♪
[theme music playing]
MAN: There's this thing inside of me, it's like...
the appetite.
It's like a wolf that's...
filling... the hunger.
♪
SAHNI: I think Sampson planned to return
to New England, where he grew up.
I think how he was gonna get there,
who he was gonna take out in the process, and how he was
gonna take them out was totally impulsive.
It was opportunistic crime,
and the fact that he could steal someone's car
and someone's money and also take their life at
the same time, and it all be impulsive is part of
what makes Sampson as dangerous as he is.
Sampson turned himself in so willingly, potentially, because
he wanted to have control over his apprehension.
It could be self-defeating,
but control is what psychopaths like to have.
SAHNI: I don't think he was crying.
I have a very difficult time believing
that a psychopathic person like Sampson is
in touch with any level of
emotion or empathy or regret or remorse.
The level of force and violence he uses is so much
greater than what is necessary to
subdue his victim and accomplish his goal
that you really have to think of it as overkill.
BERRILL: This is a killing that reflects rage.
It doesn't reflect an instrumental desire to
just get rid of this guy and then grab his car.
I mean, he really did him in.
So the question is why?
BERRILL: I believe him when he says he has no remorse.
Psychopaths get the idea that this is what people or society
would expect of them for doing
something bad, but they just say, "I don't feel it."
There's something defective in the wiring, you know,
there's no doubt about it.
Sampson's obsession with and desire
to maintain cleanliness, to present well,
to have nice clothes on,
it's part of his ability to manipulate people.
It's part of his ability to navigate environments
and blend in.
He has a very strong ability to be a chameleon, and that
certainly makes him a more dangerous psychopath,
because he is able to blend in in a variety of environments.
He's trying to, uh, essentially seduce them
and make them feel comfortable,
despite the fact that he knows he's gonna kill them.
So it's manipulative, smart,
and I think it reveals a level
of sadism, too, because he knows what he's gonna do.
So interestingly, he doesn't have
to frighten them and terrorize them.
SAHNI: His notion of what he's gonna do does start to
speak to maybe some compulsion that is now starting to emerge,
that there's a ritual, there's a script
on how this is supposed to go.
SAHNI: It seems clear to me that Sampson has more sadistic
fantasies than he's willing to let on,
while he identifies himself as someone who is not a sadist.
For sadistic violent offenders,
the high, or the arousal, comes from simply watching fear.
And for Sampson, if this is early in his experience with
sadism, over time,
what I would expect is that he's gonna need more to get
that same high.
TUSSEY: The fact that Sampson reported that his father
abused him does make me wonder if the choice for his victims,
the fact that they're all males, is intentional,
and perhaps he has a vendetta against men in general.
Maybe he was abused by other males in his life, as well.
♪
BERRILL: Sampson is becoming increasingly brazen.
That is typical of psychopathy.
You have a sense that he's flying
by the seat of his pants, you know?
So he's willing to do almost anything.
It's interesting that he didn't want any blood on him.
Killing someone is not upsetting to him,
but -- but getting messed up physically,
dirtied, that's really unappealing to him.
SAHNI: Sampson has now changed his method of killing.
For people who have child trauma,
or sexual trauma, that cleaning up is part of the ritual of
feeling okay,
but he didn't want to go through the ritual of having to
clean himself up, and he's dabbling now in that arousal
that is sadism.
He's trying out something else to see if he likes it more,
if he likes it differently, what kind of high it gives him.
WOMAN: William Gregory narrowly escaped the fate of Sampson's
other victims.
And then I got to the rest area,
where I pulled over and left the car
in drive and ran from -- out of the side of the car to the rear,
and then he tried to run me down in reverse with the car.
WOMAN: Gregory ran, climbing a bank,
hiding in the trees till Sampson was gone.
♪
SAHNI: He blames the FBI.
Samson's position is none of these people had to die.
His lack of attachment to people,
his matter-of-fact, glib attitude, is very,
very consistent with what we see in psychopaths.