Addict Nation (20 page)

Addicts are ticking time bombs. It’s only a matter of time before they implode and destroy their own lives . . . or explode in an act of violence against someone else. While it’s true that, statistically, only a tiny percentage of hard-core porn watchers will act out those images in real life, it’s a good bet that those men who
are caught
acting out sick, violent sexual fantasies on an unwilling female or child are extremely likely to be heavy porn users and/or compulsively trolling the Internet for sex. While these violence-prone men may be sociopaths or have some even more pronounced mental illness, there is often an addictive component to their dysfunction. Yet, usually, society labels them as violent psychotics without adding the
addict factor
into the equation.

The hit
Dateline NBC
show
To Catch a Predator
dramatically proves that the mental image we have of a sex offender is in sharp contrast with the reality. These men are not hobos in frayed trench coats who’ve crawled out of some gutter. They are average Joes from all walks of life—teachers, doctors, servicemen, men of the cloth— caught using the Internet to arrange sex with underage girls or boys.

Many of these men are married. Many have girlfriends. These women generally have no clue about the true sexual proclivities and inclinations of the men they are with.
They are living with a stranger
who keeps the most personal part of his life a total secret!

When Boston’s infamous “Craigslist Killer” Philip Markoff was arrested and charged with the murder of a masseuse, his fiancé initially defended him, unable to fathom that her preppy, medical student boyfriend had a secret life that was 180 degrees shy of her perception of him. Then cops found several pairs of women’s panties under the bed they shared, along with dozens of plastic flex-cuff restraints, plus a hollowed-out copy of
Gray’s Anatomy
containing a gun believed to be the murder weapon.
²⁵
Markoff accessed his secret world through Craigslist and other sites, where he would troll for strippers, escorts, and, some reports claim, transvestites.
48
Hours/Mystery
reports investigators believe one of Markoff ’s e-mail addresses was “sexaddict5385.”
²⁶
Before he could go to trial for murder, Markoff committed suicide in his jail cell, leaving his former fiancé’s name scrawled in blood on the wall. These are extreme examples of what is happening all over America.

Addiction operates best behind a cloak of secrecy. Just as an alcoholic hides the bottle in the medicine closet, those addicted to porn, and those with unusual fetishes, often keep these impulses hidden from the one person who should know about them, their spouse or significant other. Consequently, the secret behavior festers and grows and takes on a life of its own as the addict’s primary relationship is eclipsed and becomes increasingly superficial and empty.

Let’s Get Honest About Sex

One of the tenets of recovery is “rigorous honesty.” We keep secrets and tell lies to cover up sexual urges because our culture is intolerant of genuine, natural, unscripted human sexuality. In a more evolved society, we would embrace our inborn sexual urges and discard primitive taboos and pointless shame. Instead, we wage “campaigns” against sexuality. Often, those shouting the loudest—from the pulpit or the podium—are secretly addicted to the very thing they’re denouncing. Psychiatrists call this
reaction formation
, where you condemn the very thing that secretly obsesses you for two reasons: to convince yourself that you don’t want it and to create a smokescreen so others don’t figure out you want it!

Sexuality is one of the most incredible aspects of the human experience. Most want to believe it is a spiritual, beautiful part of life. We need to encourage our lawmakers, teachers, and political leaders to stop treating sexuality like it’s a crime. When we tell people sex is intrinsically “bad,” they equate it with evil and express it as such. We have demonized sex as a culture, and we’re paying the price in the form of sexual abuse and sexual crime. Let’s get honest about what sex and love are really like! Homosexuality, fetishes, sexual games, power exchanges, open relationships, bisexuality— these are just some of the lifestyles and natural sexual activities we should openly acknowledge and accept so they are not forced into shameful secrecy or expressed pornographically.

I should know. It took me decades to come to terms with my own homosexuality in order to conform to a society that told me there was something wrong with those innate desires. So I went into denial about my feelings toward members of the same sex and proceeded to become an alcoholic to drown the sadness and confusion that wouldn’t go away. When I finally sobered up more than fifteen years ago, I could lie to myself no longer. Eventually, the truth came out as it always does.

