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AUTOMATED VOICE:
Thursday 2:19 a.m.

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MAN: Minutes before
she was kidnapped,

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Morton used a cell phone
to report

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someone had just rear-ended
her -- police found her car

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running, her purse inside,

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but they did not find Morton.

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[theme music playing]

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

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the appetite.

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

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filling...the hunger.

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♪♪

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MAN: Amanda's family contacted
news media Thursday morning

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and gave them Amanda's picture.

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Investigators got their break
when a motel owner in

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Camden County saw her picture on

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the five o'clock news
and called police.

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He said Amanda and a man in
a pickup checked into his motel.

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That led police
to St. Clair County,

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to the home of David Zink.

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BERRILL: He can play
the easygoing nice guy.

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He uses that kind of calm,
cool persona to move

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his plans along and seems to
do so with pretty good success.

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SAHNI: Amanda
just happened to be in

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the wrong place
at the wrong time.

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I have no doubt
that he lulled her

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into going with him,
because he was charming.

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We, as humans, are socialized
to believe that people who

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are humorous are likeable,
and people who are likable

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are trustworthy.

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So it's a really unfortunate
reality that

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he was able to exploit
as a psychopath

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that assumption
we make as humans.

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DERIGHT: He is not perceiving
people as other human beings.

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He's seeing them
as objects, in this case,

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that are in his way --
to me,

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the Zink case is all
about self-preservation.

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He's gonna do
whatever it takes

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to preserve himself being out
of prison.

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Assuming this did
actually happen,

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it gives you the sense that
he was not in any way afraid.

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He was not in any way unsure
about what he was doing.

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He was making jokes
with the cashier.

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He's self-assured,
he keeps his cool,

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he's got the persona down pat
of being, you know, like a good

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old boy,
and everything is under control,

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and that's --
that is spooky.

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She's in the office with him,
which I find more incredible.

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Like, here's this girl,
and she doesn't flip out

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and say, "Call the police."

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So she obviously,
on some level, must have

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trusted him or didn't see him
as a threat.

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This just really illustrates
how he manipulated her

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or, you know, lied to her.

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WOMAN: Little did she know,
he was a killer.

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Zink kidnapped her,

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took her to a motel near
Camdenton, where he raped her.

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He's a psychopath who is
lying his way through

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this portion of
the interrogation.

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Zink's DNA was found
on Amanda's body.

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There is no doubt that there

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was some sort of
sexual interaction.

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BERRILL: It's a little odd --
killing someone's okay,

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but don't think about me
as a rapist.

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There are a lot of crimes you
can commit to wind you up

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in jail, but sex crimes are seen
as sort of the low man on

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the totem pole,
because sex crimes make you

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a target in jail.

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If you're a rapist,
everyone will say,

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"Well, I have a sister
or a wife or a mother,

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so you're a piece of garbage,"
and if it's a kid, forget it.

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They emerge in prison, at least,
as likely targets for sexual

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abuse themselves, and he doesn't
want to be seen that way.

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Zink has a strange disconnect
in his thought process

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right now,
because on the one hand,

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he's saying he has
no intention of going back

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to an incarcerated life.

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But on the other hand,
he's sort of giving into

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the simplest,
most obvious solution,

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which is
also the most ridiculous,

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the most anti-social,
and the most violent.

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But for Zink,
it isn't as much of a leap.

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He has a problem to solve,
and this is a logical solution.

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Zink underwent psychological
evaluations as part of

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his court cases,
and they really

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give you a sense of how his
psychopathy manifested

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from an early age.

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The report reads, "Zink was
afraid of his mother,

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"who suffered from depression
and was impatient,

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"nervous, and irritable.

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"She was very harsh with him
and often yelled at him,

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"grabbed him,
and talked down to him.

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"She provided little guidance
or discipline.

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"She would get drunk a lot
and would get angry.

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Zink hid from her."

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And here's what Zink says
about his father.

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The same report reads,
"When Zink was four, his father

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"was involuntarily committed
to a mental hospital for

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"several months --
his father often talked of

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"suicide or engaged
in suicidal behaviors,

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"even in front of Zink
and his two sisters.

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Zink saw his father take a gun
and threaten to shoot himself."

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I don't think
they're necessarily modeling

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psychopathy here,

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but they are modeling
violent behavior.

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So he has whatever genetics
are there.

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He has this upbringing
where he's neglected.

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This is the recipe
for psychopathy here.

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BERRILL: If you're talking
nature versus nurture,

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I really do think that,

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you know, there is
some temperament

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that you're born with.

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For example, if you're a high
risk taker, and you're fearless,

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maybe you become
a firefighter,

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or, depending
on the environment

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you grow up in,
you become a bully,

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or you become someone that
engages in criminal behavior,

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but the environment
will lead you down a path to

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acting that temperament out
in some fashion.

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We know he's a risk taker.

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So if you grow up in a house
where there is violence,

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it does set the tone, perhaps,
for becoming

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the kind of person he became.

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BERRILL: There's some
amusement he takes

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in the fact that
she's not getting it.

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She's essentially being
escorted to her death.

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He's not telling her the truth
about what's gonna happen.

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It's all sadistic, uh,

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but he doesn't want her
to panic,

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so he's staying cool.

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DERIGHT: To him,
it's extremely logical that she

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should be using common sense
at this point,

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when nothing about
this invokes

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the idea of common sense --
to Zink,

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all of these pieces do connect
in a very cohesive way,

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but they don't.

