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[narrator] This week on CrimeFeed.

The murder case rocking a Hollywood power family.

TV producer Sam Haskell the 4th

accused of murder and shirtless in court.

His wife's body chopped into pieces.

His dad, a famous Hollywood power player.

Breaking details in the mystery.

And a nurse is someone you can trust.

But a nurse is accused in the deaths of more than a dozen people.

The chilling clinic details.

This week onCrimeFeed with Nancy Grace,

private investigator Derrick Levasseur,

and investigative journalist Mara S. Campo.

Good evening, I'm Nancy Grace and this is CrimeFeed.

Thank you for being with us.

Those stories, but first to LA.

Have the police apprehended a serial killer?

Jerrid Joseph Powell, 33,

suspected in the stalking and killings

of four people.

And breaking in Texas,

Texas Rangers arrest a suspect in the murder

of a 16-year-old teen girl.

A cheerleader found dead in the bathtub.

Loving mom Jacqueline worry when her high school daughter

doesn't show up at a Christmas parade

where she was said to cheer.

Mom Jacqueline goes to work that morning, 6:00 am.

When she gets home that night, finds her daughter, Lizbeth,

in the family bathtub, still wearing her PJs, dead.

The mom tells reporters quote,

"The most horrible way a mother could find her child.

She was murdered in cold blood."

Rafael Romero arrested for capital murder,

which makes him eligible for the death penalty, if convicted.

I'm so upset about this mom

finding her 16-year-old little girl.

The mom had just relocated to Texas, Edna,

about 6,000 people live there, very small town,

so she could get a new job.

And just she and the daughter had keys to the apartment.

Mom gets up 6:00 am and leaves,

wakes up the daughter for her little cheerleading event.

When mom gets off from work that night and she's not at the event,

no one has seen the daughter since 7:30 that morning, or talked to her.

I just hate it so bad for her.

Well, it's every mother's worst nightmare,

and actually the story, as it turns out,

is even worse than it seems on the surface

because the mother went home after work

-to change for this Christmas event... -[Derrick] Mmm-hmm.

...that her daughter was supposed to be cheering in.

-[Derrick] Right. -She goes to the event, the daughter's not there.

She starts calling the phone, it goes straight to voicemail.

Of course, that's when any parent would panic.

She goes home and she finds the daughter in the bathtub.

And it turns out the daughter had been there

-the entire time... -Right.

...when the mother was home changing her clothes

to go see her baby in this Christmas event.

Her daughter was dead in the bathtub and she didn't even know it.

Yeah, and the suspect in this case is 23-year-old Rafael Romero.

It's interesting 'cause we were researching this case,

and when we got this case, we didn't have a suspect yet.

And I was writing my notes for today's episode

before they had this arrest, and I said,

"It's gotta be someone that is connected to her somehow."

They're gonna look at her phone records, they're gonna look at her GPS coordinates,

because this, they're in this apartment complex,

so it's not a house.

So, there's other people that could see her

going and coming from that residence.

Police had put out some information about a suspect,

-potential suspect vehicle. -A picture.

A picture of the vehicle and also--

Running toward a Ford Taurus, I believe it was.

That's right. And the suspect had possibly a tattoo on his neck.

So, it's all gonna come out.

I think we're gonna find that there's probably a connection there.

-I don't know if it's from social media. -Well, you know the mother

saw him and said she doesn't recognize him.

-[Derrick] That-- -Has never seen him in her life

and doesn't know him.

And she went on to state that her daughter was a quote,

"Good girl, uh, all-A student, cheerleader,

and was planning to study nursing at Arlington University."

And now this.

Well, but the mother also noted that there was no forced entry.

-So, there are questions about whether she... -[Nancy] Mmm-hmm.

...knew this person in some capacity and let him in.

There's gonna be a lot more to this, you know?

Remember, he's being charged with capital murder,

so there's probably another charge,

another crime associated with that.

That's gonna explain the motive, I think, a little bit more.

And now to a Hollywood producer suspect number one,

when a woman's torso discovered in a dumpster.

Surveillance footage catches a man in a white SUV

dumping a black bag in a dumpster.

The torso ID'd as the wife of Hollywood player

Sam Haskell Jr., age 35.

You've gotta see this.

This was the scene just a few days ago.

Haskell making an appearance in court,

half naked, disheveled.

The story made headlines across the country

because Haskell, his family, both famous.

I don't think anyone was expecting this scene in court.

Mara, what do we know?

Yeah, this is not something that we see very often.

And the scene in court was disturbing.

Sam Haskell the 4th, also known as Sam Haskell Jr.

was shirtless in court this week.

