1 00:00:56,682 --> 00:00:59,142 [reporter] A squad car still guards the home where the bodies of 2 00:00:59,226 --> 00:01:02,354 Richard and Janet Sweet were found by family coming Sunday 3 00:01:02,437 --> 00:01:03,814 for a Mother's Day celebration. 4 00:01:16,076 --> 00:01:19,079 Police set out on a statewide manhunt for the teen since 5 00:01:19,162 --> 00:01:21,873 Sunday when the bodies were first discovered in the home 6 00:01:21,957 --> 00:01:23,542 on Deann Drive. 7 00:01:23,625 --> 00:01:25,419 We're hoping that with the hard work that 8 00:01:25,544 --> 00:01:27,713 everybody's doing, the cooperation among agencies, 9 00:01:27,795 --> 00:01:30,007 that we will have a resolve to this soon. 10 00:01:30,090 --> 00:01:32,384 [reporter] Off camera, neighbors described the teen as 11 00:01:32,467 --> 00:01:35,512 troubled, saying he gave his grandparents a hard time. 12 00:01:49,443 --> 00:01:51,110 The thing inside of me, it's like... 13 00:01:53,030 --> 00:01:54,489 the appetite -- it's like a wolf that's... 14 00:01:56,825 --> 00:01:59,494 feeling... the hunger. 15 00:02:12,507 --> 00:02:14,426 [reporter] Monday night, police found Sweet walking on 16 00:02:14,509 --> 00:02:17,137 railroad tracks in northeast Cedar Rapids, 17 00:02:17,262 --> 00:02:20,474 ending a 36-hour statewide manhunt. 18 00:02:20,599 --> 00:02:23,060 Hours before his capture, police issued a warrant for 19 00:02:23,143 --> 00:02:24,353 the teen's arrest. 20 00:02:24,478 --> 00:02:27,147 Court documents describe phone calls where Sweet admitted 21 00:02:27,272 --> 00:02:30,317 to three people that he killed his grandparents. 22 00:03:02,349 --> 00:03:05,394 The shocking aspect of the first impression is just 23 00:03:05,519 --> 00:03:07,688 his tone, his demeanor. 24 00:03:07,813 --> 00:03:12,234 The glibness, there's a certain lightness to it. 25 00:03:12,359 --> 00:03:14,069 You know, just lack of any gravity. 26 00:03:14,194 --> 00:03:16,613 Like, if you kind of came into this conversation, 27 00:03:16,697 --> 00:03:19,574 you know, not necessarily knowing that it was between 28 00:03:19,700 --> 00:03:21,451 a suspect in a police officer, 29 00:03:21,535 --> 00:03:24,538 I don't think anybody would have any sense that he just 30 00:03:24,663 --> 00:03:26,248 brutally killed his grandparents. 31 00:04:34,107 --> 00:04:36,193 He does present as very theatrical, 32 00:04:36,276 --> 00:04:38,779 and there is a real shallow component to 33 00:04:38,904 --> 00:04:40,405 his emotional expression. 34 00:04:40,489 --> 00:04:43,283 It makes you question, is any of this genuine? 35 00:04:43,408 --> 00:04:46,077 And even though Sweet is painting this picture that 36 00:04:46,161 --> 00:04:47,788 he's a victim of the stress 37 00:04:47,871 --> 00:04:49,706 and his grandfather being a jerk, 38 00:04:49,790 --> 00:04:52,250 what we know from the records is that, actually, 39 00:04:52,334 --> 00:04:54,711 police have been to their house 18 times 40 00:04:54,795 --> 00:04:56,505 for domestic disturbances. 41 00:04:56,630 --> 00:04:59,674 And these were the product of Isaiah threatening 42 00:04:59,800 --> 00:05:02,969 his grandparents or otherwise being behaviorally disruptive. 43 00:05:03,094 --> 00:05:05,514 But in this interview, he's trying to engage in 44 00:05:05,639 --> 00:05:09,100 impression management so that he doesn't seem like a monster. 45 00:06:20,297 --> 00:06:22,674 [Dr. De La Torre] He wanted to live his life at the expense of 46 00:06:22,757 --> 00:06:26,052 his grandfather's life. This was more about hate. 47 00:06:26,177 --> 00:06:31,016 This was more about an offense that Sweet had felt 48 00:06:31,099 --> 00:06:33,101 he had received from his grandfather. 49 00:06:34,227 --> 00:06:36,229 I don't think he ever truly loved them. 50 00:06:36,313 --> 00:06:39,858 I think what they were simply trying to do is just instill 51 00:06:39,941 --> 00:06:44,195 some kind of humanity into someone who clearly didn't 52 00:06:44,279 --> 00:06:45,989 want that. That's not what he wanted. 53 00:06:46,072 --> 00:06:47,824 He wanted to go out and party. 54 00:06:47,908 --> 00:06:50,284 What we see now is the 17-year-old 55 00:06:50,409 --> 00:06:51,620 version of the psychopath. 56 00:06:51,745 --> 00:06:55,415 Sweet is just that burgeoning psychopath who is still trying 57 00:06:55,498 --> 00:06:56,416 to figure things out. 58 00:06:56,541 --> 00:06:59,252 Who is he going to be in his psychopathy? 