Dalia Dippolito Case | Mental Health & Personality

welcome to my scientifically informed insider look at mental health topics if you find this video to be interesting or helpful please like it and subscribe to my channel oh this is dr. Grande today's question asks why can analyze the Dalia Dippolito case so can I look at the mental health and personality factors that may be at work in a case like this now Dalia Dippolito was convicted in 2017 of solicitation to commit first-degree murder after a highly publicized police investigation involving a staged crime scene now everybody will be talking about in this video are real people so just remind her I'm not diagnosing anybody only speculating about what could be happening in a situation like this so first to look at the timeline of the crime then take a look at the trials there were multiple trials in this case and then look at the mental health and personality factors the timeline starts in 2008 we see a man named Mike Dippolito hires a 26 year old prostitute named Dalia Muhammad they seem to get along pretty well so they get married in February 2009 Dalia changes her last name to Dippolito Mike buys a condominium in Boynton Beach Florida the couple lives there now Mike Dippolito has a long history of crime including fraud theft and possession of a controlled substance he had served seven months in jail and was originally sentenced to 28 years of probation Mike was on probation for six years when he married Dalia and he was still paying restitution so he had money to pay back to the victims he still owed that now moving to March 2009 we see the police almost violate Mike's probation due to an accusation that he was dealing drugs his residence was searched and nothing was found now in response to this Dalia recommends a romantic getaway to Palm Beach Florida so Mike and Dalia go to a hotel down there and when they come out the next morning the police were waiting in the parking lot there was another anonymous tip they had a tip that somebody was dealing drugs out of their car they searched Mike's car nothing was found evidently Dalia was not fazed by this interaction with law enforcement later in March the same thing happens again when the couple's out to eat except the time the police find cocaine near the spare tire of Mike's vehicle incredibly he talked the police out of being arrested so he tried to explain a situation and they believed him they took the cocaine and they left now later on we learned that Mike also asserts that Dalia tried to poison his tea with antifreeze and was stealing from him we also find out later on us she had two other lovers she had one of them and personate a lawyer an attempt to convince her husband that he had completed probation so he would end up violating probation she also had the same love her make anonymous calls to the police she complained to that lover that even though her name was on the condominium she couldn't sell it without Mike's signature now moving to July 2009 we see the other boyfriend of daya Dippolito his name is Mohammed Shehadeh he calls the police and said that Dalia is alleging that she's been abused by Mike and asked Mohammed if he knew anybody who could kill her husband he refused to help her but then she retrieved a firearm from his glove compartment and said that she would just do it herself he managed to get the gun away from her so after the police talked to Mohammed they worked out the situation to record a meeting between Mohammed and Dalia in his car in this meeting she says that divorce is not an option because Mike would come after her she said he had ties to organized crime she pays Mohammed $1000 this is kind of down payment on a hit against Mike the police then arranged for another meeting with an undercover officer and daya so when they meet she negotiates a price to murder her husband and it starts at $8,000 and she gets it down to $7000 and confirms that she definitely wants her husband killed she says that she's five thousand percent sure so we see a lack of understanding of mathematics coming through pretty clearly but somehow I'm not surprised by this failure to understand how percentages operate now at this point with the hit arranged the police go and get Mike out of his condominium and they staged this whole crime scene as if his murder took place in that condominium after this the police contact daya and she comes out to the condominium and this is where they break the news to her that her husband has been killed and of course he hasn't really been killed but that's what they're saying to her she has this exaggerated response where she's crying and kind of carrying on and walking toward the condominium as the camera is recording all this now after this we see the police department uploads the video to YouTube this video of the staged crime scene and her dramatic reaction this actually ends up jeopardizing their case the TV show cops was also there they were also involved in recording the staged crime scene now after this the police bring her back to the police station and interview her and they have the undercover cop come into the room handcuffed so they're saying look we have this person in custody have you ever met him at this point she denies ever meeting the undercover officer that she had just hired to kill her husband then the police tell her that they have her they say it's all been recorded they know about the meeting between her and the police officer they even show her that Mike Dippolito is alive he comes into the door as she's in this interrogation room she tries to get him to come over closer and he refused