Robert Evans

Financial stress, business failures, depression, they've all been cited.

Possible mental illness as well.

There seems to be a very strong prevalence of that in Phil's life.

whatever the cause, the event shattered the whole family, right?

So Bertha Spector becomes the central force in Phil's life, tightening her grip on her son's emotional and developmental trajectory.

Alongside her was Phil's older sister, Shirley, who would exhibit as much control over issues over Phil as his mother did.

Both of them would emotionally abuse Phil often.

His mother would often disparage his father and blame young Phil for his death.

So she's like over there, like your dad killed himself because of you.

Before you, he was happy and then you came along and then he killed himself.

And that's the best thing for kids, right?

Giving them that sense of agency and control.

No, you killed your dad and you can do anything you put your mind to, including kill your parents, which you already did.

Right?

Yeah.

Very impressive, bro.

I couldn't kill my parents.

All right, so...

she treated his father's death as a source of family shame as well too.

So it was like, she never told the truth about it to anybody.