WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.759 I want you to picture a scene. It's January 1990. 00:00:03.259 --> 00:00:06.599 It is freezing cold in upstate New York. We are 00:00:06.599 --> 00:00:09.419 hovering in a helicopter looking down at a bridge 00:00:09.419 --> 00:00:12.179 over Salmon Creek. Right. And standing there 00:00:12.179 --> 00:00:15.279 just looking down into this icy water is a heavy 00:00:15.279 --> 00:00:18.679 set middle aged man. He's not fishing. He's not 00:00:18.679 --> 00:00:21.140 out for a hike. No. He's standing near the site 00:00:21.140 --> 00:00:23.260 where a woman's body was recently dumped. And 00:00:23.260 --> 00:00:26.500 he is. Well the reports say he's engaging in 00:00:26.500 --> 00:00:30.589 a sexual act with himself. It is a. Just a grotesque 00:00:30.589 --> 00:00:33.990 image. And it was, in a very real way, the end 00:00:33.990 --> 00:00:36.850 of a nightmare. That man on the bridge was Arthur 00:00:36.850 --> 00:00:40.030 Shawcross. Welcome back to The Deep Dive. Today, 00:00:40.189 --> 00:00:42.310 we are opening a file that frankly makes you 00:00:42.310 --> 00:00:44.149 want to scream at the history books. This isn't 00:00:44.149 --> 00:00:46.310 just a true crime story. No, not at all. It's 00:00:46.310 --> 00:00:49.289 a story about a system that failed so catastrophically 00:00:49.289 --> 00:00:51.229 that Dr. Michael H. Stone, and this is a guy 00:00:51.229 --> 00:00:53.130 who literally wrote the book The Anatomy of Evil 00:00:53.130 --> 00:00:55.469 at Columbia University, he called this case one 00:00:55.469 --> 00:00:57.810 of the most egregious examples of the unwarranted 00:00:57.810 --> 00:01:00.170 release of a prisoner. That quote has stuck with 00:01:00.170 --> 00:01:02.810 me since we started researching this. Egregious, 00:01:02.829 --> 00:01:06.109 unwarranted, because that's really the core of 00:01:06.109 --> 00:01:07.549 what we're talking about today. We aren't just 00:01:07.549 --> 00:01:09.609 looking at the Genesee River killer and his crimes, 00:01:09.670 --> 00:01:11.189 although, you know, we have to go there. We do. 00:01:11.549 --> 00:01:14.310 But we're really looking at this specific moment 00:01:14.310 --> 00:01:16.989 in time where the legal system, the mental health 00:01:16.989 --> 00:01:20.409 system and the prison system all looked at a 00:01:20.409 --> 00:01:22.760 known child killer and said. Yeah, he's probably 00:01:22.760 --> 00:01:25.159 fine to go back outside. It sounds impossible 00:01:25.159 --> 00:01:27.120 when you say it like that. It sounds like a line 00:01:27.120 --> 00:01:29.939 from a bad movie, but it happened. Arthur Shawcross 00:01:29.939 --> 00:01:33.400 killed two children in 1972. He was released 00:01:33.400 --> 00:01:36.700 in 1987. And then he killed at least 11 more 00:01:36.700 --> 00:01:39.680 women. At least 11. So today's mission, our mission 00:01:39.680 --> 00:01:42.599 for you, is to figure out how. How does a guy 00:01:42.599 --> 00:01:44.719 with a rap sheet that terrifying at Christmas 00:01:44.719 --> 00:01:48.280 talk his way out of prison? How does the, uh... 00:01:48.820 --> 00:01:51.040 architecture of a liar, as you called it, work. 00:01:51.299 --> 00:01:53.439 And where is that line? I mean, where do we draw 00:01:53.439 --> 00:01:55.480 the line between a brain that is physically broken 00:01:55.480 --> 00:01:58.739 and a mind that is just purely evil? That's the 00:01:58.739 --> 00:02:00.760 big one. We've got a massive stack of sources 00:02:00.760 --> 00:02:03.340 for this deep dive. We're pulling from trial 00:02:03.340 --> 00:02:06.700 transcripts. the works of the legendary FBI profiler 00:02:06.700 --> 00:02:09.159 Robert Ressler, some incredible investigations 00:02:09.159 --> 00:02:12.719 by Jack Olson, and medical reports that get into 00:02:12.719 --> 00:02:15.680 the literal gray matter of the brain. Yeah, the 00:02:15.680 --> 00:02:19.400 neurology of it is fascinating and deeply unsettling. 00:02:19.460 --> 00:02:21.500 So buckle up. This is a heavy one. But we need 00:02:21.500 --> 00:02:25.199 to understand it because, honestly, the loopholes 00:02:25.199 --> 00:02:27.300 he exploited, I'm not convinced they're all closed. 00:02:27.360 --> 00:02:29.039 Let's start at the beginning, the origin story. 00:02:29.219 --> 00:02:31.240 Or as I call it, the construction of the mask. 00:02:31.439 --> 00:02:34.830 Right. Arthur John Shawcross, born in 1945 in 00:02:34.830 --> 00:02:37.389 Kittery, Maine, but really grew up in Watertown, 00:02:37.509 --> 00:02:39.870 New York. If we look at his childhood, are we 00:02:39.870 --> 00:02:42.949 seeing the classic bad seed signs, the ones we 00:02:42.949 --> 00:02:45.389 always hear about? We are seeing what forensic 00:02:45.389 --> 00:02:47.569 psychologists used to call and, you know, still 00:02:47.569 --> 00:02:50.569 debate pretty heavily the McDonald triad. OK, 00:02:50.650 --> 00:02:52.449 pause there. I've heard this term thrown around 00:02:52.449 --> 00:02:55.289 in TV shows all the time. The triad. What is 00:02:55.289 --> 00:02:58.050 it actually? What does it mean? So back in 1963, 00:02:58.430 --> 00:03:01.280 a psychiatrist named J .M. McDonald. proposed 00:03:01.280 --> 00:03:04.099 this theory. He said that if you see three specific 00:03:04.099 --> 00:03:06.800 behaviors in a child, it's a strong predictor 00:03:06.800 --> 00:03:09.780 of future violent, maybe even homicidal tendencies. 00:03:10.199 --> 00:03:13.319 And the three are? One, cruelty to animals. Two, 00:03:13.599 --> 00:03:17.360 an obsession with fire setting. And three, enuresis, 00:03:17.419 --> 00:03:20.199 which is the clinical term for chronic bedwetting 00:03:20.199 --> 00:03:22.419 well past the age where a child should have stopped. 