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Serial Killer Documentary： Robert Browne · The Evolution of Evil - True Crime Stories

0:16
Speaker 1: Robert Charles Brown, serving time for rip and murder in Colorado,
0:21
Speaker 1: made headlines once again in July two thousand and six
0:24
Speaker 1: when he claimed to have killed forty eight other people, which,
0:27
Speaker 1: if true, would make him America's most prolific known serial killer. However,
0:33
Speaker 1: there were skeptics when his total proved to surpass by
0:37
Speaker 1: one the record set a couple of years before by
0:39
Speaker 1: a Green River killer, Gary Ridgeway. Brown's confession provoked skepticism.
0:45
Speaker 1: Was he telling the truth or just seeking attention by
0:48
Speaker 1: one upping the current king of the hill. The truth
0:51
Speaker 1: can be difficult to establish, especially given the events that
0:54
Speaker 1: led up to his unexpected revelation. In nineteen ninety five,
0:59
Speaker 1: Brown pleaded guilty to the nineteen ninety one murder in
1:02
Speaker 1: Colorado of thirteen year old Heather Dawn Church. Five years later,
1:07
Speaker 1: he initiated a correspondence of cryptic notes to Texas prosecutors
1:11
Speaker 1: that suggested more victims. The score is U one, the
1:15
Speaker 1: other team forty eight. He dropped a few clues, but
1:19
Speaker 1: seemed to want them to figure it out. A cold
1:22
Speaker 1: case squad got involved, and eventually Brown declared he'd been
1:26
Speaker 1: killing since nineteen seventy. In nine different states. On a
1:30
Speaker 1: crude map, he showed seventeen in Louisiana, nine in Colorado,
1:35
Speaker 1: seven in Texas, five in Arkansas, three in Mississippi, two
1:39
Speaker 1: in New Mexico, two in Oklahoma, two in California, and
1:43
Speaker 1: one in Washington State. He'd used a knife, a screwdriver,
1:48
Speaker 1: an ice pick, and just as hands. He'd dumped victims
1:52
Speaker 1: everywhere in lakes, rivers and gullies. Some he'd even cut up.
1:57
Speaker 1: Even so, confessing in corroborating one's claims are two different things,
2:03
Speaker 1: and if Brown is exaggerating, he wouldn't be the first.
2:06
Speaker 1: Claiming higher numbers of victims, especially from prison, has become
2:10
Speaker 1: a regular pastime for serial killers since the late nineteen eighties.
2:15
Speaker 1: To consider the motives Brown might have for such exaggerated claims,
2:19
Speaker 1: we need to lay out a bit of history, both
2:21
Speaker 1: his and that of prison culture. It began with the
2:25
Speaker 1: disappearance of young Heather Dawn Church. While evidently not Brown's
2:30
Speaker 1: first victim, this was the one that stopped him. Mike
2:33
Speaker 1: and Diane Church moved to a remote piece of property
2:36
Speaker 1: outside Colorado Springs in Ebert, Colorado. A person would have
2:40
Speaker 1: had to have gone well out of his way to
2:42
Speaker 1: find their home and abduct one of their children, so
2:46
Speaker 1: it seems fairly clear at once this was a local crime.
2:50
Speaker 1: Heather thirteen, was one of four siblings, and she enjoyed
2:54
Speaker 1: playing outside. Responsible and studious, she gave her parents no
2:59
Speaker 1: cause to worry. She was even enrolled in a program
3:02
Speaker 1: for gifted students. Eventually, Mike and Diane separated, and Mike
3:07
Speaker 1: moved into an apartment that left Diane alone with the
3:10
Speaker 1: kids at the remote homestead, but she said she did
3:13
Speaker 1: not feel unsafe there. Nevertheless, when the separation came to
3:17
Speaker 1: look like divorce, the house went on the market. Her
3:21
Speaker 1: neighbor up the road was Robert Charles Brown, thirty eight,
3:24
Speaker 1: living in a trailer with his fifth wife on property
3:27
Speaker 1: used for a tree nursery. Diane didn't know them, but
3:31
Speaker 1: apparently Brown had grown aware of her, or at least
3:34
Speaker 1: of her home. On September seventeenth, nineteen ninety one, Diane's
3:39
Speaker 1: world caved in. She had taken two of her boys
3:42
Speaker 1: to a boy Scout meeting that evening at the local
3:44
Speaker 1: Mormon church, leaving Heather to babysit her five year old brother.
3:49
Speaker 1: Diane called at eight thirty pm to make sure everything
3:52
Speaker 1: was okay, meaning to tell Heather to close a window
3:54
Speaker 1: in the master bedroom she'd seen open, but she forgot.
3:58
Speaker 1: When Diane returned after the meeting, she noticed that the
4:01
Speaker 1: house was dark and a sliding door unlocked. At first,
4:05
Speaker 1: these details didn't alarm her, but to her shock, Heather
4:09
Speaker 1: was not in a room or anywhere else in the house.
4:13
Speaker 1: Diane called every one of whom she could think, including Mike,
4:16
Speaker 1: but no one knew where the girl could be. She
4:19
Speaker 1: called the sheriff's office and someone came right over, but
4:22
Speaker 1: a search and rescue crew could not be sent out
4:25
Speaker 1: until daylight. The crew combed through the woods and knocked
4:28
Speaker 1: at every neighbor's door. Diane remembered the open window in
4:31
Speaker 1: the master bedroom. They examined the windows, bent screen which
4:35
Speaker 1: appeared to have been forced, and a latent fingerprint examiner
4:38
Speaker 1: dusted for Prince. She managed to identify and lift a
4:42
Speaker 1: good one so that if they found the person who'd
4:44
Speaker 1: bent the frame, they could make a match. Searchers came
4:48
Speaker 1: on too Brown's property, and while he was helpful, he
4:51
Speaker 1: refused access to a specific building, saying it was securely locked.
