Latest / The Evolution of Evil - True Crime Stories / Serial Killer Documentary - Joseph Franklin - Prison Interview
Transcript
- 0:01Speaker 1: You are about to enter the criminal mindscape of Joseph
- 0:05Speaker 1: Paul Franklin.
- 0:06Speaker 2: Did you feel like you were actually hunting human beings?
- 0:09Speaker 3: Well, I was.
- 0:11Speaker 4: You wouldn't call that hunting them? Hunting them and shooting them.
- 0:15Speaker 1: On a mission to start a race war in America,
- 0:18Speaker 1: Franklin ruthlessly murders 20 people.
- 0:21Speaker 5: We're asking him to open up and talk about who
- 0:24Speaker 5: he is, his crimes, why he did what he did.
- 0:30Speaker 6: One thing we can tell you at this time that
- 0:31Speaker 6: we're positive of is that there have been two people
- 0:33Speaker 6: shot here at this location.
- 0:36Speaker 3: Larry Flint, the publisher of Hustler magazine. He and his
- 0:40Speaker 3: lawyer were walking down the sidewalk when somebody on the
- 0:42Speaker 3: street opened fire.
- 0:44Speaker 1: His methods vary, making him nearly impossible to catch.
- 0:48Speaker 6: We know that they were shot by a sniper.
- 0:50Speaker 7: The rifle is a high-powered rifle with a scope on it.
- 0:54Speaker 5: Remember the two teenage boys in Cincinnati that you shot?
- 0:58Speaker 2: You could see that they were young.
- 1:00Speaker 7: The well-known Klan's leader said, when I go out to
- 1:02Speaker 7: kill rattlesnakes, I don't make any difference between little rattlesnakes
- 1:06Speaker 7: and big rattlesnakes, because I know the little ones will
- 1:09Speaker 7: grow up and bite me when they get big. So
- 1:12Speaker 7: I looked at blacks the same way.
- 1:14Speaker 5: I totally understand that he will be in control of
- 1:17Speaker 5: this interview, and that is the way.
- 1:19Speaker 2: I'm planning it.
- 1:21Speaker 1: Now, a veteran FBI profiler enters death row and steps
- 1:26Speaker 1: into the criminal mindscape.
- 1:44Speaker 2: These interviews for me are fascinating.
- 1:47Speaker 5: They are absolutely the most intriguing experience that I've.
- 1:52Speaker 2: Had in the FBI.
- 1:54Speaker 1: Mary Ellen O'Toole spent her career at the FBI, including
- 1:58Speaker 1: 15 years in the Bureau's famed profiling unit.
- 2:01Speaker 5: I work specifically on profiling serial murder cases and assisting
- 2:06Speaker 5: law enforcement all over the world in how to understand
- 2:09Speaker 5: these offenders and how to make sense out of their crimes.
- 2:14Speaker 5: I think Joseph Paul Franklin will be very interesting to
- 2:17Speaker 5: talk to because if you scrape away the racism, he
- 2:21Speaker 5: is still a cold-blooded, predatory individual who was driving around
- 2:26Speaker 5: the country shooting and killing people. And so to say
- 2:29Speaker 5: that that's the reason that he killed is very difficult
- 2:32Speaker 5: for me to accept. Interviews like this are extremely helpful.
- 2:37Speaker 5: Will they identify all the answers?
- 2:39Speaker 8: No.
- 2:40Speaker 2: But they will get insights.
- 2:42Speaker 5: Into why certain behavior at the crime scene, why not
- 2:46Speaker 5: certain behavior. Who are we looking for? What were they
- 2:48Speaker 5: like 20 years ago? What was their family like? How
- 2:51Speaker 5: were they deciding on their victims? Why did they kill
- 2:54Speaker 5: some victims and some they didn't? He doesn't have to
- 2:57Speaker 5: talk to me.
- 2:57Speaker 2: He does not have to open up to me. He
- 3:00Speaker 2: can walk out of that interview any time.
- 3:04Speaker 5: By way of background, I'm a retired FBI agent after
- 3:08Speaker 5: about 28 years as an agent. Oh, yeah?
- 3:11Speaker 4: But you learned a lot during that 28 years.
- 3:13Speaker 2: Yes, a lot.
- 3:14Speaker 5: And actually, the last 15 years I've spent back in
- 3:17Speaker 5: the FBI's profiling unit.
- 3:19Speaker 4: Yeah.
- 3:20Speaker 2: And we're located at the FBI Academy.
- 3:23Speaker 5: And most recently, my area of expertise was in the
- 3:28Speaker 5: serial killer unit.
- 3:29Speaker 4: Well, I don't claim to be a serial killer, though.
- 3:31Speaker 7: Okay, and I want to talk to you about that.
- 3:33Speaker 4: I don't put myself in that category.
- 3:34Speaker 2: Okay. Can you tell me what your idea of a
- 3:37Speaker 2: serial killer is?
- 3:41Speaker 4: Well, I've read in the news, the definition in the newspaper,
- 3:44Speaker 4: you know. Sure. And it says that.
- 3:47Speaker 7: Somebody who commits various killings with cooling off periods in between.
- 3:51Speaker 5: Tell me why you don't fit into that definition of
- 3:54Speaker 5: a serial killer.
- 3:56Speaker 2: Let's say Ted Bundy, who was out when you were out.
- 4:00Speaker 7: I don't feel like I have anything in common with
- 4:02Speaker 7: the dude, you know.
- 4:03Speaker 4: I'm just a completely different type of person, you know.
- 4:07Speaker 7: A lot of these other criminals, you know, these serial killers,
- 4:09Speaker 7: they were just into one thing, strangling women and stuff
- 4:13Speaker 7: like that. See, they've been trying to associate me with
- 4:17Speaker 7: the scumbags like Ted Bundy who were killing innocent women,
- 4:20Speaker 7: you know, and take everything political away from my case.
- 4:24Speaker 7: Over and over again, you've been hearing on the newscast,
- 4:26Speaker 7: serial killer of this, serial killer of that, to try
- 4:29Speaker 7: to incite hatred against people like me, you know.
- 4:32Speaker 4: I wasn't out for my own pleasure. I was motivated
- 4:34Speaker 4: by love of the white race.
- 4:37Speaker 5: Joseph is a serial killer, and he's different from other
- 4:41Speaker 5: serial killers, just like they're different from him.
- 4:44Speaker 2: There's no one profile of a serial killer. So you
- 4:48Speaker 2: have cases where you were a sniper, and then you
- 4:50Speaker 2: have events where you were not a sniper. So you
- 4:54Speaker 2: really have both.
- 4:55Speaker 4: Yeah.
- 4:57Speaker 1: In 1977, Joseph Paul Franklin, age 27, is a versatile criminal,
- 5:03Speaker 1: a successful shoplifter and bank robber, who is ready for murder.
- 5:08Speaker 1: He claims to have found his very first victims somewhat
- 5:11Speaker 1: spontaneously in.
- 5:13Speaker 4: Madison, Wisconsin.
- 5:14Speaker 5: He was in the parking lot of a shopping center.
- 5:18Speaker 5: He had his. 357 Magnum tucked alongside of him.
- 5:23Speaker 7: His first case in Madison, Wisconsin was kind of an
- 5:26Speaker 7: unplanned thing.
