Russell Williams Murder 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 if I can analyze the Russell Williams case so what are the mental health and personality factors that may be at work in a case like this Russell Williams was a colonel in the Canadian Armed Forces who lived a double life just a reminder that I'm not diagnosing anybody when this video only speculating about what could be happening in a situation like this so first I'll take a look at the background then I'll look at the timeline of the crimes and then the mental health and personality factors so starting with the background Russell Williams was born in 1963 in England his parents moved to Canada a few years later his father David Williams was a PhD metallurgist who worked at a research lab his parents were divorced in 1969 evidently David Williams had an affair with a woman named Lynne savka after this his mother Christine Williams started a relationship with Lynn's husband Gerry Sotka Gerry was also a PhD who worked at the same facility the couple would get married in 1970 Russell ended up being cared for by Christine and Gerry and for many years he even used the last name savka evidently the breakup of these two couples was a bit of a scandal so Christine and Gerry decided to move out of that community evidently Christine was extremely extroverted and she also considered herself to be in the upper class of society the divorce took place when Russell was 6 years old it's believed that this was something he really struggled with Russell would go to boarding school his roommate in school said that Russell had no social skills whatsoever and said even though they shared a room together they had no interaction between them the roommate said that Russell would listen to the same Diana Ross song over and over to the point where the needle on the record player actually failed so this made me curious I looked up this Tennessee to listen to the same song over and over and it's not connected with anything unusual it's actually remarkably common although listening to the same song so many times that the needle fails that might be a little extreme but still overall this construct is not tied to anything clearly destructive Russell thought that he was better than other people he was described as a snob he was considered condescending and arrogant he also didn't like to joke he didn't make many friends and he was always serious evidently Russell was quite active in the band he played a trumpet and was quite talented Russell graduated from that school in 1982 and after this he went to college he was assigned to a townhouse with five other students before any of them could get settled or get acquainted he developed a schedule that listed all the chores in the residence and assigned jobs to the roommates they described him as authoritative focused orderly they said his room was spotless he perfectly folded his clothes they referred to him as drill sergeant evidently his mood lightened the longer he was in college he started to regularly pull off practical jokes his sense of humors described as odd some examples of his jokes he changed out the tumblers in the front door lock so the one whose roommates was locked out of the residence he drew cracks on a mirror to convince one of his roommates that the mirror was in fact broken he waited in a closet for a half hour to jump out and scare one of his roommates this kind of reminds me of Gary Ridgway Gary Ridgway didn't hide in closets and jump out but he really took a lot of pride in his ability to sneak up on people and scare them now his interest and participation in practical jokes is actually pretty interesting we know that this behavior is associated with sadism so this may connect to what we see later on we see that Russell was reasonably well liked toward the end of his college experience some people tried to get close to him during that time he wouldn't talk about his family but he talked a little bit about other topics they still described him as lonely although he did meet a woman in the last year before he graduated this woman became his girlfriend the relationship was described as cold and distant evidently she was controlling before Russell graduated she would reject him and he was devastated by this he also pursued her unsuccessfully and eventually withdrew even more from his friends here in the bachelor's degree in 1986 applied to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police what was rejected evidently during this time he went to see the movie Top Gun over and over he really became like his favorite film and I find this interesting because I remember when Top Gun came out I remember seeing it in a movie theater it had a great impact on recruiting specifically for aviators right so naval aviators like we saw in the film but also aviators in the Air Force so Russell was one of these people they got caught up in that excitement from that movie because of that movie and some other factors we see that Russell joins the Canadian Armed Forces in 1987 he married Mary Elizabeth Harriman in 1991 and he moved up steadily in the military until 2009 when he became the Wing Commander at CFB Trenton in Ontario this is the largest Air Transport Base in Canada now moving to the timeline of the crimes we go now to September 2007 while staying in a cottage that he owned in the village of Tweed Ontario Williams breaks into a neighbor's cottage while the family