4:56
Speaker 1: They accepted that the authorities believed they were looking for
5:00
Speaker 1: a wandering child, not a potential kidnap victim, and Brown
5:04
Speaker 1: seemed quiet and unassuming, just another neighbor. There was no
5:08
Speaker 1: reason to suspect him. Many people were questioned, and the
5:12
Speaker 1: lifted print was sent to the Colorado Bureau of Investigation
5:15
Speaker 1: as well as to the FBI, but no match turned
5:18
Speaker 1: up from their computer databases of convicted offenders. At the time,
5:22
Speaker 1: though this type of search was limited, the databases from
5:27
Speaker 1: all the states had not yet been hooked into the
5:29
Speaker 1: automated fingerprint identification system, so if a match had come
5:33
Speaker 1: in from another state, the chance of identifying him with
5:36
Speaker 1: this print was low. Heather wasn't found in the initial searches,
5:40
Speaker 1: and it was two years before someone chanced to cross
5:43
Speaker 1: her remains along Lower Rampart Range Road, where other homicide
5:48
Speaker 1: victims had been recovered from time to time. A scrap
5:50
Speaker 1: metal collector found a human skull the still intact set
5:54
Speaker 1: of teeth identified it at once as the remains of
5:57
Speaker 1: Heather Dawn Church. Her body had been due to about
6:00
Speaker 1: thirty miles from her home. The hope for her safe
6:03
Speaker 1: return one day had been dashed for good. To identify
6:07
Speaker 1: the perpetrator of this crime, the difficulty lay in gathering evidence.
6:12
Speaker 1: Two years after the kidnapping, retrieving a skull from among
6:15
Speaker 1: a heap of junk meant there would be little, if
6:18
Speaker 1: anything in the way of trace evidence. By this time,
6:22
Speaker 1: many men had been questioned as suspects, including Mike Church.
6:26
Speaker 1: Fathers are always initial suspects in the abduction of a child,
6:29
Speaker 1: especially during a period of separation, but no one had
6:32
Speaker 1: been implicated. America's Most Wanted had devoted part of an
6:36
Speaker 1: episode to the case without producing fruitful leads. Yet, even
6:40
Speaker 1: the discovery that the girl had been killed and her
6:43
Speaker 1: body dumped nearby failed to advance the investigation, so the
6:47
Speaker 1: case went cold. In nineteen ninety five, Louce Smit, who
6:51
Speaker 1: would later become famous as an independent investigator in the
6:54
Speaker 1: John Bennett Ramsay case, was a captain of the county's
6:57
Speaker 1: detective force. He set to work on the case file,
7:01
Speaker 1: creating a timeline and looking for possible clues that others
7:04
Speaker 1: had missed. He reinterviewed certain people and looked at the
7:08
Speaker 1: burglaries in the area at the time. He also checked
7:11
Speaker 1: and rechecked alibis. It was painstaking work, but he was
7:15
Speaker 1: known for his persistence. This was often the way a
7:18
Speaker 1: good detective broke cases that others had given up as
7:22
Speaker 1: a lost cause. A lab worker suggested rerunning the lone fingerprint.
7:27
Speaker 1: It was always possible that the perpetrator had been picked
7:30
Speaker 1: up for another offense, and this print was now in
7:33
Speaker 1: the automated system. Some cold case cops ran unmatched prints
7:37
Speaker 1: every day for years on the hope that finally, on
7:40
Speaker 1: this day, the perpetrator had been arrested on some other charge.
7:45
Speaker 1: This kind of dogged devotion had paid off several times,
7:48
Speaker 1: helping to generate more interest in other cold cases. Smith
7:52
Speaker 1: made up a package with a blown up image of
7:54
Speaker 1: the print to send out to fifty two jurisdictions. Two
7:57
Speaker 1: months later, in March, he received good news from Louisiana,
8:02
Speaker 1: a match to a man convicted for burglary and car
8:04
Speaker 1: theft in that state. The man they were looking for
8:07
Speaker 1: lived within half a mile of the churches, Robert Charles Brown.
8:11
Speaker 1: It was disheartening to have been that close to the perpetrator,
8:15
Speaker 1: even to have searched his property, and yet to have
8:17
Speaker 1: missed him. But nonetheless he was still there. Despite his
8:22
Speaker 1: protests of innocence, Detectives brought Brown in for questioning. First,
8:27
Speaker 1: they wanted to know if he'd ever done work on
8:29
Speaker 1: the church's home to eliminate this possible reason why his
8:33
Speaker 1: finger print would be at the scene, He denied it.
8:36
Speaker 1: When he learned about their evidence, he insisted they run
8:39
Speaker 1: the print again. He was certain it was a mistake,
8:42
Speaker 1: but the print was good and it was his. At
8:46
Speaker 1: his arraignment, he pleaded not guilty. The investigators had little
8:50
Speaker 1: else and they knew a case for kidnap and murder
8:53
Speaker 1: would be difficult to make, but they got to work
8:55
Speaker 1: looking into his background. To their surprise, two months later,
9:00
Speaker 1: Brown changed his plea to guilty. According to his story,
9:04
Speaker 1: he had entered the home through a window and Heather
9:06
Speaker 1: had surprised him. He strangled her there in the house
9:09
Speaker 1: and took her body out to dump it in a
9:11
Speaker 1: remote location. For this murder, he received life in prison.
