All language subtitles for Signs.of.a.Psychopath.S04E08.I.Call.Him.Monster.1080p.AMZN.WEB-DL.DDP2.0.H.264-BurCyg_track3_[eng]

MAN: There's this thing inside
of me, it's like...

the appetite.

It's like a wolf that's...

filling...the hunger.

♪♪

♪♪

MAN:
Around 2:30 Monday morning,

first responders are called to
a car fire near

the 22-mile marker of
I-96 -- the body of

a 37-year-old woman identified
as Lori Marie Vargas,

trapped and badly
burned inside.

At first, it seemed like
a deadly fiery crash.

But evidence at the scene,

along with the man officers
found walking

near the crash,
quickly leading detectives

to believe
this case was something else.

Police online records
show 45-year-old

Donald Spice is
being held.

MORGAN: So from a psychological
defenses perspective,

we would say that is
projection, because he's

attributing to her attitudes
that he, in fact, holds himself.

I don't think he really was

totally happy in
the relationship at all.

He's very calm.

He refers to it in the past
tense, that I was her fiance,

and he's beginning to set
the stage that things were kind

of fine with me,

but something was wrong
with her.

I didn't believe it,
not because he said he cried.

I didn't believe it because
he presents Lori Vargas as

this crazy woman who was out
of control with her emotions.

He says she's irrational,
which many abusive men do.

MORGAN: The technique of blaming
somebody else for what's going

on is very common in people
who have psychopathy.

This behavior is definitely
related to power and control,

and it's related to obtaining
their objective.

[knocking noise]

He just says,
"I didn't want to hurt her."

I believe that part.

But I think he wanted to
kill her.

His own thinking was,
"I want to get rid of her,

but maybe I didn't want to
make her suffer."

That's what we would call
a Freudian slip.

That, I believe, indicates
he knew she's already dead.

He's already killed her --
little phrases and lines make it

sound like

in the eye of the investigator
that this was hurtful to him.

RAGHAVAN:
I'm a little bit speechless

at the pointlessness of
this detail.

The story as is told
makes no sense.

A woman with no history
of violence,

no history of volatility,
would not pick up a knife

and threaten a dog.

MORGAN: He's essentially saying
she picks up the dog and says,

you know, I'm gonna
kill this thing, and --

and then the murder happens.

I think it's all setting
the stage for what's about

to come,
I think it is manipulative.

MORGAN: You usually say
it's love that sweeps you off

your feet, but in this case,
it's a hammer.

There is an element of the --
of the dramatic,

but I do think that that's
part of what happens when

people are telling a story
that's just not true.

In reality, it's very likely
she was asleep in the bed or in

a position of helplessness
at the time,

But it's implied he's saving
the dog from her.

RAGHAVAN:
Blood makes a lot of

people with core psychopathic
features feel alive.

While he's not visibly showing
a lot of emotion,

the kind of details
he provides really

makes you feel like he's
enjoying describing it.

[loud sob]

SPICE: Uhh.

RAGHAVAN: Why on earth
he would put her

in the passenger seat
and drive around?

A polite way to put it is
it's downright peculiar.

Perhaps he wanted to have
a corpse next to him and get

the thrill of driving around

with a dead body -- that would
have been no thrill if he put

her in the trunk.

He enjoyed deceiving everybody
along the way.

He was able to do that,

didn't seem terribly emotionally
distressed over that.

He's describing it with
relative calm,

which is all not normal.

Psychopaths don't have the same
connectivity to other people.

Other people are objects,
they're things,

and they can depersonalize
them rather quickly.

And so now that she's dead,

um, she's gone.

I think in his mind,
at that particular point,

this was on the way to
achieving his ultimate goal.

WOMAN: Donald Spice is so
comfortable in a courtroom

he actually stopped for a chat
about his case,

the third of
his criminal career.

Actually, it's the...

third time of
being really stupid.

