Latest / Legally Brunette / Killer Thriller: Did Aaron Hernandez Have All 9 Serial Killer Traits?

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Killer Thriller: Did Aaron Hernandez Have All 9 Serial Killer Traits? · Legally Brunette

0:06
Speaker 1: Amy Roboc and TJ.
0:07
Speaker 2: Holmes present Killer Thriller with your host Alisa Donovan. Hey, everyone,
0:15
Speaker 2: Elisa Donovan here and this is Killer Thriller. He was
0:19
Speaker 2: one of the biggest young stars in the NFL, a
0:22
Speaker 2: New England Patriots tight end, with a massive contract, a
0:26
Speaker 2: Super Bowl appearance, and what looked like an unstoppable future.
0:30
Speaker 2: Then seemingly overnight, Aaron Hernandez went from football phenom to
0:35
Speaker 2: convicted murderer. But what makes this story so haunting isn't
0:41
Speaker 2: just the crimes. It's all the questions surrounding them. The violence,
0:45
Speaker 2: the secrecy, the paranoia, the trauma, the pressure of football culture,
0:49
Speaker 2: the possibility of severe brain damage, and the unsettling reality
0:54
Speaker 2: that so many people around him saw warning signs long
0:58
Speaker 2: before everything finally explas in public. The FX series American
1:03
Speaker 2: Sports Story Aaron Hernandez revisits the rise and fall of
1:07
Speaker 2: Hernandez and explores the complicated mix of identity, fame, violence,
1:13
Speaker 2: and CTE that surrounded his life and death. It is
1:16
Speaker 2: a very compelling series, incredibly well made, and today we
1:22
Speaker 2: are joined by forensic psychologist doctor Rachel Toles, whose work
1:27
Speaker 2: focuses on extreme violence, behavioral warning signs, and the pathways
1:31
Speaker 2: that can lead people towards dangerous behavior. Doctor Rachel, Welcome
1:35
Speaker 2: to Killer Thriller. Thank you so much for being here today.
1:39
Speaker 3: Thank you so much for having me. Alisa, this is great.
1:41
Speaker 3: So excited. Your show is amazing.
1:43
Speaker 1: Oh I.
1:45
Speaker 2: Am so excited. There are some guests where I'm like,
1:47
Speaker 2: when are we doing it? When are we doing it?
1:49
Speaker 2: When are we doing it? And this is one of
1:50
Speaker 2: those occasions because I am just so fascinated by the
1:54
Speaker 2: work that you do and how detailed and your expertise,
1:58
Speaker 2: and so let's just jump right into this. So for
2:02
Speaker 2: the people that only know the headlines, this really Aaron
2:05
Speaker 2: Hernandez was. He was at the absolute top of the
2:08
Speaker 2: sports world, a Patriots star, super Bowl player, one of
2:12
Speaker 2: the most dangerous tight ends in football, and then seemingly
2:15
Speaker 2: suddenly at all collapses. But what's really unsettling is that
2:20
Speaker 2: it didn't just sort of happen overnight, did it.
2:24
Speaker 1: There were many signs along the way.
2:26
Speaker 3: That's right. I mean, it was an absolute chain of escalation.
2:29
Speaker 3: And when you start kind of digging in and learning
2:33
Speaker 3: about murders in general, you do see that all of
2:35
Speaker 3: them have a chain of escalation. They don't just I
2:38
Speaker 3: think that one thing about true crime is a lot
2:40
Speaker 3: of times it can feel like a person just snaps
2:42
Speaker 3: and they don't give a lot of background story. But
2:45
Speaker 3: what's fortunate in the Aaron Hernandez case is we actually
2:48
Speaker 3: do get quite a bit of background story, which kind
2:50
Speaker 3: of shows how it all started, the roots, even going
2:53
Speaker 3: back to Dennis his father's roots, and like how it
2:56
Speaker 3: started even there. And a lot of times when people
2:59
Speaker 3: talk about the case, they talk about how Aaron had
3:02
Speaker 3: an abusive father, But it's like, but this doesn't just
3:04
Speaker 3: come out of a vacuum, like how did he get abusive?
3:06
Speaker 3: Why was he snapping? Like again? And I think that
3:09
Speaker 3: one thing when I talk about these cases people get
3:12
Speaker 3: nervous about is they think that me explaining how somebody
3:15
Speaker 3: gets their means that I'm excusing the behaviors. And it's
3:18
Speaker 3: never an excuse. People conflate explanation with excuse all the time,
3:23
Speaker 3: and it's like, yeah, don't e conflate them. There is
3:24
Speaker 3: no excuse for violence. But if we can't explain it,
3:28
Speaker 3: then how do we stand a chance of preventing it?
3:30
Speaker 3: And that's what I always say.
