Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to Criminalia. This season, we're exploring the
Speaker 1: lives and motivations of some of the most notorious stalkers
Speaker 1: throughout history. I'm Maria Tremarqui and I'm Holly Frying, and
Speaker 1: today we're talking about a fifty three year old French
Speaker 1: woman named leiah Anna b. We only know the initial
Speaker 1: of her last name, which, if I were being strictly French,
Speaker 1: I would say bit uh. And she believed that King
Speaker 1: George the Fifth of England had been making romantic gestures
Speaker 1: toward her via secret messages. The British royal family and
Speaker 1: Buckingham Palace itself both have had their fair share of stalkers.
Speaker 1: Before Leia Anna, there was a man who climbed the
Speaker 1: fence and wandered around inside the palace before anyone call him.
Speaker 1: This was nearer the same time as we'll be talking about,
Speaker 1: and another stalker was caught trying to break into the
Speaker 1: diplomat's entrance. Uh. He was caught, But there were many,
Speaker 1: many others, and although she wasn't the most famous royal stalker,
Speaker 1: Leanna is for sure an interesting type of stalker. Her
Speaker 1: behavior made her a person of interest to the French
Speaker 1: psychiatrists Gayton Are, Alfred Leon Marie Declarau. I'm so glad
Speaker 1: you had to say that, and not me, as one
Speaker 1: of the two of us that speakuse no French potsoever,
Speaker 1: thankfully to help us both, he did go by the
Speaker 1: shorter names of Gat Clarenbau and just G declaren Beaux.
Speaker 1: He featured lea On in a scientific paper he wrote
Speaker 1: about a disorder which came to be called a rodomania,
Speaker 1: in which he described the condition more in depth and
Speaker 1: more clearly than it had been described in previous years.
Speaker 1: And you might recognize that word if you listen to
Speaker 1: our Valentine's Special. But even if you didn't, don't worry.
Speaker 1: You won't be left out. We're going to get to
Speaker 1: the specifics in a bit. We don't want to get
Speaker 1: ahead of ourselves, so we're going to talk a little
Speaker 1: bit more about leah Anna and her behavior towards the King.
Speaker 1: So King George the five was actually not the first
Speaker 1: of her obsessions. Her delusions went way back before him. Actually,
Speaker 1: we don't know anything about her childhood, what it was
Speaker 1: like if she had the men, but we do know
Speaker 1: that at one time in her adult history leah Anna
Speaker 1: worked in retail. She was a salesmoman in a dress shop,
Speaker 1: but she quit when she became the mistress of a
Speaker 1: wealthy upper classman. Their relationship lasted for about eighteen years
Speaker 1: until his death in nineteen o seven. Leanna didn't take
Speaker 1: very long to become entangled in a new affair, and
Speaker 1: this time it was with a man who owned a castle,
Speaker 1: so she was, you know, looking for gents who could
Speaker 1: take care of her a little bit. In this followed
Speaker 1: suit because her new lover bought a house for her
Speaker 1: and actually asked her to come and live there in
Speaker 1: that new house with him, and she did. But leia
Speaker 1: Anna became lonely because this was out in the French countryside,
Speaker 1: and she just felt a little isolated, and after just
Speaker 1: four years their relationship ended. Her delusions were probably already
Speaker 1: beginning to develop it this time, and we think that
Speaker 1: because in nineteen seventeen, during World War One, she became
Speaker 1: convinced that an American general in a nearby army camp
Speaker 1: was madly in love with her. He was not. This
Speaker 1: was entirely fabricated on her part, and a few years
Speaker 1: later she became convinced that it wasn't the general, but
Speaker 1: rather it was King George the fifth of England who
Speaker 1: actually was romantically interested in her. She truly believed he
Speaker 1: was in love with her, but she also believed that
Speaker 1: she had, at least initially accidentally failed to notice any
Speaker 1: of his interest. And she chided herself for failing to
Speaker 1: notice the knowing glances and the cryptic remarks, because and
Speaker 1: the secret signs that she believed had been intended for her,
Speaker 1: like a knock on her hotel room door that she
Speaker 1: had not answered, but now she understood that that must
Speaker 1: have been the King trying to come and see her.
