All language subtitles for Becoming.Evil.Serial.Killers.S01E01.WEBRip

William George Heirens.

Lonnie David Franklin Jr.

Albert Fish.

Harvey Murray Glatman.

Clifford Robert Olson Jr.

James D'Angelo.

Sheila LaBarre.

Jeffrey Lionel Dahmer.

Ordinary names, but
for serial killers,

ordinary names are
never good enough.

We have to give them
names that capture

their dark souls, names
that capture the evil

they have become.

Capture the rare, unthinkable.

The Lipstick Killer.

The Grim Sleeper.

The Brooklyn Vampire.

The Lonely Hearts Killer.

The Beast of British Columbia.

The Golden State Killer.

The Avenging Angel.

The Milwaukee Cannibal.

- When we hear about somebody
who moves from community

to community calculating
who to kill next,

which prostitute to get.

These crimes shock the
conscience because they

are so out of the ordinary.

They are so different
from what, sadly,

we've become quite used to.

The more ordinary rape,
the more ordinary assault,

the more ordinary robbery,

the more ordinary kidnapping.

There are these crimes that
just shock the conscience

and so I fully
understand why the public

is preoccupied with them.

I think they are so
outside the box that

we have this understandable
need to try to grasp,

why would somebody do that?

That's human nature.

Why would somebody take a rifle,

sit behind a barricade, and
wait for innocent victims?

Why would somebody do that?

Why would somebody look
for vulnerable children,

kidnap them, torture them
sexually, and kill them?

It's hard for us to
wrap our minds around

these kinds of crimes, and
it makes complete sense to me

that the average human
being would be both

fascinated by this,
horrified by this,

mystified by this, and
preoccupied by this.

Why, why, why?

- True crime.

Americans, particularly
women, love true crime,

a non fiction literature,
TV, and film genre

in which actual
crimes of real people

are explored in depth.

A genre which exploded
at the beginning

of the 21st century.

A genre that focuses on murder.

The more hideous and
bizarre, the better.

Cases in point:

the JonBenet murder,

the O.J. Simpson trial,

and Truman Capote's,
In Cold Blood.

All showed there was a
vast appetite all across

America for such
stories, but the biggest

sub category of true
crime is the story

of the serial killer.

These stories are the most
gruesome and shocking.

At the heart of these stories
lay perplexing questions.

Who are these serial killers?

Why do they kill?

How can they keep killing?

And are they a danger
to me and my family?

Prior to the true
crime explosion,

psychologists and
criminal investigators

thought they had the
serial killer figured out.

But it turns out the answers
are much more complex

and troubling.

Even the profile of the
typical serial killer

has changed dramatically.

It is a change in
the profile of who

serial killers are,
and why they kill.

It is a change that will
send chills up your spine.

In the past, largely
because of media portrayals,

the serial killer was a
white male somewhere between

20 and 40 years of age.

Psychopathic, and
probably quite smart.

No serial killer helped
to shape that media image

better than Ted Bundy.

- If you ever watch that
interview with Ted Bundy,

his last day before
he was executed,

the entire time, Bundy
is shifting his eyes.

He's watching very
carefully around him

because that's what
psychopaths do.

Psychopaths are about
control, they wanna control

their environment.

Healthy men, we
don't try to do that.

We don't try to control
our environment,

we just try to
survive for ourselves.

We're not trying to
control people around us.

True psychopaths,
that's what they do.

They control everybody
around them, the narrative.

- Theodore Robert
Bundy, also known as Ted Bundy,

or The Genius of Death,
is perhaps the best known

serial killer who ever lived.

A serial killer who broke
the mold in many ways.

A man who was estimated
to have killed anywhere

from 30 to 100 women.

A brutal serial killer
who told everyone that he

was a rapist who had to
kill in order to stay free.

Mysteriously, Ted Bundy
appeared to be anything

but a serial killer.

He was a Boy Scout,

a prominent member of
the Republican Party

in the state of Washington.

He even volunteered at
Seattle, Washington's

suicide hotline.

- Ted Bundy, who killed dozens
of women across the country,

also worked on a suicide
hotline in Seattle.

He also saved the life of a
four-year-old drowning boy.

And whether he was taking
lives or saving lives,

he was feeling powerful,

and that's a very important
motive among serial killers.

- Adding to
his mystique, Bundy was a

brilliant student admired
by his college professors.

- I think one of the
most interesting things

about Ted Bundy is the image
that people have of him.

He is seen as some kind of
misguided genius, you know,

really not such a bad guy.

I mean, after all he only
killed dozens of women

across the country you know,
in Washington, in Utah,

in Colorado, in
Michigan and Florida.