3:32
Speaker 2: This is I love that you're saying this straight away
3:34
Speaker 2: because one of the reasons that I'm so fascinated by
3:37
Speaker 2: all of these things and why I wanted to do
3:39
Speaker 2: this podcast in the first place, is that there is
3:42
Speaker 2: a full story behind everyone. And the fact of the
3:46
Speaker 2: matter is these are all human beings and they did
3:49
Speaker 2: not and I would say almost to every case, they
3:52
Speaker 2: weren't born, these murderers. You know, there are many things
3:56
Speaker 2: that contribute to bringing a person to the edge of that,
3:59
Speaker 2: and I very and I even you know, I even
4:02
Speaker 2: say to like my daughter on the playground and girls
4:04
Speaker 2: do things, I'm like, this is why, and it's non excuse,
4:08
Speaker 2: is an explanation where it's coming from.
4:10
Speaker 1: And I think we don't. We don't do that enough
4:12
Speaker 1: in our culture in general.
4:14
Speaker 3: We don't. We just we're very good at labeling people
4:17
Speaker 3: and just kind of then just say, okay, well that's
4:19
Speaker 3: what they are. And when we label somebody anything psychopath, narcissist,
4:23
Speaker 3: what it gets us to stop looking? And again, if
4:25
Speaker 3: we stop looking, then how are we going to ever
4:27
Speaker 3: prevent these things? So this is like why we have
4:29
Speaker 3: to become more curious, and it can also help us
4:33
Speaker 3: develop more compassion and connection to our fellow humans, which
4:36
Speaker 3: I think the world needs for sure.
4:39
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's like a little choir of angels that just went,
4:41
Speaker 2: oh yeah, I really believe that too. So this series
4:47
Speaker 2: really explores how Aaron Hernandez could seem completely different depending
4:51
Speaker 2: upon who he was around. And is that kind of
4:54
Speaker 2: compartmentalization common in people living double or even triple lives?
4:59
Speaker 3: Absolutely, I mean compartmentalization is one of my favorite things
5:02
Speaker 3: to talk about because because, first of all, one of
5:05
Speaker 3: the most common questions I get with my work is
5:08
Speaker 3: how is it Because of course I study serial killers,
5:11
Speaker 3: and Aaron Hernandez, even though he was acquitted for the
5:16
Speaker 3: other murders, in my opinion, his makeup, the factors he had,
5:20
Speaker 3: all nine factors that could have meant that he could
5:22
Speaker 3: have continued going on killing had he not been caught,
5:26
Speaker 3: because of just the level of trauma and what was
5:28
Speaker 3: going on. So one of the things that I get
5:30
Speaker 3: asked a lot when I talk about serial killers, and
5:32
Speaker 3: again not saying Aaron Hernandez was one, but he could
5:35
Speaker 3: have become one, just given everything that I've learned about
5:38
Speaker 3: his case, and it is how is it that a
5:41
Speaker 3: person can be married to and love his wife, and
5:45
Speaker 3: love his children and go out and just murder, people
5:48
Speaker 3: have this whole other double life. So what is going
5:50
Speaker 3: on in this situation? How does a human being do that?
5:54
Speaker 3: And I always say, all human beings can compartmentalize. That's women,
5:58
Speaker 3: that's men, all human beings. One example that I give
6:02
Speaker 3: to kind of help people wrap their heads around how
6:04
Speaker 3: humans do this, because yes, with Aaron Hernandez that we
6:07
Speaker 3: know that there is a certain level of trauma that
6:10
Speaker 3: got him to split. But I guess my point is
6:12
Speaker 3: I want to point out first how any human can compartmentalize,
6:16
Speaker 3: and then we can also get into the weeds of
6:18
Speaker 3: like the trauma, and how then that that split becomes
6:20
Speaker 3: even that much more extreme. But every human being, you know,
6:23
Speaker 3: most of us don't like cruelty to animals. Whenever I
6:27
Speaker 3: talk about cruelty to animals about my shows, people get
6:30
Speaker 3: very upset about it because obviously, you know, if I
6:32
Speaker 3: talk about you know, John Gacy or it was Ted
6:34
Speaker 3: Bundy's grands whipping cats around by their tails, they get
6:38
Speaker 3: way more upset about that than you know, him throwing
6:40
Speaker 3: his daughter Julia down a flight of stairs for oversleeping,
6:43
Speaker 3: And it's like, wow, it's interesting that you know, people
6:45
Speaker 3: get way more upset about animals getting hurt, and yet
6:50
Speaker 3: we're also able to be upset about that and go
6:53
Speaker 3: to a restaurant and order burger or a steak without
6:56
Speaker 3: really thinking about where that animal, what that animal suffered.
6:59
Speaker 3: You know, we're very good as a society at compartmentalizing
7:03
Speaker 3: when society tells us some animals don't really count, or
7:07
Speaker 3: some people don't really count. I mean, sex workers don't
7:09
Speaker 3: really make the news when they're killed. Hence a lot
7:11
Speaker 3: of serial killers get away with killing them. Black victims
7:14
Speaker 3: don't make the news, so we don't hear a lot
7:16
Speaker 3: about black serial killers because they tend to go for
7:18
Speaker 3: their own race. You know, these are the types of things.