00:03:22.560 --> 00:03:24.960 And Shawcross had these. He hid the jackpot on 00:03:24.960 --> 00:03:27.500 the bedwetting. The sources indicate he was wetting 00:03:27.500 --> 00:03:31.139 the bed well into his teenage years. No. We have 00:03:31.139 --> 00:03:33.819 to be really careful here. Bedwetting on its 00:03:33.819 --> 00:03:35.960 own doesn't make someone a serial killer. Of 00:03:35.960 --> 00:03:37.879 course not. It can be biological. It can be stress 00:03:37.879 --> 00:03:40.020 -related. But you have to think about the context 00:03:40.020 --> 00:03:42.740 of the 1950s. Oh, the shame. Absolutely. His 00:03:42.740 --> 00:03:44.419 mother would have been scrubbing sheets, maybe 00:03:44.419 --> 00:03:46.439 shaming him directly. The other kids, if they 00:03:46.439 --> 00:03:49.060 found out, would be relentless. Exactly. It creates 00:03:49.060 --> 00:03:51.900 this intense internal cycle of humiliation and 00:03:51.900 --> 00:03:54.900 rage. You feel powerless over your own body, 00:03:54.979 --> 00:03:56.599 so you start looking for ways to exert power 00:03:56.599 --> 00:03:59.360 over others. And Shawcross did that. He was a 00:03:59.360 --> 00:04:02.319 bully. known for it at school. He had these violent, 00:04:02.360 --> 00:04:04.340 sudden outbursts. He was a big kid, so he could 00:04:04.340 --> 00:04:06.639 intimidate people. And eventually, he just dropped 00:04:06.639 --> 00:04:09.199 out of high school in 1960. He couldn't function 00:04:09.199 --> 00:04:11.120 in that kind of social structure. Now, speaking 00:04:11.120 --> 00:04:13.139 of his childhood, and this is where it gets really 00:04:13.139 --> 00:04:15.439 murky, we have to address the elephant in the 00:04:15.439 --> 00:04:18.600 room, the abuse claims. Shawcross later told 00:04:18.600 --> 00:04:21.399 psychiatrists some just horrific stories about 00:04:21.399 --> 00:04:24.000 his mother, Bessie. Right. And they are truly 00:04:24.000 --> 00:04:27.279 awful. He claimed that starting at age seven, 00:04:27.769 --> 00:04:30.470 His mother forced him into oral sex. He also 00:04:30.470 --> 00:04:32.649 claimed he had sexual relations with his sister 00:04:32.649 --> 00:04:35.029 later on. Okay, the big question. Do we believe 00:04:35.029 --> 00:04:38.209 him? This is, I think, the first major lesson 00:04:38.209 --> 00:04:40.670 for you as a listener today. Yeah. The skepticism 00:04:40.670 --> 00:04:43.189 of the self -reporter. When you are dealing with 00:04:43.189 --> 00:04:45.949 a diagnosed psychopath, you have to realize that 00:04:45.949 --> 00:04:49.189 they view their own history as a tool. It's a 00:04:49.189 --> 00:04:52.029 weapon. It's a shield. So the past isn't something 00:04:52.029 --> 00:04:53.790 that happened to him. It's something he uses. 00:04:54.410 --> 00:04:57.490 Precisely. Did the abuse happen? It's possible. 00:04:57.709 --> 00:04:59.629 I mean, dysfunctional homes absolutely breed 00:04:59.629 --> 00:05:03.029 violence and trauma. But psychopathy experts 00:05:03.029 --> 00:05:04.949 often point out that these offenders learned 00:05:04.949 --> 00:05:08.389 very, very quickly that I was abused is a get 00:05:08.389 --> 00:05:10.529 -out -of -jail -free card. It generates sympathy. 00:05:10.689 --> 00:05:14.209 It provides a reason for their darkness. So he 00:05:14.209 --> 00:05:15.930 might have been retrofitting his own history 00:05:15.930 --> 00:05:18.389 to make himself look like a victim, not a predator. 00:05:18.649 --> 00:05:21.089 It's a classic deflection. Don't look at what 00:05:21.089 --> 00:05:24.000 I did. Look at what was done to me. And this 00:05:24.000 --> 00:05:27.079 pattern of inventing a narrative to suit his 00:05:27.079 --> 00:05:29.199 needs. I mean, it just exploded when he went 00:05:29.199 --> 00:05:31.639 to Vietnam. Oh, the war stories. This part is 00:05:31.639 --> 00:05:34.920 just wild. He gets drafted in 1967. He's 21 years 00:05:34.920 --> 00:05:37.120 old. He goes to Vietnam. And if you listen to 00:05:37.120 --> 00:05:39.560 Arthur Shawcross talk at a bar in the 1980s, 00:05:39.560 --> 00:05:41.540 you'd think he was the inspiration for Rambo. 00:05:41.639 --> 00:05:43.379 He was telling people he was this elite jungle 00:05:43.379 --> 00:05:45.480 fighter. He claimed he was on long range reconnaissance 00:05:45.480 --> 00:05:48.800 patrols. He claimed he beheaded Mama Sands, you 00:05:48.800 --> 00:05:51.300 know, local Vietnamese women and nailed their 00:05:51.300 --> 00:05:53.899 heads to trees as warnings to the. vietcong he 00:05:53.899 --> 00:05:56.220 also claimed he engaged in cannibalism right 00:05:56.220 --> 00:06:00.800 to survive in the jungle yes cannibalism mutilation 00:06:00.800 --> 00:06:05.560 you name it he painted himself as this uh blood 00:06:05.560 --> 00:06:08.839 -soaked warrior who had seen and done the absolute 00:06:08.839 --> 00:06:12.160 unspeakable a broken man a victim of the war 00:06:12.160 --> 00:06:16.709 but the reality was a little more Mundane. Mundane 00:06:16.709 --> 00:06:18.689 is the perfect word. We have a service records. 00:06:18.970 --> 00:06:21.050 Robert Ressler pulled them for the trial. He 00:06:21.050 --> 00:06:22.850 was in the fourth supply and transport company. 00:06:23.009 --> 00:06:26.149 So he was a clerk, a logistics guy. He was moving 00:06:26.149 --> 00:06:28.529 boxes. He was a supply guy. He wasn't out in 00:06:28.529 --> 00:06:30.850 the bush hunting the Viet Cong with a knife in 00:06:30.850 --> 00:06:33.930 his teeth. He was likely moving crates, filling 00:06:33.930 --> 00:06:36.110 out forms, working in a depot well behind the 00:06:36.110 --> 00:06:38.709 front lines. So why the lies? I mean, that's 00:06:38.709 --> 00:06:41.670 a huge, huge gap. Peeling potatoes versus beheading 00:06:41.670 --> 00:06:43.649 people. What's the psychological function of 00:06:43.649 --> 00:06:45.910 that? It's what some profilers call the persona 00:06:45.910 --> 00:06:48.550 of dangerousness. Shawcross was a physically 00:06:48.550 --> 00:06:50.829 imposing guy, sure. But deep down, he was that 00:06:50.829 --> 00:06:53.430 insecure bedwetting kid. He felt inadequate. 00:06:54.189 --> 00:06:56.829 By inventing these atrocities, he commanded fear 00:06:56.829 --> 00:06:59.470 and respect. Nobody messes with the guy who claims 00:06:59.470 --> 00:07:01.310 he ate people in Vietnam. And you have to remember 00:07:01.310 --> 00:07:04.569 the era, too. Yes, absolutely. Late 60s, early 00:07:04.569 --> 00:07:07.509 70s. The culture was just flooded with images 00:07:07.509 --> 00:07:11.069 of the damaged vet. Taxi driver. The deer hunter. 