The Megyn Kelly Show - Family Annihilators： Alex Murdaugh, Chris Watts, and More Men Who Murdered Their Families, with Laura Richards

00:00:00.000 Now streaming on Paramount Plus.

00:00:02.860 Someone is trying to frame us.

00:00:05.160 Until our names are cleared.

00:00:07.720 We're fugitives from Interpol.

00:00:09.480 Like Bonnie and Clyde with better snacks.

00:00:12.880 Espionage?

00:00:13.560 You still as good a shot as you used to be?

00:00:16.600 Better.

00:00:17.400 Is there love language?

00:00:18.860 We like to walk that fine line between techno-thriller

00:00:21.380 and romantic comedy.

00:00:24.180 We make up our own rules.

00:00:25.940 NCIS Tony and Ziva.

00:00:27.400 Now streaming on Paramount Plus.

00:00:30.540 Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show.

00:00:32.540 Your home for open, honest, and provocative conversations.

00:00:42.000 Hey everyone, I'm Megyn Kelly.

00:00:43.940 Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show.

00:00:45.920 Family annihilator.

00:00:48.300 It's a term you may have heard recently

00:00:50.240 during the Alec Murdoch trial.

00:00:52.880 The prosecutor even asking Alec directly

00:00:56.120 if he qualified as one.

00:00:58.640 Do you remember this?

00:00:59.620 Watch.

00:01:00.000 Are you a family annihilator?

00:01:03.320 A family annihilator?

00:01:06.660 You mean like, did I shoot my wife and my son?

00:01:09.560 Yes.

00:01:10.060 No.

00:01:13.360 I would never hurt Maggie Murdoch.

00:01:16.360 I would never hurt Paul Murdoch.

00:01:18.640 Under any circumstances.

00:01:20.300 Say that.

00:01:20.740 Say that.

00:01:29.760 Say that.

00:01:32.840 Hmm.

00:01:33.360 Of course, the jury rejected that assertion,

00:01:36.840 finding Murdoch guilty of fatally shooting his wife Maggie

00:01:40.860 and his son Paul.

00:01:42.900 Maggie was 52.

00:01:43.960 Paul was 22.

00:01:45.880 And he's now serving life in prison.

00:01:49.180 Murdering those close to you is an unimaginable act to most people.

00:01:51.960 But Alec Murdoch is not the first or the last to kill his family.

00:01:57.000 He's one of many in a gruesome group of family annihilators.

00:02:00.360 And when I heard that term in that trial, it got me.

00:02:03.820 I never heard that term before.

00:02:05.320 And I'm in the news business and we cover crime a lot.

00:02:08.000 It's a thing.

00:02:09.020 It's an actual thing in criminology and those who study it.

00:02:13.600 And it's just extra, right?

00:02:16.560 I mean, murder is terrible under any circumstances.

00:02:18.980 But what kind of a person can kill their entire family or a huge portion of it?

00:02:26.680 What makes a seemingly well-liked, successful man?

00:02:32.960 These are not all derelicts.

00:02:34.340 In fact, they tend to be successful people.

00:02:38.120 Blow up his life in this manner.

00:02:40.100 Kill the people who are supposed to be most important to him.

00:02:43.940 What kind of psychology makes you do that?

00:02:46.040 How do we recognize this potential in a mate, a man, a partner?

00:02:52.780 Today, we're going to do a deep dive into the motivations and the psyche of these individuals.

00:02:57.920 We are also going to discuss what can be done to prevent this kind of violence.

00:03:01.680 What are the warning signs?

00:03:02.820 How do you know if you are potentially with somebody like this?

00:03:07.680 Joining me now to dig into it all is Laura Richards.

00:03:10.480 Laura is an award-winning criminal behavioral analyst and expert on domestic abuse and coercive

00:03:16.760 control.

00:03:17.700 She also hosts the popular podcast's Crime Analyst and Real Crime Profile.

00:03:24.040 Laura, so great to have you here on the show.

00:03:25.600 Thanks for being here.

00:03:27.200 Thank you for inviting me.

00:03:28.340 Good to speak with you, Megan.

00:03:29.280 So, since he used that term in the Murdoch trial, Creighton Waters, the prosecutor, I've

00:03:36.260 gone down a dark rabbit hole.

00:03:37.920 And I know you've been there for years studying these people and figuring out what makes a

00:03:42.240 family annihilator, what makes them tick.

00:03:44.300 And I have since watched everything I can get my hands on about I've already I'm already

00:03:52.200 there on Alec Murdoch.

00:03:53.160 But on Chris Watts, who murdered his entire family in Colorado a few years back in 2018,

00:04:00.200 his wife, his two beautiful daughters in the most disgusting, awful way.

00:04:04.260 And then started picking up the case of Jeffrey McDonald, which I have covered over the years

00:04:09.560 as a journalist.

00:04:10.260 But this is a guy back in 1970.

00:04:12.520 And you could go I mean, you could pick so many cases, unfortunately.

00:04:14.960 These are just the ones that got my interest.

00:04:17.280 And Jeffrey McDonald was a very successful surgeon, Green Beret, who was convicted of

00:04:24.080 murdering his wife and two daughters as well in just the most brutal fashion.

00:04:28.280 And the thing about these three cases, Laura, that jumped out to me, like the ones that the

00:04:32.840 reason they pulled me in is because all three of these guys were super successful, you know,

00:04:37.440 on paper.

00:04:38.280 They were doing well.

00:04:39.180 Like Chris Watts wasn't rich like the other two, but the other two.

00:04:43.360 And well, I mean, Jeffrey McDonald wasn't rich either, but he was going to be because he

00:04:45.840 was a surgeon.

00:04:47.680 Just accolades, professional success, very well liked.

00:04:51.420 No one would go back and say, oh, yes.

00:04:53.880 Yeah.

00:04:54.620 Yeah.

00:04:55.060 You could have seen it coming.

00:04:56.640 The opposite.

00:04:57.820 So let's start with what it is.

00:04:59.920 Define for us what what makes one a family annihilator.

00:05:03.940 Well, I think we have to work on the basis that if you understand what domestic abuse and domestic

00:05:10.980 homicide is about, the motivation is power and control.

00:05:15.320 And that's really what the perpetrators are seeking to achieve.

00:05:18.600 They want power and control.

00:05:20.120 And they're trying to control the person or the people and the narrative.

00:05:23.920 So I've studied many, many cases.

00:05:27.540 I've worked on many, many cases.

00:05:29.540 They are absolutely horrific.

00:05:31.840 I think people really do struggle to understand how what the media might describe as the perfect

00:05:38.260 dad, a good dad, a good, dutiful husband, or I've even heard a perpetrator described as being good

00:05:45.500 at DIY.

00:05:47.080 And the media tend to eulogize and memorialize the perpetrator, which makes it harder for the

00:05:52.620 general public to really understand how it happened.

00:05:55.120 But actually, when I door knock and speak to the grandparents and those who have survived,

00:06:03.000 and I've done that across my 27 year career, I find a very different picture emerge.

00:06:08.260 And the picture is always the same.

00:06:11.140 And that's of a man, because we are talking about men.

00:06:14.400 This is very much a male related issue.

00:06:19.020 It's a man who wanted to coercively control.

00:06:22.180 And coercive control are the key hallmarks and what we should be asking about, rather than

00:06:29.160 physical assaults.

00:06:31.220 And I want to tell people just a little bit more about your credentials, because they are

00:06:34.480 impressive.

00:06:35.060 Founder of Paladin, the world's first national stalking advocacy service as a survivor.

00:06:41.780 I don't really love that term.

00:06:42.720 But as somebody who has had a very bad stalker who went to jail and then a mental facility

00:06:48.480 for 10 years.

00:06:49.200 So it was a serious case.

00:06:50.940 I appreciate what you do.

00:06:52.220 There aren't enough of experts like you.

00:06:55.320 You also created, you mentioned DASH, the domestic abuse, stalking, and honor-based violence

00:06:59.280 risk identification assessment and management model, which was implemented across all police

00:07:04.080 services in the UK.

00:07:05.760 In the UK, the DASH checklist is credited with having reduced domestic murders by 58% in London

00:07:12.360 across 13 years.

00:07:14.000 So you know what you're doing.

00:07:15.580 You are a true expert in all of this.

00:07:17.740 And it's all kind of related, you know, the stalking, the domestic abuse.

00:07:21.860 This is not an indictment of all men.

00:07:23.620 This is an indictment of abusers and helping both men and women recognize the signs, because

00:07:29.440 you may be a great guy who never abused anybody, but you might have a daughter who a man like

00:07:35.960 this comes into her life or a sister, or, you know, it could be a friend.

00:07:39.560 And so men can be advocates of women in this situation as well, even if it's not, you know,

00:07:44.240 them personally.

00:07:46.520 Absolutely.

00:07:47.300 And thank you for sharing your own experience of stalking, because it is important we do

00:07:52.500 talk about it.

00:07:53.420 It's why I created an advocacy service, because a lot of victims don't get the support that

00:07:57.600 they need, the psychological and emotional support that when they're trying to survive

00:08:02.020 something, and bearing in mind when I tend to work with people, they haven't survived it.

00:08:05.680 So I agree with you, survivor is the wrong term, particularly when someone's going through

00:08:10.320 it, and trying to ensure law enforcement understand the behaviors.

00:08:14.980 Well, that's everything that Paladin is set up to do, and changing the law to make sure

00:08:19.540 the laws reflect women's lived experience when they are subjected to abuse.

00:08:25.220 And that's a really important part of my work, and ensuring that men work alongside us,

00:08:30.400 because yes, it takes all men to help with changing and challenging and holding men to

00:08:37.100 account when they are abusive.

00:08:39.300 And that's when they're sexist, misogynistic.

00:08:41.940 These are the types of mindsets and the types of behaviors that we want people to be challenging,

00:08:47.080 because it can lead to much more serious things happening when a man feels that they are not

00:08:55.720 getting their way, or they are being disrespected in some way, or they feel that their control,

00:09:01.720 they're losing their control over someone.

00:09:04.360 Well, that can be when something catastrophic occurs.

00:09:08.040 And too often, like I said, when we ask the right questions of grandmothers and grandfathers,

00:09:14.220 and it might be brothers and sisters, and when I ask them the questions, I always see a pattern

00:09:21.420 emerge. And like I said, the media often report on things, and they just do a very cursory look at

00:09:29.300 what's gone on. And they may talk to a neighbor who might turn around and say, oh, he was a lovely

00:09:34.020 dad, or he took the children to the sweet shop. And yes, he was a really nice man. Or he was fearful

00:09:40.340 that he'd lose the children. And that's why he killed them. And then this narrative goes in the

00:09:46.420 media and the newspapers. And that's what people then take as what's gone on. But it's a really

00:09:52.160 dangerous narrative, because oftentimes, the warning signs are there, and women can be framed

00:09:59.000 and really blamed for something that's happened to them. And I'll give you an example. There was a

00:10:04.560 recent horrific murder in the UK, an incredible woman called Emma Patterson, and her seven-year-old

00:10:12.020 daughter who were killed. And the media, first of all, reported on three people who died in Epsom,

00:10:20.120 Surrey. They didn't say how, but there was a whole load of media, social media traffic about,

00:10:25.180 was it carbon monoxide poisoning? But the police put out a statement, said they're not looking for

00:10:29.960 anybody else in connection with their deaths. And they said it's an isolated incident. So from all my

00:10:37.080 work, I always hear police say that, and that means that it's domestic violence related.

00:10:41.200 That's the code word. And it's not an isolated incident, because it's a pandemic of women being

00:10:46.260 killed. And it turned out there were gunshots heard just before the emergency services turned up,

00:10:53.140 and George Patterson shot them both dead. And the male had put an article together, and the headline

00:11:00.180 was, because she was a very successful headmistress of a school in Epsom, did her overachieving and

00:11:07.440 putting him in the shadow, did that lead to this tragedy? And I wrote on the headline and fixed

00:11:13.860 it and said, no, he did this all on his own. Because we very quickly get into excusing someone's

00:11:19.500 behaviour when it is unacceptable. This was something that he planned, premeditated. But the dominant

00:11:25.080 narrative then is in the media that perhaps she's to blame, and she's framed intentionally,

00:11:31.060 and that she's to be blamed in some way. And for me, that's just unacceptable. I've seen it over and

00:11:38.180 over and over again. And it gives a very forced narrative of what's gone on.