59 00:06:59,377 --> 00:07:01,421 But what we know is that physical violence 60 00:07:01,546 --> 00:07:04,090 is going to be the thing that he's going to use 61 00:07:04,174 --> 00:07:05,926 if you don't give him what he wants. 62 00:08:22,669 --> 00:08:24,170 Do I think he actually held the bat up 63 00:08:24,295 --> 00:08:26,172 to his grandfather's head and then decided not to? 64 00:08:26,256 --> 00:08:27,632 No, I don't think that happened. 65 00:08:27,716 --> 00:08:29,843 Sometimes the story has to be 66 00:08:29,926 --> 00:08:33,554 about building yourself up to yourself. 67 00:08:33,679 --> 00:08:36,224 Sometimes it's not about building yourself up to 68 00:08:36,349 --> 00:08:37,642 whoever's listening. 69 00:08:37,726 --> 00:08:41,020 It's about getting your narcissism up. 70 00:08:41,104 --> 00:08:43,148 It's about getting your arousal up. 71 00:08:43,231 --> 00:08:46,276 It's about saying these things to say, "Hey, I could have done 72 00:08:46,359 --> 00:08:48,862 all of this, but this is the thing that I did." 73 00:08:48,987 --> 00:08:51,990 The bravado that you need in order to venture into 74 00:08:52,073 --> 00:08:55,535 psychopathy is one in which you have to demonstrate 75 00:08:55,660 --> 00:09:00,915 your own willingness to engage in violent acts and escalate 76 00:09:01,041 --> 00:09:04,461 violent acts and fantasize about violent acts. 77 00:09:04,544 --> 00:09:06,504 And I think that's what we're seeing here with Sweet. 78 00:10:41,975 --> 00:10:46,479 It's hard to imagine a more dehumanizing description of 79 00:10:46,563 --> 00:10:49,983 what he did to his grandparents than what we see here. 80 00:10:50,066 --> 00:10:52,235 You almost get the sense that he's bragging 81 00:10:52,318 --> 00:10:53,486 about some of this. 82 00:10:53,570 --> 00:10:56,322 If anything, he seems to get a little activated as 83 00:10:56,406 --> 00:10:59,701 he's discussing it. At one point, he got up. 84 00:10:59,784 --> 00:11:01,244 He was animated. 85 00:11:01,327 --> 00:11:04,122 It was as if he was telling someone about a scene from 86 00:11:04,247 --> 00:11:06,958 a horror movie rather than the actual scene from 87 00:11:07,083 --> 00:11:08,459 what he had just committed. 88 00:11:08,585 --> 00:11:13,464 That level of emotional detachment from this crime is 89 00:11:13,590 --> 00:11:16,467 really stunning, and I would file that away as 90 00:11:16,593 --> 00:11:20,013 a red flag for psychopathic behavior and traits. 91 00:12:06,267 --> 00:12:07,852 [Dr. Saraiya] Having the attention, 92 00:12:07,977 --> 00:12:09,812 I think he is enjoying that. 93 00:12:09,896 --> 00:12:12,148 You know, "These detectives are listening to me. 94 00:12:12,273 --> 00:12:13,441 "They're adults. 95 00:12:13,524 --> 00:12:15,026 You know, they're taking me seriously." 96 00:12:15,151 --> 00:12:17,987 No stress. No problem with his appetite. 97 00:12:18,071 --> 00:12:21,908 As a psychopath, he does not have the empathy, 98 00:12:21,991 --> 00:12:26,246 the guilt, the remorse, any of that feeling to connect it. 99 00:12:26,329 --> 00:12:28,957 It's all intellectual. It's all up here. 100 00:12:29,040 --> 00:12:30,124 And he's inexperienced. 101 00:12:30,208 --> 00:12:32,961 Remember, at this age, he doesn't have a lot of 102 00:12:33,044 --> 00:12:35,838 precedent to base his decisions on. 103 00:12:35,964 --> 00:12:39,300 So he's just kind of going with his natural reactions, 104 00:12:39,384 --> 00:12:44,097 which are emotionless and very in-the-moment. 105 00:12:44,180 --> 00:12:45,598 And, you know, he's hungry 106 00:12:45,682 --> 00:12:46,933 and this is what he feels like eating. 107 00:12:47,016 --> 00:12:51,396 And that is undiminished by anything that's happened before 108 00:12:51,521 --> 00:12:53,189 and the prospects of what's going to happen later. 109 00:13:59,589 --> 00:14:02,592 So it's not even Isaiah's idea to engage in 110 00:14:02,717 --> 00:14:04,218 the nicotine poisoning. 111 00:14:04,302 --> 00:14:08,765 All of this is just, how can I prove myself to other people? 112 00:14:08,890 --> 00:14:11,100 How can I prove myself to... 113 00:14:12,268 --> 00:14:13,853 my friends? How can I prove myself 114 00:14:13,936 --> 00:14:16,272 to the world that I'm big and bad? 115 00:14:16,397 --> 00:14:19,275 And so everything that you think of when it comes to 116 00:14:19,400 --> 00:14:22,070 Isaiah Sweet is still so nebulous. 