Original subtitles

Journey into the dark side of the soul,

into the nightmare world of mafia hit men.

Learn the secret to violent madness

as you probe the minds of the killers from the underworld.

They may be international syndicates

or inner city street gangs.

Their criminal activities can range

from drug smuggling to white-collar scams.

But regardless of the illicit enterprise culture

or sphere of power, the chief currency

of all underworld empires is death.

For the history of organized crime

is a history soaked in blood.

A blood-drenched tide is rising.

Violence and death flood our cities.

The homicide rate is escalating,

for killers walk among us.

They look like anyone, professional assassins,

sexual sadists, nomadic serial killers.

Chances are, you may meet one someday.

You could pass a psychopathic person on the street,

even a killer, and not really know it.

Although I have met some psychopathic killers

who've killed a lot of people who have

that so-called reptilian stare, where there's a cold iciness

that you feel when you sit with them

because you know that there's just nothing there.

Many of them, particularly more sophisticated ones,

can put on a chameleon-like exterior,

which is superficially glib, engaging, and charming,

disarming everyday people

from realizing what they're sitting with.

Psychologist Kris Mohandie is a criminal profiler

for the Los Angeles Police Department.

The people that I've talked to

that are of this psychopathic killer variety,

when they relay their stories of the details of their crimes

and how they killed people, hunted people,

and harmed people, there is not one bit of remorse

in the hardened ones that I've talked with,

the ones that have made a repetitive venture

of hunting and killing people.

When you talk with them about the killing,

it's as if they're talking about

what they had for dinner the night before.

John Yarbrough is a criminal profiler.

He uses psychology to build personality profiles

of possible suspects.

His specialty, the sex murderer.

And I don't mean to create panic in anybody,

but the reality is, there are these sexual predators

that no endless amount of incarceration is going to deter.

They are going to do this.

University of California neuroscientist

Adrian Raine is probing the brains of violent criminals.

This is an MRI which shows

the brain of a violent individual.

We can literally cut inside

the brains of violent offenders using this technique.

It's non-invasive.

There's no pain or anything like that,

but it's a technique which allows us to look,

with exquisite detail, at the structure of the brain

of the violent offender.

Probe inside the brain of a killer.

Psychoanalyze the mind of a sex murderer.

Years ago, this would be absurd. No longer.

Today, researchers and criminologists are at the threshold

of answering questions that have long tormented society.

Why are we the only animal who finds joy and torturing

in killing our own kind?

What forces transform a person into a lord of death?

What motivates their violent madness?

Who are the killers who walk among us?

We can get people who, to the extreme,

are cunning, clever, manipulative.

They're very charismatic,

but they don't care an iota about the victims.

They have no empathy for the victims.

They have no remorse for the crimes they've committed,

and they're motivated by thrill.

And that's the classic psychopath.

They usually look at the everyday citizen

as just kind of this inert, neutral,

they would look at them as the sheep that are out there

that are pawns in their war against the system.

Their fury has reached

our neighborhoods and homes.

Drive-by shootings, home invasions.

In the ultraviolet new world of organized crime,

everyone is vulnerable.

In the old days, if two of us beat up one of you,

you and your group could or could not retaliate.

It was pretty much an option for you.

But if two of us shoot and kill one of yours,

the demand character of that situation is such

that you are almost bound and determined

somebody in your group to try and repay that event,

to fire back at some point, maybe not successfully,

but the requirement to do so

is much greater than used to be.

So the homicide cycles on itself.

Didn't used to be the case.

It wasn't violent until the '80s.

Well, I can tell you I came into this detail

in 1972 and it was violent then.

The difference is, they had junk guns in those days.

They didn't have necessarily good guns,

sawed-off shotguns and .22s,

where now they all have excellent weaponry.

The new 9 millimeter or .380

tends to be their favorite weapon

and you put a lot of bullets in the air with one of those.

All of a sudden, now y'all is into it

because of the drugs.

You know, now either he wants to kill you

or you want to kill him.

Either it's behind, he want to jack you

or he want this neighborhood, or you want the neighborhood.

So everybody want to be Scarface.

