Monday, November 17, 2014

When my brother Zack and I began writing The Kidnapping and Murder of Little Skeegie Cash: J. Edgar Hoover and Florida’s Lindbergh Case, our assessment of the FBI’s leader was neutral.  That changed as we read through thousands of pages of FBI files.

We came to the conclusion that Hoover was a sociopath.

Recent studies have determined that sociopathic personalities run many successful businesses.  Their ruthless, uncaring natures are many times masked by outgoing and jovial personas.  They can lull unsuspecting competitors into making mistakes, and often smile as they crush their opponents.

Hoover didn’t bother with smiles and deception.  He developed a pit bull personality early on.  Because of this, many people hated him.  But in most cases, he had obtained information that could cripple their careers, so most avoided conflict with Hoover.  In our book, we describe some of the dirty secrets that Hoover knew about President and First Lady Roosevelt.  The FBI director likely used these indiscretions to maneuver FDR to his side when the FBI suddenly ran out of money a few weeks before Skeegie was abducted.  FDR, like a puppy-dog, allocated funds solely for the Cash kidnapping case.

The Kidnapping and Murder of Little Skeegie Cash tells a poignant story of child abduction, a mother and father’s disabling grief, and the search for a psychopath.

But behind the scenes, J. Edgar Hoover’s manipulation of all people in his orbit shows that he was a deeply disturbed and dangerous individual.

 

1 comment:

Queen Genyfur said...

I've been reading many of your stories, flipping page after page, finding myself more and more intrigued with the history of crime and the psychologically of each and every mad man. I've always been fascinated with the individual personalities and inner workings of a killer and what made them that way. Thank you for creating this blog to appease my interest. I do want to say, on a side note, I don't like the 'pitbull personality' you used in the above story. I feel a better reference could have been used to describe him as the Energizer Bunny of extreme emotional and physical bullying. Of course, this is only my opinion but felt offended when I read it. Also, if you actually would do research on the breed in general, not how the media portrays and largely misrepresents them, you may be surprised from what you find. I'm sure it's hard to appease all your readers but I honestly feel that 'pitbull' was taken out of context.