Skip to main content

tv   Criminal Mindscape  MSNBC  October 22, 2011 3:00am-4:00am PDT

3:00 am
when my employees are happy, my customers are happy. vo: earn points for the things you're already buying. call 1-800-now-open to find out how the gold card can serve your business. you are about to enter the criminal mind scale of serial killer, reginald mcfadden. >> were you a monster? >> the worst of the worst. a man whose lethal vengeance toward society began in his teens. >> gagged her and tied her up. >> convicted of murder, he gets life. but 24 years later, he's let loose. >> it was a really new beginning. though in my subconscious, there were other things. >> why does his second chance spiral into a deadly rampage?
3:01 am
>> he's not in the public very long before he's engaged in kidnapping, sexual assault and murder. >> now, a former fbi profiler probes into the psyche of this murder. do you think it would be safe to let you out now? >> no, it wouldn't be safe. i have learned to hate white people. you mark your own fate. >> he enjoyed that power and control. >> i am the only living victim of reginald mcfadden, a psychopath. >> all the acts from beginning to end was intentional, it was deliberate, it was calculated and above all, what it was, it was pure evil. the opportunities to
3:02 am
interview serial offenders is pretty rare. any time i think any of us are able to interview significant violent offenders, it's a good opportunity for us. >> before his retirement, mark safarik spent over 40 years in law enforcement, including 23 years with the fbi. the last 23 in the behavioral analysis unit. >> my main work was in sexual homicide and my research work was sort of a subspecialty of the sexual homicide area. and i looked at sexual homicides of elder females. >> one of the elder homicides at the center of safarik's research was committed by reginald mcfadden. this interview will be safarik's first opportunity to ask mcfadden about that case and four others. >> i want to talk to him about, you know, what he felt about those when he was doing them,
3:03 am
what he was thinking about, and what were his goals in the crimes? why did you decide to do this interview? >> you know, it comes a time in a person's life that you have to try to find a way to communicate with the people that you might have done something wrong to, people who, for whatever reason, served for me at the time as an example of my own revenge, my own rage. >> i think that reginald mcfadden presents us with a unique opportunity. you have an individual who is now in his mid 50s, who really has been involved with the criminal system since a young child. one thing that we want to look at is what is the progression for this individual from his
3:04 am
first homicide into the later homicides and sexual assaults? let me just ask you about your childhood. because i know that you were arrested numerous times. >> yeah. >> before you were 16. and i think the earliest age, you were 6 years old? >> no. the earliest age was 12. >> 12? >> right. >> okay. what happened? if you got 18 arrests between 12 and 16 -- >> well, prior to my 12th birthday, i generally lived with my grandmother in south philadelphia. she was my -- you could say my rock of gibraltar. when she died, i started rebelling. and then i had to go and live with my mother. >> but, i mean, is this when you started getting into criminal activity?
3:05 am
>> that's right. that's when i started truancy tanned started escalating up to burglaries, stuff like that, going all the way up until '69. >> on december 9, 1969, 15-year-old reginald mcfadden commits his first murder in the well-to-do philadelphia suburb of wynnefield, not far from his mother's home. he and three other juveniles break into the house of 60-year-old sonia rosenbaum. >> we went in the house thinking no one was home. but what happened was that one of us goes upstairs. and mrs. rosenbaum was in the bedroom upstairs and she started hollering. we gagged her and tied her up and we fled the house. but, because of her age, she died of suffocation, and they arrest us like two, three days later, they arrest all of us. >> the crime makes the front page of the ""philadelphia
3:06 am
inquirer"" which reports, three of the four suspects were arrested after mrs. rosen balm's nude body was found tied up with a washcloth stuffed down her throat. >> everybody agreed that the death was accidental. it wasn't intentional. but because of the laws of felony homicide, they tried all of us as adults. >> in the rosenbaum crime, he minimizes his role in this, that he didn't do it, he didn't commit the homicide, he didn't know this was going to happen, wasn't his plan, but that's very typical of an individual like this because really, they're looking out for their own best interests. so, very easy to blame everybody else. >> mcfadden's crime becomes a touchstone issue during then police commissioner frank l. rizzo's campaign to become mayor. >> he vowed to the jewish community he was going to send me away for life. i was only 17 years old.