7:20
Speaker 3: So anyway, I just went off on a tangent, but
7:22
Speaker 3: in the same way, just another example, people in Nazi Germany.
7:26
Speaker 3: They loved their wives and children, and yet they were able,
7:29
Speaker 3: because of what society was telling them, to load innocent
7:32
Speaker 3: children onto trains and you know, just justify it, morally,
7:36
Speaker 3: justify it because of what society had been telling them.
7:39
Speaker 3: And plenty of them were not forced to do it.
7:40
Speaker 3: There's a great book called Ordinary Men talking about this
7:43
Speaker 3: very thing.
7:44
Speaker 2: And so is a what so is there some moment
7:48
Speaker 2: where it's like a click in the brain where now
7:50
Speaker 2: I'm going to stop looking at that, or is it
7:53
Speaker 2: like a slow burns.
7:56
Speaker 3: An escalation of things where they're looping even as children,
8:00
Speaker 3: and we know that they start looping because of their fears,
8:02
Speaker 3: their paranoias, the things that are going on in their
8:04
Speaker 3: childhood homes, the ways they start to soothe themselves, Like
8:07
Speaker 3: there's a whole thing I can walk you through, like
8:09
Speaker 3: how they wind up somehow getting to a place where
8:13
Speaker 3: they are now in this kind of obsessive neurotic loop
8:17
Speaker 3: that then in order to quell it, they need to
8:20
Speaker 3: dominate in some way to feel like they squash it
8:22
Speaker 3: out of existence. And what they're actually squashing out of
8:24
Speaker 3: existence is a part of themselves that they really can't
8:27
Speaker 3: stand and they need to murder over and over again.
8:30
Speaker 3: But in the case of someone who so Aaron Hernet
8:33
Speaker 3: is is unique, so unlike let's say someone like Dennis
8:37
Speaker 3: Raider who or Rex Morman, Rex human being a more
8:40
Speaker 3: current case where it's a guy who had a wife
8:42
Speaker 3: and children who he treated very well according to them,
8:46
Speaker 3: and was able to do it. They're able to just
8:48
Speaker 3: say in the same way, like I love my wife,
8:51
Speaker 3: my child and sex workers are kind of like again
8:56
Speaker 3: those slaughterhouse animals, like they're for my pleasure. They're for
8:59
Speaker 3: my pleasure, and they're just able to just split it
9:02
Speaker 3: like I love my family, I will protect my family.
9:04
Speaker 3: Touch a hair in my family's head and I'll kill you.
9:06
Speaker 3: And sex workers are for my pleasure because I'm going
9:10
Speaker 3: to go out and get myself a stake tonight. And
9:11
Speaker 3: that's just how they view it, and they justify it
9:14
Speaker 3: in their minds in a way where it's like, well,
9:17
Speaker 3: society says that some people could be executed and put
9:20
Speaker 3: to death just depending on how much authority you have,
9:22
Speaker 3: So why can't I, I mean, and you can kind
9:25
Speaker 3: of go with how they get to that place. But yes,
9:27
Speaker 3: erin or and I was very different in this way
9:29
Speaker 3: because yes, in his case, there were so many things
9:33
Speaker 3: that were escalating over and over and over again.
9:49
Speaker 2: So in this series they do they certainly cover to
9:54
Speaker 2: a degree that his troubled childhood in terms of the
9:57
Speaker 2: extreme misogynistic and judgmental and violent behaviors of his father.
10:06
Speaker 2: And but then he goes directly into and you know,
10:09
Speaker 2: the parents just screaming and cursing at one another like
10:14
Speaker 2: a sort of general blanket disrespect for one another and
10:19
Speaker 2: human kind of communication. But then also they really cover,
10:24
Speaker 2: which was particularly disturbing to me, the extreme misogyny and
10:28
Speaker 2: the football culture in general, and they really highlight that.
10:33
Speaker 2: And have you found that to be a big part
10:35
Speaker 2: of the cause of some of these behaviors for Aaron
10:39
Speaker 2: and others?
10:40
Speaker 3: Absolutely, So, I don't know if you were, if you
10:43
Speaker 3: ever saw the documentary The Murders of Bristol, that's yes.
10:47
Speaker 1: So I was saying them all one, Yes, I've been
10:49
Speaker 1: that one.
10:50
Speaker 3: And I'm talking about the fact that you know, there's
10:52
Speaker 3: a yearbook photo where Alex Ring, Aaron Hernandez Nicholas Breutcher
10:57
Speaker 3: are standing shoulder to shoulder.
10:59
Speaker 1: Yes, I did not know that before this documentary.
