Speaker 1: While there are many similarities between psychopaths and sociopaths, there
Speaker 1: are many differences too.
Speaker 2: You're somebody who has had such close contact with so
Speaker 2: many of these prolific killers that it's frankly probably impossible
Speaker 2: to boil it down to one key ingredient.
Speaker 1: His first killings were actually a mass murder, and after
Speaker 1: that with his second killing, is where he really became
Speaker 1: a serial killer.
Speaker 3: This is the Idaho Massacre, a production of Kat's Studios
Speaker 3: and iHeartRadio, Season two, Episode seven, Mind of a Murderer.
Speaker 3: I'm Courtney Armstrong, a producer at Kat's Studios, with Stephanie
Speaker 3: Leidecker and Gabe Castillo. In the aftermath of the senseless
Speaker 3: tragedy of Ethan Chapin, Xana Kernodle, Madison Mogen, and Kayla
Speaker 3: Solvs's murders on November thirteenth, twenty twenty two. There are
Speaker 3: countless unanswerable questions. Some will be answered a trial, and
Speaker 3: many may linger forever. We can't know what was in
Speaker 3: the murderer's mind, or even at this point who the
Speaker 3: murderer is. The accused is presumed innocent unless proven guilty
Speaker 3: in a court of law, but in an effort to
Speaker 3: try and understand the unthinkable and offer context and perspective
Speaker 3: to the inner workings of violent criminals. Stephanie speaks with
Speaker 3: doctor Scott Bond, a criminologist and author of books including
Speaker 3: Why We Love Serial Killers The Curious Appeal of the
Speaker 3: World's Most Savage Murderers. Here's Stephanie, how.
Speaker 4: And why did you even get in this business to
Speaker 4: begin with?
Speaker 1: Well, in terms of the origin of my interest in
Speaker 1: all things that go bump in the night, I really
Speaker 1: have to go back to my childhood because I was
Speaker 1: always fascinated by human nature, by human motivations, both the
Speaker 1: good and the bad. So I always was fascinated by
Speaker 1: sort of what we would perceive as evil or the
Speaker 1: criminal mind, but delving deeper than just the stereotypes and
Speaker 1: just the superficial stamp of evil it's often placed on this.
Speaker 1: So I, throughout my entire life, I've always wanted to
Speaker 1: penetrate stereotypes and dig beneath the surface and truly understand
Speaker 1: motivations and behavior.
Speaker 2: Do you believe people are born evil or is that
Speaker 2: conditioning environment? I know that's a loaded question, but do
Speaker 2: you have a feeling on that?
Speaker 1: Well, yeah, the word evil is a very explosive, powerful
Speaker 1: and dangerous word in my mind, because once you put
Speaker 1: that stamp of evil on a group or an individual,
Speaker 1: there's really no room for discussion any longer because you
Speaker 1: can't have a meaningful conversation with evil. What can you
Speaker 1: do with evil? You can exterminate it, right, so you
Speaker 1: basically eliminate all other possibilities. And I think that in
Speaker 1: criminology and sociology we call that reductionism. And once you
Speaker 1: place a label on something, it's really hard to remove
Speaker 1: that label. So in terms of evil, does evil exist, Yes,
Speaker 1: but I believe that it is manifested in actions and
Speaker 1: deeds and thinking. But I don't believe that there is
Speaker 1: an evil gene. I don't think anyone is born inherently evil.
Speaker 1: I think that once again, evil is manifested in the
Speaker 1: things that people do, and in terms of our people
Speaker 1: born that way. Well, that gets to the old nature
Speaker 1: versus nurture debate, And based upon all of my study
Speaker 1: and experience, like most things in life, it's more complicated
Speaker 1: than one would seem on the surface, and in fact
Speaker 1: it's a combination of nature and nurture. And in the
Speaker 1: case of serial killers, for example, about seventy five percent
Speaker 1: of all serial killers are either psychopaths or sociopaths, and
Speaker 1: according to the American's psychiatric clinically speaking, that means that
Speaker 1: they are not mentally ill in terms of a clinical diagnosis,
Speaker 1: they are what are known as antisocial personality disorders, for
Speaker 1: which there is no cure. While there are many similarities
Speaker 1: between psychopaths and sociopaths, there are many differences too. That
Speaker 1: one thing that they have in combination, of course, is
Speaker 1: just a disdain toward the feelings of others and a
Speaker 1: complete rejection of the laws, rules and more rays of society.
Speaker 1: And they don't mind hurting people to get what they want.
Speaker 1: They tend to be very opportunistic, aggressive and goal oriented,
Speaker 1: and they don't care who they step one to get
Speaker 1: to their goal.
Speaker 3: Because people often use the terms sociopath and psychopath interchangeably,
Speaker 3: as well as sometimes more widely than is warranted, Stephanie
Speaker 3: asked Scott Bond to extrapolate on the distinctions between and
Speaker 3: origins of the two.