- 5:28Speaker 2: What put you in that parking lot that day of
- 5:30Speaker 2: the shooting?
- 5:31Speaker 7: Well, I was driving around and I saw a couple
- 5:34Speaker 7: of Young girls standing at a bus stop.
- 5:38Speaker 4: I pulled over and picked them up. I would often
- 5:41Speaker 4: do that.
- 5:41Speaker 7: I would just pull over and see a couple broads
- 5:44Speaker 7: waiting at a bus stop and offer them a ride.
- 5:46Speaker 4: They said, are they going to this mall? So I
- 5:48Speaker 4: gave them a ride to that mall.
- 5:49Speaker 7: And a pretty tall black dude, about 6'2, was sitting
- 5:52Speaker 7: in the car with a white girl. And I beeped
- 5:55Speaker 7: at him because he was driving too slow. He then
- 5:58Speaker 7: began traveling about five miles an hour just to aggravate me,
- 6:01Speaker 7: you know.
- 6:02Speaker 4: So I sat on the horn then, you know. Tee,
- 6:05Speaker 4: real loud. So he stopped his car in front of me,
- 6:09Speaker 4: got out of the car and began walking toward me.
- 6:11Speaker 7: He had this real scowl on his face at first,
- 6:13Speaker 7: you know, walking toward me. So without even thinking, I
- 6:16Speaker 7: just reached down there with my right hand and whipped
- 6:18Speaker 7: out my. 357 Magnum with a six-inch barrel. And then
- 6:22Speaker 7: when he saw the gun, the scowl turned into a surprise,
- 6:25Speaker 7: you know.
- 6:26Speaker 8: And then.
- 6:29Speaker 4: Then he just closed his eye like that and just
- 6:31Speaker 4: keeled over.
- 6:33Speaker 2: That was a very risky thing for you to do.
- 6:35Speaker 2: There you were in a shopping center, and it was.
- 6:37Speaker 4: Daylight, and there was a whole bunch of people.
- 6:40Speaker 2: Why did you shoot the woman in the car?
- 6:43Speaker 7: I figured, well, I'm against interracial couples. She was one
- 6:46Speaker 7: half of an interracial couple, you know. I thought, well,
- 6:48Speaker 7: I might as well get both of them, because I'm
- 6:49Speaker 7: going to probably get caught for this.
- 6:51Speaker 4: So I shot her and sped out of the parking lot. Man,
- 6:55Speaker 4: I was burning rubber, man. You know, trying to get
- 6:58Speaker 4: out of there.
- 6:58Speaker 7: And luckily, there was a whole bunch of lights all
- 7:01Speaker 7: in front of this mall, you know. And every single
- 7:04Speaker 7: one of them turned green for me. I got on
- 7:05Speaker 7: the interstate and took off and got out of Madison, Wisconsin.
- 7:09Speaker 5: It's pretty amazing that that's the first time that you
- 7:13Speaker 5: committed murder. That's a pretty cold-blooded thing to do to
- 7:17Speaker 5: a complete stranger. Joseph identifies a first murder. which is
- 7:23Speaker 5: a double murder at point-blank range. Joseph has very good
- 7:26Speaker 5: recall of that incident. Broad daylight in a parking lot
- 7:31Speaker 5: of a shopping center. My question is, is that in
- 7:33Speaker 5: fact the first incident, or is that the first one
- 7:37Speaker 5: that he.
- 7:38Speaker 2: Wants to talk about? What were you feeling at the
- 7:41Speaker 2: time you pulled that trigger?
- 7:44Speaker 4: Fear, you know.
- 7:46Speaker 7: I feared if I get into a fight with that guy,
- 7:48Speaker 7: I'll be arrested for all this bank money I got
- 7:51Speaker 7: in the trunk.
- 7:51Speaker 4: I just... at the bank in Columbus a few days earlier,
- 7:54Speaker 4: you know.
- 7:55Speaker 5: He had a very difficult time describing his own internal feelings.
- 8:00Speaker 5: He could say what he was thinking, but he could
- 8:03Speaker 5: not articulate or describe how he was feeling.
- 8:06Speaker 4: I don't know.
- 8:07Speaker 7: I guess it's kind of like, you know, you see
- 8:11Speaker 7: this stuff going on on TV a lot, you know,
- 8:14Speaker 7: and it seems to desensitize you.
- 8:17Speaker 4: Maybe that was it.
- 8:18Speaker 5: I did not do an official assessment of Joseph as
- 8:22Speaker 5: to whether or not he was a psychopath. But it's
- 8:26Speaker 5: my opinion that he does show traits of psychopathy. This
- 8:30Speaker 5: underlying personality disorder known as psychopathy does seem to be
- 8:35Speaker 5: present in most serial killers. It's difficult for people who
- 8:41Speaker 5: do have traits of psychopathy to identify feelings because they
- 8:45Speaker 5: don't feel the same way that regular people feel.
- 8:50Speaker 1: Coming up.
- 8:52Speaker 2: Did you feel like you were actually hunting human beings?
- 8:55Speaker 4: Well, I was.
- 8:56Speaker 7: You know, the way people would sit down there and
- 8:59Speaker 7: wait for a wild game, I guess.
- 9:03Speaker 1: Before launching his career as a serial killer, Joseph Paul
- 9:07Speaker 1: Franklin was a deeply troubled young man, searching for identity
- 9:11Speaker 1: and belonging, first among evangelical Christians, then with right-wing extremists.
- 9:17Speaker 5: During the early 70s, you kind of see a metamorphosis
- 9:21Speaker 5: with Franklin. He begins to associate with the Nazi party.
- 9:27Speaker 5: He begins to associate with the Ku Klux Klan. And
- 9:30Speaker 5: then you see a little bit of the trial and
- 9:33Speaker 5: errors of his criminal behavior. You became, for a brief time,
- 9:37Speaker 5: a member of the American Nazi party and even the
- 9:40Speaker 5: Ku Klux Klan.
- 9:41Speaker 4: I was involved with the party. That was in 1973.
- 9:44Speaker 4: You weren't a member very long. Just a year for
- 9:48Speaker 4: that one, yeah. I didn't stick with any of them.
- 9:50Speaker 7: A lot of them were just filled with FBI informants
- 9:53Speaker 7: and people just always trying to get information from you.
- 9:56Speaker 5: But how did these groups think about you? I mean,
- 9:58Speaker 5: you weren't there for a very long time. Were they
- 10:00Speaker 5: too conservative for you?
- 10:03Speaker 4: They were mostly weren't doing anything, you know. Most of
- 10:06Speaker 4: them were into talking.
- 10:07Speaker 7: That's what the average Klansman and average Nazi, you know,
- 10:10Speaker 7: they're all talk.
- 10:11Speaker 4: And that's it.
- 10:13Speaker 2: And what were you into?
- 10:14Speaker 7: I was into action, you know, doing things. You know,
- 10:17Speaker 7: I wanted to get, you know, actually do something. I
- 10:20Speaker 7: wasn't sure exactly specifically what.
- 10:22Speaker 4: I wanted to do, you know.
- 10:24Speaker 2: So you became kind of a loner.
- 10:26Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah. You got to be because you can't trust anybody.