11:02
Speaker 3: I did, Yes, Yes, And these three men who were
11:04
Speaker 3: all in the same football team wound up going on
11:07
Speaker 3: these kind of murderous you know, rampages if you if
11:11
Speaker 3: you will, I mean obviously Alex rings situation was where
11:13
Speaker 3: he was he killed, murder, suicide his his wife and
11:19
Speaker 3: and and that was something. And it's interesting because many
11:22
Speaker 3: family annihilators are not publicly explosive personalities beforehands like Chris
11:27
Speaker 3: Watts is another good example, like if you actually start
11:30
Speaker 3: looking at like family annihilators, even this guy this current
11:33
Speaker 3: story the Travelers, uh that that guy they owned the
11:36
Speaker 3: restaurant chain that just killed allegedly killed his wife, his
11:40
Speaker 3: two children, of himself from everyone is saying, well, a
11:44
Speaker 3: lot of people said he was reserved and quiet, maybe
11:47
Speaker 3: a little bit testy, but not outwardly. Most are the opposite,
11:53
Speaker 3: whereas like the other guy, Nicholas Brutcher, he was way
11:57
Speaker 3: more externalizing, so kind of more of a bully, and
12:01
Speaker 3: so there was you know, they both had very different personalities,
12:04
Speaker 3: but of course they both then wound up snapping in
12:06
Speaker 3: their own ways. But going back to the concept of
12:08
Speaker 3: misogyny and like what's going on there, I mean, that's
12:11
Speaker 3: a part of it, but that's just one part of it.
12:14
Speaker 3: But yes, that's a part. I mean, just feeling like
12:16
Speaker 3: you're above something that you can't cry. Like this is
12:19
Speaker 3: the thing about our society, Like we're really good at
12:21
Speaker 3: saying well, boys, they're allowed to get angry and they're
12:24
Speaker 3: allowed to snap, but if they.
12:25
Speaker 1: Cry, they can't cry.
12:27
Speaker 3: Yeah, they can't cry. We still call them sissies. Girls.
12:30
Speaker 3: They're allowed to cry, but if they if they get angry,
12:32
Speaker 3: they're crazy, right, So we have this weird double standard
12:36
Speaker 3: and we're just taught that that's just the way it is.
12:39
Speaker 3: So boys when they Okay, So here's a little somethings. People.
12:42
Speaker 3: You know, ninety over ninety percent of homicides are committed
12:45
Speaker 3: by men, and of course or ninety three percent of
12:48
Speaker 3: serial killers are men and seven percent are female. But
12:52
Speaker 3: of the seven percent female serial killers, almost one half
12:55
Speaker 3: have a male accomplice, so it's even that much smaller. Yeah,
12:58
Speaker 3: So it's like, so what is are men so much
13:01
Speaker 3: more likely you know, to do these things? And one
13:05
Speaker 3: of the things that we know about boys and girls
13:08
Speaker 3: is the differences in the way they deal with trauma. So, girls,
13:12
Speaker 3: if they experience traumas, they are way more likely to
13:14
Speaker 3: turn in on themselves, so they'll be more like cut themselves,
13:18
Speaker 3: develop eating disorders, get involved with dangerous sex work, get
13:22
Speaker 3: involved with violent, abusing relationships, you know that kind of thing. Boys,
13:27
Speaker 3: in comparison with girls, are way more likely to externalize
13:31
Speaker 3: the trauma. And so that's why one of the things,
13:34
Speaker 3: like with Aaron Hernandez, like we he dealt I mean,
13:38
Speaker 3: you probably read his brother's book.
13:40
Speaker 1: I have not read his brother's book, but I would
13:43
Speaker 1: want to now, Yeah, excellent.
13:44
Speaker 3: I highly recommend it because there's so much in that book.
13:47
Speaker 3: It's called The Truth About Aaron, My Journey to Understand
13:49
Speaker 3: My Brother. I think he wrote in twenty eighteen. He
13:52
Speaker 3: talks about how Aaron was sexually abused. That was a
13:55
Speaker 3: big part. So again one of the many factors in
13:58
Speaker 3: the chain of escalation. And Aaron allegedly what the bed
14:02
Speaker 3: as a child a lot and we know that that's
14:04
Speaker 3: the somatic response. So in a lot of cases, not
14:07
Speaker 3: all cases, you know, in not all cases of people
14:09
Speaker 3: who at the bed where they sexually abused, but in
14:12
Speaker 3: many cases. And there's this old theory called the McDonald triad,
14:17
Speaker 3: and I don't know if you've heard of that, but
14:18
Speaker 3: the McDonald triad basically basically states that if typically they're
14:23
Speaker 3: talking about boys, but they can be talking about girls,
14:26
Speaker 3: but if a child, what's the bed lights, fires, and
14:30
Speaker 3: is cruel to animals, that those three things that triad, basically,
14:34
Speaker 3: like this was an older theory, basically means they're going
14:36
Speaker 3: to be a psychopath, or they're going to maybe get
14:38
Speaker 3: you start killing people. And it's like or again, boys
14:42
Speaker 3: are more likely to externalize their traumas. If they are
14:46
Speaker 3: lighting fires, they're probably pretty angry about something, so they're
14:49
Speaker 3: being destructive. If they're wedding the bed, something is going
14:52
Speaker 3: on where their body is not feeling safe, where their
14:55
Speaker 3: body can't when it starts to relax while it's sleeping,
14:57
Speaker 3: starts to release because it doesn't the you know, the
15:00
Speaker 3: system is not there's a whole science behind what's actually
15:03
Speaker 3: going on. When you live either in a violent environment
15:06
Speaker 3: as a child, or if you're being sexually abuse, how
15:08
Speaker 3: you can't relax. And then of course when a child
15:11
Speaker 3: is cruel to animals, which we you know, so many
15:13
Speaker 3: people just assume, well that just means you're a psychopath.