9:16
Speaker 1: Smith believed Brown had made this unexpected admission because investigators
9:20
Speaker 1: were looking into the disappearance of another woman. She'd been
9:24
Speaker 1: his neighbor in Louisiana, and if extradited to face trial
9:28
Speaker 1: for her death, he could face the death penalty. Since
9:32
Speaker 1: he was now behind bars, there seemed little reason to
9:34
Speaker 1: continue to investigate, especially outside their jurisdiction. It was Brown
9:39
Speaker 1: himself who revived interest, but five years later, once more
9:44
Speaker 1: it took the work of cold case detectives to open
9:47
Speaker 1: it up. Many cold case squads were formed during the
9:50
Speaker 1: nineteen nineties as the result of a drop in the
9:52
Speaker 1: number of violent crimes since nineteen sixty, As the US
9:56
Speaker 1: murder rate had steadily risen, police departments had added personnel.
10:01
Speaker 1: The increase in violent crime was accompanied by a higher
10:03
Speaker 1: percentage of stranger homicides, the most difficult to solve and
10:07
Speaker 1: the most demanding of resources. It seemed that things would
10:11
Speaker 1: only get worse, but in the middle of the nineteen nineties,
10:14
Speaker 1: the murder rate declined. Police departments now had surplus resources
10:19
Speaker 1: and they could return to older cases to give them
10:21
Speaker 1: more attention. With dramatic new developments and forensic science and technology,
10:26
Speaker 1: especially DNA analysis and more extensive computer databases, the solution
10:31
Speaker 1: to some cold cases looked imminent. A new breed of
10:34
Speaker 1: detectives trained in these scientific resources and technologies took to
10:38
Speaker 1: the field and began working out how to put these
10:41
Speaker 1: advances to work for investigative purposes. They also cared a
10:45
Speaker 1: lot about solving these older crimes. Over the past decade,
10:49
Speaker 1: the cold case units around the country had cleared hundreds
10:52
Speaker 1: of backlogged cases, putting offenders behind bars who'd believed they'd
10:56
Speaker 1: escaped detection. In addition, many innocent people who did not
11:00
Speaker 1: belong in prison were exonerated and freed. But these investigators
11:05
Speaker 1: can't take on every cold case. To prioritize, case selection
11:09
Speaker 1: involves consideration of various solvable factors, former witnesses ready to talk,
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Speaker 1: a new suspect, or new technology not tried before. Key
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Speaker 1: evidence must be preserved and available for testing. Biological evidence
11:23
Speaker 1: can be tested for DNA profiles, and fingerprints can be
11:26
Speaker 1: entered into databases that receive more new prints every day.
11:31
Speaker 1: Cold case detectives have access to the FBI's National Center
11:34
Speaker 1: for the Analysis of Violent Crime, the US Marshal Service,
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Speaker 1: Military Investigative Services, organized groups of retired professionals and crime
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Speaker 1: investigation volunteer groups that offer unique services. The science of
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Speaker 1: cold cases involves more than just the latest technologies available
11:51
Speaker 1: for solving older unsolved cases. It's also about historic incidents
11:56
Speaker 1: and inventions that have helped to develop specific areas of
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Speaker 1: irrelevant discipl like ballistics or toxicology, or have gained ground
12:03
Speaker 1: in court for an increasingly sophisticated approach to crime investigation.
12:08
Speaker 1: Among these cold case squads was the one in the
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Speaker 1: Colorado Springs area that focused on Brown, Lou Smitt, now retired,
12:16
Speaker 1: Charlie Hess, former FBI and CIA, and Scott Fischer, a
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Speaker 1: crime photographer and retired publisher. They were dubbed the Apple
12:25
Speaker 1: Dumpling Gang. Smid and Hess met weekly to discuss unsolved crime,
12:29
Speaker 1: and Hess took up correspondences with convicted felons to see
12:32
Speaker 1: if he could get more out of them. One of
12:35
Speaker 1: them was Charles Robert Brown, but only after Brown had
12:38
Speaker 1: already reached out. In two thousand, Brown began dropping hints.
12:44
Speaker 1: He sent a letter to El Paso County prosecutors, writing
12:47
Speaker 1: the score is U one, the other team forty eight.
12:51
Speaker 1: This seemed to have been inspired by the Zodiac messages,
12:54
Speaker 1: in which an unknown killer in San Francisco in the
12:57
Speaker 1: late nineteen sixties taunted police with his score versus theirs.
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Speaker 1: Among other things, Brown also wrote, seven sacred virgins entombed
13:06
Speaker 1: side by side. Those less worthy are scattered wide. If
13:11
Speaker 1: you were to drive to the end zone in a
13:13
Speaker 1: white trans am, the score could be nine to forty eight.