3:07 am
>> i think that reggie felt that, in a sense, the system betrayed him because his sentence for the same crime of the murder of sonya rosenbaum was, in his mind, much greater than his cohorts. in actuality, everybody took a plea bargain. he went to trial, so he ended up getting a more severe sentence. >> i vowed that wherever i got out of jail, i would pay frank rizzo and his party back for what they did to me. >> we have criminals walking our streets that will never be rehabilitated, cannot be rehabilitated and should be put in prison. >> the overarching focus for him was frank rizzo and for 24 years in prison, that feeling festered. >> in 1993, he died of a heart attack on the campaign trail. i felt the mixed pleasure of both pleasure that he died,
3:08 am
finally he died, but also felt cheated. and i still had in me this desire to get back at him. >> if mcfadden's vengeful, it's not apparent. he seems to become a model prisoner, converting to islam, taking college courses, and helping guards restore order during the camp hill notorious prison riots. is >> he's a bright guy, he understands how you manipulate the system so that it works for you. >> mcfadden's good behavior seems to be motivated by his desire to get out of prison. from 1977 to 1992, he applies for commutation of sentence no fewer than eight times. >> you have to realize that he really was using this commutation to get out, that he felt he had been wronged in his original sentencing, and eventually he decided, well, they're either going to approve this commutation or i'm going to escape. >> do you know how many times i
3:09 am
tried to escape before that commutation came through? >> a lot. >> the only thing that kept me from deciding to go was that hope of commutation. if that commutation didn't come first, i was gone. >> despite his checkered prison record, 41-year-old reginald mcfadden's sentence is commuted. and on july 7, 1994, he is released to new york state, where an islamic organization provides him with work and a place to live. >> take me back to that summer of july 7th when you get to new york. because you've been incarcerated for 24 years and now, what were you thinking about? what were you feeling? >> when they decided to let me out, it was really a new beginning. though in my subconscious, there were other things that i thought i suppressed. >> once he was out, those, as he
3:10 am
described them, demons, that evil component of himself, sort of snuck its way back up into his consciousness. >> and he's not in the public very long before he's engaged in really egregious, horrible, horrific crimes. coming up -- >> this man was beaten. i went berserk on him. he wasn't a human being to me. he had no rights. especially rights that was deserving of respect. the "i'll p when it's done" academic. for 80 years, we've been inspired by you. and we've been honored to walk with you to help you get where you want to be. ♪ because your moment is now. let nothing stand in your way. learn more at keller.edu.
3:11 am
let nothing ♪ and in your way. we're centurylink... a new kind of broadband company committed to providing honest, personal service from real people... 5-year price-lock guarantees... consistently fast speeds... and more ways to customize your technology. ♪
3:12 am
3:13 am
on july 7th, 1994, convicted murderer reginald mcfadden walks out of a pennsylvania prison and rejoins society in a quiet new york suburb along the hudson river. for the first time since 1969,
3:14 am
he's free to mingle amongst law-abiding citizens. but is mcfadden ready? >> he became incarcerated at the age of 17, and i think there's a emotional or psychological component of him that has stayed stunted. and 24 years later, reginald is released. and what did we see? in a 90-day period, we see the sexual assault, kidnapping, robbery and murder. >> mcfadden's downward spiral begins on december 7, 1994, in the long island village of elmont. >> how it came about is when my car broke down, right?