Speaker 1: Psychopaths are a function of nature and sociopaths are a
Speaker 1: function of nurture, sociology, socialize. That's hence sociopath a psychopath
Speaker 1: is born with a brain that simply doesn't function like
Speaker 1: the normal human brain. The psychopathic brain is incapable of
Speaker 1: an emotional connection with other human beings. I like to
Speaker 1: use the analogy of a say, a hair dryer. If
Speaker 1: you pull the cord out of the wall, you've got
Speaker 1: a pretty useless hair dryer. Well, in the case of
Speaker 1: empathetic understanding and emotional connection, a psychopath is simply disconnected.
Speaker 1: They can't feel it. They're incapable of forming emotional bonds
Speaker 1: with other people. But the sociopath is different. They are
Speaker 1: born with a normal functioning brain, but over time they
Speaker 1: become conditioned into predatory behavior, and an example of that
Speaker 1: is through trauma, through abuse, through neglect, and to torture
Speaker 1: and torment. And sociopaths are actually much more common. They
Speaker 1: outnumber psychopaths about eight to one in terms of their
Speaker 1: existence in society. And psychopaths are more dangerous because of
Speaker 1: the fact that they simply do not have a feeling
Speaker 1: when they hurt someone else, and they don't know fear.
Speaker 1: They're unflappable. Nothing bothers them. If you think about it,
Speaker 1: it makes them pretty much perfect killing machines.
Speaker 2: Because they lack empathy and They also are not petrified
Speaker 2: of the law and don't have the same level of
Speaker 2: shame and guilt and human emotion that would come across
Speaker 2: as obvious. If you were considering something violent, I think
Speaker 2: you might have told me this. Is it true that,
Speaker 2: of course, not all psychopaths become serial killers. In fact,
Speaker 2: there are many psychopaths that probably run very fancy tech
Speaker 2: companies and our industry makers.
Speaker 4: However, most serial killers do have some sort of psychopathic behavior.
Speaker 4: Is that accurate?
Speaker 1: You described it very well. There is an area of
Speaker 1: overlap between psychopaths and serial killers, and in the case
Speaker 1: of serial killers, it's a big overlap. But by no
Speaker 1: means are all psychopaths serial killers, and not all serial
Speaker 1: killers are psychopaths. There are overrepresentation of psychopaths in the
Speaker 1: bastions of power, whether it be in business, finance, guess what, politics,
Speaker 1: and even things like neurosurgery, any type of field which
Speaker 1: demands incredible focus and discipline, guess what, psychopaths tend to
Speaker 1: do very well because they're unflappable. When it comes to
Speaker 1: serial killers, at least seventy five percent are either psychopaths
Speaker 1: or sociopaths. And of that, let's say it's seventy five percent,
Speaker 1: probably fifty percent of the total, or two thirds of
Speaker 1: that group are psychopaths. So psychopaths do make up the
Speaker 1: largest single group among serial killers. Why they're almost perfectly
Speaker 1: born bred killing machines.
Speaker 2: If somebody is a psychopath, do they know it?
Speaker 1: It's a great question. And they are very good at compartmentalizing,
Speaker 1: and so they can have multiple realities which they take
Speaker 1: very much as proof depending upon which compartment they're in.
Speaker 1: And I'm not describing multiple personality to disorders here. I'm
Speaker 1: talking about an individual and I'm going to use a
Speaker 1: specific example who I am very familiar with through correspondence
Speaker 1: and long term connection, and that is Dennis Rader, who
Speaker 1: called himself because he's a psychopath BTK, which stands for
Speaker 1: buying torture kill.
Speaker 3: From almost the moment of accused murderer Brian Coberger's arrest
Speaker 3: in December twenty twenty two, his name has been used
Speaker 3: in the same sentences as BTK. In the course of
Speaker 3: his criminology education, the accused studied under a renowned BTK expert,
Speaker 3: and many have theorized about commonalities between the two. Here's Stephanie.
Speaker 2: I had heard also that Brian Coberger for certain had
Speaker 2: to have been a study of BTK in his murderous ways,
Speaker 2: and there does seem to be some alignment in that
Speaker 2: also the intimacy factor. So in Brian Coberger's case using
Speaker 2: the knife, if in fact that's accurate, you know, it's
Speaker 2: close contact that is considered a very intimate kill, much
Speaker 2: like strangulation.
Speaker 1: And it's sexual too, the penetration of it sexual status.
Speaker 1: And this goes all the way back to Jack the
Speaker 1: Ripper who hated women, and so what more vile thing
Speaker 1: than you can can you do than penetrate them over
Speaker 1: and over, you know, with a knife. So I really
Speaker 1: think there was a deep seated underlying insecurity there and
Speaker 1: actually an anger toward women that may have well been
Speaker 1: manifested through these murders with a knife.
Speaker 2: Can you just give us a little brief history on
Speaker 2: BTK for anyone who doesn't know that case as closely.