- 10:30Speaker 5: I thought when he gave that explanation, he was more
- 10:32Speaker 5: or less legitimizing why he left those organizations. Even though
- 10:37Speaker 5: he touched on it, I think part of the reason
- 10:39Speaker 5: he left was because they weren't extreme enough for him.
- 10:42Speaker 5: Then you begin to see him focus a little more
- 10:46Speaker 5: and more on what he ends up being for the
- 10:48Speaker 5: rest of his time before he's arrested, which is a sniper.
- 10:55Speaker 4: St.
- 10:55Speaker 1: Louis, 1977. Two months after Franklin's first murder in Wisconsin,
- 11:02Speaker 1: a group of people chat in the parking lot of
- 11:04Speaker 1: a synagogue. They are about to become the targets of
- 11:09Speaker 1: Joseph Paul Franklin's first sniper shooting.
- 11:20Speaker 4: There was a total of five shots.
- 11:22Speaker 5: One shot struck a man in the chest, which killed him.
- 11:26Speaker 9: Police that are arriving on the scene didn't know where
- 11:29Speaker 9: it was coming from.
- 11:35Speaker 6: The only thing we can tell you at this time
- 11:36Speaker 6: that we're positive of is that we have the weapon,
- 11:39Speaker 6: the rest post, and we have five spent cartridges, which
- 11:43Speaker 6: is right up there at that telephone pole. It appears
- 11:46Speaker 6: to be someone planned to come here and do just this.
- 11:50Speaker 5: This was not an impulsive act whatsoever. This was an
- 11:53Speaker 5: act that required planning, lots of patience. He chose this location...
- 12:00Speaker 5: It had all the features that he was looking for
- 12:03Speaker 5: or that he needed to set up his rifle, to
- 12:07Speaker 5: give him an escape route, and to be able to
- 12:09Speaker 5: sit there for two hours laying in wait for his
- 12:12Speaker 5: perfect victim. The victim is almost the last thing he
- 12:16Speaker 5: decides to do before he commits the homicide.
- 12:22Speaker 1: For his first sniper killing, Franklin boldly leaves the murder
- 12:25Speaker 1: weapon behind. having removed both his fingerprints and the serial
- 12:29Speaker 1: number from the rifle.
- 12:32Speaker 4: Though St.
- 12:32Speaker 1: Louis police eventually traced the gun back to Texas, it
- 12:36Speaker 1: would never lead them to Franklin.
- 12:39Speaker 5: Being a sniper is a very unusual type of serial killer.
- 12:44Speaker 2: You choose the place that you're going to shoot. You're
- 12:46Speaker 2: kind of off.
- 12:47Speaker 5: So it minimizes any contact whatsoever with the people you're
- 12:52Speaker 5: going to shoot. And I'm wondering, what is it like
- 12:54Speaker 5: when you're laying there getting ready to have a person.
- 12:59Speaker 2: Walk in front of your sights?
- 13:01Speaker 7: The way people will sit down there and wait for
- 13:03Speaker 7: a wild game, I guess. I guess it's the same,
- 13:06Speaker 7: you know, hunters who find a tree stand or something.
- 13:09Speaker 4: It's a similar situation, I guess. Just sit there and
- 13:11Speaker 4: wait until the target appears and shoot. I would just
- 13:13Speaker 4: stake out an area.
- 13:14Speaker 7: Find a good place to hide, you know, bushes or
- 13:17Speaker 7: just a vacant.
- 13:18Speaker 4: Yard as long as it was dark, you know. And
- 13:20Speaker 4: I knew that I could see them, but they couldn't
- 13:22Speaker 4: see me.
- 13:23Speaker 7: You go over everything, every little step you'll take, so
- 13:26Speaker 7: that when you do get all your adrenaline going, you
- 13:29Speaker 7: can just follow the plan that you already had in mind.
- 13:31Speaker 7: You don't have to worry about getting so scared that you.
- 13:34Speaker 4: Can't even move, you know.
- 13:35Speaker 2: Did you feel like you were actually hunting human beings?
- 13:39Speaker 4: Well, I was. You wouldn't call that hunting them?
- 13:43Speaker 10: I wouldn't.
- 13:43Speaker 4: Hunting them and shooting them. Well you know a lot
- 13:46Speaker 4: of people in the military do the same thing all
- 13:49Speaker 4: the time. Kill people they don't even know.
- 13:51Speaker 7: Some of the heroes of this country were the same way.
- 13:54Speaker 7: But they killed the enemy soldiers so they're not looked down,
- 13:57Speaker 7: despised by the society whereas.
- 13:59Speaker 4: People like me are.
- 14:01Speaker 7: Some people are just born homicidal is what I'm saying.
- 14:03Speaker 7: And believe it or not you'll find a lot of
- 14:05Speaker 7: people in the Bible who fit into that category who
- 14:07Speaker 7: are prophets of God.
- 14:08Speaker 4: Look at all the Philistines Samson killed.
- 14:11Speaker 5: He's implying, how can you judge me for doing the
- 14:14Speaker 5: same thing that people in the Bible have done and
- 14:17Speaker 5: heroes in Vietnam have done and soldiers in Iraq have
- 14:20Speaker 5: had to do?
- 14:21Speaker 2: So he's saying, I had to do this.
- 14:23Speaker 5: This was a good thing. I mean, it may sound bad,
- 14:26Speaker 5: but it's a good thing and I had to do it.
- 14:28Speaker 5: So don't judge me on the basis of my actions
- 14:30Speaker 5: because I'm not that different from people in the Bible.
- 14:33Speaker 5: I'm not that different from heroes in Vietnam and in
- 14:37Speaker 5: the Iraq war.
- 14:40Speaker 4: Blacks all over the country would be afraid to walk
- 14:42Speaker 4: down the street. I would be terrorizing the entire United States.
- 14:46Speaker 4: Just one man.
- 14:47Speaker 2: What a sense of power.
- 14:49Speaker 7: Mm-hmm.
- 14:54Speaker 1: After his St. Louis sniper killing, Joseph Paul Franklin hits
- 14:58Speaker 1: the interstates looking for new opportunities to carry out his
- 15:02Speaker 1: racist wrath. From 1977 to 1979, he commits similar shootings
- 15:04Speaker 1: in Virginia, Tennessee, and Oklahoma.
- 15:11Speaker 5: You begin to see this really what I would call
- 15:14Speaker 5: very mission-oriented serial killer who's killing a lot. He's driving
- 15:19Speaker 5: around a lot. He seems to have perfected the method
- 15:24Speaker 5: of his killing.
- 15:25Speaker 1: In addition to blacks and Jews, Franklin sets his sights
- 15:29Speaker 1: on an infamous magazine publisher who dared to print pictures
- 15:32Speaker 1: of an interracial couple.
- 15:38Speaker 3: Larry Flint, the publisher of Hustler magazine. He and his
- 15:41Speaker 3: lawyer were walking down the sidewalk when somebody on the
- 15:44Speaker 3: street opened fire, shooting Flint in the stomach and his
- 15:48Speaker 3: lawyer in the side and then escaped.
- 15:50Speaker 4: Both are in critical condition.
- 15:53Speaker 1: To Franklin's frustration, neither the police nor the media recognized
- 15:57Speaker 1: that one person is behind this shooting, the one in St.
