Dr. Tristin Engels

She's not thinking about Everson as a human being who died in her home.

She's not thinking about his children as people who might worry about their father.

She's thinking about herself and logistics, specifically how she can maintain this illusion long enough to keep the money flowing.

Impersonating someone after death is one of the most invasive forms of psychological violation.

It tells us she's not only needing control, she needed continued control, even after Everson was gone.

And that level of detachment is exactly what made her capable of escalating in the way she ultimately did.

So it's incredibly hypocritical when you look at how much admiration she received, even from social workers who knew she was breaking the rules.

On one hand, I understand why they praised her.

Resources for vulnerable populations are scarce, and someone opening their home can appear heroic, but also it's useful for them.

But that praise gets dangerous when the person providing the help is also violating the law.

Once someone is willing to cross legal and ethical boundaries for a good cause, you have to ask, where does that boundary stop?

They should have asked those questions of Dorothea, but instead of doing that, they looked at her like she looked at her victims.

They saw her usefulness only and filtered out the rest.

And that's exactly why her tactics worked.

Dorothea weaponized that contradiction.

The image of the benevolent caregiver paired with the reality of predatory behavior.

Psychologically, this tells us who she really is.

She's someone who is a skilled manipulator and a chameleon, even to the professionals who should be able to see that.

I think, sadly, this is a predictable outcome of a lifetime shaped by danger and deprivation, emotional disconnection, and her personality structure.

People who grow up in environments like hers sometimes learn to view the world through a stark binary lens, like I survive or I don't.