All language subtitles for Signs.of.a.Psychopath.S08E10.1080p.WEB.h264-FREQUENCY_track3_[eng]

[eerie music playing]

Every parent's worst fear would
be for their child to turn into

a depraved killer.

[woman] He was our much-beloved
son, and we can't--

we didn't raise him
to be this kind of person.

He said, "I have always
been fascinated by

"death and violence,

"and it was something
that I wanted to do--

murder, rape,
and cannibalism."

[Nameeta] As a parent, when
you see a child has an unusual

obsession with violence,
you don't often think, is

your child is aspiring
to be a serial killer?

[man] I think
he was born to kill.

It was just-- I don't know
if it's a bad seed or what,

but boy, he's...

he was just totally
consumed with murder.

[theme music playing]

[man] The thing
inside of me, it's like...

the appetite.

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

feeling the hunger.

[Chriscelyn] We know
from some of the most

notorious serial killers, like

Jeffrey Dahmer, Ed Kemper,
Ted Bundy, that these

individuals didn't just begin
to show traits

of psychopathy in adulthood.

In fact, when we look back at
their lives, we know that there

were a lot of red flags from
early on in their childhood.

When all of us, as parents,
think about raising children,

one of the sincerest goals is
making sure you're putting

a good, healthy human being
in the world.

How do we really know
when our children

are developing properly?

When do we know that
our children are safe

as good human beings?

They're on the right track
versus maybe something's not

right with my child,
but maybe it's a sign of

something larger.

We're going to take
a closer look at some of

those early
warning signs.

[man] Police have identified
the suspect as 59-year-old

Dennis Rader,
an animal control officer

who is also
a Cub Scout leader

and president
of his church.

Rader, who is married with
two adult children, lives in

Park City, Kansas,
a suburb of Wichita.

[Nameeta] One of the cases that
evaded authorities for more than

two decades was
the case of Dennis Rader.

BTK was the name or acronym
that Rader himself created.

Bind them, torture them,
kill them.

Rader's always maintained
that he had a relatively

normal childhood.

But what we actually know is
that Dennis Rader's obsession

with violence, with torture,
with harm began

at the young age
of seven or eight.

Rader remembers and recalls
in detail having obsessive

thoughts about certain females
that he went to school with

and fantasies that he would
basically kidnap them,

bind them, torture them,
and sexually assault them.

Rader has disclosed that he was
always intrigued by serial

killers such as Ted Bundy,
Jack the Ripper.

And not only was he intrigued
by them, he idolized them.

He wanted
to become like them.

[Chriscelyn]
Rader's fantasies centered
around sex and violence.

As a young teenager,
he would even engage in

behaviors that he would
eventually perpetrate

against his victims.

So, for example, he would bound
his own feet and hands and tie

a bag around his head,
perhaps engaging

in autoerotica
while masturbating.

And we know that this is
similar to the crimes that

he eventually did commit.

Individuals who exhibit this
fascination with violence,

this lack of empathy for others,
can sometimes begin very early

in childhood, and we see
a similar fascination

in Brian Cohee, who also
idolized serial killers.

[officer]
So parents have some concerns

of some stuff they may have
found in your room?

-Um, yeah, I believe so.
-And what would it be?

A human head and hands.

[officer] And how did you
end up with them?

I murdered him.

Cohee's somewhat pridefully
talking about how he had always

admired Ted Bundy,
the Zodiac killer.

This is somebody who had a deep
fascination with violence.

[Charles]
In the case of Brian Cohee,
there is plenty of evidence

that he had a very dangerous
preoccupation with violence.

Certainly, in his mind,
the character from

the "Halloween" movies,
Michael Myers, the killer,

is someone that he can idolize,
identify with.

It's the kind of thinking that
we do when we're really little,

which is, if I dress up
like you, I can be you.

So wearing the costume helps me
become the person

that I fantasized about
or idealized.

[Chriscelyn]
There are indications
that at least some people

saw this coming.

School records have suggested
that the psychologist had

evaluated him, and it even
cited that he was dangerous.

So Cohee's behavior really
didn't just come out

of nowhere.

He journaled about violence
and fantasies about crime

and criminal acts that were
violent and involved

sadistic behavior.

[Nameeta]
One of his parents finds
something that they refer to as

a kill kit.

They included weapons,
they included tools that would

suggest there was intent
to do harm.

Despite the fact that
he's outwardly and openly

and transparently obsessed
and fixated on violence

and glorifying these
serial killers and obsessed with

forensic sciences and things
that have to do with

decomposition
and very dark material,

his parents essentially wag
their finger at him and say,

"You don't do that again."