13:18
Speaker 1: That would complete your home court sphere. Again, it sounds
13:22
Speaker 1: like he was reading a book about the zodiac and
13:24
Speaker 1: trying to copy his style. Smith was already aware that
13:28
Speaker 1: two women were missing from Brown's hometown of Cushata, Louisiana,
13:32
Speaker 1: both from an apartment complex where he had worked as
13:34
Speaker 1: a handyman. Hesse began correspondence, and he and Brown played
13:39
Speaker 1: a cat and mouse game for about four years before
13:41
Speaker 1: the effort paid off, but only after promises and a
13:44
Speaker 1: few gifts, they were finally able to solve the murder
13:47
Speaker 1: of young Rossio Sperry. Only fifteen detectives set to work
13:52
Speaker 1: on the Grandam Lady. Hescott Brown to provide more details,
13:57
Speaker 1: including that the woman had been an army wife who
14:00
Speaker 1: had once lived in Florida. From her, he'd taken a
14:03
Speaker 1: specific type of ring, which he described. He also pinpointed
14:07
Speaker 1: the apartment complex and said that the victim had lived
14:11
Speaker 1: at either unit one O seven, one O eight, or
14:13
Speaker 1: one O nine. They got a list of Pontiac Grandams
14:17
Speaker 1: and transams registered in Colorado between January nineteen eighty seven
14:21
Speaker 1: and December nineteen eighty eight. There were one hundred and
14:24
Speaker 1: seventy two. This was further narrowed down until they located
14:28
Speaker 1: a Grandam owner named Joseph Sperry. He had lived near
14:32
Speaker 1: Pike's Peak during the right time period. He'd served in
14:35
Speaker 1: the army, and his apartment number was correct one O nine.
14:40
Speaker 1: His wife at the time had vanished in November nineteen
14:42
Speaker 1: eighty seven. Her name was Rossio, and she'd had a
14:46
Speaker 1: ring like Brown had described. Joe had been away, and
14:49
Speaker 1: upon his return he found her gone and her clothes
14:52
Speaker 1: piled into garbage bags. A ten inch length of her
14:55
Speaker 1: hair caught off while still in a pony tail, lay
14:59
Speaker 1: on a dresser, and while his television was gone, her
15:02
Speaker 1: purse was still there. He called the police but became
15:05
Speaker 1: an immediate suspect. It was he, not the police, who
15:10
Speaker 1: found the car abandoned, but he could not get them
15:12
Speaker 1: to process it. Unfortunately, a clerk had mistakenly written that
15:17
Speaker 1: Roscio had been found, so the evidence had been tossed.
15:20
Speaker 1: That made corroboration difficult, but most of the circumstances matched
15:24
Speaker 1: what Brown had finally described. Once the victim was identified,
15:29
Speaker 1: although her body was never found, he pleaded guilty and
15:32
Speaker 1: received a second life sentence. Of the forty eight supposed
15:36
Speaker 1: murders Brown had provided information in nineteen and even with
15:40
Speaker 1: those much of his accounts were vague. He had been
15:44
Speaker 1: considered a viable suspect in only seven more, but in
15:47
Speaker 1: these he'd provided solid details. Of the nine supposed victims
15:51
Speaker 1: in Colorado, he'd supplied information in only two cases. The
15:56
Speaker 1: first person he said he had killed was Mail, a
15:58
Speaker 1: soldier in South Korea in nineteen seventy. That case could
16:02
Speaker 1: not be verified. There were several unsolved homicides in the
16:06
Speaker 1: areas Brown claimed as his killing ground, and many families
16:09
Speaker 1: hoped for closure about their missing or murdered loved ones.
16:13
Speaker 1: Detectives in different jurisdictions investigated their case files to try
16:17
Speaker 1: to determine if Brown could be their man. They understood
16:20
Speaker 1: he might have read news accounts about their victims and
16:23
Speaker 1: could then report names, dates, and other items to falsely
16:27
Speaker 1: link him if he so chose. They knew well enough
16:30
Speaker 1: to be careful not to feed him more. One potential
16:34
Speaker 1: victim was Catherine Jean Hayes, whose remains had been discovered
16:38
Speaker 1: in winn Parish, Louisiana, in nineteen eighty one, six months
16:42
Speaker 1: after she disappeared from a restaurant. Another woman, Wanda Hudson,
16:46
Speaker 1: had been murdered in nineteen eighty three in her apartment
16:49
Speaker 1: where Brown had worked as a handyman. He said he'd
16:52
Speaker 1: attacked her with a screwdriver. They self had gone missing
16:56
Speaker 1: from the same apartment complex in nineteen eighty three. Brown
16:59
Speaker 1: claimed he killed her in her apartment and then took
17:02
Speaker 1: her body out to the Red River, dumping it. He
17:05
Speaker 1: made the same claim about another woman from Louisiana, unnamed
17:08
Speaker 1: because the authorities were unable to corroborate it. Brown's details
17:12
Speaker 1: were too vague. The same was reported about a few
17:16
Speaker 1: other cases that Brown claimed during interviews, he was unable
17:20
Speaker 1: to give sufficient detail to assist significantly. More than one
17:24
Speaker 1: officer expressed reservations about Brown's grandiose claims, but Brown frequently
17:29
Speaker 1: clammed up and refused to say any more. He was
17:33
Speaker 1: the one in the driver's seat. Brown wrote a letter
17:36
Speaker 1: in two thousand and two in which he hinted that
17:38
Speaker 1: he might have kidnapped someone to hold her in a
17:40
Speaker 1: concealed chamber, but then he had been incarcerated. Since he
17:44
Speaker 1: could not get to her to feed her, she presumably died.