Crips killing Crips.

Crips killing Bloods,

Bloods killing Bloods,

Bloods killing Crips.

The thing just went haywire.

The drugs came in and had everybody going crazy.

It's all negative.

Gangland murder is evolved into mafia terrorism.

Our homes are stormed, our families brutalized

by ethnic gangs who live by the code of death.

Well within these Chinese gangs and the Vietnamese gangs,

for that matter, home invasions are commonplace.

First thing they do when they burst into a home,

if the head of the family, the male person is present,

they shoot that person in the leg.

Give me all you got!

Where's the money?

Shut up!

Give me the money!

I want the money now.

We know it's here. Go and get it!

Another technique they use, if a very small child,

preferably a baby's present, they take the baby.

No!

And they tape it to the wall

using the electrical duct tape.

They then take their weapon

and they fire a round into the wall.

Bit like a Bugs Bunny cartoon,

but a little bit more dangerous.

The wholesale slaughter by today's gang bangers

is far different than how the mafia

once fulfilled their blood lust.

Lucky Luciano once boasted at the mob only kills each other.

Killing outside the ranks of organized crime

would only bring down the heat, they reason.

Politicians, public servants, the average citizen,

they were all off limits to mob hitman.

The transformation of the mafia into an organization

with enforcement rules, recruitment procedures

on a managerial hierarchy, occurred when

the fabric of America was undergoing a major alteration.

It was the Industrial Age, a fresh breeze whistled

through the skyscrapers of American business.

New theories on labor productivity

and management were picking up steam.

Mom and pop stores and shops fell victim

to the consolidation and growth of national firms.

A new species of American was born, the corporate man.

The loyal worker who rose to prominence

by simply following orders.

It's been said organized crime is a twisted image

of the society of praise.

Mob kingpins were quick to embrace the new business ideas

of specialization, marketing, and merging.

Godfather's Lucky Luciano and Meyer Lansky

consolidated the mob into a national syndicate.

They decided to market one of their principle resources,

mob gunman, masters of killing and torture.

The enterprise was called Murder Incorporated.

The business plan was simple:

Acquire an elite stable of killers

whose job description was mafia hitman.

Any crime group associated with a syndicate

could purchase a service of Murder Incorporated.

The reigning godfathers must approve all killings.

Payment would always be made

before the murder was completed.

After the job was done,

the hitmen would receive a new assignment.

For years, there had been rumors of such an operation,

but most refused to believe that a death squad

could be working in America.

But in 1939, disbelief was shot full of holes

when a Murder Incorporated's top enforcers took the stand.

Quiet!

It was a murder trial of a mob killer.

A highly placed enforcer called Kid Twist

had turned informant. - There he is.

Abe Reles' testimony opened the public's eye

to the evil that was Murder Incorporated.

Mobsters were not pleased.

You open your mouth and you're a dead man, kid!

I swear I'll beat you myself.

You squeal and you're dead.

Mafia bosses enact their codes, achieve goals,

and maintain control through enforcers,

wise guys who take care of contracts.

In the 1930s, they were called the Muscle.

When Murder Incorporated was established,

Mob Muscle became a business.

Never in the history of crime had murder become such an

organized enterprise as it did with Murder Incorporated.

Kid Twist knew where all the bodies were buried.

He told of hundreds of killings by mob enforce,

fingering godfathers like Lucky Luciano

and sadistic gunman Frank Abbandando.

For the first time,

the deadly language of the mob was heard.

Orders for killings were contracts, hits were murders,

and the victim was always known as the bum.

For the record, Your Honor,

the witnesses pointed out the defendant,

Mr. Frank Abbandando, also known as The Dasher.

Now, according to your testimony, Mr. Reles,

Mr. Abbandando has committed over 45 murders.

Is that correct?

Yeah, The Dasher was always busy.

He may have even knocked out more.

He was getting contracts all the time. He loved his job.

Where would you and The Dasher receive your orders,

your contracts?

All of us guys hung around Midnight Roses.

You know the place, the candy store in Brooklyn.

Rose is where we got our orders.

We went all over the country.