Speaker 1: She also believed that she had overlooked the people disguised
Speaker 1: as special officers, including an emissary of the King, tourists
Speaker 1: and sailors, who she thought Georgia must have sent to
Speaker 1: communicate with her. And because she hadn't noticed these advances,
Speaker 1: surely the King now must think she had rejected him.
Speaker 1: Because she felt she had missed all of these things,
Speaker 1: she was compelled to travel to London to explain to
Speaker 1: him in person that she did love him back, and
Speaker 1: that compulsion turned into action. She did travel to London.
Speaker 1: She wandered around the gardens and the general vicinity of
Speaker 1: Buckingham Palace, trying to catch a glimpse of George and
Speaker 1: trying to figure out a way that she could get inside.
Speaker 1: Although there was never any sighting or any contact between
Speaker 1: the two, there was though, to her, an occasional sign.
Speaker 1: Of course that has air quotes. These were things that
Speaker 1: she thought were signs from the King, and that was
Speaker 1: in the form of curtains. Leia Anna believed that when
Speaker 1: any curtain in the palace moved, it was George telling
Speaker 1: her that he saw her. The reality is that he
Speaker 1: actually probably was not home during this time when she
Speaker 1: was there, and if he was, it said that he
Speaker 1: generally tended to enjoy spending time on his hobbies, which
Speaker 1: were stamp collecting and game shooting, and wasn't really spending
Speaker 1: a great deal of time gazing out of windows, you know,
Speaker 1: dusting the curtains, picking out um. Yeah. So she spent
Speaker 1: thousands of Frank's on this adventure and eventually returned to
Speaker 1: Paris having never actually seen the King in person, not
Speaker 1: even through a window. While traveling back home in December,
Speaker 1: she was agitated. She stopped two police officers on the
Speaker 1: train platform to tell them that she was being followed,
Speaker 1: and other passengers have been laughing at her, so she
Speaker 1: asked for their protection, and she became even more frustrated
Speaker 1: and agitated when they seemed confused by her story, she
Speaker 1: grew increasingly frantic and she struck them at least one
Speaker 1: of them. I can't actually see how she would hit
Speaker 1: the second one without the first one, but anyway, um,
Speaker 1: and then not surprisingly, she was taken into custody. We're
Speaker 1: gonna pause for just a moment, and when we come back,
Speaker 1: we're going to talk about the condition known as erotomania
Speaker 1: and the man who described that condition. Welcome back to Criminalia.
Speaker 1: So now let's talk about what happened to Leia Anna
Speaker 1: after she got back to Paris. So, after she was
Speaker 1: taken into custody, Lea Anna was taken to the Infirmary
Speaker 1: Specio that was a psychia crisis center that was also
Speaker 1: the headquarters of the emerging French forensic psychiatry field in Paris,
Speaker 1: and it was there that she was interviewed by the
Speaker 1: psychiatrist we mentioned earlier, Gaet and Gussian, Declaringbeau, we should
Speaker 1: take a little side straight, little man or here to
Speaker 1: talk a little bit about who he was. He was
Speaker 1: born outside of Paris in seventy two, and initially pursued law,
Speaker 1: which was the field that much of his family worked in.
Speaker 1: So it doesn't it makes sense. He had initially wanted
Speaker 1: to be an artist, and he showed promise in clothing design,
Speaker 1: so law was not at all a choice he made
Speaker 1: for himself. When law didn't really interest him, which right,
Speaker 1: no surprise there, he moved not back to art, but
Speaker 1: instead medicine, which he began to study after he had
Speaker 1: finished his law education. Yeah, I I have read accounts
Speaker 1: that kind of hint that his father was very much like, well,
Speaker 1: if you're not going to do law, the only other
Speaker 1: option is to be a doctor. You know. I said,
Speaker 1: I read the same things, and I was like, no pressure. No,
Speaker 1: he didn't actually start out in psychology though either. So
Speaker 1: he first started out spending his time studying the ways
Speaker 1: in which aircraft accidents impacted pilots through their recovery and beyond,
Speaker 1: which I thought was fascinating. It is, and that was
Speaker 1: specifically like physically, he was not. It was not from
Speaker 1: a psychological angle, and that was where his doctor at
Speaker 1: work actually focused. But then in nineteen nine he shifted
Speaker 1: focus at last two psychological matters and he kind of
Speaker 1: hit the ground running with this. He did a lot
Speaker 1: of work in the examination of the causes of hallucinations.