17:48
Speaker 1: Would he then be held responsible? If so, then three
17:52
Speaker 1: should be added to the nine He followed this with
17:55
Speaker 1: a letter the year after, in which she stated he
17:58
Speaker 1: did not know why he was writing these letters. I'm
18:01
Speaker 1: trying to get my affairs in order, he wrote. To
18:05
Speaker 1: do so, I need to contact many sources, of which
18:07
Speaker 1: I don't even know who they are. He mentioned that
18:10
Speaker 1: the sanitation companies do a great job of disposal and
18:14
Speaker 1: claimed that no one ever got away, never gave the opportunity.
18:19
Speaker 1: If you're going to do it, just do it. He
18:23
Speaker 1: stated that he found women untrustworthy and that what generally
18:26
Speaker 1: triggered a murder was discussed with a person. He viewed
18:30
Speaker 1: women as cheating, whores, and users, although it was never
18:34
Speaker 1: made clear why he had taken such a dim view.
18:37
Speaker 1: As months passed without much progress, many people began to
18:41
Speaker 1: question whether Brown was the killer he claimed, or more
18:44
Speaker 1: of a con man. It would seem to defy reason
18:47
Speaker 1: to confess to something one did not do, especially murder,
18:52
Speaker 1: but some ambitions override reason notoriety, for example, gamesmanship, leverage
18:59
Speaker 1: for better conditions, and even self aggrandizement. Let's consider similar cases. H. H.
19:05
Speaker 1: Holmes was convicted in Philadelphia in eighteen ninety six for
19:09
Speaker 1: an insurance fraud that involved murder. He insisted he was innocent,
19:13
Speaker 1: but for ten thousand dollars, proclaimed himself the world's most
19:17
Speaker 1: notorious killer, claiming one hundred victims, before reducing that number
19:21
Speaker 1: to twenty seven. The newspaper wanted a sensation, he whined,
19:26
Speaker 1: and before mounting the gallows, he paired his confession to
19:29
Speaker 1: only two. The truth was probably somewhere in between. During
19:34
Speaker 1: the nineteen eighties, coverage of serial killers became its own industry,
19:38
Speaker 1: inspiring groupies, wannabees, and entrepreneurs who created trading cards and
19:43
Speaker 1: sold serial killer memorabilia. Serial killers became cultural anti heroes
19:49
Speaker 1: in a wound culture where people openly displayed their physical
19:53
Speaker 1: and psychological scars on talk shows. Some serial killers were
19:57
Speaker 1: cast as the ultimate and traumatized children bushing back, and
20:01
Speaker 1: many were willing to play this to the hilt for
20:04
Speaker 1: television cameras. These killers spoke about their lack of self esteem,
20:08
Speaker 1: their abuse, and their unrestrained compulsions to erase the lives
20:12
Speaker 1: of others in order to feel alive themselves. After killing
20:16
Speaker 1: a ten year old child, Donald Leroy Evans thirty four,
20:20
Speaker 1: a self described white supremacist, confessed more than sixty murders
20:24
Speaker 1: in several different States since nineteen seventy seven. He was
20:28
Speaker 1: finally convicted of only two murders, and he recanted his
20:31
Speaker 1: extravagant confession. Donald Harvey, a male nurse, claimed over eighty
20:36
Speaker 1: murders before making plea deals in thirty seven of the cases,
20:40
Speaker 1: and when the police arrested Glenn Rodgers in nineteen ninety
20:43
Speaker 1: five in connection with five murders, he took credit for seventy,
20:47
Speaker 1: including those of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman. Then
20:52
Speaker 1: he said he was only joking. He was convicted in
20:55
Speaker 1: two pee Wee Gaskins told his story to an author,
20:58
Speaker 1: claiming that he'd killed more than one hundred people, mostly women,
21:03
Speaker 1: and while he was certainly prolific, many of these murders
21:06
Speaker 1: were unverified by the time he was executed. Claudine Eggers
21:10
Speaker 1: seventy eight became penpal to Joseph Fischer in prison for
21:14
Speaker 1: the murder of a sixteen year old boy. He was
21:16
Speaker 1: paroled in nineteen seventy eight and moved in with Eggers
21:19
Speaker 1: in her New York home. She financed his cross country trip,
21:23
Speaker 1: on which he killed several people, including her, but after
21:27
Speaker 1: being caught, he pursued the distinction of being the most
21:30
Speaker 1: notorious serial killer. Initially, he said he had decided on
21:34
Speaker 1: twenty six but had accomplished only nineteen. Various murders from
21:39
Speaker 1: around the country were attributed to him, and soon as
21:42
Speaker 1: total went over thirty. However, he was only tried for
21:46
Speaker 1: the murder of Eggers, for which he was convicted of
21:48
Speaker 1: second degree murder. He then granted interviews to the media,
21:52
Speaker 1: including tabloid styled talk shows, and soon his claimed victim
21:56
Speaker 1: total was up to one hundred and fifty. He thrived
21:59
Speaker 1: on the notoriety many believed him, but it would not
22:03
Speaker 1: be long before another killer made law enforcement officers realize
22:07
Speaker 1: how easily they could be duped. The most infamous confessor
22:11
Speaker 1: was Henry Lee Lucas, Arrested in nineteen eighty three, This
22:15
Speaker 1: one eyed drifter estimated he'd killed one hundred people, but
22:19
Speaker 1: eventually raised that number to three hundred and sixty in
22:22
Speaker 1: twenty seven different states. In an unprecedented event, lawman filled
22:27
Speaker 1: an auditorium in the hope of closing their open cases,
22:30
Speaker 1: but then Lucas recanted. No one knew quite what to
22:35
Speaker 1: make of a killer confessing to so many crimes he
22:37
Speaker 1: did not do, but then he insisted that he had
22:39
Speaker 1: been forced to recant. His persistent waffling reduced his credibility.
