Gerald Eugene Stano

During the early 1970s, Gerald moved to New Jersey and met a young retarded girl and the two began dating.  A short while later the girl discovered she was pregnant.  Her father found out and came after Gerald with a gun.  He demanded that Gerald take care of it and pay for an abortion.  Gerald agreed and then began drinking heavily and experimenting with drugs.  His parents insisted he move to Ormond Beach, Florida, with them so they could care for his elderly grandmother.  Gerald reluctantly agreed.

Once in Florida, Gerald bounced around from one job to the next.   He was usually fired for missing days, tardiness or theft.  In 1975, Gerald again tried to get his life back on track.  He stopped abusing alcohol and drugs and began dating a local hairstylist.  Gerald fell in love with the pretty 22-year-old woman and on June 21, 1975, they wed at a local church.  Things seemed to be going great for Gerald and he was even able to work at his father-in-law's service station on U.S. 1. 

While Gerald easily made a complete turn away from everything that was destroying his life, it was just as easy for him to revert back to his old ways.   Within months of his wedding Gerald began drinking heavily and started to physically abuse his wife. Six months later, the marriage was over and his wife filed for divorce.  Gerald moved back in with his parents and the following month a Florida court granted his wife a divorce.   

Maligant Self Love

According to Dr. Sam Vaknin, author of the book Malignant Self Love, serial killers are the, "Quiddity and quintessence of malignant narcissism."   Vaknin describes the narcissist's personality as chaotic and claims his defense mechanisms are primitive.

"The whole edifice is precariously balanced on pillars of denial, splitting, projection, rationalization, and projective identification," he writes.  "Narcissistic injuries - life crises, such as abandonment, divorce, financial difficulties, incarceration, public opprobrium - can bring the whole thing tumbling down.  The narcissist cannot afford to be rejected, spurned, insulted, hurt, resisted, criticized, or disagreed with.  Likewise, the serial killer is trying desperately to avoid a painful relationship with his object of desire.  He is terrified of being abandoned or humiliated, exposed for what he is and then discarded."