helped. the face-to-face meeting after those dramatic moments on the phone, you will not be able to stop smiling. it's a truly, truly inspiring story. first, piers morgan live starts first, piers morgan live starts now. -- captions by vitac -- www.vitac.com this is "piers morgan live." welcome to the viewers in the united states and around the world. in a week that is a frightening side, children in georgia escaping classrooms after a man burst into a school with an ak-47. many are asking how it can happen again. luckily, no one was injured. why would anyone do this? answers and a piers morgan special inside the mind of a killer. >> i identified with what eric and dillon went through, they were my heros. >> aurora. >> this build up over time. >> sanity hook. >> if i had an assault weapon, things would have been worse. >> joshua cook has the answer. he's known as the matrix

murderer. >> i would see myself in that role. >> the teenager who picked up a shotgun and killed his parents in their suburban virginia home. joshua cook tells his story in an exclusive interview with piers. >> i don't blame anyone but myself. >> the crime, confession and the warning about the next adam lanza. >> these people were ticking time bombs. >> this is a special piers morgan live, inside the mind of a killer. good evening. ten years since joshua cook did the unthinkable. on february 17th, 2003 he picked up a shotgun, pointed it at his father and mother and pulled the trigger. how could he murder his parents? he kept it a mystery until now. for the first time the killer dubbed the matrix murderer is speaking out and what put him behind bars for 40 years. this is more than one man's story of crime and punishment.

he thought a lot about the massacres of combine, sandy hook and aurora and wants to speak directly to people maybe thinking of doing something similar. i begin asking him about that winter day in 2003. you've had lots of time now to think about what happened on that day. why do you believe you killed your parents? >> well, that's a good question, piers. i think i would have to say that it was a combination of things. i would have to say there was bullying. there was abuse. there was psychological factors. psychological factors that i didn't know about until actually after i got incarcerated. i found out that my biological parents were mentally disabled

and i wish i knew but i didn't. i'm not blaming anything on anyone else. i take full blame and responsibility for what i did. i had a lot of age -- excuse me, rage, anger, hate, hate to the world, hate to people that hurt me, things like that. >> you had been adopted by your parents at the age of six or seven with your sister, who was your biological sister. let's go back to the day of the crime. you were 19 years old. you were pretty obsessed with violent video games, and in particular, you were obsessed with the movie "the matrix." do you remember watching" the matrix" repeatedly and the movie games and the effect it had on you. >> when i would watch "the matrix" i would see myself in that role. i would see my shelf shooting the bullies and people that hurt

me in my life, and this movie was a type of release of aggression, and it actually made me feel better when i would watch it. so i watched this movie hundreds of times, and i watched it so much, at one point that the tape wore out and i had to buy a new one, and the video games were the same, played the same part. video games like grand theft auto, blood rain, resident evil, doom, quake, a lot of these shooter games. when i would play these games, i just -- it did a lot for me mentally where i could release my aggression with these games, and i could almost bring my fantasies to fruition the way i would just immerse myself in these games. sometimes i would play them 12 to 15 hours a day without leaving my room and i would have

food and all kinds of things stashed in my room so i wouldn't have to leave. i did that for all my high school years and into college, and i ended up flunking out of college because that's all i did all day was play these games. >> there are people who say there can be no link between these violent games and the kind of shootings that we see as a result of people like adam lanza who played them and committed the atrocity at sandy hook, but i always believed it would be very conceivable that you could turn to violence, if you yourself were mentally unstable. do you believe now that that was the case? >> well, to put it bluntly, i know that there is something wrong with me in my head, but like i said, i don't blame it -- what i did on anyone else but i do think many times in my life i have thought that i may have

some form of schizophrenia and i had a psychologist diagnose me with a form of simple schizophrenia. that type has been discounted by some doctors, but i think there is some type of schizophrenia there. i never had a psychological workup or brain scan. i wanted that but never had that. it's possible i inherited some of these types of -- this type of illness. >> you were fascinated by the columbine killers because they also claimed to have been bothered by bullies. you repeatedly watched a video that harris and klebold made called hit man for hire, they were, of course, the columbine shooters and they talk about killing bullies. how much was that playing on your mind, do you think, during