Speaker 1: This was actually a pretty natural flow from his medical
Speaker 1: career into this. It was like something that came up
Speaker 1: and the things he studied, and he started to just
Speaker 1: shift over to that, and that actually led to a
Speaker 1: syndrome eventually being named at least in part for him,
Speaker 1: which is Kandinskyo syndrome that involves hallucinations and delusions and
Speaker 1: often the belief that a force or a person external
Speaker 1: to the patient is somehow controlling them. So now you
Speaker 1: can sort of start to see that bridge from that
Speaker 1: study of hallucinations into delusions of external control and how
Speaker 1: that would have led to his work in cases such
Speaker 1: as that of lea On and b As an interesting aside, Declarembeau,
Speaker 1: by the way, actually did continue his work in the
Speaker 1: arts throughout his life, just not as his career. He
Speaker 1: also integrated them into his work. He used photography and
Speaker 1: his work studying psychology. Sometimes he also painted. You can
Speaker 1: find his work hanging in a number of museums in
Speaker 1: France today if you go looking for it. He was
Speaker 1: really intrigued with these linen cloths stuff. Have you seen
Speaker 1: these pictures that? Yeah, he did a big photography series
Speaker 1: when he was in Morocco. I was trying to remember
Speaker 1: if it was Morocco. Yeah, an examination of how like
Speaker 1: draped garments functioned in that culture. And they're really really striking.
Speaker 1: They look a little ghostly do because you can't see
Speaker 1: the faces in any of them, but the actual cloth
Speaker 1: drapes so beautifully. He was a great photographer with what
Speaker 1: I've seen. But we're not talking here talking about his
Speaker 1: photography or do you're not goo his writings which described erotomania,
Speaker 1: he did a really good description of it, and he
Speaker 1: referenced a patient he had met and counseled who was
Speaker 1: obsessed with British monarch George the fifth. Leah oughta bey
Speaker 1: and the paper that he wrote, called Les Siko's Passionnel
Speaker 1: used case studies that were mainly women, women who all
Speaker 1: had a few things in common. They were often unhappy, unemployed, lonely, unmarried,
Speaker 1: or divorced, and they had delusions that a person unattainable
Speaker 1: in some way such as a high profile position, being famous,
Speaker 1: or part of a higher social status, was in love
Speaker 1: with or at least admired them, and the object of
Speaker 1: these obsessions could have been imaginary, could have been someone
Speaker 1: who was already deceased, or even someone the obsessed women
Speaker 1: had never met. And of course, having heard what you
Speaker 1: have already, you can see that leah Ana fits this
Speaker 1: profile exactly and so for what it's worth. Although one
Speaker 1: study has found that sevent of reported cases of a
Speaker 1: rotomania are women, men can also have this condition to
Speaker 1: though it's thought to be really underdiagnosed among them. Um
Speaker 1: Males tend to be more prevalent in forensic samples because
Speaker 1: men with a rotomania tend to be more violent than
Speaker 1: women are, and these statistics are why you hear us
Speaker 1: referring throughout the episode to women, not men, as the
Speaker 1: ones who believe that they have an admirer. Throughout its history,
Speaker 1: the definition of what we know as arotomania has also
Speaker 1: changed pretty considerably. Early references to the condition can be
Speaker 1: found in the writings of both Hippocrates and Freud. Of course,
Speaker 1: they were not calling it that. Freud, for what it's
Speaker 1: worth less, his heart explain the condition as the body's
Speaker 1: defense mechanism to ward off homosexual impulses. Some more cocaine again,
Speaker 1: I'm just blessing his heart. Others have suggested that the
Speaker 1: condition might be a person's psychological defense. Again, it's the
Speaker 1: disappointment of unrequited love or rejection or the reality of
Speaker 1: a non existent love life. We have come a long
Speaker 1: way since then. Until it became known as erotomania, it
Speaker 1: was also called things like erotic paranoia, phantom lover syndrome,
Speaker 1: and psychotic erotic transference reaction and delusional loving. That last one,
Speaker 1: but I love phantom lover syndrome. I do too. I
Speaker 1: think that would be a really good emo bian right.