that occupied that cottage was away he took photographs of himself wearing the undergarments of a young girl before stealing some of them he would continue to commit crimes like this for two years always breaking in the homes were a young woman or girl resided eventually he would commit 82 burglaries he would get to the houses by walking through unlocked doors picking the lock breaking a window open or cutting the screen he would sometimes visit the same house repeatedly amazingly only 15 of the victims would report this activity to the police it's believed that many of the families didn't know that a break-in occurred undercover officers were assigned to try to find this intruder but they were unsuccessful the police had reason to believe that the intruder was escalating in his behavior as he left a message on one of the victims computers taunting her this takes us to September 17 2009 Russell breaks into a woman's home and commits a sexual assault and takes pictures of her he commits a similar crime on September 30 November 23 2009 Russell engages in another attack that contains all the previous elements but this time he escalates to murder the victim was 38 year old corporal marie-france coma a flight attendant who worked at the same base she had met Russell one time and from that meeting he learned that she lived alone after the crime he would end up sending condolences to her father January 29 2010 at 1:00 a.m. Russell breaks into the home of 27 year old Jessica Lloyd he had seen her exercising on her treadmill through a basement window during the attack that would go on until 8:15 p.m. Russell transported Jessica to his cottage eventually striking her with a flashlight and then strangling her with a piece of rope he would leave her body there until February 2nd when he dumped it nearby when Russell was still at Jessica Lloyd's house two men drove by the house and noticed an SUV parked next to it they reported this to the police after Jessica was reported missing the police found tire tracks from that SUV in the field they set up a roadblock and stopped Russell Williams the police made it seem like they're trying to catch drunk drivers as they were talking to Russell he told them they need to leave because he has sick child at home they determined that his tires matched the tracks left by Jessica Lloyd's house they let him go but they put him under surveillance later the police would learn that Russell had lied about having a sick child at home Russell and his wife did not have any children the police called Russell in for questioning On February 7 2010 during this interrogation that lasted four hours the police searched his cottage and his house they had a footprint that was left outside Jessica Lloyd's house and they saw that Russell wore the same boots to the interview with them and of course they had the tire tracks that matched Russell's 2001 Nissan Pathfinder so there was really no question about Russell's guilt but the police did not know where Jessica Lloyd's body was Russell eventually told them in the course of the interrogation during the search of Russell's properties they found his camera a lockpick boxes and pillow cases filled with about 1,400 undergarments a black skullcap videos and almost 3000 photographs on top of all this he had detailed records of all of his break-ins and everything that he had stolen this is like the nightmare edition of hoarders Russell pled guilty to 88 charges including two counts of murder and on October 22nd 2010 he was sentenced to life in prison eligible for parole in 25 years I'm guessing his chances of release are pretty low after his conviction they burned his uniform shredded his commission scroll cut up his medals and they crushed his SUV they even identified this pamphlet that had his picture on it the pamphlet wasn't about him his picture just happened to be on it I guess as part of the production of it they went and tried to find every copy of it and then destroy them as well right so we see an ever so subtle expression of anger and disgust he really made an impression on them now moving to the mental health and personality factors so in Russell's behavior we see evidence of psychopathy leaning more toward primary as opposed to secondary aligning with primary psychopathy we see superficial charm grandiosity pathological lying manipulation shallow effect and a lack of empathy or remorse in terms of secondary psychopathy we see excitement-seeking and some impulsivity I'll talk more in a few minutes about how the impulsivity expressed in this case now in terms of antisocial personality disorder we see some alignment with this disorder as well repeated unlawful behaviors consistent deceitfulness and lack of remorse but the symptoms like impulsivity aggressiveness and disregard for safety we see these during the crimes but not really consistently for example at work he avoided these types of behaviors we also don't see consistent irresponsibility there's no evidence of conduct disorder before the age of 15 either which is a problem when trying to align a disorder like antisocial personality or so we see this pattern with high primary psychopathy but behavior that doesn't really fit with antisocial personality or that well this is an unusual presentation indicative of someone who could get away with many crimes before being caught someone who could build a good career and someone who is narcissistic Russell's behavior seems