this period leading up to what you did? >> it impacted me a lot. this movie and that shooting are two things that basically they rad radically changed my life and in both movies they wore black trench coats and klebold and harris were affiliated with the trench coat mafia. i identified with what they went through, not to say that they were, you know, any kind of good guy or hero but back then they were, for me they were. unfortunately, i'm sorry to say that and it's sick and i had a lot of time to think about it and come to realize but back then they were my heroes. i would look at them and almost idlize them and i wanted to be with them, one of them. so i got -- the thing with the black trench coat, i really -- it was really me relating to neo

but the column bien shooters and that scenario with the columbine shooters, the trench coat symbol utilized my pain, aggression, frustration and homicidal and suicidal mentality at the time. it was really a period about four years between columbine and when i got arrested. and this period i got deeper and deeper into a hole that i couldn't get out of and i got more and more homicidal and just basically my rage and my anger and my hate were building up. it was a ticking time bomb and it was only a matter of time before it exploded. >> you heard joshua cook say he was a ticking time bomb. he talks about the moment he decided to murder his parents but first, an extraordinary message from cook. he speaks directly to anyone who may think of committing a copy cat crime.

>> if you're watching me and you're contemplating multiple, mass murder, i want you to know something, i understand you. i've been where you are. i know -- i know how you've come to where you are mentally and why you're considering murder and suicide and things like t t that. hey love. [off screen] there you are. [speaking german] hi, grandpa!

[off screen] give me a kiss! [speaking mandarin] what do you think? do you like it? [off screen] happy birthday! can you see that? [speaking polish] [off screen] did he apologize? [off screen] thanks, micah! [off screen] bye, guys. bye. see ya. oh my god! every day, more people connect face to face on the iphone than any other phone. i miss you. ♪

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a killer. joshua cook was 19 when he shot his mother and father ten years ago. he said movies and video games like the matrix fueled his thoughts. he said the same things happen to other killers and will happen again. he's serving a 40-year prison term and told me about the day he killed his mother and father and how easy it was to get his hands on the weapon. you purchased a gun. do you remember where you got the gun, and were you subjected to any kind of background check? >> yeah, i do remember. i bought the shotgun from a guy in sporting goods store in virginia, and there was a background check. i was actually coming off from work. i was working at jiffy lube at the time and at the time i stopped by the store and picked it up. they did a background check. the clerk showed me how to use the gun because i never held one

before, and within an hour, maybe an hour or two i was taking the gun home with me. >> and was your intention when you purchased the gun to murder your parents? >> actually, it wasn't. at the time i didn't know if i would do it. it had been running through my mind, but i didn't know if i really would do it or when or anything like that, but i had a lot of evil, violent murderous thoughts running through my mind constantly, but it was definitely a possibility i could do it soon, i just didn't know for sure, you know. >> but did your adoptive parents do you think have any real idea of what you were going through in your head? >> they didn't know really what was going on. they had a small idea that, you know, i was a troubled kid, and in someways they had kind of given up on me, especially in my high school years, but i used to

ask my parents about my biological parents all the time and they would never tell me anything and this was of great frustration to me. i always wanted to know who they were, what type of people they were, you know, anything, health concerns they may have had. i never got to know any of those type of things. my parents wouldn't let me know. so this was one thing i was frustrated about. i remember my mom telling me to shut up one time when i asked her about it. >> but they never mistreated you, your adoptive parents. >> well, my adoptive parents, my father wasn't like that with me, but my mother would beat my sister and i a lot, and there would be times, you know, this happens with kids, you know, you wet the bed and things like that, she could come in the room and basically, she would force our faces into the urine and make us sleep in the wet bed and smack us and call us disgusting and if you -- and there was a

