the inmates that he will spend the rest of his life with. you are about to enter the criminal mindscape of joseph paul franklin. >> did you feel like you were actually hunting human beings? >> well, i was. you wouldn't call that hunting them? hunting them and shooting them. >> on a mission to start a race war in america. franklin ruthlessly murders 20 people. >> we're asking him to open up and talk about who he is, his crimes, why he did what he did. >> the only thing we can tell

you at this time that we're positive of, there's been two people shot here at this location. >> larry flynt, the publisher of "hustler" magazine, he and his lawyer were walking down the sidewalk when somebody on the street opened fire. >> his methods varied, making him nearly impossible to catch. >> we know that they were shot by a sniper. the rifle is a high-power rifle with a scope on it. >> two teenage boys in cincinnati that you shot, you could see that they were young? >> when i go out to kill rattlesnakes, i don't make any difference between little rattlesnakes and big rattlesnakes because i know the little ones will grow up and bite me when they get me. so i look at blacks the same way. >> i totally understand he will be in control of this interview, and that is the way i'm planning it. >> now, a veteran fbi profiler enters death row and steps into the criminal mindscape.

these interviews for me are fascinating. they are absolutely the most intriguing experience that i've had in the fbi. >> mary ellen o'toole spent her career at the fbi. including 15 years in the bureau's famed profiling unit. >> i worked specifically on profiling serial murder cases and assisting law enforcement all over the world in how to understand these offenders and how to make sense out of their crimes. i think joseph paul franklin will be very interesting to talk to, because if you scrape away the racism, he's still a cold-blooded predatory individual who was driving around the country shooting and killing people.

so to say that's the reason that he killed is very difficult for me to accept. interviews like this are extremely helpful. will they identify all the answers? no. but they will give insights into why certain behavior at a crime scene, why not a certain behavior. who are we looking for? what were they like 20 years ago? what was their family like? how were they deciding on their victims. why do they kill some victims and some they didn't? he does not have to open up to me. he can walk out of that interview at any time. by way of background, i'm a retired fbi agent. after 28 years as an agent. >> oh, yeah? i bet you learned a lot in that 28 years. >> a lot. and actually the last 15 years i spent back in the fbi's profiling unit. >> yes. >> and we're located at the fbi academy. and most recently, my area of expertise was in the serial killer unit. >> i don't claim to be a serial killer, though.

i don't put myself in that category. >> can you tell me what your idea of a serial killer is? >> well, i've read in the -- the definition in the newspaper, you know, and it says that somebody who commits various killings with cooling off periods in between. >> tell me why you don't fit into that definition of a serial killer. say ted bundy, who was out when you were out. >> i don't feel like i have anything in common with the dude. just completely different type of person, you know? a lot of these other serial killers, they were just into one thing, strangling women and stuff like that. see, they've been trying to associate me with the scum bags like ted bundy who were killing innocent women, you know, and take everything political away from my case over and over again you've been hearing serial killer this, serial killer that, to try to incite hatred against people like me.

i wasn't out for my own pleasure. i was motivated by love of the white race. >> joseph is a serial killer. and he's different from other serial killers just like they're different from him. there's no one profile of a serial killer. so you have cases where you were a sniper. and you have cases -- >> where i was not a sniper. >> yeah. >> in 1977, joseph paul franklin, aged 27, is a versatile criminal. a successful shoplifter and bank robber, who is ready for murder. he claims to have found his very first victims somewhat spontaneously, in madison, wisconsin. >> he was in the parking lot of a shopping center. he had his .357 magnum tucked alongside of him. >> this first case in madison, wisconsin, was kind of an unplanned thing. >> what put you in that parking lot that day of the shooting?

