All language subtitles for Signs.of.a.Psychopath.S09E07.I.Am.the.Worst.Husband.1080p.AMZN.WEB-DL.DDP2.0.H.264-RAWR_track3_[eng]

The thing
inside of me, it's like...

the appetite,
it's like a wolf that's...

feeling...
the hunger.

When Traeger
finally makes the decision

to actually report
Jeneen missing,

days have gone by,
and what raises a red flag

is he spent those four days
not looking for her,

not staying at home,
showing no concern.

What we know from
Jeneen's bank records

is that he was out gambling,

he was out partying,
he was out spending her money

and not doing it
with her permission.

He's a person of interest

and he's just mocking
the entire situation.

What strikes me about this
is thinking about the context

of the situation.

His wife is missing,
and one would think

he's genuinely concerned
about her well-being.

There would be a sort of
demeanor and more,

you know, almost impatience
with, you know,

"Well, why are you asking me
these trivial details?"

But you can see
in his body language,

it seems like he's preparing.

He's trying to get
the lay of the land,

and he's trying to
take in some information

so he can spin a story that
matches with what he knows

the circumstances to be.

He's minimizing the toxicity
of what's going on, almost as if

he's trying to take some sort
of responsibility.

"Yes, I lived in my car because
I had a problem,

and I had to
take care of myself."

Not that what he was doing was
damaging to the relationship

and there was actual arguments
and violence going on there.

And that's the reason why

Jeneen kicked him out
of the house.

So he's still engaging in this
pathological lying,

controlling how police are
seeing him,

and really controlling
the whole narrative here.

He definitely
writes his own narrative

and then tries to force
circumstances to match it,

ignoring things that conflict.

And really, and I think this
is where he uses his charm

to kind of get people
to go along with his narrative

and his description of things.

But he is so confident in his
ability to write the narrative

because he just thinks he can,

through force of his
personality,

kind of get people to go along
and be taken in by his story.

When we evaluate
people professionally,

sometimes we think of this
as impression management.

This is somebody who is trying
to make sure they stay clear.

But what we know is
psychopathic individuals are

extremely skilled
at manipulating people,

at creating false impressions
of who they are.

And Traeger definitely is
a very skilled individual

in the areas of manipulation.

The story's morphing.
It's getting bigger.

It's getting more elaborate.
It's getting more detailed.

And what it's also getting
is more focused

on blaming Jeneen
for her own absence.

Traeger is going out of his way
to give the authorities

a level of detail
about Jeneen that,

first of all,
is easily disproven,

but casts no blame
toward himself.

This person is very
selectively choosing

when to give them details

and when to hold back details.

And that strategy is 100%
Joseph Traeger trying to stay

in charge of that interview.

For many of the psychopaths,
it comes back to that charm,

and it's that they have that
ability to influence people

despite external circumstances,
and Jeneen's mom captures it.

I mean, on paper,
this is a guy

that you do not want to have
anything to do with.

But he's so charming,
so manipulative,

that he has convinced her that
none of this other things that,

you know, you see and hear
about me are true.

And that's all the lead-up to,
so then they get married.

When police talk
to Jeneen's friend,

they start to understand
a little bit more

about the depths of
Traeger's manipulations--

that he's not just reserving
this tactic and strategy

for the interviews
with law enforcement,

this is part of how he kept
Jeneen engaged

in their relationship.

What it gives us is a very
clear understanding

that Joseph Traeger
is parasitic.

He lives off of Jeneen,

and because
she is his meal ticket,

he does whatever he needs to
and will stop at no length.

There's no topic that
is off-limits for him to use
as manipulation.

What is eerily similar,

but not surprising
for us, clinically,

is that, for the ex-wife,

describes
a volatile relationship.

This is an individual
who doesn't deal well
with rejection.

He doesn't deal well
with being told no,

with limits being set on him,

with not getting his way.

And that need to maintain
power and control,

both in his relationships
as well as in his environment,

likely are the trigger points
for him.

They are likely the trigger
and the powder keg

that cause him to erupt into
these extreme levels of violence

that you don't see
in the person who's in that
interrogation room.

The fact that he's
willing to take the polygraph,

that's related to
the narcissistic aspect

of his personality.

He always believes
that he has the ability

to get over on anyone.

He's the smartest guy
in the room.

He can control any situation.

So the prospect
of the polygraph,

no machine
is gonna beat him.

He's just gonna simply be able
to control the situation,

as most of his life experience
tells him he's able to.

When Traeger is not really
paying attention

and the detective has to
point it out to him, that, like,

"Hey, do you even care?

What are you doing?
Are you falling asleep on me?"

And that could be a sign of him
just sort of shutting down

at this point because I think
he's being challenged, you know,

that he's being portrayed as,
like, this evil, bad person,

and his ego
really can't handle that.

He's trying to control himself
not to get into this rage

that he usually will get into
when he is challenged.

What we see
is the way that Jeneen's mother

described him
as a backstreet lawyer.

We start to see that come out,

that this many years later,
almost two decades later,

Traeger is still able to quote,

what he believes,
the medical report said

about his first wife's injuries,

that minimizing the seriousness
of what happened in that crime,

minimizing the facts
that are known,

including the medical injuries.

And it's what he does.
He blames the victim.

When confronted with facts,
he distracts, he evades,

and he tries
to take back control.

And that's exactly
what he's doing here.

It's interesting,
every time

Traeger's presented with
evidence to the contrary

of what he's explaining,
he discounts it.

And we see other accounts
where he's acting as

this sophisticated person.

He's using proper
medical language,

proper legal language,

but he can only
do that for so long.