Speaker 1: Dennis Raider grew up in Wichita, Kansas. He had a
Speaker 1: relatively normal childhood. He was a boy scout. He loved knots,
Speaker 1: which was a foreshadowing for things later. He did have
Speaker 1: some compulsions throughout his youth. For example, he was obsessed
Speaker 1: with blood. He was obsessed with dismemberment. And he at
Speaker 1: the age of ten is where the seed was really planted,
Speaker 1: because he witnessed his grandmother kill a chicken in the
Speaker 1: backyard on her farm for dinner. And he became sexually
Speaker 1: aroused at the age of ten, but he didn't even
Speaker 1: know what it was. At ten, he didn't even know
Speaker 1: what it was, but he knew he liked that sensation,
Speaker 1: and he nurtured that over time, and he became a
Speaker 1: peeping tom and he would break into women's homes, steal
Speaker 1: their underwear. He would fantasize and great lengths and have
Speaker 1: fetish rituals and also sexually release himself. That fed this,
Speaker 1: and over time, as he reached early adulthood, he began
Speaker 1: trolling women, that's what he referred to it as in Wichitak, Kansas,
Speaker 1: watching them come and go. And he put together a
Speaker 1: whole list, a whole list of potential victims, a card
Speaker 1: cataloged almost of photographs and details on someone that he
Speaker 1: might kill because he was obsessed. This hunger was growing
Speaker 1: inside of him, but all the while outside he was
Speaker 1: a normal seeming guy. He was gone to night school,
Speaker 1: he got married, he was starting a family, but by
Speaker 1: age twenty eight he couldn't stand it any longer. It
Speaker 1: reached what I like to call it a tipping point,
Speaker 1: and he reached the point where he had to kill
Speaker 1: for the first time. And he had set his sights
Speaker 1: on a family named Ottero, a Latino family in Wichita, Kansas,
Speaker 1: and he was obsessed with the mother and the beautiful
Speaker 1: eleven year old daughter, Josephine, and he went there one
Speaker 1: morning in January of seventy four, but things went awry.
Speaker 1: He didn't expect that four members of the family would
Speaker 1: actually be there, the mom, dad, the little son, and Josephine.
Speaker 1: But as he told me, he said, I didn't get
Speaker 1: all dressed up for nothing, And being the unflappable psychopath
Speaker 1: that he was, he was armed with a gun. He
Speaker 1: went in the back door and he told them, as
Speaker 1: long as you cooperate, no one will get hurt. I'm
Speaker 1: here to simply rob you. They complied, and then he
Speaker 1: became buying torture kill for the very first time, and
Speaker 1: tortured and killed every member of the family, living out
Speaker 1: the fantasies that had been developing for fifteen years. And
Speaker 1: so his first killings were actually a mass murder. And
Speaker 1: after that with his second killing is where he really
Speaker 1: became a serial killer. But he ultimately killed ten people.
Speaker 1: He ultimately killed ten people that we know. I suspect
Speaker 1: there might be others out there and they're looking at
Speaker 1: cold cases. Now.
Speaker 3: Scott Bond continues his explanation of how many psychopaths are
Speaker 3: pathological in their capacity to compartmentalize. Here's Scott with Moron
Speaker 3: how BTK explained it to him.
Speaker 1: He described it as his multifaceted life is like a
Speaker 1: photographic cube. You know, maybe you remember those photocubes where
Speaker 1: there'd be a different picture on each side of the
Speaker 1: cube and you look at it that way. He sees
Speaker 1: his life that way. And so when he's looking at
Speaker 1: the picture that is daddy Dennis with his two children,
Speaker 1: that's all he sees. And so the psychopathic serial killer
Speaker 1: is on a different side of the cube that is nonexistent.
Speaker 1: So when he's in daddy mode, there is nothing else.
Speaker 1: He is the religious president of his Lutheran church association,
Speaker 1: which he truly was. He's the doting father, he is
Speaker 1: the boy Scout leader in town. He is the toast
Speaker 1: of Wichita, Kansas. People loved him. Flip that thing now
Speaker 1: to BTK buind torture kill. Now he is the bloodthirsty,
Speaker 1: completely psychopathic, malignant narcissist, malignant narcissist meaning narcissistic tendencies with
Speaker 1: sadism thrown in for good measure. And it's a completely
Speaker 1: different thing. And yes, he knows exactly what he when
Speaker 1: he's in BTK mode. He knows who he is, he
Speaker 1: knows what he wants. He just doesn't care. He told me,
Speaker 1: he said, Scott, I know that it's wrong to kill.
Speaker 1: I know that society has these rules. I don't care.
Speaker 1: Nothing is going to stop me. And he told me,
Speaker 1: he said, the reason that he's compelled to do this,
Speaker 1: in fact, is because he was a strangler. And when
Speaker 1: he had his hands around the neck of his victim
Speaker 1: and he crushed their throats and saw the light of
Speaker 1: life distinguish in their eyes, he said, at that moment,
Speaker 1: I know that I am God.
Speaker 2: He is such a scary example of someone who's able
Speaker 2: to live in both lives. And I've heard interviews with
Speaker 2: his daughter, who by all account says he was like
Speaker 2: the greatest, most loving dad, like you just reported. And
Speaker 2: I guess that's what's so scary about it is just
Speaker 2: the idea that somebody can be so functional in the
Speaker 2: world and be so dysfunctional in the world and kind
Speaker 2: of TikTok between both universes with very little tells. So
Speaker 2: how did you get involved with BTK?
Speaker 1: I was writing this book, which is why we love
Speaker 1: serial killers, the curious appeal of the world's most savage murderers.
Speaker 1: And what I wanted to do is I wanted to
Speaker 1: understand serial killers from different perspectives. I'm a criminologist, but
Speaker 1: I'm trained in sociology, and so from a sociological perspective,
Speaker 1: everything has its place and meaning and even purpose in society.
