Making a Psychopath

Why are we so fascinated by psychopaths—those cold, calculating figures who seem untouched by empathy or remorse? In Making a Psychopath, forensic sociologist Mark Freestone asks a radical question: if mainstream psychiatry and pop culture have built an image of the psychopath as inhuman, what happens when we start seeing them as people? Drawing on fifteen years of research and first-hand work in prisons and hospitals, Freestone pulls back the masks of seven distinct case studies—each showing wildly different origins, personalities, and dangers. Through stories that range from manipulative con men to remorseless killers, he reveals that psychopathy is not a single thing but many overlapping patterns of personality, emotion, and social failure.

Freestone argues that psychopathy must be understood as a disorder of relationships rather than simply traits. Psychopaths, he suggests, do not exist in isolation—they are shaped by an intricate interplay of brain differences, genetic predisposition, and emotionally damaging childhood environments. Their coldness, charm, and manipulation reflect not pure evil but a missing puzzle piece in understanding human connection. By combining sociological thinking with psychology and neuroscience, Freestone brings fresh light to this misunderstood group, blending case-based storytelling with compassion and hard analysis.

Rethinking the Stereotype

Pop culture’s fascination with figures like Hannibal Lecter or Villanelle (from Killing Eve, on which Freestone consulted) reinforces the myth that psychopaths are brilliant monsters. Freestone dismantles this myth. Most psychopaths, he found, are mediocre manipulators—not masterminds, but people who depend on instinctive tactics because they lack emotional and moral awareness. Rather than cold-blooded geniuses, they are emotionally stunted individuals often trapped in cycles of impulsivity, resentment, and abuse. The difference lies not in intelligence, but in how their environment turns those deficits into violence or exploitation.

The Diversity Behind the Label

Freestone organizes the book around seven composite case studies: Paul the violent hitman, Tony the narcissistic con man, Jason the compulsive liar, Arthur the parasitic dependent, Danny the borderline between psychosis and psychopathy, Angela the remorseless female killer, and Eddie the redeemed offender. Each case unmasks a different way psychopathy interacts with life experience. Their stories show that psychopathy is not uniform—it ranges from impulsive criminal aggression to complex emotional voids. Through these portraits, Freestone illustrates his core thesis: that psychopathy grows from a convergence of neurological differences and broken attachments rather than from innate evil.

A Social and Scientific Lens

Instead of approaching psychopathy as a checklist of symptoms, Freestone merges psychology, neuroscience, and sociology. He references Robert Hare’s Psychopathy Checklist (PCL-R), which defines psychopathy through twenty measurable traits, and counters that there are over 15,000 combinations of those traits—meaning there are 15,000 ways to be a psychopath. He draws on genetic evidence (such as the MAO-A “warrior gene”) and neuroscience showing that psychopaths have diminished activation in the amygdala and frontal cortex—regions critical for moral reasoning and emotional regulation. But he connects this to the social environment: poor attachments, abuse, neglect, and violence amplify genetic vulnerabilities. In other words, we don’t make psychopaths in laboratories—we make them in families and institutions.

Why It Matters to You

Freestone invites readers to move beyond fear and fascination to curiosity and understanding. Understanding psychopaths as complex and varied helps you make sense of manipulation in everyday relationships and workplaces—the subtler shades of psychopathy that appear outside prison walls. He also challenges mental health professionals and society to confront their own role in labeling and discarding these individuals. “If clinicians have nothing to offer someone with psychopathy,” he writes, “it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy: ‘I can’t help you, so you must be bad.’” His work reminds us that seeing the humanity—or broken humanity—in those labeled psychopaths may be the only way to prevent more of them from being made. That’s what makes this book essential: it’s not about monsters, but about understanding what makes people lose touch with moral connection entirely.

Freestone explores the biological underpinnings of psychopathy, showing that it’s partly structural—rooted in the way the brain processes emotion and risk. He highlights two crucial regions: the prefrontal cortex and the amygdala.