And, by the way, he
was also a rapist.

His last victim was a
12-year-old girl in Florida,

Kimberly Leach.

He murdered her by shoving
her face in the mud

until she suffocated.

You know, I don't see him
as a misguided anything.

I see him as a monster.

- As a serial
killer, Bundy had a number

of factors working in his favor.

He was an ordinary,
good looking guy.

A guy who used all the glad
handing skills he has learned

during his days of
associating with politicians.

- I think there's a myth
that is propagated because

Ted Bundy was a
charming, handsome guy.

It was easy for him
to lure his victims.

He didn't look like the
monster that he was.

He was extraordinary
ordinary in his appearance.

He looked like the last
person you'd suspect,

not the first, and that
I think colored the image

that we have or serial
killers ever since the 1970s.

- It is
the myth of the evil

serial killer genius.

The serial killer genius
brilliantly portrayed

by Anthony Hopkins
in the 1991 movie,

The Silence of the Lambs.

But with Ted Bundy, what
appeared to be genius

may have been dumb luck
more than anything else.

- One of the things about
Ted Bundy that I think

sets him apart, besides
the sheer number of women

that he killed,
was his chutzpah.

This was a guy who
was very brash in many

of the things that he did and
committed crimes that were,

that took a great deal
of risk to perform.

In one case, he went to a
very popular recreation area,

Lake Sammamish, and wore
a fake cast on his arm

and elicited the help of
two different young women

to help get a boat onto
or off of his automobile

and then actually got
him to accompany him to

another location where
twice in the same day,

he raped and murdered
these two women,

in the same location.

They were both kidnapped
from a very public place.

Numerous people
saw him that day,

were able to provide
descriptions of him that day,

were able to provide a
description of his automobile,

and yet he wasn't
apprehended after that.

- Bundy was
born in Burlington, Vermont

at the Elizabeth Lund
Home for Unwed Mothers.

The identity of his
father was never known,

though relatives were
suspicious about his grandfather

who was abusive and violent
to his mother, Louise.

Raised by his grandparents,
he believed his mother

was really his sister.

Indeed, the truth
about Bundy's young mom

was hidden for
the next 20 years.

In 1950, Louise and Ted
moved to Tacoma, Washington

where she married
Johnny Colpepper Bundy.

Throughout his childhood,
and into college,

Bundy remained shy and
never fit in socially.

While attending the
University of Washington,

he met a vivacious young
coed, Stephanie Brooks,

who later dumped him
because of his immaturity

and lack of ambition.

But Bundy wasn't
through with her.

In fact, in a macabre
fashion, he would never

be through with her.

In 1968, Bundy changed.

He became more ambitious,

a man who wanted
to be in charge.

He rekindled his
relationship with Stephanie.

Then, just after New Years
1974, he abruptly broke it off.

A few days later, he
began his violent attacks

against women.

Once Bundy began killing, he
became an insatiable murderer.

His signature was his brutality.

All his victims, except
the last, were killed by

a savage blow to the head.

At the same time, all
his victims looked like

his ex-girlfriend.

- Ted Bundy, he chose his
victims, I think because of

appearance of his girlfriend.

If you look at photographs
of his victims,

all of them had
the long, dark hair

and usually it's
parted down the middle

and there's a very
similar appearance

to each one of them
which is very similar

in appearance to his girlfriend.

- Bundy's
first known murder victim

was a 20-year-old college
student, Lynda Ann Healy.

Bundy snuck into her apartment,
knocked her unconscious,

wrapped her in a sheet,
and carried her out

of the apartment.

Her skull was
found a year later.

Now, Bundy's frenzy
for rape and murder

dominated him completely.

For the next year and a
half, Bundy murdered at least

27 women as he traveled
through Oregon,

Colorado, and Utah on
a brutal killing spree.

Police in each state
reported female victims,

all young and attractive.

He was finally captured
in Granger, Utah,

after a botched kidnapping.

Bundy was sentenced to 15 years,

but escaping from jail,
he made it to Florida

where he killed at
least three more times

before he was caught
and sentenced to death

in Florida's electric
chair, Old Sparky.

On January 24, 1989, the
so-called Genius of Death

was himself finally dead.

So, what is the truth about
who are serial killers?

Criminal psychologist
Dr. Erik Hickey

updates the serial
killer profile.

- There are thousands
of movies done about

white serial killers,
but there's only one that

was ever done about a
black serial killer,

and according to FBI definition,

over 50% of all serial
killers are African American.

- For example,
Lonnie Franklin was

a black serial killer
who lived in Los Angeles.

He was known as
the Grim Sleeper.