3:15 am
this guy come driving up. and he seemed to be a nice guy, you know. he's saying to me, can i help you? you know, i got a phone in my house. you can use my phone, you know. i live right around the corner. i said, okay. i get in his car. we go to his house. >> who is that guy? >> robert silk. >> robert silk. okay. >> robert silk. >> if you look at the victimology of robert silk, he was essentially a gentle soul. but he was a loner, he was a guy that stayed to himself. so the thought that robert silk would all of the sudden materialize into this ex tro vert and say, can i help you find whatever you are looking for, it doesn't make sense. >> he went upstairs and i said can i use your bathroom? he said, yeah, go upstairs and use the bathroom. i got to the bathroom and he's sitting there with his birthday suit on. i tried to push by him. i told him i been in jail. he said, you been in jail, you
3:16 am
should know about this, right? and he touched me and i learned in prison that only the cruelest survive, right? and i spunned around and i hit him every which way you can hit a person. you see his autopsy reports. this man was beaten, all his ribs was broken, his skull was broken, everything. i went berserk on him. >> reggie had alleged that robert silk had been a homosexual aggressor trying to get him to engage in sexual activity. there's no indication in any of the police investigations that robert silk was a homosexual. now, by all rights, robert silk should be gravery injured and certainly unconscious but when you hear this story, it is
3:17 am
really fantastical. it's almost this sort of magical thinking. you know, you're sort of in disbelief because then you look at the evidence that goes along with the crime and never the two shall meet. >> he was still alive. >> did he have his clothes on? >> he was in his birthday suit. >> so, he had no clothes on? >> right. right. right. he gets back in -- when he gets up, unconscious -- i mean, semi conscious, he then puts some clothes on. i agree to take him to the hospital. he told me, no, don't take me to the hospital. i have a girlfriend. take me to her house. en route there, got lost, i said, you know which way to go? and he's still aware, he's not -- he's bleeding and whatever, but this guy is still making advances, right? and i gets out of the car, and he comes out to reach for me. and he reached for me. i swung around and i kicked him, roundhouse kicked him, and he went over the side of the rail. that's where they eventually found him.
3:18 am
>> in terms of my experience, in having looked at thousands of homicide cases, it just didn't make any sense. reggie admits that he killed robert silk, but we know that. still, he is essentially blaming robert silk for, in a sense, causing his own death. >> on march 10th, 1995, six months after robert silk's disappearance, detective steven toth and robert vancura are summoned to a patch of woods in rockland county. >> we were called by some kids playing across the street, found a body in the water here where this culvert meets. >> it was partially decomposed, part had been preserved and part was in a severe state of almost skeletal remains.
3:19 am
we would learn the next day at autopsy that robert silk had been violently bludgeoned to death. >> the crime scene is almost 50 miles north of silk's house, but six miles from where mcfadden lived at the time of the murder. >> how were you feeling when this was happening? were you angry with him? >> angry? i wouldn't say -- i wouldn't say the word angry. i think i didn't see him as a human being. he was just a jewish person. he wasn't a human being to me. they become a nonperson. and this is what has happened over the years when it comes to people that i feel as though either did me wrong personally or did my faith, islam, wrong personally. >> i think that he enjoyed that power and control, and clearly i think there are part of these crimes that's very exciting for him, you know, exert this control by inflicting tremendous
3:20 am
injury, and selecting these vulnerable targets. coming up -- >> once he starts into that assault and murder role, he's accelerating in his behavior. >> and rage and anger is running through me all at once. [ male announcer ] in 1924, italian food came to ohio. vine-ripened tomatoes and real italian seasoned meat. the food got famous. and soon, so did the chef. hello, i am chef boyardee. quality ingredients no preservatives still in every bowl.
3:21 am
her morning begins with arthritis pain. that's a coffee and two pills. the afternoon tour begins with more pain and more pills. the evening guests arrive. back to sore knees. back to more pills. the day is done but hang on... her doctor recommended aleve. just 2 pills can keep arthritis pain away all day with fewer pills than tylenol. this is lara who chose 2 aleve and fewer pills for a day free of pain. [ female announcer ] get an aleve coupon in this sunday's paper. new natureluxe mousse mascara! we took out a heavy synthetic and put in a light touch of beeswax. up with the volume, down with the weight. new natureluxe mousse mascara. easy breezy beautiful covergirl.
