Remember Clark Rockefeller? He claimed to be from the rich and famous family and married Sandra Boss, the highly paid McKinsey management consultant. Boss divorced him and won custody of their child. On July 27, 2008, he abducted the girl. He was caught, charged with kidnapping and found guilty.

Then it turned out that Rockefeller wasn’t who he said he was. His real name was Christian Gerhartsreiter, he was an illegal alien from Germany, and he may have committed murder.

The Clark Rockefeller story is again in the media. Vanity Fair magazine published a story called The Man in the Rockefeller Suit.

And, Lifetime TV is premiering a new movie, Who Is Clark Rockefeller?, on March 13, 2010 at 9 p.m. Encores will air March 14 and 15 at 9 p.m.

Karen Salmansohn, author of How to Be Happy, Dammit and about 20 other self-help books, got scammed by a guy who paid for her fertility treatments, but when she was pregnant, dumped her.

See story in the New York Daily News.

Link submitted by a Lovefraud reader.

Last week, the body of Chelsea King, a 17-year-old high school student from Poway, California, near San Diego, was discovered in a shallow grave. She went for a run in a park on February 25, 2010, and never returned.

John Albert Gardner III, of nearby Lake Elsinore, was charged with her murder and rape, or attempted rape.

Gardner was a convicted sex offender. In May 2000, he pleaded guilty to molesting a 13-year-old girl. In that case, he was a month shy of his 21^st birthday. The victim knew Gardner—they had been neighbors. She and a friend were waiting for a school bus when Gardner drove up and offered them a ride. He then lured the victim to his mother’s townhouse to watch a movie.

Editor’s Note: Resource Perspectives features articles written by members of Lovefraud’s Professional Resources Guide.

Questions to ask yourself when you want to go after a sociopath

By Fred Dunsing, Attorney at Law

Fred Dunsing profile in the Lovefraud Professional Resources Guide

I’m not a psychologist or a psychiatrist or a counselor. I’m a lawyer. Therefore, I’m wholly unqualified to write about sociopaths and the specifics of their mental health disorder.

I do, however, understand the definition of sociopath and generally understand what constitutes sociopathic behavior. I have seen many of these individuals during my years in practice as a family law attorney, and I can say that most of the sociopaths I have come in contact with have been within the context of fraudulent relationships. Most of these individuals have been men (although I must admit that I represent mainly women in my practice).

Sociopaths who posture as insightful and self-aware are some of the most dangerous predators around.

When I use the terms pseudo insightful and pseudo sensitive, I’m referring to the sociopath’s manipulative efforts to seem some combination of vulnerable, self-aware, sensitive and compassionate.

For some sociopaths this deception is conscious, while for others it is so seamlessly woven into their modus operandi as to feel (for them), at least in the moment, almost authentic.

Even the normal individual, low in sociopathic traits, may struggle to distinguish his deception from authenticity when finding himself “performing” in a mode in which he feels masterfully confident and comfortable—for instance, pitching a sale; or making a presentation, or speech.

But what factors make the sociopath’s “insight” and “sensitivity” pseudo versus authentic?

Editor’s note: The following story was submitted by a reader who we’ll call “Lia.”

For years I felt like my life was thrown in a blender and chopped up in little pieces and those pieces included my heart, my career, my health, my sanity, my friends and my family.

My first encounter with the sociopath was at NYU medical center’s ER, while my 3-year-old son was being looked at for a bump in the head. This young intern doctor took a lot of interest in me and in my son’s well being. After recently having ended my marriage, it felt good that a guy would become so enraptured by me. At the time I was legally separated from my husband, although my ex-husband and I remained friends and even lived together for a while.  I never told the sociopath that I was separated from my husband because I was not looking for a relationship.

If you haven’t yet completed the Lovefraud survey about your experience with a sociopath, do it now. The survey will close the evening of Wednesday, March 3, 2010.

Lovefraud will submit the results to the American Psychiatric Association. The association is preparing the fifth edition of its Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM 5), which mental health professionals use to diagnose mental conditions. It includes a new definition of sociopaths/psychopaths.

Our survey asks you to rate how well the definition matches what you experienced in your involvement with a disordered person. We are seeking input from both men and women.

Hundreds of Lovefraud readers have responded. If you have already completed the survey, thank you. If you haven’t, please do it right away.

Reading the newspaper on Saturday, two terrible articles jumped off the page.

A New Jersey man accused of abandoning his infant daughter at a gas station in Delaware has been charged with killing the toddler’s mother, whose burning body was found in an upstate New York park. Read more.

A man apparently infatuated with a special-education teacher shot and killed her as she walked into her elementary school Friday, shortly before students began arriving. Read more.

These were stories of domestic violence with the worst possible endings.

Dr. Liane Leedom has written previously on Lovefraud that, “studies of male perpetrators of domestic violence reveal that 50% are sociopaths and another 25% have sociopathic traits, but not the full disorder.”

So how big is the problem of domestic violence?

By Ox Drover

I remember when I first learned to ride a bicycle. Most of us remember the day we first took off the training wheels, because generally, we fell down a few times before we got it right and were pretty safe from falling. It took practice. I can’t remember many days before I was about twelve that I didn’t have at least one band-aid on at least one knee. Even with the continual road rash I usually had on my knees and elbows, it never even occurred to me to not keep on practicing or to give up on learning to ride the “big kid’s bike.”

Editor’s Note: Lovefraud received the following story from a woman whom we’ll call “Abigail.”

I met my now ex-boyfriend June 2004. I had been divorced for 4 years; my kids were 7 and 10. He is a police officer. The night I met he seemed depressed, I asked him, “Why are you so sad?” He replied, “I got divorced this week.” By the end of the night I was really excited; I really liked him!

I had been alone for four years. We started dating. Since I thought he was recently divorced, I didn’t question him when he didn’t call and sometimes, although I would speak to him, I wouldn’t see him on the weekends. That only lasted for a couple of months. Then we were seeing each other all the time, going out every weekend. We would go everywhere, alone, with friends.