00:07:11.689 --> 00:07:14.269 All those stories coming back. Exactly. The public 00:07:14.269 --> 00:07:16.910 was primed to believe that Vietnam turned good 00:07:16.910 --> 00:07:19.810 men into monsters. Shawcross just stepped into 00:07:19.810 --> 00:07:21.889 a role that society had already written for him. 00:07:22.029 --> 00:07:24.470 He knew that if he said, I saw terrible things, 00:07:24.689 --> 00:07:27.329 people would back off. They'd say, oh, it's the 00:07:27.329 --> 00:07:30.689 war. Poor guy. It was the perfect camouflage 00:07:30.689 --> 00:07:33.029 for the real monster that was growing inside 00:07:33.029 --> 00:07:35.550 him. But while he was faking the combat trauma, 00:07:35.769 --> 00:07:38.110 the real deviant behavior, the stuff from the 00:07:38.110 --> 00:07:40.209 McDonald triad was actually starting to show 00:07:40.209 --> 00:07:42.269 up in his official records. He gets stationed 00:07:42.269 --> 00:07:44.370 at Fort Sill in Oklahoma after his tour, and 00:07:44.370 --> 00:07:46.269 he starts setting fires. The second part of the 00:07:46.269 --> 00:07:48.779 triad. Fire setting. And this wasn't just, you 00:07:48.779 --> 00:07:50.920 know, a prank. An army psychiatrist actually 00:07:50.920 --> 00:07:53.480 flagged this. He sat down with Showacross's second 00:07:53.480 --> 00:07:56.220 wife, Linda, and told her that her husband, Arthur, 00:07:56.459 --> 00:07:58.920 derives sexual arousal from setting fires. Wait, 00:07:58.980 --> 00:08:01.740 sexual arousal? From arson? How does that work? 00:08:01.959 --> 00:08:04.620 It's a paraphilia called pyrophilia. It's rare, 00:08:04.800 --> 00:08:07.420 but it happens. For a man who feels inadequate 00:08:07.420 --> 00:08:10.470 and powerless, fire is the ultimate power. It's 00:08:10.470 --> 00:08:12.949 total destruction. You strike one tiny match 00:08:12.949 --> 00:08:14.810 and you can watch something huge and powerful 00:08:14.810 --> 00:08:17.810 burn to the ground. For some people, that rush 00:08:17.810 --> 00:08:20.589 of dominance, of control, becomes sexualized. 00:08:20.709 --> 00:08:22.709 So he gets discharged, the marriage falls apart, 00:08:22.870 --> 00:08:24.810 he's back in New York in Clayton, and he starts 00:08:24.810 --> 00:08:28.730 acting out for real, burglary, arson, and he 00:08:28.730 --> 00:08:31.389 lands in prison for the first time. Sentenced 00:08:31.389 --> 00:08:33.690 to five years at Attica. A serious sentence. 00:08:34.529 --> 00:08:37.289 But... And here is the very first crack in the 00:08:37.289 --> 00:08:39.750 system that we see. He only serves 22 months. 00:08:39.870 --> 00:08:41.470 Less than two years on a five -year sentence. 00:08:41.529 --> 00:08:44.029 Why? Was it overcrowding? Good behavior? It was 00:08:44.029 --> 00:08:45.990 partially good behavior, but there was a specific, 00:08:46.029 --> 00:08:49.490 very dramatic incident. A prison riot. And in 00:08:49.490 --> 00:08:51.970 the middle of the chaos, Shawcross, the inmate, 00:08:52.090 --> 00:08:54.590 actually helped rescue a correctional officer 00:08:54.590 --> 00:08:56.850 who was being attacked. Okay, that sounds heroic. 00:08:57.009 --> 00:08:58.629 I mean, on the surface, that looks like a man 00:08:58.629 --> 00:09:01.029 who has a moral compass. It does, doesn't it? 00:09:01.070 --> 00:09:02.830 And that's exactly what the parole board thought. 00:09:03.200 --> 00:09:05.899 They looked at that file and said, look, he saved 00:09:05.899 --> 00:09:08.120 a guard. He's one of the good ones. He's reformed. 00:09:08.120 --> 00:09:10.460 But you're skeptical. Let's look at it through 00:09:10.460 --> 00:09:14.120 the lens of a master manipulator. Shawcross knows 00:09:14.120 --> 00:09:16.399 how to play the game. What's the one thing you 00:09:16.399 --> 00:09:18.139 can do as an inmate that will get you the most 00:09:18.139 --> 00:09:21.820 positive attention? Saving a CO. It buys you 00:09:21.820 --> 00:09:24.299 incredible capital inside the walls and especially 00:09:24.299 --> 00:09:27.860 with a parole board. Was it altruism? Or was 00:09:27.860 --> 00:09:30.419 it a calculated psychopathic move to get out 00:09:30.419 --> 00:09:33.039 early? Given his later history, it feels like 00:09:33.039 --> 00:09:34.860 a calculation. It's hard to see it any other 00:09:34.860 --> 00:09:39.000 way. So he's out. It's October 1971. He's back 00:09:39.000 --> 00:09:41.559 in his hometown of Watertown. He gets a job at 00:09:41.559 --> 00:09:43.059 the public works department. He gets married 00:09:43.059 --> 00:09:46.340 again for a third time. On paper, it looks like 00:09:46.340 --> 00:09:48.620 he's trying to go straight. But the mask is slipping. 00:09:48.720 --> 00:09:51.019 And this brings us to section two of our deep 00:09:51.019 --> 00:09:54.090 dive. The first wave of killings. This is where 00:09:54.090 --> 00:09:58.090 it all goes dark. May 7th, 1972. A 10 -year -old 00:09:58.090 --> 00:10:00.809 boy named Jack Owen Blake goes missing. He was 00:10:00.809 --> 00:10:03.610 just a local kid. Shawcross apparently lured 00:10:03.610 --> 00:10:05.269 him into the woods, promising to show him something 00:10:05.269 --> 00:10:07.669 interesting. And he just vanished. The police 00:10:07.669 --> 00:10:09.830 had nothing. No body, no weapon, no witnesses. 00:10:10.289 --> 00:10:13.750 Just a missing boy and a town in panic. And while 00:10:13.750 --> 00:10:16.409 the town is freaking out, searching the woods, 00:10:16.629 --> 00:10:19.740 putting up flyers for Jack. September rolls around, 00:10:19.980 --> 00:10:23.139 Labor Day weekend. A little girl, Karen Ann Hill, 00:10:23.320 --> 00:10:26.500 just eight years old, is visiting Watertown with 00:10:26.500 --> 00:10:29.600 her mom. And Shawcross intercepts her. He takes 00:10:29.600 --> 00:10:32.100 her under a bridge, he rapes her, and he murders 00:10:32.100 --> 00:10:33.980 her. He was caught almost immediately for that 00:10:33.980 --> 00:10:36.120 one, right? The evidence was pretty clear. Yes, 00:10:36.159 --> 00:10:39.220 he was arrested the very next day. And once he 00:10:39.220 --> 00:10:41.220 was in custody for the murder of Karen Hill, 00:10:41.399 --> 00:10:44.179 the dominoes fell. Information came to light 00:10:44.179 --> 00:10:46.340 that led investigators to Jack Blake's body. 00:10:46.600 --> 00:10:49.210 So now... The police have a guy who has confessed 00:10:49.210 --> 00:10:51.509 to killing two children in the span of just four 00:10:51.509 --> 00:10:53.669 months. This is the moment where I think every 00:10:53.669 --> 00:10:55.370 single person listening is going to get angry. 00:10:55.830 --> 00:10:58.549 Because in a sane world, this is where the story 00:10:58.549 --> 00:11:01.590 of Arthur Shawcross, the killer, ends. It should 00:11:01.590 --> 00:11:03.950 have been. You kill two kids. You go to prison. 