- 16:00Speaker 1: Louis and those in other cities.
- 16:03Speaker 5: These would have been very difficult crimes to link. There's
- 16:07Speaker 5: such a limited amount of evidence at those crime scenes.
- 16:11Speaker 5: There's no interaction with the victims, so the detective has very,
- 16:14Speaker 5: very little to go on.
- 16:17Speaker 1: By 1980, Franklin finds a strategy he thinks will demand
- 16:20Speaker 1: law enforcement's full attention.
- 16:24Speaker 2: So what did you decide to do in 1980?
- 16:27Speaker 7: Well, just to keep doing a whole lot more of them.
- 16:30Speaker 7: so they could not ignore it. All the law enforcement
- 16:32Speaker 7: officers knew all about it, but they wouldn't tell the
- 16:34Speaker 7: media that it was a national thing. I guess they
- 16:36Speaker 7: figured until we catch the guy, we're not going to
- 16:39Speaker 7: give him any kind of national publicity.
- 16:41Speaker 2: That had to be frustrating.
- 16:42Speaker 7: Yeah, it was kind of frustrating, but that just made
- 16:44Speaker 7: me want to do even more. That's why I wanted
- 16:46Speaker 7: to shoot Jesse Jackson the most. That's the one I
- 16:50Speaker 7: stalked up in Chicago, went to Operation Push headquarters up there. Evidently,
- 16:55Speaker 7: I might have been a little too obvious because I
- 16:56Speaker 7: was driving down that road one day, And I looked
- 16:59Speaker 7: and saw a car behind me. And I thought, it
- 17:02Speaker 7: looks like that dude is following me in that car,
- 17:05Speaker 7: an unmarked police car. I'm going to take the next right,
- 17:09Speaker 7: and if he takes the right too, I know he's
- 17:12Speaker 7: following me. So I took the next right, and sure enough,
- 17:15Speaker 7: he took a right too and kept on going.
- 17:17Speaker 4: I thought, if somebody's tailing me here, I better get
- 17:19Speaker 4: out of town, you know?
- 17:20Speaker 5: The paranoia really, in a way, is very justified because
- 17:24Speaker 5: he knows that he has shot and killed people all
- 17:27Speaker 5: over the United States. It's that personality trait of his
- 17:31Speaker 5: that actually led to his identity and ultimately to his arrest.
- 17:36Speaker 1: After Franklin's plan to shoot Jesse Jackson fails, he stumbles
- 17:40Speaker 1: upon another high-profile target, civil rights leader Vernon Jordan.
- 17:45Speaker 7: So I left Chicago at that time, headed toward Indiana,
- 17:49Speaker 7: and I stopped in Fort Wayne that night And it
- 17:52Speaker 7: just happened here on the news that Vernon Jordan was
- 17:54Speaker 7: speaking at the Marriott Motel.
- 17:57Speaker 4: At such and such time, I.
- 17:58Speaker 7: Thought, well, if he's speaking at the motel, he's probably
- 18:00Speaker 7: staying at the motel.
- 18:02Speaker 4: So I called the motel up from my motel room.
- 18:04Speaker 7: I said, could you tell me what room number Vernon
- 18:08Speaker 7: Jordan is in?
- 18:10Speaker 4: She said, sir, that's against policy. I can't do that.
- 18:12Speaker 4: We're not supposed to do that. Somehow I was able
- 18:14Speaker 4: to convince her to give me the room number. So
- 18:16Speaker 4: that's all it took.
- 18:17Speaker 7: I was able to set up an ambush outside by
- 18:20Speaker 7: the interstate, you know, That's how that went down.
- 18:25Speaker 10: Vernon Jordan is said to be in very serious but
- 18:27Speaker 10: at least stable condition at a Fort Wayne, Indiana hospital
- 18:30Speaker 10: this morning, while local and federal officials are trying to
- 18:33Speaker 10: find out who shot him and why.
- 18:36Speaker 5: He talks about going after high-profile targets like Mr. Jordan
- 18:41Speaker 5: and Larry Flint and actually stalking them, getting up close
- 18:46Speaker 5: to where they were staying and where they were at
- 18:48Speaker 5: the time.
- 18:49Speaker 2: Which really is very.
- 18:51Speaker 5: Stupid, because when you go after people who are famous,
- 18:54Speaker 5: you're going to unleash law enforcement from.
- 18:57Speaker 2: All over the country.
- 18:58Speaker 5: Was there something that triggered it that happened to you,
- 19:01Speaker 5: or did you decide that I need to kill somebody?
- 19:04Speaker 4: I was actually trying to get a race war started.
- 19:07Speaker 7: That was my goal, commit enough racial incidents all over
- 19:11Speaker 7: the country to get the blacks all stirred up, you know,
- 19:13Speaker 7: and they would start killing whites, and then the whites
- 19:16Speaker 7: would then get angry, and retaliate for that, and he
- 19:19Speaker 7: would go back and forth until a full-scale race war
- 19:21Speaker 7: was going on.
- 19:23Speaker 5: Joseph wanted blacks and Jews to fear that anywhere they went,
- 19:27Speaker 5: they could be gunned down. That is such a grandiose scheme,
- 19:32Speaker 5: and it's unrealistic, and having unrealistic goals is consistent with
- 19:37Speaker 5: people who.
- 19:39Speaker 2: Manifest traits of psychopathy.
- 19:40Speaker 5: In fact, that's one of the traits of that disorder
- 19:43Speaker 5: is that they have unrealistic goals. That never would have happened,
- 19:46Speaker 5: and yet, He believes that he was capable... of being
- 19:50Speaker 5: able to accomplish that.
- 19:52Speaker 7: I guess if I would have been able to do
- 19:53Speaker 7: it long enough, they would have had to give me
- 19:56Speaker 7: national publicity. Blacks all over the country, interracial couples would
- 19:59Speaker 7: be afraid to walk down the street. I would be
- 20:02Speaker 7: terrorizing the entire United States.
- 20:04Speaker 4: Just one man.
- 20:05Speaker 2: What a sense of power.
- 20:07Speaker 8: Yeah.
- 20:07Speaker 4: They didn't want to freak.
- 20:09Speaker 7: Out the blacks all over the country. That's why they
- 20:10Speaker 7: wouldn't give me all that new national publicity.
- 20:12Speaker 2: Wow, that must have made you feel pretty important.
- 20:15Speaker 4: No, I wasn't really important.
- 20:17Speaker 7: You know, it was just the facts, the acts I
- 20:19Speaker 7: was trying to do. My goal was to get the
- 20:21Speaker 7: race war started, you know.
- 20:22Speaker 2: But you weren't successful.
- 20:24Speaker 4: No, I wasn't successful in that.
- 20:26Speaker 7: I got caught after the Salt Lake City shootings three years.
- 20:29Speaker 4: Later, you know.
- 20:30Speaker 5: I think underpinning a lot of his criminal behavior was
- 20:34Speaker 5: this need for attention, this need to get credit for
- 20:37Speaker 5: these crimes. It's what we call need-driven behavior. And his
- 20:42Speaker 5: need-driven behavior was law enforcement recognizing that one person, and
- 20:48Speaker 5: one person alone, was capable of creating chaos and fear
- 20:52Speaker 5: in the United States.