15:15
Speaker 3: It's like or it's a kid who's targeting a smaller.
15:19
Speaker 1: Life form, smaller because they.
15:20
Speaker 3: Are getting targeted by a bigger life form, and that
15:23
Speaker 3: is just like this come out of a vacuum. So
15:26
Speaker 3: I just think it's so important to talk about this stuff.
15:28
Speaker 2: Right right, right again, Like putting these buckets and these
15:31
Speaker 2: sort of titles on things and moving on, it stops
15:34
Speaker 2: the investigation. Yeah, I mean, they certainly the show gets
15:38
Speaker 2: into a lot of the darkness in his childhood and
15:42
Speaker 2: his father was such a huge presence in his life,
15:46
Speaker 2: and they really do in the show I in my opinion,
15:50
Speaker 2: they try to make the full picture where you see
15:54
Speaker 2: that he created some structure for him, but that he
15:57
Speaker 2: really looked up to him, but he feared him.
16:01
Speaker 1: He was controlling.
16:02
Speaker 2: And so when somebody loses a figure like that so young,
16:07
Speaker 2: can it completely destabilize them?
16:10
Speaker 3: Yes. I mean again, when you've got someone who's so
16:14
Speaker 3: dominant and abusive and you also have such adoration for
16:18
Speaker 3: that person, you know, that's exactly what can happen. I mean,
16:23
Speaker 3: we know that. Here's an extreme example. And again I'm
16:27
Speaker 3: not saying that Aaron Hernandez was a serial killer, but
16:30
Speaker 3: the case of ed Gean, the guy who a famous
16:34
Speaker 3: serial killer who the movie Psycho was based on, the
16:37
Speaker 3: movie Texas, jamesaw Asker, the others, and then of course
16:41
Speaker 3: Buffalo Bill of one of the people he was based
16:45
Speaker 3: on was ed Gen. Edgan's mother, not the father, but
16:49
Speaker 3: the mother figure was so incredibly dominant that basically the
16:54
Speaker 3: child internalizes that part. And when the parent dies suddenly,
16:58
Speaker 3: which is what happened, I mean dies and he didn't
17:01
Speaker 3: know what to do at all, and so he completely
17:04
Speaker 3: unraveled and that's when he started grave digging and then
17:07
Speaker 3: of course eventually started killing women. But like, yes, so
17:10
Speaker 3: Aaron Hernandez is less extreme example of that, but it's
17:14
Speaker 3: just to kind of show you that this is something
17:16
Speaker 3: that gets documented when you have a parental figure who's
17:20
Speaker 3: incredibly dominant and you internalize them to that degree where
17:24
Speaker 3: there's such a part of you that when they pass away,
17:26
Speaker 3: it's like you don't even know where you start and
17:29
Speaker 3: where you end because your father had the say and
17:31
Speaker 3: who and what you did. So in the similar so
17:34
Speaker 3: that's why I compare the cases, because Edgin had no
17:37
Speaker 3: idea who he was outside of mother. Hence he started
17:39
Speaker 3: creating women skin suits to become mother again, and so
17:44
Speaker 3: in a weird like so they kind of start like
17:46
Speaker 3: they just don't know what to do with.
17:47
Speaker 1: Themselves, and so that's right.
17:49
Speaker 3: Yeah, so I would say, yeah, so he was sixteen,
17:52
Speaker 3: I think when his father died of yes, a routine
17:54
Speaker 3: hernia operation. You know, it just went in and it's
17:57
Speaker 3: like boom, and that is when a lot of things
18:00
Speaker 3: really started going downhill.
18:02
Speaker 2: Yeah, they certainly make that connection in the series, I
18:06
Speaker 2: think pretty well, and that even so much that then
18:08
Speaker 2: he decides to he's going to go to Yukon because
18:11
Speaker 2: that's what his dad said, and that's where his brother went.
18:13
Speaker 1: And then he completely.
