From manipulative cult leaders to cold-blooded killers, history has seen some truly disturbing individuals. Join us as we examine the most notorious people who exhibited classic signs of sociopathy - antisocial behavior, manipulation, and a complete lack of empathy. These individuals used their charm and cunning to exploit others, leaving destruction in their wake.
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00:00The evidence will show had the infinite humility, as it were, to refer to himself as Jesus Christ.
00:07The evidence will show Charles Manson to be a megalomaniac
00:10who coupled his insatiable thirst for power with an obsession for violent death.
00:15Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we're examining the most notorious people throughout history
00:20who have exhibited signs of sociopathy, those being antisocial behavior, manipulation, and a lack of empathy.
00:26I was trying to help people. Do you really believe me?
00:32Adolf Hitler.
00:33If you look at somebody like Hitler, it's difficult to know what was going on in his mind,
00:39but it's possible to imagine, if you just look at dictators throughout history, that he thought he was doing good.
00:46The mid-20th century was rife with sociopathic world leaders, including the likes of Joseph Stalin and Benito Mussolini.
00:53Naturally, Adolf Hitler is the most infamous.
00:56One could certainly make an argument that Hitler is the most evil man to ever live,
01:00showing zero remorse for the incredible suffering that he inflicted on millions of people.
01:05The Holocaust was executed with a chilling personal detachment,
01:08and he had an inflated sense of his own importance,
01:11believing that he was both a military genius and the savior of Germany.
01:14Not to mention, he was a master propagandist,
01:17using lies to manipulate the masses and craft a narrative of victimhood.
01:21Hitler is, put simply, a textbook sociopath, ticking virtually all of the requirements.
01:27He says it's a war camp for, uh, Bruno Wundstern.
01:32I'm not sure what the word means, sir.
01:36Unwanted? Disliked, maybe?
01:39Criminals?
01:40I don't think criminals, sir.
01:42Jeffrey Epstein.
01:43He was here around Easter, and he rides his bicycle around, usually with young girls,
01:48and, uh, so I have friends who saw him.
01:50One of the most infamous financiers in modern history,
01:53Jeffrey Epstein had an extensive history of exploiting and abusing young women throughout
01:57his many years in power.
01:58His ability to exploit victims without concern for their well-being is a hallmark of sociopathic
02:03behavior, with officials identifying dozens of girls that fell victim to Epstein and his
02:08elite inner circle.
02:09And speaking of that, his ability to persuade wealthy and influential figures to associate
02:14with him suggests that he was highly skilled in deception and self-promotion, further signs
02:19of sociopathic behavior.
02:21In the end, Epstein allegedly took his own life rather than face further repercussions
02:25for his heinous crimes.
02:27These young girls and women were subject to, uh, sexual assault, sexual exploitation, um,
02:35through coercion, false imprisonment, um, where the passports at some points were taken
02:40away.
02:41The actions were just reprehensible.
02:43Jordan Belfort.
02:44It was a life of debauchery.
02:48Totally.
02:49And you smile when you say that.
02:51Leonardo DiCaprio has enough charm and charisma to draw us into the wild life of Jordan Belfort.
02:57But make no mistake, he's a bad dude.
03:00Belfort ran Stratton Oakmont in the 1990s and ran numerous financial scams that earned him
03:05and his buddies a lot of money.
03:07Pump and dump schemes, underwriting IPOs, stock manipulation, money laundering, the list is
03:12extensive.
03:13And through these scams, Belfort defrauded thousands of people without remorse, knowingly ruining
03:18their futures while living a lavish lifestyle on their dime.
03:22And with traits like pathological lying, manipulativeness, and reckless risk-taking, Belfort shows strong
03:28signs of being a sociopath.
03:30He ultimately spent 22 months in prison and is now a writer and motivational speaker.
03:35I've said enough about this, let's move on.
03:37Let me ask you this one thing.
03:39No, let's move on, okay?
03:40Honestly, I'm not going to get attacked here.
03:42You're here, so I'm done with this.
03:44Next.
03:44I'm not attacking you.
03:46No, but honestly, you're a very nice woman, but you're starting to, like, get to the
03:50performance, obviously, just the hatchet shop here.
03:51So I'm kind of, like, you know, pretty much ready to move on.
03:54Eileen Wuornos.
03:55And now, Central Florida is being threatened with news of yet another round of serial killings.
04:03The line between psychopath and sociopath is often quite blurry, and Eileen Wuornos certainly
04:09walked that line.
04:11One of the most notorious serial killers in American history, Wuornos murdered seven men
04:15in the late 80s and early 90s.