00:11:04.009 --> 00:11:06.370 You never, ever come out. Maybe you get the death 00:11:06.370 --> 00:11:08.210 penalty, which New York had at the time. Maybe 00:11:08.210 --> 00:11:10.909 you get life without parole. But that is absolutely 00:11:10.909 --> 00:11:13.570 not what happened. No. Enter the district attorney, 00:11:13.750 --> 00:11:16.269 a man named William McCluskey. Okay, let's try 00:11:16.269 --> 00:11:19.029 to get inside his head. I'm the DA. I have a 00:11:19.029 --> 00:11:21.309 confession for the Blake killing. I have rock 00:11:21.309 --> 00:11:23.950 -solid evidence for the Hill killing. This should 00:11:23.950 --> 00:11:26.269 be a slam dunk. Why on earth am I even thinking 00:11:26.269 --> 00:11:28.470 about offering a plea bargain? Because you are 00:11:28.470 --> 00:11:32.809 terrified of one specific legal defense. Extreme 00:11:32.809 --> 00:11:35.690 emotional disturbance. Explain that like I'm 00:11:35.690 --> 00:11:38.070 a jury member from 1972. What does that mean? 00:11:38.230 --> 00:11:41.309 Okay, so in 1972 New York law, murder is the 00:11:41.309 --> 00:11:43.450 intentional killing of another person. Simple 00:11:43.450 --> 00:11:46.860 enough, but... The law had this loophole, this 00:11:46.860 --> 00:11:48.980 affirmative defense. If the defense attorney 00:11:48.980 --> 00:11:51.200 could prove that the killer acted under an extreme 00:11:51.200 --> 00:11:54.179 emotional disturbance, basically a temporary 00:11:54.179 --> 00:11:57.519 break from reality, a crime of passion, an uncontrollable 00:11:57.519 --> 00:12:00.080 urge that a reasonable person might also feel 00:12:00.080 --> 00:12:03.159 in that situation. A seeing red defense. That's 00:12:03.159 --> 00:12:04.799 a good way to put it. If they could convince 00:12:04.799 --> 00:12:07.120 the jury of that, the jury could be instructed 00:12:07.120 --> 00:12:10.440 to downgrade the charge from murder to manslaughter. 00:12:10.830 --> 00:12:13.669 And manslaughter carries a much, much lighter 00:12:13.669 --> 00:12:16.370 sentence. Infinitely lighter. Yeah. So the DA, 00:12:16.570 --> 00:12:19.629 McCluskey, he looked at Arthur Shawcross. He 00:12:19.629 --> 00:12:22.070 looked at the Vietnam stories, which, remember, 00:12:22.210 --> 00:12:24.289 everyone still believed were true at this point. 00:12:24.529 --> 00:12:27.590 He looked at the abused childhood narrative that 00:12:27.590 --> 00:12:30.409 Shawcross was already spinning. The whole damaged 00:12:30.409 --> 00:12:33.269 vet persona. Exactly. And McCluskey thought, 00:12:33.429 --> 00:12:35.950 if I put this guy in front of a jury of his peers 00:12:35.950 --> 00:12:38.610 from Watertown, his lawyer is going to cry PTSD. 00:12:38.909 --> 00:12:40.570 He's going to talk about the horrors of war. 00:12:40.730 --> 00:12:43.169 The jury is going to feel sorry for this war 00:12:43.169 --> 00:12:45.049 hero. And they're going to give him manslaughter 00:12:45.049 --> 00:12:47.789 anyway. So he was afraid of losing the murder 00:12:47.789 --> 00:12:50.570 conviction at trial. So he preempted the jury 00:12:50.570 --> 00:12:52.929 and offered manslaughter himself. He thought 00:12:52.929 --> 00:12:55.210 he was taking the safe bet. He offered Shawcross 00:12:55.210 --> 00:12:57.549 a deal. plead guilty to manslaughter for both 00:12:57.549 --> 00:12:59.669 deaths, and we won't even try for murder. We'll 00:12:59.669 --> 00:13:01.970 just put you away. And Shawcross obviously takes 00:13:01.970 --> 00:13:04.269 the deal. What was the sentence for two counts 00:13:04.269 --> 00:13:06.889 of first -degree manslaughter? An indeterminate 00:13:06.889 --> 00:13:11.460 term with a maximum of 25 years. 25 years for 00:13:11.460 --> 00:13:14.899 two children. That's 12 and a half years per 00:13:14.899 --> 00:13:18.519 child. And that's the maximum. He's eligible 00:13:18.519 --> 00:13:21.039 for parole long before that. It was a complete 00:13:21.039 --> 00:13:23.679 judicial collapse. I mean, technically, legally, 00:13:23.879 --> 00:13:26.220 you could argue the DA followed the rules. He 00:13:26.220 --> 00:13:28.139 used the tools available to him and he secured 00:13:28.139 --> 00:13:32.320 a conviction. But morally, for the community. 00:13:32.940 --> 00:13:35.480 It was an absolute disaster. It essentially told 00:13:35.480 --> 00:13:37.620 Shawcross that he could kill, he could manipulate 00:13:37.620 --> 00:13:40.000 the narrative about his past, and he could get 00:13:40.000 --> 00:13:42.100 his slept on the wrist. It validated his entire 00:13:42.100 --> 00:13:44.340 worldview. The world is a game, and he knows 00:13:44.340 --> 00:13:46.919 how to play it. So he goes away. He's in Attica, 00:13:47.019 --> 00:13:50.120 then Greenhaven. He serves 14 years. It's now 00:13:50.120 --> 00:13:52.759 1987. He's up for parole. And this is section 00:13:52.759 --> 00:13:54.659 three, the release. This is where the bureaucracy 00:13:54.659 --> 00:13:56.700 actually kills people. It's just one failure 00:13:56.700 --> 00:13:58.940 after another. OK, so he's been inside for 14 00:13:58.940 --> 00:14:00.919 years. There had to be doctors looking at him, 00:14:00.919 --> 00:14:03.100 right? You don't just let a child killer out 00:14:03.100 --> 00:14:05.860 without a full psychiatric evaluation. Oh, there 00:14:05.860 --> 00:14:08.000 were evaluations, multiple ones. Yeah. And they 00:14:08.000 --> 00:14:10.879 were terrifying. The psychiatrist who evaluated 00:14:10.879 --> 00:14:13.519 Shawcross in the years leading up to his parole 00:14:13.519 --> 00:14:16.830 hearing labeled him a schizoid psychopath. We 00:14:16.830 --> 00:14:18.850 mentioned that term earlier. Can we break that 00:14:18.850 --> 00:14:21.149 down a bit more? We know what a psychopath is. 00:14:21.269 --> 00:14:24.669 No empathy, manipulative, callous. But what does 00:14:24.669 --> 00:14:28.470 the schizoid part add to that? Schizoid in this 00:14:28.470 --> 00:14:30.870 context refers to a personality type that is 00:14:30.870 --> 00:14:34.149 cold, aloof. detached from social relationships, 00:14:34.269 --> 00:14:37.190 and deeply solitary. They're loners. So you have 00:14:37.190 --> 00:14:39.570 a person who doesn't just like empathy for others. 00:14:39.750 --> 00:14:42.529 The psychopath part. Right. They also have absolutely 00:14:42.529 --> 00:14:45.070 no desire for human connection. They are totally 00:14:45.070 --> 00:14:47.250 detached from the emotional reality of other 00:14:47.250 --> 00:14:49.629 human beings. It's a double whammy of dangerousness. 