"washington post" article ten years ago and my sister ko corroborates she went through the same thing and we talked about it the day after, and this happened often. and we were terrified of our mother. we were terrified of her. with my mother, there was a lot of abuse with my adoptive mother. >> on the day you decided you were going to kill them, you were playing various musical records. the one that was key to this was a song called let the bodies hit the floor, a song called bodies. what was going through your head as you heard that music? ♪ let the bodies hit the floor, let the bodies hit the floor ♪ >> i had been listening to the song for a year non-stop and i

had so much hate and rage inside of me, i knew it was leading to murder. so the song "bodies" from "drowning pool" was similar to the video games, made me feel better when i listened to it, and i would have these constant evil hateful thoughts running through my mind. >> there is some evidence jared loughner who shot gabby giffords and others listened to that song before committing appalling incidents. the group says it's about a mosh pit, not murder. do you think violent musical video and music can have a profounded disturbing effect on people who may themselves be unstable? >> i believe so, especially on the young mind. you know, a young person's mind is -- it's very easy to lead a young person's mind into things like that, and easy to

influence, you know, i can say that from experience. what you see on tv and media and things like that, can radically affect you if looking at that for extended periods of time, it can really affect a young person's mind if it goes unchecked. >> the moment that you decided that you were going to kill your parents, why did you decide they had to die and what then happened? >> that's a good question. i was at a point in my life where i didn't care about anyone or anything anymore, and i wanted to die. so as i said before, i was thinking these murderous thoughts for a long time, and the day that it happened, i had -- i had actually helped my parents shovel the snow out of

the driveway, and i didn't really feel right that whole day, and i just knew that i wanted to die, and i wanted my life to end, my life as i knew it back then, i wanted it to end and i had a lot of hate for my mother and for my father. and so at the end of the day, after i had finished playing all these violent video games, i was sitting on my bed and i picked up the shotgun, and i turned on the bodies song and i looked up at the matrix poster and i just decided that that was it. there was nothing left in my life, and i just wanted to end -- i wanted to end my life and theirs, but unfortunately, i really went through with it and,

you know. >> you went down and found your mother first and you shot her directly. as you were doing that, what was the sensation that you kp experiencing? >> actually, i had no emotion at all. i was basically like a zombie. i went down the steps, and i shot my mother. she was sitting in this chair at a computer. she had spun around and i shot her, and it grazed -- it grazed her chest, and i turned, i looked over at my father, he was at the other computer and he dove under the table, and i shot about seven times underneath the table, and i had no emotion at this -- at this time at all. it was just -- i was numb and there had been so many years of hurt from others, abuse and

bullying, rejection from girls, all types of things like that. i didn't care about anything anymore. so after i had, after i had finished shooting my father, i went upstairs and reloaded, and i came back down to the top of the stairs of the basement, and my mother was standing there at the bottom of the steps, and she looked at me, and she had her hands like this at her chest, and she said what are you doing, joshua? why did you do this? and i loaded the gun. i pointed it at her face, and i shot her in the face. i walked down the steps. i stepped over her body, and i shot my father in the head one more time. and then i walked back upstairs,

set the gun down. i grabbed a coke. drank it, and then called the police. and i had no emotion this whole time. i just wanted to die and end everything. >> even at the moment you realized you murdered both your parents, was there any kind of reality check, or did you still believe that this was some weird, horrible violent video game that you were possibly enacting for real? >> well, the things that went on that night, it real he reminded me -- it did remind me of "the matrix." i had become desensitized to bloodshed and things like that. when i was doing it, it really did remind me of the game a lot. i don't know for sure if i really would say that i felt like i was in the game, but it

felt like -- it almost felt like i was, and it just, everything just reminded me of the video games i played for so long over the years. so and i know those games had an impact on me. so the people that say they don't have an impact, they have an impact on a young person's mind. >> chilling warning about the dangers of violent video games. when we come back, why joshua cook knows what went on in the minds of columbine and sandy hook killers. first, his message to mass murderers. >> maybe you've been abused like i was or bullied in girls or rejected by girls, and maybe you're addicted to these violent video games and things like that, but you don't know the pain that you're going to cause with this type of shooting. you think you do, but you don't, and you got to think about your family. you got to think about your

friends, how much it will hurt them. [ male announcer ] a man. a man and his truck... 7 wrap

. welcome back to special "piers morgan live," inside the mind of a killer. joshua cook planned to murder his parents and in 2003 that's what he did. he killed his father and reloaded and executed his mother. we spent a lot of time talking about guns and why i believe we need common sense gun legislation. joshua said mental illness played a part in the crime and in the first ever tv interview, he speaks out to other killers.