And it has absolutely
zero impact on Cohee.

As we've seen time and time
again, in these cases of

budding psychopathic teenagers
and children who go on to do

these heinous adult crimes,
they don't outgrow it.

They go on to kill people.

[man] Serial killer Ted Bundy
is talking, confessing to murder

after murder,
giving investigators

grisly details of a decade-long
cross-country crime spree.

I think he was born to kill.

[Nameeta] Young children,
from the very beginning,

they're learning the value
of human relationships.

They're learning the value of
not harming others.

They're learning the value of
falling within healthy morals

that are consistent with
society's value for

right and wrong.

But when somebody doesn't have
that developmental process,

and that trajectory is not
happening as it should,

they're failing to gain
intrinsic value internally for

praise, for trophies,
for just being a good citizen.

Even if they're a tiny little
human being, we have a problem.

The most notorious
serial killer in the nation is

scheduled to die
tomorrow morning

in Florida's
electric chair.

Ted Bundy is an articulate,
intelligent 42-year-old man,

a former Boy Scout,
law student,

and Republican Party activist.

Bruce Hall is at
the Florida State Prison.

I don't know if it's a bad seed
or what, but he is just totally

consumed with murder.

[man]
Prior to his execution,

Bundy made
a farewell phone call

to his mother.
-[sighs] Oh, God.

He was
our much beloved son.

We didn't raise him
to be this kind of person.

We gave him
a good upbringing.

And something
has happened to him,

sometime since
he left this house,

that has triggered some
terrible madness inside of him.

[Chriscelyn]
What we know from the records

is that Ted Bundy grew up

thinking his grandparents
were his parents

and that his mother
was his sister.

And he has talked about how
embarrassing it was to be outed

as the child that didn't
have a father.

What we know from the research
is that growing up in a family

with those sort of dynamics has
the opportunity to lead to

a lot of problematic
development.

[Charles]
If it's true that in his early
family that these boundaries

have been broken in the family,
and I suspect that there were

other kinds of abuse going on,
whether it was emotional abuse

or neglect or physical abuse,
that breaks down a child's

perception of which rules are
firm, which ones you keep

and which ones you don't,
and whether or not people do

whatever they want.

And so if a kid learns that
rule early on, that people do

whatever they want, and I don't
mean that much to any of these

people, then why would
they mean that much to me?

That may explain
the longstanding pattern where

there's no remorse and almost
a calculated indifference to

his actions in killing people,
where he never seemed troubled

by any of it and seemed rather
calculating and cool about it.

I have got to keep
myself together.

I have got to stay calm.

I've got to keep
my presence of mind,

because as long
as I do that,

I'm going to beat
these people.

[Chriscelyn]
Bundy didn't believe
that the rules applied to him.

And this acting without
conscience seemed to have

started at an early point
in his life.

And we see similar tendencies
with Michael Swanson.

[man]
It all started in Algona, Iowa.

Pretty heartbreaking
story and unbelievable.

[woman] Investigators say a man
wearing a ski mask walked into

the store and demanded
Bowman-Hall put cash

and cigarettes
into a duffel bag.

She did,
and he shot her.

[Chriscelyn] There's no point,
when he's discussing either of

these two store clerks,

that he seems to
appreciate the fact that

they're actually human beings
with lives, with friends,

with family.

He talks about them,
shooting them and them dying,

as if he's talking about
an inanimate object.

It's a shocking lack
of conscience.

[woman] The state
then called a psychiatrist

who interviewed Swanson
after the crime.

He says Swanson told him
he'd been planning to kill since

he was 13.

[psychiatrist] He said, "I have
always been fascinated

"by death and violence,

"and it was something

that I wanted to do--
murder, rape, and cannibalism."

[woman] Michael Swanson stared
blankly as his mother described

a troubled toddler.

When he was 11,
she said police got involved.

The neighbor
came knocking on the door,

and she said that

Michael is running around
the neighborhood with a knife,

and he's threatening people,
and he threatened her daughter.

What we start to see here is
not only that lack of empathy

for the concept of fear
and that he's evoking fear in

someone, and he doesn't feel bad
about it, where most children's

intrinsic value for social
approval comes from doing good,

at a very early age, he might be
learning that causing harm

and fear and getting people
scared is what pleases him

and keeps him happy.

[judge] Verdict number one,
we find the defendant guilty of

murder in the first degree.