Speaker 1: And what's the mosaic? How do these things fit together?
Speaker 1: So I sought out the news media who have reported
Speaker 1: on cases like BTK and Son of Sam. I developed
Speaker 1: a very great friendship with Roy Hazelwood, one of the
Speaker 1: premier FBI profilers from whom I learned so much, and
Speaker 1: unfortunately he's passed away a few years ago. But I'd
Speaker 1: also decided I've got to go to the serial killers
Speaker 1: themselves and try to understand their own identities that they
Speaker 1: create for themselves, because some of them and BTK is
Speaker 1: sitting up there at the top of the heat is
Speaker 1: a highly narcissistic individual that was very aware of his
Speaker 1: own narrative and wanted to create his profile. And he
Speaker 1: even named himself. I mean he called himself bind, torture,
Speaker 1: kill BTK, because that's what he does. And after his
Speaker 1: first couple of killings, when he didn't believe that he
Speaker 1: had gotten enough notoriety, he started writing to news media
Speaker 1: in which ofa Kansas saying, how many people do have
Speaker 1: to kill before I get a little notoriety here? I
Speaker 1: want to little press, right, So I thought, who better
Speaker 1: to represent the truly narcissistic, self absorbed psychopath than BTK.
Speaker 3: Let's stop here for a break. We'll be back in
Speaker 3: a moment. Scott Bond explains what was occurring between BTK
Speaker 3: and law enforcement in the three decades between committing his
Speaker 3: heinous crimes and when authorities captured him.
Speaker 1: All the while, he was playing cat and mouse with
Speaker 1: the police because he's the ultimate control freak, and he
Speaker 1: would send letters to law enforcement, letters to the media.
Speaker 1: He would send personal items from his victims so that
Speaker 1: they would be sure that this was actually him, and
Speaker 1: he would lay clues and basically demonstrate that he was
Speaker 1: the puppet master. He was in control, He was much
Speaker 1: smarter than law enforcement, and he played this game for
Speaker 1: thirty years before it ultimately caught up to him and
Speaker 1: he was finally apprehended. But all the while he was
Speaker 1: living this dual life where he was the boy Scout
Speaker 1: leader in town, he was the president of a Lupian
Speaker 1: church association. It's absolutely incredible.
Speaker 2: And at that time when you spoke with him, and
Speaker 2: in the times that you've had these conversations with him,
Speaker 2: do you get a cold chill? Does it seem obvious
Speaker 2: in retrospect that he was somebody who was capable of
Speaker 2: this level of violence because he was really top of
Speaker 2: the list of one of the more sick and sadistic
Speaker 2: violent murderers.
Speaker 4: Do you get that sense?
Speaker 2: Because he always seemed a little like you said, a
Speaker 2: regular man.
Speaker 1: Let me say first of all, Roy Hazelwood once again,
Speaker 1: who was my friend, who was one of the pioneer
Speaker 1: FBI profilers. Roy told me, he said, without a doubt,
Speaker 1: the most cold blooded, stone cold psychopath that he had
Speaker 1: ver sat across from was Dennis Rader. So you have
Speaker 1: it from you know, from Hazelwood himself. Now in my case,
Speaker 1: because I am not law enforcement, I'm not FBI. I
Speaker 1: wasn't able to sit with him. So all of our
Speaker 1: of our communication is through correspondence. But we are talking
Speaker 1: voluminous correspondence over a period of years. And yes, the
Speaker 1: detachment that you're talking about is always present. His writings
Speaker 1: are almost business like and clinical. He rarely, if ever,
Speaker 1: demonstrates or indicates any sort of emotional response. One of
Speaker 1: the few times that I got a sense of it,
Speaker 1: well one when I ask him, what you know what
Speaker 1: killing does for him? Then he told me that I
Speaker 1: am God. You know that. That's pretty telling the right there.
Speaker 1: But another one I asked him, I said, what did
Speaker 1: you find the most satisfying moment of your life? He said, well,
Speaker 1: I received a badge. And this is true. He got
Speaker 1: a badge from the City of Wichita. He always wanted
Speaker 1: to be police officer. He never quite made it, but
Speaker 1: he did become a compliance officer for the City of Wichita.
Speaker 1: That gave him a badge which enabled him to come
Speaker 1: to people's homes and say, put your dog on a leash,
Speaker 1: trim your trees, trim your lawn. And this gave him
Speaker 1: that sense of power and entitlement and authority that he
Speaker 1: really really craved. Well, so here's the story. He's in
Speaker 1: the midst of his killing screen. Now the BTK killer
Speaker 1: is at large, and he goes into city Hall to
Speaker 1: get his little badge as a compliance officer, and while
Speaker 1: he's there, they say, oh, Dennis, let's take you. Let
Speaker 1: us take you into the BTK war room where we
Speaker 1: can show you everything that we're doing to catch this maniac.
Speaker 1: This you know, this madman. And so he gets a
Speaker 1: tour of the war room that's set up for them,
Speaker 1: and he's smiling like the cat that ate the canary,
Speaker 1: thinking to himself, I truly am a genius. Look at this.