Speaker 1: I know, not for the name of a disease, but right.
Speaker 1: It did also have the Clarin Bo's name. Some people
Speaker 1: called it Clarembo syndrome, but that got confused with Kandinski
Speaker 1: Claronbow syndrome, so thus it evolved into a rotomania in
Speaker 1: addition to Hollywood just talking about. In the early eighteenth century,
Speaker 1: it was considered a disease triggered by and requited love.
Speaker 1: Then in the beginning of the nineteenth century it was
Speaker 1: considered to be related to nymphomania or satiriazis getting a
Speaker 1: little bit more modern day. By the beginning of the
Speaker 1: twentieth century, the definition had swung back to the same
Speaker 1: as the eighteenth century, but this time in the form
Speaker 1: of mental illness UM and from the early one century
Speaker 1: up through today, aratamania is considered part of a delusional disorder.
Speaker 1: It's considered to be a delusional belief of being loved
Speaker 1: by someone else, which seems really simple, but as we've
Speaker 1: been talking about, not quite so simple. It has three
Speaker 1: phases to it. Hope, resentment, and grudge. Doesn't sound fun
Speaker 1: at all. While we consider these very unfun possibilities, we
Speaker 1: are going to pause for a minute, and when we return,
Speaker 1: we're going to talk about those three stages and what
Speaker 1: they really mean and entail. Welcome back to criminalia. We're
Speaker 1: gonna talk now about how many cases of obsession or
Speaker 1: stalking can be linked to arotomania, although the two don't
Speaker 1: necessarily go hand in hand. So the onset of arotomania
Speaker 1: is typically sudden, but the course of the actual delusions
Speaker 1: that they take in arotomania is chronic, So in mild
Speaker 1: cases this disorder can exist undetected by others for years
Speaker 1: until that is those problematic behaviors like calling or sending
Speaker 1: gifts or making unannounced house visits and other persistent stalking behaviors.
Speaker 1: Once those become apparent, then obviously this condition is detected,
Speaker 1: then we need some professional help. Um. So, according to
Speaker 1: the research that's out there, When this is happening, the
Speaker 1: stalker also known UM as the subject starts out really
Speaker 1: optimistic about her chances. She's certain that the object of
Speaker 1: her affection in leah Anna's case, King George the Fifth,
Speaker 1: of course UM initiated contact with her by means of
Speaker 1: signals and signs left only for her to understand, remember
Speaker 1: the curtains in the palace, of course. And in these cases,
Speaker 1: the subject has rationalized why the object of their affections
Speaker 1: cannot possibly openly declare their reciprocal love. And that's usually
Speaker 1: because they're in a high profile position of being the
Speaker 1: King of England or something else like someone being famous,
Speaker 1: so they can't possibly say that they love you, right.
Speaker 1: And with these delusions, the object of the subjects infatuation
Speaker 1: is believed by the subject to be communicating their love
Speaker 1: with subtle methods. This can be something as simple as
Speaker 1: a body posture changing or the arrangement of household objects
Speaker 1: such as curtains, license plates on cars from specific states,
Speaker 1: which would take a lot of maneuvering to use that
Speaker 1: as a communication device. Hey, it could happen, I'm sure.
Speaker 1: And also just other innocuous acts that the subject becomes
Speaker 1: certain are meant to be interpreted by them as amorous overtures.