00:14:49.750 --> 00:14:51.610 The doctors were essentially screaming in the 00:14:51.610 --> 00:14:53.690 reports, this man is a loaded gun, do not let 00:14:53.690 --> 00:14:55.250 him out. So if the doctors are screaming no, 00:14:55.409 --> 00:14:57.909 who in their right mind is saying yes? The prison 00:14:57.909 --> 00:15:01.090 administration. The parole board. The social 00:15:01.090 --> 00:15:03.610 workers. Well, why? On what grounds? Because 00:15:03.610 --> 00:15:05.750 inside the highly structured environment of a 00:15:05.750 --> 00:15:08.450 maximum security prison, Arthur Shawcross was 00:15:08.450 --> 00:15:12.129 a good inmate. He followed the rules. He didn't 00:15:12.129 --> 00:15:14.710 start fights. He did his chores. He was polite 00:15:14.710 --> 00:15:17.210 to the guards. The social workers and the parole 00:15:17.210 --> 00:15:19.730 board, who weren't trained psychiatrists, looked 00:15:19.730 --> 00:15:21.690 at his behavioral record inside the walls and 00:15:21.690 --> 00:15:24.710 said, look, he's reformed. He's no longer dangerous 00:15:24.710 --> 00:15:27.139 to society. That is just maddening. Being good 00:15:27.139 --> 00:15:28.940 in a cage doesn't mean you won't bite when the 00:15:28.940 --> 00:15:31.419 cage is opened. A tiger can be calm in a zoo. 00:15:31.580 --> 00:15:33.919 It's still a tiger. That is the fundamental disconnect. 00:15:34.360 --> 00:15:36.879 A smart psychopath is often a great prisoner. 00:15:37.039 --> 00:15:38.940 They know the rules. They know how to manipulate 00:15:38.940 --> 00:15:41.539 staff. They know what to say. The social workers 00:15:41.539 --> 00:15:44.759 saw a compliant middle -aged man. The psychiatrist 00:15:44.759 --> 00:15:47.919 saw a predator in hibernation. The system listened 00:15:47.919 --> 00:15:50.960 to the social workers. So in April 1987, the 00:15:50.960 --> 00:15:54.899 gates open. Arthur Shawcross is a free man. And 00:15:54.899 --> 00:15:56.659 this leads to one of the most disturbing sequences 00:15:56.659 --> 00:15:59.399 in the entire story, a dynamic that criminologists 00:15:59.399 --> 00:16:02.740 now refer to as pass the trash. This sounds like 00:16:02.740 --> 00:16:04.960 a bad game show, but it's actually a real world 00:16:04.960 --> 00:16:09.159 policy. Effectively, yes. So Shawcross is released. 00:16:09.399 --> 00:16:12.120 His parole officer tries to settle him in Binghamton, 00:16:12.120 --> 00:16:15.919 New York. But guess what? This is 1987. There's 00:16:15.919 --> 00:16:18.679 no Internet, but word still gets out. The local 00:16:18.679 --> 00:16:22.080 paper runs a story. The child killer is moving 00:16:22.080 --> 00:16:24.570 in next door. The neighbors must have gone nuclear. 00:16:24.629 --> 00:16:27.149 I know I would. They did. Protests on his lawn, 00:16:27.309 --> 00:16:30.110 threats. Local employers refused to hire him. 00:16:30.289 --> 00:16:32.789 So the parole department says, OK, this isn't 00:16:32.789 --> 00:16:35.330 working. And they move him. He moves to Delhi, 00:16:35.490 --> 00:16:37.809 New York. Same thing happens. The community rises 00:16:37.809 --> 00:16:40.350 up, completely hostile. He moves to Fleischman's. 00:16:40.799 --> 00:16:43.000 Same exact thing. So he's just bouncing around 00:16:43.000 --> 00:16:45.320 this radioactive person nobody wants. And instead 00:16:45.320 --> 00:16:47.519 of the parole department saying, hey, this instability 00:16:47.519 --> 00:16:49.860 is incredibly dangerous for a man like this. 00:16:50.019 --> 00:16:51.919 Maybe we need to put him in a secure halfway 00:16:51.919 --> 00:16:54.279 house or revoke his parole. They just kept shuffling 00:16:54.279 --> 00:16:56.740 him. Pass the trash. Get him out of my jurisdiction 00:16:56.740 --> 00:16:58.820 and make him someone else's problem. Exactly. 00:16:58.940 --> 00:17:01.919 And in June 1987, the parole officer makes the 00:17:01.919 --> 00:17:05.619 final fatal mistake. He moves Shawcross and his 00:17:05.619 --> 00:17:08.109 new girlfriend. a woman named Rosemarie Wally, 00:17:08.269 --> 00:17:10.789 to a transient hotel in Rochester, New York. 00:17:10.829 --> 00:17:14.089 Rochester. A big city. Anonymous. A big city 00:17:14.089 --> 00:17:16.650 with a lot of people. And here is the kicker, 00:17:16.670 --> 00:17:19.250 the single most unbelievable failure in his whole 00:17:19.250 --> 00:17:23.589 chain. The parole officer did not notify the 00:17:23.589 --> 00:17:26.269 Rochester Police Department. Wait. Stop. So the 00:17:26.269 --> 00:17:28.710 Rochester PD has a paroled double child killer, 00:17:28.869 --> 00:17:32.009 a diagnosed schizoid psychopath, dropped into 00:17:32.009 --> 00:17:34.369 their city, living in a transient hotel right 00:17:34.369 --> 00:17:37.599 downtown. And nobody sent them a memo. Not a 00:17:37.599 --> 00:17:40.880 single phone call. Not one memo. As far as Rochester 00:17:40.880 --> 00:17:42.940 law enforcement was concerned, Arthur Shawcross 00:17:42.940 --> 00:17:45.519 didn't exist. He was invisible. He was effectively 00:17:45.519 --> 00:17:48.599 unsupervised in a brand new, target -rich hunting 00:17:48.599 --> 00:17:51.180 ground. By October, he had his own apartment 00:17:51.180 --> 00:17:53.660 on Alexander Street. He was buying a car. He 00:17:53.660 --> 00:17:55.619 was settling in. And the clock was ticking down 00:17:55.619 --> 00:17:58.700 to zero. It didn't take long. March 1988, the 00:17:58.700 --> 00:18:00.799 Genesee River murders begin. And this is Section 00:18:00.799 --> 00:18:03.480 4. The profile of the victims changes here. He's 00:18:03.480 --> 00:18:05.339 not grabbing kids off the street anymore. No. 00:18:05.460 --> 00:18:08.019 He evolved. Or devolved, depending on how you 00:18:08.019 --> 00:18:09.940 look at it. He started targeting sex workers. 00:18:10.160 --> 00:18:12.759 Why the switch? Is it about risk? It's all about 00:18:12.759 --> 00:18:15.859 vulnerability and access. Shawcross was a predator 00:18:15.859 --> 00:18:18.799 of opportunity. In the transient areas of Rochester, 00:18:19.119 --> 00:18:21.680 sex workers were accessible. They would get into 00:18:21.680 --> 00:18:24.259 a car with a stranger willingly. And tragically, 00:18:24.359 --> 00:18:26.500 he knew that society pays far less attention 00:18:26.500 --> 00:18:28.619 when a sex worker goes missing compared to when 00:18:28.619 --> 00:18:30.980 a school child vanishes. He was banking on the 00:18:30.980 --> 00:18:33.559 less dead phenomenon, the idea that some victims 00:18:33.559 --> 00:18:35.980 are seen as less valuable by society and the 00:18:35.980 --> 00:18:38.740 police. He absolutely was. It was a cold, cruel 00:18:38.740 --> 00:18:40.779 calculation. We need to acknowledge the scale 00:18:40.779 --> 00:18:43.259 of this. This wasn't one or two isolated incidents. 00:18:43.440 --> 00:18:45.579 This was a spree. It was a storm of violence. 00:18:45.720 --> 00:18:48.019 Dorothy Blackland. Anna Marie Stephan, Dorothy 00:18:48.019 --> 00:18:51.480 Keeler, Patricia Ives, June Stott, Marie Welsh, 00:18:51.700 --> 00:18:55.039 Frances Brown, Kimberly Logan, Elizabeth Gibson, 00:18:55.180 --> 00:18:57.160 who was killed over in Wayne County, Darlene 00:18:57.160 --> 00:19:00.660 Trippi, and finally, June Cicero. That is 11 00:19:00.660 --> 00:19:04.200 women, 11 leaves. 