Death by Text on 48 Hours: What’s the motivation?

Tonight, CBS 48 Hours profiled the horrific story of the suicide of teenager Conrad Roy. He was encouraged through text to commit suicide by a so-called “friend”, Michelle Carter. The text between the two are sad to read. Carter is incredibly callous and cold. And you can see in the videos of Roy, he was truly a great guy.

When watching 48 Hours, what was most shocking to me was the lack of understanding about what likely caused Carter to do this. Her motive is very clear to me. While I agree that she wanted attention, as mentioned by the prosecutors, it wasn’t her main underlying motivation. None of the psychologists seem to say why she did this. They seemed bewildered, understandably.

However, as an expert in understanding human behavior, I suspect Carter must have realized at some point in her life that she could manipulate people, and she was successful at it in certain circumstances. That ability to manipulate people, I believe, gave have her a huge sense of power. She enjoyed it. She relished in it. It made her feel significant, in control and brilliant.

I believe Carter thrived on the manipulation and control, and it was her ultimate goal to see how far she could manipulate Roy. If she could get him to commit suicide, it was her ultimate, however sick, power game that would prove her superiority to herself. It would prove to her that she was very brilliant–above people in ways they couldn’t understand.

This is a common trait of someone who is psychopathic. Psychopaths realize they can read other people well, toy with them and manipulate them. They get great joy out of the power and control.

I don’t know whether Carter is or is not a psychopath, I’m not a psychologist, but she shows several indicators that support the possibility.

If you notice during her trial, the only time she felt emotions was for herself.

Michelle Carter truly gives me the chills.

My heart goes out to Roy’s family. He was a special guy. You can clearly see he was a compassionate person who was victimized by a person without any compassion. I hope and pray Carter gets an appropriate sentence and Roy’s family can somehow find peace.

48 Hours: Frances Hall and Bonnie Contreras

If you caught 48 Hours this past weekend, what a story they told. You can’t believe the situations people find themselves in, and how they react and handle them until you see it sometimes. Emotions can cause people to do dumb and devastating things. Emotions, if not controlled, will derail you faster than anything else in this world, and that is what appeared to happen in this story.

Frances and Bill Hall were married 32 years. They were high school sweethearts. Bill Hall built a successful trucking company and it appears his success got to his head. He felt entitled to have a very young girlfriend (half his age), and a wife. He kept communications open with both women even after his wife knew about his infidelity. And worse, his mistress, Bonnie Contreras texted his wife horrible things and attacked her on social media.

One day in October, Frances saw her husband and Bonnie driving on the road the opposite direction, and says she did a u-turn to confront Bonnie.  Witness spotted the two women driving fast and erratically, and reported it to police. And the man in the middle, Bill Frances was there too, on his custom blue Harley, and tried to come between the women in some fashion.

In the end, something occurred where Bill’s motorcycle went off the road, and he ultimately ended up dying from his injuries.

The question raised on 48 Hours and in the courtroom was:  Who was telling the truth?

Bonnie Contreras testified that Frances started ramming her vehicle from behind repeatedly. Then she says Bill was between them on his Harley, and that Frances hit Bill sending him flying off his bike. She testifies that she also saw the motorcycle fly off the road, too, and that Frances never stopped.

Frances claims she never hit Bonnie, and that she didn’t hit Bill–that he wasn’t between them. From the accident scene, it appears that Bill possibly grazed the side of Frances vehicle while riding on the shoulder, and lost control. Frances says she has no idea he was there or that she hit him.  Yet the state thinks she intentionally killed him in a rage.

Who do you believe is telling the truth?

48 Hours: Stephen Nichols and Rhonda Castro

This past weekend, 48 Hours profiled the story of Stephen Nichols and Rhonda Castro.

Julia Simmons, Rhonda’s mother, rented a room from Stephen Nichols, and she decided to introduce her daughter to Nichols.

Stephen and Rhonda hit it off and started dating. They dated three years and had a little baby girl together.

After having her baby, Rhonda gained a little weight and wanted to lose it, said Nichols, so he suggested they go hiking.

Rhonda told her mom about going on the hike, “He’s either gonna give me a ring or he’s gonna throw me off the cliff.”

They went hiking in Oregon’s Columbia River Gorge–a place of stunning beauty and unforgiving cliffs.

On their hike, Rhonda, according to Stephen, slipped and fell to her death.

Stephen has since been charged with murdering Rhonda, but has not yet faced a trial.

What do you believe? You can see more here: Trail of Tears

48 Hours: Angelika Graswald

Did you see 48 Hours this past weekend? I just watched it.

Do I think Angelika Graswald gave a false confession?

Absolutely not. There are many elements that reveal this is not a false confession. No way, no how.

Anita Smithey “The Verdict” 48 Hours

When I watched Anita Smithey on 48 Hours, I do not believe that she said one honest thing in the entire interview. It was jaw dropping and the clues were abundant from the very first minute we see her to the very end of the interview. I could write a book on her.

Anita tries to portray a very different person then she truly is, but fails miserably at it.