- 20:58Speaker 1: Coming up.
- 20:59Speaker 5: Remember the two teenage boys in Cincinnati that you shot?
- 21:02Speaker 4: Mm-hmm.
- 21:03Speaker 2: You could see that they were young.
- 21:04Speaker 4: Yeah, I was trying to ratchet up the violence.
- 21:11Speaker 1: In 1977, serial sniper Joseph Paul Franklin begins wandering the
- 21:17Speaker 1: country shooting people he calls enemies of the white race.
- 21:22Speaker 1: His victims are chosen at random, except for two, civil
- 21:25Speaker 1: rights leader Vernon Jordan and Hustler magazine publisher Larry Flint,
- 21:29Speaker 1: who are targeted for.
- 21:30Speaker 4: Their high-profile work.
- 21:33Speaker 1: By 1980, Franklin, feeling that his crimes are not getting
- 21:36Speaker 1: the attention they deserve, escalates his violence.
- 21:40Speaker 5: A serial sniper is a tough, tough offender to understand.
- 21:46Speaker 2: He decides who will be in his sights.
- 21:48Speaker 5: He realizes that that person's life rests in his hands.
- 21:55Speaker 5: So the ultimate thrill and sense of power and control
- 21:59Speaker 5: over another human being has to be considered as part
- 22:02Speaker 5: of the motivation for being a serial sniper.
- 22:06Speaker 1: It appears that Franklin also decides to expand his target
- 22:09Speaker 1: list to include children. On June 8th, 1980, the sniper
- 22:16Speaker 1: unleashes his pain on Cincinnati, Ohio.
- 22:24Speaker 5: You have two teenage boys who were shot and killed
- 22:27Speaker 5: in Cincinnati. No one sees anything, no one identifies anybody
- 22:32Speaker 5: that was responsible.
- 22:34Speaker 1: The victims, Dante Evans Brown and Darrell Lane, cousins and
- 22:38Speaker 1: best friends. were 13 and 14 years old.
- 22:41Speaker 8: Give our brother Dante peaceful rest in this grave.
- 22:45Speaker 5: The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit come on
- 22:48Speaker 5: you and remain with you forever. Amen. Up until that point,
- 22:54Speaker 5: we had not seen really young victims, 13 and 14
- 22:58Speaker 5: years of age, who now were targeted by this serial sniper.
- 23:04Speaker 5: And it really suggests that Joseph was changing his MO,
- 23:11Speaker 5: he was increasing the number of crimes, and he was
- 23:14Speaker 5: even changing his victimology to include these two very sympathetic victims.
- 23:19Speaker 5: If we could go back to the choice of, you
- 23:23Speaker 5: remember the two teenage boys in Cincinnati?
- 23:25Speaker 4: The what?
- 23:26Speaker 5: The two teenage boys in Cincinnati that you shot. They
- 23:33Speaker 5: were 13 and 14, and this was during that period
- 23:36Speaker 5: of time that you described that you were going to
- 23:40Speaker 5: do things differently.
- 23:40Speaker 4: Yeah, I was trying to ratchet up the violence.
- 23:44Speaker 2: Is that why you picked two young teenage boys? Because
- 23:47Speaker 2: you had a scope on your.
- 23:48Speaker 5: Weapon at that time, and you would have been able
- 23:50Speaker 5: to see that they were young.
- 23:52Speaker 2: There was only one time during the interview.
- 24:00Speaker 5: When his body language became defensive, and that was when
- 24:04Speaker 5: we started to talk about the homicide in Cincinnati involving
- 24:08Speaker 5: two young African-American.
- 24:11Speaker 2: Boys ages 13 and 14.
- 24:14Speaker 4: I couldn't really tell exactly how old they were.
- 24:16Speaker 7: I figured they were young, but maybe just 18 or
- 24:19Speaker 7: 19 years old, you know, sitting in there in the dark,
- 24:23Speaker 7: you know, and seeing just their silhouettes, you know, their shadows,
- 24:25Speaker 7: you know, it's kind of hard to tell how old
- 24:27Speaker 7: somebody was.
- 24:28Speaker 4: I had no idea they were that young.
- 24:30Speaker 5: I knew from reviewing the case and from talking to
- 24:33Speaker 5: other people that not only could he have seen through
- 24:36Speaker 5: the scope, but he wasn't all that far away from
- 24:39Speaker 5: those two young victims. When you know only shoot young children,
- 24:43Speaker 5: the repercussions for you as the offender can be far greater,
- 24:47Speaker 5: especially when you are incarcerated in prison. And people think
- 24:51Speaker 5: of you differently when you shoot and kill children.
- 24:56Speaker 4: It didn't really matter to me.
- 24:57Speaker 7: I had no conscience as far as the blacks go.
- 25:00Speaker 7: When you're a member of the Klan and you spend
- 25:03Speaker 7: years around white supremacists, you begin thinking of blacks as non-human.
- 25:07Speaker 7: Connie Lynch, who was a well-known Klan's leader, said, when
- 25:10Speaker 7: I go out to kill rattlesnakes, I don't make any
- 25:13Speaker 7: difference between little rattlesnakes and big rattlesnakes because I know
- 25:17Speaker 7: the little ones will grow up and bite me when
- 25:18Speaker 7: they get big. So I looked at blacks the same way.
- 25:23Speaker 5: So it appeared to me that he was speaking out
- 25:26Speaker 5: of both sides of his mouth. He was talking about
- 25:28Speaker 5: not knowing that they were younger victims. And yet, if
- 25:31Speaker 5: he shot two young boys, he knew that he would
- 25:37Speaker 5: get much more attention from the media and much more
- 25:40Speaker 5: attention from law enforcement.
- 25:46Speaker 1: Coming up.
- 25:47Speaker 4: I was a little kid that was beat up and starved.
- 25:50Speaker 7: You get so traumatized, you're just trying to pay back
- 25:53Speaker 7: other people all the pain that you suffered.
- 26:00Speaker 1: In the summer of 1980, an unusual type of serial killer,
- 26:05Speaker 1: a racist sniper, roams the U.S.
- 26:08Speaker 2: Looking for targets.
- 26:10Speaker 1: In states from Virginia to Oklahoma, he's used high-powered rifles, shotguns,
- 26:15Speaker 1: and a.
- 26:15Speaker 4: 357 Magnum to kill.
- 26:20Speaker 1: In Salt Lake City, detectives are facing a double homicide
- 26:24Speaker 1: that has all the trademarks of this serial killer.
- 26:27Speaker 9: We had reports of several shots fired. When we arrived here,
- 26:32Speaker 9: we had two victims down. We do have confirmed on
- 26:36Speaker 9: two of the victims that they have expired.
- 26:42Speaker 1: Two young men, 18 and 19, both black and well
- 26:46Speaker 1: regarded in the community, are dead. The two white girls
- 26:50Speaker 1: they were jogging with escape.
- 26:53Speaker 7: I responded that night.
- 26:54Speaker 8: It looked like the sniper had laid in wait inside
- 26:57Speaker 8: this field and then shot these four people as they
- 27:00Speaker 8: were coming across the lighted intersection.