00:11:42.800 We can do that when it comes to divorce, right? Was she overbearing? Was she difficult to live with?

00:11:49.160 Was she, okay, we're not all perfect. We can't do that when it comes to domestic violence.

00:11:53.460 It's no annoying, negative, unfortunate behaviour by the woman justifies domestic violence of any kind.

00:12:02.480 Absolutely not. Well, if you follow the narrative through, what did seven-year-old Letty do?

00:12:07.120 I mean, I can't even imagine the fear and the terror that she must have felt, understanding that,

00:12:13.980 you know, was mum killed before her and she watched, or was Letty killed first? You know,

00:12:18.440 that fear and terror for a child to know that they're not safe and they're unsafe, something

00:12:22.640 catastrophic is about to happen at the hands of the man who's meant to love and care for them.

00:12:28.100 And these are the things, the places I spend, you know, my time and my mind working out what's

00:12:33.500 happened, but also the psychology. What makes a man become this way? Because the vast, vast majority

00:12:39.600 of men are wonderful, beautiful human beings, just like women, and would never hurt a woman that they

00:12:46.360 love or in their life at all. In fact, they would want to hurt a man who did that. But there is

00:12:51.180 an unhealthy contingent. And it's always, you know, I mean, it's not always, but it's just,

00:12:56.760 I grew up in the 70s and every night on the news, there were stories about the serial killers

00:13:01.800 killing all these women. It's always like a series of women who get killed by these weird men.

00:13:05.940 Something's gone wrong with them. So what is it that's in their background that makes these guys be

00:13:11.600 able to succeed in life, able to be well-liked. But instead of being a loving, caring husband,

00:13:17.260 they go this route.

00:13:19.880 Yeah. So my background is in forensic and legal psychology. So I have spent a lot of time in the

00:13:24.740 psychological research and analysis and the psychopathology of men who kill. And I will

00:13:31.680 say they're not all homogenous. So we can't say it's all for the same reason. Specifically,

00:13:36.060 contexts are different. But what I can see is what is the thing that really is the motivator is this

00:13:42.940 need for power and control. And that power and control, well, you know, I'm going to mention

00:13:48.100 the P word, the patriarchy, because we all live in the patriarchy where laws and systems and

00:13:53.800 processes are created by men for men. And that's why women have a very tough time because our lived

00:13:59.340 experiences aren't included in laws, for example. So that's why we're having to change laws on

00:14:05.520 stalking and on coercive control. So it is this overriding need to have to control things, to have

00:14:13.200 power over. And Megan, you mentioned serial killers. I mean, it's all the same thing, right? Because

00:14:18.620 men who harm women in their significant lives, as in women who are significant to them, can also harm

00:14:25.700 women who are not significant to them. And this connection is one that I made at New Scotland Yard by

00:14:31.040 profiling domestic violence rapists. And I spent a lot of time profiling 450 of them, looking at them

00:14:37.340 and doing a psychological autopsy backwards of who are they and what do they do. You know, in the first

00:14:42.860 five years of my career, we're trying to identify the serial rapist, the serial killer, the serial

00:14:49.420 perpetrator who abducts children. And the one thing I found in their background consistently was domestic

00:14:54.420 abuse and coercive control. So these things do interconnect. And Dr. Robert Hare, who created the

00:15:02.180 psychopathy checklist, he, in 1993, his research showed us that 25% of domestic violence perpetrators

00:15:10.200 are psychopaths. And I would expect that to be far higher as a figure now. And when I'm training police

00:15:16.420 and others, I'm always talking about psychopathy because we don't screen enough for it. So there are,

00:15:22.220 unfortunately, many psychopaths who we may have relationships with, and they have this need for

00:15:28.900 power and control and they have no empathy, they have no remorse. And it's all about them, me, myself

00:15:34.200 and I, the narcissism. So that's what I see is the inter, you know, the thing that interconnects that

00:15:40.980 law enforcement are trained, well, this is domestic violence here. And these are the domestic violence

00:15:45.560 perpetrators. This is child abuse here. This is sexual violence here. And they're taught in

00:15:51.800 boxes and categories, but that's not how offenders offend. So the more that we understand the traits

00:15:59.080 of psychopathy and the more that we screen for it, and that we take domestic violence perpetrators

00:16:04.040 seriously, and we see it as serious crime and we hold them to account and we challenge their behavior

00:16:09.720 looking for coercive control, then we start to get into proper threat assessment and risk management.

00:16:15.880 Can I just say, so a couple of things. It actually used to be the lie, I was criticizing Michael

00:16:21.620 Cohen, former lawyer to President Trump, for having said this as recently as 2007 or 8, saying the law is

00:16:29.040 you cannot rape your wife. That is not true in the state of New York, even as of 2007. But at one point

00:16:35.020 in our history, it was true. So to your point of the laws, the laws actually are really, I mean,

00:16:42.120 they don't protect women in the way that they need. Yes, certainly when it comes to murder,

00:16:47.020 but on domestic abuse, no. On stalking, no. I remember in my case, the stalking, the requirements

00:16:53.200 were I was going to have to, I had to appear in person if I wanted to make this complaint against

00:16:58.980 my stalker who was dangerous, who was already a felon, who was trained in weapons. There was,

00:17:05.260 and the number one rule of dealing with a stalker is don't deal with the stalker. Don't talk to the

00:17:08.960 stalker, don't have interactions with the stalker. Anything you have will be perceived as a yes.

00:17:13.880 And it was like, they were wanting me to show up in court and deal with him. I'm like,

00:17:17.480 you've got to be crazy. And I've talked to so many domestic abuse victims who have the same

00:17:21.360 requirement. There's no way they want to show up in court with the husband who's been beating them

00:17:25.500 behind closed doors and doesn't want this to become a known thing at all. And I have to say it

00:17:29.340 publicly, it's absurd. Yes. And that's everything the stalker wants. They want you to be in that

00:17:36.480 courtroom. And the same with the domestic abuser, you know, that power and control and being able to

00:17:41.140 see you terrified and have that power and control over you. And this is exactly why every legal

00:17:46.500 process, be it court, you have to have special measures that reflect women's experiences. And by

00:17:51.860 the way, and you know this, but laws that protect us at the point of murder is too late. You know,

00:17:57.760 what I've been trying to do is prevent murders in slow motion. It's the, what happens before that

00:18:02.880 we get in and we early identify, intervene, and we prevent so that we don't have, particularly in

00:18:07.920 America, four to five women who are murdered every day by a current or former male partner.

00:18:14.340 That is a stark finding. And yet most people don't even realise how bad it is, but it's just

00:18:21.440 increasing. And most people don't know about the family annihilators or familicide. And obviously

00:18:27.600 what's reported in the media is what people pay attention to. So we've got a long way to go,

00:18:33.440 but a lot of my work in the UK has had some, you know, very good results. But unfortunately in law

00:18:41.320 enforcement, you can bring something in and the leaders sign up to it and then they move on and

00:18:45.620 someone else comes in and you get this constant cycle and churn of staff. But it is important to

00:18:51.520 have these conversations about coercive control and stalking. And the, there is a lot that we can

00:18:57.620 do to early identify, intervene, and prevent. And a lot of it comes from listening to the victims.

00:19:03.840 It's the problem with a lot of abuse victims is they, of course, like when you look at the

00:19:10.400 situation, you think, Oh, and I, I used to be one of these people. If he hit me, I'd be gone.

00:19:14.880 Well, I'd be out of there one, one hit, but it doesn't happen that simply. They, they build the

00:19:23.560 control over the woman over time. They love bomb you. They, they come into your life, this wonderful

00:19:30.760 man. So the woman falls in love with this seemingly wonderful person, sometimes marries the seemingly

00:19:36.260 wonderful person. And then bit by bit, the erosion of the woman, her autonomy, her independence begins.

00:19:43.100 And you'd make the small sacrifices first. Only later do they turn into the big sacrifices. And

00:19:49.020 eventually in, in many of these cases, it turns violent. But by that point, the woman is so lost

00:19:55.040 versus where she was a year earlier when they met, et cetera. She's, she does not have the same power or

00:20:01.780 resolve or confidence or just strength that she once had. They're very, very effective manipulators,

00:20:08.840 these abusers. Yes. And you use the word they're manipulators. And, you know, this is a very,

00:20:15.980 it's a behavioral regime really, when we're talking about coercive control that a perpetrator will use

00:20:21.920 to make someone fall in love with them. So the, so the love bombing that is a strategic campaign to

00:20:28.160 make someone fall in love with them, the gaslighting and the charm, because many of these individuals are

00:20:35.060 actually charming and that's a trait of psychopathy. So the charm can happen. The victim can feel that

00:20:40.960 they've met the right person. This is the love of their life. And that can be a chemical reaction

00:20:45.540 to the endorphins, the dopamine, all of these good chemicals to, so that we mate with somebody.

00:20:52.920 So there is this thing of crazy love when somebody is love bombing us. We want to feel special. Of course

00:20:59.260 we do. And then we start to spend more time with that person. And then gradually we may become more

00:21:06.620 dependent on that person. And that can be a strategic campaign. The setup can start from day one when we

00:21:13.740 meet the perpetrator. And then once we are in, we tend to be in deep. And so it's, it's very conflicting

00:21:21.480 and it's very confusing. And we think that we, we love that person, but oftentimes we don't really know

00:21:26.980 who they are because they're also forcing intimacy very quickly. So the whirlwind relationship that

00:21:32.440 happens. So I often say to women and girls who I meant to slow down, enjoy the honeymoon period,

00:21:39.500 get to know that person in every situation possible, get to meet their family, their friends,

00:21:44.380 understand exactly who they are. Where's the rush? Why jump in? And I always say intimacy takes time to

00:21:51.080 build. So some of the warning signs, if you've got someone who's trying to push the relationship very

00:21:55.640 quickly, who's making these grand declarations of love, like John Meehan did to Deborah Newell,

00:22:01.800 I want to die in your arms. I love you. I want to be with you forever. He says on date number two

00:22:06.960 and three, well, that's forced intimacy and that's not authentic. It's an artificial and superficial thing

00:22:14.900 that's happening. So slowing things down and really taking our time to get to know somebody is really

00:22:22.000 important and not giving too much information away about ourselves. You know, enjoy the courtship.

00:22:26.920 That's what I always say. It takes at least a year to really get to know someone, but the coercive

00:22:31.920 controller can be very good at bringing their A game to manipulate and it can all seem very plausible as

00:22:39.720 well. But once they've got you under their control and once you are dependent upon that person and

00:22:47.120 normally they isolate you, they want to take you away from your mom and your dad and your best

00:22:51.380 friends. So once you're isolated, you're very much within their monopoly. Your perception is

00:22:57.980 monopolized by them. And actually Biderman, who studied prisoners of war, the eight principles of

00:23:04.880 what he saw, what happens to someone who is being, who's having their autonomy and their agency eroded.

00:23:10.960 He's put together these eight principles of the charter coercion. It's exactly what I see. You

00:23:16.720 overlay it with the victims of a coercive controller and it's exactly the same traits that you see.

00:23:23.620 So we should take it seriously. And some of these men are psychopaths and they've learned their trade

00:23:28.560 craft very well. I always say like, look around. Okay. After a year, look around. Do you still have

00:23:35.180 friends? Are you still in touch with your family? If not, why not? Like take a hard look back and say,

00:23:39.940 yes. Okay. If you fall in love, you prioritize the other person. It's this mad, like, Oh, I only

00:23:44.300 want to be with him. Okay. But most normal people do not want to steer you away from your family.

