[scoffs]
[suspenseful chord strike]
MAN: There's this thing inside of me, it's like...
the appetite.
It's like a wolf that's...
filling... the hunger.
♪♪
[police sirens wailing]
[distant siren wailing]
OFFICER: Okay.
One of the things that strikes me is
the rapid nature of his a shift of mood.
So it kind of goes into what we call
shallow affect or shallowness
of the emotional expression.
MORGAN: This is bizarre.
What this behavior is is sussing out or exploring.
What do the police know?
So that he will then know what to expect
and how to angle what he's going to do next.
Daniel's appeal to God can be seen as
kind of an attempt to be seen positively.
If people view him as a spiritual or religious figure,
that they might be more forgiving of his sins.
It's an attempt at manipulation.
MORGAN: This is a continuation of the performance.
He's really quite sharp about what he's doing.
I think he...
it could be a genuine expression of hope
that maybe his dad doesn't die,
but I don't think so.
♪♪
What he's doing here is very calculated.
He is providing a reason
that might explain why his fingerprints
will be found on the gun.
And he makes it even sound like it was a gesture
of kindness.
But no, he's plotting an alibi.
♪♪
MORGAN: It's just this absolute indifference
to the whole situation he's in.
He is entirely self-absorbed,
and there's no emotional involvement in this tragedy
he's supposed to be experiencing.
♪♪
Mm-hmm.
KATSAVDAKIS: The video game is not what's significant.
What's significant is his parents, in his perception,
are intentionally
and motivated to prevent him from reaching a goal.
And that is what increases
the level of anger and subsequent aggression.
MORGAN: The video game is definitely a fantasy world.
This is absorbing to him. This is his world.
Invasion narratives are about the other that's coming in
either to threaten or take over something,
and you get to fight back and ward them off and overcome
and win, so this is about power.
♪♪
MORGAN: I don't buy it at all -- This is the story
he's decided he's going to tell.
He's trying to sound emotionally upset.
Well, kind of half-covering, covering his face for it,
but the dynamic he's setting up is that he is a victim
in all of this.
We see him attributing to the father his own
aggression and blaming the father because he resents
his father.
I think the emotion and the story are
absolutely calculated -- This is his alibi.
KATSAVDAKIS: His change in body language is very interesting.
He has his left hand toward his brow to indicate that
he's crying, looking with his left eye
to see what the detective is doing.
MORGAN: There's the element of psychopathy,
someone who apparently
doesn't really have empathy.
It looks like he is angling and conniving and planning
and checking out what he needs to say and what he won't say
so he can figure out what will be best for him.
So people who are psychopaths, they can put on a mask
and appear as normal as possible to other people.
He doesn't care about the police officers,
but he is probing.
What's clear, no matter what we read into his specific
comments, is that he is not behaving like a normal person.
He's not having the basic emotions of fear,
anxiety, loss, and concern about family.
♪♪
Okay.
♪♪
[dinging noise]
Okay?
He's trying to think of reasons -- I've spun
the religious reason, I've spun the I don't know what happened
reason I've spun my father did this reason.
I think we're on the sixth different narrative at
this point, but he did not snap.
The literature and the science has been very,
very clear that people don't snap.
If you scratch below the surface
in many of these instances, there are many clues.
Long-term anger, possible depression,
inconsistency within parents,
high control, low empathy.
There's always signs.
♪♪
MAN: Reverend Mark Petric takes the stand in
the trial of his 17-year-old son, Daniel.
Prosecutors say in October of last year,
the teenager shot his father and shot and killed his mother,
Sue Petric,
in the living room of their Wellington home.
MORGAN: The line that the father tells us,
I think there is an element of sadistic pleasure in doing it.
It does come within the context of an adolescent
who I suspect for a while has felt enraged
living in the home under the rules from the parents.
♪♪
MAN: Mark Petric of Wellington believes his son's addiction
to a violent video game
is what caused him to shoot both his parents
after they took the game away.
He got involved in the violent graphic video games
and became addicted to them
and was playing as much as 18 hours a day.
♪♪
MORGAN: If you're growing up in a household where you realize
the rules are very strict,
it can produce a sort of split sense in kids growing up.
Some children may discover they have to be duplicitous.
You have to be able to say yes to get along with
everybody because those are the rules while then secretly
doing something else.
Where this can then move into the psychopathy range is that
they can develop a genuine
lack of empathy for the people they have to live around
but can no longer relate to.
Being involved in the gaming
meant something very important to him
emotionally in the fantasy he could engage in.
KATSAVDAKIS: The video game in and of itself is
not the cause or the factor to a homicide.
However, it feeds the fantasy that this violence is
actually a feasible and reasonable solution
to my grievance.
♪♪
WOMAN: Despite the shooting, Daniel Petric's family,
including his father, says they forgive him.
♪♪