04:17Prosecutors successfully argued that Wuornos' primary motivation was to procure her victim's
04:22money, displaying both a premeditation for violence and a strong lack of empathy.
04:26She has also displayed a heavy degree of manipulation, having attempted to persuade
04:31the public that she killed the men in self-defense.
04:34That said, some may argue that Wuornos was more mentally ill than sociopathic, having suffered
04:39an extremely tragic upbringing that likely damaged her psyche.
04:43Out of that spirals a life of incredible resentment, frustration, and rage.
04:49And who does she kill?
04:50Well, she kills her father over and over and over again.
04:55Robert William Fisher.
04:56911 emergency.
04:57I need to report a fire.
04:58The house just exploded and ignited on fire.
05:01Somebody out in the way.
05:02We went over there as fast as we could, and the yellow tape was up.
05:05We just ducked in and went down to right at the end of the cul-de-sac, and then we could
05:09hear, you know, they found one body, they found another body.
05:12One of the most infamous unsolved crimes in modern history is that of Robert William Fisher,
05:16a Phoenix man who allegedly murdered his family and blew up the house before fleeing to the
05:21woods.
05:22Fisher has never been seen again, and at one time was on the FBI's most wanted list.
05:26Obvious lack of empathy aside, Fisher also displayed traits of manipulation and superficial
05:31charm, maintaining a public image of a devoted and charismatic family man.
05:36But the truth was far more malicious, and Fisher was known by close associates to be an abusive
05:41and controlling husband.
05:42Perhaps worst of all is his cold, premeditated calculation, committing the crime, setting
05:47the fire, and disappearing to start anew.
05:50His family, the unfortunate sacrifices.
05:52They believe there are people out there who are alive, who know things, that either helped
05:56Robert Fisher before or after the murders to help him escape.
06:00Now, where to, we don't know, and that's what's so crazy about this whole case.
06:05That's what everybody is fascinated by.
06:07Carla Homolka.
06:08I think that the country, and I think that the women in this country in particular, never
06:15believed a word she said.
06:18Canada has seen its fair share of notorious killers, including Carla Homolka.
06:22In the early 1990s, both she and her then-husband Paul Bernardo killed three people.
06:27Homolka's own sister Tammy was their first victim, as she asphyxiated to death after
06:32being drugged by Homolka and Bernardo.
06:34The two other victims, Leslie Mahaffey and Kristen French, were simply kidnapped off the
06:39street and murdered.
06:40But perhaps Homolka's most sociopathic trait is her manipulation, as she successfully fooled
06:45prosecutors into believing that she was coerced by Bernardo into committing the crimes.
06:49In reality, she was allegedly a willing and active participant.
06:53Her success at manipulating the justice system and receiving a favorable plea deal is now
06:58widely recognized as one of the greatest injustices in modern criminal history.
07:03When Homolka was released, she had served her full sentence.
07:06She was free to start a new life and choose where she wanted to live.
07:10Like it or not, she has the right to live her life like any other person, without being
07:15subject to threats and harassment.
07:17Caligula.
07:17For almost 2,000 years now, Caligula's made people reflect on power and its abuse.
07:24The man and the myth, and to be honest, you can't ever quite separate the two.
07:29Ruling the Roman Empire between 37 and 41 AD, Caligula is often depicted as one of the
07:35most tyrannical men in ancient history.
07:37Of course, most of these accounts were written by his enemies long after his death.
07:41So we have to take everything with a grain of salt.
07:43But if their words are to be believed, Caligula was a textbook sociopath.
07:48He was not only an exceedingly cruel man, but he was also extremely reckless and impulsive.
07:54His lavish spending draining Rome's treasury.
07:56Perhaps most important of all, Caligula had wild delusions of grandeur, often declaring himself
08:01a living god and forcing people to worship him as such.
08:05His tyrannical, careless, and increasingly embarrassing behavior resulted in his assassination on January
08:1024th, 41 AD.
08:12I think I shall have to resign myself to living forever.
08:17I hope you do.
08:19Pablo Escobar
08:20Honestly, that's one man I could have shot and never lost a minute's sleep without it.
08:26While he was hailed as a savior-like figure in various areas of Colombia, Pablo Escobar
08:31did a lot of heinous things to get in his position of authority.
08:35Escobar fits the traits of a sociopath to a T, distributing vast amounts of addictive drugs,
08:40mostly cocaine, in order to fund a lavish lifestyle.
08:43He didn't care how many lives he ruined with these drugs.
08:46He just wanted the money and the power that came with that.
08:49In addition, Escobar was known for being extremely manipulative, and he did anything he could
08:54to remain in power.