- 27:04Speaker 4: Both the boys were.
- 27:05Speaker 8: Shot even after they had quit moving. They weren't wounds
- 27:08Speaker 8: to the legs or the extremities. These were all, in
- 27:12Speaker 8: shooter's talk, these were all like kill shots.
- 27:16Speaker 2: I'd like to talk to you about the Salt Lake
- 27:17Speaker 2: City shooting.
- 27:19Speaker 5: That was August 1980.
- 27:22Speaker 2: Why did you travel to Salt Lake?
- 27:23Speaker 4: Well, I'd been there before already, back in 1975. Okay.
- 27:26Speaker 7: And had noticed a lot of miscegenation.
- 27:31Speaker 2: What is that?
- 27:32Speaker 7: Mixing of the races, especially white with non-whites. It would
- 27:37Speaker 7: be a good place to target. I saw two interracial
- 27:40Speaker 7: couples jogging toward the park, two black dudes and two
- 27:43Speaker 7: white chicks, you know?
- 27:45Speaker 8: So.
- 27:46Speaker 7: I thought, well, I'll just keep waiting here until they
- 27:49Speaker 7: come back. And so there was a mound of dirt there,
- 27:52Speaker 7: so I was, you know, concealed with tall grass and everything,
- 27:55Speaker 7: you know.
- 27:59Speaker 5: Salt Lake City had been used to dealing with a
- 28:02Speaker 5: number of very violent crimes, so there was tremendous experience
- 28:05Speaker 5: in the department, but this was a very different kind
- 28:08Speaker 5: of offender.
- 28:10Speaker 1: Although Franklin has killed his intended targets, the crime has stopped.
- 28:15Speaker 8: We did find some tire tread marks in the field
- 28:18Speaker 8: where the shell casings were found. They were a prototype tire,
- 28:22Speaker 8: and they were only sold in a very limited amount
- 28:25Speaker 8: of states, but every one of those states were east
- 28:27Speaker 8: of the Mississippi River. They had to be from somewhere
- 28:31Speaker 8: back east.
- 28:35Speaker 1: It's not long before witnesses come forward and describe seeing
- 28:38Speaker 1: a dark-colored Camaro parked in the field near the sniper's position.
- 28:43Speaker 8: We found a man who was walking by about a
- 28:45Speaker 8: week later, and he actually saw the Camaro, and he
- 28:47Speaker 8: gave us a very good description of the car.
- 28:51Speaker 1: Soon, a local prostitute confirms that she's done business with
- 28:54Speaker 1: a man who drove a similar car.
- 28:57Speaker 8: He didn't want to trick in the car, so he says,
- 29:00Speaker 8: we'll go to my motel room. She thought he was
- 29:02Speaker 8: from the south because he had a southern accent, but
- 29:05Speaker 8: she couldn't remember where in the south. What made it
- 29:08Speaker 8: interesting to me is she mentioned that she saw some
- 29:10Speaker 8: handguns and rifles in his room. Then he told her
- 29:14Speaker 8: that he was a hitman for the Ku Klux Klan.
- 29:17Speaker 1: The witness is able to help police put together a
- 29:19Speaker 1: composite of the suspect.
- 29:22Speaker 8: When we knew that there had been other killings back east,
- 29:26Speaker 8: we now knew that this guy was from that area.
- 29:29Speaker 8: I think from the composites alone, we're pretty much convinced
- 29:33Speaker 8: that we were on the right road.
- 29:35Speaker 1: The registration card from the motel also lists the Camaro's
- 29:39Speaker 1: license plate number. and the name of its driver. While
- 29:43Speaker 1: the information is phony, Salt Lake City police soon discover
- 29:46Speaker 1: a trail of similar aliases in motels across the region.
- 29:51Speaker 8: So from the 9th of August to August 20th, we
- 29:53Speaker 8: could place him in, I think, seven or eight different motels.
- 30:00Speaker 8: We never found him after August 20th, which was the
- 30:03Speaker 8: night of our shooting. It's like he just disappeared off
- 30:06Speaker 8: the face of the earth.
- 30:08Speaker 1: The Salt Lake City police catch a break when one
- 30:11Speaker 1: astute motel owner writes down the Camaro's real license plate number.
- 30:16Speaker 1: A month later, this information pays off.
- 30:25Speaker 8: I think 11 o'clock one night, I got a call saying,
- 30:28Speaker 8: head to the airport, they found this guy and were
- 30:31Speaker 8: flying you to, I think the little town was called Erlanger, Kentucky,
- 30:36Speaker 8: and they'd arrested him at a motel on our warrant.
- 30:41Speaker 1: In an odd turn of events, police in Boone County, Kentucky,
- 30:45Speaker 1: while arresting a burglar at a local motel, encounter an
- 30:49Speaker 1: angry and paranoid man in the room next door.
- 30:52Speaker 5: They check his identification, they check his vehicle, and they
- 30:55Speaker 5: realize that his vehicle parked in the parking lot is
- 30:59Speaker 5: a vehicle that is wanted by the Salt Lake City
- 31:01Speaker 5: Police Department in a double homicide.
- 31:04Speaker 1: Finding two high-powered rifles and handguns in the man's room,
- 31:08Speaker 1: police take him in for questioning.
- 31:10Speaker 5: So law enforcement in Kentucky didn't realize when they brought
- 31:15Speaker 5: him into the interview room really who they had. They
- 31:18Speaker 5: didn't know how many homicides that he had committed and
- 31:21Speaker 5: how committed he was to not being apprehended.
- 31:25Speaker 8: And it wasn't until they got him into the station
- 31:27Speaker 8: and then they started talking about Salt Lake City and shootings,
- 31:30Speaker 8: I think then that's where he got worried and he
- 31:32Speaker 8: manufactured his escape and he took off.
- 31:36Speaker 1: During a break in the interview, Franklin escapes out an
- 31:40Speaker 1: open window and disappears. One of America's deadliest serial killers
- 31:46Speaker 1: is back on the street. But now, police have his
- 31:50Speaker 1: real name. On September 25th, 1980, Joseph Paul Franklin, age 30,
- 31:56Speaker 1: is now the object of a nationwide manhunt. One month later,
- 32:03Speaker 1: the FBI, aware that Franklin regularly sells his blood, catches
- 32:08Speaker 1: him at a blood bank near Tampa, Florida. Franklin proclaims
- 32:12Speaker 1: his innocence while proudly admitting his racist beliefs.
- 32:15Speaker 2: Do you have white racist views?
- 32:17Speaker 4: Oh, definitely, yeah.
- 32:18Speaker 2: Well, how do you feel about blacks?
- 32:19Speaker 4: I'm against racism and communism.
- 32:22Speaker 1: His denials don't last. In the coming years, Franklin confesses
- 32:26Speaker 1: to numerous murders. For the sniper killing at the St.
- 32:30Speaker 1: Louis synagogue, Franklin is sentenced to death.
- 32:34Speaker 4: Mr.
- 32:35Speaker 5: Franklin has said that his motivation was to eliminate what
- 32:39Speaker 5: he referred to as ugly people from the community. That
- 32:45Speaker 5: is an explanation that he thinks would give him more credibility.