>> well, i was driving around and i saw a couple of young girls standing at a bus stop. i pulled over and picked them up. i would often do that. i would pull over and see a couple broads and offer them a ride. they said they're going to this mall. so i gave them a ride. a pretty tall black dude 6'2" was sitting in a car with a white girl and i beeped at him because he was driving too slow. he than began traveling about 5 miles per hour just to aggravate me. so i sat on the horn. so he stopped his car in front of me, got out of the car and began walking towards me. he had this scowl on his face walking towards me. so without even thinking, i whipped out my .357 magnum with a six-inch barrel. when he saw the gun, the scowl turned into a surprise, you know?

then pow, pow. he just closed his eye like that and keeled over. >> that was a very risky thing for you to do. there you were in a shopping center and it was daylight, a whole bunch of people. why did you shoot the woman in the car? >> i figured well, she was one half of an interracial couple, i thought i might as well get both of them. because i'm probably going to get caught for this. so i shot her and sped out of the parking lot. i was burning rubber, man, trying to get out of there. and luckily there was a whole bunch of lights all in front of this mall, you know? and every single one of them turned green for me. i got on the interstate and took off and got out of madison, wisconsin. >> it's pretty amazing that's the first time that you committed murder. that's a pretty cold-blooded thing to do to a complete stranger. >> yeah. >> joseph identifies a first murder, which is a double murder at point blank range. joseph has very good recall of that incident, broad daylight, in the parking lot of a shopping

center. my question is, is that the first incident, or is that the first one that he wants to talk about? what were you feeling at the time you pulled that trigger? >> fear, you know. if i get into a fight with that guy, i'll be arrested for all this bank money i got in the trunk. i just hit the bank in columbus a few days earlier. >> he had a very difficult time describing his own internal feelings. he could say what he was thinking, but he could not articulate or describe how he was feeling. >> i don't know. i guess it's kind of like, you know, you see this stuff going on, on tv a lot, you know, and it seems to desensitize you. maybe that was it. >> i did not do an official assessment of joseph as to whether or not he was a psychopath. but it's my opinion that he does show traces of psychopathy.

this underlying personality disorder does seem to be present in most serial killers. it's difficult for people to identify feelings, because they don't people the same way that regular people feel. coming up -- >> did you feel like you were actually hunting human beings? >> well, i was. the way people would sit down there and wait for wild game, i guess. [ kate ] many women may not be properly absorbing

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before launching his career as a serial killer, joseph paul franklin was a deeply troubled young man. searching for identify and belonging. first among evangelical christians, then with right wing extremists. >> during the early '70s, you kind of see a metamorphosis with franklin. he begins to associate with the

nazi party, begins to associate with the klu klux klan. then you see the trial and errors of his criminal behavior. you became for a brief time a member of the nazi party and the klu klux klan. >> that was in 1973. then -- >> you weren't a member very long. >> just a year with that one. i didn't stick with any of them. they were all filled with fbi informants. people were just always trying to get information from you. >> how did these groups think about you? you weren't there for a very long time, were they too conservative for you? >> they were mostly weren't doing anything, you know? most of them were into talking. the average klansman and average nazi, they're all talk, and that's it. >> what were you into? >> i was into action, you know, doing things. i wanted to actually do something. i wasn't sure specifically what i wanted to do. >> so you became kind of a

loner? >> yeah, you got to be because you can't trust anybody. >> i thought when he gave that explanation, he was more or less legitimizing why he left that organization. even though he touched on it, i think part of the reason he left is because they weren't extreme enough for him. then you begin to see him focus a little more on what he ends up being the rest of his time before he's arrested, which is a sniper. >> st. louis, 1977. two months after franklin's first murder in wisconsin, a group of people chat in the parking lot of a synagogue. they're about to become the targets of joseph paul franklin's first sniper shooting. [ gunshots ] >> there was a total of five shots. one shot struck a man in the chest, which killed him.

police arriving on the scene didn't know where it was coming from. >> the only thing we can tell you at this time is we have the weapon, the rest post, and we have five spent cartridges which is right up there at that telephone pole. it appears to be someone who planned to come here and do just this. >> this was not an impulsive act whatsoever. this was an act that required planning, lots of patience. he chose this location. it had all the features that he was looking for or that he needed to set up his rifle to give him an escape route and be able to sit there for two hours, laying in wait for his perfect victim. the victim is almost the last thing he decides to do before he commits the homicide. >> for his first sniper killing, franklin boldly leaves the murder weapon behind.

