The Psychopath: A True Story(55)
Psychopaths, sociopaths and narcissists are not encumbered by hurt feelings or embarrassment. If rejected, they simply shrug it off and move immediately onto the next person they are attracted to, each time learning from the rejection like a computer program. They can target dozens in one night until a strategy works. Over the course of just a couple of years they can target thousands of people in this way, never feeling upset or embarrassed about a rejection. Eventually they acquire a full database of how to approach shy people, how to approach the life-and-soul-of-the-party, how to approach the single parents, the divorcee, the injured and the kind-hearted. They know exactly how to react in each given situation simply because they have experienced it many times before.
The psychopath’s ‘charm’ is simply learnt behaviour from the sheer volume of encounters they have had. They know what works with each person and can adapt quickly to accommodate what it is that we want. They reflect our desires and provide us with tried and tested techniques to win us over. They look like they are handing us their hearts but in reality it’s an act which has been polished over time, indistinguishable from the real thing and impossible for any normal empathic person to know the difference. They appear to be more normal than normal people are, rather like a wax apple emulating the more imperfect real fruit.
We have to live on trust and be open to falling in love. Ultimately, it is only time that shows us the truth of someone’s feelings. I wasn’t wrong to fall in love with the person Will Jordan pretended to be. My feelings were genuine. It wasn’t my fault that his were not, nor was I wrong to believe that someone loved me.
MORE AND MORE VICTIMS . . .
Will Jordan remained in jail until November 2017 when he was released early on ‘good behaviour’. Shortly afterwards, Rachel disappeared and didn’t reply to any messages. Interestingly, her relative, who had been so grateful for the support, also stopped replying to messages too.
Both Mischele and I assumed that Will Jordan had somehow persuaded them we were enemy agents and not to be trusted. Having seen him try to persuade Mischele on the video, I can just imagine how she was sucked in again.
It is sad but we can’t save everyone. Both Mischele and I know how strong a pull he has and how convincing he can be. I know he will go to any lengths – even mutilating his own body – to provide evidence that what he says is true, so I can’t blame the women who go back to him. However, I also know I have done everything I can to help.
The most recent victim to be in contact was a nineteen-year-old girl who was eight months pregnant by Will Jordan when she got in touch in July 2019. I will call her Jewel.
By 2018 Jewel had already had a hard life and suffered with anxiety disorders, self-harming and PTSD. She had pulled herself out of a horrible situation and decided to face the world again.
Jewel met Will Jordan in June 2018 on a dating website specifically for interracial couples and met in person for the first time on a beach in July 2018. He told her he was in his thirties even though he was actually fifty-four by then. He promised her the world, told her that she was his soulmate and asked her to move in to his apartment with him and his dad, all within only a few weeks of meeting. (It appears by that time that Will Jordan’s mother was in a care home.) Jewel moved in with him within a couple of months. Will Jordan admitted to her that he had once been married to two women at the same time and implied that the women had taken their revenge by posting horrible stuff about him on the Internet. Jewel felt that he was being honest and up front, and therefore didn’t feel the need to look him up online. As usual, he told her that he didn’t have any children of his own with a hint that he had emotional baggage from that, and then he asked her to have a baby with him. Jewel didn’t make a conscious decision to get pregnant but agreed that they would let nature take its course. Not surprisingly, given his clear fertility, she got pregnant very quickly and he almost immediately went cold and emotionless on her. It was mental and emotional torture for her and something I am sure he did deliberately.
As someone who suffered from PTSD and anxiety disorders she was vulnerable and began to consider self-harming again, and even suicide. She resisted the temptation because of her pregnancy but felt she was being pushed to the brink. I can’t imagine what he was doing – she had no money or property. Was he just trying to manipulate her into committing suicide?
Talking to Jewel, I was reminded of the young nanny his other wife had told me about – the one Will Jordan had had an affair with, rejected, and then kept on the edge of sanity, saying one thing and doing another. When his wife had discovered the affair the nanny lost her job and was thrown out of her home. She left with nothing. She then came back later having taken an overdose of paracetamol. Even though she regretted taking the paracetamol and they got her to hospital, it was too late and she had multiple organ failure and died within a few days.
Will Jordan said he had watched her die, had held her hand and told her he cared and was with her to the end. He told Mischele about the incident on her hidden camera footage.
Mischele: ‘It sounded like a horrible story . . .’
Will: ‘It was. It was very unfortunate for everybody concerned. There was nobody who came out ahead, if you can call it that. There was nobody who got away from the emotional impact of that. And it was completely unintentional, which is what made it so much worse. Nobody really knew where her mind was. [Shrugs] You know . . . I certainly didn’t. And I suppose, had I been a little less egocentric at that point I might have questioned things more than I did. But it didn’t really go there. I never thought of it that way . . .