I understand about narcissists and even their self-serving business-minded focus, but the descriptions given by Ann Rule and Dr. Luber in the book describe Jonah as a completely different character with moral integrity, fortitude, and reason. He doesn't sound like a narcissist in the book. Quite the contrary, he sounds like a gentleman who genuinely loved Rebecca.
Narcissists are incapable of loving anyone but themselves, and I don't think they're able to hide their egocentric side from others.
That's what I don't understand. How could he have loved Rebecca if he was willing to let Rebecca take the fall for Max's accident, get Rebecca killed, then influence LE to rule her death a suicide and close the case quickly, and prevent Anne Bremner's team from gaining access into the Spreckels mansion to investigate and do a re-creation of the crime?
Something just doesn't fit. I don't believe a person can be two very different things unless they have a split personality.
Either Jonah's a narcissistic businessman who only cares about himself and his business/money, or he's a genuinely compassionate, loving, generous man to Rebecca and his children who tries to do the right thing but is nonetheless flawed as all human beings are.
I don't know how to reconcile these two contrasting images of Jonah. I'm in conflict. It makes me wonder whether he conspired in the murder of Rebecca, or that he was totally unaware and just caught in the cover-up, or perhaps he had absolutely nothing to do with the crime.
BBM - I think they hide it fairly well and there are different degrees of narcissism. Many probably do love on some level, but it's when something comes in conflict with their image, control, or needs that their decisions seem odd. The contrast. I don't think narcissist are necessarily bad people. Maybe Jonah was a "a genuinely compassionate, loving, generous man to Rebecca and his children who tries to do the right thing but is nonetheless flawed as all human beings are". IDK. Some people will just take the path of least resistance.
You say:
"How could he have loved Rebecca if he was willing to let Rebecca take the fall for Max's accident, get Rebecca killed, then influence LE to rule her death a suicide and close the case quickly, and prevent Anne Bremner's team from gaining access into the Spreckels mansion to investigate and do a re-creation of the crime?"
I'm not sure at all that he let Rebecca take the fall for Max's accident. I think I said this earlier. Whatever Jonah did or said could have been within all of our normal ways of responding, but for some people it only takes a tiny thread to go overboard and run with it. I think that's exactly what we see in the Boy Interrupted article. People like that WILL find something, anything.
I'm also not sure he did anything to get LE to close the case quickly or rule it a suicide.
I don't know about why he prevented access. I'm speculating it was more of a business decision and/or that he wanted to trow that one back in SDSO's ballpark. Or to avoid more publciity (that would possibly be the narcissist coming out).
I'm not standing up for Jonah. I'm just trying to put all the pieces together and not make assumptions about him. This whole case makes more logical sense when I take him out as being involved. It doesn't make sense if I try to take others out of the picture at all nor when I try to include the four.
A few of things stand out to me in the history of Dina and Jonah. Dina was as much a part of any past domestic violence as Jonah, maybe more. Jonah does not seem to want anything, nadda, to do with her now nor allow her any contact with his children. Jonah started a nonprofit in Max's name that he did not make a huge media deal out of - it looks like a labor of love to me. Contrast that with the huge media campaign we saw last Summer and the totally strange goals of the nonprofit - especially given Dina's domestic violence record and seeming hatred toward a woman who was trying to be a part of her son's life. and the throwing up of road blocks to prevent a healthy blended family. It didn't take much to set her over the edge.