having removed both his fingerprints and the serial number from the rifle. though police trace the gun back to texas, it would never lead them to franklin. >> being a sniper is an unusual type of serial killer. you choose the place you want to shoot, you're kind of off, so it minimizes any contact whatsoever with the people that you're going to shoot. what is it like when you're laying there getting ready to have a person walk in front of your sights? >> the way people would sit down there and wait for wild game, i guess. hunters who, you know, climb a tree stand or something, it's a similar situation. you sit there and wait till the target appears and shoot. i would stake out an area, find a good place to hide, bushes or a vacant yard, as long as it was dark. i knew that i could see them but they couldn't see me. you go over everything so when

you do get your adrenaline going, you can follow the plan you already had in mind. you don't have to worry about getting so obscure you can't move. >> did you actually feel like you were hunting human beings? >> well, i was. you wouldn't call that hunting them? >> i would. >> hunting them and shooting them. you know, a lot of people in the military do the same thing all the time. kill people they don't each know. some of the heroes of the country were the same way. but they killed the enemy soldiers so they're not despised by society whereas people like me are. some people are born homicidal. that's what i'm saying. believe it or not, you'll find a lot of people in the bible who are prophets of god. look at all the philistines samson killed. >> he's implying how can you judge me for doing the same thing that people in the bible have done and heros in vietnam have done and soldiers in iraq have had to do? as though he's saying i had to

do this. it's a good thing and i had to do it. because i'm not that different from people in the bible. i'm not that different from heros in vietnam and in the iraq war. coming up -- >> blacks all over the country would be afraid to walk down the street. i would be terrorizing the united states, just one man. [ male announcer ] fighting pepperoni heartburn and pepperoni breath? fight both fast with new tums freshers! concentrated relief that goes to work in seconds and freshens breath. new tums freshers. ♪ tum...tum...tum...tum... tums! ♪ [ male announcer ] fast relief, fresh breath, all in a pocket sized pack.

after his st. louis sniper killing, joseph paul franklin hits the interstates looking for new opportunities to carry out his racist wrath. from 1977 to 1979, he commits similar shootings in virginia, tennessee, and oklahoma. >> you begin to see this really what i would call very mission-oriented serial killer who is killing a lot. he's driving around a lot. he seems to have perfected the method of his killing. >> in addition to blacks and jews, franklin sets his sights on an infamous magazine publisher who dared to print

pictures of an interracial couple. >> larry flynt, the publisher of "hustler" magazine, he and his lawyer were walking down the sidewalk when somebody opened fire, shooting flynt in the stomach, his lawyer in the side and escaped. both are in critical condition. >> to franklin's frustration, neither the police or the media recognized that one person is behind this shooting, the one in st. louis and those in other cities. >> these would have been very difficult crimes to link. there's such a limited amount of evidence at those crime scenes, there's no interaction with the victims, so the detective has very, very little to go on. >> by 1980, franklin finds a strategy he thinks will demand law enforcement's full attention. >> so what did you decide to do in 1980? >> just to keep doing it a whole lot more so they could not ignore it.

all the law enforcement officers knew all about it, but they wouldn't tell the media it was a national thing. i guess they figured until we catch the guy, we're not going to give him national publicity. >> that had to be frustrated. >> it was kind of frustrating, but that made me want to do even more. that's why i wanted to shoot jesse jackson the most, you know? that's the one i stalked. i went to head quarters up in chicago. evidently, i might have been a little too obvious because i was driving down that road one day and i looked and saw a car behind me. i thought it looks like that dude is following me in that car, an unmarked police car. i'm going to take the next right and if he takes the right too, i know he's following me. i took the next right and sure enough, he took the right too and so i thought he was tailing me, i better get out of time. >> the paranoia really in a way is justified, because he knows that he's shot and killed people all over the united states. it's that personality trait of his that actually led to his

identity and to his arrest. >> after his plan to shoot jesse jackson fails, he stumbles upon another high profile target, civil rights leader vernon jordan. >> so i left chicago at that time, headed toward indiana and i started in ft. wayne that night and just happened to hear on the news that vernon jordan was speaking at the marriott hotel at such and such time. i thought well, if he's speaking at the hotel, he's probably staying at the hotel. so i called the hotel up and said, could you tell me what room number vernon jordan is. she said sir, that's against policy, i can't do that. somehow i convinced her to give me the room number. that's all it took. i was able to set up an ambush outside by the state. that's how that went down. [ gunshot ] >> vernon jordan is in very serious but stable condition