Speaker 1: And if the object is a public figure, the clues
Speaker 1: can even come through different means such as like through
Speaker 1: the media. To be clear, this delusion is actually about
Speaker 1: feeling intensely loved, not about loving, and someone who is
Speaker 1: experiencing erotomania like leah Anna, desires and seeks out contact
Speaker 1: with the victim, also known as the object. So we
Speaker 1: have the subject in the object in these instances through
Speaker 1: unwanted behaviors like we talked about earlier. And denial, of course,
Speaker 1: is a pretty big factor with this disorder, and this
Speaker 1: comes into play when the stalker cannot accept the fact
Speaker 1: that the object might not be interested in them. It
Speaker 1: also doesn't seem to make a difference if the object
Speaker 1: of their affection is married or otherwise committed, because after all,
Speaker 1: in the case of a woman's stalker using that as
Speaker 1: the example, she will believe that they are in love
Speaker 1: with her and only her. But when her advances are
Speaker 1: continually rebuffed or ignored. After all, too the love object,
Speaker 1: because we have been calling it, she is a stranger.
Speaker 1: At this point, her demeanor can turn spiteful. Now we're
Speaker 1: in the grudge or the revenge phase, the final act,
Speaker 1: and it's an important turn in the safety of the
Speaker 1: victim when they don't declare their love for the stalker,
Speaker 1: regardless of how insistent the stalker is. The stalker in
Speaker 1: turn starts to feel humiliated, and they may at this
Speaker 1: point begin to hate their now former object of affection,
Speaker 1: and they may bad mouth them or even become abusive
Speaker 1: toward them. Remember Lady Caroline Lamb and her smear campaign
Speaker 1: against Lord Byron. Who can forget? And they may even
Speaker 1: take revenge on them or on their loved ones. And
Speaker 1: the delusions of love can turn into persecutory delusions. So
Speaker 1: persecutory delusions happen when someone in this case our stalker
Speaker 1: believes others in this case the victim, are out to
Speaker 1: harm them. But there's no evidence that this is the case.
Speaker 1: This is all as we said, it's a delusion. So
Speaker 1: erotomania actually is a condition that it could persist for
Speaker 1: a few weeks, but it could persist for a few months.
Speaker 1: In fact, there are cases that have lasted for years. Um.
Speaker 1: It can be recurrent, and the person having these delusions
Speaker 1: may move on to a similar delusion about another object
Speaker 1: once they've gotten over their previous one. It's a fairly
Speaker 1: rare condition, and while we don't actually have numbers on
Speaker 1: the exact incidence of erotomania itself, delusional disorders in general
Speaker 1: have been reported as approximately fifteen cases per a hundred
Speaker 1: thousand per year, and that's with a female to male
Speaker 1: ratio of an estimated three to one. There are actually
Speaker 1: two types of arotomania. The first, the primary form, is
Speaker 1: not related to psychiatric illness. The second form is seeing
Speaker 1: what a person has a psychiatric illness or suffered from
Speaker 1: head trauma, has dementia, might have convulsions, HIV or Cushing's disease,
Speaker 1: or they may have abused drugs or alcohol. And it's
Speaker 1: even been seen during pregnancy, pyramenopause, and in women taking
Speaker 1: oral birth control. So there are a lot of factors
Speaker 1: that might trigger this, a lot, I mean, and a
Speaker 1: lot of really varying um. So for those with erotomania,
Speaker 1: the prognosis you might be wondering. Like many other health conditions,
Speaker 1: it just differs from person to person um still today,
Speaker 1: even though we're talking about this since you know centuries,
Speaker 1: the right treatment is not completely understood, but it does
Speaker 1: often include a variety of these things. It will include
Speaker 1: antipsychotics along with electro convulsive therapy, as well as supportive psychotherapy,
Speaker 1: family therapy, social and environmental interventions, and risk management strategies.
Speaker 1: So treating any underlying men mental health conditions such as
Speaker 1: schizophrenia with paranoia, which is a common co condition, is
Speaker 1: also beneficial. Now, all of this discussion of becoming obsessed
Speaker 1: with a person out of one's reach may have you
Speaker 1: thinking about your celebrity crush and wondering like, do do
Speaker 1: I have arotomania? I think everybody's wondering now, right now,
Speaker 1: right rest easy. Probably not we mentioned the statistics. It
Speaker 1: is totally normal to find people in the public eye
Speaker 1: appealing and perhaps even fantasize about them. The line, of course,
Speaker 1: gets crossed when those thoughts manifest in behaviors that impact
Speaker 1: your daily life and cross obvious boundaries of privacy and security.
