Munchausen Syndrome and False Accusations

From: http://home.earthlink.net/~elnunes/malinger.htm

- False and Self-Inflicted Injuries -

A Brief Word About Syndromes - Simulations

A syndrome is a group of signs and symptoms that occur together and characterize a particular abnormality or a condition or an identifiable pattern of behavior. Munchausen syndrome is a condition where a person malingers by pretending or exaggerating incapacity or an illness to avoid work or for the specific purpose of being treated as a medical patient. Sometimes, these individuals will self-inflict injuries on their body or use makeup or prosthetics to fabricate an illness or an injury.

False and self-inflicted injuries are perhaps the most misunderstood phenomena involving false allegations. But it goes further than this, because some parents will abuse their child to prevent the other parent from receiving custody or visitation rights of their child through a simulation of a criminal offence. The problem is that society is so transfixed with the notion that women have the unfettered right to falsely accuse anyone that it is willing to set aside the truth. So instead of trying to solve this problem, many ignore it in hope that it would magically go away but it doesn’t.

Faked injuries are usually simulated by using makeup, prosthetics, and torn clothing and drug and medical supply stores are common sources of material. Most colleges and universities have an Arts or Drama department that can produce more sophisticated materials that are often used in legitimate productions. The most important point to remember is that most faked injuries that incorporate these materials cannot be subjected to actual testing because they would reveal the fraud that is being made.  Did you know that scabs can be simulated by glue and coloring?

Color Changes in Injuries

This is why photographs are often used to portray injuries that never did exist. One way of proving that a bruise is real and that bruises change color as they heal - they go from red to blue to cyan and to yellow. Another way of checking the authenticity of a bruise is that they contain clotting material and this material can be extracted for testing.

Blood plasma contains proteins that cause blood to clot but they normally circulate in an inactive form. However, when a blood vessel is damaged, the platelets help in clotting the blood by adhering to other platelets and to the epithelium (a cellular membrane). Then the fibrous tissue changes into strands that crisscross and create a mesh that squeezes out the fluid and forms a solid clot (hardened blood and serum). These clots, called scabs, can be collected and then tested in a laboratory. 

Today, most physicians prescribe low dose aspirin to prevent blood clots while warfarin is used in the treatment of atrial fibrillation, pulmonary embolism, venous thrombosis and other medical conditions. Too much warfarin or aspirin or can result in excessive bruising or bleeding. Blood testing can reveal that a person is using them to induce bruising or bleeding in themselves or that they are trying to poison another person. Women are far more likely to use poisons than men.

Scams and simulations are used by the perpetrator to direct attention away from them and to the targeted person. These often include feigned assaults and false allegations. Although self-inflicted injuries can be symptomatic of Borderline Personality Disorder, they are usually a result of the actor trying to draw attention to themselves. However, self-mutilation is often used to garner attention or to avoid conflict especially after the perpetrator has manipulated or harmed others. I call this the ‘poor me’ excuse because the offender blames the victim by saying that ‘you made me do it’.

Handedness

The hands of a person are mirror images of each other and they have a specific arrangement: thumb, index, middle finger, ring, and pinkie (little). So when the hands are placed are placed palm to palm, each finger has a corresponding opposite finger. This is also true of human feet and toes. However, did you know that most people who are right-handed are also right-footed and those who are left-handed are more likely to be left-footed but not always?

Handedness refers a tendency to use one hand rather than the other. While most people are right-handed, others are left-handed, and a few can use both hands with equal ease and that could be described as ambidextrous or cross-dominance. The reason that handedness is important is that it can be used to determine whether an injury was inflicted by a right-handed person, a left-handed person, or was self-inflicted.

For an example if two people faced each other, then a right-handed person would usually strike their victim's left side while a left-handed person would strike their victim's right side. Otherwise, the strike would be on the opposite side if they did not face each other. In other words, face-to-face strikes are mirror images while strikes from behind are not. However, the most important evidence is that the DNA of the victim and the DNA of the assailant is exchanged between the two. However, if there is no exchange, then there was no DNA and accused did not strike the purported victim.

