Latest / Crime Night / The Taggammuh Killer: Narcissism, Filmed Crimes, and the Rejection of Sanity

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The Taggammuh Killer: Narcissism, Filmed Crimes, and the Rejection of Sanity · Crime Night

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Welcome back to the deep Dive. Today, we're getting into
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: a case that's really pushed the boundaries of what we
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  Speaker 1: thought we understood about serial offenders recently. We're focusing on
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  Speaker 1: the trial and the psychological makeup of Kareem, known as
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  Speaker 1: the Tagamu killer.
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  Speaker 2: Right, and Tagamu for listeners, is the district where these
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  Speaker 2: awful events happened. The verdict just came down and his
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  Speaker 2: papers were referred to the Mufti.
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  Speaker 1: That's a significant step in that legal system, isn't it
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  Speaker 1: It is.
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  Speaker 2: It's basically a required procedural confirmation from the religious authority
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  Speaker 2: before a death sentence can actually be finalized and carried out.
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  Speaker 2: So it marks the end of a trial that was
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  Speaker 2: just full of unprecedented elements.
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  Speaker 1: And the reason's hit so hard, I think is the
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  Speaker 1: man himself, Kareem. Our sources painted picture unlike anything we've
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  Speaker 1: seen in quite a while.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, we're talking about someone with high intelligence, educated even
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  Speaker 2: but his actions driven purely by what the court documents
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  Speaker 2: called primal instincts and desires.
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  Speaker 1: Like morality, faith consequences that factored.
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  Speaker 2: In seemingly not it was overridden, and it's really crucial
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  Speaker 2: to stress the role of narcotics. Here, chronic drug use
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  Speaker 2: was central fueling this, this emorality.
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  Speaker 1: So high functioning, but in a calculated, almost predatory way,
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  Speaker 1: a deliberate choice to reject the rules.
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  Speaker 2: Exactly calculated is the word.
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  Speaker 1: Okay, let's unpack that. We have this intelligent person choosing
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  Speaker 1: complete moral vacuum when the authority is finally caught up.
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  Speaker 1: His reaction wasn't just panic, was it? It was something else?
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  Speaker 2: No, it really wasn't. The initial attempt to arrest him.
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  Speaker 2: That tells you a lot about his ego. What happened there, Well,
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  Speaker 2: when the police moved in, he didn't just try to run.
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  Speaker 2: He actually tried to hit the prosecutor with his car.
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  Speaker 1: Seriously right, hit the prosecutor.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, it wasn't just about escaping. It felt like an
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  Speaker 2: attempt to dominate the situation, you know, to defy the
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  Speaker 2: legal authority right to the very end. He needed to
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  Speaker 2: be the powerful one even then, that need for control.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, it connects to the evidence itself, doesn't it. The
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  Speaker 1: most chilling part for me was finding out he documented.
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  Speaker 2: Everything, filmed his own crimes, yes, meticulously.
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  Speaker 1: Creating a perfect record of his own.
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  Speaker 2: Guilt, exactly, a perfect digital record and yet here's the twist,
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  Speaker 2: the paradox of that extreme narcissism. In court, he stands
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  Speaker 2: up and claims he was tortured, tortured, portured, forced to
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  Speaker 2: confess both at the police station and during prosecution.
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  Speaker 1: Question Right, he filmed it himself. Why claim coercion when
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  Speaker 1: you have the ultimate proof created by you? This is
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  Speaker 1: where it gets really interesting.
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  Speaker 2: Psychologically, it's pure ego defense. His own videos already proved
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  Speaker 2: the crimes. Right, So claiming torture wasn't about avoiding the sentence.
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  Speaker 1: It couldn't be, So what was it about. It was about.
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  Speaker 2: Controlling the narrative of his capture. See, in his mind,
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  Speaker 2: being portrayed as someone broken by the state, forced into
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  Speaker 2: a confession that was less damaging to his self image
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  Speaker 2: than just being caught because of his own recordings.
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  Speaker 1: He needed to be seen as a victim of the system,
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  Speaker 1: even a powerful.
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  Speaker 2: Victim, precisely a powerful player brought down by the already
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  Speaker 2: not just a perpetrator exposed by his own hubris and carelessness,
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  Speaker 2: and leaving that evidence. He couldn't accept that his own
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  Speaker 2: actions led to his downfall.