3:22 am
3:23 am
two weeks after robbing and killing robert silk, reginald mcfadden is looking for his next target in south nyack, new york, not far from where he claims to have kicked silk over a highway guardrail. >> so you're starting to, as you see it, sort of spiral down now, with silk's murder, now you move on. what happens next? what's going on now? >> well, once i went back and found out that he was no longer there where he fell over the rail, i figured he got up.c'ñ and i know he said he had a girlfriend in south nyack. so i figured that would be the person that he would try to get
3:24 am
to. so i went looking for him at his girlfriend's. >> he thinks robert just got up and went to his girlfriend's house. robert's not going to be in any condition to get up and put his clothes on and robert was a loner, he didn't have a girlfriend. you have to sort of squeeze those round pegs into these square holes in order to make the whole story fit. >> how did you know where to find his girlfriend? >> well, because his wallet, he had 216 fairmont avenue. right? 216. so i mistook the numbers for the numbers 126 and went to the wrong house. and what happened is i wound up taking the wrong person. >> who was that? >> jeremy brown. >> 55-year-old social worker jeremy brown is the mother of two and lives not on fairmont avenue, but another street just a quarter mile from mcfadden's
3:25 am
home. >> reggie's explanation for coming into contact with jeremy brown resolves around essentially his hunt for robert silk's alleged girlfriend. but it fits in the story because it allows reggie then to get down to jeremy brown's address, what he thought was the girlfriend's address, which was actually the transposed address of jeremy brown. well, what's the likelihood of that? so when you get to this address that you think is robert silk's girlfriend, what do you do there? do you wait? do you watch? robert wasn't there, obviously. this isn't his girlfriend. >> it was clear it wasn't robert. she had no connection to robert silk. so, i decided to release her. >> you did? >> she didn't know who i was. she didn't see me. you know what i mean? and i released her. >> did you think that she was going to go to the police?
3:26 am
>> oh, she was -- yeah, i knew she was going to go to the police. >> jeremy brown does call the police and later testifies about what mcfadden never mentions, that he brutally raped and assaulted her multiple times over a five-hour period. >> i was surprised actually by the amount of injury that she had, you know, her nose was apparently broken, her eyes were swollen. she was in quite a bit of pain. >> he has raped her repeated times. he has beaten her. and then, at some point, he takes her from the house and puts her inside a sleeping bag into her car, drives her around to different atms and is trying to take money out of the atm. and when she, at one point, tries to escape, he threatens to kill her.
3:27 am
he beats her, but, at some point, he sort of had this change of heart. >> she told me she was a counselor. that's what saved her life. >> so, it's what she told you then, is that -- >> and she talked to me. she talked to me. i mean, she talked me down. >> is there any way that you would not have let her go? >> no. i would have let her go, because she had no -- there was no connection. she had no connection to robert silk. >> mcfadden pleads not guilty to charges that he raped and assaulted jeremy brown. during his trial, mcfadden represents himself and personally cross-examines his victim. later, brown becomes an outspoken victims' advocate. >> i am the only living victim of reginald mcfadden, a psychopath who was sentenced to life in prison for a murder in
3:28 am
1969. >> why do you think he spared your life in this attack? >> my behavior was such that i didn't cause him to accelerate. i just listened to what he asked me to do, i did what he said, i didn't get hysterical, and i didn't fall apart, so to speak. i held my own and prayed a lot. >> what were you feeling now at this time, after you have released jeremy, robert's dead? what are you feeling? are you feeling out of control, or -- >> honestly? i mean, here you're talking about someone who probably didn't sleep in like 16 days straight, and rage and anger is running through me all at once. normally when you've been hurt, you want someone else to hurt. and these are things that rages through my head. >> is this why there was so much injury to both jeremy and to
3:29 am
robert? were you raging? >> you say most of the injuries. margaret kierer, she was ritualistically killed. coming up, 78-year-old margaret kierer is mcfadden's next victim and most violent attack. >> this particular case was probably the only time i dealt with a true sociopath. these are our neighbors putting their lives on the line. and when they rely on a battery, there are firefighters everywhere who trust duracell. and now you can join with duracell to help. just buy specially-marked packs & duracell will make a battery donation to local volunteers. these days don't we all need someone to trust...? duracell. trusted everywhere.
