I Am A Psychologist That Evaluates Serial Killers

I Am A Psychologist That Evaluates Serial Killers

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Reddit, Ask me anything, I'm the psychologist who evaluated Ted
Bundy and had him put in prison. Ask me anything.
I'm doctor L. Carlyle, and I evaluated Ted Bundy after
his initial arrest. Bundy later escaped from prison and called
me from a payphone to brag, which I have taped
on an audio recording. I have conducted extensive research on

(00:21):
serial killers and interviewed Ted Bundy, the Hi Fi killers,
Arthur Gary, Bishop, Wesley, Allan Dodd, Keith, Jesperson, and many others.
I retired as the head of the psychology department at
Utah State Prison, and I am now an author and
public speaker. What would you say to someone who knows
they have a mental illness but is afraid of being

(00:42):
done hosed. I feel sad for them because they may
go through much of their lifetime running from their fear
of the illness. It's better to take a clear look
at it and make a decision as to how they
will keep the mental illness from keeping them from enjoying life. Great,
no bullshit answer to a good question. And he had
a reputation for being charming despite what he did. Did

(01:03):
you find that to be the case? Yes, he was charming,
but to a large degree it was political. He was intelligent,
he had a nice smile, and he was articulate. He
could talk easily with people. When I first meet him
for the evaluation, he walked towards me and said, Hi,
I'm Ted Bundy. You must be doctor Carlyle. His hand

(01:24):
was extended towards me. He had a smile on his
face and he walked rapidly as if he was happy
to sew me. That is so disturbing. That's some car
salesman shit. What could the average person do to slow
the rate of random spree colors? For one thing, we
need to get better control over the bullying problem. This
comment should be higher. The stress that people go through

(01:47):
as the result of bullying can really warp a person.
This reminds me of the thread where that kid stabbed
his bully and a lot of people jumped on the
kid for handling his bully incorrectly. His actions were the
result of six years are bullying with no help from
the teachers or principle. It's luckily no one was killed.
How do you feel about the popularity of fictional serial

(02:08):
killers like Hannibal who are depicted as anti heroes. Well,
it's interesting fiction. Yet what's with all the anti heroes
who kill people? Dexter breaking bad, Game of Thrones, House
of Cards, Justified, the Mentalist, and I'm sure there are more.
I had a discussion with an author of horror books
about this phenomenon. It's sometimes enjoyable to be caught up

(02:31):
in horror and come out unscathed in the end. In
the Alien, I identified with the hero and not a monster.
Does anyone identify with the monster? Is there any one
thing that all serial killers have in common? Also with
a hindsight view, is there anything that friends or family
of a serial killer could have done to stop them?
Most of the parents of these guys didn't know that

(02:53):
anything was wrong. If a child feels he is succeeding
in relationships, accomplishments, it's set, and feels love in the home,
there is less of a chance that he will become
a serial killer. Do you feel that the popularization of
these shootings in the media perpetuates the problem? But to
most people it doesn't. To a few, it does because
they admire the gods and determination they believe it took

(03:16):
to get revenge. They have so much anger and depression
that they see these killers as justified. It's almost like
suicide by cop. Kill a number of people and then
get killed. That makes perfect sense. I had never thought
about it like that. Do you have any thoughts about
how to deal with budding psychopaths when their children. Is
there a way to take a baby who is distant

(03:38):
and unattached, or even a toddler who has begun abusing
the family cat, and make them feel the empathy or
at least gets them to fake it for society's sake.
Good question. I think there are several things we can do. First,
show an interest in them and in their attempt to learn.
Don't criticize to hard and not show love. Listen when

(03:59):
they talk who many youth won't talk to their children
because the parents give advice without listening. There are men
many things we can do regarding a family cat, for example,
is the child abusing the cat has displaced aggression towards
someone in the family or in school who is causing
anger and betterness. When my dad was getting his education

(04:20):
as a psychologist, the predominant notion in abnormal psychology was
that criminal aberration was almost all caused by environment, especially
during childhood development, and little of it was inherited. A
friend who's a psychologist at a local prison recently told
me he thought it was about sixty percent inherited in
forty percent environmental. What do you think? I don't know.

(04:43):
I worked twenty years in a prison and largely worked
with violent offenders. I could see strong indications that that
the problem started in their childhood environmental and I could
see a logical connection between those childhood experiences and later pathology.
There are some cases where a child is being violent
beyond what was seen in their environment, but a lot

(05:03):
more good research need to be done to resolve this issue.
Are there any particular clients where their behavior or stories
have shaken you? If so, do you mind telling us
who and what they did? Say you get used to
what you hear. Arthur Gary Bishop told me the details
about each boy he killed. I wasn't shaken by it
because the guys in prison I worked with were like

(05:25):
subjects in a laboratory. I didn't enjoy hearing the details
about Art's homicides, but I wanted to know what led
up to the calling, how did he feel during the act,
and how it changed his thinking and his personality, and
why he continued Clling. He casually is on first name basis.
With serial color art, have you ever felt sympathy toward
the killer or after hearing their story? Did you ever

(05:47):
think maybe you could understand how they turned out the
way they did. I could usually see why they turned
out the way they did. The purpose of my book
I'm Not Guilty was to show how Ted became a
serial color. It's a psychological analysis of the development of
the violent mind. There were men of guys I worked
with in prison that I liked. I often felt bad

(06:07):
for what they did, but I didn't feel that they
should not have been held responsible for what they did.
Did you get the impression the serial killers actively enjoyed
inflicting suffering on others or were they indifferent to the
feelings of others? It varies from killer to color. Arthur
Gary Bishop was executed for molesting and killing five children.