11 convictions. He's suspected 00:19:04.200 --> 00:19:06.779 in at least one more. And most of them were found 00:19:06.779 --> 00:19:09.400 in or near the Genesee River Gorge. So bodies 00:19:09.400 --> 00:19:11.720 are turning up. The city must have been terrified. 00:19:12.269 --> 00:19:14.250 Why didn't the police connect the dots faster? 00:19:14.490 --> 00:19:17.009 I mean, if you find three bodies in the same 00:19:17.009 --> 00:19:18.890 river, isn't that pretty much the definition 00:19:18.890 --> 00:19:21.789 of a serial killer? You would think so. But this 00:19:21.789 --> 00:19:24.190 brings us to a really fascinating and tragic 00:19:24.190 --> 00:19:27.970 concept that Detective Robert Keppel, who consulted 00:19:27.970 --> 00:19:30.970 on the Ted Bundy case, later critiqued heavily. 00:19:31.349 --> 00:19:34.869 It's called the modus operandi trap, or linkage 00:19:34.869 --> 00:19:37.410 blindness. How does that work? How can you be 00:19:37.410 --> 00:19:39.650 blind to a pattern that seems so obvious from 00:19:39.650 --> 00:19:42.170 the outside? Police are trained to look for patterns 00:19:42.170 --> 00:19:45.569 for a signature. The killer always uses a .22 00:19:45.569 --> 00:19:47.849 caliber. The killer always ties the hands with 00:19:47.849 --> 00:19:50.250 a specific type of square knot. The killer always 00:19:50.250 --> 00:19:53.029 leaves the body facing north. They look for consistency 00:19:53.029 --> 00:19:55.930 because that's what links the crimes. But Shawcross, 00:19:56.150 --> 00:19:58.670 he was messy. He was inconsistent. In what way? 00:19:58.950 --> 00:20:01.170 Sometimes he strangled his victims. Sometimes 00:20:01.170 --> 00:20:03.809 he beat them to death. Sometimes he left the 00:20:03.809 --> 00:20:06.029 body right where he killed them. Other times 00:20:06.029 --> 00:20:08.769 he'd transport it and hide it in the river. One 00:20:08.769 --> 00:20:11.309 victim was a different age profile. Another was 00:20:11.309 --> 00:20:14.190 found in a different county. Because the crime 00:20:14.190 --> 00:20:16.750 scenes looked so different, the detectives running 00:20:16.750 --> 00:20:18.730 the task force thought they were dealing with 00:20:18.730 --> 00:20:20.769 different killers. So they were looking for a 00:20:20.769 --> 00:20:24.269 group of bad guys or multiple separate murderers 00:20:24.269 --> 00:20:25.950 because they couldn't believe one guy was doing 00:20:25.950 --> 00:20:27.690 all of this in different ways. Exactly. They 00:20:27.690 --> 00:20:30.309 were looking for a perfect, neat pattern in a 00:20:30.309 --> 00:20:34.470 chaotic, ugly reality. And because of that, Shawcross 00:20:34.470 --> 00:20:36.369 slipped through the cracks of their investigation 00:20:36.369 --> 00:20:39.269 for almost two years, killing again and again. 00:20:39.609 --> 00:20:42.230 And finally, it wasn't some high -tech DNA test 00:20:42.230 --> 00:20:44.410 or a brilliant Sherlock Holmes -style deduction 00:20:44.410 --> 00:20:47.730 that caught him. It was just a helicopter. Back 00:20:47.730 --> 00:20:51.470 to our opening image, January 4th, 1990. The 00:20:51.470 --> 00:20:53.230 police are doing routine aerial surveillance 00:20:53.230 --> 00:20:55.509 of the remote areas where bodies have been found, 00:20:55.650 --> 00:20:57.650 just seeing if anything looked out of place. 00:20:58.089 --> 00:21:00.269 They fly over the Salmon Creek Bridge in the 00:21:00.269 --> 00:21:02.849 town of Parma, and they see a Chevy Celebrity 00:21:02.849 --> 00:21:05.730 parked there. Shaw crosses car. And they see 00:21:05.730 --> 00:21:08.400 this heavyset man standing on the bridge. He's 00:21:08.400 --> 00:21:11.579 looking down at the ice. And he appears to be 00:21:11.579 --> 00:21:13.779 either urinating or masturbating over the edge. 00:21:14.039 --> 00:21:16.839 It's such a bizarre, risky thing to do. Why go 00:21:16.839 --> 00:21:18.680 back to the scene of the crime like that? It's 00:21:18.680 --> 00:21:21.339 a classic part of the serial killer cycle. It's 00:21:21.339 --> 00:21:24.039 called totem behavior. They return to the dump 00:21:24.039 --> 00:21:26.420 sites to relive the fantasy, to feel that sense 00:21:26.420 --> 00:21:28.839 of power and ownership over the victim again. 00:21:29.920 --> 00:21:32.420 June Cicero's body was down there, frozen in 00:21:32.420 --> 00:21:35.329 the ice. He was. in his twisted mind, visiting 00:21:35.329 --> 00:21:37.730 her. So the helicopter crew saw this, thought 00:21:37.730 --> 00:21:39.609 it was suspicious, and ran the plates. They ran 00:21:39.609 --> 00:21:42.369 the plates. It came back to Arthur John Shawcross, 00:21:42.529 --> 00:21:44.269 and suddenly someone in the Rochester Police 00:21:44.269 --> 00:21:47.269 Department pulled his file and realized, oh my 00:21:47.269 --> 00:21:49.650 God, we have a guy living here who killed two 00:21:49.650 --> 00:21:53.509 kids in Watertown in 1972. The pieces finally, 00:21:53.650 --> 00:21:56.150 catastrophically, clicked into place. He was 00:21:56.150 --> 00:21:58.470 arrested on January 5th. But the story doesn't 00:21:58.470 --> 00:22:00.569 end with the handcuffs. That's Section 5, the 00:22:00.569 --> 00:22:03.059 trial. Because Shawcross didn't just confess 00:22:03.059 --> 00:22:05.519 and say, you got me. He went for the ultimate 00:22:05.519 --> 00:22:09.000 gambit, the insanity defense. And this trial 00:22:09.000 --> 00:22:12.220 became a heavyweight championship fight of forensic 00:22:12.220 --> 00:22:15.480 psychiatry. It was really wild. On one side, 00:22:15.559 --> 00:22:17.500 the defense brought in the famous Dr. Dorothy 00:22:17.500 --> 00:22:19.660 Lewis. She's a legend in this field, right? An 00:22:19.660 --> 00:22:22.359 absolute pioneer. She's one of the first to seriously 00:22:22.359 --> 00:22:24.839 study the link between childhood abuse, brain 00:22:24.839 --> 00:22:28.119 damage, and violent offenders. She examined Shawcross 00:22:28.119 --> 00:22:30.440 and she came into court with a laundry list of 00:22:30.440 --> 00:22:34.180 diagnoses, brain damage, PTSD from his combat 00:22:34.180 --> 00:22:37.160 in Vietnam, and most controversially, multiple 00:22:37.160 --> 00:22:40.259 personality disorder, what we now call dissociative 00:22:40.259 --> 00:22:42.980 identity disorder, or DEDE. And she introduced 00:22:42.980 --> 00:22:46.240 the jury to Bessie. Bessie. Dr. Lewis testified 00:22:46.240 --> 00:22:48.750 that Arthur Shawcross... didn't kill those 