He'd been wearing a Velcro vest

as a precaution because authorities worried

that in his mental state, he could attempt suicide.

But the Velcro vest slipped off,

leaving him half naked in court.

Haskell is now being held without bail,

and his arraignment has been extended until January.

Sam Haskell's wife, Mei Haskell,

and her parents, Yanxiang Wang and Gaoshan Li,

were last seen on November 6th.

Two days later, a homeless man discovered a human torso

inside a duffel bag that had been tossed into a dumpster

in the LA neighborhood of Encino.

Well, a review of security footage

shows what police say is Sam Haskell Jr.

tossing a bag into the same dumpster the night before.

And get this, earlier that day,

Haskell had allegedly hired four day-laborers

to remove several bags from his home.

And here is their account of what they saw in those bags.

[man 1] I started opening it.

I started seeing parts of a body.

Bellybutton, stomach.

[man 2] This man had tricked us.

I said to my friends, "Come look. Come look."

And when they saw, they said, "These are human parts."

Unbelievable. The workers, who remained anonymous,

returned the money and the bags to Haskell's residence,

and then contacted police immediately.

Now, Sam Haskell Jr. has lived under the shadow of his father,

Sam Haskell Sr. his whole life.

Haskell Sr. is the president of Magnolia Hill Productions.

And he's worked with major talent like Dolly Parton,

George Clooney, and Whoopi Goldberg.

Listen to Haskell Jr. speak about his own career in comparison.

Yo, shoutout to LinkedIn for just making it, like,

so much more streamlined

for me to be told "no" repeatedly.

Like my resume says, "unhappy, bitter, resentful."

Um, and like, "Really good at ordering off the menu."

Yeah, this guy was really upset with the way things were going.

Obviously, as you said, his father was a super successful producer.

And here he is, he's putting out these films that he's producing.

-And what's interesting about the films that... -[Nancy] But did you think

-that was a film right there? -No, no, that's not a film.

But what we're gonna play right now, I'm gonna play it in a second.

The films that he was coming out with, which now,

in hindsight, knowing what he's allegedly responsible for,

-contained a lot of violence, a lot of blood. -[Nancy] Slasher.

Yeah, let's play those quick for the audience.

[heavy metal rock music playing]

[gunshots firing]

[man 3 speaks indistinctly] ...what? Stay in your lane.

[man 4] I would never...

Mmm, mmm, five... Oh, wait, my mom's calling.

-Yeah, seeing those now adds another... -That was the film?

-That's the film. It adds another layer to the story. -[Nancy] Yeah.

Yeah, you know what, uh,

there are other rants he does online

where he's actually complaining about a restaurant,

about a guy that overdid his filet mignon.

What a brat.

And the other thing I've learned,

this guy never worked.

Did you know, Mei, his wife,

worked multiple jobs to pay the house note.

And the Haskells did not help.

Maybe they were just sick of Sam Haskell, their son,

and didn't want anything to do with him.

But there she is, making a $7,000-a-month house payment,

working multiple jobs,

including as a consultant to parents abroad

that want their children to go to school in the U.S. like she did.

Did you know her parents had to sell their home

for her to go to accounting school?

And that is where she met Haskell.

And you talk about him being spoiled,

I think the ultimate depiction of that is

thinking you can hire day laborers,

you can outsource the disposal of people that,

if the allegations are true, you have just murdered.

And it almost seems as though, because police have not found the bodies

-of the parents who they believe were murdered as well. -[Derrick] That's right.

[Mara] So, if they haven't found the bodies of the parents,

but they did find the torso of the wife,

you have to almost imagine that he did the work of

disposing of the parents' bodies and then said to himself,

"This is just too much work for me.

-I'm just gonna hire somebody else to do it." -[Derrick] Mmm-hmm.

And if not for those workers trusting their instincts, and then going to

-three police stations... -[Nancy] Trusting their instincts?

Wait, they saw body parts.

Well, but first he had told them that the bags were full of rocks.

-Right. -And when you look at surveillance video,

-there's newly released surveillance video... -[Nancy] Hmm.

...that shows them carrying those bags from his house.

It takes two men to carry one bag, so that's how

-heavy they were. -[Nancy] Don't you know they didn't wanna

get pinned with it, disposing of a dead body?

Hey, you know that film as you just played for us?

You know what's interesting? It just hit me.

So you see all this violence, and slashing, and guns,

and then all of a sudden one of the perp says,

"Ooh, hold on, it's my mom,"

and picks up the phone.

-[Derrick] Mmm-hmm. -That's a real window into his bratty little soul.