22:45
Speaker 1: While it was clear that he had committed four murders,
22:47
Speaker 1: including his mother, even one of those, a female victim
22:51
Speaker 1: dubbed Orange Socks, came into doubt. Some criminologists believed he
22:56
Speaker 1: was responsible for between forty to fifty murders, but no
23:00
Speaker 1: one knows for sure. But we do know that during
23:03
Speaker 1: his confessions, Lucas got extra special treatment, nice meals, a
23:08
Speaker 1: comfortable cell, and plenty of attention. He was having a ball.
23:14
Speaker 1: I set out to break and corrupt any law enforcement
23:17
Speaker 1: officer I could get, Lucas said later, I think I
23:20
Speaker 1: did a pretty good job. He received the death penalty
23:24
Speaker 1: for Orange Socks, but this sentence was commuted to life,
23:27
Speaker 1: and he eventually died in prison in two thousand and
23:29
Speaker 1: one of natural causes. The truth, if it remained anywhere,
23:34
Speaker 1: went with him. Doctor Stephen Egger, Associate Professor of criminology
23:39
Speaker 1: at the University of Houston Clear Lake and the author
23:42
Speaker 1: of The Killers among Us, an Examination of Serial murder
23:45
Speaker 1: and its Investigation, once interviewed Lucas. He experienced firsthand the
23:50
Speaker 1: challenge of interpreting such confessions. It was difficult to tell
23:55
Speaker 1: when Lucas was lying. Egger admits, in some cases I
23:59
Speaker 1: might ask them to talk about an average killing, and
24:02
Speaker 1: it seemed to me that what he said came from
24:04
Speaker 1: his imagination. He just thought it up. He was convicted
24:08
Speaker 1: of eleven homicides, so he was a serial killer, but
24:12
Speaker 1: he did blow a lot of what I call smoke
24:14
Speaker 1: and mirrors and played a lot of games. Eggar advocates
24:18
Speaker 1: verifying whatever serial killers say one case at a time.
24:23
Speaker 1: Most of them are psychopaths, and they're good at lying.
24:26
Speaker 1: I don't place a lot of stock in my interviews
24:28
Speaker 1: with them. It appears that Brown might have studied Lucas
24:31
Speaker 1: as well as the Zodiac. None of these men had
24:34
Speaker 1: any remorse for their murders or their lies. They're not
24:38
Speaker 1: made for it. Among the most dangerous features of psychopathy
24:42
Speaker 1: are a callous disregard for the rights of others and
24:45
Speaker 1: a propensity for violating norms. They might not necessarily become
24:49
Speaker 1: outright criminals, let alone killers, but the likelihood of exploitive
24:54
Speaker 1: and deceptive behavior is high. Without remorse, psychopaths charm and
24:59
Speaker 1: minut snipulate others for their own gain. They lack a
25:03
Speaker 1: sense of responsibility, and they con others with no regard
25:06
Speaker 1: for the feelings of others. In fact, they don't see
25:10
Speaker 1: others as fully human as themselves. Those with low inhibitions
25:14
Speaker 1: against violence may kill. Psychopaths are suffering from a personality disorder,
25:20
Speaker 1: not a mental illness that involves traits such as narcissism, impulsivity,
25:25
Speaker 1: and callousness. From brain scan studies, it appears that they
25:29
Speaker 1: fail to process the emotional content of situations such as empathy, concern,
25:34
Speaker 1: or alarm. Those who commit crimes have proven more brutal
25:38
Speaker 1: than other criminals, more aggressive, and more diverse in their activities.
25:43
Speaker 1: They also represent a high percentage of repeat offenders. They're
25:47
Speaker 1: resistant to therapy and intolerant of frustration. It doesn't matter
25:52
Speaker 1: whom they hurt. What matters is that they get what
25:55
Speaker 1: they can for themselves. Because they don't have what people
25:58
Speaker 1: need for living in social harmony, some psychologists refer to
26:02
Speaker 1: them as unfinished souls. Robert R. Hare, a renowned expert
26:07
Speaker 1: on the disorder and author of Without Conscience, says there
26:10
Speaker 1: are indications that the personality structure and propensity for unethical
26:14
Speaker 1: behavior is shared by both criminal and non criminal psychopaths,
26:18
Speaker 1: and they may be as common as one in every
26:20
Speaker 1: hundred people. Psychopathy hair believes touches virtually every one of us.
