Psychology

The episode I watched was called Shadow and it was episode 11 of the 11th season. The beginning of the episode showed the driver of entering his employers home shouting their names and telling his employers that they needed to get moving or they could miss their flight. When his employers didnt respond to his call, he preceded to go upstairs and found both his employers, Mr. and Mrs. Gillette lying in a pool of blood with an axe beside Mr. Gillette. The next scene shows the SVU squad in the bedroom of the deceased and surrounding them are lab techs and forensic specialists collecting evidence. They proceed with caution about the notion of murder-suicide because the deceased was a wealthy and prominent couple known all over New York. They are getting into the case and talking about possible suspects and the evidence being found and interviewing the driver when the daughter of the deceased couple comes barging in hysterically and starts asking questions about what happened to her parents. Detectives Benson and Stabler ask Anne if her parents had any enemies and what they were doing in New York and other questions about the whereabouts of Annes parents before they were murdered. Anna tells Benson and Stabler that her parents were well liked because of their philanthropic ties to the community and she didnt know a single soul who would want to hurt them. In addition, Anna informs the detectives that her parents were leaving for Florida for some much needed vacation.

Back at the precinct, Cragen tells Benson and Stabler to do their jobs and get justice for the Gillettes murders because they had very strong ties with the police department as well as the commissioner. They decide to go back to Anne and ask her some more questions about the movements of her parents before they were murdered and asked her if anyone suspicious had been following her parents maybe even her over the last several days. She tells the detectives that a suspicious fellow has been tracking her comings and goings for the past several days. The detectives want to catch the perp, so they accompany Anne to the church. While in the church Stabler nabs the perp and proceeds to arrest him but the perp tells him that he is a Special Frauds Agent gathering information against Anne Gillette for embezzlement and fraud.

The name of the agent is Ashok Ramsey and he believes that Anne has embezzled 3.5 million dollars for the Prestwick Foundation to support her spending habits. Benson and Stabler work with Ramsey but in the middle of the investigation the bosses tell them to stop. However, they refuse to stop the investigation and when they finally nail Anne for embezzlement and fraud she tries to kill Benson and Ramsey and escape prison. However, Benson and Ramsey set their deaths up so that they could get a murder confession out of Anne. She admits to killing her mother because she hated her for not letting her spend the way she wanted, but her father was just a casualty and couldnt risk not killing him to for fear that he would turn her in. So at the end of the episode Anne ends up being arrested for murder and going back to jail.

Most offenders portrayed in these SVU episodes are sexual predators but this episode is different because the offender is a socialite woman with sociopathic tendencies. The episode first alludes to this trait when Ramsey mentions that Anne has a nasty spending habit  and shell do anything to get her what she wants even if that means getting rid of those who stand her way. Sociopaths can be very likeable and seem like law-abiding normal people but in reality they are manipulative and conniving individuals who show no remorse for their actions.

This episode reiterates the notion of a sociopath who is conniving and manipulative. On the outside, Anne Gillette is just another rich girl who loves shopping and getting everything she wants. However, throughout the entire episode the audience can see the many masks she wears. During the start of the episode she wears the mask of grieving daughter. She pretends to be all hysterical and distraught over the death of her parents but in actuality she is relieved that they are dead. When she is caught, Anne pretends to be innocent and an upstanding member of the community but deep down she know shes guilty but doesnt want to admit it. The next mask the audience witnesses is the mask of planning and resourcefulness. She will do whatever is necessary to keep her spending habits afloat and she does this by embezzling from the foundation and when she is about to get caught she pays off the owner of the foundation. The last mask the audience sees in the episode is Annes true mask. This mask is evident when she admits to murdering her parents and shows no ounce of sorrow or regret for how brutally she murdered them.

The true mask of the sociopath reveals that they are conniving, manipulative, and soulless individuals who are very egocentric and only watch out for themselves. Sociopaths are one of the most dangerous predators because they blend into society and many people dont notice if someone is a sociopath or not. Sociopaths can be pillars of the community one day and brutal murderers the next. The problem with these offenders is the fact that if you let them back into society theyll continue to keep hurting others because they dont have any emotions such as sadness, remorse, grief, etc. There is no rehabilitating a sociopath and the only way to stop sociopathic individuals is to keep them in prison for the rest of their natural born lives.