3:30 am
i've tried it. these days don't we all need someone to trust...? but nothing's helped me beat my back pain. then i tried this. it's salonpas. this is the relief i've been looking for. salonpas has 2 powerful pain fighting ingredients that work for up to 12 hours. and my pharmacist told me it's the only otc pain patch approved for sale using the same rigorous clinical testing that's required for prescription pain medications. proven. powerful. safe. salonpas. yeah, maybe not. v8 v-fusion juice gives them a full serving of vegetables plus a full serving of fruit. but it just tastes like fruit. v8. what's your number?
3:31 am
3:32 am
hey there, i'm veronica della cruz. president obama announced an end of the war in iraq friday. he said all american troops will be home by the end of the year. >> late friday night, the accept nat voted to end farming subsidies for growers earning more than $1 million. the first in line, crown prince sultan ben adul aziz has died. he was 80 years old.
3:33 am
i'm veronica de la cruz. back to our program. reginald mcfadden has been out of prison almost two months. in that time, he commits a murder and a rape. now he's going to escalate his crime spree and carry out his most heinous offense. mcfadden's rage reignites in floral park, long island, where his cadillac is being repaired. angry at how much it will cost, he loiters around a railroad station well into the evening. >> it was rage, rage. rage is going through me. i decided to go ahead and go back into manhattan. i got up on the platform and the train on the other side came. a train came by, guess who was standing there?
3:34 am
margaret kierer. >> and margaret kierer is the next victim. margaret is a 78-year-old woman. although pretty healthy, she is elderly. and she's getting off the long island railroad around midnight. her intention is to walk home. she doesn't make it very far from the train station before she is attacked. >> the next day, nassau county homicide detectives are called to a quiet neighborhood less than a mile south of the train station. >> he accosted margaret kierer right here right on the street. then dragged her up into the driveway here, into the backyard. that's where the actual homicide took place.
3:35 am
then after he killed her, he dumped her between that chain link fence and the garage back there. >> and what did you do? >> i ritualistically killed her. >> tell me what that means. >> well, you make it a situation that the crime had to be symbolic or a crime had to send a message to a bigger picture in my estimation, and it had to be such that it be devastating. if that was the case, it happened in the bronx or it happened to a minority, it probably wouldn't have hit the front pages. it was intentional, it was deliberate, it was calculated. and above all what it was, it was pure evil. >> he described his behavior at ritualistic. his description of that, his interpretation of ritualistic is different than mine. from our perspective, it really derives from a need-based behavior that usually develops early in adolescence. and so it comes from an emotional or psychological need to engage in certain activities.
3:36 am
>> the killing was such an over murder -- margaret kierer was strangled, neck broken, multiple blunt trauma to the head, stabbed in the neck six times, probably with a screwdriver. sexually assaulted. her hands were taped. >> what did you use to stab margaret with? >> what was available. what was available on the lawn, you know, the things that sticks down lights, the lights that stick in the ground. >> okay. and the tape? >> that was the tape that was connected to silk and connected to jeremy brown. same tape. >> what we know he had was this brand new roll of carton tape. i think he has it because he's planned to do another homicide. and 78-year-old margaret kierer
3:37 am
was the woman who fit that bill. and then i asked him, well, let me ask you about something that's, you know, kind of sensitive. margaret was sexually assaulted. >> no, no, she wasn't. she was impaled. >> impaled? >> impaled on the fence. >> i think that would be hard to get that kind of an injury being impaled on a chain link fence. >> it wasn't a chain link fence, it was a white fence. >> the problem is when you look at the autopsy report, it's clear that that injury did not occur from any kind of activity or engagement with a fence. i mean, it's clearly a sexual piece, but he just doesn't want to own that. he doesn't want to acknowledge that aspect of the crime, and it's pretty horrific.