00:23:49.960 Find reasons for you not to take the trip home to see mom, divert the phone call to or from mom or dad

00:23:56.440 that that none of that is normal. That's the beginning. Yeah. So healthy relationship is very much,

00:24:03.480 and I might sound a bit LA woo woo here, but it's very much about opening someone's world up

00:24:08.740 and helping them reach their full potential. If you genuinely love someone and care for them,

00:24:14.460 you want their world to be bigger. You want them to experience everything in life.

00:24:18.680 But what I see with the coercive controllers, they do the opposite. They shrink the victim's world down.

00:24:24.560 They want to micromanage and micro control every part of it. And they don't want other people

00:24:28.980 interfering like the moms and the dads and the best friends. So they shrink the world down. And it's

00:24:33.880 actually much more about what they're taking away from the woman. And it's an unfreedom that happens

00:24:40.300 because yes, the victim might not be in shackles or chains, but they're invisible chains.

00:24:47.240 So what are some of the questions to determine whether you're looking at coercive control?

00:24:52.600 Well, we'd never ask someone direct, are you being coercively controlled? Because it's a very new term.

00:24:57.680 But what you're trying to understand is whether somebody has their own autonomy and freedom to

00:25:03.220 make their own choices. So, you know, and do they feel safe to make their own choices? I.e.,

00:25:08.740 could they just go to work or could they go and see a friend without having to check in with their

00:25:13.580 partner? Can they decide what they want to wear and what they're going to eat? And when they go to

00:25:19.980 the gym or are they under micro surveillance and every detail of their lives is being regulated by

00:25:26.860 somebody else? And there's a fear of consequence if they breach any of those rules that are being put

00:25:33.420 in place by the abuser. And what I also see about these rules that get put in place, i.e.,

00:25:39.540 what you can eat, who you can see, when you can see them, how you dress, how you have your hair.

00:25:46.440 If you have a job, then maybe you're only allowed to interact. If you're a hairdresser,

00:25:51.240 you're only allowed to cut women's hair, not men's hair. These are all the rules that I've seen laid

00:25:56.580 down for victims. So you're really trying to check on somebody, have they got their own agency? Have

00:26:02.820 they got their own autonomy? Have they got freedom to make decisions about their own life and how they

00:26:09.820 conduct themselves on a day to day basis? And normally with the victims, it's the smallest things

00:26:15.040 that are so insidious that they're not allowed to do. Or there's this unfreedom where they have to

00:26:22.580 check in with that other person at all times. Even if they go and see a friend, they have to take a

00:26:27.840 picture to show where they are and who they're with. Or like with Oscars Pistorius, with some of

00:26:34.180 his previous girlfriends, he used to make them take a photo of themselves wearing their pyjamas to prove

00:26:39.540 that they were sat at home. I've even seen a perpetrator say to a victim, they have to flush

00:26:43.840 the toilet at home so that he knows that they are at home and they haven't left because the toilet had

00:26:48.620 a very specific sound. And these are all the micro rules and regulations that you're trying to

00:26:54.620 understand. Is that how somebody is having to live their life? Are they isolated? Are they closed down

00:27:00.600 and closed off? Even if the victim says it's how they want to live their life? Well, as human beings,

00:27:07.740 we like to interact with people. So even when I hear someone telling me that, I know that there is

00:27:13.940 likely coercion there. I not long ago was at a social event where they were serving hors d'oeuvres.

00:27:22.240 And this particular husband said to his thin, in-shape wife, who was grabbing an hors d'oeuvre,

00:27:30.440 do you really think you need that? And it just made my skin crawl because it's not, yes, it's rude

00:27:39.100 to suggest this thin woman, you know, to monitor what she's eating at all, thin or fat. But to me,

00:27:47.480 it just telegraphed, there's way more there. If he's doing that in public in front of me

00:27:53.300 and others, I can only imagine what happens behind closed doors. So there are these little

00:27:58.120 red flags, even for us outsiders with our friends. Yes. And oftentimes we don't pick up on those things,

00:28:06.680 right? And, you know, even if a victim, we're friends with someone and then they fall off the

00:28:10.820 radar, we think, well, maybe it's something we've done rather than actually, are they being told not to

00:28:15.860 speak to Laura and they're not allowed to speak to me, but we tend to look inwardly first. It's

00:28:21.060 probably something I've done, so I'm not going to overstep, where I always say to people, check in

00:28:25.160 with your friend, just see how they're doing. Don't think it's something that you've done. Ask them

00:28:29.040 about that comment and how it made them feel. Because oftentimes we isolate the victim even more by not

00:28:35.000 asking them that question. But yes, that is red flag behaviour. You know, it's up to us as adults to

00:28:41.760 choose if we want to eat something or not. We don't have to check in with someone. But just sowing that

00:28:46.520 seed and corralling, you know, that seed in someone's head, well, maybe I shouldn't eat this.

00:28:51.560 And it's like a closing down of someone and making them second guess themselves. And before you know

00:28:56.600 it, these little behaviours become bigger and a victim doesn't even know which way is up anymore.

00:29:02.420 They're gaslit and they've got this reality distortion. They don't know what they like anymore and

00:29:06.880 they can't make their own decisions. And Laura, I think an important point too is that this can happen

00:29:12.180 to any woman. I know, you know, some women think, oh, I'm too well educated. I am too rich. I come from

00:29:19.760 too good a family. I have too good a support system around me. It can happen to any woman.

00:29:27.100 It can. And what I'll say is oftentimes these individuals are attracted to very strong women.

00:29:32.040 So, you know, that can be a barrier for someone sharing their experience because they say, well,

00:29:37.600 everyone thought I was such a strong woman. I had it together. It couldn't possibly happen to someone

00:29:42.580 like me, but it does. It can happen to anybody. There's no particular profile when it comes to the

00:29:49.760 victim. And yes, I think we carry these stereotypes in our head about the type of person that will suffer

00:29:56.700 and be subjected to domestic abuse and coercive control. But there is no type. But with the

00:30:03.100 perpetrator, there is more of a psychopathology. It is about them needing to control things,

00:30:09.280 needing to have things their way. You know, and some women would tell me they have to win at all costs.

00:30:15.980 And these are some of the key things that when I'm listening to women describe what's happening to

00:30:21.140 them, they have to win at all costs. It's their way or the highway, you know, for them,

00:30:26.320 it's no way at all. And it ends when I say it ends. And we will live together as man and wife

00:30:32.320 until I decide otherwise. That tells me really there's only one person in the relationship.

00:30:41.740 What's fascinating about this, and this is a serious problem and well worth discussing. I'm glad

00:30:46.280 we're doing it, obviously. But as I listen to this, not a ton of this relates in my mind

00:30:52.840 to Alec Murdoch or Chris Watts or this guy, Joe McDonald. And we can outline the details of

00:31:00.080 those second two cases. I mean, I think most people at this point understand what happened

00:31:03.140 with Alec Murdoch. But in case you don't, he was just found guilty of murdering his wife and his son,

00:31:07.920 his 22-year-old son. He shot them both. Shot his son, Paul, in the face. Shot his son's head off,

00:31:15.220 was the testimony. Shot his wife, Maggie, at least five times. It was a painful death.

00:31:21.880 And was this very well-respected attorney, fourth generation, money, law. His whole family had been

00:31:27.920 the solicitors in this so-called low country in South Carolina. And that means like the chief

00:31:34.580 prosecutor. So they really were the law. And he had a decent amount of dough. We later found out he was

00:31:41.440 on drugs or so he said. Had tons of money problems. He'd been stealing all this money from his law

00:31:46.080 firm. So his life was imploding. But just on paper, the guy looked like he had it all together. And

00:31:51.280 I listened to the whole trial. There was no allegation of domestic abuse. There was definitely

00:31:56.400 outside of the trial an allegation that he cheated on her. That did not wind up in front of the jury.

00:32:02.060 The sister of Maggie, the murder victim, said that she was happy. She said, you know,

00:32:07.480 they had the problems, but she was happy. So, you know, it wasn't, there was no evidence of a

00:32:12.060 controlling personality when it came to her, I guess. I mean, not that you'll tell me, but,

00:32:16.160 and then the son, of course, I don't, this son had gotten him in trouble. The son had been driving

00:32:21.940 the boat in his fatal boat crash that killed a 19 year old girl, Mallory Beach. They were being sued

00:32:26.060 for. It was really upending Alex's life. But I just, let's start there. Do you see coercive

00:32:33.320 control in the Alec Murdoch case? Yes. And the clue is in the fact that he

00:32:40.560 controlled everything. Their family controlled everything. That name in that region is a very

00:32:47.600 powerful name. And we mustn't lose track of that. They created the laws. They were the law,

00:32:53.340 right? So he always got his way. And that's a very important point because when someone always gets

00:32:59.220 their way, they don't have to be irate or upset about something because they can just control

00:33:06.600 things through their power, their personal power, but also their family power. And just looking at

00:33:12.080 what happened with Paul and what a horrific situation with Mallory on the boat. And I first

00:33:17.980 just want to say, you know, she really is the primary victim, the first victim, and that Paul put the

00:33:24.420 boat into gear, having assorted his ex-girlfriend and assorted her in front of everybody. And that

00:33:31.280 was the first time that others saw that he was abusing her. Well, where did he learn that behavior

00:33:36.240 from of abusing her? Multiple times. It was a whole history. He was 22 or he was younger then,

00:33:42.940 but he was abusing her. And she gave testimony about horrific abuse that she suffered. Well,

00:33:48.840 where did he learn that from? And his entitlement was-

00:33:51.280 Yeah. She's now in a special talking all about it. I saw it too. It was chilling. And it was

00:33:55.780 repeated. And horrific abuse. And I applaud her for speaking out, but I don't think the apple falls

00:34:03.080 far from the tree. And he's learned that behavior somewhere in his name. He's learned that he calls

00:34:08.500 his granddad up and his dad, and they fix everything for him. So there's no accountability,

00:34:13.780 no responsibility taking. And that's what that family have been doing for generations because they

00:34:18.540 were the law and people were scared of them. And I've spoken to people in that area. They've told

00:34:23.620 me this themselves. So we mustn't forget the name and their wealth and what that means to

00:34:29.240 what they can have power over and who they can have power over. And here you have a situation where

00:34:36.040 Paul and that particular civil case, well, all of that was coming home to roost in that the accounts

00:34:43.660 were going to be audited and they were part of that civil trial and they had been requested.

00:34:49.320 And Alec had also been challenged by the chief financial officer to the tune of $800,000 going

00:34:56.540 missing in legal fees. And he was challenged about that. So his world is starting to unravel. Maggie had

00:35:04.760 left him. She was living in the beach house. She wasn't living at Moselle. So there's separation. And we

00:35:10.240 know that with separation, 76% of murders happen at the point of separation. And when Alec had actually

00:35:16.840 messaged her to say, I want to meet up with you, she had texted her sister saying, I wonder what he's

00:35:21.380 up to. You know, he's up to something. And that's why she goes to meet him up at the kennels. But there

00:35:27.900 were rumours that she wanted a divorce. There were rumours that she had a forensic accountant coming in

00:35:32.940 and things were unravelling. And therefore he is now in a situation where he feels like he's losing

00:35:39.980 control. Well, that can be a catastrophic set of circumstances for a man who is a lawyer. So let's

00:35:47.240 not forget equally, you know, a good trial lawyer, someone who's very good at reading people and

00:35:52.100 situations and up until this point has not got into trouble. But I believe he was trying to control the

00:35:58.800 situation and the narrative. He was trying to control Paul and he was angry at him, hence the

00:36:04.080 injuries and crime scene assessment. We look at, I look at how someone's killed because that paints a

00:36:10.760 picture, the way that he was killed and the way Maggie was. And he was the one that was there at that

00:36:16.800 time. That was proven through Snapchat, through the videos that Paul took him and Maggie talking. So he

00:36:22.580 lied about being present, but he was there. And he lied about whether he checked their pulses or not. He

00:36:28.160 didn't have time to check their pulses and he'd changed his clothes. So this to me is somebody

00:36:33.280 who is very controlling, very manipulative. And of course, there are 99 charges that are still

00:36:40.160 outstanding, the financial charges. So for me, this is a, and I don't like to use the word classic,

00:36:46.400 but it is a classic domestic violence murder. And yes, there's debt, there's money issues and so on.

