The crimes Karla committed are very rare for a woman, which is one fo the reasons this case is so fascinating to me.
She had a hand in terrible, disturbing crimes for a period of about 18 months. There is virtually nothing in either the 20 years preceding those acts, or in the 12 years that followed her conviction that would have warned of the possibility. The Hollywood version of the controlled, manipulative, evil psychopath is just that - Hollywood. Studies of female psychopaths are rare - because female sociopaths are rare. The one study I am aware of profiled the 30 year old woman thus:
"Relying on the social history and personality profile of 30-year-old "Ms. X," the authors found among her symptoms an early onset of antisocial behavior, evidence of sexual aggression, multiple substance abuse, and perversion. She also showed fluctuating levels of reality testing when emotional, but no problem with impulsivity—considered a central trait of psychopathy.
She had suffered sexual abuse in her family home, was removed at the age of six, and put into foster homes over the next three years. At age nine, she joined a street gang. She had numerous short-term relationships, showed sadomasochistic tendencies, and only completed school through the ninth grade. She acknowledged a history of mutilating animals. Half of her life has been spent in prison, and all of her immediate family members have been incarcerated at some point. "
http://www.crimelibrary.com/notoriou...5.html?sect=11
None of this makes it impossible that Homolka is a psycopath, but the rarity of the condition along with Homolka's otherwise unremarkable life makes it prudent to examine the full circumstances with an open mind. If a person seeks medical treatment in Dogpatch, Ontario for a severe cough and sore throat and a mysterious immune system response, a psysician doesn't suspect a rare virus usually found deep in the the African rainforest that usually includes a rash and swelling of the left elbow until he has a damn good reason to.
A reminder again that the vast majority of professionals who profered a formal opinion of Homolka did not find her to be a sociopathic personality. People who distill this case to a decision between Karla as callous psycopath and Karla as helpless victim misperceive the complicated nature of this case and the spectrum of possible human responses in stressful circumstances. Clearly at some point, people like Elizabeth Smart, Patty Hearst and Colleen Stan started to operate in a reality far removed from the objective one. I believe Karla, with a liberal dose of self interest, did too.
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