You know he ran to his parents all the time for money,

instead of going out and getting a job like a man!

-Yeah, we're starting-- -Making Mei do all the work and raise the children!

And we're starting to hear more about the family dynamic.

Right? We're hearing from friends and family who are saying,

"Listen, Sam, this entire time,

really didn't like Mei's parents, didn't really even speak to them."

They didn't speak English, but he would ignore them,

he would treat them poorly.

-And-- -[Nancy] He wouldn't even speak to them.

He wouldn't even speak to them.

And we're learning now that, yes, they haven't found their bodies yet.

But, police believe that they were actually dismembered and disposed of first.

That's why you're seeing the dumpster video after the fact.

And I feel like we're at the tip of the story

because they have GPS coordinates,

they have security footage, they have plate readers.

I feel like right now, police behind the scenes

are trying to locate their bodies.

And with all the technology in that area, it's still very possible.

Unless they're in a landfill. Then it gets complicated.

Guys, when we come back, a disastrous court appearance

with Haskell showing up half dressed.

But what has become of Mei's mother and father?

And tonight, one patient after the next drops dead,

including a set of suitemates.

Is an angel of death lurking the halls

of an established healthcare facility?

A human torso,

an adult nepo baby obsessed with samurai swords

with a missing wife and missing in-laws?

Will money buy Sam Haskell the 4th,

aka Junior, out of trouble again?

Now with us, LA Times investigative reporter,

Richard Winton.

Richard, what an incredible article you wrote.

And I gotta give you credit. A lot of what I learned,

I first heard from you.

I can't believe this. When all the other mothers

realize what was wrong, that something was wrong,

when Sam Haskell took the children to school

and arranged a play date, they're like,

"That has never happened in 10 years. Where's Mei?"

Now, that really speaks to his fathering.

He's never taken them to school or on a play date.

You know, I'm all about the school drop-off and the play date,

but let's get back to murder. Tell me everything.

Well, basically, I'm told by the prosecutor Beth Silverman

that basically they have evidence that,

um, he didn't only kill Mei,

but they have evidence of physical, possibly,

dismemberment of the parents as well.

They know that he's disposed of the parents.

They just do not know where at this point.

-And it's probably... -But I don't get it. WIth the GPS coordinates

and pinging his phone, unless he had the sense

not to take his phone with him, which I doubt.

I can't understand why they're not able to locate it?

Of course, he had many, many days lead on them.

Those remains could be anywhere, Richard.

Yeah, I mean he literally,

the prosecutor told me he drove all over the county.

I mean, he's probably aware, and we've seen this recently

in other murders in Los Angeles,

license plate readers,

technology of pinging towers, geofencing.

They know where you are, they know where you've gone.

So, he's basically driven around a lot of places

and made it as hard as possible.

And reality is, Los Angeles is pretty big.

And we also have a lot of greenery, forest, and other places

where people are typically dumping bodies.

I mean, we have a couple of searches going on right now

in the Angeles National Forest for bodies and suitcases.

Here's my concern, right?

If we look at, you know, best predictor of future behavior is past behavior.

And we see what he did throughout the day with Mei's body.

My concern is that even though they have the GPS coordinates,

and they can see where he was stopping throughout the day,

if he dumped their bodies in another dumpster,

and those dumpsters were emptied,

it's not like you can just go there and say, "Okay, you know what?

We're gonna go to the landfill. Here's where it is."

You could have ten, 15, 20 feet of trash

from that city now piled on top of them.

It's a very big undertaking to find them,

even if they can find them.

Could that be the situation here,

where he dumped their bodies as well into a dumpster,

unfortunately, someone didn't notice it,

and those dumpsters were emptied before they got to 'em?

Yeah, I mean, that's the most likely scenario,

is this is a landfill case.

And in landfill cases they scour the landfill,

but I've had many, many murders where...

-[Derrick] Yup. -...they did not recover the body.

And they become no body murder cases.

And those are not uncommon in Los Angeles.

They're not frequent, but we do have them.

Richard, Sam was described as a very weird guy.

One person said that he had quote,

"Jeffrey Dahmer vibes." But setting that aside,

do you have any information on what a possible motive

here would have been if he did in fact commit these murders?

[Richard] Uh, the biggest indication so far is, you know,

-the word freeloader is one that his, the relatives, uh... -[Nancy] A mooch.

-Richard, he was a mooch. -...Mei's parents used.

[Nancy] He mooched off his parents his whole life,

then started mooching off his wife who was afraid to divorce him

because she thought the Haskell money would get involved

and she would never see her children again.

That they would take the children legally.