to align with many of their criteria from narcissistic personality disorder Russell was able to sidestep the negative consequences of narcissism characteristics of narcissism like a sense of entitlement believing oneself to be special or unique and arrogance are sometimes interpreted as necessary for high-profile leadership positions people probably looked at Russell and thought well he needs to be narcissistic in that job it comes with the territory similarly people may have looked at his psychopathic characteristics and thought that someone in his position needs to be tough not easily alarmed cold and they have to make hard decisions right so his psychopathy and narcissism may have actually helped him seem more appropriate for the job that he had Russell seem to have high conscientiousness for a killer and this way he kind of reminds me of Gary Ridgway I talked about him before Gary Ridgway was highly conscientious but still of course had the behaviors of the line with psychopathy we see plenty of evidence for this Russell's career his detailed record of his crimes when he made that schedule of those jobs for his roommates in college and when he would neatly fold his laundry I think the struggle in this case is really about how this high level of conscientiousness battles his strong drives so it's order versus impulsivity it's almost like his conscientiousness was able to restrain his impulsivity but over time it became less effective as he committed more break-ins and found gratification his desires grew he wondered if the narcissistic fantasy could become reality in the case of marie-france KOMO he had broken into her house a week before the night of the killing clearly not satisfied with that he escalated to murder she had noticed that her undergarments were disturbed from that break-in but she blamed her ex-boyfriend after he initially attacked her he took time to secure the house and destroy the evidence so really again points to conscientiousness after the murder Russell took pictures of himself bleaching the sheets so here we see a clear struggle between opposing desires he was creating evidence against himself while trying to destroy evidence high conscientiousness doesn't always lead to a decreased risk of getting caught it can sometimes interfere with away with a crime Russell became more dangerous at the same time he continued to keep meticulous records of everything he did almost like the conscientiousness simply took one another role it expressed itself in a different way the question really becomes can one commit these type of crimes while holding on to a sense of order and duty in the murder of Jessica Lloyd he waited outside the house for hours for her to go to sleep before he entered the house acting on impulse in a sense without losing all notion of restraint if not for Russell's conscientiousness he probably would have started committing crimes much earlier in his life it would make sense that his destructive desires were present for many years the problem here is when he started trying to satisfy those desires that only led to more desire the drive really becomes insatiable right so it's really kind of a slippery slope when these criminals start getting involved in this if they can't cut it off early on sometimes they just glide right down into the realm of murder many killers like this have problems with relationships with women now he did have perhaps a strained relationship with his mother she appeared dominant and grandiose and he was rejected by that girlfriend but eventually he was married right so he seemed to address some of those problems he had what seemed to be a normal relationship so those wounds really run deep for some this case really highlights one of the key differences between primary and secondary psychopathy secondary Psychopaths are obvious they commit crimes impulsively based on emotion the primary psychopath is more frightening because they can blend in with the population or stand out for positive reasons they have the restraint to carefully plan serious crimes to cover their tracks in this case we see that Russell Williams a killer who could have gotten away with many more crimes was finally brought to justice by the acts of good citizens like those citizens that saw the SUV in the field and told the police and excellent police work we see that roadblock we see the matching up with the tire tracks and then being clever enough to know that they needed to let Russell go and keep on surveillance we also see great work and interrogation yes there was a lot of evidence it was clear the Russell was guilty but getting that confession really removed any possible doubt and avoided a trial he would plead guilty which was easier and better for everyone I know and if I talk about true crime cases there will be a variety of opinions please put any opinions and thoughts in the comment section they always generate an interesting dialogue as always hope you found my analysis of this topic to be interesting thanks for watching

Channel: Dr. Todd Grande

Views: 143,395

Rating: 4.9077549 out of 5

Keywords: Russell Williams, Marie-France Comeau, Jessica Lloyd, conscientiousness, five-factor model, antisocial personality disorder, narcissistic personality disorder, factor 1 psychopathy, factor 2 psychopathy, sociopathy, grandiose narcissism, mental health, counseling

Id: aD2Uuv1K2HI

Length: 16min 1sec (961 seconds)

Published: Tue May 26 2020