When Anita hears the verdict, if she was truly a victim, I would expect surprise or shock, but we see none of it. Then you can literally see Anita work up a reaction–a very fake one. Listen to her give a fake wail as she attempts to “collapse” in her attorney’s arms. And look at how upset she is in this still shot below when she is wailing!  That wail she creates is anything but real and genuine.

anita
When I listen to the 911 call, there are immediate clues that she is acting in her voice. There are notable changes which can be immediately articulated.

I love how she shoots him, and then has no fear and goes outside and says on the 911 call as she sits outside on the steps, “I don’t want him to die.”

Wait a minute here!!   I thought you were afraid for your life–that he was going to kill you–but you turned your back and went outside and sat down?  And had no fear??

Would you turn your back on someone without knowing if they are 100% dead if you feared for your life?

How is that anywhere consistent with her story?

It’s flat out absurd.

Anita said on 48 Hours, “Did I think he could kill me, yes I did.”

If you are truly afraid, you don’t turn your back on the man even if you think he is dead, because if he is a dangerous, he could just pull through and surprise you, and kill you!  Fear doesn’t dissipate that quickly in a life or death situation.

I love how Anita says “he had violent sex with me” instead of rape. You notice she can’t use the word “rape”?  It’s notable.

According to one of Anita’s friends during the trial, Anita shared with her that she and Robert willfully engaged in “rough sex” by choice and there was knives involved and she enjoyed it. It was her “thing”.

Hmmm…

When Anita recounts Robert coming after her, she shows no supportive emotions whatsoever. You’d think she was talking about a lunch party instead.  There is no fear, stress, concern, or tension in her face at all. It’s eerily missing.

Anita’s injuries are completely superficial, and worse she admits she made them herself. There was no intense pressure from police in the interview we see. She could have left at any time, but she chose to keep talking by choice–to convince police of what she was saying.

After the murder, Anita called her best friend and said, “I’m sorry, I didn’t want it to go this way. He was hurting me.”

I would expect Anita to say that she feared for her life, that he was raping her and was going to kill her, but she doesn’t.  She can’t quite say it because I believe its untrue.

Anita says when talking about Robert showing up at her house the night she killed him, “I was a little concerned with what he is doing here. I don’t know where this is going.”

Anita wants you to think he surprised her, right?  Yet we hear that he came by to have sex on Monday nights when her kids were at their father’s house. So it wasn’t unusual for them to spend time together.

Furthermore, a detective says, “Anita first said Mr. Cline came over to the house that night and somehow was able to get inside the house.”

Then she says after Robert came over, he fixed her cable.  He just randomly shows up and decides to fix her cable?  Are you buying it?

After he fixed the cable, they watched a movie and started kissing, “Okay, so he wants to have sex, and this is what we do and he’ll go home.  So I’m sort of consensual on…you know, having sex with him….initially.”

Do you see how she is all over the board here?

After the sex, 48 Hours reports that Anita said she got dressed and she told Robert to leave, and she talks about how he put a knife to her neck.  Notice she tells him to leave–that’s quite bold if she is an abused women under his control. Don’t you think?

Anita says, “‘I’m like….if you hurt me, you’re not going to get away with this. Everyone’s gonna know it’s you’ …Because I felt at that moment, is he threatening to kill me? Like what is he doing with the knife? I don’t understand like what he’s doing.”

Does that make sense?

If you just had sex with someone, and they violently attack you afterwards and come after you and put a knife at your neck, would you not know what was going on?

Her story is a absurd.

Then Anita says nothing more about the knife, her being cut (no details), just now Robert wanted “rough sex”.

No offense here, but when men age, they typically need time before they can engage again.  And she no longer fights him?  Suddenly he is reaching for coconut oil — that investigators found in the bathroom, not where Anita said it was.

Yeah, right.

So Anita says, “I’ve gotta gun (which she says put under her pillow when he got the coconut oil) get off of me.”

And she wants us to believe big bad Robert Cline who is so much bigger than her, and raping her, and who is sitting on top of her docilely stops, watches her wiggle around, finds her gun and shoot him.

In the back.

How did he even get on his stomach when he was raping her?

So much of this story is missing. For a reason.

Suddenly she is stronger and more powerful then him. Wow!

Then she says, “We were so close, like he was right there. We were so close. To the point that I think he was almost leaning on the gun.”

With his back?

This is crazy.  Big bad Robert just leaned on her gun.  He had no fear of a gun and let her wield it at him.

Right.

Her entire account is riddled with lies, false accounts and nonsense. I personally believe she intentionally killed Robert.  She was sick of him, his arguments with her, and wanted finally to show him who was really in control and it wasn’t Robert.

I suspect Anita and Robert had tense relationship.  They argued and were like oil and water at times. I don’t disagree about that. There was verbal arguments, and maybe some heated situations, but I don’t believe a word Anita tells us this incident at all.

I could write a book about this woman. Thank goodness she is locked up!

There is actually one huge whopper in this case that I haven’t addressed.  Do you know what it is?