Nothing was off limits or too extreme for Marvin. After all, he’d say, it was all for the children’s sake. Only in retrospect did his entertainment plans look unusual. Marvin borrowed the money to build an in-ground pool that took up the entire back yard. There was barely enough room for a walkway around the pool, hardly enough room to stand. Once completed, Marvin spent countless hours playing “Marco Polo”, all day and late into the summer night, with any number of young boys. Marco Polo is a game of tag played under water. Marvin used the game to grasp a young boy’s genitalia as his way of tagging. Those who pulled away became a part of his later defense. “Sure, I played Marco Polo with Marvin,” they would say. “No, he never touched me there,” they would add. “Well, maybe once, but that was a mistake. It never happened again.” Those who giggled and allowed the touching became his prey. They were invited to sleepovers or even family camping trips. He loved to share his sleeping bag with boys. How could we not have seen? How could we have let such improprieties happen? That thought process, that self- doubt, was just as Marvin had intended. I repeat that phrase purposely. These things didn’t just happen. They were not random events. Never. They were just as Marvin had intended.
Marvin developed a pattern of befriending the parents of his intended victims. He worked to gain their trust. Not only did that allow increased access to their children, it allowed him to begin to build his arsenal of silencing tools. His purpose was two-fold. He needed to conceal his hideous priorities, and he needed to silence those who knew about them.
Chapter Eight — SILENCING THE TRUTH
Marvin would befriend an entire family. Remember my earlier description? He was a consummate salesman, able to sell ice to Eskimos. He would shamelessly befriend unsuspecting parents of his intended victims. He would then use them for his own purpose. He could obtain their cooperation, manipulate them for a variety of reasons, either aggressive or protective, but always fitting in his secret agenda. He could play each family member for his own amusement, for his perverse pleasure, to further his own dark needs. He would look for “fractures” within the family structure itself. He would intentionally choose his child victim from those who came from a single parent home or whose’ parents were divorced, even if there was a stepparent within their family. He viewed these scenarios as family division weaknesses that he could exploit.
He developed a pattern of preying on single mothers of male children, his interests being in her children, her money and her material assets. Once inserted in the mother’s life, he would begin to look for ammunition for character assassination. He used any deviation from normal readily and easily. He would distort other people’s mistakes to his own use. As an example, if a parent had used alcohol with Marvin, that mother or father was encouraged to have another drink, then another, until he had consumed too much. If that parent ever turned against him, he would claim they were a raging alcoholic or an addict, and they should not be believed over him. Marvin collected other’s indiscretions like some people collect stamps. He kept them in a file in his mind, and when they were needed, he used these bits of information, sometimes disinformation, to paint the other as a trouble maker, or out to get him, or as an insult to anyone’s intelligence. Later, as he had to defend himself against the accusations of child seduction, his explanations became more and more irrational, impossible to defend. But that was later, after the damage had been done, after lives were in peril, after Marvin’s victims had risen out of the depths of his degradation and into the light of truth.
He would frequently seduce one of the parents into having an affair with him. On several occasions, he was able to seduce both parents. And then, of course, he had them in his grasp. When confronted with the accusations of child seduction, he would admit to the adult seduction, and say that the adult, one or either, had an axe to grind, that they were simply venting anger at their own sexual involvement. “Of course I didn’t use the little boy,” Marvin would say. “His mother is just pissed that she put out for me. You can’t believe a woman scorned by her lover.” Alternatively, he would threaten to reveal the affair to others in order to exercise control and intimidate anyone who threatened his agenda. If a child told his parents the truth about his improprieties, he would tell the parents that the child was confused, or had a behavior problem, or that he was incapable of committing such acts and the child was a liar, plain and simple. Even after the official investigation had shown Marvin for the predator he was, he tried to deflect accusations with these tactical lies. Before he was caught in his tangle of lies, he used an endless list of twisted truths, half-lies, and misdirections to confuse and further entrap the little boys. The list is almost endless. Among them were:
“Mr. Fun”
“I’ll be your friend”
“No one understands you like I do”
“I’ll always be here for you”
“We’ll be a “forever family”
“Here’s money”
“Here’s stuff”
“I’ll take you here”
“I’ll take you there”
“I’ll let you do things that your parents won’t let you do and it’ll be our little secret”
“We can have other secrets too, and no one will ever know”.
Once he violated them, he then threatened them into silence with:
'If you tell I’ll be mad at you'
'I’ll tell them you’re a liar and nobody will believe you'
'They’ll believe me and no one will like you anymore'
'Your mom and dad won’t love you anymore'
'No one will want you, not ever'.
It was later discovered that some of the children delayed in telling what he had done to them to protect their friend, Marvin’s son. He bought their silence with manipulative lies such as: “If you tell you’ll get me into trouble. The police will put me in jail and then my son won’t have a father. Do you really want to see your friend in a foster home? If that happens, you’ll never see him again. Do you want such terrible things to happen just because we had a little private fun?” And very often, these little boys tried to hide their sexual involvement with Marvin to protect their innocent friend.
After two long years of multiple victims and recurrent abuse, some of the boys came forward, first telling their parents and then the authorities their heart-breaking stories of sexual abuse at the hands of a manipulative monster. Some of the children wept and begged that their friend not be placed in a foster home. And how many stories never saw the light? There are some today, grown men, who have never told and never will. They blame themselves, and hide that blame in a dark corner of their mind where the sun is not allowed to shine. Think of that. They blame themselves — just as Marvin intended.
Chapter Nine — FALLEN
I have been a Registered Professional Nurse for thirty-three years, my entire adult life. I specialized in the area of psychiatric nursing for fifteen years and worked side by side with psychiatrists, psychologists, therapists and counselors in observing and analyzing human behavior. With the misfortune of knowing a sociopath on a very personal level for eighteen years, these tools were put to a very personal and ultimate test. I learned the only way anyone can protect himself from being a victim of a sociopath is by recognizing that deviant behavior for what it is. When I reached this understanding, I felt a force for good rise up within me. That was the driving force behind this book.
I want to share this understanding with you. I want these pages to contain the tools and armor that will let you escape the trap set by an evil predator. I want you to be able to avoid being the victim of a sociopath beside you.
I tried to hide behind generalities in the first half of this book. I think the warnings about deviant behavior are there. I think the descriptions of a sociopath's behavior are accurate. But hiding behind generalities mimicked the