(06:28):
He felt very bad about his crimes, and he virtually
set himself up to get caught. Wesley Allan Dodd, on
the other hand, killed two boys as an experiment to
see if he could actually do it. It was his
plan to have sex slaves and keeps them and kill
the others. Thanks for the reply. I knew it was
a simplistic question when I asked it, but I went

(06:48):
ahead anyway. I hear the word sociopath thrown around a lot,
and I think that's a very simplistic way of looking
at these colors. How do you deal with all of
the terrible stories you are told by each violentce defender?
Does it get to you? Our prison has a set
of gates at the entrance. I taught myself to shut
to our full prison stuff when I went out those gates,

(07:09):
and didn't consider prison problems until I drove back through
those same gates into the prison. The next morning. I
was with Arthur Gary Bishop the evening of his execution,
and I was given the charge of talking to the press.
After following that, I went home to bed and slept.
It can be done. Do you think that ability, the
total ability to leave potentially traumatic events at the gates,

(07:31):
makes you any closer to potentially being able to dissociate
yourself from potential evil you may express in your own actions.
You say it doesn't affect you, yet the ability to
dissociate yourself from negativity is a tray often seen in
some of society's most evil people. Thoughts I like your question.
I and most others I personally know who have learned

(07:52):
to do this, don't disassociate ourselves from evil. I try
to be aware of my actions in the effect they
have on others, and my intentis always to do good
and not harm. I don't always succeed, but I keep trying.
I'm not disassociating from negativity, only a specific carry of
her emotion. A person can worry and worry about something

(08:13):
they can't change, and it causes harm to their system
if they don't get some level of control over it
or to be able to shut down the worrying, a
negative process doesn't make them more prone to evil. Do
you agree with capital punishment and do you think it
is a deterrent in any way to the criminal? Did
you talk to the offenders about the punishment they received?

(08:33):
This question came up frequently when I worked in the prison.
Most of the inmates I talked has said that capital
punishments was not or would not have been a deterrent
to their criminal behavior. Did you ever feel sad for
a convicted killer or realize that they couldn't help themselves?
Much like Frott his langzeb how much time in prison

(08:53):
was he sentenced to I believe it was one point fifteen.
If he hadn't tried to escape, he could possibly have
been out in two years. There's a question of whether
or not Colorado had enough to convict him. Was Bundy
the most frightening evaluation you've done? Number? I enjoyed evaluating Bundy.
I loved my work as a psychologist at the prison,

(09:15):
and there were no inmates who were threatening to me.
One guide did hint that when he got angry at someone,
he wouldn't kill him, he would harm his children. I
still wrote a very negative report on him. I enjoyed
interviewing all the serial killers I worked with. What are
your thoughts on the recent shootings that have been happening
in the US. Is there a patron as far as

(09:36):
the killer's mental state? This is an area that we
need to do a lot of research on. When a
precedent has been set, it's easier for another person to
do the same thing. The basis of so many of
these killings is a combination of loneliness, anger, depression, and
feelings of despair. Have you ever interviewed a person who
was later exonerated and was there any difference between them

(09:59):
and your average killer, not the famous ones. I worked
with one person who was in prison for homicide and
I came to believe he didn't do it. I have
worked with rapists who said they were not guilty, and
there was one that I actually felt wasn't guilty. As
to differences between them and the average color, no strong
differences in what they said or how they presented themselves

(10:19):
to me. How long did it take you to realize
that Bundy was a sociopath? Were there any instant signs?
Not sure what you mean by instant signs. The people
who worked with him in political campaign didn't see any
strong indications that he was a sociopath. Was Bundy ever
diagnosed with any mental illnesses? What is his psychological profile

(10:41):
like compared to others you have studied. Bundy was never
diagnosed as having a mental illness until he came to prison.
Then he was viewed as a sexual sadist. The problem
with the term mental illness is that it's too broad.
It included all categories of depression, anxiety and such. Was
ted psychotics? Was he insane? He was not insane because

(11:02):
he understood the consequences of his actions. There were no
voices that told him to kill and he didn't believe
there were any conspiracies directed towards him his psychological profile.
That's an interesting question because it depends on what stage
of life is being considered. Ted killed for a different
reason than the happy face killer Keith jesperson, and so

(11:23):
their psychological profiles are similar in some ways but different
in other ways. What's the difference between psychotic and insane?
Psychotic is like a person hearing voices that tell him
to kill himself or others. Insane is a legal term
referring to the person's capability of understand that his actions
are against the law. That's a simple definition. Do these

(11:45):
serial killers come off as pure evil when you sit
down with them and talk for a while. I'm just
wondering if there was any hope of rehabilitating them at
any point in their adult lives before they started murdering people.
If I picked three killers and had them come and
talk to a group of college students, the students wouldn't
see anything evil in them. They don't come across as monsters.