00:36:51.760 And it was unravelling, but it's got all the hallmarks. And, you know, in terms of psychopathy

00:36:56.780 traits where they all seem to be there, particularly lack of empathy and remorse and responsibility

00:37:02.400 taking. Yes. Well, let's go there because this is what the, I don't get it. I don't get how,

00:37:09.000 because they showed the family videos of the birthday parties and everyone seemed to really

00:37:14.240 love him. His kids seemed to really love him. He seemed to show love for his children as well.

00:37:19.760 I don't know that he was in the running for father of the year, but there was testimony that they seem

00:37:23.760 like a very loving family. It wasn't outwardly, at least perceived by anybody who took that witness

00:37:29.380 stand as a damaged, dysfunctional family in, in the sense of abuse or in that, in that sense.

00:37:38.120 So what makes a man... But it depends what you're looking for, doesn't it, Megan?

00:37:41.540 Totally. It is to the point, you know, that we've been discussing for 40 minutes, but

00:37:44.580 what makes a man who, I'm just going to say that he did love his son, Paul. I don't know how he felt

00:37:49.380 about Maggie, but I'm going to say he loved his son. Like, I don't know, maybe not, maybe he's

00:37:54.680 not capable of, how can a man who does love his son shoot his head off like that one day, you know,

00:38:01.200 seemingly out of the blue? Well, my first question before we get to that one is why was Paul drinking

00:38:08.500 to such excess? You know, a kid who's drinking that amount of alcohol to blot stuff out tells me

00:38:15.900 there's more that's going on. And I don't profess to know the family. That is such a good point. Can I

00:38:18.800 just say, no one's asking that? That's like all the coverage I have done of this case and listened

00:38:23.340 to of this case. No one, I have yet to hear anybody ask that question. That's a very good question.

00:38:29.140 Because he wasn't just drinking to socialize, was he? He was drinking to absolute excess that

00:38:34.120 his friend said that this Timmy character came out, this very angry, abusive drunk. Why was he

00:38:40.720 drinking to that level? And why were his family letting him? That tells me a lot. And if I were

00:38:47.900 to go in and ask questions, I think I'd probably uncover a lot, well, a different story and the

00:38:52.960 narrative to this happy, healthy family dynamic. Because there's nothing healthy in a young boy not

00:39:00.360 taking responsibility for his actions and a grandfather and a father who are just happy to

00:39:06.060 sweep it all under the carpet, no matter how bad, no matter who gets injured and hurt. You know,

00:39:12.240 there's very little empathy or care for anybody else other than them. It's all about circling the

00:39:18.020 wagons and protecting themselves, even when Mallory died. And I do think that that is the biggest fear

00:39:25.080 and threat for Alec Murdoch is all of it is unraveling. And it's about the reflection on him. He wants to

00:39:32.420 do what he's always done, which is circle the wagons, close everybody down, shut everything,

00:39:37.600 take their voices away so that no one says what's really gone on. But it is all about to come out in

00:39:43.200 a civil case, particularly the forensic accounting. So it's all about to be laid bare. And I think that

00:39:49.560 when someone feels they are at that stage and the psychopathology for someone like him,

00:39:54.960 where they're about to lose everything, as he sees it, he's the most important person.

00:39:59.520 And he's eliminating the problem. And the problems are Paul and Maggie, because Maggie's there.

00:40:08.200 So it's all a means to an end, which tells me that there's a high probability that he would score

00:40:15.300 highly on the psychopathy checklist. What kind of questions are on that list?

00:40:20.980 It seems like an interesting list to have, like for your first date.

00:40:24.080 Well, they are. And I do indirect assessments of perpetrators. And particularly when we talk

00:40:30.960 about psychopathy, because one of the traits is that they're a pathological liar, right? So you

00:40:37.600 wouldn't want to rely on them, their self-report, because they lie. And that's everything I've seen

00:40:44.020 about his behavior, right? That's what he did. And superficial charm. That's the first trait that

00:40:51.080 you ask about, where somebody has a glebe sense of charm. It's not really who they are. And charm

00:40:57.060 is very much a manipulator. It's a choice. We're not born with charm. A grandiose estimation of self,

00:41:03.580 so thinking you're bigger and better than who you really are. Pathological liar, proneness to boredom,

00:41:09.800 and impulsivity, manipulation, lack of remorse or guilt, lack of responsibility taking,

00:41:17.660 shallow effect and superficial emotional response to things. So oftentimes the emotional range is

00:41:25.900 very limited. So with family annihilators, that's what I tend to see. Their emotional range

00:41:31.840 is limited. Parasitic lifestyle, sexual promiscuity. So if there's infidelity, I'm

00:41:38.120 always very interested in that.

00:41:39.640 Mm-hmm. Happened in all three cases. All three that I mentioned, Murdoch, Watts, and McDonald.

00:41:44.800 Well, and it's often they want what they want. And like with Chris Watts, who's in a relationship

00:41:50.380 with Nicky, and lots of people blamed her, where actually it's his behavior, it's his actions,

00:41:56.300 even though what he did makes no sense in terms of a long-term plan. And perhaps we'll get to that

00:42:02.560 because psychopaths, in fact, I'll say it now, but psychopaths are very good in the moment,

00:42:07.480 but they're not good long-term planners. And they have early behavioral problems and lack of realistic

00:42:13.840 long-term goals. So that's what I was talking to with good in the moment, but not very good on a

00:42:19.560 longer-term basis. Can I just jump in and ask you a quick about one you said before, that shallow

00:42:23.940 affect? What do you mean? Yeah. So again, it's a very superficial sense of a reaction to things

00:42:31.880 because they can be chameleon-esque. So what they tend to do is mimic other people, particularly

00:42:39.340 when it comes to empathy. So they will describe things like Chris Watts did. He said, I was bawling

00:42:44.080 my eyes out. Well, if you're crying, tell us the emotion of that crying, not describing the crying.

00:42:52.060 And when he first interacted with law enforcement when they appeared, everything was shallow effect.

00:42:56.020 There was no, he described having emotions, but he didn't show us the emotion. There was no sign of

00:43:02.920 him crying. This reminds me of a show I did when I was on NBC. I call it the Mothers of Sparta show.

00:43:08.320 It's a long story, but essentially it was mothers of sociopaths. It was mothers of teenage sociopaths

00:43:14.100 and the mothers knew, the mothers knew. And we're jumping up and down saying, I am the mother of the

00:43:19.660 next school shooter. I'm telling you, there's no place for me to go. I can't get help. Nobody will take

00:43:24.000 this person. They haven't yet committed a crime, but they can't yet be committed civilly. So on.

00:43:28.240 So one of the moms was saying her 16 year old who was obsessed with child pornography. She knew she

00:43:36.500 was, she was at her wit's end. She was trying to get him help or arrested at that point. She said

00:43:43.240 he was doing better because he was learning how to feign empathy. She's like, you know, he's,

00:43:50.320 he's doing a little better now because he's learning the, how it looks on someone's face

00:43:55.280 and when to use that facial expression in this certain tone. She saw that as, you know,

00:44:02.240 a possible ticket into the quote, normal world for him. And I just, I never forgot that thinking,

00:44:08.080 is that a good thing?

00:44:09.520 No, is the answer. And, you know, your reaction is right. And, you know, children are taught how

00:44:18.280 to think about emotions when they're little. And I think that is very important, but it's

00:44:22.500 a feeling. It's not a description and it's not a mirror mirroring back of, and yes, that

00:44:29.980 she might be putting it in the positive because maybe she thought that he was getting a sense

00:44:34.660 of the feeling rather than just acting the emotion. And that is one of the clear signs

00:44:41.040 of psychopathy. And we know it when we see it, when someone's not authentic in that feeling,

00:44:46.020 that's everything I saw about Chris Watts, describing emotion, not feeling it. There was

00:44:50.840 no point where he said, I just can't bear this. She's got lupus. I'm so worried. She's got the

00:44:56.380 children. What, okay. You're giving me your business card, but where are you going to go?

00:45:00.220 And what are you going to do? We've got to find her. There was no emotion at all. He had cognitive

00:45:05.080 load because he just remembered everything that he was meant to do and say. And that's why it was

00:45:09.980 a very inauthentic interaction right from the start. I'm going to show a soundbite from him in

00:45:14.920 one second, but I want to let you finish your list. I interrupted because that shallow affect

00:45:19.300 sounded interesting to me. So you keep going. Yes. But the next one actually, Megan, relates to

00:45:23.720 exactly what you just said, juvenile delinquency. So when, you know, a kid's constantly getting into

00:45:28.460 trouble. And yes, mums do know. And what I will say is that when mums reach out for help, you know,

00:45:34.440 there really is a problem, you know, because fierce mama bears, you know, I'm a mama, you want to

00:45:40.140 protect your child. And, you know, oftentimes they may be protected, but, and we've seen that with

00:45:46.800 Gabby Petito and Brian Laundrie, right, to the nth degree where they say that they love Gabby and she was

00:45:53.320 like a daughter to them, but yet she doesn't return any of the Petito family's calls to where

00:45:58.240 is Gabby when Brian returns home in their daughter's van, not even in his own van without

00:46:04.200 his fiance. So there we've got a clear example of a mom and dad protecting some, but, you know,

00:46:11.380 equally, if you have somebody saying, I need help. And it's because of all these traits that I'm

00:46:16.060 seeing, that's when we can actually work together to intervene and prevent something more serious

00:46:23.420 happening and help with someone's psychosocial development. So yeah, the juvenile delinquency,

00:46:29.420 short term extramarital relationships, irresponsibility, I think I said, and impulsivity

00:46:35.020 and criminal revocation, breaching orders. So not ever able to control their impulsivity

00:46:44.300 and criminal versatility. So if they score 30 or over, um, they're a psychopath. And unfortunately,

00:46:52.940 there are more than what Dr. Hare originally, uh, said about 1% in the population, because we rarely

00:46:59.800 screen, um, for psychopathy. I think it's a really important thing that professionals really

00:47:10.520 do up their game, particularly when we're talking about domestic violence, because some of the

00:47:14.340 individuals we've talked about, I believe are psychopaths. And right now there isn't a cure

00:47:20.100 for psychopathy. That's not that some psychologists say, well, just because we haven't found it yet,

00:47:24.840 it doesn't mean to say that it doesn't exist. Do you, is there a distinction for you between

00:47:30.620 sociopaths and psychopaths?

00:47:33.040 Yes. I mean, you know, the, the lack of, um, empathy is the biggest tell of a psychopath.

00:47:40.120 I mean, sociopaths don't believe the rules apply to them. And, you know, there is a diagnostic test

00:47:45.600 again that you can do. They don't believe the rules apply to them, but they tend to understand

00:47:50.820 what they're doing is wrong and they may still have empathy, but with psychopathy, they genuinely do not

00:47:56.580 feel. They have no ability to put themselves in that other person's shoes and feel, you know,

00:48:02.880 upset or distressed. That's why appealing to them just doesn't work or a victim's family,

00:48:07.120 but tell us where her body is. You know, they won't emote at all. They won't have that feeling.

00:48:12.840 Um, so empathy is the biggest flag out of the 20 that somebody is a psychopath.

00:48:19.220 Would you say Alex Murdoch is a psychopath?

