There is a long going thread about this story in another psych forum that goes no where. The reason for that is most people nons and any of us really have no idea what empathy is. Scientifically speaking, everyone has empathy, some are just better able to express it, some are able to filter it, some are unable to control it. That goes for any disorder and even nons. Science has no explanation why that is. Psychology which really is not a real science attempts to explain why. In psychology it is explained there are two main components of empathy, cognitive and affective. You need both to express and feel empathy, however some people are better in one component more then another. Cognitive is basically the ability to understand and recognize when some one is feeling bad about something and understanding the reason why they are. By doing so you could simulate a possible feeling of what that person is feeling by comparing it to a similar experience you had. This could be accurate or could be inaccurate. People with aspd autism supposedly do better with cognitive because it is believed they really can't totally feel empathy, only understand it at best. Affective is the component that supposedly allows you to actually feel what the other person is feeling. It should be used along with the cognitive component for best results, however people with bipolar and BPD are said to do better with the affective and not so well with the cognitive component. Keep in mind this also effects nons too.
However this is NOT scientific and merely a psychology theory based on nothing but various opinions and no scientific studies, science does not accept any of this. Indeed even in the psychology field none of this can be totally agreed on and if you google the subject you will see gross errors made from bloggers regarding this further spreading inaccuracies.

Here's the bottom line for those truly interested in it. There is no scientific basis to support the two component empathy theory, nor is there any scientific evidence to support the theory that sociopaths and autism do not have empathy. Even in the psychology field there is no agreement to the exact case or meanings. What we do know is this. Some people are better able to identify and express empathy then others, this applies to everyone, nons and those with disorders.

The hallmark for sociopaths have always been there lack of empathy, which certainly can be the case for many but does not need to mean for all or to mean equal level for all, same as nons or anyone. It just happens to be the hallmark for sociopaths.

So every once in a while a story comes along that seems to contradict the psychology theories. It should come as no surprise because psychology is NOT a science but merely philosophy and guess work based on feelings and opinions minus any actual scientific studies. That is why science has never totally taken psychology seriously. Well can you blame them when the father of psychology's break thru book was titled "The Interpretation of Dreams" by Sigmund Freud lol.

Psychology is nothing more then a Pseudoscience at best