more familiar people. But not sure I’ve ever called someone in my familiar circles arrogant. It makes me uncomfortable to call someone I hang out with arrogant, so guess there are my own issues there. I have an ex-friend who poses like this lady a little bit and that has bothered me a lot! Honestly spent one good hour thinking about this today.
clownfish – you raise an excellent question – what are some of the characteristics of arrogance, and would I know it if I saw it in the flesh right in front of me? I’d like to think that most of the time it is so obvious that everyone sees it, but that’s not always the case. So in my experience…
Arrogant people always come across as if they are better than everyone else – as if they are literally the best. They are NOT the best, but they believe they are. They will perceive you and I are beneath them, not as worthy, not as intelligent, not as moral, don’t sacrifice as much as they do, etc.
Arrogant people are always right. Even when they are wrong they believe they are right. I’ve seen this several times, when an arrogant person will state something that is clearly false, and they only become stronger in their false beliefs when the error is shown to them. These people literally don’t feel they make any mistakes. Even when they drive businesses into bankruptcy, push their spouse or children out of their lives, etc. they believe they are still right. They will be right at any cost.
Arrogant people seem to be impervious to consequences. They will do what they will do, reality be damned. They literally want to make reality bend to their will – and they believe it does, even when it doesn’t. I’ve never actually met a human that can bend the laws of nature, but these people seem to think they really can.
They lie, cheat, deceive, steal, mislead, falsify, misrepresent, and all the rest, without one ounce of remorse or regret.
They only do what they perceive to be in their own best interest. Always. 100% of the time. So if they help someone else out, it’s because it actually helps the arrogant person more, they actually don’t care that much (if at all) about the other person who received the help.
Appalling communication skills – their listening is plain awful, there is zero empathy, and they couldn’t say what they were actually feeling for all the money in the world. All the communication is one way – them to you – you will never feel like you were truly and deeply heard or listened to – because that never happened with the arrogant person. They listen to confirm what they believe, not to show care or compassion.
Very combative and highly competitive – they always have to win. Always. They will fight and fight and fight, to the point of exhaustion (your exhaustion, not theirs) because they always have to win. Did I point out that they always have to win?
Does that help describe what an arrogant person can be like? Not all arrogant people have all these traits, but most of the people I’ve run across have most of these traits, many have all of them. Scary as the devil – Eyes is absolutely correct – RUN in the opposite direction so fast you leave skid marks!
I am not sure if I have run across such a person. But that sounds really ugly.
You won’t always *see* those traits in an arrogant person if you don’t recognize the arrogance itself, because sometimes it works out, and then it might look as if they actually are right, or that they were just confident and knew what they were talking about (ever heard the saying, “even a broken clock tells the right time twice a day”?), or it’s masked in some way that makes it look like something other than what it is.
We’ve had discussions a few times on the blog here about what is arrogance, and it’s always a tricky one to define and distinguish from something similar in appearance like confidence.
A confident person can be wrong. A confident person can be taught. A confident person can be corrected.
An arrogant person is always right. An arrogant person resists being corrected. An arrogant person cannot be taught, and can only “teach” others. Arrogance is false confidence, and so the behaviors that accompany arrogance will be behaviors rooted in protecting that false confidence. Real confidence doesn’t defend– it has nothing to defend, it simply is what it is, and is content to not be what it isn’t.
Also, confidence is humble. Arrogance is not humble. Humility and arrogance do not go hand in hand. Arrogance may project a false humility, but if you inspect it more closely, there is a distinct lack of humility when it does. Humility which accompanies confidence never shows that same lack.
Actually that last point brings up another distinction that’s very useful. Arrogance is a confidence that’s rooted in the PERSON themselves. Confidence is never rooted in the person, but rooted in their knowledge or experience itself. That’s why arrogance is defensive and aggressive, while confidence is open and welcoming. Confidence is something which can be shared. Arrogance is something which cannot be shared. With confidence, nothing is lost by being shared– I can share what makes me confident with you without my confidence being diminished at all. With arrogance, everything is lost by being shared– I can share nothing with you without being diminished myself.
