When the A-level results came out, Brian Blackwell was as euphoric as anyone in Britain: he had been awarded straight As in maths, chemistry, biology and Spanish. "He was happy," says his head teacher, who chatted to him about the exciting prospect of university, sharing the boy's pleasure that his hard work had paid off. "Brian was in for about an hour. It was just a very happy occasion."
But Blackwell would not be going to university. Behind his relaxed facade was a secret: at home, his father was sitting in an armchair, holding a bent pair of spectacles in a position that had not changed for 24 days. Drag marks of blood on the carpet led to the family bathroom, where his mother lay face down in a similar state of decay. And that was how they would stay for another fortnight, until the smell from their immaculate bungalow was reported to the police.
When the corpses were found, there was disbelief, and not because a teenager from a respectable, middle-class home had killed his parents. It was the details: after attacking them with a claw hammer and a carving knife, the 18-year-old had washed the blood from his face and hands, finished packing his suitcases and left for a £30,000 holiday in America and Barbados with his girlfriend, paying the bills on his father's credit cards. He did not go quiet or sleep badly during the entire trip. When he collected his results, he talked to his teachers as if nothing had happened.
This was a confident, intelligent boy, who in science lessons could not stand the sight of blood. He was the only child of parents who were proud of him. With a place at university to study medicine, he had everything to live for. Nobody could explain it — not even his girlfriend. "I don't think anyone will ever know the reason why he killed them," says Amal Saba, who dined with him on truffles and lobster in New York, unaware of the tragedy at home.
Probably every thoughtful parent of boys worries at some stage that they are raising a psychopath. You fear that one day you will end up in court, the supportive parent of a child gone wrong. Every thoughtful parent of girls probably worries about self-esteem. And whether it is a boy who has done something terrible or a girl with low self-esteem, you know that somehow you were responsible.
What happened to Brian Blackwell?
When reporters descended on the Merseyside village of Melling, they heard a symphony of familiar remarks. They kept to themselves, neighbours said. They were a lovely family; Mrs Blackwell contributed to the village newsletter, and Mr Blackwell was charming to chat to. After a memorial service in the parish church, one resident spoke for all when she told a local paper: "I watched their son grow up to be a lovely lad. Everyone wants to know: why did this happen?"
From the outside, the Blackwells' £350,000 bungalow symbolises everything that is desirable in this part of Merseyside, seven miles from Liverpool city centre in an area popular with professional footballers. Hidden from view by a private driveway and an ample, carefully tended garden, the home sits in privacy in a peaceful country lane. If you moved there from the city, the air would taste delicious. Brian Sr and Jacqueline Blackwell arrived here after divorces. They had met in the late 1960s, when they worked for Littlewoods stores. Mr Blackwell was married at the time, with two sons, and in 1975 Jackie, too, got married. But the relationships broke down and they met again at T J Hughes, a Liverpool department store, where she was a buyer and he an accountant. In 1986 their son was born, and they married soon after. At the time, Jackie was 42 and her husband 53.
The Blackwells placed a value on being respectable, and went to the trouble of re-registering Brian's birth certificate to disguise the fact that he had been born out of wedlock. They moved to Melling when he was two.
Go there today and you will encounter some residents who feel exposed and defensive. How do you explain to your colleagues that two of your neighbours have been dead for six weeks and neither you, nor anyone else, noticed? When you can answer that, you have found the first clues as to the real story of Brian Blackwell.
The official explanation is that he has narcissistic personality disorder, in which people have such an inflated sense of self-worth that it can dominate their lives. Markers include a feeling of superiority and a lack of empathy, so that a person might expect special treatment as of right, and can see no reason why they should queue, for example. Other symptoms include a need for admiration, preoccupation with fantasies of unlimited success, the exaggeration of abilities or achievements, and being willing to exploit other people, whose needs are disregarded, to gain the required money or esteem. The disordered person reacts to criticism with inappropriate rage or unnecessary humiliation, feeling either that the criticism is unjust and shows a lack of understanding, or that it is more than just and that they are a hopeless human being. In any British organisation that employs 100 people, one — often the person at the top — is likely to have the disorder.
First defined by the American Psychiatric Association in 1980, it has become a common finding among psychopaths. In America a diagnosis can be enough to avoid murder charges and now, thanks to Blackwell, that is true here. When five experts told Liverpool Crown Court that Blackwell was severely narcissistic, the judge accepted a plea to drop charges of murder in favour of manslaughter. Blackwell pleaded guilty and Mr Justice Royce jailed him for life, adding that he did not think the young man would ever be fit to release.
There is no doubt that, if you accept the definition, Blackwell has the disorder. He is a fantasist whose lies became unsustainable after he fell in love with Saba, the daughter of Jordanian physicians and a fellow student at Liverpool College, a day school with fees of £10,000 a year. With hindsight, she looks naive. But narcissists make good fraudsters. As Kerry Daynes, a consultant forensic psychologist based in Manchester, points out, "The reason why people with NPD are so convincing is that part of them believes it themselves."