joshua, there will be many people watching this who will say all you're doing now is making excuses for what you did and you're a ruthless cold-blooded killer and it's blaming skchizophrenia, movies, video games, what would you say? >> when i talk to anyone about this, i tell them i don't blame anyone but myself, and i have no one to blame but myself. i don't blame anything or anyone else. we're all -- we're all held accountable for our chases. we have choices to make. i'm not the only one that have went through things in my life and played violent video games. these things contribute and accumulate and with someone who may have psychological issues, lie i know i've had, it just -- you could become a ticking time bomb. >> if you had two biological

parents who were diagnosed with schizophrenia, it seems extraordinary that you were not picked up as a potential risk. but do you think the system, the mental health system in america should have picked you up earlier? >> yeah, absolutely, agree. i've spent a lot of time thinking about that in frustration and anger that i never got to know those things growing up my whole life about my biological parents. who wouldn't want to know both of their parents were mentally ill, in and out of mental institutions and schizophrenia and things like that. that's something i should have known from an early age to go to the right type of professional and doctor to get myself checked out. but i never knew growing up so that's a big deal to me. >> when you see the mass shootings in places like aurora and the movie theater with james

holmes and adam lanza as sandy hook, do you recognize from everything you've read about these two shooters, similarities in the way perhaps you were thinking at the time that you committed your atrocity? >> absolutely. whenever these happen, whenever these incidents happen there is several things that pop into my mind because i've been there. i know there was psychological issues involved. these people were not right, obviously. at least the majority aren't. they have had psychological issues. maybe there has been abuse in their life, bullying in school for years. like i said, rejection from girls. that plays a part. violent video games, nobody snaps overnight and decides, hey, i'll go shoot a whole school up. it doesn't happen. stuff builds up over time and these people were ticking time bombs and, you know, i wish people had seen the signs in me before hand, before i did what i

did and -- but unfortunately, that didn't happen. >> you were able to go and as a 19-year-old buy a shotgun and loaded ammunition and go murder your parents. do you think that the easy availability of guns is also a big problem in america for disturbed young men in particular like yourselves? >> absolutely. that is a big problem. and, you know, one thing i would like to address with what you brought up about, you know, the availability of guns is with regards to assault weapons. if i had an assault weapon, things would have been much worse, and i thank god i didn't have an ar 15 or some other type of assault weapon, because the way i was back then mentally, i would have gone to the mall that night or to my -- one of my old

high schools the next morning and killed as many people as i possibly could. but because i didn't have an assault weapon, that didn't happen. so i thank god i didn't have one of those things, and the gun does matter. >> obviously, you'll be in prison for a very long time. you did a terrible thing that day killing your parents. if you had to chance to speak to them again, which you never will, but if you did have the chance, what would you say to them? >> first, i actually do believe i will see them again. i believe in redemption. i believe in god. i do believe i will see them again, and when i see them, i know that we're going to be reconciled and we're going to talk it out, and my parents were christians. you know, they made some mistakes. they had faults like every other parent does, but i know i would tell them that obviously that i'm sorry, that i love them, that i want to thank them for everything that they did for me

growing up and just give them hugs, hugs and kisses and just embrace them and then go from there. so i look forward to that. >> are you now receiving any kind of treatment or medication for any mental health issues? >> no, i'm not. i mean, years ago in 2004 i was on four different anti depresents and i was talking to psychologists. they don't have any regular therapy here where like you have on the street where you see a shrink once a week or something like that, but you can put requests in to see a psychologist. but the main thing that has delivered me from this type of thinking, this mentality, this type of evil mentality and, and the thing that's really helped me with my mental health is my relationship with god. and prayer, prayer works and it really worked for me and he's really put a lot of love in my

heart, so that's what helped me out. i don't think like i used to years ago. a lot from joshua cook tonight and it's important to know is it one side of this tragedy? we reached out to other members of the family. they did not reply to our request for a response. when we come back, i want to ask mental health experts what they think. but joshua cook's final warning to anyone that might want to commit a crime like this. why believes psychological help can make a difference. >> it's not just about you. it's about the people around you that love you. i got to tell you, you got to get help. you got to get help. you really need to see a psychologist and there is no shame in that. you need to get psychological help because you may have problems like i did and i want to say give god a chance. you know, just think about what i said. right now, 7 years of music is being streamed.