Toxic secrets will either implode, destroying the secret keeper, or explode in violence against an innocent. There is another way. Acceptance. It seems like an easy call.

Chapter Six
THE BLOODLUSTERS: Addicted to Crime

D
ecember 27, 2009, two days after Christmas. A toned, twenty-three-year-old graduate student moves briskly past her parents’ ornately decorated tree as she heads out for a run. Candice Moncayo is an attractive brunette who has the bearing of an athlete. She’s studied martial arts since childhood and is a long-distance runner. Though home for the holidays, Candice has the discipline to keep to her exercise schedule. She moves at a good clip as she jogs down the streets of this well-manicured suburb outside San Diego. It’s a gorgeous day, so much warmer than the Colorado weather she’s learned to endure. It feels good to be home in the California sunshine. She heads into a community park where jogging trails run alongside a shimmering lake.

Candice is almost at the end of her eight-mile run when she sees a tall, bulky man with a crew cut and blue jeans coming from the other direction. “Good morning,” she says cheerfully as she breezes past him. A millisecond later, Candice feels his considerable weight slamming into her. He tackles her to the ground. Candice lets out a piercing scream. “Shut up!” he says, leaning over her.
He’s going to
rape me,
she thinks, terrified. “You’re going to have to kill me first,” she cries. “That can be arranged,” is his reply. Her thumping heart feels like it’s going to fly out of her chest. The bulky, six-foot-two attacker grabs Candice by the shoulders, shaking her violently. Candice senses it’s a life or death moment. Suddenly she remembers a martial arts move she’s practiced since childhood and forcefully elbows the man in the nose. He’s hurt and momentarily releases her. She jumps up and runs like hell, faster than she’s ever run before. She reports the crime to police.

Two months later, Thursday, February 25, 2010. It’s the same suburb outside San Diego. At the local high school, class lets out for the day. A seventeen-year-old senior, with blue eyes and dirty blonde hair, hops into her BMW. Blessed with homecoming-queen looks, Chelsea King is also a straight-A student who has already been accepted into several colleges. On top of tutoring other students and playing French horn for the San Diego Youth Symphony, she’s also a member of the cross-country team. An overachiever, she finds running is a great way to burn off stress. It’s a perfect day for a run. Chelsea pulls her car into the local community park’s lot and heads out onto the trails that wind alongside that same shimmering lake. She is never seen alive again.

Chelsea didn’t have to die. We could have prevented it. Why didn’t we?

In the days following Chelsea’s disappearance, a small army converges on the park. Hundreds of law-enforcement and volunteer searchers comb the brush around the lake. The atmosphere is somber and yet electric. Teams of divers navigate the murky waters. Helicopters circle overhead. Police dogs sniff for a trace of the victim. News trucks set up, raising their masts to the heavens. Neighbors are interviewed. The sheriff ’s department holds news conferences. Cable hosts, including myself, pour over the clues.
Where did she go? How do we solve the mystery?
By now, we are all familiar with how this morbid ritual unfolds from the moment the yellow crime-scene tape is unrolled.

Chelsea’s gut-wrenching case has all the classic conventions.

Soon comes an unnerving discovery. Chelsea’s underwear is spotted in the brush with what appears to be semen on it. The DNA is run against a computer database of sex offenders. A name comes back. Cops arrest John Gardner III as he walks out of a local restaurant. He’s a thirty-year-old, 230-pound white male with a crew cut who looks like a linebacker. Cops show his mug shot to the first jogger, Candice Montoya. “Yep, he’s the same guy,” she tells them. Cops believe this sex predator turned this scenic park into his personal hunting ground.

It turns out John Gardner had been staying with his mother, just an easy walk from where the attacks occurred. Neighbors didn’t have any idea this registered sex offender was living in their midst. In the sex-offender registry, Gardner’s listed address is in another town two hours away.