The nickname was due to a 14
year hiatus in the murders,

from 1988 to 2002.

The murders occurred
in Los Angeles.

- He was going after
black women, okay,

and they're prostitutes,
low hanging fruit.

Easy to get to, people
aren't gonna miss them.

He wasn't going after
middle-class black women

or wealthy women, he was
going after black prostitutes

who really were kind of faceless

and that really kind
of made him invisible.

The only reason he
came back to light

was because it had been 14 years
and they made a connection.

Did he kill other people?

Possibly.

They have not made
that connection yet.

Some day they actually
might make that connection

because he was kind of
hiding in plain sight.

He was right there.

Police went by him all the time.

- Neighbors
described Franklin as friendly

and quiet.

He would sometimes stop
to chat with people

in the neighborhood
and was frequently seen

working on cars
in his front yard.

Lonnie openly spoke with
contempt about prostitutes

and said they deserved to die.

He showed friends photographs
he had taken of women

in sexually explicit poses.

A fried of Franklin's said,

"He would have
violent fantasies.

"He was putting the
girls down, saying,

"'Someone is going
to kill these girls.'

"Saying they were
going to wind up dead."

Interestingly, Franklin
used the same small caliber

revolver to murder his victims

after assaulting and
strangling them and then kept

photos of his victims
as trophies in his home.

His known victims
included Debra Jackson,

Henrietta Wright,

Barbara Ware,

Bonita Sparks,

Mary Lowe,

Alice "Monique" Alexander,

Lachrica Jefferson,

Enietra Washington,

Valerie McCorvey,

Janecia Peters,

and Princess Berthomieux.

Franklin was apprehended
when DNA evidence linked him

to the murders.

He was arrested on July 7, 2010

at his home in the Manchester
Square neighborhood.

He was finally
convicted for the deaths

of nine women, and
a teenage girl,

and was sentenced to
death on August 10, 2016.

Another less known
black serial killer

was the Milwaukee
North Side Strangler,

a name given to Walter E. Ellis

who raped and strangled
seven female prostitutes

in the city of
Milwaukee, Wisconsin

between 1986 and 2007.

- Usually he was kind of
in that seedy underbelly

of the city and he'd grab
women off the streets

and he'd take them to
abandoned, filthy buildings

and kill 'em and then
leave their bodies.

They finally caught him
after, I think, 12 years.

And what they did was, they
got DNA from him on a victim

and they charged the
DNA, the donor of the DNA

to keep the case open so
when they arrested the guy,

the sexual assaults
wouldn't have run out

because of time limits.

So they charged that DNA.

It was a great move, great move.

- On February
24, 2011, Ellis was given

seven life sentences.

Two years later,
he died in prison.

Notice that the
killing pattern here

fits the mold of many
white, male serial killers.

Men hiding in plain sight,

while at night brutally
killing female victims

lost to the world
through prostitution,

drugs, and homelessness.

FBI agents now know
that Hispanics also fit

the profile of a serial killer.

The most notorious
was Richard Ramirez,

known as the Night Stalker.

Born in Texas in 1960,
Richard Ramirez was

a Hispanic American serial
killer who murdered at least

14 people and raped and
tortured at least two dozen more

mostly during the spring
and summer of 1985.

After developing
epilepsy as a child,

he became a heavy drug
user and cultivated

an interest in Satanism
which became a calling card

for investigators
at his crime scenes.

His fall into complete
evil and a life of killing

began in California at age 24.

He lived in LA, where
petty theft and burglaries

bankrolled his drug habit.

Then, stealing turned to murder.

- One of the things
that sets him apart

a little bit is the fact
that he was a home invader.

You know, that's a
little bit different.

But again you have a guy who
I think got caught up in the

mythology of it and
the attention of it.

He loved it.

He played into it.

He specifically tailored
his acts to attain

additional attention.

- Jenny
Vincow, age 79,

was an elderly
woman, a grandmother.

In June 1984, Ramirez
broke into her room

and when he couldn't
find anything of value,

rage took over.

He stabbed her and then,
like Jack the Ripper,

he slit her throat and
mutilated her corpse.

This began his
terror up and down

the coast of California.

- When Ramirez would attack
middle class families

in the middle of the night,

he was seen as a tremendous
threat to the residents

of Los Angeles.

He was seen as what he was:

a guy who could attack anyone,

which means that
you could be next.

And that terrified the
people who lived there.

- He was
the worst of them all.

He entered where people
thought they were the safest,

their homes.

He shot some, he stabbed some,

and he kicked some to death.

He mutilated the bodies of many.

In the end, 14 were dead,
and who knows how many others

he raped and sodomized.

But one of these
victims escaped.