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whenever these -- whenever these incidents happen, there is several things that pop into my mind because i've been there. >> teen killer joshua cook on

the horrific mass shootings in america. joshua cook who murdered his parents when he was 19 understands what killers like adam lanza is going through, but does he? is there any way to stop a madman before it's too late? i bring in my guests and javier amador the founder of the leap institute. welcome to you-all. javier, let me start with you, what was your reaction to this interview? unusual to hear a young shooter like this, very much of the demographic we've seen with so many mass shootings recently being so candid. what did you make of it? >> i think he was extremely candid with you and took responsibility. at the same time, what really struck me and i've seen this with people with serious mental illness. it appears he has schizophrenia is he is cobbling together the

story this many years later. the mental problem or anger, when you asked what were you thinking that night? he didn't have an answer. he didn't understand and that was the function of a broken brain, to understand the impulses that were leading him to pick up a shotgun and go and shoot his mother and father. >> cheryl olson, an extraordinary thing to do to kill both your parents in this manner. he's quite articulate. he's quite intelligent sounding and yet, one day he randomly picks a gun up and blows both his parents away. what did you think of his justification, or his excuse, if you like he had been driven to this by watching "the matrix" and the bodies song. can this be a link to what these shooters do? >> the first thing you have to keep in mind is the number of

people that play violent video games of watch "the matrix" and a lot of them don't hurt anybody, let alone kill parents. i did a study on children 13, 14, 15 years old and the boys i studied and 2/3rds of them were playing a mature violent video game like grand theft auto on a regular basis. >> he said eric harris and dylan klebold were hero figures to him. this young man arrested for plotting an attack on his oregon school, a similar hero worship for what happened at columbine, an attempt to copy cat this. how much is a problem with that where unstable young people who are perhapsed disenfranchised from society want to make a stir for themselves, get in the headlines, become infamous?

>> 99.9% of those who watch the news about columbine and other shooting identify with the pain and suffering of the victims and pray every day that a columbine won't happen in their school. but a very small fraction admire and identify with the perpetrators, their power they -- not only admire the fact that they got evil with the bullies but famous for it. it's important to distinguish shedding light on the crime. piers, you said something important. someone who is already unstable, a person whose content with their life and perfectly happy is not going to go on a rampage because they see someone else do it or play a video game. you have all the other conditions have to be there, then people like klebold and harris can be a role model in terms of how they express their proclivity towards violence. >> for anyone to do a kind of

random act of mass shooting or slaughter, they have got to be mentally unstable, i mean, normal people who don't have a mental health issue simply don't do that or am i wrong? is there just a state of pure evil? can you do it without being mentally unstable? >> i get asked that all the time on the stand. dr. amador isn't everybody that kills somebody mentally unstable? no. the majority of people don't kill people. look, in this case, something is different. i think maybe 100 years from now we'll see something different in the brains on people who kill in this way. and in fact, there is research emerging around schizophrenia, untreated and the kinds of racing thoughts, perhaps delusions that this young man had. he was trying to drown out, he tells you in the interview really in a very poin yent way

he was trying to drown out the thoughts he was having to listen that song tonight say the song caused it is confusing the egg for the chicken here. >> sharon olson, in terms of the video game impact, is it possible as i've always believed it must be the case that 99% of all young people that play these games, even if they play them recentlessly will never have a problem but the tiny percent of people that can have schizophrenia, it per sip tate some kind of outrage? >> when i give advice to parent whose are concerned about video games, one of the things i usually point out how common the use is and i would say i would be concerned of young people that don't have other influences, isolating themselves and dropping things they used to