08:55That includes murder and even acts of domestic terrorism, like bombing an entire passenger
09:00plane in order to kill a presidential candidate that was supposed to be on board.
09:04More than 100 people have been killed in a plane crash near the Colombian capital, Bogota.
09:09The plane, an Avianca Airlines Boeing 727, was on a domestic flight to Cali.
09:14Many believe his story is simple, that he was the incarnation of evil, a brutal barbarian
09:22who butchered millions.
09:23His very name is synonymous with violence.
09:26Born with the name Temujin around 1162, he adopted the title Genghis Khan in 1206, and
09:32embarked on one of the cruelest expansions in human history.
09:35He was basically a James Bond villain, hoping for total world domination and willing to massacre
09:41whoever got in his way.
09:42Genghis Khan ordered the mass extermination of entire cities, sometimes killing millions
09:47in a single campaign, like decimating the Khwarazmian Empire and laying waste to Nishapur.
09:52He was also known for being very charismatic, inspiring intense loyalty and admiration among
09:57his followers.
09:58Throughout most of modern history, Genghis Khan has been regarded as a merciless barbarian.
10:03And how did he transform the Mongol hordes into a ruthless and disciplined fighting machine?
10:09An army with revolutionary tactics and ingenious weapons that ultimately stood poised to conquer
10:17Europe.
10:18Jim Jones
10:18Jim Jones demanded loyalty.
10:23He controlled everything.
10:25By their very nature, cult leaders often exhibit sociopathic traits, especially when it
10:30comes to their manipulative charisma.
10:32Jim Jones was no different.
10:34Attracting a legion of followers through passionate speeches, pathological lying, and promises of
10:39a utopian society, which he hoped to establish through Jonestown in Guyana.
10:43He also displayed delusions of grandeur, claiming to be the reincarnation of various powerful figures,
10:49including Jesus, Gandhi, and even Vladimir Lenin.
10:52And of course, his final act was an extreme display of reckless violence, killing over 900
10:57people by poisoning them with cyanide.
10:59The Jonestown Massacre is considered one of the most shocking events in modern American
11:04history, the unfortunate endgame of a malicious and sociopathic leader.
11:08And part of that, I believe, is because we all are looking for a place to fit into the
11:13world.
11:14We're looking for love.
11:16We're looking for acceptance.
11:18And Jim Jones provided that.
11:19Bernie Madoff
11:20So is this easy money, would you say, that you're making with Madoff?
11:24Easy.
11:25Easy peasy.
11:26When it comes to financial manipulation, it's hard to beat the story of Bernie Madoff.
11:30Madoff had it all on Wall Street.
11:32He ran a multi-billion dollar company and held sway over the Nasdaq stock exchange.
11:37But his own hubris eventually got the best of him.
11:40Madoff was a family-dominated firm, so Bernie was the top of everything.
11:46His family had all the key positions.
11:48Madoff confessed to his sons Mark and Andrew that he had orchestrated the largest Ponzi
11:52scheme in history through his investment securities firm, swindling investors out of billions.
11:58Mark and Andrew then turned on their father and reported him to the FBI, who arrested Madoff
12:03on a charge of securities fraud.
12:04He eventually pled guilty to 11 felonies and was sentenced to 150 years in prison, where
12:10he died in April 2021.
12:13The office has been secured.
12:15We have Bernie Madoff in custody, and we just know a lot of money is missing.
12:18Our biggest problem was we don't know how it happened.
12:22Richard Scott Smith
12:23I agreed to talk to you today because I want to get my story out, and I want everybody
12:29in the world knowing that I'm not the person that they claim me to be.
12:34Fans of Showtime's love fraud may recognize the name Richard Scott Smith, as he was the
12:39primary subject of the four-part documentary.
12:41Smith was a serial con artist, running numerous online romance scams and ruining the lives of
12:46multiple women.
12:47These women appear in the documentary, sharing their harrowing stories of being duped and
12:52misled.
12:53You know, I may hate him for all these things, but I wouldn't have gotten in so deep if I
13:02hadn't thought I loved him.
13:03Smith would use a fake identity and marry his victims, then use their financial information
13:08to obtain a line of credit.
13:10He would then flee, off to marry someone else, leaving his previous partners both heartbroken
13:15and in severe debt.
13:16Smith was known to have married at least 10 times before he was arrested at the end of
13:21the series.
13:22I'm human too.
13:24I've been a victim, Rachel, to things that are not true.
13:31Anna Sorokin
13:32I'm trying to make my story to be like, oh, I made a mistake, but I'm trying to turn this
13:37around without trying to glamorize the mistake itself.
