Fifteen years of her husband Tom's life, her daughter's health, and for her victims, precious time with their loved ones were sacrificed to the greed of this antisocial woman, who, thanks to her too kind upbringing and lack of parental discipline, thought that she was entitled to "everything she ever wanted" without once thinking about the repercussions of her actions on other people.
If this story was to be presented as fiction, it would be dismissed as being the product of an author's sick and twisted imagination, but Ann Rule proves in this extraordinary book that it is not imaginations which are sick and twisted, but what truly IS twisted, sick and utterly incomprehensible is the malignant mind of a sociopath.
When Pat was 5, her mother married a career army officer named Clifford Radcliffe. Pat, resentful of having to leave the charmed life her grandmother gave her and share any part of the limelight with her half-brother, Kent, was forced to move out of state and move into a new lifestyle.
In true sociopathic form, Pat, like the proverbial rat, could survive just about anywhere. Radcliffe's career took the family to different countries where they were warmly received. Pat, blessed with physical attractiveness, used this to charm people into indulging her.
Kent, on the other hand was a gentle, mild mannered boy. A hearing loss in infancy appeared to exacerbate his shyness. He was easily eclipsed and dominated by his bullying sister. Never able to find peace with himself, he committed suicide in 1966.
Pat married at age 15 and had three children. Like her mother, she married a career officer whose assignments led to distant travel. Pat's oldest child Susan remembers that when she was 4, Pat crushed her hand while the family was in the Phillippines. This incident seemed to set the tone for Susan's future relationship with Pat. She did not want to see Pat when her hand was injured and this sentiment seemed to remain consistent throughout their lives together.
Pat's middle child, Debbie, appeared to be her mother's daughter. A child bride, Debbie would later embark on a series of affairs, become involved in prostitution and work with Pat in drugging and robbing elderly patients.
Ron, Pat's youngest child seemed most like his uncle Kent. Never able to find his place, he became a drifter and had a series of unsatisfactory relationships. In 1980 he eventually had a daughter named Ashlynne who was the apple of Pat's mother's eye.
History repeated itself. Pat's maternal grandmother adored her. Ashlynne's maternal grandmother adored her. Pat resented her mother lavishing love on Ashlynne. To compensate for this, she showered gifts upon Susan's children. A Southern Belle wannabe, Pat remarried a very gentle man named Tom Allenson. They had a "Gone With the Wind" themed wedding and Tom appeared to care very deeply about his new wife. He, too, had some disastrous marriages and was crushed at having no way to contact his children.
Pat, ever the seductress, devised newer and more frightening methods to command center stage. A possible victim of "Munchausen's Syndrome," she inflicted deep wounds on her body, reinfected one to the point she had to be hospitalized and sought ways to make people care about her. She resented the attention and time her grandchildren required and saw them as intrusions. She was especially antagonistic towards Ashlynne.
Pat was a ruthless sociopath who would stop at nothing to secure her goal. Susan's third child, Adam, was seen as a threat by Pat. She extended the hostility she felt for Ashlynne to Adam. She kept Susan drugged and poisoned and refused to let Susan have Adam. She insisted on keeping the mother and child apart, knowing full well how miserable she was making them.
Susan finally recovers and bravely blows the whistle on Pat. Having served jail time for a previous murder attempt, Pat once again entered the system. She had quite a resume -- doll maker, seamstress, gifted in the art of presenting genteel Southern charm (a real steel magnolia) thief and a murderer. This Southern Belle was Arsenic and Old Lace personified.
It would be interesting to see an update on Susan and her family and Debbie and her daughter as well as Ron and Ashlynne. One can only hope this family was able to heal after Susan bravely did the right thing. Hats off to Susan!