Kristen Gilbert "Angel of Death" | Borderline Personality and Violence

hello this is dr grande today's question is can i analyze the case of kristin gilbert who is otherwise known as the angel of death just a reminder i'm not diagnosing anybody in this video only speculating about what could be happening in a situation like this if you enjoy this video please like it subscribe to my channel and consider supporting me on patreon i'll put the link to patreon in the description for this video first i'll look at the background the case i'll move to the timeline of the crimes then offer my analysis kristin gilbert was born kristen strickland in fall river massachusetts on november 13 1967. gilbert's father richard was an executive for an electronics company her mother claudia was a part-time teacher and homemaker fall river massachusetts is where lizzie borden lived and allegedly committed the notorious axe murders of her father and stepmother in 1892. borden of course was acquitted in that case gilbert used to brag to her friends and co-workers about being born in the same town as lizzie borden she even claimed to be related to lizzie borden viewing that as a positive something she was proud of in reality she was not related to lizzie borden in addition to lizzie borden as a role model later gilbert became fascinated with an evil nurse character on the daytime soap general hospital the household where gilbert grew up was described as unaffectionate her parents were extremely rigid strict and disciplined everything needed to be a certain way this was not based on any religious belief system her parents were atheists gilbert started manifesting deceptive and manipulative behavior during her childhood for example she told her friends that her mother consumed alcohol and attacked her neither of those characterizations were correct according to gilbert's father in addition to being manipulative gilbert threatened a number of people with violence despite her behavioral challenges she graduated from high school and enrolled at bridgewater state college she was ordered to undergo a mental health assessment due to one of her many fake suicide attempts this was a manipulation tactic she used frequently due to the evaluation she transferred to a community college in gardner massachusetts before transferring to another community college in greenfield massachusetts she graduated with a nursing diploma from the community college in greenfield in 1988 she would become a registered nurse also in 1988 she married a man named glennon gilbert who she met in 1986. about a month after gilbert married glenn gilbert she attacked him with a knife typically one spouse attacking another after a month of marriage tends to predict a negative outcome for that relationship that's why it's so rarely recommended by marriage counselors but this couple decided to continue on they would eventually have two children one in 1990 and another in 1993. in 1989 gilbert started working as a nurse in the veterans affairs medical center in northampton massachusetts during the shifts that gilbert was working there were a disproportionately high number of deaths some of her colleagues started referred to her as the angel of death normally a nurse would not be honored to have this title but gilbert seemed to really enjoy the notoriety there was even a physician on that ward where she worked that wouldn't allow gilbert to treat any of his patients so there was this sense that something wasn't quite right but at a statistical level no one was really making the calculations to figure out if those number of deaths were really so far at the ordinary that something else must be happening during the same time suspicious incidents were occurring with her husband one time he was treated in the er with a low potassium level but nobody could explain what happened they were able to correct his potassium level and the problem did not return in 1995 gilbert moved into her own apartment she was having an affair with a security officer at the hospital this was effectively the end of her relationship with glenn and gilbert as all this was going on suspicious deaths continued to occur during times when gilbert was working at the hospital it would not be until 1996 when three nurses started to connect the dots they noticed that they were always in short supply of epinephrine and there was an increased number of fatalities due to cardiac arrest they filed a report which led to an investigation a bomb threat was called in by gilbert it slowed the investigation but it did not stop it the authorities were already onto her at this point she was under surveillance when she called in the bomb threat she would leave the hospital that same year and check herself into a mental health treatment facility on seven different occasions with her stays ranging from one day to 10 days it was not until 1998 when gilbert was convicted of calling in that bomb threat that same year she and her husband divorced and she was indicted for murder so it was a busy time in her life prosecutors believe that she was responsible for many deaths during her time at the hospital probably 40 or more other reports have the number higher than that the real number will never be known she was only charged with three counts of first degree murder one count of second-degree murder and two counts of attempted murder which is a testament to how difficult these types of cases are to prosecute even though massachusetts does not have the death penalty the murders took place on federal property so the prosecutors were able to pursue the death penalty gilbert was convicted of all the charges on march 14 2001 the jury recommended life in prison instead of the death penalty 13 days later she was sentenced to four consecutive life terms without the possibility of parole plus 20 years she initially appealed but dropped it after she was advised that she could be subject to the death penalty if her conviction was overturned and she was tried and convicted again now moving to my analysis i mentioned in the background how gilbert tended to lie frequently when she was young friends and neighbors found her behavior to be obvious it was clear that she was making up things right in the moment she was not always an effective liar some described her as mentally unstable vengeful and malicious they said she fell into a pattern in several romantic relationships if she felt as though she was losing control in the relationship she would beg for forgiveness saying she would do whatever is necessary to save that relationship when that was not successful she would attack both physically and verbally here a few examples of her behavior toward romantic interest who had recently broken up with her with one romantic interest she told him she was going to eat glass in an attempt to bring an end to her life he rushed over to attend to her but she was fine with another she would repeatedly call his house breathe heavily then hang up she attacked that same individual by gouging at his face with her fingernails with yet another former boyfriend she used a key to scratch both sides of his car cut his tires and removed the