00:48:21.880 I mean, I have to be careful here because I haven't indirectly assessed him of putting together

00:48:28.080 everything that others who know him best, because you, I rely on the, the, the people in that person's

00:48:34.520 life to report on everything they know about that person. Um, but seeing the lack of empathy, again,

00:48:42.740 the fact he can sit there in court, the fact, everything that he did thereafter and the way that

00:48:48.300 even when an officer appeared, the first responder to that call, um, he basically said, how are you

00:48:55.620 doing? And just went into this mode of chatting normally to him when his wife and son had been

00:49:01.840 brutally murdered and he's approaching it. How are you doing? All very casual. Um, and then getting

00:49:07.700 out just like Chris Watts, getting out the narrative that he needs to convey and seeing very little

00:49:14.740 emotion and what emotion he did show in court. I don't believe the jurors bought it. I think they

00:49:20.540 felt that that was shallow effect. It wasn't authentic. It didn't seem authentic to me. I have

00:49:25.680 to say, but people emote in different ways, but everything that happened after the shooting,

00:49:30.560 he alleged that he was shot and came out with this whole narrative that seemed to connect with

00:49:35.360 the first narrative when he said it was, you know, revenge because of Paul's crash. That's what he

00:49:41.340 said originally to the first responder as to why Maggie and Paul were dead. And he seemed to have

00:49:46.500 this story that he was sticking to, but a real lack of empathy and, uh, you know, devastation

00:49:53.200 for the fact that Maggie and Paul are dead. It's comforting to know that there is a checklist,

00:49:59.360 you know, because you don't want to think, I'm sure there's a lot of people out there thinking,

00:50:03.400 am I married to a psychopath? How do I know? Like, because Alec Murdoch was such an effective

00:50:08.000 manipulator, as you point out, that's a common trait that the, that they have. All these people

00:50:12.540 were taking this stand and saying, I fell totally duped. I feel like I did not know him at all.

00:50:18.040 Once his terrible financial crimes came out, I mean, taking care of kids who had just lost their

00:50:22.180 mother, taking care of kids with cancer, you know, kids in terrible car accidents and so on.

00:50:26.860 These people say, I just, I, I had no idea who he actually was. And so there'll be a lot of people

00:50:31.420 thinking, am I married to somebody who I don't actually know, but there's a long list. And so you've got to be

00:50:36.980 able to tick off a bunch of these things, um, before you get to the point of, I might be with

00:50:42.120 a psychopath. Um, this is all like amazing. Let's talk about Chris Watts because we mentioned him a

00:50:46.980 few times and I'm sure the audience is looking for a reminder on him and his story. So this was

00:50:51.820 Colorado, um, 90, I want to get the, get it in front of me. Hold on a second. That's page 18. I think,

00:50:58.580 uh, Colorado, 2018 and, uh, Frederick, Colorado. He was 33 and he strangled his wife,

00:51:06.300 34 year old, uh, Shanann Watts, who was 15 weeks pregnant with their third child. Who was a boy.

00:51:11.940 They had two girls. They had a three-year-old daughter, Celeste and a four-year-old daughter,

00:51:17.060 Bella. And this guy, this relationship, this whole story so confuses me again, I've gone down the

00:51:23.260 rabbit hole on this. Look at him. He's a good looking guy. He had a job. It wasn't like a,

00:51:30.400 like a surgeon, like we're going to get to with Jeff McDonald. Um, he was, he worked at the Weld

00:51:36.260 County oil site and she had a good job too. Middle-class family, um, had some financial

00:51:43.060 problems, but not overwhelming, uh, and pervasive had what looked like the perfect family, the

00:51:49.920 neighbors and the Netflix documentary. I think it was described in that they were saying like,

00:51:53.460 I watched Chris Watts. I thought I got to up my game as a parent. I got to spend more time with my

00:51:58.660 kids. Got to get out there and throw the ball with him. Look at him. Look at this guy.

00:52:02.920 He, according to the reports was the more subservient one. I'm not sure if that's the

00:52:10.220 right word, but she seemed more dominant than he did. She seemed more in control in terms of family

00:52:15.820 decision-making. You know, this is where I want to live. This is what I want for the girls. This is

00:52:20.940 what I want you to do. And he seemed more of like a yes man than someone who is engaging in coercive

00:52:28.080 control. This is my lay person's opinion. You can take this apart in a second. That's my approach.

00:52:31.480 My, my, my takeaway watching it. Then he's loses a bunch of weight. It's never a good sign

00:52:37.600 in a marriage, loses a bunch of weight and starts an affair with a coworker. And his wife,

00:52:43.400 Shanann goes away with the girls for six weeks to visit family in North Carolina. He falls for this

00:52:49.100 other woman pretty hard. And we know, I think it's from his Google searches that he was Googling things

00:52:56.480 like, when do you say, I love you? Like what, what does it feel like to, to be in love? Weird

00:53:03.480 searches that a normal person would not be doing that are definitely a flag. And then the wife comes

00:53:10.480 back from the business trip at two in the morning. She'd been with the girlfriends on a, on a true

00:53:14.360 business trip, comes back at two in the morning. And what we know is now, because he ultimately confessed,

00:53:19.920 he strangled her to death. They had a, they had a fight. They had some sort of an argument.

00:53:25.520 He strangled her to death. He says he took his two daughters who were alive in the backseat of the

00:53:32.840 truck over their dead mother's body, which was on the floor of the backseat, drove to the oil site,

00:53:40.740 smothered his three-year-old and his five-year-old. The five-year-old said, are you going to do to me

00:53:47.100 what you just did is to CC the three-year-old and said, daddy, no, it's too horrific to even

00:53:54.100 really conjure. And he did it anyway. He did it anyway. And then he disposed of the daughter's

00:54:00.940 bodies in the oil tanks, put one in one oil tank and one in the other. So gruesome. He could even

00:54:08.100 describe the sound of their little bodies hitting the liquid and buried his wife in a shallow grave

00:54:16.000 nearby. This guy who had friends, who again was perceived by some as his model father who doesn't

00:54:25.320 have some long criminal history. I don't get it. And I, I'm desperate to get it. Would you help me

00:54:31.660 get it? Yes. And I think the way you describe it, you know, again, people should remember what he did

00:54:38.880 and what he said he did too. And he has changed his narrative at least four times, but the way that

00:54:45.660 he described putting their bodies into that oil tanker, I believe that version of what happened.

00:54:51.380 And for us all to think about the fear and the terror that the children must feel, having seen what

00:54:57.560 happened, I believe Bella saw what happened to her mom. And then having this sense that these horrific

00:55:04.820 things are going to happen to you at the hands of your daddy, someone who's meant to care,

00:55:10.040 love you and look after you. And those moments are just so haunting. And I think when we, when we

00:55:17.840 understand how the media characterized him as a good father, a good dad, this, you know, perfect,

00:55:23.720 dutiful husband. And of course there were all these different videos of Shanann because her business was on

00:55:29.760 Facebook of her and she was described as bossy and, oh, this nagging woman and too strong. And

00:55:37.600 instantly we get into the victim blame and the empathy of excusing what he did. And that is

00:55:44.880 everything wrong with the way these cases are not only understood, but the way that they're talked

00:55:50.760 about in the media. And when we think about when Chris and Shanann first got together, she was very ill

00:55:56.760 with lupus and she was heavily dependent on him. She thought he was her savior. And that's what she

00:56:03.140 said. She couldn't have got by without him. So the relationship dynamic was very different. She was

00:56:09.200 wholly dependent on him. They got married. She didn't know whether she could have children. And then by a

00:56:14.000 miracle, because of lupus, she had two children, two girls. And then the relationship dynamic started to

00:56:21.940 change. And she started to work more and yes, they had debt. And that's another important point,

00:56:28.000 but the dynamic shifted and she was working, she was going out. She was no longer as dependent on him.

00:56:35.480 And as you described, you know, the dynamic shift and that can happen in a relationship.

00:56:40.780 He then starts this thrive program, which is something that she's advocating for as well as part

00:56:46.660 of her business. And he starts to lose all this weight. And then he starts to feel himself more and he's

00:56:51.540 taking this introvert is now becoming someone quite different. Even Shanann said that she didn't

00:56:57.340 know. He was taking videos of himself working out. And then he meets Nikki and he falls for her hook,

00:57:04.600 line and sinker. He's writing her these love notes at a time where Shanann is sensing that things are

00:57:09.640 going terribly wrong in their relationship. And then she finds out she's pregnant. And maybe that

00:57:14.920 pregnancy is used as a way to try and bring them closer. But of course, what we know is that babies

00:57:20.920 don't tend to bring you closer. They tend to add more stress and pressure. And he,

00:57:26.340 by other people's opinions, didn't want the baby. They had a gender reveal party that was cancelled

00:57:31.560 and she sensed that he didn't want the baby. And even the video of them announcing the baby,

00:57:37.300 he just clearly wasn't happy about the whole thing. And you can say he was shy on camera,

00:57:43.980 but you can see that he was not excited about it. He cancelled this gender reveal.

00:57:48.180 He was seeing Nikki. He wanted to invest in that relationship. He told Nikki that he

00:57:53.320 had separated or was separating from Shanann, which wasn't happening. And Shanann goes off.

00:58:02.600 She's writing these letters to him saying, I'll do anything to fix it. Tell me what you need,

00:58:07.140 Chris. And he's withholding sex from her. He is completely out of the relationship and she's

00:58:14.000 desperate to restore the relationship. And his attention is elsewhere. He's doing these Google

00:58:18.780 searches. When do you tell someone that you're in love with them or how? Well, that tells you about

00:58:23.220 shallow effect. It's not really a feeling because you just say it and you do it. You don't research it

00:58:29.900 to understand it. Right. So that's the shallow effect. Well, what did you make of his? This is

00:58:39.580 my own antiquated notion of control. You know, I didn't feel like he was the one controlling because

00:58:46.840 she's writing him these notes like, I've been gone for six weeks. You haven't, you've called me twice.

00:58:52.180 You'd think a man would want to talk to his wife and daughters. And he writes back,

00:58:56.400 you're so right. I'm so sorry. I love you, honey. I'll do better. All of his notes back during that

00:59:04.860 six week period. And this is all leading up to the murder. It's right before he murders them.

00:59:09.500 He's, you know, he's using the emojis. He's really, you know, kind of sweet. Yes, he's ignoring her,

00:59:15.780 but when he texts, it always seems to be from like a beta role, you know, that just how I read those

00:59:22.660 texts. And the reason I found it alarming is it just didn't sound like someone who's going to go

00:59:26.920 commit a murder. I don't know what somebody sounds like who's going to go commit a triple murder, but

00:59:30.640 I just don't picture them using emojis. And so where am I going wrong?

00:59:36.160 Well, they tend to be very cool, calm and collected, actually. Every case I've seen when we've had even

00:59:41.520 CCTV footage of them in the act, it's cool, calm and collected. But where are you going wrong? I

00:59:48.200 wouldn't say you're going wrong. You're interpreting what you're seeing. But my interpretation would be

00:59:52.740 he's managing her. He's manipulating her. He's keeping her at arm's length, telling her what she

00:59:58.320 needs to hear to get off his back because he's cheating on her. He's going sand dune surfing with

01:00:04.260 Nikki. He clearly wants to be with Nikki. He's telling Nikki that he's going to leave Shanann.

01:00:10.340 Nikki suspects he's cheating on her because as women, we know, we know the signs. We may not tell

01:00:17.560 people about it, but Shanann actually did. She did go to that conference after that trip. And that's

01:00:23.440 where she was when she came back at one o'clock or whatever it was. She had found that on their

01:00:29.220 credit card, because they didn't have much money, there was, I think it was something like $60 that

01:00:33.040 the lazy dog had been spent. She believed it was, she was cheating. He was cheating on her. I believe

01:00:40.380 that she came back to confront him because she came back early and her best friend said she wasn't

01:00:45.520 herself. At the conference, she was just really out of sorts. She wasn't eating. She was really

01:00:51.040 upset. And I believe she came back to confront him. And it's at the point of being confronted.