Now the boss only gave us contracts

to places we've never been before,

and that was the beauty of the operation.

We go into some town, we hit the bum,

and then we take the next train out.

Cops always look for a motive,

but with an unknown killer, there was none.

Guys were coming and going all the time.

We were the doing hits and dumping bodies.

Guys like Michael Coppola. Trigger Mike, we called him.

He had his wife murdered in a hospital bed

after she gave birth.

He felt bad though,

always wished he had done the hit himself.

Happy Malone. Called him happy.

He's always laughing and giggling

every time he's killing someone.

Veto Gurino, he kept his to him

by shooting the heads off chickens,

so we called him Chicken Head.

Pittsburgh Phil, called him Pep.

He held the top score for kills. Over 60.

Yeah, those guys were the best in the country.

Cream of the crop.

And this organization, Murder Incorporated,

whose idea was it?

All the bosses had their hands in it,

but it was Louis Lepke and Luciano's idea.

You see, Lucky got where he is by killing people and Lepke,

well, he just liked to hurt people too.

Yeah, Murder Inc. was their baby, all right.

Louis Lepke and the formative Luciano

cultivated a charming, sophisticated image.

In reality, Luciano and Lepke's first solution

to any problem was violent aggression.

The decision to push the power of mafia families

by establishing Murder Incorporated was instinctive

for men who under the skin were pure psychopaths.

Now, what typically will happen

is in these families, you'll have kind of a leader.

You'll definitely have a leader,

a person who is often charismatic, very psychopathic,

meaning that they have little or no regard for social rules

and establishes norms of conduct

that go on in society at large, the law.

They have no regard for the laws,

but they create their own belief system

and norms within their group.

And this charismatic psychopath inclined leader will

spot people for different roles within the organization.

So it's a subculture that condones violence

and it's a subculture in which you have a charismatic,

psychopathic leader who will resourcefully identify

those that are even more inclined towards violence

to use those people for service of the group.

Abe Reles' testimony was a first time

in gangland history a top mobster told all

and Kid Twist told it in gruesome detail.

He was dead already.

We then took the bum down to the river-

All right, thank you very much.

That'll be plenty. Thank you.

Mr. Reles, are all the killings

for Murder Incorporated this brutal?

Nah, some are straight pops.

Nail the bum between the eyes. That's a sign of a pro hit.

Most guys were shot in the back. It was easier that way.

Some put the bum on his knees and then point blank range...

I like that.

I take my gun out real slowly,

walk behind him as they're crying and begging,

saying their last breath.

"Hail Mary, full of grace."

I like that. It's the least I can do for the bum, huh?

Returning to the murder now,

why was Whitey treated so harshly?

Did Luciano order it?

Nah, he didn't have to.

Bum was a rat. Everybody knew that.

We just wanted to send a message.

We do that in various ways. It depends on the guy's taste.

- Is is this the weapon? - Yeah.

You see, with that murder, we had plenty of time.

We found the hiding in the back room of the garage,

so we kind of used everything we had,

you know, for practice.

Pep and I put him down first.

I used my whatchamacallit, garotte.

Pep made it special for for me.

Well Whitey, he wouldn't shut up. Just kept going on and on.

So Happy hit him with the meat cleaver right here.

The guy misses, I had to call in Pep to hold the guy,

takes another crack and hits it

with the meat cleaver right here.

Best way to slice into the brain. That shut him up.

Pep was pulling and he couldn't get it out.

He was yelling, "Hey Putts, give me my ax."

Putts got a headlock on my ax.

Seemed comical at the time.

Mr. Reles, do you recognize this implement?

Yeah, that's the ice picked used on Whitey.

And was the victim dead at the time?

He was making noise. I don't know if he was dead.

I mean, he could have been dead. He should have been dead.

I thought he was dead. He looked dead.

I thought he was dead.

They should have made sure of that though.

I would like to submit, Your Honor,

as evidence to the court, coroner's report

very clearly stating that there were over 60 puncture wounds

in the victim's body.

Like I said before, day of selector's work.

Thank you very much, Mr. Reles. That'll be all.