Speaker 1: Go ahead and keep thinking about whatever actor actress tickles
Speaker 1: your fancy exactly maybe just don't leave little gifts on
Speaker 1: their doorstep, don't do anything. So that is our story
Speaker 1: about lie Anna, and we're gonna move on to Holly
Speaker 1: now our drink to honor her right, So the chaser
Speaker 1: today you may have gotten the inkling that Really what
Speaker 1: this is about. I love when you make yourself laugh before,
Speaker 1: because I'm so completely um, you know, transparent. Really this
Speaker 1: is about me being fascinated with the story of gas.
Speaker 1: I specifically did not introduce the end of his life
Speaker 1: because that's a very sad story. Yes, but I thought
Speaker 1: I would do a drink more in honor of him,
Speaker 1: and it is called Ciccos passionel. So I wanted to
Speaker 1: do something that is yummy and almost teeters on the
Speaker 1: verge of being a little overbearing to match up with
Speaker 1: the disorder. I also, in an effort to kind of
Speaker 1: include this idea that someone believes that it is love,
Speaker 1: to also make it a little sweet. It's actually quite
Speaker 1: sweet because it starts with two ounces of red vermouse,
Speaker 1: so you're staying its own darting in phase one of man,
Speaker 1: and then you're gonna add an ounce of cherry liqueur.
Speaker 1: You could see this is already kind of intense toss
Speaker 1: on top of that a dash of cherry bitters. Right,
Speaker 1: if you were to sip this, you would go, wow,
Speaker 1: that's a lot. And so at this point you're gonna
Speaker 1: top it off with soda. Four to five ounces of soda.
Speaker 1: You can use soda water if you want to keep
Speaker 1: it sweet, you can go with the ginger ale option,
Speaker 1: or any kind of clear sparkling soda, whether it's sweetened
Speaker 1: or not. I love to put ginger ale in everything.
Speaker 1: I just love ginger ale. For this one, that was
Speaker 1: my favorite variation of them. I will tell you I
Speaker 1: also toyed with adding in a little bit of a
Speaker 1: berry colored syrup here. I'm just gonna say, don't be
Speaker 1: like me, kids, it is too much. It definitely crosses
Speaker 1: the line into cough syrup. Which, while it's kind of
Speaker 1: a good representative of how this behavior crosses the line,
Speaker 1: it's not something you really want to drink. It's the
Speaker 1: curtains where is right. Also toy with the amount of
Speaker 1: soda or ginger aal that you put in there. I
Speaker 1: mentioned like four to five ounces. You can go lower
Speaker 1: than that if you like more punched to the flavor
Speaker 1: of the drink, or you can go more than that
Speaker 1: if you want it to be a little bit of
Speaker 1: a softer, more subtle thing. It's kind of one of
Speaker 1: those things that you can tell we're in winter because
Speaker 1: it feels like a springtime drink. Clearly, I'm I'm yearning
Speaker 1: for warmer days even though it's not that cold. But yeah,
Speaker 1: so that is SCO's passionnel because who doesn't want to
Speaker 1: drink with a French name. I know, right, I won't
Speaker 1: be able to say it properly all anglicize the whole thing,
Speaker 1: but you can just call it erotomania. But it is
Speaker 1: a tasty little treat. And like I said, once I
Speaker 1: figured out that even out and I stopped trying to
Speaker 1: force a berry flavored syrup into the mix, it immediately
Speaker 1: got better. Play with your drinks. It's fun. I'm trying
Speaker 1: to also just like find more ways that I enjoy vermouth,
Speaker 1: because it's something that I've always had in my head
Speaker 1: that I don't like. But then I will make drinks
Speaker 1: with it and be like, oh, this is lovely. That
Speaker 1: was kind of a driver in the midst of this
Speaker 1: figure out how to love vermouth and how to bring
Speaker 1: out the parts of it that appealed to my palette. Uh,
Speaker 1: thank you so much for spending this time with us
Speaker 1: talking about siccos Paso and other things and the ways
Speaker 1: that our desires can manifest in unhealthy ways. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: we will see you right back here next week for
Speaker 1: more unhealthy desires manifesting in ways that are not delightful, always,
Speaker 1: week after week. Criminalia is a production of Shonda land
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