at this point though she still denies everything they play the recording for her and yet she still says she didn't do anything wrong she accuses the police of treating her like a criminal which I find interesting and she says she's not that type of person then she asks for an attorney so the interview ends after this she's transported to jail and of course there's a lot of media covering this case now moving to the trials so again we see three trials altogether the first trial was in April 2011 now her defense for this trial was that this was all an act she was conspiring with Mohammed she was conspiring with her husband Mike and they were in on it to kind of build interest for a reality show so they're trying to grab their 15 minutes of fame so to speak now she says what went wrong here is that Mike wanted this to be more real so he went to the police and framed Dalia for hiring somebody to have him killed so really this kind of puts Mike as the mastermind he had this plan to get on reality TV and then he realizes he has an opportunity to get even more famous and he twists it all around and makes her look like she's guilty of a crime she was convicted of solicitation to commit first-degree murder so the jury was not fooled by this she was sentenced to 20 years in prison interestingly her defense in the situation wasn't considered terrible as Mike did seem to have an interest in reality TV shows his search history from his computer showed that he looked for quite a few of them so as outlandish as this initially seems to be the prosecution was actually quite worried they might lose this case now in the end of course with this particular conviction this was overturned on appeal so the prosecution did end up losing the conviction the next trial we see is also a mistrial there was a 3-3 split because in Florida they have just six jurors instead of like what we see with most states where there's 12 but either way we see another mistrial so that's two missed trials in 2016 we see the Dahlia has a baby while under house arrest this takes us to the third trial in 2017 this time daya does not take the stand she doesn't do the whole story about how she was set up by Mike and it was all really a conspiracy from the beginning the new strategy is to blame the police the police department was just trying to get famous they wanted to be on television it wasn't really clear to me how this actually undermined the investigation like I don't think this was a good tactic for the defense I think the police did act in an unprofessional manner it was certainly over the top albeit entertaining but her guilt was still quite clear she was convicted in 2017 and sentenced to 16 years in prison so this judge believed that her first sentence was fair but he gave her four years credit for the eight years that she served under house arrest she is set to be released from prison in 2032 now moving to the mental health and personality factors we see from this video that was made of her and the undercover officer that she appears cold she seems to have kind of a superficial charm no real depth right no real sensitivity she's extremely relaxed during this negotiation where she was trying to have her husband murdered she was matter-of-fact like she was negotiating with a landscaper or an electrician we see what appears to be extremely low neuroticism no empathy and no concern about how ending somebody's life is wrong she wasn't concerned about how her husband might suffer nothing there was really no worry here she placed a lot of trust in the undercover officer it's almost like she was so confident and her powers of manipulation that she didn't really seem to worry about whether she should trust him or not I think the calculation in her head was probably very simple is the person in front of her a man if yes she can manipulate them right she seems to have a lot of comfort in manipulating men we see the same thing when she tries to manipulate the other officers right after she's placed under arrest right they had clear evidence they had the recording and she tried to convince them that she was not guilty now as I mentioned before she negotiated the price from $8,000 to $7,000 I find it interesting that she would take the time to do something like this she's planning a murder and she's going to fight for the extra thousand dollars off the price that's what she was really concerned about not anything else again we see no empathy just the fact that she believes she could hire a hit man for that amount of money points to this idea that she is naive or perhaps again someone who was used to getting her way the statement she makes about being 5,000 percent sure I find this interesting because earlier in the recording she seemed to be more cautious about saying the words about actually explicitly saying as she wanted her husband had killed but then again she seems to trust the undercover officer more we see the diet has a strong emotional reaction or appears to when the police bring in Mike after she is led to believe that he was killed and even after trying to kill him she still believes she can manipulate him so again she's highly confident in her ability she denies her involvement even when they play the recording as I mentioned this is really pretty incredible she sticks to this story she didn't seem flustered again extremely calm after her arrest when she sent to jail she actually calls Mike from jail and denies that she did anything wrong so again even though Dalia knew that Mike saw the recording she can't take any responsibility she won't own her behavior so with all this in mind there are