Original subtitles

[reporter] The details don't seem real.

Police say Nicholas went to a friend's home,

and spent the night.

He came back home Saturday evening around 5.

He came back out of his house, told the friends

that he found his father dead inside.

911 was called, police responded,

found the father dead on the ground floor,

his mother dead in a bedroom upstairs,

and his two brothers dead upstairs.

All dead from gunshot wounds.

[theme music playing]

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

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

feeling... the hunger.

What's remarkable in just looking at

how Nicholas Browning appears in the police interview,

looking at his body language, looking at his demeanor,

is that it's really unusual to see a teenager who's saying

he had great relationships with his parents.

Not looking distraught over discovering

that everybody in his family's dead.

You'd at least expect somebody just trying

to get their emotions under control

with the realization that their family is completely gone.

And we don't see any of that.

He doesn't care that his family is dead.

So there's no emotional undercurrent.

At this point, you know, Browning's sort of offering up

this lack of responsibility excuse where he's saying

he was going to go joyriding, "Oh, silly him or dumb him."

You know, like, he's not that smart.

He's this naive 15-year-old that doesn't know much.

He's manipulating the narrative,

controlling how the officers see him,

that's his way of maintaining control

of this entire situation.

The detective recognizes that describing this scene

is going to be emotionally taxing.

The only movement that Browning does

is move his hand to describe the situation.

He is not distressed at all.

There is nothing disturbing about that scene

to Browning for a lot of reasons.

Primarily, it's because he had already seen

his father bloodied, and shot in the head,

and on that couch.

And the other element is his psychopathy,

how he is getting further and further detached

from his own humanity.

[suspenseful music builds]

[Dr. De La Torre] It's all a facade.

He can't even get the emotion up to really put

a full-throated defense of himself.

He is not demonstrating that he is enjoying

anything that's happening.

But he's also not putting on any theatrics.

He's not putting on a mask of someone who,

"I should be offended by any of this."

He wants the detectives to think that he's young.

He wants the detectives to think that he's not really capable

of this level of violence.

Even though the keys to the gun safe were found

under his mattress.

I mean, literally, this guy did not care if he got caught.

It's just, "Yeah, I know,

because that's where I left 'em."

And that's it.

End of story.

He's taking their argument, and turning it around

to explain why it couldn't be true.

He's trying to take whatever ammunition they have

and make it fit into his narrative,

and show why that can't be a reason,

just to negate that reason.

So I do think it's about, the -- it's still that

he's trying to control the interview,

control their impression of him.

There's definitely some traits of narcissism here,

traits of narcissism are part of the psychopathy,

and he thinks that he's smarter than police.

And when he finds out that he might not be,

he's sort of trying to wait the police out,

and information gathers, so he can create and spin,

like, a new narrative, that's also very manipulative,

you know, traits consistent with narcissism and psychopathy.

And that's something, you know, that threatens

Browning's ego to be not smarter than the police.

I do think he was trying to demonstrate

his level of intellectual superiority.

Him saying, you know,

"Me telling you a story" or "Me crying,"

those things are definitely the glibness associated

with psychopathy.

I do think that this is a challenge.

He's growing more emboldened to challenge.

He's still not experiencing any emotions, though, right?

He's still sitting there, coolly, calmly.

He's still kind of whispering.

He's still getting the attention that he wants.

So a common tactic that police will use

in their interrogations is to validate the emotions

of what's going on with the perpetrator.

That usually will make them open up and say,

"Oh, yes, you understand me."

And Browning takes that little carrot,

making himself out to be sort of the victim in the story.

He's really trying to distance himself from

any responsibility in the crime.

He's trying to cry. He's got some tears.

He keeps holding his hand up over his eyes.

And now in the role of being a victimized kid,

he gets a gun, and he's going to shoot his dad,

but he hesitates.

He's not sure if he pulled the trigger.

He's shifting in the story. He's still a victim.

But it's meant to convey that this wasn't premeditated.

In fact, we know, it was when we look at the evidence

of hiding the keys in order to get the gun.

But this is a new strategy to manipulate the police.

He's figured by now they don't believe his story

that he didn't do it, so he might as well

give them a story where he did it.

I think he shot his father,

and then he waited to see if it would stir anybody.

When it didn't, he recognized that

he was probably gonna have to put a little bit more effort.

And I think him shooting them in the head,

I think, was an element of him being offended

that they made him to put in so much work.

There's nothing about this that says that he is sorry

for killing his family.

They were objects that kept getting in his way.

And at 15 years old, he wanted it his way

or the highway.

He's still being manipulative. He wasn't out of it at all.

He figured out which door, where to leave some footprints.

He had gloves. He knew where the keys were.

He hid the keys.

He phoned his friends in the morning,

and they decided to go out.

These aren't the actions of a frightened teenager

who's just acting on impulse.

These are the actions of someone

who has forethought, intent, planning.

So we see the behaviors, and actions of a psychopath

on full display.

When Browning said that there's no mitigating factor,

it's like the police are working harder

than him to help him.

There's got to be some other reason.

And Browning's just, like, "Nope, there's no other reason."

Psychopathic parricide offenders are extremely rare.

Most of the parricide offenders tend -- overwhelmingly tend

to be the ones that are severely abused.

But that's not what we're seeing with Browning.

He's manipulative.

He's deceitful.

He's a pathological liar.

You know, he essentially just, you know,

does not respect authority.

He's not giving anything other than

what he needs to give them.

The phone call that we're hearing from Browning

is almost a completely different person,

and I think that's on purpose.

The phone call, I think, is the Browning

that friends would know.

He did this because he wanted to do this.

He did this because his level of psychopathy

was such that he was going to be violent.

He was going to be the violent psychopath.

[slow music playing]

[music intensifies]

[criminal speaking]

[interviewer speaking]

[criminal speaking]