18:15
Speaker 2: Flipped and decided to go to Florida, and everything certainly
18:18
Speaker 2: did start to like unravel. So when he one of
18:22
Speaker 2: the things that is also really kind of disturbing in hindsight,
18:27
Speaker 2: two things the way that they they sort of stopped
18:32
Speaker 2: treating him like a young person. He was so young
18:34
Speaker 2: when he went to Florida and like left high school
18:38
Speaker 2: and all these people just sort of treated him like
18:40
Speaker 2: a commodity and like a piece of meat, and he
18:43
Speaker 2: had no real his brain most certainly was not even
18:47
Speaker 2: fully formed at that point. So what kind of impact
18:49
Speaker 2: does that sort of thing have on someone's identity?
18:53
Speaker 3: So when you're talking about just the fact that people
18:55
Speaker 3: are treating you like a product, or the fact that
18:58
Speaker 3: people are treating you like you're like an adult when
19:01
Speaker 3: you're still kind of a kid figuring it.
19:03
Speaker 2: Out, Yes, both more so the prior but both, Yeah,
19:07
Speaker 2: because he didn't really get to psychologically develop and no
19:10
Speaker 2: one seemed to care about that.
19:12
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, all he knew was that the only
19:15
Speaker 3: time he was acceptable was when he was killing it
19:18
Speaker 3: like a man on the football field, and that is
19:20
Speaker 3: what he learned anything else. I mean, you know, in
19:24
Speaker 3: the book that his brother wrote, he talks about how
19:26
Speaker 3: his father would call him on a regular basis I
19:31
Speaker 3: hate to say the word, but the and like why
19:33
Speaker 3: are you're standing like a going back to this misogynistic
19:37
Speaker 3: and this machismo culture, and it's like, you know, there
19:41
Speaker 3: are no fens in Hernandez family. He would say things
19:43
Speaker 3: like that, horrible, horrible things. But when Aaron killed it
19:47
Speaker 3: like a man on the high school football field, his
19:49
Speaker 3: father cried like a baby, even though his father beat
19:52
Speaker 3: the crap out of them if they ever cried. But
19:54
Speaker 3: somehow crying on the football field with tears of pride
19:57
Speaker 3: streaming down your face isn't considered weakness. So there's this
20:00
Speaker 3: double standard. But getting back to your.
20:02
Speaker 1: Total standard, there's a total.
20:04
Speaker 3: Double standard, right, But then you know, so confusing, it's
20:08
Speaker 3: very confusing. And so he's living this double life. He
20:11
Speaker 3: is living a double life where he has to basically
20:14
Speaker 3: hide who he is underneath and play the role the product.
20:19
Speaker 3: I mean, he learned that he was rewarded by behaving
20:22
Speaker 3: in a certain way. And again, these family systems where
20:26
Speaker 3: you see people who become violent and kill, sometimes multiple times.
20:31
Speaker 3: There is always a split, a public versus private split,
20:35
Speaker 3: where who they are the product that they are in
20:38
Speaker 3: public is very different than what's going on behind closed
20:42
Speaker 3: doors and the other thing that gets you know, so
20:45
Speaker 3: so because of that, I think just feeling like I'm
20:48
Speaker 3: a product, I've got to present a certain way whatever
20:51
Speaker 3: my truth is, that that can just go away because
20:54
Speaker 3: I need to present in order to make everybody happy.
20:57
Speaker 3: It's like dance mighty dance like it's this, but that
21:00
Speaker 3: they feel like that and then of course then they go.
21:03
Speaker 3: And that's another reason why. I mean something we haven't
21:05
Speaker 3: brought up yet, but just the escalation of the drugs
21:09
Speaker 3: and alcohol, which was a huge fuel into all of.
21:12
Speaker 2: This, right, so that yeah, we're definitely going to get
21:15
Speaker 2: into that too, because that seems to be a very big.
21:19
Speaker 1: Part of things. But you know, one of the things
21:23
Speaker 1: touching upon.
21:24
Speaker 2: Kind of what you were just saying that that is
21:26
Speaker 2: so heartbreaking is that in hindsight that many people described
21:30
Speaker 2: him as very vulnerable and or even you know, really
21:34
Speaker 2: kind of congenial and sweet and very gentle. Yeah, so
21:40
Speaker 2: someone can be deeply emotionally wounded and still become dangerous.
21:45
Speaker 3: I would say everyone that I've ever studied in my
21:48
Speaker 3: life had at some point they were deeply you know,
21:53
Speaker 3: they had emotional they needed connection. Things went awry and
21:57
Speaker 3: then they became dangerous. But there's always a starting point.
22:01
Speaker 3: There's no child that's born. You know. First of all,
22:03
Speaker 3: you see these these MRI scans or these PET scans.