Yeah, I mean, basically, we got...

I heard from people who worked with him in Hollywood

that he wasn't exactly the easiest person to get along with.

So, he wasn't exactly getting a lot of work.

And it sounds like she was working round the clock and

they have a pretty nice house, a big house

-but apparently she was paying that $7,000 mortgage. -[Nancy] Ooh!

Ooh! That hurts. $7,000 a month.

But I guess out there that's normal.

I don't know if you've ever covered a landfill search,

a dump, so to speak, you have to do it by grids.

It is excruciating.

Uh, like Derrick said, the trash can be 10, 20 feet tall,

and you're out there in a hazmat suit with cadaver dogs.

Now, I... I've seen, um,

tissue... a finger, a little finger as a matter of fact

found in a dump. It can be done.

But again, just what Derrick and Mara are saying, Richard,

when you don't know a horse look at its track record.

He threw Mei's body in a dumpster

but it wasn't that far from the house.

I mean, he didn't have the sense to go further away from his home?

So, that tells me that's exactly what he did in the case of her parents.

And, oh, what you wrote about the in-law's brother,

when he couldn't get in touch with his sister which is Mei's mother,

he went to her WeChat and someone had taken down all of her pictures,

everything from the last ten years.

You tell us, tell us about her family.

Well, I mean, this is one of the weirder indications

and it was actually something I don't think law enforcement also knew about.

It looks like he... It has to be him 'cause he's the only person left,

somehow has removed the photos which are in their stream.

Now, I wondered if there's a location or something in there

which is revealing about where he did whatever he did to the parents.

Because he's definitely tried to remove a lot of information, um...

-This is clearly a case-- -Isn't that weird, Richard?

I mean, you've got a spree killer

but why did he go on to his mother-in-law's WeChat

and then, delete all of her 10 years' worth of pictures and everything?

And all this business about how he doesn't like his in-laws.

His in-laws put Mei through college

who was supporting him now.

So, he better like 'em.

[Richard] Uh, yeah. Well, obviously,

unfortunately, this is a horrible situation where now they're just trying...

the other relatives are just trying to find out where... what's going on.

I understand that his family now has the children,

based on some conversations I heard at call.

And, so, you know, Mei's family are trying to find out

what's exactly going on.

They were with the, uh, detectives at call.

We obviously wanna try to find Mei's parents.

But even if we don't, last time we covered this case

we talked about their vehicles that they were searching for

They found the vehicles in San Fernando valley.

I think based on the crime scene,

crime scene technicians were able to deduce

that based on what they found there was probably more than one body

that was dismembered there and we'll leave the details out of that.

So, that coupled with the totality of circumstances surrounding what they do know,

that's why they were able to charge him with all three murders.

Yeah, in this case they have one of the... the...

the true choice prosecutor on this case, Beth Silverman.

She's prosecuted a lot of high profile murders in Los Angeles.

And is probably the prosecutor you want if your fa...

something happens to your family.

Man, you're right about that, Richard Winton. She is awesome.

Richard Winton, thank you.

And we'll be reading all of your articles. Thank you so much.

Guys, up next, when we say nurse

we think of Florence Nightingale

and all the other millions of caretakers

that have seen us and our families through major illnesses,

maybe even saving our lives.

Not necessarily true at a Pennsylvania healthcare facility.

Did an angel of death claim the lives of nearly 20 patients?

And that's that we know of.

We trust nurses with the lives of the ones we love the most.

But what if that seemingly caring nurse

is really an angel of death?

One female nurse now connected to over 20 victims.

Mara, what happened?

Nancy, prosecutors say Nurse Heather Pressdee's actions

led to the deaths of multiple patients

and that her behavior went undetected for nearly three years.

Investigators in western Pennsylvania

revealed that Pressdee was linked to the deaths of all these patients

at multiple care facilities.

[narrator] In May, 2023

41-year-old Heather Pressdee, a registered nurse

at Quality Life Services nursing facility at Chicora, Pennsylvania

was charged with homicide and attempted murder

after two patients died and a third was hospitalized while under her care.

Further investigations revealed that Pressdee

harmed with the intent to kill 19 other patients

whose ages ranged from 43 to 104.

She allegedly admitted to giving her victims excessive, often lethal doses of insulin

at five different care facilities since 2020.

According to authorities, Pressdee often took steps to ensure her victims would die

during overnight shifts,

when staffing was low and the emergencies would not prompt immediate hospitalization.

But the question still remains... Why?

[Nancy] Now, Pressdee has confessed to "harming with intent to kill.

more than a dozen patients.