at a ft. wayne, indiana hospital this morning while local and federal officials are trying to find out who shot him and why. >> he talks about going after high-profile targets like mr. jordan and larry flynt. and actually stalking them, getting up close to where they were staying and where they were at the time, which really is very stupid. because when you go after people famous, you are going to get law enforcement from all over the country. was there something that triggered it, that happened to you, or did you decide that i need to kill somebody? >> i was actually trying to get a race war started. that was my goal. commit enough racial incidents all over the country to get the blacks all stirred up and they would start killing whites and the whites would then get angry and then retaliate for that and it would go back and forth until a full-scale race war was going on. >> joseph wanted blacks and jews to fear that anywhere they went, they could be gunned down. that is such a grandiose scheme

and it's unrealistic. having unrealistic goals is consistent of people who demonstrate a psychopathy disorder. that's one of the traits is that they have unrealistic goals. that never would have happened. he believes that he was capable of being able to accomplish that. >> i guess if i would have been able to do it long enough, they would have had to give me national publicity. blacks all over the country and interracial couples would be afraid to walk down the street. i would be terrorizing the united states, just one man. >> what a sense of power. >> yeah. they don't want to freak out the blacks all over the country. that's why they wouldn't give me that national publicity. >> that must have made you feel important. >> no, just the act i was trying to do, my goal was to get the race war started. >> but you weren't successful. >> no, i was not successful in that. i got caught after the salt lake city shootings three years later. >> i think underpinning a lot of

his criminal behavior was this need for attention, this need to get credit for these crimes. it's what we call need-driven behavior. and his need-driven behavior was law enforcement recognizing that one person and one person alone was capable of creating chaos and fear in the united states. coming up -- >> do you remember the two teenage boys in cincinnati that you shot? >> uh-huh. >> you could see that they were young. >> yeah, i was trying to ratchet up the violence. down here, folks measure commitment by what's getting done. the twenty billion dollars bp committed has helped fund economic and environmental recovery. long-term, bp's made a five hundred million dollar commitment to support scientists studying the environment. and the gulf is open for business - the beaches are beautiful, the seafood is delicious. last year, many areas even reported record tourism seasons. the progress continues...

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i was worried about 'em, you know? i mean for instance my mom went to bed tonight before making my dinner. which is fine, i mean i, i know how to make dinner. it just starts to make you wonder. is this what happens when you age? my friends used to say i was the lucky one. i had the fun parents. where's the fun now? night guys! [ sighs ] ♪ [ male announcer ] venza. from toyota.

here's what's happening. the oppressive heat wave scorching the nation is being blamed for nearly 50 deaths. today was the third day above 100 degrees in chicago. it's 106 in st. louis where temperatures reached the century mark for ten days straight. plus, record heat today in the

nation's capital, topping out at 102 degrees. floods claimed more than 100 lives in russia. 11 inches of rain fell overnight causing the sudden flooding. now back to "criminal mindscape." in 1977, serial sniper joseph paul franklin begins wandering the country shooting people he calls "enemies of the white race." his victims are chosen at random, except for two, civil rights leader vernon jordan and "hustler" publisher larry flynt. who are targeted for their high profile work. by 1980, franklin, feeling his crimes are not getting the attention they deserve, escalates his violence. >> a serial sniper is a tough offender to understand. he decides who will be in his sights. he realizes that that person's life rests in his hands.

so the ultimate thrill and sense of power and control over another human being has to be considered as part of the motivation for being a serial sniper. >> it appears that franklin also decides to expand his target list to include children. on june 8th, 1980, the sniper unleashes his pain on cincinnati, ohio. >> you have two teenage boys that were shot and killed in cincinnati. no one sees anything. no one identifies anybody that was responsible. >> the victims, dante evans brown, and darrell lane, cousins and best friends, were 13 and 14 years old. >> give our brother dante peaceful rest in this grave. father, son and holy spirit come on you and remain with you forever. aimen.

>> up until that point, we had not seen really young victims, 13 and 14 years of age, who now were targeted by this serial sniper. and it really suggests that joseph was changing his m.o. he was increasing the number of crimes. and he was even changing his victimology to include these two very sympathetic victims. if we could go back to the choice of the -- you remember the two teenage boys in cincinnati? >> the what? >> the two teenage boys in cincinnati? >> uh-huh. >> that you shot? >> uh-huh. >> they were 13 and 14. and that was -- this was during that period of time that you described that you were going to do things differently. >> yeah, i was trying to ratchet up the violence. >> is that why you picked two young teenage boys? because you had a scope on your weapon at that time. you could see that they were -- >> yes, i had a scope on my rifle, yeah.