3:38 am
coming up -- as investigators close in on mcfadden, there's another victim. for years, mcfadden denies any involvement, but now, for the first time, he publicly admits his role in the death. >> they're saying that i'm responsible for her case, i'm admitting that i'm responsible for the death.
3:39 am
[ male announcer ] a raw nose can feel really sore. achoo! [ male announcer ] and common tissue can make it burn even more. puffs plus lotion is more soothing than common tissue, and it delivers our most soothing lotion for every nose issue. companies you're just a policy. at aviva, we're bringing humanity back to insurance and putting people before policies.
3:40 am
aviva life insurance and annuities. we are building insurance around you. [ mrs. davis ] i want to find a way to break through. to make science as exciting as a video game. i need to reach peter, who's falling behind. and push janet who's 6 chapters ahead. ♪ [ male announcer ] with interactive learning solutions from dell, mrs. davis can make education a little more personal. so every student feels like her only student. dell. the power to do more.
3:41 am
78-year-old margaret kierer, bound, brutally raped and stabbed to death. reginald mcfadden's third victim since being released from prison just over two months earlier. when police identify mcfadden through atm surveillance, they discover a killer with an elder homicide already in his past. >> well, we go into his
3:42 am
background, we do find out that the woman he was convicted of murdering 26-some-odd years ago had also been bound hand and foot and had been brutalized and had been raped we got enough of his background to realize what type of person we were dealing with. >> on october 6th, 1994, police arrest and charge mcfadden for jeremy brown's rape and margaret kierer's murder. he is also charged for robert silk's homicide. mcfadden is convicted in all three cases. he gets 75 years for the rape, and two life sentences for the murders, both to be served consecutively. >> i guess this is the opportunity for me to say i'm remorseful, i'm sorry. well, i'm not remorseful. i'm not sorry, because i'm not guilty. yeah, give me the maximum sentence. matter of fact, give me a thousand years, because it wouldn't make a difference. if it's possible for me to sign
3:43 am
my own death warrant, i don't fear death because i've seen death a thousand times over. it don't make a difference to me. i've learned to hate white people. you mark your own fate. so, quite frankly, don't show me no mercy, because if i had the opportunity and i was where you were at, i wouldn't show you a bit of mercy. >> during mcfadden's 92 days of freedom, investigators think one more victim may have fallen by his hands, but the case is still unsolved. mcfadden remains the prime suspect. the grizzly postscript begins march 26th, 1995, when police discover a badly decomposed body
3:44 am
near a highway overpass in rockland county, new york. the victim is identified at local transient, 39-year-old dana blaze demarco. >> dana was sort of a free spirit, described as an artist, a drifter, so it would be very likely that she would have come in contact with mcfadden. >> eventually, we would learn through the autopsy that she was also killed with blunt force trauma, a fractured skull was found. >> there's a couple of indicators from the crime scene that suggest that mcfadden is involved. one is the type of injury, the location of the injury, the severity of the injury. as i understand it, there was a piece of jewelry that was found with other jewelry possessed by mcfadden that belonged to dana. >> dana's body is found not far from where mcfadden left robert silk's body. it's also a mere quarter mile from where mcfadden lived at the time of his arrest. but all this circumstantial evidence isn't enough to charge
3:45 am
mcfadden with dana demarco's murder. >> whether reginald mcfadden will ever face trial for the case is unknown. he's already serving several life sentences for the other crimes. >> it is an important case. it is -- it's a human being that lost her life in a homicide. clearly, detectives and prosecutors felt very strongly that mcfadden was involved. >> i think they said, you know, we could move forward on it, but does it really change anything? no. but mcfadden sees it as the >> prosecutors say they'll never cut a deal. >> he's not going to be released. nobody is going to release him.