13:41Financial schemes are getting harder by the day, thanks to rapid technological advancements,
13:46but they still happen.
13:47Just ask Anna Sorokin, a Russian-born woman who defrauded various institutions of nearly
13:52$300,000.
13:54Having emigrated to New York in 2013, Sorokin quickly became a master manipulator.
13:59She doesn't go for the big money right away.
14:01It's not like she surrounds herself with, you know, hedge fund moguls.
14:06She surrounds herself with cool.
14:08She invented a new identity, Anna Delvey, and forged financial documents to appear like
14:13a rich German heiress with access to a multi-million euro trust fund.
14:18With these documents, Sorokin secured massive loans, which she used to sustain a lavish lifestyle.
14:24However, her deceit was exposed when she duped her friend Rachel Deloche Williams of over
14:29$60,000.
14:31Williams alerted the police, leading to Sorokin's arrest in a sting operation.
14:35She subsequently served two years in prison.
14:37I mean, you took advantage of people.
14:40I definitely did, yeah.
14:41And I was younger, and I learned from my mistakes.
14:44But did you?
14:46I did, yes.
14:47Did you learn from those mistakes?
14:48I mean, are you not going to do anything like this ever again?
14:50Absolutely not.
14:51Billy McFarland.
14:52But was it more to prove yourself, or was it more for money?
14:56It was to prove myself.
14:57And once again, I was totally wrong, and I lied to investors to get money.
15:02Called the poster boy for millennial scamming by Vanity Fair, Billy McFarland is widely known
15:07as the man behind the ill-fated fire festival.
15:10Well, ill-fated isn't the right word.
15:12More like manipulative.
15:14Taking place in the Bahamas, the fire festival was marketed as a luxury music event with villas,
15:19gourmet food, the whole nine yards.
15:21I think we chose Rhode Island.
15:24We got ours for $10 million, freehold land, no lease.
15:27We own the land forever.
15:28Visitors paid good money to attend.
15:30But upon arrival, they were met with a horribly planned disaster that bore no resemblance to
15:35the promised opulence.
15:36Tons of lawsuits emerged accusing McFarland of fraud, and he was found guilty on two counts.
15:41He was ordered to pay $26 million in damages and served three and a half years in prison.
15:48Before we had the worst luck, I think we had the best luck.
15:51And like, it sounds crazy, but so many things had to go right to make it this big of a failure.
15:57Joe Exotic.
15:58I am never going to financially recover from this.
16:01The Tiger King himself operated the Greater Winnie Wood Exotic Animal Park in Oklahoma,
16:06known for its prominent display of large cats.
16:09And as chronicled in the famous Netflix documentary,
16:11he had a fierce rivalry with Carole Baskin, the owner of Florida's Big Cat Rescue.
16:17Exotic displayed numerous sociopathic tendencies,
16:19which were on full display in the documentary.
16:22All these people think that everybody else in society are abusers but her.
16:29I mean, she's a master marketer.
16:31I'll give her that.
16:32Despite his purported love for animals,
16:34he was continuously alleged to have mistreated those in his park.
16:37Not only did he publicly accuse Baskin of killing her missing husband, Don Lewis,
16:42he also put out a hit on her, which failed and led to his arrest.
16:46Exotic was convicted on charges of animal mistreatment and attempted murder for hire
16:50and sentenced to 21 years in prison.
16:52And I get letters from 8-year-old kids to 95-year-old grandmas.
16:58And every letter says it's because I was unapologetic,
17:03I stood up for what I believed in, and because I'm not ashamed of who I am.
17:07Dorothea Puente.
17:08I used to be a very good person at one time.
17:11Known as the death house landlady,
17:14Dorothea Puente sounds like someone out of a fairy tale.
17:16She opened a boarding house in Sacramento and seemed like an upstanding member of the community,
17:21donating to various charities and using her boarding house to host AA meetings.
17:26She also aided her elderly guests in setting up their social security checks.
17:30However, this was all part of Puente's grand plan.
17:33This is what we would call the death room.
17:35This is where she brought her victims after she had induced drugs into their alcohol.
17:40Throughout the 1980s, the matron killed nine guests of her boarding house,
17:44buried their remains in her yard, and cashed their social security checks.
17:49It shows that Puente was a maniac who was highly aggressive
17:52and driven primarily by her own financial gain.
17:56I spent 15 years as a homicide detective.
17:58And in those 15 years, I had seen many victims of homicide,
18:02but none of those compared to what I found when I was digging through the yard.