enjoy and focussing on a solo activity. they could be emersed in violent literature or violence or games or moving away from positive influences and getting alone with their thoughts, i would worry about that. >> i would agree with you because the critical issue here is this young man was completely isolated and what was he doing with all of his time? watching video games. >> let me bring in james fox. do you agree with that? >> i think the video game playing is a symptom, not a cause. all the factors in his life, the fact he didn't have success in school, didn't have success in relationships with the girls, didn't have a lot of friends, that basically drove him toward loneliness and immersing hip self-with video games. video games was a reflection of his lifestyle, not a cause of his violent behavior. you mentioned lanza before. adam lanza was socially with drawn, uncomfortable and so he played video games throughout his entire life day after day after day. that didn't cause the violent episode, it was caused by the

very same factors that caused the violent episode. >> okay. let's take a short break. when we come back, i want to talk to you about what joshua cooke said about assault weapons and he thanks god he didn't have an ar 15 style assault rifle. [ male announcer ] this store knows how to handle a saturday crowd. ♪ [ male announcer ] the parking lot helps by letting us know who's coming. the carts keep everyone on the right track. the power tools introduce themselves. all the bits and bulbs keep themselves stocked. and the doors even handle the checkout so we can work on that thing that's stuck in the thing. [ female announcer ] today, cisco is connecting the internet of everything. so everyone goes home happy.

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assault weapon. because the way i was back then mentally, i would have gone to the mall that night or to one of my old high schools the next morning and killed as many people as i possibly could. >> ten years after he murdered his parents with a shot going, joshua cooke says he's a changed man and he's not the same man. should we believe him? back now with my panel. javier, let me start with you on that. you can say okay, he believes if he had an assault weapon, he would have caused carnage. we'll never know. clearly something flipped to make him kill his parents. what do you think of the gun aspect of this? >> i believe him. and look, some things are just obvious. if he had had an assault weapon

and he did what he did, it likely would have gone further. that seems likely. but the best predictor of future behavior is past behavior. this is a guy who was not violent. his violence for how many minutes was he violent? in terms of predicting is he a changed man? i don't think that's the question. the question, is is his illness controlled? is he being treated in prison? the man himself, if you look at the trajectory of his life, is not a violent man. >> what's fascinating about these recent shooters, if you look at james holmes in aurora, adam lanza at sandy hook and you go back to tucson and others, these are young men, as i said earlier, disenfranchised they feel by society, who flip and commit these outrages. he's another one, joshua cooke, that calls into that category. do you believe that they can just grow out of, this even if they have a condition like

schizophrenia? >> well, to some extent we do know that people are at their violent peak early adulthood and many do grow out of it. let me challenge this idea that cooke would have done much more had he had an assault weapon. he killed his parents, then called 911. didn't matter what weapon he had. he wasn't going anywhere afterwards, whether he happen an assault weapon or shotgun, he did what he did. it's easy for him to say i would have done a lot more if i had an assault weapon, but he was going nowhere. >> that's an interesting point, isn't it? he could be just saying that because he knows i have a position on assault weapons. he might be trying to ingratiate himself in some way to make me more sympathetic to him. >> he's trying to make sense of it as well, and say well, it could have been worse. maybe i'm not as evil a person

as i thought i was. one of the things that struck me about video games, the idea of using games to get your anger out. it seems like he wasn't entirely blaming the media, but also talking about how he tried to work with them, and the research i did, i had boys say a lot, i use video games to forget my problems, get my anger out. i had a bad day at school, the teacher yelled at me, soy went home and put in grand theft auto, then i felt calmer and better. to a certain point, self-medicating with video games can be healthy, but it can also make things worse and that may have been the case. >> if violent people are drawn to violent entertainment, that's what they enjoy. so it shouldn't surprise us if mass shooters have an interest in violent entertainment. >> a final question for

everybody, javier, did you believe him? >> yes, i did. >> james fox? >> about some things yes, some things no. >> cheryl? >> i think he said it the way he sees it. >> i think that's probably the right answer. thank you all very much indeed. it's a fascinating insight, whatever it is, into the mind of somebody who just killed his parents. you can't imagine something of that nature, but there it is. joshua cooke himself told me psychological help can make a difference in cases like his. thank you all very much indeed. we'll be right back. [ nurse ] i'm a hospice nurse.

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