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  Speaker 1: That drive for self image overriding everything. Okay, so this
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  Speaker 1: leads us to the final court session the death penalty ruling.
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  Speaker 1: Reports said Kareem was.
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  Speaker 2: Crying yes throughout the session.
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  Speaker 1: So the critical question is was that remorse? Was he
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  Speaker 1: finally feeling something for the victims, or was it something
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  Speaker 1: else entirely.
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  Speaker 2: And that was the key assessment made at the time.
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  Speaker 2: Every professional observation, everything pointed away from regret for the victims.
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  Speaker 2: Absolutely none.
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  Speaker 1: Wait, so the tears weren't for the people he killed,
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  Speaker 1: then what.
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  Speaker 2: They were for him? His distress was entirely focused on
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  Speaker 2: the indignity of the process, the insult to his person.
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  Speaker 2: Indignity exactly. He complained bitterly, not about the live's loss,
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  Speaker 2: but about being And this is a quote dragged around
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  Speaker 2: like cattle from courthouse to courthouse. Wow, that humiliation, that
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  Speaker 2: narcissistic injury, that was the source of the tears. It
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  Speaker 2: confirmed this complete, profound lack of empathy.
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  Speaker 1: And meanwhile, his defense team was arguing something different. Weren't
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  Speaker 1: they trying to pain him as broken?
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  Speaker 2: Oh? Strenuously they pushed hard for him being mentally ill,
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  Speaker 2: a sadist, a massochist, suffering from deep psychological defects, basically
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  Speaker 2: arguing for an insanity plea, or at least mitigation.
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  Speaker 1: But here's another bizarre turn.
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  Speaker 2: He rejected it. Kream himself rejected the insanity plea.
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  Speaker 1: He didn't want to be seen as mentally ill.
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  Speaker 2: Reports suggest he was genuinely bewildered by his own lawyer's claims.
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  Speaker 2: He communicated essentially, I'm not mentally ill. He wanted to
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  Speaker 2: be seen as fully responsible, calculated.
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  Speaker 1: So rejecting the plea was rejecting powerlessness in a way.
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  Speaker 2: Yes, he wanted to be acknowledged as someone who chose
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  Speaker 2: this path consciously. He preferred being seen as a powerful villain,
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  Speaker 2: fully aware, rather than just a broken patient.
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  Speaker 1: If he was so locked into his own narrative, what
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  Speaker 1: about the people around him? How did his family react?
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  Speaker 1: And God the victim's families.
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  Speaker 2: Well, Kareem's immediate family, they had already distanced themselves. It
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  Speaker 2: seems they saw this coming on some level.
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  Speaker 1: They didn't attend the trial.
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  Speaker 2: No, neither his mother nor any other relatives were present.
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  Speaker 2: His mother knew he was different. She'd noted his academic failures,
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  Speaker 2: his obsession with pornography. She'd tried to steer him towards religion,
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  Speaker 2: towards morality, but unsuccessfully.
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  Speaker 1: The brother.
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  Speaker 2: His brother had cut ties a year and a half
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  Speaker 2: before all this came out, said Kareem had actively chosen
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  Speaker 2: to be different, embraced the perverse. Basically, the family washed
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  Speaker 2: their hands of him, disowned him before the world even knew.
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  Speaker 1: That's one kind of reaction, abandonment. But the victims' families,
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  Speaker 1: their reaction highlights something else, something incredibly tragic about societal pressure.
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  Speaker 2: It really does. Sources indicate they didn't hire lawyers, they
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  Speaker 2: didn't appear in court, and.
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  Speaker 1: The most heartbreaking detail, they.
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  Speaker 2: Refused to receive the body.
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  Speaker 1: Refuse the remains of their own daughters.
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  Speaker 2: Why it's devastating. They preferred or needed to believe someone else.
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  Speaker 1: Else had killed them, because accepting Kareem as the killer meant.
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  Speaker 2: It meant accepting their daughters were involved in the circumstances
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  Speaker 2: leading to their deaths, the drug use, the parties, whatever
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  Speaker 2: brought them into his orbit. By rejecting the bodies, by
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  Speaker 2: holding onto this idea of an alternate killer, they hoped
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  Speaker 2: to avoid the crushing shame the public judgment associated with
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  Speaker 2: their daughter's final choices, and hours.