>> you could see that they were young. >> uh-huh. >> there was only one time during the interview when his body language became defensive, and that was when we started to talk about the homicide in cincinnati involving two young african-american boys ages 13 and 14. >> i couldn't really tell exactly how old they were. i figured they were young, but maybe 18, 19 years old, you know? sitting there in the dark, you know, and seeing just their shadows, it's hard to tell how old somebody is. i had no idea they were that young. >> i knew by reviewing the case and talking to other people that not only could he have seen through that scope, but he wasn't all that far away from those two young victims. when you knowingly shoot young children, the repercussions for you as the offender can be far greater, especially when you are incarcerated in prison. and people think of you differently when you shoot and kill children.

>> it didn't matter to me. i had no conscience as far as the blacks go. when you're a member of the klan and spend years around white supremists, you begin to think of blacks as nonhuman. there was a well-known klan leader that says when i go out to kill rattlesnakes, i don't make any difference between a little one and big one, because i know the little ones will grow up and bite me when they get big. so i looked at blacks the same way. >> so it appeared to me that he was speaking out of both sides of his mouth. he was talking about not knowing that they were younger victims, and yet if he shot two young boys, he knew that he would get much more attention from the media, and much more attention from law enforcement. coming up -- >> i was a little kid that was beat up, starved. you get so traumatized, you're just trying to pay back other people all the pain that you suffered.

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in the summer of 1980, an unusual type of serial killer, a racist sniper, roams the u.s. looking for targets. in states from virginia to oklahoma, he's used high-powerful rifles, shotguns and a .357 magnum to kill. in salt lake city, detectives are facing a double homicide that has all the trademarks of this serial killer. >> we had reports of several shots fired. when we arrived here, we had two victims down. we do have confirmed two of the victims that they have expired. >> two young men, 18 and 19, both black, and well regarded in

the community, are dead. the two white girls they were jogging with escaped. >> i responded that night, it looked like the sniper had laid in wait inside this field and shot these people as they were coming across the lighted intersection. both the boys were shot even after they quit moving. they weren't wounds to the legs or extremities. these were all, in shooter's talk, these were all kill shots. >> i would like to talk to you about the salt lake shooting. that was august, 1980. >> uh-huh. >> why did you travel to salt lake? >> i've been there before back in 1975 and noticed a lot of the mixing of the races, especially white with nonwhites. it would be a good place to target. i saw two interracial couples jogging towards the park. two black dudes and two white chicks.

so i thought well, i'll keep waiting here till they come back. there was a mound of dirt there, so i was concealed, tall grass and everything, you know? >> salt lake city had been used to dealing with a number of very violent crimes. so there was tremendous experience in the department. but this was a very different kind of offender. >> although franklin has killed his intended targets, the crime is sloppy. >> we did find tire tread marks in the field where the shell casings were found. they were a prototype tire and they were only sold in a limited amount of states but every one of those states were east of the mississippi river. they had to be from somewhere back east. >> it's not long before witnesses come forward and describe seeing a dark-colored camaro parked in the field near the sniper's position. >> we found a man who was walking by about a week later

and he actually saw the camaro and he gave us a very good description of the car. >> soon, a local prostitute confirms she's done business with a man who drove a similar car. >> he didn't want to trick in the car, so he says we'll go to my motel room. she thought he was from the south because he had a southern accent. but couldn't remember where in the south. but what made it interesting to me is she mentioned she saw some hand guns and rifles in his room. then he told her he was a hitman for the klu klux klan. >> the witness is able to help police put together a composite of the suspect. >> we knew there had been other killings back east. and we now knew that this guy was from that area. from the composites alone, we were convinced we were on the right road. >> the registration card from the motel lists the license plate number and the name of the

driver. while the information is phony, police discover a trail of similar ail uses in motels across the region. >> so we could place him in, i think, seven or eight different motels. we never found him after august 20th, which was the night of our shooting. it's like he just disappeared off the face of the earth. >> the salt lake city police catch a break when one astute motel owner writes down the camaro's real license plate number. a month later, this information pays off. >> i think 11:00 one night, i got a call saying head to the airport, they found this guy and we're flying you to, i think the little town was called erlanger, kentucky, and they had arrested him at a motel on our warrant. >> in an odd turn of events, police in boone county, kentucky, while arresting a