26:27
Speaker 1: For the most part. When they do offend, their crimes
26:30
Speaker 1: are cold blooded. With those who are serial killers, there
26:34
Speaker 1: appears to be a strong tendency towards sadism. They find
26:38
Speaker 1: victims easily because their glib, charming, and predatory, while their
26:42
Speaker 1: victims are generally naive. They dispense with anyone without a
26:47
Speaker 1: thought for the suffering of either the victim or their families. Thus,
26:51
Speaker 1: there's no reason to believe that they'll tell the truth,
26:53
Speaker 1: whether under oath or not. It's not easy to know
26:57
Speaker 1: when to trust someone who is already exploited. Trust as
27:00
Speaker 1: a route to torture and murder. Psychopathic killers knew their
27:05
Speaker 1: victims as objects, useful only as pawns in their own
27:09
Speaker 1: personal game, and they thus have this advantage. They feel
27:13
Speaker 1: no remorse. They're callous, manipulative, and resistant to therapy, and
27:19
Speaker 1: when they choose to communicate, they have their own agendas
27:22
Speaker 1: formed in self interest and calculation. What we may accept
27:26
Speaker 1: as a confession, they may view as bait. Their motives
27:31
Speaker 1: take shape within a framework that has no equivalent in
27:33
Speaker 1: the normal world. That's why we can't just accept what
27:37
Speaker 1: they say at face value. A special agent from the
27:40
Speaker 1: FBI's Behavioral Analysis Unit interviewed Gary Ridgeway, who had initially
27:45
Speaker 1: confessed to seventy one before settling on the official toll
27:48
Speaker 1: of forty eight. She had this to say, I can't
27:52
Speaker 1: think of any behavior on its own merit that would
27:55
Speaker 1: indicate that someone is telling the truth or exaggerating. It's
27:59
Speaker 1: not that I wouldn't leave them, but I'd like to
28:01
Speaker 1: get basic verification first. In my opinion, many of these
28:05
Speaker 1: people have an egotistical need to control and manipulate, and
28:09
Speaker 1: some like to be bigger and badder than the other guy.
28:13
Speaker 1: She points out that not only might they lie to
28:15
Speaker 1: exaggerate or doup investigators, but paradoxically, they might also conceal
28:21
Speaker 1: murders they committed. They don't want anyone to know about
28:24
Speaker 1: their early feeble halting attempts or the mistakes they made
28:28
Speaker 1: if they lose a potential victim they claim they intended to.
28:33
Speaker 1: It's hazardous to be gullible, especially for investigators hoping to
28:36
Speaker 1: close a case. They might inadvertently reveal details, allowing offenders
28:42
Speaker 1: to play them for fools. As well, they may expend
28:45
Speaker 1: limited resources. However, there are hazards in dismissing these offenders too,
28:51
Speaker 1: notably that they may stop providing details that can solve crimes.
28:56
Speaker 1: The bottom line is this, even skilled investigators they may
29:00
Speaker 1: not spot a clever liar with a selfish agenda. Detecting
29:04
Speaker 1: deception takes time, patience, a bit of sleuthing, and the
29:08
Speaker 1: corroboration of facts. Above all, it requires the ability to
29:13
Speaker 1: avoid a rush to judgment that may result in mistakes,
29:16
Speaker 1: such as those made with Lucas. While psychopaths appear to
29:20
Speaker 1: use the same language as normal individuals, they have their
29:23
Speaker 1: own inner logic. They calculate the world around them in
29:27
Speaker 1: terms of self gain. They are society's vampires. They may
29:32
Speaker 1: be intoxicated rather than repulsed, by the idea of targeting
29:36
Speaker 1: humans and picking them off because it makes them feel powerful.
29:40
Speaker 1: Their agendas have no analogs in the normal world. That
29:44
Speaker 1: means developing a careful mode of communication. In this person's perception,
29:49
Speaker 1: almost any response could be the wrong one. Former FBI
29:54
Speaker 1: profilers John Douglas and Greg McCrary have conducted prison interviews
29:58
Speaker 1: with psychopaths such as John Wayne Gacy, who killed thirty
30:02
Speaker 1: three young men and buried them under his house. And
30:05
Speaker 1: Mark Hoffmann, a brilliant forger who tried to escape debt
30:08
Speaker 1: by killing people with bombs. These criminals have no sense
30:12
Speaker 1: of the damage they've caused. To urge them to express regret,
30:15
Speaker 1: it is pointless. They might do so, but only as
30:19
Speaker 1: a manipulative tactic. They are three important things to keep
30:23
Speaker 1: in mind when talking with psychopaths. Clear goals, firm boundaries,
30:28
Speaker 1: and awareness of their triggers. In other words, keep your
30:31
Speaker 1: purpose in such communications up front, while also watching for
30:35
Speaker 1: the psychopaths manipulative tactics, charm, deception, deal making, and for
30:40
Speaker 1: what will keep him or her talking as opposed to
30:44
Speaker 1: shutting down. It's tricky and getting it right generally requires
30:49
Speaker 1: extensive exposure to the person. No matter how many letters
30:53
Speaker 1: Hess or others write to a killer like Brown, only
30:55
Speaker 1: those who have lived with them on a daily basis
30:58
Speaker 1: know them well, and even they be fooled. Brown was
31:02
Speaker 1: the son of a sheriff's deputy and brother to a
31:04
Speaker 1: former state trooper. His was a family that cared about
31:07
Speaker 1: public safety in the law. However, Brown developed differently. He
31:13
Speaker 1: was the youngest of nine children in Cushata, Louisiana, dropping
31:16
Speaker 1: out of high school to go into the army. In
31:19
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy six, he was dishonorably discharged for using drugs.
31:23
Speaker 1: If he's telling the truth about one of his murders,
31:26
Speaker 1: he used a position as handyman at an apartment complex
31:29
Speaker 1: owned by his brother to kill at least one of
31:32
Speaker 1: the tenants. He had no shame or sense of family loyalty.
