How Does a Serial Murderer Live Undetected Among 'Normal People'?

By Kathleen Megan If Dennis L. Rader is the BTK killer, the most nightmarish fact for his Kansas neighbors probably will be that he lived among them without anyone's ever suspecting. He managed to fool them into believing that he was as he appeared: a pillar in the church, a Scout leader, a perhaps overly zealous city compliance officer. How could Rader have been capable of leading such a double life? And how could he have fooled so many? Martha Stout, a psychologist and Harvard Medical School clinical instructor and author of the newly released "The Sociopath Next Door: The Ruthless vs. the Rest of Us" (Broadway Books, $24.95), said it's not so unusual to find that people who appear to be "unassailable" are actually sociopaths - people with no conscience, incapable of remorse. "They play all kinds of roles. I am a parent; I am a spouse; I am a doctor, Boy Scout leader, a member of the administration," said Stout. In her new book, Stout writes about sociopaths who know how to appear ...  more