spark plug wires from the engine later with another boyfriend she loosened the lug nuts on the wheels of his car as i mentioned due to the disproportionate number of deaths during shifts that gilbert worked she attracted negative attention that whole angel of death thing the nurses were not big fans of gilbert mostly because of the dying part she wasn't adjusting well to the environment but in february of 1991 after returning to work after having her first child in december of 1990 the other nurses at the hospital appeared to have a change of heart they saw gilbert as similar to them they would often go to various functions together like parties and dinners gilbert fit in fairly well they thought of her as living a normal life in suburbia they also liked her husband glenn gilbert even still they noticed a few things about her that were unusual she had to have the very best clothes everything had to be brand name only she would often purchase expensive items and return them to the store after she used them for a night out or a dinner party sometime after the birth of her second child in november of 1993 her co-workers and friends noticed a number of changes gilbert was dressing more provocatively wore more makeup lost weight and she frequently changed her hairstyle she started to talk about how she no longer loved glenn sometime in 1994 is when she met that security officer at the hospital and had an affair with him as far as mental health gilbert was diagnosed with borderline personality disorder bpd it was also believed that she may have had narcissistic and antisocial personality disorders but those two were never officially diagnosed it was reported that she was a poor historian minimized her faults and tried to convince clinicians that she was not mentally ill her mental health and personality characteristics are fairly interesting for a number of reasons her psychopathology seems to be confined to a certain area specifically her personality and more specifically cluster b personality pathology cluster b contains four personality disorders borderline anti-social narcissistic and histrionic the last one is the only one we don't hear of in reference to gilbert there are no reports of anything like a major mood disorder like major depressive disorder or bipolar disorder nothing about psychosis like schizophrenia nothing about ptsd or substance use again it's restricted to just personality pathology during her trial there was a particular emphasis on her masculine personality characteristics this seems to be consistent with a theory we see about cluster b personality pathology specifically there's this idea that antisocial personality disorder is really more frequent among men and borderline personality disorder is more frequently diagnosed among women this leads to this theory that borderline personality is essentially a feminine expression of anti-social personality this theory is not too popular these days but during the time when gilbert was being tried the theory was fairly well known the way the case would probably be conceptualized these days would be a bit different bpd can be associated with some aggression but it's rarely thought of as leading to homicide on its own gilbert may have simply had both borderline and anti-social characteristics as the clinicians suspected for example we know that the clinicians believe she had psychopathy she was sensation-seeking impulsive deceptive and lacked empathy they also believed she had grandiose narcissism the type of narcissism captured in narcissistic personality disorder she had a sense of entitlement she was envious and manipulated people with all this in mind here's how one may conceptualize a case like this like looking at the mechanism that could have led to homicide let's start by looking at the symptom criteria for bpd we see there are nine symptoms associated with the disorder frantic efforts to avoid abandonment an unstable relationship pattern identity disturbance impulsivity suicidal behavior affective instability so difficulty regulating one's mood like emotional dysregulation chronic feelings of emptiness inappropriate or intense anger or difficulty controlling anger and paranoid ideation or dissociation with those symptoms in mind we get this picture of someone who has a lot of interest in romantic relationships but not much in the way of an ability to maintain those relationships romance is both a source of joy and pain the individual cannot make peace with that there's no way to reconcile relationships because stability and a sense of satisfaction are difficult to realize they cannot find or are unwilling to find security in the relationship they experience the passionate love otherwise known as infatuation but they do not experience the consummate love which is known as complete love there is no depth to the romance furthermore if the relationship does move away from infatuation and starts to become meaningful the individual takes that as a sign that something went terribly wrong they cannot accept the relationship becoming satisfactory or positive so it's either negative satisfactory or positive if it's satisfactory or positive they're not happy with that and of course if it's negative that is not pleasant so there's really no way the relationship can work as this is going on the individual seeks attention they want to be thought of as attractive they want to feel loved but really no matter what they do they don't feel that way frustrated they start to go to extremes to capture that love including harming themselves normally an individual with bpd would be a danger to themselves and perhaps a danger to others to some degree but not a pronounced threat to others what happens if someone with bpd is also psychopathic now in addition to the unstable relationship pattern we see a lack of empathy and remorse someone who is manipulative and a person who has no concerns about being deceptive essentially psychopathy removes all the safeties that we would normally see with an individual with only bpd now with the psychopathy added anything's possible for that individual moral restrictions have been removed therefore homicide even multiple homicides can be acceptable according to their thinking because it helps them to address the demands of the bpd like seeking pleasure in relationships and avoiding pain from those same relationships if one were to add narcissism on top of this we then see a sense of superiority which further justifies this idea that the offender can do whatever they want they deserve romance it doesn't matter if people have to die the only thing that matters is them it's complete self-centeredness perhaps this is what happened in the case of kristen gilbert she exhibited a combination of negative personality characteristics that facilitated the death of many innocent people essentially a devil dressed as an angel willing to cause terrible suffering without hesitation or remorse those are my thoughts on the case of kristin gilbert 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: 89,045

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Length: 15min 46sec (946 seconds)

Published: Sun Jun 06 2021