As I prepare my research for the night’s show, I can’t believe how easily John Gardner made a mockery of California’s sex offender registry. We can track FedEx packages across the country and know where they are every minute of the day, but we can’t track a 230-pound lug, who’s a registered sex offender, from town to town in Southern California?

It doesn’t take much research to figure out that Gardner’s case is typical. Nationally, about one in seven sex offenders are not properly listed in the registry or are MIA, missing in action.

Divers, Dogs, Despair, and Desolation

A few days after her disappearance, Chelsea’s body turns up in a shallow grave covered with debris. Her body is only half a mile from where she parked her BMW. She was spotted by divers working the nearby lake. There is rage in the community. “Chelsea’s blood on you, move out,” someone spray paints in large red letters on the garage door of the suspect’s mother.

Could this have all been so easily avoided by protecting the victims
before
the crime? Or could the horrifying truth be that we—as a society—
are addicted to the drama of violence?

Junk Justice

The rage would be better directed at our broken justice system, which would be laughable if it weren’t so utterly tragic. Why wasn’t Chelsea warned about the previous attack on a female jogger in that same park? Why weren’t there signs posted in that park? We post signs for falling rocks. We post warnings when a hungry coyote is spotted sniffing around for food. Why didn’t anyone give this young woman the facts she needed to make
an informed judgment
about whether she wanted to go running in that park by herself when a sex predator was on the loose?

Why wasn’t a suspect sketch obtained from Candice Moncayo, the December victim who got away? Cops reportedly lamented that Candice went back to Colorado. So? Couldn’t the cops have hired a sketch artist in Colorado? Couldn’t they have flown to Colorado to get the sketch? Couldn’t cops have worked on a videoconference system, like Skype, to obtain the sketch? Here’s the likely rationalization:
What’s the big deal? Candice is okay. She didn’t get hurt. It’s not
a priority. Besides, we don’t have the budget.

Our Justice System Is Reactive, Not Proactive

This case is typical. Let me pause to say that my observations are not directed at the rank-and-file men and women in blue who patrol our streets. I admire the police. Cops are overwhelmingly decent, hard-working, brave men and women who put their lives on the line for strangers on a daily basis. As a reporter, I’ve worked with beat cops for years and am in awe of their resilience in the face of a daily onslaught of the worst human nature has to offer. I feel safer because there are cops on the street in my neighborhood. However, there is a huge blind spot in our criminal justice system. Law enforcement, as a cultural institution, is really not all that interested in prevention. Prevention is boring. Prevention is really dull, hard work that offers no drama. Prevention, while it stops crime from happening, sometime in the indeterminate future, is like a tasteless glass of water.

It’s Hard to Claim Credit for Stopping
a Crime That Never Happened

If prevention is like a tasteless glass of water, then hunting for suspects, detective work, and forensics is like a bottle of champagne. It sparkles. It fizzes as it goes down. Prevention doesn’t give us the adrenaline rush every addict craves. Crime and punishment does. Our culture is addicted to the charge we get from the whodunit suspense of crime:
Who did it and what’s his motive? How did he get
away? Did anyone see him? What’s the evidence? How do you catch him?
Chases, cornering the criminal, the trial, closing arguments, and the sentencing, it’s all very dramatic and much more exciting than drab, dull prevention. If you don’t believe me, try attending a murder trial and see if you don’t get nervous and filled with anticipation as the jury files in to announce their verdict. The inherent drama of violent crime is what makes it such perfect material for TV shows. There are no crime dramas about the prevention of crime!

“If anything is going to take longer than a single electoral cycle it’s very, very difficult to get policy makers to buy into it. Unless there is some visible, tangible outcome that they can point to and say ‘I did this’ or ‘I was behind this particular piece of legislation that had this outcome,’ with a two- or four- or six-year cycle, it’s tough for them to see it as in their best self-interest to back it.”

—Travis Pratt, author of
Addicted to Incarceration: Corrections Policy
and the Politics of Misinformation in the United States