01:00:57.300 He says that he pushed her off of him or he, yeah, he put, he got himself off of her. And I believe

01:01:04.320 that they were having sex. There was some attempt to restore the relationship, but his account, he said,

01:01:09.520 I told her I didn't love her and I didn't want to be with her anymore. And I pushed her away and I

01:01:15.100 found my hands around her neck. Well, even that account is inauthentic because you don't just

01:01:19.900 find your hands around someone's neck and it takes minutes, not seconds to strangle someone

01:01:24.940 and asphyxiate them and kill them. And the girls were shallow sleepers. And I believe one of them

01:01:29.660 came in and he took those decisions. That was all on him. And it may not have been someone that was

01:01:36.100 something that was premeditated, but it unfolded. And the worst thing that he then did was put,

01:01:42.580 load Shanann into the car and load the two girls into the car. And he had 45 minutes to make the

01:01:49.820 right decision. But he took those two girls with their mother dead in the car and he then strangles

01:01:56.560 them and asphyxiates them one by one and then disposes of their body as if they're rubbish, as if

01:02:02.320 they're just trash. And he buries Shanann. And it's in those moments that he makes those decisions,

01:02:08.900 but he carries on the lie. Even when the police are called, he's carrying on the lie. She was 15

01:02:15.360 weeks pregnant. You know, there was no care or concern. My wife's mission, she's got lupus, 15

01:02:20.880 weeks pregnant. My two girls, everything was about maintenance and he was cool, calm and collected.

01:02:26.840 And it was the neighbour who spotted his behaviour, who said that he's more animated than usual,

01:02:32.280 that he pulled the car up, the truck up to the door. And it was the neighbour saying,

01:02:37.260 I don't know, there's something, it's just not right. I don't know.

01:02:40.160 The neighbour was a star.

01:02:42.080 He's saying they argued and she just left with the children. Well, there was no evidence

01:02:45.500 that she had just left with the children. Her phone was there, the car was there. How would

01:02:49.820 she even be able to get the children out without the car? Where would she go? It was all lies,

01:02:55.860 but it was the neighbour on his behaviour who spotted that everything he was saying and doing

01:03:01.840 was not accurate. And then he pulls the video up to show the police. And then you see Chris

01:03:06.200 looking very awkward. But he, I don't believe, planned the whole event in terms of killing

01:03:13.240 Shanann. She confronted him and I think she probably said to him, I'm leaving you and I'm

01:03:18.980 taking the children. And it's at that point.

01:03:21.100 He said that, right? You'll never see your, he said, she said something to the effect of,

01:03:24.260 you'll never see the children again. Of course, you know, if she thinks he's cheating on her and

01:03:28.000 the marriage is falling apart and he's trying to leave her, that's the kind of thing

01:03:30.740 a wife and mother might say. Yeah. And a good father would say, well,

01:03:37.920 look, we have to work this out, but I don't want to be with you anymore. And we have to work the

01:03:42.580 children out of who, you know, and when we get custody. But let's talk about that another time,

01:03:48.140 but let's separate for now. But that's not what he did. He put his hands around her neck. He

01:03:53.380 strangled her for a period of minutes to the point that she wasn't just unconscious,

01:03:57.420 that she was dead and she was carrying his baby. And then he took the two girls and put them in

01:04:02.860 the car and he chose to kill them too. And he could have made very different choices.

01:04:08.120 There were other choices on the table, but if I can't have you, no one will.

01:04:12.800 Is that psychopathy? Is it evil? Like, I don't understand. I even get, forgive me,

01:04:18.000 I don't know, just about it. I get killing the wife. I mean, like anybody who listens to Dateline

01:04:22.220 knows it, that happens all the time. I don't, I don't understand what can then make you

01:04:29.740 kill your three-year-old and your five-year-old in the manner that we've just been discussing.

01:04:34.740 What is that?

01:04:38.280 Yes. Well, only he and those men who do it know it, but I believe that it, for Chris Watts,

01:04:43.700 it was about wiping them all out. And he believed that he had a chance of a new relationship with

01:04:49.020 Nicky. And in his mind, although it makes no sense to anybody else, that that's why he took

01:04:54.800 the choices that he did. And of course it's with catastrophic consequences, but this wasn't in

01:05:01.940 Red Mist. This wasn't a moment where he makes a decision. It's over 45 minutes plus where he makes

01:05:08.340 those choices and then he sticks to that story. And there were other choices that he could have made,

01:05:13.400 but he didn't. And that tells me about him. That tells me about the type of person he really

01:05:18.640 is. And I have scored him on the psychopathy checklist and he scores lower than 20, but I

01:05:24.440 don't have all the information available. But what I did see was the lack of empathy and that he was

01:05:30.160 even flirting with one of the CBI officers who was interviewing him and he was attempting to

01:05:35.580 manipulate. And that's why he changed his story multiple times. He believed that he was capable of

01:05:41.240 getting away with it. And that's what he was trying to do.

01:05:43.840 Hmm. Let's show the audience a clip of him. This was before he confessed and he was still

01:05:51.620 playing the game with the media of, I have no idea where they went. They just, she took off with the

01:05:56.380 children, you know, in the middle of the night. Uh, here's Chris Watts before his confession.

01:06:00.740 Um, I hope that she's somewhere safe right now and with the kids, but I mean, could she have been,

01:06:09.620 could she just taken off? I don't know. But if somebody has her and they're not safe, like I want

01:06:14.500 them back now. My God, that is so obviously untrue and not how a real grieving father and husband would

01:06:23.600 not authentic at all. And that's where you would be pressing to get more answers from him. You know,

01:06:33.500 she's pregnant, 15 weeks pregnant and with lupus with his two daughters. And I do believe he felt he

01:06:40.200 could control the narrative and that he could control other people and manipulate them. So the

01:06:45.680 question is, did we ever really know, or, you know, did anyone really know who Chris Watts was? Is this

01:06:50.880 really who he is now? And this was him. And that's what he was masking, you know, for many years. And

01:06:56.660 he didn't let people in because of who he truly was. And that's what I believe, what we're seeing

01:07:02.320 after the fact, that's him, him making those choices, those decisions.

01:07:06.960 Don't you think it's like a Scott Peterson situation?

01:07:09.520 Yes, I do. And I've talked about Lacey and Connor Peterson. Again, she was pregnant and the choices that he

01:07:15.360 made where there were other choices on the table, but they're the choices that he made. And that's

01:07:22.100 why he's still in prison. And that's where he must remain.

01:07:25.160 What do you make of the fact that Chris Watts, when he did confess, he was forced to confess.

01:07:29.640 Let's not kid ourselves. I mean, they had him that, that, that the woman who ran the lie detector

01:07:34.080 on him was, she was crazy good. I mean, she was, she put him at ease. She was, oh, this is all just

01:07:39.220 fun. You know, you know, the truth, one of us knows the truth. And now we're both about to know the

01:07:43.340 truth. I thought she did a great job and she did with, along with her partner, extract the

01:07:47.500 confession, but they had a lot of evidence. You know, they had the GPS. They knew what he had

01:07:50.920 taken. He'd gone to the oil tanks. Uh, they had a lot. So he winds up confessing. They bring in his

01:07:55.980 dad. He confesses to his dad. And in that moment is one of the themes of our discussion has been

01:08:01.980 the blaming of the woman. What did she do? What'd she do in that moment? Listen to what he said.

01:08:08.600 I know you're familiar. Play it for the audience. Here's his confession.

01:08:13.340 You lost it and you choked her or what? Asked the dad.

01:08:18.760 Rage.

01:08:19.860 I'm bad.

01:08:20.380 Rage.

01:08:24.640 Good God, I'm not a son.

01:08:26.780 My babies are gone.

01:08:32.340 And, uh, I put my hands around my wife's neck and did that. Same thing.

01:08:38.180 So it's hard to understand there, but what he's saying is she, Shanann killed my babies. So I put

01:08:47.380 my hands around her neck and did the same thing to her in that moment of confession. He's blaming

01:08:52.680 Shanann.

01:08:53.920 Which tells you everything you need to know about him. You know, it's very rare for a woman to behave

01:08:59.280 in, in that way. And under these circumstances, it's highly unlikely, but he was happy for Shanann to

01:09:04.820 take the blame for his actions and his behavior. And later admitted that that wasn't true anyway.

01:09:10.880 So, I mean, we know it was a lie. He's serving, um, life sentences and will not be getting paroled.

01:09:19.460 Let's jump to the case of McDonald, Jeff McDonald. This turned into the book Fatal Vision,

01:09:25.280 which I really recommend. I listened to it via audio. It was done so well by Joe McGinnis.

01:09:31.740 Fascinating story with the book too. Joe McGinnis basically got recruited by McDonald to write the

01:09:36.340 book and then turned on, McGinnis turned on McDonald. I think McDonald thought it was going

01:09:41.460 to be an exonerating type of tome. It wound up going the other way. And, um, McDonald sued

01:09:47.860 McGinnis who did have to pay him some sort of a settlement, um, because I'm, I didn't look deep

01:09:53.360 into it, but I think it's because it was like a breach of contract. They basically suggested you

01:09:56.900 lured him into thinking you were going to make it sound a different way. Anyway, it's a great book.

01:10:01.920 It's very interesting. Um, Jeff McDonald surgeon, uh, went to Princeton, went to Northwestern for his,

01:10:09.700 um, med school, went to Columbia, uh, Presbyterian for his internship, then joined the Green Berets

01:10:17.340 and was serving and training, jumping out of airplanes. It's going to be a surgeon for the army. And then

01:10:23.180 go out into the world, make a bunch of money at Yale. He hoped to get a job at Yale. And his wife,

01:10:27.960 Colette was his high school sweetheart. She was nice, nice lady from all the accounts was also very

01:10:34.660 bright, uh, had been studying in college herself, winds up getting pregnant, which puts her life on

01:10:40.540 hold sacrifices for him. This is back in the sixties. So, you know, the society was kind of set up this

01:10:46.560 way. And they had two beautiful daughters, uh, Kimberly and Chrissy, and they're living right

01:10:54.100 off of campus on, on base, or I think on or off campus on base. And one night in the middle of the

01:11:01.660 night, he kills them. He kills all three of them in a very similar situation, like the wife and the

01:11:08.900 two daughters to the Chris Watts case. This guy has got everything going for him. Um, and by all accounts,

01:11:14.880 a lovely wife, who's very supportive of him and beautiful daughters, same, and says it was hippies

01:11:21.500 that it was a Sharon Tate site type situation where this woman and three men came into the apartment in

01:11:26.480 the middle of the night, stabbed him. He had like a punk, like one puncture wound that a surgeon like

01:11:33.360 McDonald would have known had a place without killing himself. And the women were absolutely

01:11:39.160 slaughtered. The, the, his wife and his two girls absolutely slaughtered with the number of puncture

01:11:43.820 wounds and ice pick. I mean, just absolutely brutal. And they wind up saying first, Oh, we don't

01:11:50.380 have, you know what? He didn't do it. We're going to, we buy the hippie story, but his wife's father

01:11:56.480 would not let go of it. He initially defended McDonald, but when he got a hard look at the

01:12:02.720 evidence that had been submitted to the preliminary hearing turned and spent the rest of his life making

01:12:07.240 sure that the, that the justice was done. And ultimately it was, and Jeff McDonald went to prison,

01:12:12.200 but here's Jeff McDonald on the Dick Cavett show, taking us back now in time to 1970,

01:12:19.100 December 15th. The murders had happened a month earlier. This is a month after his wife. Say again.

01:12:27.960 Okay. Oh, Oh yeah. Okay. It happened in February. The murders happened in February. So it was less

01:12:33.620 than a year later talking about the murders of his wife and daughters as follows.

01:12:37.460 Could you talk about what happened on that, on the night of, uh, on that night last February?

01:12:44.060 Well, um, I can skim through it briefly to get deep into it. Uh, yeah, it does produce a lot of,

01:12:49.660 uh, emotion on my part, but, uh, very briefly, my wife came home and we had a, uh,

01:12:56.640 before bedtime drink really. And, uh, watch the beginning of a late night talk show.

