Oh, great. [laughs] My name is Michael Roth.
I'm Connecticut's most heinous killer. [laughs]
I'm not a big serial killer, by the way.
Eight people. That's nothing major.
There's a lot of other guys you can go see.
You know, punchy. [laughs]
There's nothing they could have said or done.
It was me. It wasn't them.
They were dead as soon as I saw them, I think.
MAN: There's this thing inside of me, it's like...
the appetite.
It's like a wolf that's...
filling... the hunger.
♪♪
TUSSEY: Some have actually referred to
psychopathy as the mask of sanity.
He is able to fool people into thinking that he's a nice guy.
You can see there's a glibness, a superficial charm to him.
He makes you want to listen to what he has to say
as if he's describing a TV show.
But what he's actually describing, obviously,
is his sadism.
♪♪
The fantasies, when I was younger,
the earliest ones I can remember is I would kidnap
women and take them to my safe place.
And then they would fall in love with me
and not want to leave, uh...
James Bond, Superman type -- Type things.
Um, then when I got to college,
somehow these start degrading into more violent fantasies.
It is interesting that he used the word degrade.
Like he could recognize that
these fantasies became more perverse.
What's missing from the picture is the fantasy
of there being some attraction
on the part of the victim to him.
TUSSEY: Ultimately, that wasn't enough.
And that escalated into actually acting on
his fantasies.
♪♪
It's kind of, in a weird way,
a dry run for what would be his M.O.
But it's quite clear that that wasn't enough for him
and set the stage for the next phase.
♪♪
TUSSEY: This thrill of the chase,
the fear of getting caught,
the let's see if I can do it and get away with it,
absolutely fuels his drive to continue doing it.
He is indiscriminate in the victims that he chose.
And I think the randomness of it
just fuels his enthusiasm and narcissism.
BERRILL: He was ready to actually commit the murder
and fulfill the entire scope of his fantasy.
A notion that you can kidnap, rape,
kill someone and dispose of their body,
and not be held accountable or responsible,
I think that's...
that's a psychopath's wet dream.
BERRILL: Hunters like to,
you know, maybe have to run a little bit
or shoot twice before they bring down their prey.
That's -- that's part of the game.
And so a little struggle on the part of the victim,
it gives them the opportunity, I should say,
to exert his will and his power.
If you're wired in a really deviant matter,
like a guy like this,
power and sadism is exciting sexually.
TUSSEY: One of the main characteristics
of psychopathy is stimulation seeking.
It can take more stimulation to get the same thrill
that you or I may, and the act of murder,
but also the sexual sadism can become addictive.
TUSSEY: He's getting annoyed, because psychopaths like to be
in control, psychopaths are narcissistic.
They want to be the one telling
the story the way they want to tell it.
And so he's being confronted and challenged.
That is like a wound to Michael Ross's grandiosity.
♪♪
ROSS: Each time I killed, I made myself
believe that I wasn't going to kill again.
I always honestly believed that it was some kind
of a fluke that there was -- Because I don't do this.
I'm a good person. I don't want to hurt people.
♪♪
It was always manual strangulation.
That's where, uh...
the most
sexual satisfaction came in.
When you're more connected, it's more real,
more power to that.
To just shoot somebody wouldn't -- wouldn't
give you anywhere near the excitement.
I don't know how to -- How to really describe it,
but I think the strangulation,
I think that was a very, very important part of it.
He wanted it real up close, tactile, visceral,
and I imagine wanted to be right on top of them.
He was not playing S&M games with his victims.
I mean, his thing is
killing -- it's definitely a ritualistic aspect.
He had a procedure that he followed over and over again.
It's very psychopathic.
He really is a psycho-sexual predator
who enjoyed murdering his victims.
TUSSEY: Sex and punishment are intertwined for him.
Getting in trouble for something sexual at
an early age creates this link between sex and violence.
BERRILL: I expect getting beaten starts to open the door up
to where the origins of sex
and sadism might have come together in his psyche.
These murders may well have gotten
their start from being a victim
of sadistic behavior and wanting to visit that
on other people and be the one in power.
♪♪
[laughs quietly]
BERRILL: Clearly struggling and fear
were like aphrodisiacs for him.
He loved that part of his ritual.
And then here's the second victim,
who no doubt was in a state of shock.
So she deprived him.
In a sense, the victim deviated.
He didn't deviate.
And, of course, having no empathy for his victims,
he couldn't entertain the possibility
that she was scared to death.
It's pretty disgusting,
but it does give you some
insight into the nature of his ritual.
He is a predatory, psycho-sexual serial killer.
He is, at the core in terms of his personality structure,
a psychopath.
He is not even able or willing to look
in the mirror and take responsibility
for his own actions,
um, and rather attributes it to his mother,
which is the epitome of failure to accept
responsibility that we see in psychopathy.
What I think is really terrifying about people
like Michael Ross is you won't see it coming.
BERRILL: He's typical of a lot of serial killers who engage in
these horrible rituals and then kill the women,
and for a moment,
feel like a quote, unquote man.
♪♪
MAN: Are you afraid of dying, Michael?
No, that's the funny thing about it.
They got me on death row like that's supposed to be
some big punishment, and, uh...
for some of us, death is not a punishment.
Living is what the punishment is.
I think I'd be very much relieved
if that day they ever came.
♪♪