Apprehended in August 1985,
Ramirez was sentenced to death

at the conclusion of
his trial in 1989.

He spent the
remainder of his days

at California's San
Quentin Prison before dying

from cancer on June
7, 2013 at age 53.

But not all serial killers
take women as victims.

Some prefer boys, and young men.

Such was the case
of John Wayne Gacy,

the Clown Killer, a
disreputable, homosexual
serial killer.

This overtly macho man
with the name John Wayne

would kill at least
33 young men and boys

between the age of 15 and 21.

John Wayne Gacy was born
in Chicago, Illinois

on March 17, 1942 and
like most serial killers,

he had a troubled youth.

- John Gacy apparently had
a very overbearing father,

a dominating father.

They make a lot of the fact
that he would disappear

into his basement you know
after drunkenly raging

upon the family, he would
then disappear into a basement

to which the children
were not allowed.

But essentially, Gacy
was a man who lived,

in his day to life,
as sexually straight.

He had a wife, he had children.

He was a known person
in his community.

He dressed as a clown and
did children's parties

and things of this nature, yet,

he obviously had within him
not only the violent desire to

control and murder
people, but he controlled

and murdered boys.

His homosexual nature of
his crimes was in stark

contrast to his day to
day life where he lived

as a straight man and an
upright model of the community,

but he apparently used the
lure of kind of a party,

like hey, you know in
my basement you can

watch porno movies,
you can smoke pot,

you can get drunk even
though you're not old enough.

And he apparently had
something that he called

the handcuff trick, where
he would show that he had

this trick pair of handcuffs
and he'd put 'em on

and then show how they came off,

and then he would either
switch the handcuffs

to a different pair or
use the same pair but not

share the trick of
how to get off them,

put them on, and once he
had control of the victim,

he gave into his, the
darkest of inner demons,

and tortured his victims,
apparently, at length,

and over an extended period
of time before killing them

and then ultimately depositing
them in his basement

with lime as well to
hasten the decomposition

of their bodies.

- Typical of a
blossoming serial killer,

Gacy's perverted behavior
surfaced in his mid-20s.

He was prosecuted for
sodomizing two teenage boys

in Waterloo, Iowa in 1968.

He probably committed
more criminal acts

for which he wasn't caught.

After two years in
prison, he was paroled

and moved back to Chicago,
where, hidden from his friends,

family, and social
community, he continued his

perverted actions,
sodomizing young boys.

Then in 1975, he crossed over
the line and began killing.

He chose to kill, knowing
full well that it was wrong.

His targets were young
men and boys who have

been defined by criminologists
as the "less dead."

Men and women who live on
the fringes of society.

People who, if killed,
would not be missed.

In Gacy's case, young
male prostitutes

and homeless runaways.

- There was actually a
reporter in Chicago who had

sort of had connections
within the gay community

and there was talk
amongst the gay community,

the prostitute
community at least,

that an awful lot of boys
were going missing without

you know, being known.

And in fact, there was a case
of one boy who had been taken

to Gacy's house.

He had played the
handcuff trick on him,

he choked him, he had
liked repeatedly forced

his head underwater in a
bathtub and let him breathe

and then put him back
underwater, almost to death.

And then for reasons
known only to Gacy,

he let him go, and this
young fella remembered

the type of car
that the rapist had,

and sort of what the
exit looked like that he

got off the highway and
his family waited there at

that exit, waiting for
someone to come who had

a car that looked like what
he said the car looked like.

They found it, they
followed him to his house,

they reported it to he
police, the police came,

they investigated, but did
not believe the boy's story

and Gacy was able to
continue his activities

for several years.

- But like
many serial killers,

John Wayne Gacy became
cocky and overconfident.

- He had abducted a boy who
had just left a drugstore

where he'd picked up
some photographs that had

been developed.

When the boy disappeared,
Gacy's name came up.

Gacy had some record, I
mean he did have a record of

having, you know, of
some sexual crimes

and so that was a red
flag for the cops.

They came to his house,
they searched his house,

and they found the ticket
for those photographs

and so they knew that the
boy had been in his house.

- He was pretty
bold in the way he

committed his killings.

He seemed to think that
if put lime on there,

no one was gonna smell the
dead bodies deteriorating,

and basically that was
his fallibility because

a police officer who
had been actually

having dinner with Gacy,
Gacy had been playing a game

'cause he'd been
under surveillance
for a long time after

a lieutenant in the Des
Plaines Police Department

had taken more time with
this missing persons case

because his boy was
the same age as the boy

who was missing.

And they had had him under
surveillance for a long time

and Gacy just invited
them up for supper.