As of November, 2023 she has been charged with four counts of murder,

18 counts of attempted murder,

and 22 counts of neglect of a care-dependent person.

A total of 17 patients

under her care have died and five patients

that she confessed to trying to kill actually, survived.

Pressdee could now be facing the death penalty and remains in custody

at Butler County, Pennsylvania prison without bail.

Now, Nancy, what's shocking about these numbers

when we talk about 17 people, possibly, that she's responsible for,

those are major serial killer numbers.

Jeffrey Dahmer is tied to 17 deaths and that's what we're seeing here.

And somehow this has been taken less seriously than cases like Dahmer.

And I'm wondering if it's because she's a female or she is a nurse.

Listen, when my children, John David and Lucy,

were born so prematurely

they were at the hospital in the NICU

and the nurses took care of them.

And, uh, I'm still in touch with those nurses today.

I think about them and I think about this woman...

Can I just tell you some texts that I found out she sent?

Get ready. You sitting down?

You may need to lay down for this.

Text, "Can I kill this man at Taco Bell?"

Sounds funny, right? Keep listening.

"She's gonna die. I'm murdering my aides.

I drugged him already. I don't know how he's still awake.

I can't with this lady tonight.

She's going to get pillow therapy."

That's not funny.

[Mara] Yeah, and she repeatedly joked about "pillow therapy".

So, this was clearly something that she was thinking about.

Yeah, and what's concerning to me is this isn't just

something that came out of the woodwork, right?

There's... there's a history, a pattern of behavior here

and it's concerning to me that this woman was still in this profession.

We go back to December 7th of 2018,

she was disciplined for not following the dosage orders by a doctor regarding insulin.

Then from April 2021 to February 2022

staff at the Belair facility were saying, "Listen, we're concerned

that she's killing the patients."

They actually referred to her as the "killer nurse".

-So, I don't understand-- -[Nancy] Whoa, whoa, whoa.

-That kills me. -[Derrick] Yeah, I don't...

-I don't know how she was still practicing. -They called her the

"killer nurse". All the nurses knew about it.

Eleven facilities in five years.

She had reportedly provided fake references

with fake telephone numbers to get new jobs

yet she was consistently moved on and on and on.

And one of the things that's most disturbing...

Now these were care... long-term care facilities,

so, a lot of these patients were chronically ill

and they had... they required care for years.

She reportedly, if some of the patients

looked like they were going to pull through,

she would take extra steps to kill them.

And here's what we have from the complaint.

"If Pressdee sensed the victim would 'pull through'

there was a pattern of her taking additional measures

to try and kill the victims before they could be sent to the hospital

by either administering a second dose of insulin

or the use of an air embolism to ensure death.

[Nancy] And some of these patients had diabetes, some did not.

You know, nurses do God's work.

Anyone who has been in the hospital...

-[Nancy] They saved my children. -...or has... or has been--

A... a... a... and they also attended to my mother so beautifully.

I mean, anyone who's had any experience in a hospital

knows that the work they're doing is so important

and what kills me in this case is that she is trying

to position herself as an angel of mercy.

She's saying, "Oh, these people had a terrible quality of life."

-[Nancy] That's her defense. Did you know that? -[Mara] Yes.

She said, "They looked at me like they wanted to die."

[Nancy] Oh, she said one lady looked at her like an animal.

So, she wanted to put her out of her pain.

That defense is not going to work.

Right, and you think about it, when we talk about assisted suicide,

whether you agree with it or not, that's a different conversation,

but the reality is none of these individuals

asked for her help in this way.

This is not an assisted suicide, this is murder.

Also, I wanna go back to this because

when I was doing IA for the police department

we would do background check on potential police officers,

-and we would look at their social media history. -Yeah.

Let's go back to December of 2018.

She writes, "I may kill a doctor today" on her Facebook post.

Then in February 7th, 2018, she puts up another post of two spoons.

One containing two units of insulin

one containing ten units and she basically says,

"Hey, listen. Two units, you'll be okay,

ten units could kill you in a couple hours."

Do you think, if they're doing a background check,

if they're not they should be,

this would be something that if they saw in 2018 she would've been hired later.

I would hope not. That's my frustration here.

You know another thing that she did allegedly

is that she would wait till the night shift

and on weekends when there were fewer personnel there,

that's when she would administer the insulin

and it would take a couple of hours for the person to die.

And in fact, she came up to one nurse

who had a special relationship with a victim

and she pops her on the back and went, "Well,

at least you got to say goodbye before they kicked the bucket."

-Just like that. -So in... inhumane.

