Original subtitles

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

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

feeling...the hunger.

There's nothing to suggest that Pickett had been subject

to torture or was held hostage.

There's nothing about him that is indicative of someone

who had been malnourished or not given water or anything.

It is unprompted to tell this story,

which means it is more manipulative than controlling.

Now, it is controlling the narrative in that by

offering these kinds of details, he is preventing

further questions, right?

The problem with telling a lie is that telling the lie is

super easy, but having to retell the lie is much more

complex and can absolutely unravel unknowingly.

Pickett has a long history of a variety of

criminal behaviors -- disorderly conduct, violence against

family members, driving without a license.

And so he's not allowed to live inside the house.

So he's living in a tent out in the back.

But he's using anything he can, including exploiting a previous

criminal history that Ernie has, to make Ernie seem like

he's the worse guy.

The more that he can shift the spotlight onto the problems

that he's witnessed, the more the spotlight will not

be on the previous issues that have clearly been documented

about the parasitic lifestyle that he's had living

in that tent behind his mother's house.

[Dr. Saraiya] He's got the ease of fabricating things,

and he's got the narcissism of believing that he can kind of

outsmart other people.

But why is he focused on the mac and cheese that was

spilled in front of the bedroom door?

That seems like a relatively minor detail, but he's making

that sort of the linchpin of his kidnapping story.

"Here's the evidence that I was held hostage."

What he's doing is he's just trying to spin a story that

keeps him out of trouble. But it's just so clumsy.

When you look at the crime scene, it seems very clear

that the only person who was in that home

at the time that his mother was murdered,

and that the family dog was murdered, was Sean.

He's now trying to backpedal and explain away details of

the physical scene, but he's not really thinking

about the details he's already offered.

There's no plan in place here, and that level of impulsivity

is not surprising.

It's also not surprising given the psychopathy that

we're seeing in Sean Pickett.

This is somebody who doesn't have a plan.

[Dr. De La Torre] At some point, every liar needs the confirmation

that the lie is being believed,

and so you have to send up what I call "test balloons."

And these are kind of questions that kind of call attention

to either the ridiculousness of the situation or

sort of some fallacies that you know

to kind of be just out there.

Pickett knows that he's a criminal.

And so that is something that he has to acknowledge.

So now he has to use it in a way that doesn't come across

as if he's being, you know, put on guard,

because why should he?

What the detective's answer will be

will help Pickett know which part he needs to work

to make it more believable.

By sending up these test balloons, you begin to learn

how all of this is unfolding so that you can better manipulate

all of the other people and control the narrative.

Now we have this new story where there's command auditory

hallucinations and telepathy mind games being played.

"There's a voice inside my head that compelled me to kill them,"

and that somehow both his mom and Ernie Wheeler developed

telepathic powers and were playing mind games with him.

All of these things he's kind of lumped into this idea of

serious mental illness. None of them are accurate.

None of them are a true depiction of individuals

who have suffered these kinds of symptoms.

And so now he has to say that "I'm not responsible

"because my brain is disordered in such a way

"that I could not stop myself

from engaging in these behaviors."

People who are experiencing psychosis, we actually use

the word "disorganized" to describe their thought process.

They don't have a linear narrative.

They can't furnish details.

They can't remember what happened in what order.

On the flip side, individuals who are malingering,

you know, fabricating the fact that

they have mental illness, this is how they would present.

As a psychopath, Mr. Pickett has no real sense

of what it means to potentially suffer from this kind of

mental illness, so he's aware of it,

he's heard about these concepts, and he's just

trying to see if they're something that he can use for

his own benefit.

He's gonna do anything in the moment that thinks is going

to absolve him of responsibility.

What is consistent here is that Pickett sees himself

as a victim.

He doesn't feel he's done anything wrong, and so while

he's using the words that he's responsible for killing

his mother and dog,

he doesn't feel he's responsible.

He doesn't feel that he's actually to blame.

He blames Ernie for the dynamics and problems

with his mother, he blames his mother

for the problems.

He doesn't once say, "I was failing to get

"my life together, I wasn't growing up,

they were moving on with their life."

It becomes this ongoing age-old narrative, which is everyone

but Sean Pickett are to blame for Sean Pickett's problems.

The fact that Pickett was grandiose

and narcissistic enough to testify at his own trial,

and to insert a whole new narrative

of what happened during the crime that is not at all

what he told detectives, it's not at all what's supported

by the evidence, or the crime scene,

or even the history between this victim and her son,

speaks to a callousness and a lack of regard

and antisociality that makes Pickett far more dangerous

an offender than he maybe looks like on first glance.

But now we see a more calculated, callous, in-control

offender who's really only attached to his psychopathy.

He's callous, he doesn't have any remorse for what he's done,

and he's entitled. He's a parasite.