And that's pretty typical
of a psychopath.

They can only really put on
this false sense of self

and false image of this
grandiose sense of self

for, you know,
just a little while.

Once you go into details,
they're gonna fall apart

because really, it's just this
big outwardly projected image,

but there's nothing inside.

They set the situation to give
Mr. Traeger a chance

to kind of change his story,
to rewrite the narrative.

And it seemed to have worked,

because in
an off-camera interview,

he then provides
additional information.

He says, he claims, that he went
upstairs to take a shower,

and when he came downstairs,
he found Jeneen on the ground

with her head cracked open.

He says that he thinks that
she had a seizure.

And then he panicked

and decided that
he's gotta get rid of the body

because the police
would never believe him.

So, and that's why he decided
to get rid of the body.

And he describes that he placed
it in a couple of garbage bags.

He moved the garbage bags
into the garbage can

while it was still
in the garage.

And then he immediately moved
the can out to the curb

so that it would be picked up.

Even if we believe his story,

he finds his wife dead, panics,

makes this decision
that he's gotta cover it up,

but then later that day,

spend his time
going to the casino gambling.

Our initial reaction is,
how could somebody do that?

But the important thing
to keep in mind is that

psychopaths don't experience
emotions like guilt,

and even fear,
the same way that we do.

So it's almost
an emotionless narrative.

Did you have anything
to do with it?

Absolutely not.

Listen, I've had the police
here three different times,

crime scene investigators,
they went through the house.

There's nothing,
nothing, whatchamacallit,

nothing for me to be suspect
of, you know what I'm saying?

Oftentimes,
narcissistic individuals

have a difficult time not
staying the center of attention.

They have a hard time losing
control of a narrative,

and they enjoy
being center stage,

even if the attention
is negative.

Some attention is better than
no attention at all.

And while Traeger could have
chosen not to give

any statements to the media,
and it's what most people

would choose to do,
he can't resist.

And we're all
devastated over this.

What did
she mean to you?

She meant
the world to me.

I've known my wife since
we were nine years old,
ten years old.

We've known each other
for 40 years.

We had financial problems,

you know, so, all marriages
go through problems.

Nothing, nothing major.

You're desperate
to get her back home.

Absolutely.

What would it mean
to you to get her back home?

It would mean the world to me
to get her back.

It would mean everything.

At this point, we're starting
to see some ounce of emotion,

which we don't normally

think of when we, like,
talk about psychopaths.

We're seeing-- it's just
his fear of getting caught,

fear of what the next part
of the narrative is going to be.

The walls are
closing in on him,

and he's gotta think
of something new.

It's not a genuine, you know,
connection to people,

like, I miss you,
I love you.

It's all fear-based,
because something's gonna
happen to him.

They did something very shrewd
by switching gears

and offering to take him
to dinner,

so that they could keep
him talking.

And because he has this
narcissistic belief

that they couldn't possibly
be lying to him

and manipulating him the way
he's been manipulating them,

he believes them.

He can't possibly envision

that these detectives
were shrewd enough

to start the cat
and mouse game with him,

to start manipulating him
so that he would begin talking,

and that is precisely what
we're watching happen--

is detectives have had
a lifetime career of studying

psychopathic individuals
and they're now using

one of their own tricks
against them.

He starts to confess.

He starts to tell them what
he actually did to Jeneen.

He throws a few jokes in there.

He continues to act glib,

laughing about the fact that
there's nine bodies total.

And what we see
is that, again,

Joseph Traeger is 200%
focused on himself.

He even goes so far as to say,

"I'm planning to go
to work tomorrow."

You can see a frame
of thinking where he truly

doesn't see things
the way the rest of us do.

Where I think we really see

what we think of as
a narcissistic injury,

a wound to his own ego,

is how focused
he is on figuring out

how they pulled it over
on him,

how they were wearing a wire
and he didn't see it,

he didn't consider it.

It never even occurred to him
that they might lie to him.

And what you can see is
he's struggling to unpack

that reality and understand
how he missed the signs

because he's smarter than
everyone else.

And that is how
a narcissist thinks.

Traeger's wound in that moment
is not just about rejection.

It's about losing control.

It's about his gravy train
is coming to an end.

So he really had come
to the end of his options.

And now she's telling him,
"I'm cutting you off.

"You are no longer welcome
in my life, in my home.

You no longer have access
to my resources."

And what does he do?

Joseph Traeger doesn't handle
being told no.

Traeger's description
of the murder

is extremely horrendous,

but it really highlights
these traits of psychopathy,

like callousness.

He talks about the knife going
in to his wife's head

as being like warm butter.

I mean, who describes something
like that?

He's almost like taking pride
in what he's saying

and he's bolstering himself up
like he's just this, like,

you know, macho man,
dominant, in control,

and he can do
what he wants with,

you know, his victims,
being his wife.

This is all
his learned behavior.

He's understood,
by living in the world,

that you're supposed to care
if other people suffer.

And so he's trying to kind of
portray the detectives like,

"Hey, look,
I'm not a psychopath.

"I care-- I care that
she didn't-- you know,

that gives me some comfort."

But it doesn't come across
as genuine at all.

Traeger has managed
to somehow distort the reality

of who he is and what role
he had in that relationship

to a degree that he's no longer
in contact, or in connection,

with actual facts.

He's completely dismissive
of the fact that

he bilked her
out of over $60,000.

He ruined her credit.

He physically harmed her.

He took her life.

Her family will now spend
the rest of their lives
without her.

After exclusively
telling CBS4 News

he had nothing to do with
the disappearance of his wife,

deputies put a Sunrise man
in handcuffs

and charged him
with murder.