01:13:02.020 He's smiling. The audience is laughing and Laura, he did the thing you said. He said getting into it

01:13:12.300 brings up a lot of emotion, you know, like, trust me, wink, wink, trust me. I'm not actually going

01:13:18.060 to show you that. Yes. I mean, that short clip just reminds me of Scott Peterson and the Diane Sawyer

01:13:26.020 interview where it's clear to me that he thought he, in both situations, they can control and

01:13:31.740 influence and manipulate. And like with Diane Sawyer, I don't know if you saw that interview

01:13:36.900 with Scott Peterson that he did months later, bearing in mind Lacey was still missing and he

01:13:42.500 laughs inappropriately. He smiles inappropriately. He doesn't declaratively say he didn't kill,

01:13:48.040 um, Lacey and Connor and Diane Sawyer is just not buying any of it. I mean,

01:13:53.040 her bullshit detector was pretty well honed and there's an 11 minute clip where it's very clear

01:13:59.360 there was deception. And a lot of the work that I do, I look for indicators for veracity and

01:14:05.400 deception. So without knowing that individual's baseline behavior, but knowing the, did you say

01:14:12.360 he was in the Marines? He was in the military. Yeah. He was a green beret, right? So he's used to

01:14:18.560 power and control. He's used to influencing his intelligence. I can see that he believes that

01:14:25.480 people are going to buy what he's selling, but the leakage that's there is telling us something

01:14:31.040 quite different. And that's why you're always looking for words, actions, behavior that are

01:14:35.660 congruent, but also facial expressions, micro expressions, et cetera. Are they describing the

01:14:41.240 emotion or are they living and feeling the emotion? I mean, you don't talk briefly about and skim

01:14:47.920 through the brief details of your wife and your daughter's absolute slaughter. I've never heard

01:14:53.400 someone say that before, unless they're lying. What about the brutality of the murders? Like that

01:15:00.120 in a way that to me is evidence that he didn't do it. I mean, he did it. I'm not disputing that. I'm

01:15:05.820 just saying no one could believe that somebody would take an ice pick and over and over and over

01:15:11.840 stab their three-year-old. Like this just doesn't, that would lead somebody to believe it had to be an

01:15:16.880 outsider. Do you think that's why those, those murders were so brutal?

01:15:21.360 It's quite possible. I mean, if you choose to use things like that, the point to looking at someone

01:15:27.560 outside the house because of the way it was done. But I don't know the case in detail, but from

01:15:34.200 looking at him and the way that he presents and the fact that he invited a journalist in to write a

01:15:40.080 book that was supposed to exonerate him and the journalist who deep dived into the case. And of course,

01:15:46.660 a lot of investigative journalists are very good at what they do. And the journalist didn't buy it

01:15:51.660 based on the facts and the evidence. And more importantly, the jury didn't buy it based on the

01:15:56.240 facts and the evidence. And all my work is about going on the facts and the evidence. You have to

01:16:00.740 look at everything, forensically deconstruct everything, you know, about the behavior and

01:16:05.460 as well as forensic opportunities. But oftentimes it's not always what's present, it's what's absent.

01:16:11.040 You know, what's absent at the scene or what's absent in terms of emotion and who's trying to

01:16:17.100 control the narrative. You know, and controlling the narrative also is a very interesting thing

01:16:23.320 that I see coercive controllers do after the event, that they want to get their story out there. And

01:16:28.400 oftentimes because they're a man and they're cool, calm and collected, people gravitate to their

01:16:33.200 narrative. But the victims aren't here to tell us otherwise, are they? There's no one alive. His wife

01:16:40.040 can't tell us what happened. That's why the forensics have to tell us what was the sequence

01:16:44.220 of events, what happened. And equally, the dynamics of the relationship. Was she looking to separate?

01:16:49.360 Was she saying to him, I've had enough for whatever reason? Had he abused one of the children,

01:16:54.940 for example, and she said, Colette said, I've had enough and I'm going to leave you.

01:16:59.260 And we know at the point of separation with these coercively controlling men, they want to control

01:17:04.580 the situation. And if I can't have you, no one will. And how dare you make that decision? I'm the

01:17:11.380 one who makes the decisions and it ends when I say it ends and how it ends. And that's equally 76%

01:17:17.160 of the murders happen at the point where the woman says enough.

01:17:20.000 Hmm. That case, according to the book, again, Fatal Vision, the father of Colette, the wife,

01:17:31.240 saw Jeff McDonald go on Dick Cavett, saw him smirking, working the crowd. Again, this is not even a year

01:17:38.340 after the murders. And it was his first turn. You know, like, I might be dealing with a killer.

01:17:46.640 Like, he might actually have killed them and then stayed on him to get the transcript from this

01:17:51.840 preliminary hearing that was done inside the military that determined he didn't do it.

01:17:55.880 And the father poured over these 2000 pages word by word by word and found so many inconsistencies in

01:18:02.500 Jeff's story and started to piece it together. And then these prosecutors went back and did this

01:18:06.980 in-depth investigation of Jeff McDonald to see kind of along the lines of what you're saying,

01:18:11.940 whether these wonderful accounts of him, oh, he's so wonderful at Princeton, wonderful at

01:18:16.260 Northwestern. And the greatest surgeon ever really matched up with, was it really true? If you just

01:18:21.860 dug a little deeper, like you were saying about why was Paul Murdoch drinking so much? Why are the

01:18:26.420 parents allowing that? Dig a little deeper what's there. And they found out he had completely downplayed

01:18:31.720 his number of infidelities. They'd only been married. They were young. He'd been cheating all

01:18:35.440 over the place in disgusting and pervasive ways. He had been seen abusing her. And I know you've

01:18:43.740 called attention to this in particular, uh, at least once seen smacking her across the face,

01:18:48.340 like hands on the face, hands on the neck. I know you've said that's a special red flag.

01:18:56.040 Um, and we saw it in the Gabby Petito case too. Can you speak to that?

01:19:01.280 Yes. Well, any hands going around the face, you know, if a man puts his hands around a woman's face,

01:19:06.540 it covers your nose and your mouth. And that's what Brian Laundrie did to Gabby. And of course,

01:19:11.620 we've seen photographic evidence subsequently that her family's lawyers have released for purpose just

01:19:17.920 before the police were called that showed that she had an injury, but the police didn't follow up when

01:19:22.960 Gabby told them about the hand around the mouth and where the cuts came from. And any attempt to

01:19:29.340 strangle or asphyxiate by a man to a woman, it increases the risk sevenfold. So, and it increases

01:19:36.680 a risk to serious harm and femicide. So it really is a high risk factor. And I would imagine with

01:19:42.340 Colette, whatever was seen or witnessed was probably the tip of the iceberg to what she was really

01:19:47.880 experiencing behind closed doors. And if he were womanizing, cheating on her, disrespecting her,

01:19:54.620 and she had two little girls, she may well have said enough is enough. And with his psychopathology

01:20:01.260 and used to being in control and wanting to be in control. And I would imagine that he's a man who

01:20:07.360 wants to win and things are on his terms and she's there to meet his needs. And how dare she

01:20:13.940 make a decision that is not within her gift to decide. And that could be the point where he then

01:20:22.240 assaults her. It could have been one of the girls. I don't know, but something happened.

01:20:28.160 And with catastrophic consequence. And what a horrific case. And I'm so glad that her father

01:20:35.040 followed his instincts and that he kept asking questions. And that's what I ask all my listeners

01:20:40.380 on Crime Analysts to do. Ask questions, be curious and always trust your instincts. And

01:20:45.900 the people who know someone like Jeff McDonald the best, the father who's observed him in different

01:20:51.860 situations knows when something's not right. And thank goodness he was there to advocate on behalf

01:20:59.060 of his murdered daughter and grandchildren. And sometimes that's exactly what it takes to get to

01:21:04.120 answers, the real answers and the truth of what went on. Just like we saw Chris Watts confessing to

01:21:09.900 his dad when everything is stacked against him and he's got nowhere to go. His dad was the one that

01:21:15.380 ultimately got the answer out of him by flipping it onto Shanann. And then he confesses. So again,

01:21:21.920 the people who know the perpetrator the best, they're the ones who should really be asking

01:21:27.480 questions and working with professionals to make sure the right questions are asked and not to let

01:21:33.440 something go when something seems off. Let's spend a minute on Gabby because, you know,

01:21:39.880 I have to admit to you, I've done a lot of interviews of domestic violence victims. And when

01:21:44.500 I saw that police stop, you know, where she was trying to say he hit me first and so on, I understood

01:21:50.500 what was happening there. But I also felt bad for the cops. I know that's not right. I know the cops did

01:21:55.940 not handle it. We had a whole debate with lawyers on whether they should be sued and so on. I don't

01:22:00.900 know. I had conflicting feelings about it. They seemed like caring individuals. But the truth is they

01:22:07.420 really mishandled that entire scenario. And I'm not blaming them for Gabby's death. But, you know,

01:22:14.060 one can only wonder, had they intervened more aggressively, would it have led to her escape?

01:22:20.600 You know, her, just a different result. Again, not to blame them, but just to call attention to.

01:22:25.960 There's a warning sign here. There's a really clear warning sign in her interaction with these cops.

01:22:30.820 Somebody had called 911. They had said that they had seen a man hit a woman. The cops went,

01:22:35.060 they pulled him over and they found a crying Gabby Petito with a mark on her face. And then

01:22:39.700 we later found out a mark on her neck. And she tried to blame herself. We have, we have a bit of

01:22:48.040 that. Here it is. We want to know the truth if he actually hit you. Because, you know, where did he

01:22:57.000 hit you? Don't, don't worry. Just be honest. Well, he, like, grabs my face. Slap your face or what?

01:23:02.680 Well, like, he, like, grabs me, like, with his nail. And I guess that's why it was, I definitely have a cut right here.

01:23:08.060 Because I can feel it. Yeah.

01:23:09.120 It's a federated burn. She gets really worked up. And when she does, she swings. And she had her cell phone in her hand.

01:23:13.640 So I was just trying to push her away. Well, to be honest, I definitely hit him first.

01:23:17.820 Where'd you hit him? I slapped him.

01:23:19.740 You slapped him first? And then, just on his face?

01:23:23.160 What do you make of that whole thing?

01:23:29.540 Yes, I've spent a long time on crime analysts going through the case and dissecting, forensically,

01:23:35.960 the police stop. Because, of course, it is on their body cam footage. And the first thing that

01:23:42.360 struck me about Gabby was just how emotionally dysregulated she was. And, you know, I trained

01:23:47.760 law enforcement. I wrote the book, Policing Domestic Violence, that's behind me with two police officers

01:23:52.380 when I was at New Scotland Yard. And it's part of the Blackstone Policing Guide series of helping

01:23:58.300 officers ask the right questions and use their powers. And one of the key things is if you've

01:24:04.600 got a victim in trauma, which Gabby was clearly emotionally dysregulated, find out why. And if

01:24:10.460 you've got a perpetrator, and bearing in mind the 911, the call that came in was about, and I'll quote it,

01:24:17.960 a gentleman slapping the woman. Well, that ain't no gentleman for a start. But the point was that

01:24:24.240 the call was a call for assistance because of the male's behaviour, not the female's. And Gabby

01:24:29.240 instantly took responsibility, which a lot of victims do. And therefore, the attempt to separate

01:24:35.800 them was the right one. But putting her in the back of the police car, which is where you put a

01:24:39.920 suspect and shutting her off, wasn't a good move. And keeping Brian out and spending 80% of their time

01:24:46.920 with Brian, who straight away threw Gabby under the bus in attempt to manipulate and control the

01:24:54.240 narrative, I train officers to question that. That is a very clear manipulation. And his narrative should

01:25:02.820 have been challenged, because at no point was it challenged. And he was the first to admit that he

01:25:08.920 had shoved her and that he had locked her out of her van. He took her keys and they did a van check

01:25:15.300 and it was registered to Gabby, not him. He took her keys. He took her phone and he stopped her from

01:25:21.780 getting into her vehicle. And then one of the other callers said that he took her backpack out and had

01:25:27.400 put it on the outside of the van and he'd threatened to drive off and leave her there on her own.