31:37
Speaker 1: The fourth of his five ex wives, Rita Morgan, gave
31:41
Speaker 1: an interview to The Charlotte Observer, providing details about the
31:44
Speaker 1: kind of man Brown is. For one thing, he often
31:48
Speaker 1: flew into rages and made frightening threats. He would tell
31:52
Speaker 1: her how easy it would be to kill her with
31:54
Speaker 1: no one the wiser. Yet when he had wooed her
31:57
Speaker 1: before they were married, he'd been compassionate, even doting. This
32:01
Speaker 1: behavior is called compartmentalization, something psychopaths are good at. They
32:07
Speaker 1: morph into whatever they need to be to gain their ends,
32:11
Speaker 1: and once they have it, they let their true personalities
32:14
Speaker 1: show before he held the car door open for her,
32:18
Speaker 1: wrote one reporter about Rita, after he smashed her to
32:21
Speaker 1: the floor for a misplaced set of keys. Most of
32:25
Speaker 1: his marriages lasted three years or less, and several wives
32:28
Speaker 1: alleged abuse. Rita said she'd had no inkling of what
32:32
Speaker 1: Brown might be like. They met when he was on
32:34
Speaker 1: leave from the service and she was just a teenager.
32:38
Speaker 1: They took up a brief correspondence, and when they encountered
32:41
Speaker 1: each other a few years later, she had married and
32:43
Speaker 1: divorced another man. He began to show up where she
32:47
Speaker 1: worked as a waitress, and finally they went out. He
32:50
Speaker 1: came with flowers. They got married, and within a week
32:54
Speaker 1: Brown had become a bully. He was already yelling at
32:58
Speaker 1: her that he could kill her. She was stunned, but
33:02
Speaker 1: then he apologized and assured her this behavior would not
33:06
Speaker 1: be repeated. He lied almost anything could set him off,
33:10
Speaker 1: and he seemed to go into a trance before he
33:12
Speaker 1: started beating her. He believed he could treat his wife
33:16
Speaker 1: like property. He once put a gun to her head
33:18
Speaker 1: and pulled the trigger, but the gun was unloaded. He
33:22
Speaker 1: also choked her once so badly she had to go
33:24
Speaker 1: to the hospital. But once he asked her to shoot him,
33:28
Speaker 1: as if he knew he was bad and he wanted
33:31
Speaker 1: some one to kill him. He said he knew he
33:33
Speaker 1: had a problem, but when she got him to a clinic,
33:36
Speaker 1: a psychiatrist was so confrontational it ended any hope she
33:40
Speaker 1: had of intervention. Brown was furious. Another woman with whom
33:45
Speaker 1: Brown was involved said he enjoyed thinking of himself as
33:48
Speaker 1: a master with her the slave, and that he watched
33:51
Speaker 1: a lot of pornography. His final wife filed for divorce
33:55
Speaker 1: and went into therapy for victimization issues. She was reportedly
33:59
Speaker 1: a afraid of him. A year after Brown's startling confession,
34:03
Speaker 1: a reporter for the Shreveport Times decided to check in
34:06
Speaker 1: on what was happening with the investigation. While authorities were
34:10
Speaker 1: reviewing the claims he'd made, several deputies had expressed disappointment.
34:15
Speaker 1: Investigators in four states had dropped their investigations altogether or
34:19
Speaker 1: ruled Brown out as a viable suspect. In Washington, investigators
34:24
Speaker 1: had searched in Vain for evidence of a woman killed
34:26
Speaker 1: at a scenic overlook between Spokane and Seattle, while three
34:30
Speaker 1: murders in Louisiana appeared to match details Brown provided. He'd
34:34
Speaker 1: not been charged. In fact, as of July two thousand seven,
34:39
Speaker 1: no new charges had been filed since those for the
34:42
Speaker 1: murder of Russio Sperry. One promising case involves Nidia Mendoza,
34:47
Speaker 1: who was murdered in nineteen eighty four. She was a
34:50
Speaker 1: dancer in Houston, Texas, and was seen leaving one night
34:53
Speaker 1: with three men. Her body was found four days later.
34:58
Speaker 1: The case went cold until Brown's can fashion. He described
35:01
Speaker 1: a young woman like media and apparently provided details that
35:05
Speaker 1: had not been made public at the time. He'd been
35:08
Speaker 1: driving a white van to make silk flower deliveries. He
35:12
Speaker 1: claimed to have accompanied her from the club, taken her
35:14
Speaker 1: to a motel for sex, and strangled her. He then
35:18
Speaker 1: supposedly dismembered and beheaded her. Taking the parts away in
35:21
Speaker 1: a suitcase, he dumped them off a highway, exactly where
35:25
Speaker 1: they were found. He might be good for half a
35:27
Speaker 1: dozen murders, perhaps even the nine he'd once suggested, but
35:31
Speaker 1: that's as far as authorities have come in making a case.
35:35
Speaker 1: In many ways, it doesn't matter he's in prison for life,
35:40
Speaker 1: But it does matter to the families who want to
35:42
Speaker 1: know that the person who killed their loved one has
35:44
Speaker 1: been caught and is being punished. Hess declines to say
35:48
Speaker 1: whether Brown opened up because he wants to clear his conscience.
35:52
Speaker 1: It's a common belief that the guilty sufferer and need
35:54
Speaker 1: to get their guilt off their chests. That's not true, however,
35:58
Speaker 1: for psychopath. Brown grants information, it seems when there's something
36:04
Speaker 1: to be gained, medical treatment or a possible transfer. Despite
36:08
Speaker 1: his attempt to barter information for a different prison, he
36:11
Speaker 1: will most likely serve out a sentence in Colorado State Penitentiary.
36:15
Speaker 1: It's unlikely that he'll ever be known as the most
36:18
Speaker 1: prolific serial killer in America. His claim to fame is
36:22
Speaker 1: receding quickly, it to mist attem