Interesting. The distinction of sharing vs. not sharing. That is something I’ve seen in my workplace. I usually see it as confidence versus lack of confidence. We have some people that are very open with their work and others are quite secretive/viewing everything as a competition.
Keith, do you think at the heart of arrogance is complete insecurity and perhaps some level of mental illness?I have know several arrogant people. My husband works in academia, and will tell me instances in which incredibly bright/intelligent people will just bite the head off of someone in their department over a perceived attack on their intelligence, or decision making. Honestly, when he describes situations, it’s crazy how insulting and attacking they get with each other. Maybe there is situational arrogance? And then, there is arrogance rooted in a person? So some people are arrogant all of the time, but maybe we could all be guilty of situational arrogance? These are some really insightful and interesting questions. I also wonder if arrogance ( like the comments eyes made) is symptomatic of mental illness. I have a sister who is mentally ill, and she gets so annoyed that she has to “explain” things to me, or correct others because they are so “dumb” in her mind, it’s exasperating to her. Now, if anyone was to talk or listen to her, they would know right away something is off, but she truly believes she is smarter/more insightful than everyone around her.
I don’t see arrogance and mental illness as the same thing really, because there’s such a wide range and mixture of the two in the world. You’ll find arrogant people who span the gamut from perfectly sane and rational to completely off their rockers. You’ll also find mentally ill people who span the gamut from humble and kind to Elliot Rodger full of themselves. I think the two can be co-morbid, but I don’t really equate them or connect them together personally. To me, they’re two separate things that sometimes occur together and sometimes don’t.
Because arrogance is a kind of false confidence, it is absolutely insecure. I don’t believe arrogance by its nature can ever not be insecure when it comes down to it. But I don’t think you’ll find any arrogant people who would say they’re insecure. I think almost all of them would say they’re very secure, and they’ll bash you into the ground (or just condescend you or make you feel small or insignificant or less worthy in some other way) if they have to in order to prove it to you (ergo the inherent insecurity).
I’d be interested in seeing some of those people your husband tells you about. Arrogance isn’t uncommon in academia from the stories I’ve heard over the years, and it’s not uncommon in incredibly intelligent people either. Sometimes a high skill level in something actually feeds a person’s arrogance, because it can act as a justification to them for the way they feel– i.e., “I’m the best brain surgeon in the country, so obviously I’m just better than you are, otherwise you’d be the best brain surgeon in the country and you’re not so I’m just going to treat you like the dirt that you are”.
Some other possible factors in your husband’s case are a lack of social skills, a lack of patience, or a paranoid personality type. Highly intelligent people frequently lack social skills, and may not understand the point of social graces or “making nice” with people. When I was younger, I went through a phase like this myself. I tended to see a lot of social interactions as inefficient and wasteful, so I gave up on doing them and went with more of the bare minimum necessary communication when dealing with people. Things like saying please or thank you seemed like a waste of breath, because you can just ask for what you want and the person can either give it to you or not give it to you and even though it’s just a few seconds or a minute each time, a lot of time can be saved over the course of your life. And it drove me nuts when people would say things like, “Can I ask you a question?” before asking me for what they wanted. I was like, “What is the point in asking that question? You obviously want something other than to ask me a question, so why don’t you just say what you mean and not waste time with this?” It wasn’t a pleasant phase for people, I’m sure of that. Later on in life I began to put the pieces together and understood that these social customs weren’t inefficient or wasteful, they’re considerate and are actually beneficial in the longer term, so I took to engaging in them again and now I defend their use and will sometimes try to teach people what they’re needed for and why they’re good things so that they’ll understand and use them more themselves.