- 32:50Speaker 5: But as far as what caused him to become a
- 32:52Speaker 5: serial killer, I think that was an excuse. So how
- 32:57Speaker 5: did you, Joseph, evolve to the point where you could
- 33:01Speaker 5: do something that seems so cold-blooded?
- 33:04Speaker 7: You get so traumatized that you're just trying to pay
- 33:09Speaker 7: back other people all the pain that you suffered. That's
- 33:11Speaker 7: what happened to me. From the time I was a
- 33:14Speaker 7: little kid and was yelled at all day long and
- 33:17Speaker 7: beat up and starved, it had an effect on me
- 33:20Speaker 7: when I got older, you know. Just about everybody in
- 33:22Speaker 7: the family had an alcohol problem, you know. They all
- 33:25Speaker 7: drank like crazy, including my dad was an alcoholic. After
- 33:30Speaker 7: spending all his paycheck, my mother would start fussing at him.
- 33:32Speaker 7: They would be fighting, cussing, and screaming at each other,
- 33:35Speaker 7: and he would be beating her, and, you know, that's
- 33:38Speaker 7: the way it went. I remember the landlord would come
- 33:40Speaker 7: and bang on the side of the trailer, and it
- 33:41Speaker 7: would just terrorize us, you know. He would hit the
- 33:43Speaker 7: trailer real bad and start yelling at my mother to
- 33:45Speaker 7: pay the rent, you know. And she had no money
- 33:48Speaker 7: because my father would take all the money and spend
- 33:51Speaker 7: it for alcohol.
- 33:52Speaker 4: Eventually, they split up.
- 33:53Speaker 7: In 1965, they were divorced, and it was, you know,
- 33:57Speaker 7: that left us on welfare, you know. And so she
- 34:00Speaker 7: began abusing us even worse after he left, you know.
- 34:02Speaker 7: I was the only child in the family who was
- 34:07Speaker 7: always bringing animals home. One afternoon, there was a little
- 34:10Speaker 7: terrier dog, you know, from the neighborhood. We were all
- 34:13Speaker 7: out in the yard, all of us kids, petting this
- 34:15Speaker 7: little terrier. It was a cute little dog, too, you know,
- 34:17Speaker 7: with a little tail that stuck straight up, you know.
- 34:20Speaker 4: And just as friendly as can be, you know.
- 34:23Speaker 7: Mama had been sitting in her lawn chair watching us
- 34:26Speaker 7: and went into the house, set a pot of water
- 34:30Speaker 7: on the stove and began boiling it. She got the
- 34:33Speaker 7: water up to a full boil, you know, and poured
- 34:35Speaker 7: it right on the little dog's back, you know, and
- 34:37Speaker 7: he went, you know, screaming and running away real fast,
- 34:41Speaker 7: you know.
- 34:42Speaker 2: She had a lot of cruel behavior.
- 34:44Speaker 4: I mean, she was a sadist.
- 34:45Speaker 2: How old were you?
- 34:47Speaker 4: About 10 or 11.
- 34:49Speaker 5: Joseph talked about a childhood that was chilling. The question is,
- 34:54Speaker 5: despite the harshness and the severity of the abuse, does
- 34:58Speaker 5: that act as a cause and effect for him later
- 35:01Speaker 5: to go on and become a serial killer? We have
- 35:04Speaker 5: no research at this point to say that there is
- 35:06Speaker 5: a cause and effect just with childhood abuse because we
- 35:09Speaker 5: know that there are unfortunately many people who are raised
- 35:13Speaker 5: in very abusive situations and they don't go on to
- 35:17Speaker 5: become serial killers. So I think we have to incorporate
- 35:21Speaker 5: that environment that he described But I think it would
- 35:25Speaker 5: be wrong to say that he was a serial killer
- 35:29Speaker 5: strictly and solely because.
- 35:32Speaker 2: He was raised in an abusive environment. Do you think
- 35:38Speaker 2: you were born to kill?
- 35:39Speaker 4: Yeah, I guess you could say that. I was under
- 35:41Speaker 4: the influence of the devil.
- 35:43Speaker 2: What do you think is going to happen to you
- 35:44Speaker 2: when you die?
- 35:49Speaker 1: Joseph Paul Franklin has been on Missouri's death row for
- 35:52Speaker 1: more than a decade. Extreme hatred and what appears to
- 35:56Speaker 1: be an utter lack of conscience drove him to kill
- 36:01Speaker 1: some 20 people and injure many others.
- 36:04Speaker 5: How do I feel about someone like Joseph? Do I
- 36:08Speaker 5: pity him?
- 36:09Speaker 2: What are my feelings towards him?
- 36:12Speaker 5: I feel that it's important that we understand how he
- 36:15Speaker 5: developed to be able to go back and say, was
- 36:20Speaker 5: it possible early on to prevent this? Was it possible
- 36:25Speaker 5: to do something that would have changed the course of history?
- 36:30Speaker 2: Your first thoughts of killing somebody, how old do you
- 36:34Speaker 2: think you were?
- 36:36Speaker 4: About 17 years old, I think.
- 36:38Speaker 7: When I would watch all these Westerns on TV, I
- 36:40Speaker 7: guess I would see people wanting them to get shot.
- 36:43Speaker 5: Here he was, watching TV, watching Westerns, lots of shootouts.
- 36:48Speaker 5: He particularly enjoyed when the bad guy was successful. In
- 36:52Speaker 5: the late 50s and during the 60s, the era of Vietnam,
- 36:57Speaker 5: John Kennedy was assassinated by a sniper. Charles Whitman was
- 37:01Speaker 5: a particularly successful sniper at the University of Texas in 1966.
- 37:05Speaker 5: It was a period of time of a lot of violence,
- 37:10Speaker 5: a lot of violence that didn't make any sense. So
- 37:13Speaker 5: you have to wonder about the impact of some of
- 37:15Speaker 5: the events of that period and what role they played
- 37:18Speaker 5: in him and his decision to ultimately become a serial sniper.
- 37:23Speaker 5: Was there a point in time where something could have
- 37:26Speaker 5: been done to put you on a different course?
- 37:28Speaker 2: Was there some kind of intervention that could have happened?
- 37:31Speaker 7: If I had some people to teach me and encourage
- 37:34Speaker 7: me to go to school and get an education and all,
- 37:36Speaker 7: when I was little, my life would have turned out
- 37:38Speaker 7: a whole lot differently, you know?
- 37:39Speaker 2: Do you think you still would have become a serial sniper?
- 37:43Speaker 4: I don't think I would have, no. I wouldn't have
- 37:44Speaker 4: built up all that hatred over the years, you know?
- 37:47Speaker 7: It's a The thing that everybody does when they get hurt,
- 37:49Speaker 7: they want to pass that pain on.
- 37:51Speaker 4: I just kept getting angry, you know.
- 37:54Speaker 2: Do you think you were born to kill?
- 37:55Speaker 4: Yeah, I guess you could say that.
- 37:58Speaker 7: Some people are just born with a streak that they
- 38:00Speaker 7: can do something like that. There's other people, I guess
- 38:03Speaker 7: if the same thing had happened, they wouldn't have done anything.
- 38:05Speaker 4: You know.
- 38:06Speaker 2: Joseph.
- 38:07Speaker 5: referred to himself in previous interviews as a natural born killer.
