Original subtitles

This is a serial murder case.

All of the victims were found inside various containers

across the region, giving the unknown assailant

the nickname "The Package Killer."

While there is evidence linking all three murders,

police have yet to identify a suspect.

A serial murder cold case appears to have been solved.

The St. Charles County Police Crime Lab linked Gary Muehlberg

to at least one of the murders

by matching the DNA to samples in the FBI's DNA database.

Gary Muehlberg is already behind bars for killing

Kenneth "Doc" Atchison, who tried to sell him a car in 1993.

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

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

feeling... the hunger.

Gary Muehlberg is someone who is a dangerous person, but who,

to all appearances, appears to be a kind, old man,

and what people need to remember is that sometimes

the psychopath can appear to be benign, and kind,

and gentle, but they're not.

Think of it as a snake with a disguise pattern that

makes it look like a safe snake, right?

You can mistakenly believe that they're normal,

that they're nice, and they're not.

In 1993, the reason he's incarcerated at this point

in time, is that he has murdered a man who came to his house

ostensibly to buy a Cadillac, a car that he was offering,

and the body was noted to be handcuffed, stabbed,

and shot while the victim was still alive,

and then he kept the body in his basement.

With respect to his criminal behavior, we see a pattern when

we look back that there has been robberies with

sexual assault that have moved on to

sexual assault, murder, torturing people.

So, the violence has increased in its intensity and lethality.

We know with individuals with psychopathy that to them,

power is often everything,

and they will try to exert that power, whether it's

in an interview or in a relationship.

And even here, we see Muehlberg trying to

take control of this interview.

In fact, he's tracking, he's keeping count of

the potential homicide counts.

So you get the sense that this is an individual that

remembers what's happened and is actually actively trying

to control how his narrative is given.

When were you--

And now the tables have turned in a way,

because he feels like he has more control.

He already is serving a life sentence without

the possibility of parole,

and essentially there's not much more that can happen

to him, and this interview is now very clearly self-serving.

It's for him to be able to tell his story and have fun

and essentially tease the investigators with information.

In spite of the fact he comes into the room and looks frail

and sits down, he is as cognitively sharp as you or me

or anyone else who doesn't have any mental issues at all.

If you didn't know him, you'd say he's kind of

an old man who's sitting there who seems to be perplexed.

It sounds like he's confused, he's trying to sort this out,

but he's not confused at all.

This is the game for control in the interview with the police.

He's enjoying himself now.

There's nothing about the way he's discussing this that makes

me think that he truly feels these feelings now,

and he's reflecting on it.

Maybe he felt them then, but it's hard to convince me

that he actually has shame or embarrassment

about what happened.

Muehlberg seems to be trying to manipulate the situation.

It's almost like he's trying to manipulate the interviewers

to feel sorry for him because he has these memory deficits,

and he can't possibly understand why he would

do this to someone.

It's all self-serving.

There really isn't any concern for how a family might feel

or mourning the loss of other lives.

It's a surface level expression that doesn't reflect

an underlying mood and feeling and perspective that, um,

what he has done in the past is terrible, has taken lives

of other people, and that their families have

mourned and lost them.

There's not this deep sense of regret and sadness

about something horrible that he's done, it's very much on

the surface where he's interested in

taking care of him right now.

Mr. Muehlberg does what we've seen in other cases

of psychopathy, where people will look at the police and go,

"I'm really sorry, I should have told you something,"

or they come back with more information.

It's a common way of reinteracting

and re-engaging the police.

Then, when he's with them, he's saying, "I remember

a little bit, it's kind of vague," but then he throws up

the tantalizing bit about-- extraordinary detail about

the metal can that he's placed the victim in.

So, I'm sure he does remember more than he's saying.

I think he's holding it back so that he has a little more to offer in case

a new opportunity should come up.

Something else will jog his memory.

He's getting the sexual gratification from

these crimes, and individuals who sexually assault or rape

other people and who engage in controlling behaviors

such as binding someone typically gets some

sort of high off of being in control.

And in these instances, he is somebody who's engaged in

some sadistic behavior, where again, he is in control

of people who are typically from vulnerable populations,

such as in this case, many of his victims were sex workers.

The way he's talking right now, it seems like the memories that

he's giving are manufactured.

In the same breath, he will say, "I have no idea

"where it happened. Oh, it was at this place

they called The Stroll at the time."

And he is giving very specific details in times where he also

says he doesn't know anything about it,

and that kind of hints that he does know, but is kind of

stonewalling to maintain control at this point.

There isn't any feeling of sadness and remorse.

There's only a fear of what the penalty might be for it.

Nothing about this matches what we'd expect in someone who transformed their life

sitting in prison all those years.

So that's why I think it's a show, it's a...

He's throwing out his best little tidbit to try

and convince the police that he is somebody who has sorrow.

He's sorry for what he did, or he hurts.

This is painful to him, that he's also a human being.

It's absolutely clear his only concern is himself.

They're his dreams, his aspirations,

what his life could have been like,

but I think that matter-of-fact statement he makes at the end,

"But I'm here, and I make the best of it,"

is really descriptive of that living-in-the-present idea.

And we do see a lot of that in psychopathy, that people live

in the present moment, working on getting

what they want, but they very rarely dwell

on the past, if at all.