So they went and he
couldn't get this feeling

of smelling something and
he didn't know what it was.

And for days, he
couldn't figure it out

and it finally dawned on
him, it was autopsy smell.

So that's when
they got a warrant,

based on a police officer's
nose and, you know,

Gacy was done, right
then and there.

- The Gacy
case so incredible,

killing and burying
30 young victims

right in his own home.

So terrible and so sensational,

that serial killers began
gaining celebrity status,

almost lionized as anti heroes.

But John Wayne Gacy was
anything but an anti hero.

He was no more than a
pathetic man who chose

to kill again and again.

Just as ethnic minorities
and homosexual men

joined the recognized
ranks of serial killers,

so did women.

Perhaps their number of victims
even exceed that of men.

- We've certainly had females
who are more aggressive

than some male serial killers.

There isn't a way to say
there's a female type

of serial killer because
some kill for gain.

Quite often they kill for gain,

they kill their husbands,
they, you know, for insurance

or whatever the husband has.

They might kill their
children because the children

are a burden or they're
looking for attention

or they have a mental illness.

Quite often, you're
going to find something

like Munchausen syndrome
by proxy in that group

or borderline
personality disorder

or something like that.

But we still do have
predatory females who are

looking for personal gain.

They don't tend to kill
for reasons of lust,

but some have.

I have actually seen
statements where there is

no such thing as a
female lust murderer

and that's just not true.

- There was
the case of Gail Graham

and Catherine May Wood.

- There were two who
worked together in an

elder care facility in
Michigan and they would

together kill patients and then,
as part of their sex games,

and then wash down the
bodies and have sex

in a vacant room

- The two women
met at the Alpine Manor

Nursing Home shortly after
Graham had moved to Michigan

from Texas.

They quickly became friends,
and then lovers, in 1986.

Two years later, they both
were facing murder charges

for allegedly smothering
five elderly patients

as part of a love bond.

Wood claimed Graham
murdered the patient to

relieve her tension.

Wood was described as the
psychopathic manipulator,

and Graham as a
susceptible woman with

a personality disorder.

Graham in serving a life
sentence and Wood was given

early release from prison.

So not only are women part
of the expanded profile

of the serial killer,
but also gay women.

So, serial killers are
not just white males.

In fact, serial killers are
represented by a full spectrum

of gender and racial diversity.

But what about the idea
that serial killers

are all clever,
intelligent, even brilliant?

That idea came from an
early sample of interviews

with white, male serial killers.

- The early profilers in
the behavioral science unit

as it was called
then, it's now the

behavioral analysis unit,
but they went around

and did some prison
interviews which were not

in any way representative.

It was white, incarcerated,
articulate serial killers

who agreed to talk to them.

That is not a representative
population by any means.

So, from that, they generated
notions about serial killers,

and if you pick the ones who
are articulate and smart,

it's going to seem
as if serial killers

are smarter than
the average person.

But we know that
that is not true.

There is diversity
in their intellect,

in their range of IQ
scores just as there is

everything else about them.

So unfortunately many
of the early ideas

that ended up in
criminological textbooks

and other kinds of mass media
books about serial killers

came from studies that really
weren't representative at all

of serial killers.

- Interestingly,
the definition of the

serial killer has changed over
the recent decades as well.

- The concept of a serial
killer has evolved from being

someone who kills in at
least three locations,

at least three incidents
with a cooling off period,

to now someone who kills
in at least two incidents

without any of the
psychological framework and so

that makes a difference
in terms of what

we think about what goes on
in the mind of a murderer.

Generally speaking, we tend
to focus on what's usually

called the classic serial
killer, which is generally

driven by lust.

- Indeed,
for many psychologists

and law enforcement
investigators,

having a sexual component
to the serial killings

was believed to be
essential motivation behind

these cruel acts.

- Many serial killers
have used sex as a vehicle

for gaining a sense
of power and control

and dominance over
their victims.

It's not just
taking their lives.

It's making their
victims suffer.

They maximize the pain,
and it's not enough to view

the pain and suffering
of their victims.

They personally are
responsible for it

and that gives them a
sense of superiority.

The more their poor victims
scream and beg for mercy,

the better they feel
about themselves.

And that's part of the
motivation of a serial killer.

Sex is the medium
through which they feel

great accomplishments.

What you and I might
see as dastardly,

as hideous, as grotesque,

these serial killers
see as their greatest

achievements in life.

- The sexual
component in serial killings

can take many forms.

Gary Ridgway, Washington
state's Green River Killer,

strangled his female victims,
and dumped their bodies

in forested and overgrown areas
of King County, Washington.

Later he returned to
the bodies to have

sexual intercourse with them.