Speaker 1: They have no idea that I am the man and
Speaker 1: they're looking for. And so he said to me, he said,
Speaker 1: this was the greatest rush of my life. The greatest
Speaker 1: rush of my life was that moment.
Speaker 2: This does sort of fishtail into the Idaho massacre and
Speaker 2: the accused Brian Coburger. Again, to be clear, he is
Speaker 2: claiming his innocence. In no way are we trying to
Speaker 2: prove his guilt. But some of the things I kind
Speaker 2: of cross over with BTK that we have heard reported
Speaker 2: about Brian Coburger is exactly law enforcement. You know, he
Speaker 2: had a real pension for wanting to be in law enforcement,
Speaker 2: and in his later high school years had joined a
Speaker 2: certain part of his high school that was for law
Speaker 2: enforcement want to be so essentially he wanted to be
Speaker 2: a cop. Ultimately he got removed from that, and that
Speaker 2: might have been a cross section for him, we're told
Speaker 2: where maybe he then loathed law enforcement as a result.
Speaker 2: But at one point he wanted to wear a badge.
Speaker 2: And I wonder if that teeters into the same territory
Speaker 2: of wanting to be God right, because as law, maybe
Speaker 2: from a young person's mind, is law the land, and
Speaker 2: I keep it in check. And I could see how
Speaker 2: that could have crossover in a more demented way into
Speaker 2: wanting to control people through violence like BTK did. That's one,
Speaker 2: and then also the fact that he was, you know,
Speaker 2: seemingly a really ordinary guy that came from a really
Speaker 2: loving family, and he had a lot of opportunity and
Speaker 2: just the emotional regulation that you have to have to
Speaker 2: go in this case, if again, what Brian Coberger is
Speaker 2: being accused of is accurate, to go from killing four
Speaker 2: people and then headed back to class to be in
Speaker 2: the beehive the next day and talk about the case.
Speaker 4: He didn't miss any school.
Speaker 2: He was a teacher's assistant and was there the next
Speaker 2: day and was still grading papers. And to your earlier point,
Speaker 2: something that had come up in a recent interview that
Speaker 2: I did was with one of the classmates that was
Speaker 2: in his classroom before and after the killings. And it
Speaker 2: was a large class, like three hundred students or so,
Speaker 2: and he was one of those teachers assistants that gave
Speaker 2: a lot of notes. It's a lot of red lines
Speaker 2: through papers and assignments and many many notes in those columns,
Speaker 2: and after the murders, her real notice was that the
Speaker 2: grades had gotten significantly better. There was still as much detail,
Speaker 2: lots of notes in the columns and lots of red lines.
Speaker 2: He was equally as thorough, but that where he would
Speaker 2: normally be a hard grader, post the murders, he was
Speaker 2: a very easy grad. It was a's, a's.
Speaker 4: And a's.
Speaker 2: And I asked her what she felt about that, and
Speaker 2: her interpretation of that was that maybe he knew that
Speaker 2: law enforcement was looking for him and that he wanted
Speaker 2: the class to like him a little bit more should
Speaker 2: they get interviewed.
Speaker 4: My brain went to he was just a little happier.
Speaker 2: If what he's been accused of is true, he had
Speaker 2: that release that you're speaking of, and much like BTK
Speaker 2: seeing the war room with all of the kills for him,
Speaker 2: if this was true, then maybe that was the high.
Speaker 4: That was the high he was hoping for.
Speaker 1: I think that there's absolutely merit to what you're saying.
Speaker 1: As a matter of fact, as you were talking, I
Speaker 1: was thinking along those same lines that he had finally
Speaker 1: achieved something that he had been building up to for
Speaker 1: a long time. And similar to BTK, I do believe
Speaker 1: that he had been evolving, progressing, percolating for years and years.
Speaker 1: No one wakes up one day and says, this is
Speaker 1: a great day to start killing people. You know, it
Speaker 1: just doesn't work that way. Whether you are a mass
Speaker 1: murderer and it's a one time event, it just doesn't
Speaker 1: happen that way. This evolves over a long period of time,
Speaker 1: and they reached this tipping point. Now there are definitely
Speaker 1: similarities between BTK and Coburger.
Speaker 3: It's worth noting again that, like every other US citizen
Speaker 3: accused murderer, Brian Coberger is presumed innocent as stipulated by
Speaker 3: the fifth, sixth, and fourteenth Amendments. Here again, criminologist doctor
Speaker 3: Scott Bond.
Speaker 1: As I said earlier, you know BTK killed four members
Speaker 1: of the same family. That was his first outing as
Speaker 1: a killer. Now people ask me all the time, do
Speaker 1: I think the coburger killed previously? And I believe the
Speaker 1: answer to that is no. He made rookie mistakes, not
Speaker 1: the least of which was leaving a knife sheath lying
Speaker 1: next to one of his victims with touch DNA on it.