The Prefrontal Cortex: Decision and Control

This region governs decision-making and impulse control. Studies like the famous case of Phineas Gage—who survived an iron rod through his brain but became aggressive and erratic—demonstrate how frontal damage alters personality. Freestone compares Gage’s neurological trauma to dysfunction seen in criminal psychopaths: weaker activation, reduced capacity to foresee consequences, and an inability to learn from mistakes. These deficits help explain why many offenders continually repeat destructive acts even after severe punishment.

The Amygdala: Emotion and Fear

The amygdala, the brain’s emotional hub, allows you to recognize fear, sadness, or disgust in others. In psychopaths, it shows blunted activation—meaning emotional cues hardly register. Freestone explains that psychopaths literally don't see fear or feel remorse because their brains process social pain as neutral data. This insight shifts the conversation from morality to biology: their cruelty isn’t just chosen—it’s partially hardwired, though still shaped by experience.

Genes Meet Environment

Even with these biological anomalies, Freestone doesn’t believe psychopathy is predetermined. He discusses researcher James Fallon, a neuroscientist who discovered his own brain scan matched psychopathic profiles—yet he’s a compassionate academic. Fallon’s case illustrates a crucial point: psychopathy emerges when biological vulnerability meets adverse upbringing. Children who inherit emotional deficits but grow up with warmth and structure can develop empathy; those exposed to violence or neglect may instead grow into predators. “No psychopath springs from a perfect home,” Freestone writes. Every case he studied showed ruptured attachments, absent fathers, or abusive parents that interacted with neurological weakness to create adult disorder.

The Implication for You

Understanding these neural differences helps you see why punishment alone fails. You cannot scare remorse into a brain that can’t register fear. Instead, interventions must build cognitive habits and social context that compensate for emotional blind spots. Freestone’s synthesis invites a shift from blame to informed treatment—where empathy becomes not forgiveness, but precision: knowing what parts of the psyche are missing, and how to help rebuild them.

In chapter one, Freestone introduces the concept of the “masks of psychopathy”—different expressions of the same underlying emotional void. Using the Psychopathy Checklist Revised (PCL-R) as a lens, he shows that psychopathy manifests through countless combinations of traits. With 20 diagnostic items rated 0–2, there are over 15,000 combinations that can yield a clinical score of 30 or above. That means there are 15,000 ways to be a psychopath.

The Behavioral Mask

Some individuals express psychopathy through antisocial behavior—impulsivity, violence, criminality, and failure to plan. This group burns bright early in life, often “aging out” of crime by their thirties. Freestone recounts how offenders like Paul or Eddie were driven by volatile anger rather than sustained sadism. Their psychopathy was behavioral rather than cognitive; remove the drugs and chaos, and they still had a chance at redemption.

The Emotional Mask

Other psychopaths wear a colder mask: callousness, lack of remorse, glib charm, and manipulation. These traits are stable across life because they are more deeply rooted in genetics and brain structure. Tony, the smooth-talking con man, represents this category—his deceit isn’t impulsive but strategic, calculated to maintain control. Freestone calls this the primary psychopathy type, those for whom charm replaces violence but still destroys relationships.

The Gendered Mask

Freestone also explores gender differences. Female psychopaths are rare—perhaps 1 in 50 compared to men—but their behaviors bend cultural expectations. Drawing on psychologist Caroline Logan, he describes female psychopaths as relational manipulators who harm through intimacy, not violence. Yet Angela Simpson’s case shows exceptions: a woman who killed brutally, resembling a “male” pattern of psychopathy. Freestone argues that our image of the femme fatale blinds us to the reality that women’s aggression can be just as direct.

The Lesson of the Masks

By separating these faces, Freestone helps you recognize that psychopathy isn’t about evil intent—it’s a syndrome of failed attachment and impaired self-awareness. Whether it appears as violence, manipulation, or charm, beneath every mask lies an absence: the ability to recognize others as fully real, not instruments. That single void, expressed in countless forms, is what defines all the psychopaths he studied.