And, you know, going back to her claim

that this was all about mercy killings,

you know, she would say, "Well, these people had

terrible quality of life, anyway.

Who would want to live like that?"

But that certainly was not always the case.

There were some patients who were doing quite well.

One of which, uh, they wrote in the... in the documents. Her quote,

"Mood appears pleasant.

She was oriented to people. Her meds were effective."

That's what they wrote in her medical records

right before her care started to deteriorate

because Pressdee was taking care of her.

I wanna pose something to you guys because we're talking about motive,

I truly believe, based on what we know,

she got gratification from watching these...

-[Nancy] Oh! I'm so glad you said that. -These people pass away.

Do you know she used to be a vet tech?

Fourteen years she practiced doing euthanizations.

Knowing what we know now,

seeing these animals expire at her hand

could that corelate to these human beings?

I think there's a pattern there

-and I think she was gratified by this. -You know, we're not shrinks

but I think you're right.

She seemed to get into euthanizing animals way too much.

-And now all these people-- -[Derrick] This is an escalation.

-You're absolutely right. -This is an escalation

-from animals to human beings. -I gotta tell you, that just gave me chills

when you said that.

I... These families have got to stay on it.

I don't want this to be a cheap plea.

Just because the victims are elderly

-what, we're just gonna write it off? -One of them was 40 years old.

-Hey, I'm ab... about to turn 40. -Yeah, you're right.

-You're right. -We're not elderly yet. We're still there.

Um, guys, a trusted nurse

even promoted to Director of facility

instead of healing, allegedly, commits murder.

Stalking the halls to single out her next victim when no one's watching. Why?

Next, inside the mind of a killer.

And next, a murder case rocking an entire nation.

And what people are really talking about

is the killer's excuse. The reason she said she did it.

Coming up.

This defendant was a medical professional

charged with caring for these individuals.

Instead of caring for them, she intentionally and maliciously

injected them with insulin to kill them.

My office will prosecute her

and seek to hold her accountable

for her actions.

That is the Pennsylvania Attorney Generals

vowing to get justice

for the alleged victims of Heather Pressdee.

In 2023, the 41-year-old registered nurse

charged for the murder of some of her own patients.

Motive still unclear.

So an angel of mercy turns angel of death.

But what makes people whose job is to do good

actually turn bad?

With us now a real expert,

Dr. John Delatorre, forensic psychologist.

Dr. Delatorre, thank you for being with us.

When I think about my mother who is turning 92

and my grandmother before she passed away,

the thought of sending them to extended care is so scary

'cause you don't know

who's really taking care of them.

This woman,

not that motivation has to be proven

in a court of law,

but why?

Well, you are right to be scared, Nancy,

'cause you can't...

There's no profile for someone like this.

It's always about a pattern of behavior

that we're never going to see

until it's far too late

and too many lives have already been lost.

So it's one of those things where,

usually, someone gets a thrill off of the power.

They take on this mantle of "They know better,"

whether it's a nurse or a doctor,

they take this mantle on,

and no one can tell them otherwise.

But they know,

deep down inside, they know it's wrong,

because they always try to make a secret out of it.

They always try to hide what they do,

by taking overnight shifts or adjusting medical records

to make it so that

no one ever catches what they've been doing.

Is there an addictive quality to it?

Why so many?

And why continue to do it for so many years?

According to her explanation,

they were patients who had a poor quality of life,

but then we start to see patients

where that was not true.

So why continue to do it?

I don't know that I call it addictive,

but it is a power, thrill-seeking aspect to it.

It's one of those where you do it enough times

and you get this sense of power and control

that you have over another person's life,

you're going to want to keep doing it.

Nothing... No one can stop you

once you already have that thing

running inside of you.

[Nancy] Have we considered the fact

that she's just a nasty, evil person?

She didn't like the doctors,

she didn't like her colleagues.

They called her the killer nurse.

I'm surprised that didn't raise a red flag.

She said things about her victims such as,

one, "Should not be alive."

One female patient, 104 years old,

she said, "That was a disgusting..."

That the woman was disgusting.

Another person, she said,

"When is she going to die already?"

It goes on and on.

I mean, if I heard a nurse talking like that

about one of my family members,

I'd give her a little finger necklace

-right there on the spot... -[laughter]

...but these families had no idea.

But the system knew.

They saw the red flags and they did nothing.

It's sad, but even worse, it's a betrayal.

'Cause these are the people that we entrust to

those times when we're sick, when we're vulnerable.

When we need someone to protect us,

these are the people that we look to.

And then all of a sudden,

they take their opinion

more than the opinion of the doctors,

or even more than the opinion of the actual patient, right?

