Diver Indicted in 2003 GBR mishap

[ItsBruce]

Check out the following logic:

Premise: Only a complete fool would kill his bride on their honeymoon and then seek insurance benefits. Conclusion: if one's bride dies on their honeymoon and one seeks insurance benefits, either (1) he is a complete fool or (2) he did not kill his bride. Since it is pretty clear that the suspect is not a complete fool, then it stands to reason that he did not kill his bride. However, since the suspect is not a complete fool, we should assume that he realizes that if he makes an insurance claim, we will think either (1) he is a complete fool or (2) he did not kill her. And, since he is not a complete fool, we should assume that he realizes that we will not think him a complete fool and further that we will conclude he did not kill his bride. Indeed, we should assume that he realizes that if he does not make an insurance claim, then, we will think he did kill his bride. Thus, if he did kill his bride, he should make an insurance claim to make us think that he did not kill her. Of course, recognizing this, we can conclude that if he does make an insurance claim it is because he is guilty and is trying to make us reach an erroneous conclusion. But, since the suspect is no fool, he will realize that this will be our conclusion and to keep us from thinking him a murderer, he will not make a claim. So, if he makes a claim, that proves him guilty. And, if he does not make a claim, that also proves him guilty. Isn't the world of insurance wonderful?

 

[redrover]

No one has yet answered the questions I posed above.

Nonetheless, I will ask yet another one: Assume your spouse dies in a diving accident on your honeymoon while you are shopping; do you make a claim to the insurance company? How about if you were out diving, but not with your new spouse? How about if you were diving with your new spouse. If your answers are not all the same, then explain the reason for the difference.

I guess I missed your question, maybe did not understand it correctly.

Yes.

 

[Dadvocate]

To answer your question(s), I would file a claim in all three cases. This issue of suspicion for some I suppose is not only his choice to file but the time he chose to do it. I don’t know if anyone can answer a question about when they would file an insurance claim unless they have been through a loss of this nature. I personally find insurance companies to reside in the slime of the earth anyway (ranked closely behind lawyers and politicians actually), so I might feel that I need to hold them to their responsibilities straight away. I might be so beside myself with guilt (for not having done my best to save my wife) that I might not get around to it until later. I hope never to have to find out one way or the other.

In and of itself, an insurance claim made should not lead to suspicion of anything other than an individual dealing with grief in an individual way. I tend to be a task-oriented person, especially when I am under duress. I imagine that I would be in hyper-drive in this vein if I were to suffer a tragedy of this sort. This could lead to all kinds of “questionable” decisions for others.

Cheers!

 

[K_girl]

ItsBruce -

I understand your stance in terms of insurance-does-not-mean-guilt argument. When you segment every other fact out of the picture, indeed, just because someone has insurance doesn't automatically mean they are not entitled to collect the insurance and should be prosecuted. So please, no more on this. Enough is enough.

Lots of people who commit crimes are fools because they think they can get away with it. The "fool" argument would never stand-up in a court of law under any circumstances. You've never heard of a boyfriend who abused his girlfriend? You've never heard of a boyfriend killing his girlfriend? You are a fool if you don't think this kind of thing happens. Just recently, I saw an episode of the "Justice Files" where a man married a woman and killed her in less than a month of being married - for the insurance. He claimed that his new wife died by falling off of her horse. However, the police were able to show that there was a struggle in the dirt where she fell and that the blood splatter on the rock could not have happened by her falling on top of it. Impressions in her skull showed she was hit with the rock.

By your same logic, Scott Peterson must have been innocent. No man would ever kill his pregnant wife - right? She's carrying his child for crying out loud. Wouldn't he love her even more than when he married her now that she is bringing him a son? How could he possibly raise his hand and strike his beautiful, loving, eight-month pregnant wife out of anger? Watch her bleed and do nothing, watch her die and do nothing, wrap-up her pregnant body, dump her and his unborn son in the bay and let her family suffer. No man could ever do that - right?

You call him a "fool" - I think it is much more than that - I call him a psychopath. And as much as you try to deny it, psychopaths do exist. Unable to feel real love. Unable to feel real empathy. They want what they want for themselves above all else, everyone else be damned. They try to mimmick what they think is normal behavior. These people cannot be judged by what is in your own heart. They cannot be judged for how you would feel or how you would act. You have to be able to step out of your own psychology and accept that these people do exist and what is going on in their heads is not the same as what goes on in yours.

 

[Dadvocate]

K-Girl, Its Bruce might be applying the “fool” distinction too loosely for Gabe’s case and others. At the same time you are just as guilty with your use of “psychopath”. I don’t really see what the issue is between these two concepts anyway to be honest.