Your Honor, after noon recess, I would like to recall

Mr. Abbandando to the stand

to continue my cross-examination.

The blood-thirsty mafia families of the US are not unique.

All the world's crime lords employ teams of executioners

who carry out their deadly orders.

Similar to the scent left by an animal,

organized crime lays down territorial boundaries

and markers for the use of deadly IDs.

To experts, these tracks are as recognizable

as a bloody footprint.

The Chinese Triads of Southeast Asia

are one of the oldest crime organizations in the world.

In the 16th century,

they were monks cloistered behind shrines and temples.

Today, the Triads are the most elusive

of underground syndicates.

The once sacred vows had been perverted

into rituals of blood and death.

I shall not disclose the secrets of the family,

not even to my parents, brothers, or wife.

I shall never disclose the secrets of money.

An initiation ritual consists of drinking

a tea that has been mixed with the blood of a chicken.

Whether it is prostitution, rackets, or drug smuggling,

Triads use violence and fear

to enforce their scope of influence.

If you cross their paths, you will learn the Triads

are murderers in business suits.

Triad executioners are trained butchers of human flesh.

The traditional murdering tool

is a weapon similar to a meat cleaver.

This is a typical Triad fighting implement right here.

This is a sort of, well, it's a food chopper

and the Triads actually fight with these

and they undertake what's called a chopping

where they attack people

and they hack them with these things.

These are razors sharp.

In places like Hong Kong,

it's very difficult to get hold of a firearm.

So violence with a firearm is not so frequent.

So that's why we see resorting

to these kind of traditional weapons.

Chopping is for the lower ranks of killers.

A technique called "death by a thousand cuts"

is reserved for master assassins.

Wielding the razor-sharp cleaver,

they slice off long strips of flesh.

Killers are careful to make shallow cuts,

the killer's attempt to keep the victim alive

while administering 1000 cuts.

They rarely succeed.

The Russian mob is one of the newest members

of the international underworld.

Russian mobsters were once street thugs

running black market operations.

Russians are different in that they kill people

and they're not as sophisticated about it,

but they also do a lot of torturing of people

before they kill them.

During the Stalin era,

the most ruthless of Russian criminals

were banished to the Siberian prison system.

Inside the freezing hell of the Gulag,

the Russian mafia began to form.

They adopted a killing technique

tailored to the grueling prison conditions

and their own primitive barbarity.

A crushing blow to the head is a killing sign

of the Russian mafia.

Once, a wooden club was used.

Now a common baseball bat is a trademark weapon.

For over three decades, the Mexican Mafia

has left a bloodstained trail.

Mexican drug lord's blood lust

is often coupled to a morbid sense of humor.

Correo took, in '93 and '94, to killing people

where he wanted the bodies found

and were tying them with yellow ribbons as a message.

Gradually, Amato progressed.

He apparently owned the only tiger in Juarez.

There's a history among drug guys

of liking to own big predators.

In '96, the tiger escaped actually

and ran around in the streets there.

It was captured and sent to see it at Chihuahua,

the capital, to be placed in that zoo.

About that time, drug killing started appearing

where the people would be dead, executed,

hands tied, shot through the head, but would be

delicately draped with these cheap tapestries

with tigers on them.

If you're found in this fashion, it's to send a message.

It's a form of policing.

The Yakuza Japan

traced their roots to Samurai warriors.

Today, even with availability of guns, swords and daggers

remain the weapon of choice for Yakuza assassins.

The most skilled of killers are highly tattooed

and often are missing fingers.

The Yakuza and Asian Asian gangs generally

are renowned for being very deadly and having no hesitation

in killing people to further their aims.

From Jamaica came one of the most sadistic gangs

to ever reap their deadly harvest on American shores.

The Jamaican posses are thrill killers

whose blood sent is torture and slaughter.

These savage island killers first shoot the elbows

and knees of the victim

before pumping the body full of holes.

The professional killer,

the quote unquote, "contract killer"

is going to be a highly organized offender.

There's been a long socialization process

for this person to get them over the hump

as far as right versus wrong killing,

and to turn it into a business issue.

