[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.
Tell us about this ammo that's no longer manufactured.
This box, this logo, we want to know all about that.
WOMAN: Lead Detective David Quinn let only
Channel 2 Action News into the homicide unit
to reveal the somewhat uncommon bullet that likely
killed two homeless men just before Thanksgiving.
We have a particularly evil individual that has shot two of
our homeless community in Atlanta
with -- and less than three miles away from each other.
WOMAN: Detectives are hoping these bullets
will be the clue that connects them with the killer.
RAGHAVAN: He was, in fact, a failed Hollywood actor,
and the killings start after his final failure.
So his grandiose narcissistic dreams are shattered.
Murdering, for him, was to overcome the rage and upset
that he had as a failed actor.
SAHNI: When Hollywood didn't work out for him,
the need to have his 15 seconds of fame,
I think, does play out in his decision to kill
multiple people.
Really, what he craved wasn't necessarily to be an actor
and to develop that craft,
but it was really to be notorious.
When he kills, he realizes that this gives him
so much pleasure,
he's not interested in acting anymore.
This gives him the thrill to replace
the feeling of disappointment and rage at this other dream.
But this is exciting. This is what he wants to do.
The context in which he is a star is irrelevant,
and so he reenacts the murder with glee.
He's enjoying the fantasy of replaying the death,
and it's absurd, because he's enacting a brutal murder.
This isn't stage, and it isn't entertainment.
But for him, it is.
He said he's outside himself, feeling that
something else is pushing him to action.
There's not an ownership of his feeling and his volition.
So there's a split, there is a world inside
his head that's running the show that doesn't comport
to reality -- that's what I think makes him dangerous.
MORGAN: I wouldn't call it remorse, because
that realization doesn't change his future behavior.
He doesn't go turn himself in.
The feeling may be genuine,
but it's not psychologically integrated
into his sense of self.
RAGHAVAN: There's a moment of remorse and guilt.
It doesn't mean that psychopaths never
feel remorse or never feel guilt.
The issue is how brief it is,
how shallow it is, and how quickly it's gone.
Mm-hmm.
SAHNI: Presley is very much in his own gangster movie.
He clearly wants to portray himself as a gangster,
but he killed a defenseless person -- that doesn't make
him powerful, that makes him weak.
But in his narcissistic psychopathic narrative,
it makes him all powerful.
MORGAN: Presley represents one of the most
alarming kinds of cases of psychopathy.
There's no recognition of the value
of someone else's life.
It's patients like this where you don't usually
have a warning when they might be violent.
He's scary.
SAHNI: I think Presley's giving us a compilation of
movies and scenes that he is glorified over his years.
I don't think he gave a whole
lot of thought to reloading the weapon.
I think he enjoyed the power.
I think he enjoyed the adrenaline rush.
We know with psychopaths that they don't experience
the same normal range of emotions,
highs or lows, that most of us do.
And as a result, they sometimes crave
a greater level of intensity to feel anything.
Most of the science data about it tells us that children who
are exposed to violence in pop culture,
seeing violence in films or in cartoons, don't turn into
violent members of society.
What we're seeing in his murders is the playing out
of the fantasy life that he's adopted for himself.
His inability to stay grounded and rooted in normal society
well predates his observation of these shows and movies.
Presley is somebody who was violent at a young age.
His mother was scared of him.
He had had run-ins with the law.
There was a foundation that was broken already.
[makes moaning noise]
RAGHAVAN: He's aware that his compulsion
to kill is just overwhelming.
He's also recognizing that, you know,
brutally wounding the guy wasn't enough.
If he didn't die, he wouldn't be satisfied.
He's really losing control.
It's just been three days after his last kill.
He's not able to contain his desires anymore.
In a really grotesque way,
it's about extinguishing and annihilating somebody's life.
SAHNI: He's getting more bold in his need for a killing high.
I think he was testing out the limits of
what other aspects of murder could give him a high.
Would seeing blood give him a high?
Would seeing brain matter give him a high?
For individuals who experience more sadistic interests,
the idea of force or fear creating pain
in their victims -- Suffering, essentially,
is something that is part of their arousal pattern.
RAGHAVAN: This is the third time that he's enacting
the moment of death, which means that he gets to
explore his fantasies of being an actor in the most grotesque
way imaginable, where he relives details of the death,
including the really vivid and lurid details
of how his victims die.
[makes moaning noise]
MORGAN: Describing him gasping and then shooting him
again is very dispassionate and matter-of-fact
and very callous.
There isn't really an acknowledgment
that it's another person, another human being.
Anyone could be his victim in the way he thinks about people,
which I think makes it even more horrifying.
SAHNI: Presley's reality
is a little different than his narrative.
While he may have grown up in impoverished circumstances,
he had a mother that was very involved.
His mother moved him to a much more affluent school system
so that he would be away from
those influences, and by all accounts,
he started to get his life in order, so much so that he was
actually interviewed as a teenager
about his former life in a gang.
But Presley is wired differently than many of us
and unfortunately, he enjoyed that high, that thrill,
and that power and that's where we have
these series of people that he's killed.
MORGAN: Externalizing all blame
is something that psychopaths do.
They'll acknowledge their role in the actions,
but they really will feel that society is to blame.
He views whatever he does as being caused by something
outside of his control and beyond him,
which means a very good place for him is in prison.
SAHNI: The robbery was an incidental
part of his narrative.
His goal was to kill again.
He broke his own rules and boundaries by killing a woman
when he swore that he would never kill a woman or children.
Presley became addicted to the power, the control,
the ability to decide when and how somebody would die.
MORGAN: In the big picture of his perspective,
we see that non sequitur between, "I'd never
hurt women and children to murdering a woman,
but I don't think he sees any contradiction in that, because
she represents, I think, just now
the new class of targets, which just have to be white.
RAGHAVAN: His pleasure comes from annihilating alive.
So the question is why does he get so thrilled when he kills?
The contrast between his
humdrum, low-feeling life and the moment of killing
is very dramatic, and that's what creates addiction.
SAHNI: This really captures
the fantasy world that Presley lives in,
where he is acknowledging that
he's playing a part.
He's acting as if it is a film, and the camera can just be
turned off, the set dismantled, and everybody will just go back
about their business,
not really recognizing these are real human beings
he killed.
He's literally in a movie set or on a movie set in his head.
RAGHAVAN: He's starting to feel like he's a superstar.
There's the catharsis,
and then this cooling off period where you're
fantasizing about it, and then the compulsion starts again.
There is no doubt in my mind, he would have kept killing.
WOMAN: Dekalb D.A. Robert James planned to
seek the ultimate punishment for the murders.
But Presley avoided the death penalty by pleading guilty.
I am not a serial killer.
I am a brother
that has some real serious issues
and problems who did some things
that I am not proud of.