[man]
Even after a jury convicted
Michael Swanson, he smiled.

Psychopathy is not something
that just one day a parent

wakes up and realizes,
I have a problematic child with

no conscience, no sense of
remorse, and who doesn't behave

like most children--
that does not happen overnight.

But when we look at some of
our more notorious psychopaths,

in many of those cases,
we actually see

early history of animal harm.

That is not a typical part of
child development.

[man] Kemper was arraigned this
afternoon on charges of killing

six young women,
his mother, and a friend

of hers--
all the victims except one,

the woman friend of his mother,
were dismembered.

Experts say Kemper's path to
torture and murder began early

in childhood when he began
decapitating his sister's dolls

and killing cats.

He apparently fantasized about
doing this for quite a long

period of time.

[man] As a child, Kemper often
played a sick game in which

his sisters pretended
to be executioners.

Kemper's obsession with
violence and its casual

connection with sex and love
was so twisted by age 12 that

when asked why he didn't give
his grade school teacher

a kiss, he replied,
"If I kiss her,

I would have to
kill her first."

[Chriscelyn]
Usually, we see more than
one trait of psychopathy in

an individual, and these traits
can go back to early childhood

and continue to develop
as time goes on.

And what starts as a fantasy,
a violent fantasy, for example,

often escalates into actually
enacting that fantasy or that

violence toward a living
creature like an animal.

We know from the records that
Kemper's violence began at

least at age 10, whenever
he killed a family cat.

He buried the family cat alive,
only to then

exhume its body, decapitate it,
and put its head on a spike.

Sometime later,
Kemper killed another cat.

He actually kept parts
of this cat in his bedroom,

and his mother discovered them.

And he provided that
explanation that, "Well, I had

"to kill the cat because
it favored my sister

instead of me."

So these are alarming behaviors
that are certainly not typical

for children to engage in.

[Charles] So in many cases
of psychopathy,

we find their fascination with
creating and inflicting pain

and dismembering things,
whether it's to dissect them

or watch the animal die
or enjoy the fact an animal is

dying, I think is a pretty
important indication of how

well the person regards
other living beings.

[Chriscelyn] When we see
this sort of behavior,

it is particularly concerning.

It shows a lack of empathy

and a coldness
that we just

don't expect to see in
children, to take advantage of

a vulnerable
living creature like this.

Another serial killer who has
a history of torturing

and killing animals
as a child is Israel Keyes.

In the shed is where
he sexually assaulted

and killed Samantha Koenig.

[man] Keyes then dismembered her
body and dumped her remains in

Matanuska Lake.

[laughs]

[Charles] So he goes out into
the woods with friends,

and he has the plan,

because he takes
the cat with him and a gun,

and takes great pleasure
not only from watching

the cat suffer, but, um,
actually derives a great deal of

pleasure from seeing the horror,
the emotional reaction,

and the shock that it generates
in his peers, and, you know,

his laughter, I think, is--
it's genuine, it's linked to

that amazement, that, "Boy,
humans are different than me."

Animals are sort of
perfect little victims, right?

They can't talk,
they can't go tell someone.

There's rarely someone
to come to their defense.

So it leaves the person in
charge feeling in control

and kind of acting godlike
over the animal.

So in many ways,
it's a foreshadowing of what

they would like to do
to their victims.

[woman]
Bill and Lorraine Currier
vanished from their Essex home,

The couple's garage window was
broken, and the phone line to

the home had been cut.

Police say they do have
evidence the couple

was abducted.

It's like he's planned and is
going on these almost

human victim
hunting expeditions.

He's identified this couple,
and he's going to

enact his plan.

He's almost giddy at containing
this information.

It seems to be exhilarating to
him to have that

power and control.

[Charles]
He wanted her to know

that her husband was already
dead and was enjoying that whole

process of letting her know,
just more of the power--

he can control the information
and then enjoy watching

her suffer from knowing it,
which is a bit like

watching the cat,
after shooting the cat

and watching it
run around and around

and enjoying that,
and then enjoying the horror on

other people's faces.

[Nameeta] Most adolescents,
while it is normal and typical

in their development to be
self-focused and self-absorbed,

still exhibit regular
and reasonable attachment

and connection to
their family members.

But what we know about
psychopathic individuals,

their attachment to others,
including

their parents, their siblings,
their own children,

is transactional.

[Charles] For psychopaths,
you're an object,

and they want you
for some purpose.

So they're very quick at
studying you and deciding

you're useful or not.