burglar at a local motel, encounter an angry and paranoid man in the room next door. >> they check his identification and vehicle and realize that his vehicle parked in the parking lot is a vehicle that is wanted by the salt lake city police department in a double homicide. >> finding two high-power rifles and hand guns in the man's room, police take him in for questioning. >> so law enforcement in kentucky didn't realize when they brought him into the interview room, really who they had. they didn't know how many homicides he had committed and how committed he was to not being apprehended. >> and it wasn't until they got him into the station and started talking about salt lake city, that's where he got worried and manufactured his escape and took off. >> during a break in the interview, franklin escapes out an open window and disappears. one of america's deadliest serial killers is back on the

street. but now, police have his real name. on september 25th, 1980, joseph paul franklin, age 30, is now the object of a nationwide manhunt. one month later, the fbi, aware that franklin regularly sells his blood, catches him at a blood bank near tampa, florida. franklin proclaims his innocence while proudly admitting his racist views. >> do you have white racist views? >> definitely, yeah. >> how do you feel about blacks? >> i'm against race mixing and communism. >> his denials don't last. in the coming years, franklin confesses to numerous murders. but the sniper killing at the st. louis synagogue, franklin is sentenced to death. >> he said that his motivation was to eliminate what he refers

to as uppity people in the community. in my opinion, that is an explanation he thinks would give him more credibility. but as far as what caused him to become a serial killer, i think that was an excuse. so how did you, joseph, evolve to the point where you could do something that seems so cold blooded? >> you get so traumatized that you are just trying to pay back other people all the pain that you suffered. that's what happened to me from the time i was a little kid and was yelled at all day long and beat up and starved. it had an effect on me when i got older, you know? just about everybody in the family had an alcohol problem. they all drank like crazy. including my dad was an alcoholic. after spending all his paycheck, my mother would start fussing at him. they would be fighting, cussing and screaming at each other and he would be beating her. that's the way it went. i remember the landlord would bang on the side of the trailer and just terrorize us. he would start yelling at my

mother to pay the rent and she had no money because my father would spend all the money on alcohol. eventually they split up. in 1965 they were divorced and that left us on welfare. so she began abusing us even worse after he left. i was the only child in the family who was always bringing animals home. one afternoon, there was a little terrier dog from the neighborhood. we were out in the yard, all of us kids petting this terrier. it was a cute little dog with the tail that stuck straight up and just as friendly as could be. mom had been sitting in her lawn chair watching us and went into the house and set a pot of water on the stove and began boiling it. she got the water up to a full boil and poured it right on the little dog's back. and he went you know, screaming and running away real fast. >> she had a lot of cruel behavior. >> she was a sadist.

>> how old were you? >> about 10 or 11. >> joseph talked about a childhood that was chilling. the question is, despite the harshness and the severity of the abuse, does that act as a cause and effect to become a serial killer later? we have no research at this point to say there is a cause and effect just with childhood abuse, because we know that there are unfortunately many people who are raised in very abusive situations and they don't go on to become serial killers. so i think we have to incorporate that environment that he described. i think it would be wrong to say that he was a serial killer strictly and solely because he was raised in an abusive environment. coming up -- >> do you think you were born to kill? >> yeah, i guess you can say that. i was under the influence of the devil. >> what do you think is going to happen to you when you die?

joseph paul franklin has been on missouri's death row for more than a decade. an execution date has yet to be set. extreme hatred and what appears to be an utter lack of conscience, drove him to kill some 20 people and injure many others. >> how do i feel about someone like joseph? do i pity him? what are my feelings toward him? i feel that it's important that we understand how he developed to be able to go back and say was it possible early on to prevent this? was it possible to do something that would have changed the course of history? your first thoughts of killing somebody, how old do you think you were? >> about 17 years old, i think.