22:06
Speaker 3: And by the way, and we'll obviously talk about Aaron's brain,
22:09
Speaker 3: but the areas of the brain that are impacted by trauma,
22:12
Speaker 3: like certainly with Aaron's brain, we know that there were
22:15
Speaker 3: lasions found on his amigdala and his preends or frontal cortex,
22:19
Speaker 3: which are exactly the areas that you know, when people
22:21
Speaker 3: look at these supposed psychopath scans, they're like, oh, look
22:25
Speaker 3: they're going to It's like we've never strapped a newborn
22:28
Speaker 3: baby into an MRI machine and said, well, that one's
22:31
Speaker 3: going to be psychopathic. It's like, no, they don't start
22:33
Speaker 3: out this way, because if they did, we'd see the studies.
22:36
Speaker 3: But we don't. And so it's very convenient to say, well,
22:39
Speaker 3: that person's just a psychopath is if they were born
22:41
Speaker 3: that way, and I have yet to see it.
22:43
Speaker 1: I have yet to see the proof, right, right.
23:01
Speaker 2: So another thing of the show really explores is how
23:05
Speaker 2: normalized aggression can become in football culture.
23:09
Speaker 1: So can people start.
23:11
Speaker 2: Carrying that kind of mindset into their everyday life.
23:15
Speaker 3: Absolutely, I mean again, you're killing it on the field.
23:18
Speaker 3: I mean just even think about what that read like.
23:20
Speaker 3: You're killing it. And so it's like and so the
23:23
Speaker 3: idea that you can't get violent enough in some way
23:26
Speaker 3: like you're I mean when you talked, I'm sure you
23:28
Speaker 3: know some people who at least are you know, ben
23:30
Speaker 3: football players and ex. But they'll tell you during the
23:33
Speaker 3: training and thing, I mean, you go for blood. You
23:35
Speaker 3: go for blood when you're piling up and you're grabbing
23:38
Speaker 3: at people's testicles and I mean, it's it's out of
23:41
Speaker 3: control like that, there's an animalistic part of you that
23:44
Speaker 3: comes out because you have to win it all costs.
23:47
Speaker 3: You have to win it all costs, and that's just
23:50
Speaker 3: it doesn't matter what the cost is. And so that
23:52
Speaker 3: will bleed into your normal life because especially if you
23:56
Speaker 3: get triggered, then your brain might like so trauma can
24:00
Speaker 3: cause you to dissociate and depending on how severe the
24:03
Speaker 3: trauma is, you will basically completely go inward. And it's
24:08
Speaker 3: like you've left the building on the outside. But that's
24:10
Speaker 3: when you'll hear about people whose pupils will get really big,
24:14
Speaker 3: so their eyes will turn completely black and it's like
24:17
Speaker 3: they've now switched into this other survival mode. But you
24:21
Speaker 3: know that's often when they go into killing mode, because
24:23
Speaker 3: it's like, now I have to be the dominant one
24:25
Speaker 3: because it's killer, be killed and the and that's where
24:29
Speaker 3: their brain goes. It really is like this primitive they
24:32
Speaker 3: switch into this place of I've got to kill or
24:34
Speaker 3: be killed, even though like there may not even be
24:37
Speaker 3: a threat and typically there isn't one in right everyday life,
24:41
Speaker 3: but they are still seeing it suddenly through that lens
24:43
Speaker 3: because something has triggered them.
24:45
Speaker 2: Yeah, so they cover that in this series as well,
24:48
Speaker 2: particularly when he's the nightclub and his paranoid and thinks
24:51
Speaker 2: that people are coming after him or that they're police,
24:54
Speaker 2: or that they're laughing at him. But then, so how
24:58
Speaker 2: much and he was obviously reportedly smoking marijuana in the
25:02
Speaker 2: in the show, they say laced with PCP often, So
25:06
Speaker 2: if you're doing that from a very young age, and
25:09
Speaker 2: how much can chronic drug use affect your judgment and paranoia?
25:13
Speaker 1: Over time.
25:14
Speaker 3: This is such a great question. It's so important because again,
25:18
Speaker 3: so many serial offenders, I mean most of the ones
25:20
Speaker 3: I've said, they're on something like they're they're usually drunk
25:23
Speaker 3: or they're on something like it's not like you know.
25:26
Speaker 3: So again, so as Aaron's success in football grows, so
25:30
Speaker 3: does his alcohol and drug use, which does escalate the paranoia.
25:34
Speaker 3: Because again going back to the two areas of the
25:36
Speaker 3: brain that I just mentioned where they found lesions on
25:39
Speaker 3: his brain, the amigdala, So the amigdala is a part
25:42
Speaker 3: of the limbic system, which is the emotional center of
25:45
Speaker 3: the brain. So if you experience fear or trauma, that
25:49
Speaker 3: thing kind of lights up like a Christmas tree, and
25:51
Speaker 3: so it's kind of like the alarm system in the brain.
25:53
Speaker 3: And then you've got the frontal cortex, the prefrontal cortex,
25:57
Speaker 3: which is involved in things like executive functioning, so math problems,
26:02
Speaker 3: impulse control, decision making, that kind of stuff, judgment, so
26:07
Speaker 3: that that's like the brake system. And that's so those
26:10
Speaker 3: are the two areas that we know when you've dealt
26:13
Speaker 3: with a lot of trauma that they can be really impacted.