Freestone’s story of Paul, the Hit Man is not only about prison power but about how psychopaths subvert any structure they enter. Paul, a professional enforcer, maintains domination even behind bars by weaving invisible webs of rumor and seduction that exploit human generosity. His high score of 38/40 on Hare’s checklist puts him in the extreme range of psychopathy—but it’s not his violence that fascinates Freestone; it’s his psychological manipulation.

The Machiavellian Game

Paul uses charm the way others use weapons. When staff reprimand him, he pivots instantly to vulnerability; when colleagues trust him, he orchestrates gossip that divides them. He manufactures loyalty, shame, and guilt—tools that let him control even trained psychologists. The tragic downfall of Louise, the officer he seduced into smuggling contraband and sex, demonstrates what Freestone’s supervisor later calls “perversion”—creating a system within a system that contradicts every ethical standard.

Psychopathy as Institutional Parasite

Paul’s manipulation reveals how institutions themselves amplify psychopathy. Prisons and hospitals, which isolate staff and concentrate control, create fertile ground for psychopaths. They overwhelm empathy by forcing repeated contact under unequal power dynamics. In these settings, the psychopath’s strength—alertness to emotional weakness—becomes almost supernatural. Freestone warns that isolation and secrecy are the staff member’s greatest vulnerabilities; anyone cut off from peer support becomes a potential target.

The Universal Lesson

The lesson extends beyond prisons. Anyone—your boss, colleague, or partner—can exploit systems this way. Psychopathy thrives wherever rules exist to be twisted and where people act alone without clear oversight. Freestone’s reminder is chilling: structure doesn’t protect you from manipulation unless relationships themselves are secure. True control in a psychopathic environment means transparency and teamwork, not toughness or mistrust.

Freestone’s chapter on Jason Marshall, the liar and serial killer, explores one of psychopathy’s most unnerving features: the total erosion of truth. Marshall fabricated careers, costumes, and personas—from police officer to “Archangel Gabriel”—and used them to lure his victims. Freestone argues that pathological lying isn’t a tactic for psychopaths; it’s a way of existing.

Lying as Identity

Unlike ordinary deceit, psychopaths—Marshall included—create identities that replace truth entirely. His career of impersonation started with harmless authority fantasies and escalated into lethal ones. For Freestone, this reveals that lying is a learned skill supported by brain anomalies: reduced amygdala activity means less shame when lying, and repetition dulls emotional inhibition. The psychopath’s brain adapts to dishonesty, forming an alternate world where lies feel as natural as breathing.

The Italian and British Crimes

Marshall’s spree across Europe exposes the deadly cost of that delusion. Pretending to be a spy or cop, he tortured and murdered men he met online, filming one killing as “roleplay” with chilling detachment. In court, he claimed divine identity or convenient amnesia. Each lie replaced accountability until only fantasy remained. “I wasn’t under oath,” he once told a judge—mocking both legal and moral reality.

Why Lies Matter

Freestone’s analysis makes this personal: you live in a society built on trust—trust in professions, laws, empathy. Psychopaths like Marshall reveal how fragile that framework is. When someone cannot distinguish truth from invention, society collapses at its edges. Pathological lying isn’t just a crime—it’s an existential threat to human meaning. For Freestone, it’s the purest expression of the “void” at psychopathy’s core.

Freestone’s examination of Angela Simpson, dubbed “the remorseless,” overturns our assumptions about women and psychopathy. Female psychopaths are statistically rare—perhaps one for every fifty men—and often misinterpreted through cultural filters. Traditionally, literature frames psychopathic women as beautiful manipulators—the Marquise de Merteuil, Villanelle, femme fatales who use seduction, not violence. Simpson’s case shatters that myth.

Angela’s Crime and Commentary

In Phoenix, Arizona, 2009, Simpson kidnapped and tortured a man over two days before killing him. Interviews afterward show her defiant, mocking reporters, proud of the murder. “Everyone has a reason to kill,” she says flatly. Freestone dissects these interviews as a master class in manipulation and control: Simpson undermines her interrogator, reframes morality, and maintains calm domination—traits identical to male psychopaths like Ted Bundy. She is not a relational manipulator; she is a predator who rejects remorse entirely.