when i would watch these westerns on tv, i would see people wanting them to get shot. >> here he was watching tv, watching westerns, lots of shootouts. he particularly enjoyed when the bad guy was successful. in the late '50s and '60s, the era of vietnam, john kennedy was assassinated by a sniper. charles whitman was a particularly successful sniper at the university of texas in 1966. there was a period of time when a lot of violence that didn't make any sense. so you have to wonder about the impact of the events of that period and what role they played in him and his decision to ultimately become a serial sniper. was there a point in time where something could have been to put you on a different course? was there some kind of intervention that could have happened? >> if i had some people to teach me and encourage me to go to school and get an education when i was little, my life would have

turned out a lot differently. >> do you think you would have become a serial sniper? >> i don't think i would have, no. i wouldn't have built up all that hatred over the years. it's what everybody does when people get hurt, they want to pass that pain on. i just kept getting angry. >> do you think you were born to kill? >> i guess you could say that. some people are just born with a streak that they can do something like that. other people if the same thing happened they wouldn't have done anything. >> joseph referred to himself in previous interviews as a natural-born killer. i asked him about that, and he agreed that that was a possibility for him. again, almost a recognition that in spite of his environment that he described as abusive, he still was a natural born killer. and the research up to this point seems to suggest that there seems to be some part of it that is hard wired.

in other words, genetic link to this personality disorder. do you think there is a part of you that at that time enjoyed the killing? >> i wouldn't say enjoyed it. just something i felt i had to do. there was nobody else doing it, so i figured i had to do it. >> how did you feel once you finished a shooting? >> i was just glad to get away. >> was it sexually arousing when you were pulling the trigger? >> not at all, no. >> have you had violent sexual fantasies? >> what do you mean? >> violence and sex are involved in your fantasies? >> that would be a vsf, huh? no, i never had any of those. the only thing i got sexually aroused with was women. i was either out chasing skirts trying to get laid or i was out trying to kill an interracial couple or a black man. that was what i was spending most of my time doing. >> for some people, though, killing is very sexual. >> i know. there are some sick puppies out there.

i don't fall into that category, though. >> the most frequently seen serial killer in my unit are those serial killers motivated by sexual purposes. in other words, they're sexually gratified in some way as a result of murdering the victim. joseph does fit the definition of a serial killer. his motivation was different and he talked about his motivation being non-sexual, which is obviously a very touchy area to get into with an individual. is he telling the truth? there's no way to know that. we're depending on him to tell us that. if it is true, maybe too embarrassing for him to admit. or they may not have been sexually motivated. as we close, let me ask you this, how do you feel about the people that you killed? >> i feel sorry for them. i regret having done that, you know?

>> what does regret feel like to joseph paul franklin? >> in other words, i wished i had not done it. i feel sorry for the people, you know? it was really wrong for me to do that. >> i think like most serial killers, joseph knows right from wrong. he talked about regret. but whether or not that was a sincere, remorseful regret, i can only tell you what my opinion was based on my experience with these type of offenders and i did not walk away with the sense that he had those feelings of remorse and guilt. >> i was under the influence of the devil, to be quite honest. i know that sounds -- i'm not trying to say the devil made me do it, but the devil does put thoughts in people's minds. that is a fact. at the time when martin luther king and robert kennedy were both assassinated the same year, and the article that had -- titled "two enemies of the white race die" that's what i was

feeding my mind on. that's why i was thinking about blacks as subhumans who go around raping white women and killing. i know that's just the criminal element now. there's a lot of hard-working blacks that don't do that stuff. >> you mentioned heaven and hell. >> the bible mentions those. so does the koran. >> what do you think is going to happen to you when you die? >> i'm trusting in jehovah's mercy. trusting in god's mercy. >> i think joseph lives in the here and now, i think he is lives for the present moment. i think he's obviously aware that he has the death penalty hanging over his head. but there also may be a part of him that thinks that something may happen ultimately and he won't be executed. many serial killers who are psychopaths are very optimistic in terms of their future. >> thank you very much. >> joseph was hardly a disappointment.

joseph is smart, articulate and listening to him talk about what his whole purpose was made him even more frightening of an individual than we realized 30 something years ago. i think that he was absolutely a very, very dangerous serial killer set apart from many of the other ones that we saw then and we see today. >> one of the reasons for this kind of interview is not just to develop a better understanding of these kinds of offenders, but also to help investigators the next time that this type of crime occurs. joseph paul franklin will not be our last serial sniper and we know that because we had the beltway snipers right after 9/11. a lot of the information that joseph talked about is information that we can take in to o