- 38:11Speaker 5: And I asked him about that, and he agreed that
- 38:14Speaker 5: that was a possibility for him. Again, almost a recognition
- 38:19Speaker 5: that in spite of this environment that he described as abusive,
- 38:25Speaker 5: he still was a.
- 38:26Speaker 2: Natural born killer.
- 38:28Speaker 5: And the research up to this point seems to suggest
- 38:32Speaker 5: that there seems to be some part of it that
- 38:35Speaker 5: is hardwired In other words, genetic link to this personality disorder.
- 38:41Speaker 2: Do you think there was a part of you that
- 38:43Speaker 2: at that time enjoyed the killing?
- 38:48Speaker 7: I wouldn't say enjoyed it. It was just something I
- 38:49Speaker 7: felt I had to do. There was nobody else doing it,
- 38:52Speaker 7: so I figured.
- 38:52Speaker 4: I had to do it.
- 38:53Speaker 2: How did you feel once you finished the shooting?
- 38:55Speaker 4: I was just glad to get away.
- 38:59Speaker 2: Was it sexually arousing when you were pulling the trigger?
- 39:02Speaker 1: Not at all, no.
- 39:03Speaker 2: Have you had violent sexual fantasies?
- 39:07Speaker 4: What do you mean by violent sexual fantasies?
- 39:10Speaker 2: Violence and sex are involved in your fantasies.
- 39:13Speaker 4: That would be a VSF, huh? No, I never had
- 39:16Speaker 4: any of those. I wasn't into that. The only thing
- 39:18Speaker 4: I got sexually aroused with was women.
- 39:21Speaker 7: I was either out chasing skirts, trying to get laid,
- 39:26Speaker 7: or I was out trying to kill an interracial couple
- 39:28Speaker 7: or a black man.
- 39:30Speaker 4: That was what I was spending most of my time doing.
- 39:32Speaker 5: For some people, though, killing is very sexual.
- 39:35Speaker 4: Yeah, I know. There's some sick puppies out there. I
- 39:37Speaker 4: don't fall in that category, though.
- 39:39Speaker 5: The most frequently seen serial killer in my unit are
- 39:42Speaker 5: those serial killers who who are motivated for sexual purposes.
- 39:48Speaker 2: In other words, they're.
- 39:49Speaker 5: Sexually gratified in some way as a result of murdering
- 39:52Speaker 5: the victim. Joseph does fit the definition of a serial killer. Now,
- 39:56Speaker 5: his motivation was different, and he talked about his motivation
- 40:01Speaker 5: being non-sexual, which is obviously a very touchy area to
- 40:06Speaker 5: get into with an individual. Is he telling the truth?
- 40:10Speaker 5: There's no way to know that. We're depending on him
- 40:13Speaker 5: to tell us that. If it is true, it may
- 40:15Speaker 5: be too embarrassing for him to admit. Or they may
- 40:19Speaker 5: not have been sexually motivated.
- 40:23Speaker 2: And as we close, let me ask you this.
- 40:26Speaker 5: How do you feel about the people that you killed?
- 40:32Speaker 4: I feel sorry for them. I regret having done that,
- 40:34Speaker 4: you know.
- 40:35Speaker 2: What does regret feel like to Joseph Paul Franklin?
- 40:39Speaker 7: Well, I just, in other words, I just wished I
- 40:40Speaker 7: had not done it, you know. I feel sorry for
- 40:43Speaker 7: the people, you know. It was really wrong for me
- 40:46Speaker 7: to do that.
- 40:48Speaker 5: I think like most serial killers, Joseph knows right from wrong.
- 40:53Speaker 5: He talked about regret, but whether or not that was
- 40:58Speaker 5: a sincere, remorseful regret, I can only tell you what
- 41:02Speaker 5: my opinion was based on my experience with these types
- 41:04Speaker 5: of offenders. And I did not walk away with the
- 41:07Speaker 5: sense that he had those feelings of remorse and guilt.
- 41:12Speaker 7: I was under the influence of the devil, to be
- 41:14Speaker 7: quite honest. I know that sounds, you know, I'm not
- 41:17Speaker 7: trying to say the devil made me do it, but
- 41:19Speaker 7: the devil does put thoughts in people's minds.
- 41:23Speaker 4: That is a fact.
- 41:24Speaker 7: At the time when Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy
- 41:27Speaker 7: were both assassinated, the same year, and the party carried
- 41:31Speaker 7: an article that was titled Two Enemies of the White
- 41:35Speaker 7: Race Die. That's the kind of stuff I was feeding
- 41:38Speaker 7: my mind for.
- 41:38Speaker 4: Years and years.
- 41:39Speaker 7: That's why I began thinking of Blacks is nothing but
- 41:43Speaker 7: subhumans who go around committing nothing but rapes and raping
- 41:47Speaker 7: white women and killing. I know that's just a criminal
- 41:50Speaker 7: element now. There's a lot of hardworking blacks who don't
- 41:52Speaker 7: do that stuff.
- 41:52Speaker 4: You know.
- 41:54Speaker 2: You mentioned heaven and hell.
- 41:56Speaker 7: Yeah, the Bible mentions those and so does the Koran.
- 42:00Speaker 2: What do you think is going to happen to you
- 42:01Speaker 2: when you die?
- 42:03Speaker 7: Well, I'm trusting in Jehovah's mercy, you know, trusting in
- 42:07Speaker 7: God's mercy.
- 42:09Speaker 5: I think Joseph lives in the here and now. I
- 42:12Speaker 5: think he lives for the present moment. I think he's
- 42:14Speaker 5: obviously cognizant or aware that he has the death penalty
- 42:18Speaker 5: hanging over his head. But there also may be a
- 42:20Speaker 5: part of him that thinks that something may happen ultimately
- 42:24Speaker 5: and he won't be executed. Many serial killers who are
- 42:29Speaker 5: psychopaths are very optimistic in terms of their future.
- 42:33Speaker 4: Thank you very much.
- 42:34Speaker 2: Joseph was hardly a disappointment. Joseph's smart. He's articulate.
- 42:39Speaker 5: And listening to him talk about what he wanted to do,
- 42:42Speaker 5: what his whole purpose was, made him even more frightening
- 42:46Speaker 5: of an individual than we realized 30-some years ago. I
- 42:52Speaker 5: think that he was absolutely a very, very dangerous serial killer,
- 42:57Speaker 5: set apart from many of the other ones that we
- 43:00Speaker 5: saw then.
- 43:01Speaker 2: And that we see today.
- 43:09Speaker 5: One of the reasons for this kind of interview is
- 43:12Speaker 5: not just to develop a better understanding of these kinds
- 43:15Speaker 5: of offenders, but also to help investigators the next time
- 43:20Speaker 5: that this.
- 43:20Speaker 2: Type of crime occurs.
- 43:22Speaker 5: Joseph Paul Franklin will not be our last serial sniper.
- 43:26Speaker 5: And we know that because we had the Beltway snipers
- 43:29Speaker 5: right after 9-11. A lot of the information that Joseph
- 43:33Speaker 5: talked about is information that we can take in to
- 43:36Speaker 5: not only prepare the investigation but to also help prepare
- 43:41Speaker 5: for the interview with the next serial sniper.