. >> do you have any sense of clarice from "silence of the lambs" like jodie foster -- >> i think it is very much like that movie. >> could she match wits with this deadly mastermind and learn the truth about what he had done? and what would he want from her? >> he said then can i at least have a kiss. >> a fateful meeting threatened to spiral out of control. >> his hands were at my throat. >> who would win this battle of secrets and seduction? a prosecutor takes on a killer. in this hour, "beauty and the beast." a confrontation with a murderer. that was the assignment melissa powers was given. to match wits face to face with a self-described natural-born killer. >> i was in fact speaking to somebody extremely evil, someone that is very much the devil walking on this earth. >> to unlock the mystery of a brutal murder case, she would become vulnerable to a vicious man. >> his hands were at my throat, basically. he goes, "there's nothing to you. it would be so easy to kill you before that guard could ever do anything about it." >> she was a beauty, a determined prosecutor on a mission.

hinckley shocked the nation and so did the court's finding that hinckley who had a fixation on jodie foster was not guilty by reason of insanity. the backlash immediate. congress tightened the rules foreign sanity defenses and the 30 states did the same. >> the great irony this was in some ways the poster boy for the insanity defense. he was insane. >> get out of here! >> people wanted revenge. they wanted to hold him accountable. people were angry. and they couldn't take out that anger on john hinckley. so instead, they took it out on the criminal code. >> reporter: these days the insanity defense is considered such a long shot it is attempted in less than 1% of felony cases and succeeds only a tiny fraction of the time. >> you have to be virtually chewing the carpet in the courtroom to qualify for the insanity defense. you have to be so insane you can't tell the difference of right and wrong. you have to be virtually in another world, and i have seen people in court where everyone in court would agree, this guy is a barking lunatic. but still does not qualify. >> reporter: even the infamo

the 1981 attack on president reagan shocked the nation and hinkley who had a fixation on jody fosteracklash was immediate. they tightened the rules for insanity defenses and 30 states did the same. >> you have to be chewing the carpet to qualify and be so insane, you can't tell the difference between right and wrong. >> for a person who is not mentally ill, it's a better deal. in the institution, only the doctors can determine when the patients are released. >> more likely they will spend more time in a mental institution than in a prison. many of these people will get 20 to and be out before 20 years. if you go to a mental institution for murder, you will likely spend the rest of your life there. >> all the patients of the st. elizabeth'sth some day, some way they will be released. many of them said that for years. this week a federal judge sided with prosecutors who want to forcibly medicate him to stand trial. experts believe lawyers on both sides will know whether it's successful later this year. >> you can see more on the special called stories reporter. 4:30 p.m. pacific. a bom