Notorious Son of
Sam, David Berkowitz,

appeared to be an exception.

- Berkowitz, the.44
Caliber Killer or whatever

he's referred to, is also
referred to as Son of Sam

because of the dog that
he supposedly heard from

that told him to
commit these acts,

which he claimed at one time...

I think killed
because he enjoyed it.

I think he's just one of
those people that was enraged

and probably had some
trauma in his background.

That was primed to go out
and start shooting people.

He may have been lonely,
you know, there are a number

of explanations that you
can give because there's not

a whole lot of detail
known about Berkowitz

prior to the killings.

But as to what makes him tick,

I think it's,

I don't know, I
think it's trauma

and the trauma that caused
the rage that finally

broke out into what he
considered his fantasies

which was shooting
people, shooting couples,

with a weapon,

a.44 caliber revolver.

- Most serial killers
are up close and personal

with their victims.

They use their hands.

They strangle, they stab,

they mutilate, and that's
what makes them feel good,

it's the control that
they have over the pain

and suffering of
their poor victims.

But Son of Sam was different.

David Berkowitz used
a fire arm to kill his

sixth victim, so he
actually distanced himself

from them and it's
that fact alone

that makes you wonder
what his motive was.

- The
Son of Sam was born

Richard David Falco in
Brooklyn, New York in 1953.

The adopted son of Nathan
and Pearl Berkowitz,

he was an odd and aloof child.

He delighted in setting fires.

Berkowitz joined the
US Airforce and served

from 1971 to 1974.

As he matured, a dark and
compulsive need to kill

took over his body.

A need he could not
suppress for very long.

His reign or terror
lasted from July 1976

to July 1977.

He shot unsuspecting victims
from point blank range,

killing six and wounding seven.

During this time, the New
York Police Department

erupted with eyewitness
accounts of a mysterious

and elusive assailant.

Terror engulfed the city.

Berkowitz especially loved
young, attractive women

with long, brunette hair,

and many frightened girls
dyed their hair blonde.

He also enjoyed sending
letters around the city,

taunting police.

"Dear Captain Joseph Borrelli,

"I am deeply hurt by your
calling me a wemon hater.

"I am not.

"But I am a monster.

"I am the 'Son of Sam.'

"I am a little brat.

"Police let me haunt
you with these words:

"I'll be back!

"I'll be back!

"To be interpreted as
bang, bang, bang!

"Yours in murder, Mr. Monster."

Berkowitz is now serving
six life sentences,

but where was the
sexual component?

- Berkowitz is a serial
killer, you know that,

and he was basically in
one place, a neighborhood,

where he killed
lovers, ladies, okay.

Well how is that
a serial killer?

What's the sexual
component to that?

Well the sexual component
is he would come back

to the crime scene
and masturbate.

So there was even a
sexual component to

what Berkowitz did,
even though his murders

were not hands on.

He would fire into the car.

- However, 21st
century serial killer experts

no longer believe there has
to be a sexual component

to serial murder.

- When we're talking
about male serial killers,

especially here in the US,
about two thirds of them

have a sexual component to
their murders and there's

sort of a myth about
that that there,

if you're a serial killer you
must be a sexual predator.

Well, there's some truth
to that, obviously,

when we say about
two thirds do that.

And it's a variety of
sexual things that they do

with their victims.

But there's the other
third that, you know,

they might do it for money.

They may do it for you
know, power, or simply that

it's a racial issue.

But for that two thirds,
yeah, it's a pretty

interesting group.

- There can be anything
from glory or fame to lust

to paraphilias, which
is a special type

of sexual deviancy
which results in weird

kind of rituals.

It could also be for profit.

It could be philosophical.

We had a couple of
serial killers who are

killing for existential
kinds of reasons.

So the mind of a murderer
really depends on

what's going on with
a particular killer.

- Within the
group of serial killers

that are sexual predators,

some are sadistic
like John Wayne Gacy,

and torture their victims
before they kill them.

- John Wayne Gacy was a
very sexually sadistic

serial killer.

I mean, he didn't
just kill his victims,

he tortured them to
death very slowly.

We know that he would chew
off the penises of some

of his victims while
they were alive

and he would also put a
wire around their neck

and like a stick, he would
turn it slowly while he

read to them from his Bible.

So, he really enjoyed, and
he had a ball in their mouths

so he could hear them
scream but other people

couldn't hear them scream.

So he enjoyed that
kind of power over them

and it was very sexually
arousing to them to hear them

screaming and crying while
they're dying slowly.

He killed 33 young men that way.

- A case of a
non sadistic sexual predator

is Larry DeWayne Hall.