For ordinary people out there in America

who have been socialized that thou shalt not kill,

it seems foreign, but I think everybody can think

of circumstances under which they may kill.

Such as if my children are being threatened,

I will do what I have to do to protect them.

If our country is it war and we have to protect ourselves

and our interests, that's okay.

It's not good, but it's accepted.

Well, you take that out a few notches

and that's where you have the development of a culture,

a subculture that accepts violence

as a way of solving problems.

Despite the best efforts of law enforcement,

gang-related homicides in many US cities

average one murder every day.

It's even higher in the city that was the home

to America's first lords of death.

It was in New Orleans in the early 1800s

and the Black Hand Society brought a bloody brand

of Sicilian fevery to America.

New Orleans was the first American city

that the Sicilian Mafia began to inhabit.

And long before New York or Chicago or any other,

they were attracted to New Orleans

and to the state of Louisiana

because it resembled somewhat Sicily.

And so they came here in droves,

and by the turn of the century, you're talking about

by 1900, there were about 100 mafiosi in New Orleans.

The Black Hand earned their livelihood

through extorting money from New Orleans shops

and dockside businesses.

They then spread to other cities, New York, Chicago.

The extorted money not by the traditional forms

of intimidation, such as threats,

wreck shops, or broken bones.

The Black Hand's technique was simple: pay or you die.

The ability to kill without hesitation gave the Black Hand

a reputation that paralyzed society with fear.

They would send letters that would've symbols

of skull and crossbones, the outline of a hand,

and the wording was always direct and to the point.

Sometimes these were very polite,

but they were all death warrants.

You pay or you die.

You got us some cash. I need $1,000.

Place it at the $100 bills in an envelope

and place it underneath the board in the northeast corner

of Fifth and the Broad Street.

If you place the money there and you still live.

If you don't, you die.

If you report this to the police,

I'll kill you when I get out.

They may save you the money, but they won't save your life.

Most Gentlest Sir, will you be so good

as to send me a $2,000?

If your life is a dear to you, I beg you warmly

to put the money on your doorstep within four days.

If not, I swear by this week's time,

not even the dust of your family will exist.

With the warmest guards, your friends.

Black Hand thugs would attend trials of members.

Witnesses who were brave enough to show up in court

quickly left after catching sight of Black Hand

silent signals, a finger across the throat,

displaying a red handkerchief,

a finger to the head all meant one thing:

testify and you die.

With the rise of the mafia families of New York,

the murder supremacy of the Black Hand Society faded.

Criminal masterminds like Lucky Luciano

or Meyer Lansky are often credited

with the rapid growth of the American mob.

But actually, their success was due to a cast of killers

who were the most proficient murderers in criminal history.

They were employees of Murder Incorporated.

One mobster stood at the top of the heap

of the gunman of Murder Incorporated.

The man lived to kill and did it with a vengeance.

The papers of the time dubbed Albert Anastasia

the Lord High Executioner.

Intensely loyal to Godfather Luciano,

Anastasia was always ready to rub out a bum for Lucky.

Albert Anastasia was considered

the worst killer of them all.

He was the Lord High Executioner of Murder Incorporated.

Luciano always thought Lucchese

was a better killer than him.

He could trust them more. He was cool.

He followed orders.

Whereas you know, Anastasia was pretty much a mad hatter

and he would kill people that he shouldn't have killed.

Known to mobsters as a mad hatter,

by the 1940s, Anastasia had graduated

from the killing squad to hit a mob family of his own.

Even when Anastasia grew in power heading up his own family,

he couldn't reign in his killing instinct.

When his fellow godfathers heard Anastasia

talking about killing civilians and politicians,

they decided the mad hatter was out of control

and had to be put down.

Anastasia was cut down in a hail of bullets

in a New York barbershop.

The four killers strolled away,

vanishing into the New York crowd.

The mad hatter would call the murder

a first-class hit on a real bum.

One killer even surpassed the murderous wrath

of Anastasia, Frank Abbandando was called The Dasher.

The Dasher was one of Murder Incorporated's

most prolific of killers.

Abbandando was also a sexual sadist.