Beyond the Femme Fatale

Simpson’s existence challenges the narrow mold of femininity. When asked if killing was “a male domain,” she replied with sarcastic feminist equality: “Oh yeah, equal opportunities.” Freestone uses this to question how gendered stereotypes distort our comprehension of psychopathy. Even researchers, he notes, often misapply male-centered criteria to women, misunderstanding traits like dependency or sexual behavior through sexist lenses. Simpson forces the field to acknowledge that psychopathy transcends gender norms.

Evil or Amoral?

Freestone warns against labeling Simpson “evil.” Psychopathy, he argues, is amoral, not immoral. Simpson wasn’t born wicked; her history—abuse, neglect, exploitation—warped the structures of empathy long before she chose violence. Seeing her as a monster absolves society of its part: how trauma breeds moral blindness. Her story reminds you that gender doesn’t shield against psychopathic formation—it only changes how society reacts when a woman refuses to fit the narrative of remorse.

Can a psychopath truly change? Freestone’s portrait of Eddie, the Redeemed argues that it’s possible—but only through insight, accountability, and long-term support. Eddie’s life is a torn tapestry of crime: assault, manslaughter, rape. Yet his transformation in a therapeutic community reveals how awareness and empathy can be learned through stable relationships.

From Violence to Vulnerability

Raised in abuse and neglect near London’s docks, Eddie absorbed violence like language. Over decades he repeated the cycle—hurting partners, breaking laws, losing control. In prison he finally met Dr. C., a forensic psychotherapist who confronted him with painful clarity. Therapy forced Eddie to see his aggression as protection for the frightened boy inside him; forgiveness began where accountability did. Over years, Eddie developed what Freestone calls “cognitive empathy”—the ability to think about other people’s feelings even if he couldn’t feel them fully.

Changing the Script

Eddie’s redemption worked because it rewired relationships. The therapeutic community rejected punishment and hierarchy, replacing them with accountability and dialogue. There he learned the difference between dominance and cooperation. His story shows that rehabilitation isn’t about erasing psychopathy—it’s about teaching recognition of the human consequences of one’s actions.

Hope Against Cynicism

Freestone uses Eddie’s success to counter fatalistic myths. Many clinicians believe psychopaths cannot benefit from therapy; Eddie proves otherwise. He reminds readers that transformation begins when society stops discarding offenders as inherently evil and starts treating them as casualties of emotional development gone wrong. Redemption, Freestone concludes, doesn’t mean erasing the label—it means learning to live beyond it.

In his closing chapters, Freestone steps back to discuss how societies and systems treat psychopaths. He argues that harsh moralism and biological fatalism both fail. What works is humane containment: programs that offer safe relationships, responsibility, and structure rather than perpetual punishment.

Beyond Punishment and Fear

Freestone visited Dutch psychiatric prisons like the Van der Hoeven Kliniek in Utrecht, where patients with psychopathy run workshops and businesses within a therapeutic community. Instead of segregating offenders, this model empowers them with autonomy under supervision. He contrasts this with Britain’s abandonment of similar approaches, noting that such environments enable emotional growth: psychopaths learn empathy not through lectures but through living cooperative routines.

Psychopathy in Everyday Life

Freestone also draws attention to “successful psychopaths”—those functioning in corporate or social settings without violence. Many possess cognitive empathy but use it for manipulation. Understanding them helps readers detect manipulative patterns in workplaces or relationships. But Freestone insists labels alone are useless; understanding motives and context is key. A high-functioning manipulator may appear charming or visionary, but empathy is still transactional.

Empathy as Prevention

Ultimately, Freestone’s call is moral as much as scientific. He reminds readers that throwing away psychopaths only perpetuates violence. Effective treatment combines safety with dignity, offering relationships strong enough to absorb manipulation without collapsing. Psychopaths, he writes, “deserve to be helped.” That compassion does not excuse harm—it prevents another generation from inheriting the same emptiness. In seeing their humanity, we reclaim some of our own.