'Cause none of these patients asked for this.

Right.

And so they take that on,

these people who are willing to engage

and abuse their power of authority,

they take that on

and they make it so that

we can no longer trust the people

that are supposed to protect us.

We were talking in the previous segment

about her past history as far as what she used to do.

I know with serial killers

sometimes you'll see this evolution

where they start with small animals,

things of that nature.

We're finding out now

that she worked in veterinary care

for 14 years

and worked on euthanizations.

Do you think there could be a connection to that,

where there's this gratification

of seeing the animals die,

seeing them expire,

and now evolving to humans,

or do you think it's just a coincidence?

No, there are no coincidences in murder cases, number one.

So we have to think about, well,

these individuals know that it's wrong to harm animals.

Everybody knows that it's wrong to do the harm,

they just don't care.

And they also know

that once you start getting found out,

people are going to flag you,

people are going to start targeting you.

So they try to find ways in order to make it so that

they don't get found out.

You can find all of these people

ingratiating themselves

in other aspects of our community,

and you'd never know

that they were secretly thinking about

how they could end your life.

[Mara] And to your point about trying to hide it,

you know, insulin is not a controlled substance,

so she had a lot of access to it.

It's also much harder to detect

that that is the cause of death

when your patient is diabetic

and would have been administered insulin anyway.

Do you have any thoughts as to why somebody like this

would even go into nursing

if you have so much contempt and loathing

for those who need medical care?

Why be in that field?

It's about the authority that you get

from being that person

that actually holds the needle.

It's the authority and the feeling that you get

where you walk into a room

and everybody kind of genuflects to you

because you're wearing the white coat.

It's one of those things where,

yes, you're not always killing people,

but the moment you walk into a room,

everybody looks to you

as if you are the absolute authority--

[Nancy] But what is her deal, Delatorre?

Break it down for me.

Why is she the way she is?

And why didn't they catch it sooner?

Did she leave those other facilities,

at least seven of them,

very quickly,

because she kills somebody and moved on

and didn't want to get caught?

Was she fired?

What is wrong with this woman?

And don't start with insanity.

Because she knew

what she was doing was wrong.

[Dr. Delatorre] No, I would never say that.

She's clearly sane.

She absolutely made the choice

to kill these people.

That's number one.

Why was she like this?

What happened to her?

Who knows?

And she can make up

all different kinds of stories

about abuse or whatever else,

but she chose to do this thing.

That's what's clear.

[Derrick] You know, for police officers,

before we give them a gun,

they're evaluated by a psychologist.

Do we need more thorough vetting

when it comes to nurses and doctors,

maybe psychological evaluations, before they're giving--

Oh, please, she's gonna get pillow therapy?

I'm not a shrink.

Sorry, Delatorre.

But I know that that's wrong.

And they knew she was saying that.

If you're the psychologist,

and somebody doing a background on them

prior to them being hired,

you can potentially prevent this...

Like, we're talking about what she did.

I think we got to go look at this and say,

what can we do to prevent it from happening again?

[Dr. Delatorre] It'd be difficult

because it would have to be something

that's ongoing.

A lot of these individuals

did not actually start off wanting to do this,

but there are aspects of an empathy depletion,

where they start viewing these people

as less than people,

especially in long-term, hospice cares and stuff,

stuff like that,

where all of a sudden you're thinking,

these people aren't going to live much longer.

So how... what psychological assessment could I give

other than actually talking to these people.

That would be a drain on resources.

[Nancy] Are they seeking the death penalty?

I mean, how many people have to be killed

by the "Angel of Death"

before you seek the death penalty?

Well, to me, one is too many.

As soon as one happens, that's it.

I mean, you've lost all sympathy

and empathy from me 'cause you made that choice.

And it's clear she made that choice.

Guys, when we come back,

the Twinkie defense,

the sleepwalking defense,

the full moon defense,

the cough syrup defense,

the owl defense,

even the affluenza "I'm too rich" defense.

We've heard it all.

But now there's the TV and novels defense.

A 23-year-old woman

crime show-junkie

tells a judge she stalked an English language teacher

and stabbed her dead

because she wanted to "try out a murder"

stoked by curiosity

from true crime books and TV shows.

Mara, Derrick, what happened?

According to South Korean police,

Jung Yoo-jung was an unemployed loner

who lived with her grandfather.

She obsessively read and watched true crime,

telling authorities it,

"Piqued her interest for months."

She tried to design the perfect crime.

She checked books out at the library for tips.

She looked up stuff like

"murder without a physical body"

in her web browser.

And then, of course, she had to pick a victim.

