All language subtitles for Signs of a Psychopath S11E05 1080p WEB h264-EDITH_track3_[eng]

[sinister tones playing]

[theme music playing]

[man] The thing inside of me,

it's like...

the appetite.
It's like a wolf that's...

feeling the hunger.

[reporter]
43-year-old Mary Fowler
of Greenville

and 44-year-old James Dobson
of Easley were found

on the side of Interstate 85
between Anderson and Townville

around 6:30 on the morning
of Christmas Eve.

A passerby says he saw
Dobson's arm waving

from the shoulder
of the southbound highway,

while Fowler was unconscious.

[uneasy tones playing]

[Dr. Saraiya] Villarreal is
coming out of the gate,

kind of building an alternative
theory of the crime.

He's got an agenda.

He's got a story that he wants
to put out there.

He is starting out trying
to sort of cast suspicion

on somebody else.

A lot of times,
the psychopathic individuals

feel pretty self assured.

They're pretty confident that

they're the smartest person
in the room.

You can see the gears turning,
and he feels like he's got

a shot at outsmarting
the detective.

[Dr. Sahni] The assertiveness
that Villarreal shows

speaks to his narcissism.

And when the detectives start
to push him on this friend

that he describes as being
like a sister to him,

he has to correct the record.

He has to continue to be
this important person

who's socially competent.

He has just not girlfriend,
but a fiancée.

And the fact that she's 17,
the fact that they met online,

the fact that he's never
actually met her in person is

an inconvenient reality.

And when he's confronted
with that, he can't adopt

that reality.

His narcissism is injured,
his ego is injured,

but he also can't accept that
his view of the world is

incorrect or somehow
fantasy-based.

Because this is a kid who lives
his entire life in a scripted,

fantasy fashion.

[Dr. de la Torre]
It's important to make
a distinction between

psychopaths who are
actually intelligent

versus those individuals
who are pseudo-intellectual.

The intelligent psychopath is
constantly setting up

test balloons.

He's constantly thinking about,

"What's the next thing
that I can say, that I can
manipulate others."

Whether they're successful
or not, that's up

to other people.

But what we see with Villarreal

is that he's so unsophisticated
in his thinking.

He wants to be the smartest
person in the room.

And in doing so, you just
kind of feel put off.

You kind of feel
as if he's the phony.

A poser is probably the best
word to describe

anybody's interaction with him.

[somber tones playing]

He's trying to take control
of the situation here now.

He's decided, you know,

"I'm gonna be the one
who tells the truth.

"And then I'm gonna sort of
humble myself before God

because that's what one does."

With the idea that this is
gonna evoke

some kind of empathy.

But I think there's some
of that, like,

teenage boy kind of wanting
to sort of pump his chest

in front of these, you know,
actual detectives,

these actual grown men,
and sort of try

to kind of be on the same
level as them.

[soft eerie music playing]

When we think about failures,
just overall,

we usually attribute them
to some external force

or some internal force.

Now, as a typical human,

you want a kind of mixture
of both.

With the psychopath, though,

everything is attributed
to the external.

It's a lot easier
to blame other people.

Failure to him is never
failure about himself.

Failure to him is
an opportunity

to become better.

And that's the concerning part,

because if he's allowed
to become better,

I think he learns how to become
more sophisticated

so that he doesn't get caught.

This is the most intense
emotion we've seen from him.

Right at the point where
he's recounting and reliving

the details of when he overtook

and gained control over
the vehicle and the victims,

and he started shooting them.

What we see is somebody
who's titillated by his actions.

He's excited by them.

He's reliving an entirely
second adrenaline rush.

And this is that thrill-seeking
behavior that we talk about

with psychopathic individuals.

What we don't hear
from Villarreal is regret.

We don't hear remorse.

We don't see a stress response.

We don't see anything but
callousness and grandiosity.

So when we take a look
at his description of

what James Dobson could be
doing in terms of,

"Well, maybe he has a gun."

Could there be a sort
of self-defense motive

associated with that,

that "I needed to shoot Dobson
because I knew he had a gun?"

Maybe.

But I think it was more that
he understood that

there was a way in which

you have to take out
your targets.

It was more about
recognizing the threat level.

He wanted these investigators
to believe that the sign,

the Marines on his T-shirt,
was more indicative with how

he saw the world.

The truth is, is that
he didn't have to engage

in any of these behaviors.
He just wanted to.

He's playing out this fantasy.

I mean, you could see
he's had this, he's imagined,

you know, what it would be like
to do this so-called

wet extraction.

He's thought through these
kind of, some of them being

mundane details,
like a spy in a movie.

There's definitely a fantasy
there about killing.

Villarreal is really showing us
the depths of his confusion

of what's real
and what's fantasy.

He's just going through
the motions as if he's been

in training as special forces
in how to do an extraction

of a high-value asset.

And yet, this is a 22-year-old
scrawny kid who's struggling

in a man's body to be an adult.

He's patronizing,
he's grandiose.

What we're seeing is
his psychopathic narcissism.

He doesn't even

recognize the ridiculousness
of what he's saying

and who his audience is.

It's all just a facade
that he wants other people,

but more importantly, himself,
to believe about who he is.

But it wouldn't have taken
very long for him to plan out

another kill.

It was never going to be
the wet extraction

that he planned.
It was never going to be that.

Because that takes a level
of effort that he is not

capable of engaging in.

It always needed to be
a startle response.

[Dr. de la Torre]
So he says the quiet part
out loud, right?

That's what every psychopath
thinks when they enter

into the interrogation room.

Got a 50-50 chance
of getting away with this.

He thought he could get
away with it.

And if it weren't
for these police officers,

he never would have
admitted to it.

There's nothing about him
that is actually contrite.

He doesn't actually believe

in the deity that is God.

All he believes is in the rote,
mechanistic jingoisms that

he reads online, and he will
use whatever one that he needs

to use in whatever situation
he finds himself in.

A hitchhiker will spend life in
prison for a series of crimes,

including a deadly shooting
on the side of Interstate 85.

[Judge] How do you plead
to the offense of murder?

Guilty.

[reporter] In addition
to the life sentence,

the judge also sentenced him
to 60 years

for attempted murder
and carjacking

and five years
for a weapons charge.