Speaker 1: I mean that's I mean, you talk about murder one
Speaker 1: oh one, you don't leave that behind. And he also
Speaker 1: very foolishly, and I'm surprised, given his study of forensics
Speaker 1: and so forth, that he would do this, but he
Speaker 1: turned his phone off during the time period of the
Speaker 1: killing and then turned it back on. Just leave your
Speaker 1: phone at home, you know, you don't need to turn
Speaker 1: it off. Just leave it in your apartment and go
Speaker 1: and kill and come back. I do believe that, having
Speaker 1: looked at his progression, and I've looked at his history
Speaker 1: quite a bit, this was a troubled individual. He had
Speaker 1: weight problems, he lost a tremendous amount of weight. He
Speaker 1: had drug problems. He had posted early online years before,
Speaker 1: some of his troubled thoughts and things that he was
Speaker 1: wrestling with, and so very much like BTK, and BTK
Speaker 1: told me this that he was interested in forensics, he
Speaker 1: was interested in psychology, he was interested in the mind,
Speaker 1: partially to understand himself. And I think that this could
Speaker 1: very well be true of Brian Coberger. These individuals are
Speaker 1: self aware. They know that something is happening here, and
Speaker 1: as much as it may be stimulating, exciting and thrilling
Speaker 1: to them, this growing need to kill, at the same time,
Speaker 1: they recognize that this is a little bit abnormal and
Speaker 1: they want to try to understand it. BTK did, and
Speaker 1: I suspected that Coburger did as well, which is what
Speaker 1: led him into this, you know, this study. And in
Speaker 1: terms of the possible connection between the two, Raider says
Speaker 1: he's never corresponded with Coburger, although he has said he
Speaker 1: thinks that Coburger was in fact a clone. Then again,
Speaker 1: and everything is about Dennis Rader, so naturally he's going
Speaker 1: to say that. But the one thing that we do
Speaker 1: know is that he had entered his doctoral he had
Speaker 1: previously gotten a master's degree at Dessal's University, and there
Speaker 1: he was exposed to a forensics class taught by a
Speaker 1: professor who has also written about BTK, and I am
Speaker 1: sure in her research and in her classes she discussed BTK.
Speaker 1: So there's no question that I think Coburger would have
Speaker 1: been pretty versed in the background of BTK as well.
Speaker 1: And in my experience, serial killers do often study one another.
Speaker 1: They're what I like to refer to as students of
Speaker 1: the game, and they will even be jealous of one another.
Speaker 1: For example, when I told Dennis Rader BTK that I
Speaker 1: was also correspondent with David Berkowitz, the son of Sam,
Speaker 1: he scoffed. He said, he's not a real man. He
Speaker 1: shot people. Real killers strangle, real men strangle. So he
Speaker 1: belittled a son of Sam. He obviously was very aware,
Speaker 1: and he was even jealous of son of Sam, who
Speaker 1: was had an occult sim and David Berkowitz did during
Speaker 1: that same timeframe BTK was killing. He came up with
Speaker 1: his own little BTK symbol. He was a copycat in
Speaker 1: that regard. So these individuals, they do look at one another,
Speaker 1: they do follow one another's headlines.
Speaker 2: If you will, can you just give a little brief
Speaker 2: snippet on Son of Sam.
Speaker 1: David Berkowitz, the Son of Sam, falls into a category
Speaker 1: of serial killer known as that visionary serial killer. And
Speaker 1: by visionary, what we mean is he was obsessed with
Speaker 1: the notion, the fantasy that he was killing for Satan,
Speaker 1: that he was being beckoned to do this, and this
Speaker 1: fantasy built in him over a period of time, he
Speaker 1: became obsessed with the occult. He became obsessed with Satan,
Speaker 1: and by nineteen seventy six he believed that he had
Speaker 1: to act out on this, and he went out and
Speaker 1: he bought himself a gun, a revolver, and he shot
Speaker 1: his way into the history books. And he didn't buy
Speaker 1: just any gun. He got paid what is known as
Speaker 1: a Bulldog forty four caliber revolver, which is a big, heavy, powerful,
Speaker 1: loud handgun. This appeal to David Berkowitz's lack of self esteem.
Speaker 1: He was very insecure in his manhood, and I think
Speaker 1: that this was almost like a phallic Freudian sexual thing.
Speaker 1: The size of it appealed to him, made him feel strong.
Speaker 1: He began his shooting spree, which lasted a little more
Speaker 1: than a year in New York City, and it took
Speaker 1: several crime scenes before they realized they had a serial
Speaker 1: killer when they linked the ballistics from the shells from
Speaker 1: the crime scenes, and he became known as the forty
Speaker 1: four caliber killer initially, but it was when he started
Speaker 1: his own terrorist terrorizing letter campaign to the news media
Speaker 1: and law enforcement that it became the thing of epic
Speaker 1: proportions and legend because he left the letter next to
Speaker 1: one of his victims and it was addressed to Captain
Speaker 1: Joe Borelli, who was heading up the task force, the
Speaker 1: serial Killer task Force, and in this letter he introduced
Speaker 1: himself to the world as the son of Sam, and
Speaker 1: he said, I must provide Papa Sam Satan with blood
Speaker 1: and his thirst is unquenchable, so I will be killing
Speaker 1: again and again and again, so you can only imagine
Speaker 1: all hell broke loose when this letter was published in
Speaker 1: the news media, and over a period of a year,
Speaker 1: Berkowitz sent letters to everybody from Jimmy Breslin, one of
Speaker 1: the notorious journalists of New York City at the time,
Speaker 1: at law enforcement. He started this terror campaign much like BTK,
Speaker 1: but for different reasons, but he did the same thing
Speaker 1: and when it became a parent that he was targeting
Speaker 1: young white women with long, dark hair. Everything exploded because
Speaker 1: women began to cut their hair, dye their hair, wear
Speaker 1: wigs by the summer of nineteen seventy seven, which became
Speaker 1: known as the Summer of Sam in New York City
Speaker 1: because he had the entire city of eight million people
Speaker 1: and at death grip, you couldn't even buy a female
Speaker 1: wig anymore in New York City. So he truly one man,
Speaker 1: held the city in this death gript and that's why
Speaker 1: he is the thing of legend. He ultimately shot thirteen people,
Speaker 1: killed six and permanently disabled others, but he terrorized millions.