3:46 am
i would do everything legally in my power to ensure that that does not happen. >> in correspondence with nbc news prior to his "mindscape" interview, mcfadden says in a letter that he will publicly reveal the truth about demarco's death, information that he says that authorities would have known if they did their job correctly when they were secretly tailing him in the hours prior to his arrest. >> i have never been tried and the reason why i have never been tried for it is because how can they explain to the public that they had me under 24-hour police surveillance and while they had me on 24 hour police surveillance this woman gets killed. >> we had been using a van from one of the folks that got him out of prison and was helping him. >> were you aware you were being followed? >> sure, sure, i knew i was being followed. i ducked down a side road. as i was coming over the pass to try to get away from him, i ran on to somebody by foot. it was an animal. i thought it was a deer, right? >> okay.
3:47 am
>> and i kept on going with the van. later on i come to find out that what i ran over was a girl by the name of dana blase demarco. >> you ran her over? >> i ran her over because i'm getting away from the tail, the people that was tailing me. >> how did you know you hit her? >> because when i stopped my van, there was blood on the front of my van. i wiped the blood off my van. they found dana demarco's blood inside the van from the shirt i used. to wipe it off. i was thinking it's animal blood, but they found demarco's blood. they had dna connecting me to dana demarco. >> according to investigator, robert van curen, in official records, blood was not among the many pieces of evidence collected from the van. >> if you hit dana demarco on
3:48 am
the street -- >> right. >> -- shouldn't her body have been on the street and shouldn't it have been found -- >> no, this is a very wooded area, and when she was hit, she was hit from this angle and went over the overpass. they found her on the side of the overpass right where it would be logical where she would have fell. >> do you think the medical examiner who did the autopsy on dana demarco, he would say that she was hit by a car? because car injuries are pretty specific. >> i seen the medical report. she had multiple head injuries, so it's consistent with getting hit by a car. >> authorities say demarco's autopsy indicates her head injuries were consistent with blunt force trauma, not being struck by a motor vehicle. the injuries are similar to those sustained by robert silk. >> they're saying that i'm responsible for her case. i'm admitting i'm responsible for the death. >> but you're saying it's an accident. you're saying you didn't see her
3:49 am
and you're -- >> but, still, i could have stopped. i didn't do that. you know, i was -- and i ran away from the scene of the crime. so, that in itself is a crime. >> he still interestingly says, well, i should be prosecuted for it. but prosecuted really how? if you were to proceed with the demarco case, as he's presented it, at the most, you might have voluntary manslaughter. so admitting being responsible for dana's death, as a homicide certainly would have helped her family and those people that knew her. it would have brought closure to the case, but we didn't really get that. so, it was, in a sense, very anti-climatic for us. coming up, do you think it would be safe to let you out now? >> i wouldn't want to get out. i chose that. >> but i'm asking you -- >> no. it wouldn't be safe.
3:50 am
whoa. whoa. how do you top great vacations? whoa. getting twice the points on great vacations. whoa! use chase sapphire preferred and now get two times the points on travel, and two times the points on dining and no foreign transaction fees.
3:51 am
whoa! chase sapphire preferred. a card of a different color. apply now at chasesapphire.com/preferred how about the beat of a healthy heart? campbell's healthy request soup is delicious, and earned this heart, for being heart healthy. ♪ feel the beat? it's amazing what soup can do. it is a spectacular deal. show-me-the-carfax. carfax is only for grown-ups. well, then show me the carfax. he doesn't work here. before you buy a used car, get a carfax vehicle history report. see accidents and service reported to carfax and a price based on the car's history. ask your dealer or go to carfax.com. just say, show me the carfax.
3:52 am
3:53 am
>> reginald mcfadden. >> i haven't took a shower, nothing. >> convicted rapist, guilty of three murders and the prime suspect in one more homicide. he will spend the rest of his life in prison. throughout a four-hour interview, retired fbi profiler mark safarik tries to peel away the complex layers of mcfadden's psyche. what does he find? a killer who preys on a particular type of victim. >> i think mcfadden is always on the lookout for vulnerable victims and that person then becomes the focus of his activities and his energy. they're all older than the offender, easily controlled, not going to put up much of a struggle.