It was desperation.

WOMAN: Apparently Spice is
a pretty desperate person.

He's been here before, though he
was a bit shyer six years ago.

This video is from
his 1991 case.

Spice was actually
on a tether for a previous

B&E when he burglarized
the Profile Salon on Alpine.

That same night,
spice hit the Alpine Super Wash,

ended up back
behind bars,

and yes,
the cycle began again.

Spice served five years before
getting out last July

and immediately trying to break
into another business.

I'm having problems getting
money, uh, borrowing money.

WOMAN: But police say
it's not about money.

Spice is just addicted to
breaking and entering.

No, I am not that --
the police are trying

to make me up to be
an obsessive person.

MORGAN:
I think he is obsessive.

I think he plans and plots
and schemes.

It's a pattern that he will
engage in over

and over and over again
that he's not gonna stop.

What Donald Spice is
obsessed with

is the excitement
and the winning.

It's -- it's setting out a plan

and beating other people
at something.

There's a progression of
the intensity of the crime

so that he could have

more of a thrill
and a bigger gain.

RAGHAVAN: Spice was not
interested in Lori Vargas

as a beautiful,
sensual woman.

I believe he was setting up
the murder from the start.

Psychopaths are
frequently predators.

And so he likely looked for
someone he thought

he could fool,

he thought he could con,
he thought he could seduce,

importantly, and then later on,

murder in a way that he
thought he could get away with.

MORGAN: Lori Vargas
was a mother of two.

She would fall
potentially into

a category of people
who'd be more vulnerable.

Especially, she's working
as a single mother.

That pattern fits
a targeting pattern

that many psychopaths
and sociopaths have.

The irony is that although
they don't attach as profoundly

to other people as
healthy people do,

they know who needs to feel
an attachment.

MORGAN: Yeah, I don't think
he's sorry at all.

Donald Spice is framing his
actions as something that

are kind --
"I'm really not a monster.

I do kind things."

I see that as the selfish
manipulation of his -- of

the image he's trying to
convey to the police officer,

try and get maybe
a little empathy.

The problem is,
is that he sucks at it.

RAGHAVAN: So he's progressing
to the end goal.

But along that progress are
all of these little things that

are horrific for us,
but that give him pleasure.

So the seduction, the killing,
then the staging of

the killing, and then he
explodes the car, and he gets

pleasure from probably
the sheer violence of it,

but also that's part of
the storyline that he's created

for himself.

♪♪

♪♪

MAN: Today, prosecutors
laid out evidence

suggesting the murder
was preplanned.

They say, months before
the murder, someone used

Spice's credit card

and his computer
to purchase a life insurance

policy on Lori Vargas.

They say Spice was listed as
the sole beneficiary.

♪♪

MAN: Spice refuted
the evidence presented today.

They don't have to prove that.

They have to allege it.

That's it.
That's good enough.

I'm guilty until
proven innocent.

I'm standing here
in cuffs and shackles.

MORGAN: He sounds annoyed.

He sounds angry,
which is probably the most

genuine emotion
that we have seen from him.

He's even lower on empathy
than I imagined.

What we see now is
the ruthless planning.

Lori Vargas's murder

is part of a long
continuum of criminal

behavior and using other
people and taking other

people's things.

RAGHAVAN: And then it escalated
to a predatory crime,

where he planned a murder.

And he wanted
a big payout where

he could idly and parasitically
live off

this insurance --
the thrill of planning

the murder and the thrill of
disposing of the body

and the thrill of fooling
the police --

all of that is part of
the fantasy.

Mr. Spice has all
the characteristics

of a classic psychopath.

♪♪

WOMAN: Donald Spice was
sentenced to life in prison for

killing his girlfriend and
mother of two, Lori Vargas.

Today in court,
her two children spoke.

I call him Monster, because he
took my mom away from me.

This will affect my life,
because I'm

not going to grow up
with a mom.

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