As for impatience, a highly intelligent person is probably already 8 steps ahead of you when they’re talking to you, and it can wear a person’s patience thin if they have to keep going back and explaining all the steps they’ve already gone through again for the umpteenth time to someone else. If they’re not someone who’s patient to begin with, or if they’re in a rush or a hurry or “in the zone” about something, this can really push them past their breaking point with even a seemingly trivial thing. It’s still a character flaw, but it’s not necessarily the same thing as arrogance.
And for a paranoid personality type, some people have very suspicious personalities, and they’ll tend to view the world and everyone around them with an eye of suspicion. They’ll always be looking for a hidden motive with everything and everyone, and so they’ll see them even when they don’t exist. These people will collect slights against them and harbor them for ages. They’ll tend to blame everyone around them for either having it out for them or trying to hold them back or keep them from achieving whatever goal they’ve set for themselves. They’re very toxic people, but they’re not necessarily arrogant– although often arrogance will serve their need to see machinations where none exist because it keeps their skewed perspectives from ever being corrected by anyone. I’m currently reading Joe Navarro’s new book, Dangerous Personalities, and he talks about the paranoid personality types in part of that book– these are the types who he’d tend to label as “wound collectors” because they practically keep a list of every offense every person has ever made against them in any way, and they tend to harbor ill will toward people because of them– even people they’ve never met before and know nothing about. They’ll tend to see things in purely black and white, with no gray, no subtlety, and through that lens, they’ll project an imagined person on top of an actual person and then blame the actual person for what they’ve imagined and overlaid on top of them. A paranoid personality doesn’t necessarily mean a person won’t be highly intelligent otherwise, or won’t be successful in life. It just means they’ll tend to not see reality for what it is, and then be toxic to the people around them as a result.
Any of these could equally be explanations for what your husband has described– or it could just be normal, every day arrogance.
And arrogant people may not ACT arrogant about everything all the time. It’s more of an underlying personality trait– a way of being and a way of perceiving the world around them. Anyone can have their head get too big and get carried away with themselves with something at times, but arrogance is more of a pervasive thing than just not knowing enough to know that you don’t know. Knowledge seems to exist on a kind of spectrum that way. You go from knowing nothing, to knowing some, to knowing a bit more, to thinking you know everything (which is where arrogance stops progressing), to learning enough beyond thinking you know everything to realize you don’t actually know very much at all and you feel like you haven’t even really begun in the first place, to starting to really know, and eventually to understanding and mastery– at which point you’ve probably realized you’ll still be learning for the rest of your life and you’ll NEVER know it all, but you’ll understand more about that than any expert ever will. Mastery seems to come somewhere around the level of humility, which ironically is well beyond the level of arrogance.
And I think that’s what might make it tricky to understand, because as you read through that progression, it almost seems to snake back on itself and zigzag back and forth rather than just being a straight progression from one direction to the other. I only wish I understood it well enough myself that I could describe it more clearly and succinctly.
I just want to jump in for a second here – totally agree that arrogance and mental illness are not the same in every case. The defining characteristic of mental illness is that the individual is not able to function in ordinary life and/or suffers due to the condition. (huge oversimplification, but you get the idea). Arrogance is the notion that one person believes they are better than anyone else and everyone else is beneath them.
Sometimes the best way for me to understand arrogance is to see its opposite – humility – and that makes arrogance all the clearer for me to see in other people.
Psychology is only now beginning to understand the value of humility. I perceive humility as the opposite of arrogance. There is some research on the subject, but not much so far. What the research appears to show is that humble people actually have a very accurate assessment of the world around them, they can be very effective leaders (as Jim Collins writes about in Good to Great), and humble people have better performance in relationships, jobs and in school than their prideful or arrogant counterparts. It’s possible to be humble and have healthy pride at the same time – such as humility with the the gift of children and simultaneously have pride in the beautiful people your children have become.