(12:07):
It's not that they can totally fake it and seem
to be good when they are not. It's more that
each of us had a persona and a shadow, a
good and a bad side to us. I once asked
a group in a seminar I was conducting if good
and evil can coexist within the same person. Most said
it's impossible. I think we need to consider that people
can have good and evil thought and action potential within them,

(12:28):
and they choose which one to develop. Thanks for the response.
So let's say, hypothetically these killers were released, what kind
of odds would you give they would never kill a
human again? Is killing literally an addiction for this type
of person? I believe that you could let the majority
of killers out of prison to day they come in,
and most of them wouldn't kill again. However, I don't

(12:50):
include gang members in this group. Were you happy at
all or relieve maybe when Bundy was executed? Did you attend?
I didn't feel happy or sad one when Bundy was executed. However,
had it been my choice, I would have kept him
alive on condition that he revealed himself more. We need
to understand better the step by step development of the

(13:11):
mind of the serial color. That's what I am trying
to do through the books I'm writing. Have you read
The Stranger beside me by an rule. If so, what
is your feeling on her characterization of Bundy and his mannerisms.
I have read The Stranger beside Me. It's been so
long ago that I can't remember just what she said
about his mannerisms. Tell me and I can comment on them.

(13:34):
She described him as very charming. She was surprised when
he was arrested, as he would walk her to her
car every night and advise her to lock her doors. Yes,
he was a lot that way. He caught up per
snatcher when he and Liz were shopping. I also believe
that he saved the life of the boy. He reportedly
taked someone out of suicide when he was on the
crisis line. One lady, the wife of an influential leader

(13:58):
in the city, told me she would be happy to
have Ted Bundy marry her daughter. This was all before
he was convicted. Can someone be born a psychopath without
the influence of environmental factors such as abuse or neglect?
If so, what are the warning signs that a parent
can identify and what can be done to stop them
turning into the next Ted Bundy? Good question, I don't know.

(14:22):
I think we need to look at the brain studies
of small children who show psychopathic trays and do longitudinal
studies on them. Have you ever grown to like one
of your subjects, innocent or not. I had a lot
of friends among the inmates when I was at the prison.
One of my best friends was a contract color. It's
not that I like evil things. It's that I like

(14:43):
a person who can be open and friendly and treat
people respectfully. Hi, doctor Carlyle, thanks for doing this. When
Bundy called you after escaping, what was going through your head?
Why do you think he called you? Was there a
bit of an ego intellectual battle going on there? I
understand you are both very intelligent men. I was excited

(15:04):
about his call because I wanted to find out why
he escaped. We talked for over fifteen minutes. When I
went over the conversation later, I could have predicted that
he will try to escape again. He called me all
and he wanted to be on a par with me
so we could talk person to person and not as
psychologists to inmate. I think he wanted to see me
as a friend. Is it not obvious why someone would

(15:26):
want to escape prison? I mean, it's prison. However, people
have escaped from out prison when they were within a
month or two of going home and they were allowed
to go on work release. What are your thoughts on
genetic influences for antisocial behavior, for EXAMPLEOA, and whether or
not someone should be held accountable for their behavior if

(15:47):
they inherit a previous position, even should a person be
genetically preless posed. I believe that everyone needs to be
held accountable for their behavior. To me, to say otherwise
is predeterminism and obviat choice. What was the most chilling
thing Ted ever said to you? Remember he was still
saying he was innocent of having committed any crime when

(16:08):
I evaluated him, so he didn't say anything that was
really chilling. However, there was one point during the interview
when he was talking about his girlfriend going out with
another guy, and he said that was the last straw.
The look of hate in his eyes at that point
was intense. Was there anything about them that you found
particularly surprising when interviewing the serial killers? What were the

(16:30):
most unusual traits that they all had in common? I
have interviewed in depth several serial killers. What was surprising
was that they were so easy to talk to. They
were open about themselves. A common element was emotional vulnerability
as a child and making wrong choices after that. Do
you think Bundy might have had an associative disorder? An

(16:51):
excellent question. I don't think he had an associative identity
disorder multiple personality disorder, but I think he'd associated to
some degree during the crime. The process begins prior to
actually having the victim. He didn't associate to the degree
that he wasn't aware of what he was doing. The
dissociation ends when he has completed the cycle. Was there

(17:12):
ever a point where you've found out in hindsight a
subject was stringing you along? How did you handle that? Edit?
Accidentally a word? Many times you win some and loose,
and you live with it. It's expected because some people
are extremely good at faking it. Ro you made it
to the end. You're a ducking beast. Thanks for watching, mate.

(17:34):
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