Born in 1962, the
son of an undertaker,

he was bullied as a youth.

Between 1987 and 1994, he
killed at least 54 women.

- And Larry was a necrophile.

And when you find when
you interview necrophiles

that they tend to be, they
have attachments to people.

They're usually not sadistic.

They're much more into
having a relationship

with the corpse and some
want them dead immediately,

and so they'll snap
their necks or suffocate

them very quickly and
have sex with them.

Others will kill them
and then bury them,

like the Green River Killer,

and let them cool off
for a couple of days.

And then they will have
sex with the bodies

and mutilate the corpses.

- One idea about
the mind of serial killers,

particularly sexual
predators, that there seems to

be some agreement about
is the idea that these

vile killers have a
rich fantasy life about

their evil deeds.

- Men serial killers that
are involved in sex crimes

have a very, very bizarre,
strange and violent

fantasy life in their head

and it gets stranger and
stranger and more violent

as it progresses, okay?

And it's all encompassing.

It's there almost all the time.

Westley Dodd, who abducted
young boys and killed them

said that he dreamt
about his fantasies.

They were there 24/7.

How he could maintain a
job is beyond me, okay?

And there was a
gentleman from Wisconsin,

John Weber, who basically,
his fantasies were so intense,

he had to leave his work
station about four or five

times a day to go to the
bathroom and masturbate at work.

- Westley
Dodd, known as the

Vancouver Child Killer, was
born in Walla Walla, Washington.

Dodd, one of the worst of
the worst serial killers,

was convicted of three
counts of first degree murder

of innocent children.

- I would do it again.

I've been molesting kids
non stop since I was

13-years-old, over half my life.

Anything happened, I can
guarantee I'd do it again

and sooner or later I
would kill another child.

I've done it before and
at the time, I liked it.

- Westley Dodd is
what's called a misoped.

He is an individual
that abducts children

for the sole purpose of
sexual assault and murder.

They are much worse
than pedophiles.

A pedophile might
sexually assault a child,

but certainly not
kill that child.

But misopeds kill children.

He would pick them up
from parks, take 'em home,

keep 'em for a few days.

Torture them, sleep with
them, and then he'd kind of

whisper at night, "I'm gonna
kill you tomorrow morning."

And the little boy would say,

"No you're not
gonna do that."

And he would back from
work or wherever he was

and he would kill the child.

He was arrested trying
to abduct a young boy

from a movie theater
and the boy was putting

up a fight and somebody
came over and he said,

"Is this your dad?"

"It's not my dad," et cetera
and the police arrested him

and the rest is history for him.

He was executed.

- It turns
out serial killers say

in interviews the
reality is never as good

as the fantasy, which is
one of the reasons that

they keep killing: to
fulfill their fantasy.

One of the early debates
over serial killers

is the bad seed debate.

Whether the serial
killer, like Westley Dodd,

was the worst of the
worst, is born evil

or becomes evil as a
result of circumstances.

- If you're looking at the
bad seed notion that somebody

might be born to be evil,

we do have brain research
right now for psychopaths

that suggests there is a
difference in their brain.

That does not
necessarily translate to

all serial killers.

And we don't really yet
know particularly what that

difference amounts to,
whether it's causal,

correlational, it's not clear.

So, the idea of is it
nature versus nurture,

or the bad seed, it's
always a mix of all of them

because you could a
certain type of a brain

physiology that tends
to be something we see

in psychopaths or predators
and yet you were raised

in a loving home with
all kinds of advantages

and you did not become
a serial killer.

On the other hand, you
might not have that

brain physiology, you might
even have all kinds of

social advantages and
economic advantages

and still become a serial killer
for other types of reasons.

So, you really can't
say it's a bad seed.

It certainly might
be in the mix,

but it's impossible to
say how much is nature

and how much is nurture
for any given case.

- It's also a
myth that serial killers

are crazy, that they don't
know what they're doing.

- Most serial killers
are not insane

in either a legal or
a psychiatric sense.

They generally
don't hallucinate.

They don't hear voices
in an empty room.

They don't talk to dogs.

They don't suffer from a
profound thought disorder.

Most of them know the difference
between right and wrong,

they know what they're
doing is wrong,

but they choose to do
it because it makes

them feel so good because
it gives them that sense

of superiority that they crave.

Most of them are
sociopaths, or psychopaths,

if you prefer.

They have a disorder of
character and personality

that doesn't qualify for
the insanity defense.

But they lack a
conscience, they lack what

Sigmund Freud
called a Super Ego.

They don't feel remorseful
when they do the wrong thing.

- Well it's now
officially referred to as

anti social
personality disorder,

which is kind of a mouthful.