There is no dichotomy that makes one apt and the other not when it comes to the planning and execution of a murder. For instance in the Peterson case you cite, he could have been a fool in his planning and committing this crime in thinking the forensics unable to figure things out, a psychopath for displaying a malevolent personality in not caring about the pain he caused, or a foolish psychopath encompassing aspects of both in committing that crime. Twist the conditions enough and he could have been a remorseful lunatic who killed his wife and baby in a some fantasy about saving them from Satan. He’d be completely mortified by his own horrible deeds, yet completely lost in terms of what “normal” people might think of his actions and justifications. Would he still qualify as a psychopath in this case? That would depend on who you asked in the end and what particular definition this person was using.

As with many things related to language, the terms we use can be denotative or connotative. The distinction of “psychopath” in clinical terms is a lot more complicated than your run of the mill dictionary juxtaposition to “anti social behavior”. Certainly there is more to clinical types of psychopathic disorders than apathetic and callous behavior toward other human beings in the face of inhumane actions.

And lets face it; being capable of murdering a loved one for money while displaying no remorse does not mean one is incapable of showing compassion at all. In all the annals of history, there are plenty of examples of people displaying horrible tendencies toward others only to prove that they are capable of loving relationships in other contexts. You could say that this is “acting”, but the truth tends to be a lot more complicated than that for all kinds of crimes that involve killing among other things.

Look back to the war in Bosnia in the 1990’s to see just how easily that can happen with longtime neighbors, not to mention the genocide in Rwanda and WWII. The murders in these places took place in as heartless and callous a manner as I can imagine. Yet, still, these were loving fathers, sons, and brothers doing the killing while dismissing any outcries to the contrary. Some suggest that soldiers have to create this discord in order to do the killing they do, sometimes at the cost of their sanity, sometimes not.

No matter how we look at this case with Gabe Watson and his actions, foolish or psychopathic or reminiscent of a guy who did little to save his wife when it mattered, the process will hopefully add more to the discussion than easy-to-apply terminology.

Cheers!

 

[K_girl]

Well, I didn't see foolish or anything that resembled that word anywhere in the clinical descriptions of anti-social or psychopathic behaviors.

As for what happened in Bosnia in 1990 or Germany in the 1930's and 40's, CNN had a recent special about genocide that was excellent. This kind of behavior is described as a mass psychopathy and mass hatred that involves the de-humanization of an entire group of people. Long after a neighbor-killing-neighbor incident in Darfur, a man apologized to his neighbor for killing her husband and most of her family. He said he was driven to temporary insanity. She forgave him, but will never forget. The groups behind the mass genocides try to justify it as war. I believe that is how some people involved in the killing manage to get through it. They think of it as war, but genocide is really not war. The only similarity I can see between genocide and a psychopathic killer is the de-humanization element. However, it is very different in many other ways, the biggest one being, you have a group of people who control the world you live in telling you it is your duty to kill, however wrong the rest of the world thinks it is.

 

[K_girl]

One more word on "foolishness." This word does not conjure-up a situation occurring with serious consequences. We tend to hear this in the context of something like "those foolish boys played a silly prank." I do not consider any actions that led-up to the death of another person as foolish, because the consequences of actions were far more dire than that. The least severe description you can possibly give would be negligence, but certainly not foolishness.

 

[Dadvocate]

K-Girl

Well, I didn't see foolish or anything that resembled that word anywhere in the clinical descriptions of anti-social or psychopathic behaviors.

Neither did I, but since WiseGeek.com is essentially a wiki, perhaps someone will come along later and add it making your point somewhat moot. Is that source really authoritative and universal in scope?


And that isn’t my point anyway. I’m not trying to retrofit “foolish” into psychopath, sociopath, or any other mental disorder. I’m trying to establish that both “foolish” and “psychopath” carry denotative and connotative implications and that you and Its-Bruce may be arguing over semantics instead of what you actually mean regarding this case.

As for what happened in Bosnia in 1990 or Germany in the 1930's and 40's, CNN had a recent special about genocide that was excellent. This kind of behavior is described as a mass psychopathy and mass hatred that involves the de-humanization of an entire group of people. Long after a neighbor-killing-neighbor incident in Darfur, a man apologized to his neighbor for killing her husband and most of her family. He said he was driven to temporary insanity. She forgave him, but will never forget. The groups behind the mass genocides try to justify it as war. I believe that is how some people involved in the killing manage to get through it. They think of it as war, but genocide is really not war. The only similarity I can see between genocide and a psychopathic killer is the de-humanization element. However, it is very different in many other ways, the biggest one being, you have a group of people who control the world you live in telling you it is your duty to kill, however wrong the rest of the world thinks it is.