a few constructs that we might think of namely psychopathy and narcissism so first looking at psychopathy some of these I mentioned before we see a lack of empathy someone who's manipulative a lack of remorse superficial charm being irresponsible criminal versatility a failure to accept responsibility and pathological lying over on the narcissism side we see some characteristics associated with grandiose narcissism being dominant overconfident having a sense of entitlement having fantasies of power and wealth arrogance self-centeredness and being extroverted now it really stands out among all these I think is really the manipulation the lying and the failure to take ownership of her behavior so looking at the five factor model in terms of the personality profile I remember the five factors to the acronym ocean openness to experience conscientiousness extraversion agreeableness and neuroticism we see mid-range openness low conscientiousness high extraversion low agreeableness and low neuroticism then there's the question of delusions could there be something here like delusional disorder or some other disorder associated with psychosis the police were really amazed that she was able to lie to them in the face of what can only be characterized as overwhelming evidence well a delusion is a fixed false belief that's maintained even after the observation of convincing counter evidence I can understand why the police might have thought that daya was delusional but I don't think her behavior necessarily aligns with delusional behavior we would have to break down the different components here to explore this did she know that she was lying to the police did she know that she was manipulating her husband and her boyfriends well the answer here is yes it seems clear she did this is not delusional because she was aware that she was being manipulative another question did she really believe that she could talk her way out of being arrested and convicted when again the evidence was really quite clear well here I think she did she did believe she could get away with it and this seems to be an area where people really ask this question could anybody really believe this and not be delusional one thing I've noticed about narcissistic fantasy is that it can start to simulate delusional behavior and for someone who is narcissistic this investment fantasy can blur the line between reality and fantasy some what we see that here in a way like she did really seem to believe she could fool everybody including those who had made the recording of her committing the crime I can appreciate how this seems delusional but there's a difference between approaching a delusion and being delusional I'm surprised that in a case with somebody who's so comfortable with lying that some sort of mental health defense wasn't used I think that would have been more believable than suggesting the police were just hungry for fame so that takes care of the mental health and personality factors I have a few other additional points about this case I don't know if this case is another casualty of the movie pretty woman but it's typically not a good idea to solicit a prostitute get into a long-term relationship and then marry them it's a profession that is sometimes referred to as victimless but I actually think that both people in those transactions become victims it's a profession based on manipulation and exploitation it seems clear from looking at the interviews with Mike Dippolito that the physical connection between the couple was interpreted by him as indicating a positive and healthy relationship this is a mistake I've seen many times now another point Mike is extremely fortunate that the police were willing to listen to his side of the story again he had a long criminal history and was on probation for an extremely long time so any police officer looking at that would have doubts about his credibility Dalia could have easily been successful in framing Mike for the violation of probation someone who is on probation is vulnerable and needs to be extreme be careful and of course we already see some recklessness in the fact that he paid Dalia to have sex with them before they became a couple clearly Mike did not appreciate the position he was in and he took considerable risks one of the questions that I've seen from this case a few times is really about the gullibility of Mike Dippolito when looking at these recordings of Dalia it makes people wonder who could be fooled by her obvious and transparent behavior well Mike was fooled and apparently many other romantic partners were as well there's a combination here of her manipulation skills and the fact that people see what they want to see they believe what they want to believe and sometimes they believe what they need to believe there were poor critical thinking skills evident in many areas of this case I know whenever I talk about cases that are highly publicized in controversial there will be a variety of opinions please put any opinions and thoughts in the comments section they always generate an interesting dialogue as always I hope you found my analysis of this topic to be interesting thanks for watching

Channel: Dr. Todd Grande

Views: 376,352

Keywords: Dalia Dippolito, Mike Dippolito, narcissism, grandiose narcissism, vulnerable narcissism, narcissistic personality disorder, antisocial personality disorder, obsessive-compulsive personality disorder, factor 1 psychopathy, factor 2 psychopathy, sociopathy, hypersensitivity to criticism, mental health, counseling

Id: t8I6vFCRXSk

Length: 16min 41sec (1001 seconds)

Published: Sat May 16 2020