11 00:22:48.750 --> 00:22:51.170 women. She claimed that when Arthur was under 00:22:51.170 --> 00:22:53.849 extreme stress, he dissociated, and a female 00:22:53.849 --> 00:22:56.369 alter ego named Bessie, pointedly named after 00:22:56.369 --> 00:22:59.049 his abusive mother, took over his body. And Bessie 00:22:59.049 --> 00:23:01.150 was the one who was full of rage, vengeful, and 00:23:01.150 --> 00:23:03.630 violent. That is a hell of a story to tell a 00:23:03.630 --> 00:23:05.910 jury. It wasn't me, it was the angry lady living 00:23:05.910 --> 00:23:09.349 in my head. It was a very clear bid for institutionalization, 00:23:09.430 --> 00:23:13.109 not prison. If the jury believed Bessie did it, 00:23:13.210 --> 00:23:15.960 then Arthur wasn't legally responsible. he'd 00:23:15.960 --> 00:23:18.279 go to a secure mental hospital, not a supermax 00:23:18.279 --> 00:23:21.160 prison. But the prosecution was not having any 00:23:21.160 --> 00:23:23.039 of it. Who did they bring in to counter that? 00:23:23.259 --> 00:23:24.880 They brought in the two biggest guns they could 00:23:24.880 --> 00:23:28.160 find, Robert Ressler from the FBI's Behavioral 00:23:28.160 --> 00:23:31.019 Science Unit and the renowned forensic psychiatrist 00:23:31.019 --> 00:23:34.200 Dr. Park Dietz. Ressler is the guy who basically 00:23:34.200 --> 00:23:37.259 invented modern criminal profiling. He interviewed 00:23:37.259 --> 00:23:40.680 Bundy, Gacy. All of them. Correct. And Ressler 00:23:40.680 --> 00:23:42.380 went straight for the jugular. He went for the 00:23:42.380 --> 00:23:45.200 Vietnam lies. He got Shawcross's service record 00:23:45.200 --> 00:23:47.700 admitted into evidence. He got on the stand and 00:23:47.700 --> 00:23:50.319 told the jury, point blank, this man is not suffering 00:23:50.319 --> 00:23:52.779 from combat PTSD because he never saw combat. 00:23:53.519 --> 00:23:55.859 He completely dismantled the foundation of the 00:23:55.859 --> 00:23:58.319 trauma narrative. He showed the jury that Shawcross 00:23:58.319 --> 00:24:00.599 was a pathological liar, plain and simple. And 00:24:00.599 --> 00:24:03.039 what about Dr. Dietz? How did he handle the Bessie 00:24:03.039 --> 00:24:05.349 theory? Dietz attacked it head on. He interviewed 00:24:05.349 --> 00:24:08.349 Shawcross for hours. He diagnosed him with antisocial 00:24:08.349 --> 00:24:12.210 personality disorder, or ASPD. Which means, in 00:24:12.210 --> 00:24:15.450 layman's terms. It means he's not insane. He 00:24:15.450 --> 00:24:17.390 isn't out of touch with reality. He knows right 00:24:17.390 --> 00:24:20.710 from wrong. He just doesn't care. He chooses 00:24:20.710 --> 00:24:23.349 wrong because it feels good and serves his needs. 00:24:24.240 --> 00:24:27.500 Dietz argued that Bessie was just another con, 00:24:27.779 --> 00:24:30.720 another performance. He suggested Shawcross was 00:24:30.720 --> 00:24:32.980 mimicking symptoms he'd seen in movies like Civil 00:24:32.980 --> 00:24:35.599 or heard about from other inmates. It was another 00:24:35.599 --> 00:24:38.279 manipulation. But wait, there was actual physical 00:24:38.279 --> 00:24:40.480 evidence of brain problems, right? This wasn't 00:24:40.480 --> 00:24:42.900 just a battle of psychobabble. Yes, and this 00:24:42.900 --> 00:24:45.440 is where you, the listener, need to really pay 00:24:45.440 --> 00:24:47.019 attention because this complicates everything 00:24:47.019 --> 00:24:49.779 and makes it so much more interesting. Dr. Lewis's 00:24:49.779 --> 00:24:52.559 team conducted brain scans, and they found two 00:24:52.559 --> 00:24:55.700 significant abnormalities. What were they? First, 00:24:55.799 --> 00:24:58.640 they found a cyst, a small growth that was pressing 00:24:58.640 --> 00:25:01.059 on his temporal lobe. And second, they found 00:25:01.059 --> 00:25:03.400 evidence of scarring on his frontal lobes. We 00:25:03.400 --> 00:25:05.220 hear about the frontal lobe all the time in these 00:25:05.220 --> 00:25:07.480 cases. Why is that specific part of the brain 00:25:07.480 --> 00:25:09.880 so important? Think of the frontal lobe as the 00:25:09.880 --> 00:25:12.779 CEO of your brain. It's the part right behind 00:25:12.779 --> 00:25:14.480 your forehead that's responsible for executive 00:25:14.480 --> 00:25:17.619 function. Decision -making, long -term planning. 00:25:18.170 --> 00:25:21.109 morality, and most importantly, inhibition and 00:25:21.109 --> 00:25:23.809 impulse control. It's the part that says, don't 00:25:23.809 --> 00:25:26.690 punch that guy or don't steal that car or don't 00:25:26.690 --> 00:25:29.130 act on that violent urge. Like the famous Phineas 00:25:29.130 --> 00:25:31.569 Gage case from the 1800s. The perfect analogy. 00:25:32.230 --> 00:25:34.950 Phineas Gage was the railroad worker who had 00:25:34.950 --> 00:25:37.269 a metal tamping rod shot straight through his 00:25:37.269 --> 00:25:40.130 frontal lobe. He survived, but his personality 00:25:40.130 --> 00:25:43.049 completely changed. He went from a nice, responsible, 00:25:43.150 --> 00:25:46.509 well -liked guy to a rude, impulsive, profane 00:25:46.509 --> 00:25:49.029 jerk. The defense argued that Arthur Shawcross 00:25:49.029 --> 00:25:51.650 was a modern Phineas Gage, that the scarring 00:25:51.650 --> 00:25:53.369 meant he literally could not stop his violent 00:25:53.369 --> 00:25:56.190 impulses. That's a terrifying philosophical question. 00:25:56.329 --> 00:25:58.690 If your brain is physically broken, are you evil 00:25:58.690 --> 00:26:01.349 or are you just a broken machine? Are your actions 00:26:01.349 --> 00:26:03.910 a choice or a symptom? It is the ultimate question 00:26:03.910 --> 00:26:05.849 of neural law, and it's something courts are 00:26:05.849 --> 00:26:09.589 still grappling with today. But the jury in 1991 00:26:09.589 --> 00:26:12.890 had to make a practical decision. Did the cyst 00:26:12.890 --> 00:26:15.210 and the scarring make him rape and murder 11 00:26:15.210 --> 00:26:18.789 women? Or did Arthur Shaw cross the man who lied 00:26:18.789 --> 00:26:21.410 about Vietnam, who manipulated the parole board, 00:26:21.470 --> 00:26:24.109 who hid bodies make a choice? What was the verdict? 00:26:24.369 --> 00:26:27.410 Guilty. They didn't buy the Bessie defense. They 00:26:27.410 --> 00:26:29.730 didn't buy the brain damage excuse. They saw 00:26:29.730 --> 00:26:32.150 him as a manipulator. They convicted him of 11 00:26:32.150 --> 00:26:34.069 counts of second degree murder and other related 00:26:34.069 --> 00:26:37.009 charges. And the sentence? 