[man] Heather Mack was 18
and pregnant when the murder of

her mother happened in a hotel
room at a resort in Bali

in 2014.

Mack and her boyfriend,
Tommy Schaefer, were convicted

of murdering Sheila von
Wiese-Mack and leaving her body

in a suitcase at the hotel.

When we think about mother
and daughter relationships,

it is hard to conceive of
a daughter hating her mother

so much that she ends up killing
her while on that vacation.

And that lack of attachment
towards family members is one

of those significant
markers in childhood

and adolescence
that we look at.

It's $1.5 million that
she would have access to

as a young adult, but not
until the age of 30.

For Heather, her mother was
the guardian of that account.

To family friends and family
members, Heather Mack was known

as a spoiled,
out-of-control teenager.

People described
her as narcissistic,

manipulative, violent, known to
fly into fits of rage.

On one occasion, Heather Mack
managed to actually break

her mother's arm.

She showed no real remorse
towards her mother,

no caring and connection.

She seemed not only indifferent
to her mother's well-being,

she actually seemed to gain
pleasure from terrorizing her.

I don't regret
killing my mother.

And as evil as that may sound,
that's my reality.

[Nameeta]
The problem is that Heather
Mack, consistent with what

we see with psychopathic
individuals, acted out in these

extreme and violent
and aggressive ways.

There was a depraved
indifference to the harm

she caused to her mother
that ultimately led to

her mother's murder.

Another case, maybe less
well-known, where we see

a teenager with poor
connections to others

and specifically a lack of
attachment and connection to

his family, we think about
the case of Daniel Petric.

[siren wailing]

When we listen to Petric
talk to the police,

those initial statements
are really jarring.

It's jarring
because there's no emotion.

He's talking about how
he had to get out of there.

It was just upsetting.

And so instead of getting out
of there and going to

the hospital, going to a police
station, he says he went to,

and I quote, "hang out" with
his friend Steve.

These are not the words of
a caring, concerned teenager.

These are the words of
a psychopathic individual

who has no real attachment to
these family members.

[Charles] He doesn't even ask,
"Did my mom die?"

He's really only asking
about his dad.

So he knows for sure
mom's dead.

The story he's created for
the police is that it was

his parents who were engaged
in an argument.

He hears the gunshot,
comes running out.

Mom's shot, then he's
threatened by the dad,

who then says, "Oh, I'm sorry,"
and turns the gun on himself.

And then while he's telling
this, he's trying to sound

emotionally upset.

What's clear is that he is not
behaving like a normal person.

He's not having the basic, uh,

emotions of fear,
anxiety, loss,

and concern about family.

Now he's saying they were
arguing over the fact that

he was grounded
and his behavior

around this video game.

So in less than 24 hours,
Petric's story has changed

multiple times.

There's no evidence that there
was family violence in this

home prior to that, there's no
evidence that his parents were

ever aggressive or violent
or overly stern with him.

So the minute his parents
do the appropriate thing as

adults, parenting
this difficult teenager,

he decides he's going to take
a firearm and shoot them both

with the goal of killing them.

That total and absolute lack of
caring and attachment for

his parents speaks to
very psychopathic thinking

and psychopathic ways of
interacting with the world.

[man] Reverend Mark Petric
takes the stand in a trial of

his 17-year-old son, Daniel.

Prosecutors say in October of
last year, the teenager shot

his father and shot and killed
his mother, Sue Petric,

in the living room of
their Wellington home.

[Charles]
We do know from looking at
studies of psychopathy that

many of the signs are evident
very early in children's lives,

cruelty to animals
and indifference to

the feelings of others,
enjoying hurting others

and taking some sense of
satisfaction from that.

We've learned from
very dangerous serial killers

and psychopaths,
most of their behavior

has been long in the works

and has emerged at least after
puberty, but the fantasy

material or the torturing of
animals has often even been

visible before puberty.

I think not being afraid to look
at themes of violence or sex

or torture or sadism when those
behaviors are shown in kids,

I think not being afraid to
look at it candidly and say,

we need to deal with it,
um,

we can't avoid it and wish it
away and say it'll just vanish,

because it won't.

[Nameeta] When we think about
children and teenagers who are

exhibiting a lack of empathy,
their moral development isn't

progressing like their peer
group, and they have a fixation

or a fascination with violence,

they're harming animals,

these are very much early
warning signs of budding

psychopathic traits,
and they warrant

mental health care.

Maya Angelou said it best,
"When people show you who

they are,
believe them the first time."