After a day's work of killing,

Abbandando would relax by brutalizing young women.

Do you solemnly swear that the testimony you're about

to give is the truth, the whole truth,

and nothing but the truth so help you God?

I do.

The Dasher thought he had nothing to fear

when he took the stand at his murder trial in 1939.

Mr. Abbandando, or do you prefer to be called Dasher?

Dasher, what I go by.

Abbandando had always beaten murder reps.

Like most mob hit men, he simply killed the witnesses.

Turning to the night in question,

according to the testimony of Abe Reles,

you participated in the murder of George Rudnick,

also known as Whitey.

Is that correct, Mr. Abbandando? Oh, excuse me, Dasher.

I don't know what you're talking about.

Had a kid finished.

Your Honor.

Let's a record show that a defendant has made

a slashing mark across the room

while pointing at the witness!

Hey, I walk or you're dead.

I will kill you slow and hard.

Call counsel to have a seat and object in proper format.

So you know nothing about the murder then? Hmm.

Okay, let's go to the night of October 22nd, shall we?

A woman was gang raped repeatedly.

You were there, you assaulted her.

You bludgeoned a poor defenseless woman

within an inch of her life, didn't you, sir?

Hey, I don't have to rape women.

The Dasher gets any broad in the city he wants.

They love me. They can't get enough of The Dasher.

Well, you know the state is prepared to call that woman,

the woman whom you kidnapped, raped, and then disfigured.

Do you recognize these, Dasher?

I'm waiting for your answer, Mr. Abbandando.

Did you use these when you sexually brutalize that woman?

Did you not stand by and watch

as she was repeatedly gang raped?

Did you not then violate her

in the most sadistic manner possible?

I told you, The Dasher don't rape women.

Want to know about the Whitey hit?

He was a bum. He was a loan shark.

We protected him.

He tried to beat us on a payment and he got hit.

We spotted him, he spotted us. He took off like a jackal.

Runs into an empty garage.

What an idiot. What did he expect?

No, no, no!

Wire around his neck, he was turning blue, moaning.

How'd to get the plate? Come on.

Hit him right.

Whitey's brain started oozing out. He starts moaning.

Now that's when he got the pick.

Point sharp as a needle.

Get outta here!

Sometimes a remedy, isn't it?

Sometimes, just go in slow and easy.

The juice started oozing out.

I think you stabbed him enough.

Then we whacked the bum with the ax.

"One for good luck," as we say.

No more questions.

Sometimes you've got people doing these hits

that start to really enjoy it

and they just simply use this as an opportunity

to act out their sadistic fantasies that were already there.

So they figure it's a twofer.

A. I'm getting paid to do it and it needs to be done.

And B. Hey, I might as well enjoy it while I'm doing it.

Brutality serves a number of different functions

in these types of hits.

If it's more or less a surgical hit,

that suggests it's just about business,

it's just about getting the job done.

This person was in the way,

or this person did something that they needed to be removed

as an impediment to the group's business interest.

So the more surgically it's done with the least amount

of fanfare suggests that there wasn't some

sort of personal slight involved.

It was simply a matter of business.

Remove this person so that the business can be conducted

according to whoever ordered the hit,

thinks business should be operated.

When you see overkill,

it can mean a number of different issues.

Number one, it can mean that there was some sort of

severe slight that was perceived

by the person that ordered the hit.

Number two, it can mean that the person

that ordered the hit wants to send a strong message

to other people that might be affiliated with the victim

so that they won't do the same things that that victim did.

Hits him with the meat cleaver right here.

Best way to slice into the brain.

There's a lack of affect, an emotionless detachment

as they describe, from a technological standpoint,

how they did it.

And when you try to get them to access what,

if any emotion they felt.

Typically, the only thing I've encountered with a couple

of them has been an annoyance that they didn't die quietly

or that they sniffled or begged.

And then they viewed that as being weak

and they looked down upon that.

So typically, the reporting of past homicides

is very detached, very cold, very matter of fact,

While he was in protective custody,

Ellis ended up being thrown out the window

of a Coney Island hotel.