01:25:32.100 So who really is the person with the power and control here? It's very obviously Brian and that

01:25:40.720 she was in fear and she was trying to get her keys and get her phone. She just wanted to be in the van

01:25:47.180 and he was controlling her movements and not allowing her to have the space that she needed to be in her

01:25:53.080 van. And he was threatening to leave her there on her own, a lone female. And that narrative should

01:25:58.420 have been challenged. That case is reminding me of, you know, some of these other cases that we're

01:26:05.860 discussing, like the McDonald one where, oh, Colette, she was so happy. She was this domestic

01:26:10.460 wife of this, you know, Green Beret surgeon and the two little girls. That's what we saw on the

01:26:16.400 outside. And what we also saw in the Gabby case was the van and I love the van and van life and we're

01:26:24.100 doing our yoga. This image that we know was untrue. We were being misled and it's not uncommon at all

01:26:33.880 for the victims of domestic violence or the perpetrators of it to mislead us actively and

01:26:40.140 willingly. Yes, but the clues are there. I mean, when you get two independent male witnesses calling it

01:26:47.880 in because they're concerned, it takes a lot to call the police. Most people don't want to get involved

01:26:52.820 with the police. So for two independent men to say there's a problem, well, that's the first thing

01:26:58.060 that they should pay attention to. What are they being told? Why are they even attending? You know,

01:27:02.500 Officer Robbins did try and do the right thing, but he was a junior officer. He wasn't even through his

01:27:06.920 training period. And Eric Pratt, the supervisor, was the one that made a very quick decision that Gabby was

01:27:13.060 the primary aggressor. Well, actually, I wrote the chapter on primary aggressor because we have

01:27:19.980 the same where you have to be very careful in not just believing the calm, cool, collected male

01:27:28.040 narrative. And oftentimes that's what police attend, a distraught, emotionally dysregulated female

01:27:34.720 and a very calm, cool and collected individual, a male normally. And then they gravitate to that

01:27:42.120 cool, calm, collected male and their narrative rather than thinking, why is this young woman so

01:27:47.580 emotionally dysregulated? This is a disproportionate reaction to what we're being told. And hang on a

01:27:53.400 minute, didn't Brian say she's got this little website? Isn't he devaluing her and saying, oh,

01:27:58.560 she's crazy, making out that she's the crazy one. And even when Officer Robbins tried to challenge him,

01:28:04.800 he again threw it back to Gabby being the problem. So with experience, and that's why supervisors and

01:28:11.680 mentors are very important to check and to challenge. And unfortunately, with misogyny, oftentimes, and

01:28:18.300 those officers, what we saw was, yes, they may look like they are being caring towards Gabby, but they

01:28:25.300 were also very misogynistic and very patronizing and condescending. And, you know, did they not

01:28:31.740 realize that 16 to 24 year olds are the most at risk group of domestic violence and femicide,

01:28:39.740 the women? Because in 2021, 2022 and 23, it's unacceptable for officers not to be trained.

01:28:46.980 So for me, this is a very clear training issue, but the attitudes are also problematic when they

01:28:52.380 instantly go into just believing the male narrative without any challenge. And they put her in the box

01:28:58.560 of just being the hysterical, emotional woman and aren't all women crazy, because that was the subtext

01:29:04.540 between Brian and those officers with their fist pumping. And, oh, these women are, you know, my

01:29:10.200 ex-wife, she's on, she's no longer my wife anymore. And she's on pills because she's so crazy. These are

01:29:17.160 the things that the officers were talking about with Brian. And then they were laughing and joking.

01:29:22.680 And for Gabby, who's in the back of the car, is she hearing them laughing and joking? How does that feel

01:29:27.920 to her when she's just on her own, isolated? And there they all are joking and laughing with Brian

01:29:33.460 that sends a very clear message to her? You know, this is all leading me to recall something you

01:29:40.760 wrote about how we socialize girls all wrong in some ways, you know, be a good girl, go along to

01:29:47.500 get along, don't make waves. You know, the, the pain in the ass girl is somebody nobody wants to be

01:29:52.040 around or promote or work with. Um, we talk about it a lot these days because there are all these

01:29:58.160 teachers who want to have secrets with our kids now. And, you know, a lot of us mothers have been

01:30:03.720 saying, you don't get to have secrets with my child. No adult gets to have secrets with my child. I'd

01:30:09.200 raise my children to, to understand that that's a big red flag, a grownup who wants to have a secret

01:30:14.940 with you. That's how kids get abused. And it's how women get abused. It's just like a common theme that

01:30:20.320 I'm feeling now and listening to you. And I want to leave, I want to leave it on an empowering note

01:30:26.120 so that the people listening to this don't just feel like, Oh, it sucks to be a woman. I'm going to

01:30:32.460 get abused. No one's going to care. The laws don't protect me. I'm going to fall in love, but it's going

01:30:37.500 to turn out to be some abusive psychopath. What, what can women do, right? Like meaningful things that

01:30:44.420 they can do to, to protect themselves, to take control of their own lives and their own safety.

01:30:50.320 Well, I think, you know, girls are groomed to be polite, compassionate, and to put other people's

01:30:57.600 needs above their own. And what we need to do is yes, you can still be polite, but to know your

01:31:02.660 own needs and not be afraid to voice what you need and not be afraid to be difficult because you

01:31:10.460 mentioned the good girl, but those of us who challenge things, we're the difficult ones. We're

01:31:15.020 the ones that, um, tend to run into problems because we're asking the difficult questions.

01:31:21.040 So the things that I always say are to be curious when something doesn't feel right or look right

01:31:26.100 or sound right, be curious and ask questions about the person. Don't just accept their word

01:31:32.000 for it. Don't, you know, ignore what your instinct is telling you. And that's probably the biggest

01:31:38.880 one is trusting your instinct of if something feels right or somebody feels off, you know,

01:31:44.620 every rape case I've worked every time. And I've gone back through the statement, the woman

01:31:48.460 sensed when she was in danger and then she didn't want to upset the person. So she didn't get off

01:31:53.580 the train. She didn't walk across to the other platform or go down a different street. She didn't

01:31:58.900 want to upset the person. So, you know, not being polite in that way to the detriment of our own

01:32:04.580 safety and to always, always trust your instinct. We have more brain cells in our stomach than a dog

01:32:11.540 has in its head. And I've got a rather lovely golden doodle called Beatrice, but my, when my gut's

01:32:16.560 tweaking, it's telling me something. So always listen to that because we can talk Megan and you can,

01:32:22.780 we can try and empower women, but only women can empower themselves, right. To ask the questions,

01:32:29.120 to take action and don't be afraid to ask advice from older people, you know, older mentors,

01:32:36.560 females. I mentor a number of younger women of things that where they say, but is this normal?

01:32:41.520 Is that right? I mean, he says that that's what everybody does of sending pictures, you know,

01:32:47.500 naked pictures, et cetera. But he says, I'm a prude when I don't do it. I mean, should I,

01:32:52.280 you know, my number one rule is never send pictures because you don't know where they're going to end up.

01:32:56.540 So again, just asking, trusting someone, you know, like yourself, myself, and asking those

01:33:02.360 questions from someone who's seen it and done it before and to be mentored. Because I think for

01:33:06.800 younger women, particularly 16 to 24, they're not taught what a healthy relationship is. There's a

01:33:13.040 big information gap. They're taught how to have sex and the mechanics of it, but they're not taught

01:33:18.420 about emotional safety and, you know, being in a healthy relationship of what's healthy versus what's

01:33:25.820 unhealthy. And I think if we were doing that piece, we would be able to spot the behaviors and

01:33:30.820 we'd do it with boys as well, boys and men of what behaviors are they learning that's bad,

01:33:35.800 that they shouldn't be using. And it's early that we want to get into it. Age appropriate

01:33:40.760 discussions, of course. And I agree with you, the secret things is a big problem. You know,

01:33:46.420 that's how pedophiles and sex offenders, how they get the trust of a child that it's a secret

01:33:51.720 between me and you. So teachers should absolutely not be talking about secrets. That's a big

01:33:56.700 safeguarding risk. So yes, I think it's having more conversations and girls and women, you know,

01:34:02.800 stepping into their personal power and not being afraid to make a noise and get louder when there's

01:34:08.760 a problem. Yes, get louder is great advice. And if it's not, if it doesn't come easy to you,

01:34:15.860 then practice, keep practicing because it comes easier over time. Now, wait, before we go,

01:34:21.760 I know about the podcast, but is there a book that the people can buy of yours? You met,

01:34:26.240 you mentioned the one behind you. Is that just for police or should, can we all learn from that one?

01:34:30.240 I mean, it's a wider book that anybody can read. And a lot of people tell me they can dip in and out

01:34:36.740 of the chapters. It's called policing domestic violence. And I am in discussions about updating it.

01:34:42.860 I mean, the actual detail of, and the case studies I use in there with my co-authors,

01:34:48.120 it's all still relevant, but some of the laws now we've got new laws on coercive control,

01:34:53.980 on stalking, all sorts of things that we're in discussion about updating it. And I'm also

01:34:59.700 running a whole series of masterclasses because I do deliver a lot of training and some of them are

01:35:05.020 virtual training masterclasses where people can log on just as we're talking. And I talk through lots

01:35:10.940 of cases and the dash. I've got a stalking class on May the 9th and 10th and dash on May the 23rd,

01:35:17.840 24th and coercive control on June the 6th and 7th. And you can just email laurarichardspa

01:35:24.860 at gmail.com if you're interested in that.

01:35:28.160 Oh, great. And it's, and your website is thelaurarichards.com?

01:35:31.780 The laurarichards.com and also dashriskchecklist.co.uk. It is at the moment being updated

01:35:38.800 and it will be a .com in the future. But yes, I put a lot of information out there to help people

01:35:44.000 and there's Paladin, the National Stalking Advocacy Service, where there's lots of information on there

01:35:48.480 if you believe that you're being stalked.

01:35:51.260 God bless you for all that you've done and that you continue to do your podcast, your books,

01:35:57.520 your advocacy, your mentorship, all of it. Thanks for being here. It's a pleasure getting to know you.

01:36:02.360 Thank you. Well, I've enjoyed it very much. And thank you for you sharing your experience and

01:36:07.020 enjoyed is the wrong word, but I think these discussions and informed discussion and

01:36:12.140 conversations and interviews are so important. So thank you for inviting me on.

01:36:17.680 Thanks for joining us today. Fascinating conversation. What I love about Laura is she's

01:36:21.560 spot on. She's done her homework. Every fact she was reciting, I was like, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes,

01:36:26.240 yes. I love people who really actually do their homework and they can recite the facts,

01:36:29.980 sort of like a Victor Davis Hanson in conversation. You can trust their info. That's Laura. She was

01:36:35.580 great. Looking forward to having her back on. We are off for the day tomorrow. I'm actually going

01:36:40.500 to be in DC for the day with my kids on a little educational journey. Doug and I are taking the

01:36:46.500 kids. I'm doing something for national review and we made it into a family trip, but I'll be back on

01:36:50.520 Monday with Michael Knowles. So interesting. My gosh, poor Michael's been getting beaten up lately,

01:36:57.500 but he always takes it with class. So we'll talk to him about all of that. And I'll give you the

01:37:01.420 rundown on the Brunts, the Kelly Brunt crew in DC. Have a great weekend.

01:37:08.740 Thanks for listening to the Megan Kelly show. No BS, no agenda, and no fear.

01:37:20.520 Thanks for listening to the Megan Kelly.

The Megyn Kelly Show - March 30, 2023

Family Annihilators： Alex Murdaugh, Chris Watts, and More Men Who Murdered Their Families, with Laura Richards ｜ Ep. 519

Episode Stats

Length

Words per Minute

Word Count

Sentence Count

Misogynist Sentences

Hate Speech Sentences

Summary

Transcript