No matter how Jodi acts, she cannot possibly believe this is going well. Nope. I'll never believe it. Her Mother is sitting there watching Jodi flailing and drowning. That's very sad, too.
Keep in mind Mormonattorney's wonderful post exploring the world of parents of sociopathic and/or psychopathic children.
I am a parent of a sociopath as Mormonattorney describes. I would like you to know that after years of struggling, you become somewhat numb yourself. There is shame you feel that somehow this violent person is the result of some mistake you made. My son (the one who is now deceased) was literally born that way--crying and crying, refusing the breast, inconsolable, angry. After he cried once for ten straight hours, I took him to the doctor (this was in the sixties). The doctor offered to enlarge his urethra, thinking he might be in pain. I declined that as just a stab in the dark. Nobody knew what was wrong with him.
By three years old he overturned furniture, pulled drawers out and turned them upside down, climbed on the kitchen counter and threw cans down...By five he was taking kitchen knives and stabbing boxes in the garage. By eight he stabbed his brother by dropping an "arrow" on his little brother's back in the bathtub to see the blood go in the water. He had fashioned this arrow from a chandelier (since I had long before removed knives from the kitchen). I was terrified--the house was full of children who were all vulnerable.
When he was six, I took him to a prominent child psychiatrist at Stanford. He said my son was the most violent child he had ever analyzed and he warned me that he would probably be institutionalized by the time he was ten. I suffered from hyper-vigilance, never knowing a good night's sleep.
He was brilliant, model-level handsome and grew to be six foot four. Violence was his entertainment. Other people suffering was hilarious to him, including mine.
I felt shame and never told anybody about most of the incidents. As he became more dangerous, I called police. I called my Mormon bishop. I sought professional help. The police didn't take me seriously--and there is nothing to be done. No help other than sending him to a school for deviant boys, which we did. It didn't help either.
This is a nightmare for parents. My husband left--it was just too much, leaving me to raise seven children alone. I did my best, but wasn't very available emotionally for the other children and they have suffered as a result.
The sociopath can be showed the evidence plain as day, the parent saying, "I found this marijuana in your room under your mattress," and the child shrugs and says, "It's not mine. I don't know how it got there. Are there any more muffins?"
My child was so charming and so charismatic that he even convinced a social worker that I was mentally ill and persecuting him. I had to present documents from previous admissions, psychiatric treatment to prove I deserved more credibility than the psychopathic teenager!
Mormonattorney describes exactly the cool willingness a parent must have to patiently sit through the lies and wait for the break. I am awed with admiration that she chooses to work with these difficult and unrewarding sociopathic children.
I also saw flashes of the manipulative child Jodi Arias and I don't judge her mother or aunt. You have called everyone. You have done everything. Your child has stolen your car, climbed out windows, pawned your wedding ring, sold your skis, and broken your heart--all with a shrug. There is a gallows humor that helps you survive when you have been through hell raising a hellion. For all you know, they are whispering, "This reminds me of the time she told that ridiculous story about a ninja stealing the car she took."
The mother and the aunt see their child getting what she deserves. She is being publicly humiliated by her manipulations and lying not working. It is a form of justice for them, too, you know. They always said she would end up in jail. Their behavior is not classy, of course, but they have barred her from their home and distanced themselves from her for years. They may also have the genes for sociopathy. She is the classic "bad seed" and if they can benefit in any way from her celebrity, in their view, she owes them.
Unfortunately, to the sociopath, notoriety and celebrity are the same. It is attention, which she can't get by working hard and succeeding because that would be bowing to authority. In her mind, being the most important prisoner is better than being a nobody waiting tables in Yreka.
Which is why I want her on death row, where there is no opportunity to strut and be Queen of the Scene.