She gets on a tutoring app

and poses as the mother of a 14-year-old student

who wants to learn English,

and in May of this year, after contacting 54 people,

she dresses up

in a school uniform

she bought online,

shows up to the house

of a 26-year-old woman

who police have not yet named,

and stabs her

more than 100 times.

And if that wasn't gruesome enough,

Jung dismembers the victim's body,

places parts of it into a suitcase

and changes into the woman's clothing.

She then takes a cab

to dump her remains in a wooded area

by a local river.

The cabbie senses something is off

and alerts police.

Now, Jung has changed her story

a couple times at this point,

but eventually she confesses.

Prosecutors wanted to seek the death penalty,

but she asked for leniency,

claiming she's got mental health issues

and hallucinations.

They agreed to life in prison

with the possibility of parole in 20 years.

I don't think anybody really bought

her theory of hallucinations.

In fact, the judge spoke clearly and said,

"It's really hard to accept

your defense of a mental disorder

when you very carefully planned this whole thing,

buying the schoolgirl's uniform,

stalking this English language teacher,

going to her home."

That picture we just showed,

that was her dressed up that day,

caught on closed circuit TV, on surveillance cam.

And we know that some of the body parts

were thrown in the river.

Guess where?

The other body parts were in her home.

-Yeah? -Okay?

We need a shrink now.

Help me, Delatorre.

I don't know that I can help you, Nancy,

'cause here's one of the bigger problems is that

because she changes her story so many times,

how can we trust anything that she actually says?

I don't know that she actually suffered from hallucinations.

Generally when we think--

Okay, well, I can answer that for you.

She did not, okay?

That's another thing she learned

on one of her true crime shows.

She did not have hallucinations.

She might as well have ordered

the whole murder up on Amazon, for Pete's sake.

But Nancy, this is something

that you and I disagree on often,

is that, you know, just because somebody

carries out something logically,

they plan it

or they take steps to cover it up,

does that mean that they are still not mentally unwell?

Can both things be true?

Can you be logical and reasonable

in planning a crime,

but also be really, really mentally ill?

If murdering a stranger

and dismembering their body doesn't make you insane,

what does?

There is a real fine line to walk

when it comes to answering that question

because there is no mental illness

in which violence is a primary component.

However, there are absolutely opportunities

where someone is so disordered

or they're so psychotic in their thinking

that the hallucinations are a manifestation

of some underlying desire,

some underlying wish.

Is it possible to have an organized thought

when someone is insane?

It absolutely is.

I'm not convinced

that's what happened in this case.

So guys, it's not mental disorder.

The standard, the gold standard is insanity.

Insanity, the M'Naghten Rule is

did you know it was right from wrong,

at the time of the act?

The fact that she hid the body parts,

that she had elaborate lies,

that she changed her story.

The first one was that

she killed the tutor after an argument.

Another one was that someone else killed the tutor,

and she just got rid of the body.

She also dismembered this woman.

All this woman did was answer the door.

But then why? How do we explain this?

She said she wanted to see what it felt like.

Just like Brian Kohberger.

Is that ringing a bell?

[Derrick] Well, you brought up Brian Kohberger,

and I think it brings, like, a macro issue, right?

True crime.

We're here covering cases right now.

We do podcasts. We do all these things.

Doc, are we...

We want to educate, we want to inform.

That's why we do this.

But are we also contributing to this--

I am not a part of this discussion.

Right.

I cover crime

because I want to stop crime.

Right, but are people watching your show--

That's their problem!

And that's what I'm saying.

Like, what's the...

When you have someone who's watching these shows,

maybe not for the right reasons,

are they learning from what we're covering

and applying it to their own situations?

Yeah, but that would be true for everybody.

Everybody who watches this is wanting to learn something,

they want to be educated in some way.

Generally speaking, we're looking at people

who want to feel more safe,

who want to understand, sort of, the criminal mind

or they want to understand

how to be safe out in the world

so that they can protect themselves and their family,

but we can't control who watches what.

We have to simply put the information out there,

that's easily digestible and made understood.

What someone else does with it,

that's their choice.

Good point.

That what that judge said.

He said he was angry at Jung Yoo-jung

because she stoked fear

and people began to distrust the system.

And they should have.

And capturing her and prosecuting her

really alleviates a lot of that fear.

Dr. Delatorre,

it's so great having you here on the set with us.

Guys, every week,

Crime Feedbrings you crime stories

from across our great nation.

Some ripped from the headlines,

some you may never have heard of.

From Mara, Derrick and myself,

we'll see you next week.

Happy and blessed holidays from us to you.

Good night for now.

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