If you want to experience this humble/pride feeling simultaneously, here’s a very easy way to get started – Write a letter to someone you know about what they mean to you. Give it to them, and read it out loud to them. It may very well be the very best present you’ll ever give them. I promise you’ll feel humble and proud at the same time – in a loving way, not an arrogant way. PS – this also makes a great present for holidays and birthdays and such.
It’s true that in the video she has this sick air as if to say “I already won, because they’re dead, and even though you caught me, I still don’t care about anything or any of you and you can’t make me which is great”
That’s kind of an instance of what you wrote about how they HAVE to win, or rather Russ, sorry getting posts mixed up.
Your description sounds like how this article describes Bill Cosby. http://www.tvguide.com/news/bill-cosby-rape-allegations-timeline-1089629.aspx
Creepy.
>Your description sounds like how this article describes Bill Cosby.
Agreed, that does sound very similar.
I realized there is one more characteristic of arrogant people I have not see in this discussion, and it pertains to the Italian nurse – most arrogant people I’ve met or heard about believe they are above all laws and rules. In their eyes laws and rules are for lesser folks, and they (the arrogant person) can do whatever they want because they are above all of this. More basic is the sense that they don’t think they’ve even done anything wrong. In their eyes what they did was good and helpful and beneficial to the target. I’m serious. They really think this way. The fault is in the laws or rules, not in them, in their eyes. They don’t follow laws and rules because those get in the way of whatever they want to do. They will do whatever they want, laws and rules be damned, and they actually believe the rest of us should follow their lead.
Now look at the Italian nurse, and I find it extremely obvious that she thinks this way.
Apparently so does Bill Cosby, based on all the references.
Physician, heal thyself.
I probably have enough context from your three word comment to know exactly what you mean, but I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt and let you explain for now anyway. What is it that you’re actually trying to say here? It won’t be clear to everyone just from your comment.
FYI “mortifying” means humiliating.
Yes, I will change that word to horrifying 🙂 Thanks
>Someone like that is very unpredictable and could go off over nothing like a stick of dynamite (and then switch it back off in an instant like a light switch if necessary)
I don’t recall ever seeing arrogance described that way before – I find the description very insightful – at least for me. Thanks for sharing, it gives me a better perspective on arrogance.
You are exactly right on.
Evil and crazy are the best words to describe her.
My husband said he saw maliciousness in the beach photo.
I agree with Russ, great description & gives a good visual!
It’s the eyes. If I had only her facial expressions to go off of and nothing else, not her eyes or what is in the photos, I would simply conclude that this is a person that is happy, though maybe quite pleased with herself, in most of them. Selfies are posed and so it is hard to get smiles that go to the eyes or a genuine emotion, and in hers, you can tell that even without looking at the eyes. But some of her photos, the smiles do go the eyes, it’s just not the same type of emotion causing the smile. The photo after she’s been arrested is haunting because I don’t need the eyes to see that she’s completely proud and “in your face” about what she did. Look at that chin jut. “How dare you disrespect ME,” it seems to say. Other than that last photo, nothing that I saw, personally, would indicate that she’s cold and calculating, when taking just her facial expressions minus eyes into account. But the eyes, those eyes have no depth. If this woman was ever hurt in a way that would explain this, whatever it was turned off her soul, because that pain can’t be seen behind those eyes. Demon-possessed is the closest I can come to accurately explaining what I see in those eyes.
There’s one photo with more depth than the others. The one where she’s flashing the peace sign. If you look at just her eyes, you could guess that she’s smiling, and it seems genuine and not malicious. I’d be interested to know when this photo was taken in relation to the others.
I searched for the pictures due to, I guess, curiosity. And they were horrid. But they were not selfies. A colleague (who claimed she was intimidated by Daniela) took them.
That was the part that made me want to be sick. SOMEONE else took the pictures! How do you not say, “No, I don’t want to be a part of this.” ?
Maybe she is really scary…. and they were trying to catch her? Can you even believe this stuff is real??
I could easily see someone who felt intimidated by someone like this going along with it because they felt they had no choice.