18:08Elizabeth Holmes.
18:09Every person should have the ability to get that type of test.
18:13And speaking of people willing to deceive for financial gain,
18:16let's talk about the infamous Elizabeth Holmes.
18:19Like Bernie Madoff, Holmes manipulated investors with her company Theranos,
18:23which claimed to have revolutionized blood testing with a fancy new machine.
18:26However, this machine never actually worked.
18:29Holmes not only lied to investors about the company's capabilities,
18:33she also lied to her own customers through the machine's bogus results.
18:36What I know is that I've put the best people in place
18:39to be able to investigate every aspect of this
18:43and ensure that we meet the quality standards that we hold ourselves to.
18:47Theranos raised more than $700 million,
18:50and Forbes valued Holmes as the youngest self-made female billionaire in American history.
18:55But it all came crashing down when investigators looked into the company
18:59and uncovered a massive web of deceit.
19:02Holmes was charged with fraud and sentenced to 11 years in prison.
19:05If a female leader can build a company from nothing
19:09to something that impacts people's lives every single day,
19:12it's like there's nothing we can't do.
19:15Diane Downs.
19:16They kept telling me, if you just remember,
19:18they told me I had voids in my memory,
19:20that there was 25 minutes of time missing,
19:22that I was hiding something, protecting something.
19:25Called a deviant sociopath by one psychiatrist,
19:28Diane Downs gained notoriety for a particularly heinous crime conducted in 1983.
19:33On May 19th, Downs shot her three children,
19:37then wounded herself in the left arm.
19:39She subsequently rushed them to a hospital,
19:41claiming they had been the victims of an attempted carjacking.
19:44He did not take time to point the gun and shoot me,
19:47obviously, because he would have shot me the same way he did the kids.
19:51However, hospital staff was immediately suspicious of her story.
19:54Two of the children survived, but one tragically passed from her injuries.
19:58Following an official investigation, Downs was arrested nine months later,
20:02and convicted largely on the testimony of one of her surviving children.
20:06She supposedly committed the act because the man she was entangled with
20:09didn't want kids in their lives.
20:11In 1984, Downs was sentenced to life in prison.
20:15To my complete surprise, Diane was non-emotional, not a tear in her eye.
20:22Ted Bundy.
20:23Clearly, they're people.
20:24Clearly, they're flesh and blood, and they have, you know,
20:27all the characteristics of human beings.
20:29But he would not allow himself to feel those emotions for the victim.
20:35Ask any professional, and they will tell you that Ted Bundy was as mean as they come.
20:40His own attorney, Polly Nelson, called him, quote,
20:42the very definition of heartless evil.
20:45Biographer Ann Rule said that he was a sadistic sociopath.
20:48Even Bundy labeled himself as the most cold-hearted son of a gun you'll ever meet.
20:53But gun is our own word.
20:55If someone's crazy enough and nutty enough to do something like that,
20:59I can't stop them.
21:01There's nothing I can do.
21:02Bundy was an attractive man who skillfully manipulated his persona to enchant women,
21:07often luring them into his car, where he would restrain and kill them.
21:11Even after his arrest, Bundy tried to maintain his innocence,
21:15weaving lies for lawyers, the media, and visitors alike.
21:18However, as the truth closed in, he eventually realized the game was up
21:22and confessed to killing 30 people.
21:24I deserve certainly the most extreme punishment society has,
21:31and I deserve, I think society deserves to be protected from me and from others like me.
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21:53Charles Manson
21:54If you hold the negative up to the light, you don't see the light, you just see the negative.
22:00So I'm a reflection of your negative, there's no doubt about that, and I can handle that also.
22:04At his 12th parole hearing, Charles Manson was said to have a, quote,
22:08history of controlling behavior.
22:10That is putting it lightly.
22:12Perhaps the most infamous cult leader of all time.
22:15Manson was the head of his eponymous family,
22:17which gained notoriety in 1969 after killing actress Sharon Tate.
22:21Do you feel blamed? Are you mad?
22:25Do you feel like wolves?
22:26But Tate was just one of nine victims,
22:31most of whom Manson murdered by proxy through his manipulated family members.
22:35His motive is still ambiguous,
22:37but author Vincent Bugliosi believes that he intended to start a race war.
22:41At the aforementioned parole hearing,
22:43the panel also indicated that Manson had no remorse for the crimes
22:47and harbored a total lack of empathy.
22:49He died in prison at the age of 83.
22:52I'm not ready, Your Honor. I need more time.
22:55Can you think of any other examples?
22:57Let us know in the comments below.
22:58But we were making more money than we knew what to do.
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