26:16
Speaker 3: And when you drink alcohol or when you take substances.
26:19
Speaker 3: Those areas are also the areas of the brain that
26:22
Speaker 3: get impacted, which basically means that if you have compromised
26:25
Speaker 3: parts of the brain already because of your own trauma,
26:28
Speaker 3: both in your environment as a child being beaten and
26:31
Speaker 3: physically intimidated all the time, and then of course the
26:34
Speaker 3: sexual abuse and all these other things, then you're getting
26:36
Speaker 3: your head knocked, which we knew at starting age seven,
26:39
Speaker 3: he was dealing with major concussions tackle football, got hit
26:43
Speaker 3: in the head with the hammer, I mean, and can
26:44
Speaker 3: go on the thing and so like, and so by
26:46
Speaker 3: high school, those areas are getting jostled around and really
26:49
Speaker 3: messed up. So then you add alcohol, and so you're
26:52
Speaker 3: going to be you're adding so much more damage to
26:55
Speaker 3: the areas that are already damaged, then you will it
26:57
Speaker 3: will put you in a dream state, so we reality
27:00
Speaker 3: suddenly won't be the way that it is for most people,
27:03
Speaker 3: even if they are a little bit tipsy, because you
27:05
Speaker 3: already have compromised areas of your brain, and those are
27:08
Speaker 3: the areas that get that get messed with when you
27:12
Speaker 3: drink alcohol or take drugs. So this is just like
27:15
Speaker 3: so now you're adding more and more and more on
27:17
Speaker 3: top of so he's then in a dream state where
27:19
Speaker 3: reality has left the building, and therefore, whatever his thoughts
27:23
Speaker 3: are in that moment that people are out to get him,
27:26
Speaker 3: that he's got to protect himselves, yself at all costs,
27:28
Speaker 3: killer be killed, it all just comes rushing in and boom,
27:32
Speaker 3: it's now he's like he's in a video game.
27:35
Speaker 2: And so that I was gonna come back to, I'm
27:38
Speaker 2: going to do it right now, so I don't forget
27:40
Speaker 2: that very thing I was struck by. They cover this
27:44
Speaker 2: in this series as well, but also the documentaries that
27:47
Speaker 2: I've watched and listened to where you hear, especially when
27:50
Speaker 2: you hear him talking on the telephone from prison, he
27:54
Speaker 2: can sound very at once like cooing to his daughter
28:00
Speaker 2: and then the next minute saying these like deeply misogynistic
28:04
Speaker 2: and horrible things and then almost laughing about his own
28:09
Speaker 2: situation and saying you know that he doesn't he's not
28:13
Speaker 2: he's not.
28:13
Speaker 1: Afraid to be there.
28:15
Speaker 2: So is this all like, is the brain is somebody
28:19
Speaker 2: like that conscious that they're switching back and forth like that.
28:23
Speaker 3: No, But so just so I get clarity on this.
28:26
Speaker 3: So you're talking about a phone call between him and
28:29
Speaker 3: his partner, right, his wife, Yes, beance, I should say yes,
28:33
Speaker 3: so so cooing with this arter being misogynistic with his
28:36
Speaker 3: fiance and then saying and I'm not scared. So what's
28:40
Speaker 3: interesting about that is you've got everything that he grew
28:45
Speaker 3: up with because he again witnessed models who I mean,
28:49
Speaker 3: he witnessed his father being completely misogynistic towards his mother.
28:53
Speaker 3: I mean, this is something like he grew up like.
28:55
Speaker 3: So guess what. That's also his love language because that's
28:58
Speaker 3: the love language he saw and that's a part of
29:01
Speaker 3: believe it or not, what some people interpret his love right.
29:04
Speaker 3: So the couping to the daughter is like how you
29:06
Speaker 3: treat a little kid, and then the talking down to
29:09
Speaker 3: his fiance in that way, it's a way that intimacy
29:13
Speaker 3: is something that he's learned that that's how intimacy works.
29:16
Speaker 3: That that's in a strange way, a way you talk
29:18
Speaker 3: to somebody you care about, you talk to you know
29:21
Speaker 3: even though you know, and then of course having to
29:24
Speaker 3: be the man, manly man, I'm not afraid. I'm not afraid.
29:27
Speaker 3: So he's going through all the parts of themselves that
29:30
Speaker 3: he's basically created, and also the parts of himself that
29:34
Speaker 3: he learned to be in his own childhood right.
29:39
Speaker 2: That's it for part one of our conversation with forensic
29:42
Speaker 2: psychologists doctor Rachel Tolds. Next time will go even deeper
29:46
Speaker 2: into the Aaron Hernandez story, including how much of who
29:49
Speaker 2: he really was became visible long before the murders ever happened.