117 00:14:22,153 --> 00:14:23,279 It's not crystallized. 118 00:14:23,363 --> 00:14:26,324 He's not -- he's not a formed psychopath as of yet. 119 00:14:26,449 --> 00:14:28,701 He's still very juvenile in his thinking, 120 00:14:28,785 --> 00:14:31,204 so heavily influenced by the thoughts 121 00:14:31,287 --> 00:14:33,081 and ideas of other people. 122 00:14:33,164 --> 00:14:37,752 It's not uncommon for children to want to buck the authority 123 00:14:37,835 --> 00:14:41,005 of their parents, but this is taking it five steps too far. 124 00:15:12,745 --> 00:15:15,790 Brandon Ahlers carries no more valence than the grandparents, 125 00:15:15,915 --> 00:15:16,999 like we think about, like, oh, 126 00:15:17,125 --> 00:15:19,252 this was his accomplice, his friend. 127 00:15:19,335 --> 00:15:22,922 He's just another character to Mr. Sweet, so I don't know that 128 00:15:23,005 --> 00:15:26,217 I would insert this idea that he really cared what 129 00:15:26,300 --> 00:15:27,635 Mr. Ahlers thought. 130 00:15:27,718 --> 00:15:31,305 He doesn't have that emotional line connecting things. 131 00:15:31,389 --> 00:15:34,475 There's that psychopathic instinct of, like, 132 00:15:34,559 --> 00:15:38,354 kind of pausing to think, how am I supposed to be behaving here? 133 00:15:38,479 --> 00:15:41,107 Like, how would a quote-unquote normal person answer 134 00:15:41,190 --> 00:15:43,317 these questions and behave in this situation? 135 00:16:32,617 --> 00:16:35,828 So I think the watch is an interesting component that 136 00:16:35,912 --> 00:16:39,081 just, again, illustrates some of his grandiosity, some of 137 00:16:39,207 --> 00:16:43,002 his callousness, some of just the fact that 138 00:16:43,085 --> 00:16:45,880 he's not taking this very seriously. 139 00:16:46,005 --> 00:16:49,717 The conversation then shifts to his mother, and he states that 140 00:16:49,800 --> 00:16:52,637 she's the only one that he hasn't told about this. 141 00:16:52,720 --> 00:16:55,848 He's just killed his mother's parents, and you don't get 142 00:16:55,932 --> 00:16:58,559 the sense that there's any emotional attachment not only 143 00:16:58,684 --> 00:17:01,395 to his grandparents, but even to his mother, 144 00:17:01,479 --> 00:17:03,356 who he also just violated. 145 00:18:38,826 --> 00:18:40,328 The comment, "I know everything," 146 00:18:40,453 --> 00:18:43,039 I think sums up a lot of Isaiah Sweet's 147 00:18:43,164 --> 00:18:46,334 presentation and how he seems to perceive himself. 148 00:18:46,459 --> 00:18:49,545 He's grandiose, and believes, you know, 149 00:18:49,670 --> 00:18:52,340 from the very beginning of the interview when he tells 150 00:18:52,423 --> 00:18:54,675 the investigators how intelligent he is, 151 00:18:54,759 --> 00:18:56,552 now here we are, fast forward, 152 00:18:56,677 --> 00:18:58,596 later in the interview where he's saying, 153 00:18:58,679 --> 00:19:00,723 "Look, I know how it works -- when you commit 154 00:19:00,848 --> 00:19:03,184 a felony, you can get my cell records." 155 00:19:03,267 --> 00:19:07,438 That grandiosity has seeped throughout the interview 156 00:19:07,521 --> 00:19:09,190 in many points. 157 00:19:09,315 --> 00:19:11,108 He's very proud of this knowledge, 158 00:19:11,192 --> 00:19:13,194 but at the same time, the reality is 159 00:19:13,277 --> 00:19:15,988 this knowledge is not particularly sophisticated. 160 00:19:31,045 --> 00:19:33,881 The unusual detail is the fact that he, you know, 161 00:19:34,006 --> 00:19:36,759 escalated the violence relatively quickly. 162 00:19:36,884 --> 00:19:38,386 He had the obstacle. 163 00:19:38,469 --> 00:19:40,805 He made a decision, I'm getting rid of the obstacle. 164 00:19:40,888 --> 00:19:42,723 And now he's already planning his life in jail. 165 00:19:42,807 --> 00:19:46,394 You know, I just want to sleep and work out and read books. 166 00:19:46,519 --> 00:19:48,354 I mean, I think it was that control aspect. 167 00:19:48,437 --> 00:19:52,400 Like, he understands where he's headed, and he's gonna make 168 00:19:52,525 --> 00:19:54,902 it seem like, you know, this is just fine with him. 169 00:19:55,027 --> 00:19:57,071 So there's an aspect of it of like, you know, 170 00:19:57,154 --> 00:19:58,447 this was all according to plan.