Speaker 1: Is he still alive, Yes, he is, and I spent
Speaker 1: an entire day with him in a maximum security prison.
Speaker 1: I had lunch with him, and he is no longer.
Speaker 1: Your audience may be aware, and they may not be aware.
Speaker 1: He had a self described spiritual awakening. He became a
Speaker 1: born again Christian in nineteen eighty six when God visited
Speaker 1: his prison cell and washed away his sins, and he
Speaker 1: was no longer the son of Sam serial killer. He
Speaker 1: is now the son of Hope, minister and evangelist who
Speaker 1: is doing God's good work. Scoff. If you will, but
Speaker 1: he has become something of a darling of the evangelical
Speaker 1: Christian community, and they actually operate a website in his
Speaker 1: name that has drawn hundreds of thousands of people from
Speaker 1: around the world who were drawn by his message of inspiration.
Speaker 1: And so, yeah, I spent an entire day with him
Speaker 1: in prison, and he insisted that we say the Lord's
Speaker 1: Prayer together. He wept tears of contrition, he wept tears
Speaker 1: of joy as he manifested the new son of Hope.
Speaker 1: So the son of Sam is now the Son of Hope,
Speaker 1: and we ate together. This is pretty remarkable. Cafeteria is
Speaker 1: just surrounded by vending machines. And so I showed up
Speaker 1: that day with a huge bag of quarters because the
Speaker 1: staff told me, if you feed him, he will talk.
Speaker 1: So I was ready. I was ready. It's like going
Speaker 1: to the zoo. You know we're gonna, you know we're gonna,
Speaker 1: We're gonna. He's gonna perform. And I wasn't disappointed, because man,
Speaker 1: he ate and he ate, and he ate and he
Speaker 1: ate three huge bags of Dorito's cool ranch flavored Dorito's.
Speaker 1: He took me on this incredible journey. And I'm sitting
Speaker 1: there and I'm thinking, and if he's acting, he's pretty
Speaker 1: darn believable. He deserves an Academy Award because he's like
Speaker 1: the Robert de Niro of serial killer actors. If you know,
Speaker 1: if he's really this good, And then I'm thinking, well,
Speaker 1: all right, maybe it's true. You know, maybe he has transformed.
Speaker 1: You know, I got a PhD. But it's not in
Speaker 1: like spiritual rebirth. So maybe maybe it's true. But then
Speaker 1: the more cynical side of me said, he's full of shit.
Speaker 1: You know, he's definitely full of shit. I've come to
Speaker 1: believe that reality is probably somewhere in the middle, as
Speaker 1: truth often is. So my take on David Berkowitz is
Speaker 1: he's exactly where he needs to be. He never should
Speaker 1: be set free. But if he through his correspondence and
Speaker 1: he's got an old fashioned Smith Corona typewriter that he
Speaker 1: corresponds with thousands of Christians around the world, if he's
Speaker 1: doing God's good work and he's helping these people, let
Speaker 1: him do it from behind bars.
Speaker 4: Let him do it.
Speaker 2: And I think of anything I've learned, not only in
Speaker 2: just from you, but just just working in true crime,
Speaker 2: is that a person could be many things at once.
Speaker 3: Let's stop here for another break. We'll be back in
Speaker 3: a moment. Stephanie brings up a point from her conversation
Speaker 3: with Cassie, which was covered at length in episode three.
Speaker 3: Cassie's the former student who was in the criminology class.
Speaker 3: The accused was a teacher's assistant in at the time
Speaker 3: of the murders.
Speaker 2: I think that kind of is unsettling for her. That
Speaker 2: just doesn't add up in terms of whether he's guilty
Speaker 2: or not. Is the fact that she was, like, I
Speaker 2: was not overly even paying attention in class, and even
Speaker 2: I know not to bring your cell phone to the
Speaker 2: scene and turn it off. It was such a tier
Speaker 2: one rookie mistake that they learned in that class that
Speaker 2: he was the TA of that. That actually is what
Speaker 2: makes her think that maybe he didn't do it because
Speaker 2: it was just so messy and sloppy.
Speaker 4: What do you make of that.