3:54 am
you don't see mcfadden taking on a 28-year-old male, in good shape. >> safarik believes there may be another reason why criminals like mcfadden choose certain female victims. >> i think that a lot of those offenders, they see the victim as a surrogate, as a symbolic victim that represents someone in their life, a controlling, dominant female in their life, whom they cannot act out against, their mother, grandmother, aunt, some individual who they have a lot of anger towards. >> the subject of mcfadden's mother appears to prompt a shift in his mood. >> i went to see my mother. my mother is -- my mother -- >> obviously, your mother is very special to you.
3:55 am
>> she's deceased now, but she raised ten children by herself. very strong woman, right? she kept us clean. she made us respectful. >> he spoke very highly of his mother. essentially, this impression that it was a happy childhood, except for the fact that his stepfather, you know, was very physically abusive to him. >> did your mother protect you from your stepfather's beatings? >> well, i came in on them one time and james came out mad -- that's his name, james. and he beat with me with an extension cord. my mother, she was like in denial that he beated me. >> got the sense that you really loved your mother. >> yeah. >> but did you ever resent her for not protecting you from james? it was a conundrum for him. on one hand, he wanted to express the love that he had for his mother, but on the other
3:56 am
hand, perhaps, you know, he -- holds a tremendous amount of animus for his mother, that she didn't protect him from this physically abusive environment. >> every year it's estimated nearly a million cases of child abuse and neglect occur in the u.s., but few abused children actually go on to become serial killers. so, why does someone like reginald mcfadden follow that path? >> the answer to that is, we don't know. there's certainly been researched that's looked at. you know, is it an environment in which they've been raised or is it a biological component, a genetic component? you know, i think research that's been done so far shows that it's both. some people learn how to deal with adversity and that stress, and others do not. >> do you think it's been helpful for you today to talk? do you feel like it? >> being in prison, you know, i
3:57 am
wish i could bring robert silk back, margaret kierer back and heal all the wounds of mrs. brown and, of course, dana demarco, right, and i do that, you know. >> were those the only cases you were involved in? >> they tried to link me up with other cases and, matter of fact, they even came out and said i might have been the serial killer, but all that was disproven. they couldn't find evidence of that. >> do you think you are a serial killer or not? >> well, i read the types of serial killers and none of those cases fit within the category of a serial killer. the way i execute, i don't think they do it like that. you know what i mean? >> well, some do. really, under the definition of serial killer, i think your crimes would apply. i mean, i think someone calling you a serial killer is probably legitimate. you may not see yourself that way.
3:58 am
thanks, reggie. >> all right. thank you. all right. >> i think at the end of the interview, you know, when all was said and done, reggie thought he had done a really good job in essentially managing the image that he put out there. >> so, are you leaving with more answers? >> oh, absolutely. >> as opposed to questions? >> absolutely. >> oh, okay. i was a success then. >> i don't think i'm leaving with all the answers. i want to tell you that. i never expect to get all the answers, but i think that takes time, too. not only on my part, but on your part. and the look on his face sort of changed from i'm really proud of myself to, yeah, okay. well, i really didn't, but, you know, that was as much as i was willing to give you. very good. >> all right. i'll be in touch. >> okay. >> were you a monster? do you think you were?
3:59 am
>> i was the worst of the worst. >> do you think it would be safe to let you out now? >> no. it wouldn't be safe. >> it would not be safe? >> because i wouldn't want to get out. i have to pay for my crimes. i would think no one should have a right to take another person's life. no one should have a right to do anything i've done to these people. >> my expectations of reggie, meeting him, would be that he would want to put his best foot forward. he would be engaging in what i would describe as image management. he is managing how he is perceived, not only by the public who is watching this, but by the affected family members of the victims and by the population that surrounds him, the inmates that he will spend the rest of his life with.

437 Views

1 Favorite

info Stream Only

Uploaded by TV Archive on