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It's part of the narcissistic
tendency to feel like you have

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everything under control
and figured out.

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WOMAN:
About six hours later,

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at 4 in the morning,
investigators recovered Amanda's

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body from a shallow grave
in this cemetery.

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MAN: She'd been strangled
and stabbed.

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BERRILL: His description of
the murder is highly sanitized.

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The fact that they found dirt
in her mouth or seminal fluid

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in her anus would suggest
that, uh, there was

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a deeper level of
psychopathology taking place

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that he cared to discuss.

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In looking
at the court records

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and psychological evaluations
that were available on Zink,

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here's an excerpt that gives
us some of that information.

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"By the time he was 10,
Zink was placed in foster care.

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"Within a few weeks,
Zink ran away.

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"Around that time,
his foster mother found

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him making a noose out of
a rope."

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He had an emerging obsession
and fixation or focus on

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strangulation from
a very, very young age.

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Clearly, there was
a willingness to

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start to skirt the idea
of death,

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the idea of violence,

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the idea of strangulation.

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BERRILL: The fact that he had
rope in his car,

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I don't know if that's just
a coincidence.

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You don't have to tie
a dead body to a tree,

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but you do have to tie
a live body to a tree

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so that they can't struggle.

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It raises, I guess,
deeper concerns

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about how savage he really is.

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DERIGHT: We'll never know if
those were actually

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her last words,
but in one way or another,

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he wanted you to know that
there is some connection with

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his mom in why he's doing
this, too.

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The connections between Zink
and his mom were

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really apparent in the court
records, as well.

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The court records say,
"Although the foster family

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"wanted to adopt him,
he always

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"fantasized about going back
home -- at age 14,

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"Zink asked to move home,
but his mother refused,

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devastating him."

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The thing that really pops out
to me here is this

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element of maternal rejection,
which in the psychopathy

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literature,
is very prominent.

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And this is not an everyday
maternal rejection.

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This is mom gave him up,

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but it is not inevitable that
anyone who is rejected

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by their mother is going to be
a psychopath.

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It is one piece of the very,

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very complicated puzzle that
goes into creating a psychopath,

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and it is not an excuse for

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what he turned into
and what he did.

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DERIGHT: This is the kind of
statement that

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gives you this icky feeling
that you're --

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you just shouldn't be hearing
something like this.

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We see that he was torturing
her, he was beating her.

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He was playing with her
as an object,

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and it takes it to a whole
other level.

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SAHNI: And unlike
some other psychopaths,

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he doesn't really even make
an attempt to pretend

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that he feels bad.

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He doesn't try to pretend
that he has emotions

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or that he's even really
bothered or disturbed by it.

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SAHNI: He's not panicked.
This is just a normal day,

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like it's no big deal.

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And that really I think sums
up a lot of how Zink,

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as a psychopath,
sees his crimes.

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He's just really not
broken up by them.

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One thing that's really
notable from Zink's childhood is

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that he seemed to have a pretty
severe case of meningitis,

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and the results of his PET
scan were consistent with some

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of the brain abnormalities that

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we know about psychopaths in
the literature.

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For example, he had less
activation in the amygdala

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and the cingulate,
both of which

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are very important
areas in the brain involved in

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fear and emotional response.

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So the fact that
these areas are under-activated

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in psychopaths and in Zink
is not surprising.

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He is not afraid at all of
the consequences.

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After his arrest,
Zink exchanged letters

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with a local TV
news journalist.

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Uh, here are some excerpts
from it.

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"I've secretly always wanted to
be a serial killer.

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"Your preconceived idea

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"that this is a crime motivated
by some type of

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"sexual perversion --
you don't even come close.

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"There's no sex in the world
that can

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"give you a pleasure
of taking a life,

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"watching their eyes,
and knowing that I have

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"the power to give
or take that life.

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"I hope that you would just put
this letter in the trash.

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"Nothing good can come
from selling death.

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00:19:32,827 --> 00:19:36,068
Have a good day,
David Zink."

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It's almost his manifesto in
a way -- he wants to control

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the narrative and say, "Hey,

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put me on TV, and this is
the story I want you to tell."

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BERRILL: But you heard none of
that kind of talk during

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his interview, nothing
even remotely like that.

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He's kind of a liar, and he's
playing games to sidestep

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the whole notion that
he's driven

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by perverse violent
sexual fantasies.

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There seemed to be a multitude
of risk factors here,

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where he has
these biological variants

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00:20:08,724 --> 00:20:12,275
and his tumultuous upbringing
that all come together here

243
00:20:12,379 --> 00:20:17,275
and really create
a recipe for a psychopath.

244
00:20:23,620 --> 00:20:26,379
Mr. Zink,
would you please rise?

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00:20:28,103 --> 00:20:30,965
We, the jury,
having found the defendant,

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00:20:31,068 --> 00:20:34,172
David Stanley Zink guilty of
murder in the first degree of

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00:20:34,275 --> 00:20:35,793
Amanda L. Morton,

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now assess and declare
the punishment at death.

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MAN: The Morton family says
they will now move on

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00:20:47,517 --> 00:20:49,448
and try to come to grips with
what's happened.

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What will you tell Amanda
in your prayers tonight?

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00:20:51,206 --> 00:20:53,482
We got it for you, baby.

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As well as we can do,
we got justice for you.