250 years to life. 00:26:37.979 --> 00:26:40.099 Effectively, life without parole, he was never 00:26:40.099 --> 00:26:41.920 getting out again. So he's locked up forever 00:26:41.920 --> 00:26:43.960 this time. The story should be over. But he had 00:26:43.960 --> 00:26:47.299 one last grotesque card play. We have to talk 00:26:47.299 --> 00:26:49.480 about the 2003 interview. Yeah, this is the final 00:26:49.480 --> 00:26:51.759 disturbing chapter. This was with Catherine English, 00:26:51.980 --> 00:26:54.180 a British journalist who was doing a documentary 00:26:54.180 --> 00:26:57.119 on cannibalism. Shawcross is an old man now. 00:26:57.240 --> 00:26:59.759 He's in a wheelchair. He's frail. But he sees 00:26:59.759 --> 00:27:02.519 a camera and the performer, the manipulator, 00:27:02.579 --> 00:27:04.720 turns right back on. What did he say? He confessed 00:27:04.720 --> 00:27:06.819 to something new. something he'd never mentioned 00:27:06.819 --> 00:27:09.779 to the police or at trial. He claimed in graphic 00:27:09.779 --> 00:27:12.700 detail that he had sliced out and eaten the vulvae 00:27:12.700 --> 00:27:15.740 of three of his female victims. Oh, my God. It's 00:27:15.740 --> 00:27:18.380 just revolting. But here is the fascinating psychological 00:27:18.380 --> 00:27:21.819 twist. The interviewer then asked him about Jack 00:27:21.819 --> 00:27:24.460 Blake, his very first victim, the little boy, 00:27:24.559 --> 00:27:27.559 back in 72. Shawcross had at one point claimed 00:27:27.559 --> 00:27:30.440 he ate Blake's genitals, too. But in his 2003 00:27:30.440 --> 00:27:33.539 interview, he clammed up. He refused to talk 00:27:33.539 --> 00:27:36.279 about it. Why? Why admit to eating the women 00:27:36.279 --> 00:27:38.519 but suddenly go silent about the boy? Control. 00:27:38.859 --> 00:27:41.519 It's all about control. He gives her a new shocking 00:27:41.519 --> 00:27:44.039 nugget here, but he withholds this other nugget 00:27:44.039 --> 00:27:46.660 there. He wanted to keep the reporter and the 00:27:46.660 --> 00:27:49.440 world dancing to his tune, even locked in a cell, 00:27:49.619 --> 00:27:51.960 rotting away. He needed to be the puppet master. 00:27:52.299 --> 00:27:54.180 He needed to prove he was still in charge of 00:27:54.180 --> 00:27:56.539 his own horrific narrative. So was the cannibalism 00:27:56.539 --> 00:27:59.579 claim even true? Who knows? And in a way, it 00:27:59.579 --> 00:28:02.900 doesn't matter. With Shawcross. Truth and lies 00:28:02.900 --> 00:28:05.900 were blended into a poisonous smoothie. It might 00:28:05.900 --> 00:28:07.500 have been true or it might have been just another 00:28:07.500 --> 00:28:10.339 Vietnam story. A shocking lie designed to get 00:28:10.339 --> 00:28:13.059 attention and cement his legacy as the ultimate 00:28:13.059 --> 00:28:16.960 monster. He finally died in 2008. November 10th, 00:28:16.960 --> 00:28:20.039 2008. He complained of leg pains, was taken to 00:28:20.039 --> 00:28:22.400 Albany Medical Center and died of cardiac arrest. 00:28:22.640 --> 00:28:25.579 He was 63 years old and the world became a slightly 00:28:25.579 --> 00:28:28.480 safer place. So we've unpacked a lot here. The 00:28:28.480 --> 00:28:31.420 bedwetting arsonists, the Vietnam lies, the catastrophic 00:28:31.420 --> 00:28:33.680 plea bargain, the parole failure, the linkage 00:28:33.680 --> 00:28:35.839 blindness, the battle of the experts, the brain 00:28:35.839 --> 00:28:38.700 cyst. When you look at this entire horrifying 00:28:38.700 --> 00:28:42.119 mess, what is the big takeaway? So what? For 00:28:42.119 --> 00:28:43.839 me, it comes down to the danger of what I call 00:28:43.839 --> 00:28:45.940 administrative arrogance. Say more about that. 00:28:46.000 --> 00:28:48.220 What do you mean by that? We had experts. We 00:28:48.220 --> 00:28:50.240 had trained psychiatrists who looked at this 00:28:50.240 --> 00:28:54.039 man and used big, scary, accurate words. Schizoid 00:28:54.039 --> 00:28:57.869 psychopath. They wrote reports to warn us. And 00:28:57.869 --> 00:29:00.109 a system of bureaucrats and social workers maybe 00:29:00.109 --> 00:29:02.670 worried about overcrowding or just ticking boxes 00:29:02.670 --> 00:29:04.750 on a form, or maybe they genuinely believe in 00:29:04.750 --> 00:29:07.990 giving a guy a second chance. They overruled 00:29:07.990 --> 00:29:10.549 the science. They prioritized the process over 00:29:10.549 --> 00:29:13.390 the person. Exactly. They prioritized their administrative 00:29:13.390 --> 00:29:16.650 procedure over the clear, explicit warnings of 00:29:16.650 --> 00:29:19.049 the medical professionals. And because of that 00:29:19.049 --> 00:29:21.509 one administrative decision to sign that one 00:29:21.509 --> 00:29:24.410 piece of paper. 11 women died who did not have 00:29:24.410 --> 00:29:26.750 to. It's a chilling lesson in the importance 00:29:26.750 --> 00:29:29.269 of listening to the red flags, even when it's 00:29:29.269 --> 00:29:31.250 inconvenient. And it leaves us, as you said, 00:29:31.309 --> 00:29:33.150 with that lingering, uncomfortable question about 00:29:33.150 --> 00:29:36.289 biology. We can hate Arthur Shawcross, and we 00:29:36.289 --> 00:29:38.970 should for his actions. But that cyst in his 00:29:38.970 --> 00:29:40.990 brain was real. That scarring on his frontal 00:29:40.990 --> 00:29:43.630 lobes was real. It's the uncomfortable final 00:29:43.630 --> 00:29:45.910 thought for you to chew on. How many other people 00:29:45.910 --> 00:29:47.930 are walking around with frontal lobe scarring 00:29:47.930 --> 00:29:49.990 right now from a childhood injury or a fever? 00:29:50.069 --> 00:29:52.430 And what stops them from becoming Arthur Shawcross? 00:29:52.769 --> 00:29:55.750 Maybe it's a good family. Maybe it's a lack of 00:29:55.750 --> 00:29:58.990 other risk factors. Maybe it's just luck. Or 00:29:58.990 --> 00:30:01.549 maybe, and this is what you have to hope, some 00:30:01.549 --> 00:30:04.349 people just choose to be good no matter what 00:30:04.349 --> 00:30:06.730 their brain looks like on a scan. That is a thought 00:30:06.730 --> 00:30:08.069 that's definitely going to keep me up tonight. 00:30:08.309 --> 00:30:10.480 Me too. Thank you for listening to this deep 00:30:10.480 --> 00:30:13.339 dive. It was a dark one, but hopefully it shed 00:30:13.339 --> 00:30:15.720 some important light on how these cracks in the 00:30:15.720 --> 00:30:18.319 system form and what can crawl out of them. Stay 00:30:18.319 --> 00:30:22.140 safe out there. And trust your instincts. We'll 00:30:22.140 --> 00:30:22.859 see you next time.