Rumor has it that Lucky Luciano paid $50,000 for the hit,

but the enforcement division of the mafia

was seriously wounded due to the testimony of Kid Twist.

The Dasher was electrocuted in Sing Sing.

So were Pittsburgh Phil and Happy Maione.

Even godfather Louis Lepke

took the long walk down death row.

He was both the richest man

and the highest ranking mobster ever to be executed.

With all the murder and torture that society has endured

from mafia killers, one can easily forget

that most normal people tend to shun aggression

and avoid hostility.

In fact, military psychologists have noted that men

entering combat are often more fearful of killing

than being killed.

This soldier reveals how a normal man

can become a killing machine.

He was a guy from farm in Iowa

and I was from South.

More than likely, we would've never been friends,

but we were.

He stepped on a mine and we looked and we looked

and all we could find is what seemed like a wig.

That's all we could put in the body bag.

After that, I went on a vendetta.

I used more ammo in the next three months

than the entire time I was there.

I even used napalm. Napalm was good for revenge.

It would suck the air right out of your lungs.

When an enemy soldier fired upon me

after I gave him the chance to surrender,

I emptied everything I had into him.

It got worse as time went by.

I really enjoyed killing.

Every time I killed, it felt better.

Under the extreme stress of combat,

a killing instinct can emerge as ferocious as an animals.

Nature may be read with tooth and claw,

but killing in the wild is mercifully swift.

A snap of the neck,

a savage ripped through the jugular and it's over.

Animals exhibit none of the brutality

that characterizes human killers.

Animal behavior does offer clues to the violence

and aggression that plagues human society.

Animals share common survival instincts with man,

the urges to mate, to fight or flee from aggression,

dominate and kill for food, or to defend against an attack.

The part of the brain with these basic emotions arise

is the amygdala.

In man, this region is often referred to

as the reptilian brain.

It is the oldest area of our brain.

The massive frontal cortex area is unique to man.

Surrounding the ancient reptilian brain,

the frontal cortex is thought to be

the seed of consciousness of our self-awareness.

This is why humans and not animals

built civilizations, produced art,

founded religion, and created law.

The frontal cortex is also thought to prevent

the outflow of our most primitive instincts.

Advances in technology have enabled science

to analyze the brains of murders.

What they're finding is a structure of frontal cortex

is reduced in the brains of killers.

It is theorized the diminished cortex cannot control

the violent instincts of a reptilian brain center.

This may result in an individual

who possesses the metal faculties of a human

with the instincts of a creature from the wild.

We now have the techniques to actually

literally look inside the mind of a murderer,

to actually look at their brains, look inside the skull,

see what's happening here.

Is the structure of this brain different

in violent offenders?

This is a very primitive reptilian brain center,

so to speak.

These brain centers are involved in generating emotions

like aggression, fear, rage.

Now, most of us feel aggressive many times during the day,

but we don't lash out at people in a violent fashion.

Why? Well, we have a well-functioning prefrontal cortex.

And this part of the brain, the frontal cortex,

is involved in regulating and controlling

these deeper brain mechanisms

that give rise to aggressive feelings.

What we found is that the murderers as a group

had much poorer functioning of this part of the brain

compared to the normals.

One significance of the prefrontal cortex

is that it's quite likely to be involved,

at some level, in conscience.

The sort of feelings that make us not go out

and rob a bank or kill someone or commit rape.

And if you lack a conscience,

you are much more likely to become a psychopath.

Psychopathy, at different points in our history,

has had some survival value.

When there was a lot of war, a lot of strife,

a lot of fighting, these kinds of issues going on,

the psychopath was the person that could

engage in behavior that would ensure the survival

of the group to a certain extent, to be able to kill,

to be able to harm, to be able to manipulate.

Those genes were going to get carried on

to form the next generation of human beings.

The problem is the person that was going to rise to the top

because they were not fettered by conscience

rise to the top of these criminal organizations

that become our most vicious killers.

So it's possible violent crime and murder

may be a waste product of our evolution.

The killers of the underworld, perhaps they are nothing

but the distorted reflection of the human race,

the collective nightmare of mankind.

I'm Robert Stack. Thanks for joining us.