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  Speaker 1: Choosing denial over that judgment. It just shows how far
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  Speaker 1: the damage radiated.
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  Speaker 2: Absolutely beyond the killer, beyond the immediate crime.
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  Speaker 1: We should also briefly touch on the accomplice. Shod involved
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  Speaker 1: in human trafficking, appeared later in the proceedings.
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  Speaker 2: Yes, her appearance was another glimpse into this moral void.
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  Speaker 2: She showed absolutely no emotion, no remorse, no sadness, nothing,
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  Speaker 2: just numb, more like accustomed, was the description, as if
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  Speaker 2: this was just her reality. Her business operating in that
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  Speaker 2: depraved world was.
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  Speaker 1: Normal for her, and the connection to her own family.
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  Speaker 2: She was supplying the killer with her own daughter, unbelievable.
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  Speaker 2: It just reveals this at work, this transactional depravity that
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  Speaker 2: allowed Kareem to operate, that supported his lifestyle.
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  Speaker 1: So, putting it all together, the narcissist killer, the family
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  Speaker 1: who disowned him, the victim's families silenced by shame. What's
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  Speaker 1: the big takeaway here? This feels like a serious warning.
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  Speaker 2: It absolutely is a profound social warning. Really, it revolves
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  Speaker 2: around the mask Kareem war so effectively.
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  Speaker 1: He wasn't some recluse hiding in the shadows, not at all.
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  Speaker 2: He was described as seemingly normal, socially engaged, even a
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  Speaker 2: TikToker known in some circles. He taught English ran a
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  Speaker 2: tattoo center, roles that require building trust.
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  Speaker 1: He was out there interacting part of the community fabric.
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  Speaker 2: Exactly, And after his arrest, numerous women came forward. They'd
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  Speaker 2: been in his home, taking his courses, gotten tattoos, private settings.
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  Speaker 1: And they saw nothing.
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  Speaker 2: Universally, they said they never suspected a thing, never saw
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  Speaker 2: him as a sadist, let alone a murderer. They spent
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  Speaker 2: hours with him, no signals, which.
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  Speaker 1: Brings us to the really unsettling question for all of us,
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  Speaker 1: doesn't it How many people like Kareem hiding behind a
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  Speaker 1: perfectly normal looking front could be operating around you.
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  Speaker 2: And that's the core danger blind trust, especially now you
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  Speaker 2: know in the digital age where online personas, apparent competence
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  Speaker 2: or minor celebrity can easily mask profound psychopathy.
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  Speaker 1: We rely on certain cues, don't we guilt, shame normal reactions.
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  Speaker 2: We do. But when you're dealing with someone like this,
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  Speaker 2: a malignant narcissist who has just fundamentally rejected all the
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  Speaker 2: usual anchors family, morality, religion, those conventional cues simply don't register.
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  Speaker 2: They don't apply to him.
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  Speaker 1: So let's just quickly recap the core anomalies here an
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  Speaker 1: intelligent killer documenting his own atrocities yet rejecting an insanity
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  Speaker 1: play check, families of victims refusing their daughter's remains out
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  Speaker 1: of shame tragically Yes, and a community completely fooled by
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  Speaker 1: this functional, even somewhat public mask.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah. The case really hammers home how deep narcissism, especially
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  Speaker 2: when fueled by addiction, can hide within a highly functional,
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  Speaker 2: discep social shell.
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  Speaker 1: His driving force right to the end. It wasn't about
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  Speaker 1: judgment of consequences in the afterlife, was it.
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  Speaker 2: No, It was all about maintaining that distorted self image,
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  Speaker 2: being the dominant figure, the powerful actor, the protagonist of
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  Speaker 2: his own dark story, right until the final curtain.
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  Speaker 1: A truly disturbing insight into hidden malice. We often depend
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  Speaker 1: on surface charm, professional roles, social media presence to decide
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  Speaker 1: who's safe, who we let into our lives. Gibbon Kareem's
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  Speaker 1: calculated persona makes you wonder, what is that first, maybe
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  Speaker 1: subtle signal that the usual rules of behavior just don't
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  Speaker 1: apply to someone. Is there a simple, maybe non traditional
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  Speaker 1: check you could use now to vet people beyond just
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  Speaker 1: their public face. Something for you to think about.