All language subtitles for Signs.of.a.Psychopath.S11E07.1080p.WEB.h264-EDITH_track3_[eng]

[reporter]
A squad car still guards
the home where the bodies of

Richard and Janet Sweet were
found by family coming Sunday

for a Mother's Day celebration.

Police set out on a statewide
manhunt for the teen since

Sunday when the bodies were
first discovered in the home

on Deann Drive.

We're hoping that with
the hard work that

everybody's doing,
the cooperation among agencies,

that we will have
a resolve to this soon.

[reporter] Off camera,
neighbors described the teen as

troubled, saying he gave
his grandparents a hard time.

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

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

feeling...
the hunger.

[reporter]
Monday night, police found
Sweet walking on

railroad tracks in northeast
Cedar Rapids,

ending a 36-hour
statewide manhunt.

Hours before his capture,
police issued a warrant for

the teen's arrest.

Court documents describe
phone calls where Sweet admitted

to three people that
he killed his grandparents.

The shocking aspect of
the first impression is just

his tone, his demeanor.

The glibness, there's a certain
lightness to it.

You know, just lack of
any gravity.

Like, if you kind of came into
this conversation,

you know, not necessarily
knowing that it was between

a suspect in a police officer,

I don't think anybody would
have any sense that he just

brutally killed
his grandparents.

He does present as
very theatrical,

and there is a real
shallow component to

his emotional expression.

It makes you question,
is any of this genuine?

And even though Sweet is
painting this picture that

he's a victim of the stress

and his grandfather
being a jerk,

what we know from the records
is that, actually,

police have been
to their house 18 times

for domestic disturbances.

And these were the product of
Isaiah threatening

his grandparents or otherwise
being behaviorally disruptive.

But in this interview,
he's trying to engage in

impression management so that
he doesn't seem like a monster.

[Dr. De La Torre]
He wanted to live his life at
the expense of

his grandfather's life.
This was more about hate.

This was more about an offense
that Sweet had felt

he had received from
his grandfather.

I don't think he ever truly
loved them.

I think what they were simply
trying to do is just instill

some kind of humanity into
someone who clearly didn't

want that.
That's not what he wanted.

He wanted to go out
and party.

What we see now is
the 17-year-old

version of the psychopath.

Sweet is just that burgeoning
psychopath who is still trying

to figure things out.

Who is he going to be
in his psychopathy?

But what we know is that
physical violence

is going to be the thing
that he's going to use

if you don't give him
what he wants.

Do I think he actually held
the bat up

to his grandfather's
head and then decided not to?

No, I don't think
that happened.

Sometimes the story
has to be

about building yourself up
to yourself.

Sometimes it's not about
building yourself up to

whoever's listening.

It's about getting
your narcissism up.

It's about getting
your arousal up.

It's about saying these things
to say, "Hey, I could have done

all of this, but this is
the thing that I did."

The bravado that you need in
order to venture into

psychopathy is one in which
you have to demonstrate

your own willingness to engage
in violent acts and escalate

violent acts and fantasize
about violent acts.

And I think that's what we're
seeing here with Sweet.

It's hard to imagine a more
dehumanizing description of

what he did to his grandparents
than what we see here.

You almost get the sense that
he's bragging

about some of this.

If anything, he seems to get
a little activated as

he's discussing it.
At one point, he got up.

He was animated.

It was as if he was telling
someone about a scene from

a horror movie rather than
the actual scene from

what he had just committed.

That level of emotional
detachment from this crime is

really stunning,
and I would file that away as

a red flag for psychopathic
behavior and traits.

[Dr. Saraiya]
Having the attention,

I think he is enjoying that.

You know, "These detectives are
listening to me.

"They're adults.

You know, they're taking
me seriously."

No stress.
No problem with his appetite.

As a psychopath, he does not
have the empathy,

the guilt, the remorse, any of
that feeling to connect it.

It's all intellectual.
It's all up here.

And he's inexperienced.

Remember, at this age,
he doesn't have a lot of

precedent to
base his decisions on.

So he's just kind of going with
his natural reactions,

which are emotionless
and very in-the-moment.

And, you know,
he's hungry

and this is what
he feels like eating.

And that is undiminished by
anything that's happened before

and the prospects of what's
going to happen later.

So it's not even
Isaiah's idea to engage in

the nicotine poisoning.

All of this is just, how can I
prove myself to other people?

How can I prove myself to...

my friends?
How can I prove myself

to the world that
I'm big and bad?

And so everything that
you think of when it comes to

Isaiah Sweet is still
so nebulous.

It's not crystallized.

He's not -- he's not a formed
psychopath as of yet.

He's still very juvenile in
his thinking,

so heavily influenced
by the thoughts

and ideas of other people.

It's not uncommon for children
to want to buck the authority

of their parents, but this is
taking it five steps too far.

Brandon Ahlers carries no more
valence than the grandparents,

like we think about,
like, oh,

this was his accomplice,
his friend.

He's just another character to
Mr. Sweet, so I don't know that

I would insert this idea that
he really cared what

Mr. Ahlers thought.

He doesn't have that emotional
line connecting things.

There's that psychopathic
instinct of, like,

kind of pausing to think, how am
I supposed to be behaving here?

Like, how would a quote-unquote
normal person answer

these questions and behave in
this situation?

So I think the watch is
an interesting component that

just, again, illustrates some
of his grandiosity, some of

his callousness,
some of just the fact that

he's not taking
this very seriously.

The conversation then shifts to
his mother, and he states that

she's the only one that
he hasn't told about this.

He's just killed his mother's
parents, and you don't get

the sense that there's any
emotional attachment not only

to his grandparents,
but even to his mother,

who he also just violated.

The comment,
"I know everything,"

I think sums up
a lot of Isaiah Sweet's

presentation and how he seems
to perceive himself.

He's grandiose,
and believes, you know,

from the very beginning of
the interview when he tells

the investigators
how intelligent he is,

now here we are,
fast forward,

later in the interview
where he's saying,

"Look, I know how it
works -- when you commit

a felony, you can get
my cell records."

That grandiosity has seeped
throughout the interview

in many points.

He's very proud of
this knowledge,

but at the same time,
the reality is

this knowledge is not
particularly sophisticated.

The unusual detail is the fact
that he, you know,

escalated the violence
relatively quickly.

He had the obstacle.

He made a decision, I'm getting
rid of the obstacle.

And now he's already planning
his life in jail.

You know, I just want to sleep
and work out and read books.

I mean, I think it was that
control aspect.

Like, he understands where he's
headed, and he's gonna make

it seem like, you know,
this is just fine with him.

So there's an aspect of it
of like, you know,

this was all according to plan.