Psychotherapist reveals sinister mind behind ‘flirt’ letters

In an analysis of Graham Dwyer’s sinister letters to au pair, psychotherapist says the sadistic murderer is a narcissistic sociopath

AMERICAN psychotherapist Dr Robi Ludwig previously analysed the evidence in the Graham Dwyer trial for the Irish Mail on Sunday.

Dr Robi (pictured right) has written a book called Till Death Do Us Part, which details why spouses kill those closest to them and is a frequent guest on television programmes on homicide.

This week Dr Ludwig was given copies of Dwyer’s letters and – in the context of his conviction and the evidence in his trial – asked to analyse items of interest arising from the correspondence.

Here she explains why the series of letters displays a sinister attempt to groom and seduce a young woman into believing the murderer is in fact a good person who has been wronged by the system. Her notes are presented as they were said, in conversation with the Irish Mail on Sunday’s Valerie Hanley.

Dr Robi’s latest book, Your Best Age is Now, will be released on April 5 next. It promises to be a guide on how to re-energise your dreams and how to lead a satisfying life.

IT was very interesting how he gets so personal and focused with her, the way he does it. He is presenting a very likeable image, he’s very revealing about his pleadings, his focus on this woman is very attentive. One of the reasons why these sociopaths in jail are so appealing is because they focus in on women in a way that most men don’t, don’t have time for, don’t have interest in [doing].

What kind of struck me is how he almost describes himself as this lovely family man whose family really supported him – they’ve came to visit him at the prison, his mother is having surgery, he hopes she’s okay, she’s really young – so he’s presenting himself in this way, he’s a really good guy whose family support him.

He conveys how important she is to him by saying ‘I don’t know if you got my letter or not already, you know I sent it to the wrong address, the mail is slow, I hope I hear from you. I have a fear of ending up alone.’ That’s saying I have a space in my life. I want intimacy. I want a special relationship with someone. I don’t want to be alone, I don’t want to be lonely. You have to understand that everything with a sociopath is a manipulation, there’s always an end game, there’s always a strategy. It’s never just coming from this honest, innocent place. He would not be interested with this woman unless he felt there was some win in it for him, some advantage.

There’s a new study that came out about sociopathy and the old thinking was that people with disorder, the actual disorder is called anti-social personality disorder, that they didn’t have any feeling at all towards anybody and while that may be true of a certain segment of people with antisocial personality disorder, there’s always a grey area. You know it’s not so clear to me whether he thinks this woman can help him convince anybody important that he didn’t do this…. that he believes this woman can do that for him. I don’t know what she told him about herself but the pleasure of getting attention, of having someone believe in him, of having an additional person who can serve as a character witness to his innocence, is all part of his ultimate game plan.