Faked and Self-Inflicted Injuries in False Allegations of Abuse or Rape

Most self-inflicted injuries are either faked with cosmetics or made by sharp or pointed objects or by other means and most of these faked injuries are usually shallow or surface abrasions. Also, the account given by the 'victim' is often in contrast with the lack of severity of the injuries and not consistent with a typical attack or the dynamics of an actual encounter. Moreover, as with false allegations of rape, the reporting officer will extensively quote the accuser while dismissing the account of the purported offender (italics added) giving a false appearance of genuineness.

There should be no problem with protecting the rights of the accused while seeking the truth but many others don’t want it that way. This is why false allegations are so easily made and hard to refute, that those who support this evil doctrine do so through subterfuge, and extortion. They don’t care about the truth, because they want a predetermined result of their own making. And so, this is why there are no significant differences between false allegations of rape and false allegations of abuse. Women are responsible for nearly all the false allegations of rape and abuse because these particular offenses do not require corroborating evidence for arrest and conviction.

The Constitutional right to confrontation is especially significant when dealing with allegations of abuse and rape in most jurisdictions, because these are the only crimes that do not require corroborating evidence for conviction. If there are no witnesses and no physical evidence (the accuser delays in filing a report), the matter must be decided as to the credibility of the accuser. This is the person who had waited until the evidence would have dissipated and that is the essence of premeditation.

Features of Faked and Self-Inflicted Injuries

Many faked and self-inflicted injuries are a result of an attempt to obtain compensation from an insurance company. Since insurance companies are aware of this behavior, they will refer such claims to their own experts for evaluation. When the instance is a result of rape, they will insist that the insured will undergo a rape kit examination. This is to prove that the crime occurred and that the evidence has been collected to substantiate the claim.

The problem is that women, who do claim rape, are not required to fully participate in the rape examination. This may mean that the crucial evidence would not be collected and this allows her to make a false claim at some point in the future. This is also true of other forms of abuse, including spousal battery. The features of faked and self-inflicted injuries are listed below.

•         The use of fingernails and sharp or pointed tools.
•         The presence of shallow abrasions and cuts.
•         Isolated lesions.
•         Lesions with uniform curved or linear features.
•         Parallel or crisscross lesions.
•         Lesions that appear on the opposite (non dominant) side of the body
•         The location of injury is easily reachable by the ‘victim’.
•         Sensitive body regions are neither harmed nor damaged.
•         Clothing is undamaged or the damage is inconsistent.
•         There are no defense injuries on the hands, arms, and legs.
•         Old scars that are consistent with present injuries.
•         Multiple ‘trial’ cuttings and stabs.

The most important feature about real injuries and bruises is that they may spread but they don’t move. One of the best ways to detect a faked injury is to take photographs and then wait a few hours or to the next day and see if they have changed position, extent, or coloration.

Munchausen Syndrome

Munchausen syndrome is (or can be) an adjunct to false allegations of child abuse, rape, spousal abuse, and other forms of abuse such as the ‘my way or no way’ ultimatum.  Munchausen syndrome by proxy is a psychological disorder where the parent (typically the mother) lies about the child's family and medical history.  A mother may falsely accuse the father of child abuse or spousal abuse and then tamper with medications and medical specimens to create an impression of and the evidence of abuse.

Factitious Disorders and Shams

Sometimes, ‘Munchausen syndrome’ is used interchangeably with factitious disorder. This disorder is characterized by an illness or injury that is intentionally produced to appear sick. The difference is that sometimes the ‘sick’ person is not aware of its cause and so the illness might be psychosomatic or simulated in nature resulting from neurosis.  So Munchausen syndrome may apply to a person who has a chronic variant of a factitious disorder with mostly physical signs and symptoms. That is why the term, "psychosomatic" relates to symptoms caused by a mental or emotional disturbance. There are some unconfirmed reports about psychosomatic Munchausen syndrome.

Some persons who are affected by Munchausen syndrome intentionally cause signs and symptoms of an illness or injury by self infliction of injuries to their body, often to the point of having to be hospitalized. These persons are sometimes eager to undergo invasive medical interventions and so they go to doctor to doctor to satisfy their craving for attention. According to the literature, there are about 33 illnesses and conditions that are commonly feigned by persons with Munchausen Syndrome. These include Sexual Abuse, Spousal Abuse, and Ideation (the capacity for - or the act of forming self entertaining ideas - such as suicide). Please see the literature on this and other personality and mental disorders.