Yes, “Scream Bloody Murder” with Christian Amanpour. I saw it as well. I agree, very good. The conclusions drawn in your post are less obvious, however.


I don’t know that all of these murders in the context of a war can be so easily labeled. This is another form of semantics anyway, and I think at least the existence of the Geneva Convention and its attempt at holding the crimes of war at bay ought to give us pause to consider that some actions cannot be so easily excused.


I offer up Daniel J. Goldhagen’s “Hitler’s Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust” as a example of how this can be viewed differently. It has been awhile since I read through the book, but the central premise is still pretty clear. The occurrence of what you call “mass psychopathy” is seen more as a preprogrammed willingness to kill certain types of “outsiders”. This preprogram exists despite the fact that in other contexts the people who were ultimately willing murderers were also loving parents, caring lovers, and stalwart members of various communities.


I don’t wish to promote Goldhagen’s thesis as an end-all rebuttal to the likes of WiseGeek.com, et al. I merely want to point out that the definitions involved in the words used to describe these types of crimes are far from universal and certainly not wrapped up in a few “clinical” paragraphs in cyberspace.

One more word on "foolishness." This word does not conjure-up a situation occurring with serious consequences. We tend to hear this in the context of something like "those foolish boys played a silly prank." I do not consider any actions that led-up to the death of another person as foolish, because the consequences of actions were far more dire than that. The least severe description you can possibly give would be negligence, but certainly not foolishness.

I don’t agree with this limitation all. “Foolish boys” playing a prank could be harmless just as you say. But the morphology could easily be applied to serious consequences as well.



A friend of mine here in China found out that her guy was cheating on her in November. As it played out, there were many of us witnesses to the final confrontation. She had a host of terms at her disposal to express her sadness and displeasure with him on that occasion and believe me when I tell you she had a very enthralled audience with us standing there mouths agape as it played out. I half expected her to unload a barrage of perfunctory profanities because I had heard her use this charged language before with far less at stake. To my surprise and with what I would call an eloquent poise, she simply said,


“You fool! You screwed it up. There’s no going back now!”


The “fool” here carried plenty of seriousness for both of them, I can assure you.



I agree that “fool” or “foolish” imply a large degree of “silliness” inherent in the person or deed deemed as such. But the consequences of a foolish action do not necessarily have to be harmless.



Another case in point comes from a tragedy I recall from San Diego, my old stomping grounds. Some seriously screwed up kid took to throwing rocks off an overpass (I can’t recall if this was a copycat thing. I only know I read about others having done the same thing). One of his missiles went through a windshield and struck the driver in the head. The driver was permanently paralyzed from the neck down.


In an interview with the news reporter I was watching, a clearly emotional detective was explaining what had happened. When referring to the boy do committed this crime, he called him a “foolish kid” who was unaware of the danger he was causing. Perhaps he was choosing language to shield the boy some from the oncoming media blitz. Perhaps he wanted to show that the boy didn’t have an evil or serious intent just as you suggest. Nonetheless, the consequences were dire all the same for many people.


Anyway, I think Its-Bruce would probably agree with you that “foolish” implies silly, i.e. so silly that an intelligent person probably wouldn’t do it, especially a calculating, murderous type. Honestly, I can’t say if this Gabe is either intelligent or foolish. However, after reading the transcripts of that interview with the Australian police, I’m less likely to give him the intelligence benefit of the doubt. After watching the footage posted of him desecrating Tina’s grave, I’m more inclined to say he is acting the fool… again with the disclaimer that in doing that to her grave he hurt people in real ways. This also does little to help him with this case. On that point at least, I think you and I can agree.


Cheers!

 

[redrover]

I too thought fool an odd word choice. ItsBruce does not come accross to me as a fool so I looked it up.
The first one that popped out in my ancient Webster’s was to trick or deceive.

 

[ItsBruce]

Let's move away from motive for a moment. Let me ask a question about the manner of Tina's death. I am completely or at least nearly completely ignorant as to the mechanism of her death. Do the police have a theory about how Gabe killed her? I assume there is something more than his failure to do something to save her. By way of illustration, I'm guessing that there is no evidence of a knife wound or blunt force trauma. Is there evidence of a struggle or sabotaged equipment? Is there evidence Gabe have turned off Tina's air and let her asphyxiate? Is there evidence Gabe caused Tina to ascend rapidly enough to embolize? Is there evidence Gabe pulled the regulator from Tina's mouth?

Thanks

BTW: My name is Bruce. My username is ItsBruce.