Sociopath and psychopath
are used interchangeably.

Probably the best definition
came from Robert Hare,

a Canadian who talked
about the fact that

they don't have any empathy,

very easy for them
to manipulate people.

They see people as objects.

They see people as ways
to meet their own ends,

whether they're
going to kill them,

whether they're going
to climb beyond them

to a higher step in industry.

Not all sociopaths
are serial killers.

There's probably a
number of sociopaths,

although the business
community might call them

Type A personalities,
who are, you know,

way up in corporations,
and got there because of

their willingness
to step over people

and be very ruthless
in how they got there.

So, in the context of a
serial killer, he doesn't care

about the victims.

He wants them to be easy, he
wants them to be vulnerable,

because that adds to his thrill.

He wants power
over those people.

He wants to be able to
dominate them and control them

for a period of time before
he or she kills them.

- Someone like a Ted Bundy.

If you were to interview
a Ted Bundy type,

he's a 35 on the PCLR.

The PCLR, and Dr.
Robert Hare from Canada,

developed this wonderful
scale, zero to 40 points.

Most people are between
four and an eight.

Occasional criminals
are like 10 to 16, 17.

And then you get sociopaths,
I call them sociopaths,

between 18 and 28, 29,
and then 30 and above

are true psychopaths
out of 40 points.

Ted Bundy is a 35 on that
scale, and the higher you

go on the scale, the more
psychopathy you have,

the more psychopathic you are,

that means the less
attachments you have,

the less conscience you
have, the less emotion,

you have no empathy when
you're high on that scale.

But if you're a
sociopath, you still have

emotional attachments,
you still love your mom,

but you commit a lot of crime.

You're still antisocial,

both of them are antisocial,
sociopaths and psychopaths,

but the sociopaths
are just average

to below average intelligence.

They're not as
skillful as the others.

They still love their
moms, they're impulsive,

they don't learn
from their mistakes,

they have long histories
of criminal behavior.

When you look at psychopaths,

they have less histories
of criminal behavior,

they don't have a
conscience at all.

Scott Jacobs calls them
the people of the lie.

They lie when they
don't have to lie.

They're very narcicisstic,

they can manipulate, they
have a lot of social skills

to be able to con people.

They're social chameleons.

And so, you don't see a lot
of those people in prison.

You see a lot of
sociopaths in prison,

but not a lot of
true psychopaths.

- So serial
killers fall on the far end

of the spectrum of
behavioral disorders,

as well as the far end of
the spectrum of murderers.

Murderers that defy explanation.

- Serial killers, for all the
books, all the documentaries

and TV shows, I think it's
a little understood crime.

Until the last 20
years, the FBI believed

that they were all sex crimes.

But that's understandable.

The people in the
behavioral science unit

were all 50-year-old men
and according to Freud,

sex is their whole prism,
their whole framework.

It's been true for a long time,

there are multiple
causes of serial murder.

You can't generalize,
of course, a population

of serial killers because
their motives are so different.

Some believe they are ridding
the world of bad people.

Others want that
power over somebody.

Many wanna communicate
or get attention,

some want revenge, some
have political or religious

axes to grind, so
in my perception,

the multiplicity of
serial killer motives kind

of frustrates an understanding
and you can't use

one cookie cutter and
understand all of them

because they're just so
very, very different.

- Two things
that haven't changed in the

study of serial killers
are the concepts of

modus operandi, and signature.

- MO, modus operandi, is what
is necessary for a killer

to complete the job, or any
criminal for that matter.

You go in through
the broken window,

you jimmy a door lock
and you get in, okay?

The modus operandi can
change depending on the job

and what's happening
in the killer's mind.

The signature is something
that is not necessary

for the completion of the crime.

It's something that the
killer does in his mind

to help with the fantasy.

The signature never
changes, ever.

For example, somebody
breaks into a house,

they tie a woman up,

they take her money, they
stab her a couple of times.

He might have done
that a number of times,

but he might put some
writing on the wall

or writing on the refrigerator.

That's the signature.

That never changes.

So there's the difference.

- For example,
the Night Stalker,

Richard Ramirez, always
left an upside down

pentagram somewhere at
the scene of the crime,

sometimes on the
body of the victim.

It was always drawn with
the victim's own lipstick

and was even drawn on the
inner thighs of a victim

who had been sexually
assaulted before death.

So why do serial killers kill?

Why do some people
fantasize about killing,

but never go through with it?

Sadly, there is no
silver bullet answer.

There is no one reason
why serial killers kill.

Each case of serial killing
has its own story to tell.

Perhaps that is why the
evil of serial killers

has held us so
firmly in its grip.