Speaker 1: I believe that it's a you know, like I said,
Speaker 1: a rookie error, and serial killers do refine their techniques
Speaker 1: over time. Any any serial killer from from Bundy to
Speaker 1: Dahmer said that their most nerve wracking kill was the
Speaker 1: first one, and if they made mistakes, it was the
Speaker 1: first time. To the extent that they get away with it,
Speaker 1: they obsess about it and they perfect it and they
Speaker 1: get better at it, which is the scary thing. But
Speaker 1: the more prolific they are, the more successful and the
Speaker 1: more efficient that they are. So no, I think it's
Speaker 1: very consistent with a you know, like I said, a
Speaker 1: rookie error on his part. But it also didn't make sense.
Speaker 1: Is they priangulated his cell phone, and he had visited
Speaker 1: that house that area a number of times, and they
Speaker 1: got a ping later that morning once his cell phone
Speaker 1: turned back on at nine o'clock in the morning, they
Speaker 1: got a ping from his cell phone right outside the house.
Speaker 1: Well that's pretty telling, right there. Turn the cell phone off,
Speaker 1: go and kill the people, turn the phone back on,
Speaker 1: and then revisit the crime scene. And many killers do
Speaker 1: love to revisit their crime scenes.
Speaker 4: It's hard to wrap your brain around it.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: One of the things that you had said to me
Speaker 2: that I found so comforting, and I think we should
Speaker 2: just quote it directly because I've thought about it so
Speaker 2: many times, is that although we talk about serial killing,
Speaker 2: and you do so importantly in your book, it's really rare, right.
Speaker 1: I frequently compare serial killers to sharks, because they're both
Speaker 1: predators in nature, and the thing that they have in
Speaker 1: common is that they are both rare, exotic, and deadly,
Speaker 1: and when it gets to the odds of being a
Speaker 1: victim of either one, they're remarkably similar. The odds of
Speaker 1: being attacked by either a shark or a serial killer
Speaker 1: are about one hundred and fifty million to one, so
Speaker 1: those are really good odds. But if you really want
Speaker 1: to feel good, you are twice as likely to be
Speaker 1: killed by a soft drink vending machine falling on top
Speaker 1: of you and crushing you than you are to become
Speaker 1: a victim of a serial killer. So I think we
Speaker 1: can all really go home and sleep well tonight.
Speaker 2: There is something scary about the notion of somebody crawling
Speaker 2: through your windows, certainly when you talk about it all
Speaker 2: the time. So I found that to be so comforting,
Speaker 2: and also just the deep dive going through the rabbit
Speaker 2: hole with you about I think we are. I mean,
Speaker 2: myself included, is so interested in the why, and maybe
Speaker 2: that's just inherently unanswerable, But you're somebody who has had
Speaker 2: such close contact with so many of these prolific killers
Speaker 2: that it's frankly, probably impossible to boil it down to,
Speaker 2: you know, one key ingredient, whether they're a psychopath or
Speaker 2: a sociopath, bringing it full circle, but typically they're functional,
Speaker 2: and that's scary. We want them to seem like Hannibal Lecter, right,
Speaker 2: we want to know what the answer is. I want
Speaker 2: to get the feeling of a chill when I walk
Speaker 2: by a killer. And I know that's not true.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's that's absolutely correct. And I've done extensive research
Speaker 1: into the whole psychology with the fascination of serial killers
Speaker 1: in the draw, you know, a lot of it is
Speaker 1: based upon this, what is this curious fascination with the macabre,
Speaker 1: you know, and with serial killers, and part of it
Speaker 1: is just that. And what women consistently tell me is
Speaker 1: I want to be able, as you said, to identify
Speaker 1: the next Ted Bundy if he shows up in my backyard.
Speaker 1: I want to be able to have the ability to
Speaker 1: identify this sociopath or psychopath before I potentially get involved
Speaker 1: with it. Nobody wants to date or get married to
Speaker 1: the next BTK or Ted Bundy, So what should I
Speaker 1: be looking for the draw of all this? And I
Speaker 1: think this is particularly true for women has a lot
Speaker 1: to do with empathy, both in terms of empathizing with
Speaker 1: the victim, who more often than not is another woman,
Speaker 1: and so therefore, but for the grace of God, go I,
Speaker 1: but also empathy or at least a desire to understand
Speaker 1: the thinking of an individual like a Bundy or a BTK,
Speaker 1: because what they do is so horrible and so terrifying
Speaker 1: that it's incomprehensible. So if you can just give me
Speaker 1: the tools so I can somehow understand this, then maybe
Speaker 1: it's not so terrifying. After all, the thing that we
Speaker 1: don't understand is more terrifying than that we do understand.
Speaker 3: More on that next time. For more information on the
Speaker 3: case and relevant photos, follow us on Instagram at kat
Speaker 3: Underscore Studios. The Idaho Masker is produced by Stephanie Leideger,
Speaker 3: Gabriel Castillo and me Courtney Armstrong. Editing and sound design
Speaker 3: by Jeff Toois, Music by Jared Aston. The Idaho Masker
Speaker 3: is a production of KT's Studios and iHeartRadio. For more
Speaker 3: podcasts like this, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or
Speaker 3: wherever you listen to your favorite shows. For more information
Speaker 3: on criminologist Scott Bond you can visit his website dot Bond,
Speaker 3: that's doc b o n N. There you can also
Speaker 3: book tickets to his fascinating nationwide show Serial Killers with
Speaker 3: Doctor Scott Bond, the curious appeal of the world's most
Speaker 3: terrifying murderers.