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July 21, 1999 - Art Bell

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Coast to Coast AM with Art Bell - Serial Killers - Dr. Drew Ross

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	Thanks for watching!
	you.
	Tonight featuring Coast to Coast AM from July 21st, 1999.
	Welcome to Art Bell, Somewhere in Time.
	Tonight featuring Coast to Coast AM from July 21st, 1999.
	From the high desert and the great American Southwest, I bid you all good evening or good
	morning, wherever you may be across this great land far and well beyond.
	From the Tahitian and Hawaiian island chains out west eastward to the Caribbean and the
	Virgin Islands, south into South America, north all the way to the Poland worldwide on the internet.
	Thank you very much Broadcast.com for your great ability to distribute worldwide and of course the Intel Corporation for the Kodak that makes possible the G2 program that you can go download for free on my website.
	Install on your computer.
	And then come back and click on streaming video.
	You will get to see me actually sitting here doing the show.
	Which, most times, visually is about as exciting as watching grass grow.
	But a lot of people are doing it.
	For whatever reason, so it's there.
	Now, coming up in a moment, we have our nation's only UFO lobbyist.
	He is Stephen Bassett in Washington, D.C., founder of the Paradigm Research Group.
	Author of the Paradigm Clock website, and still, as I just said, after three years, the only registered lobbyist representing the interests of UFO ET research activist organizations in Washington D.C.
	And so he'll be coming up shortly, and then in the next hour, we're going to change directions a little bit, and we are going to interview a forensic psychiatrist.
	And this is going to be very interesting.
	It's all about getting inside the mind of the killer, the serial killer.
	The really awful serial killers out there are the ones that do the things that we all shake our heads at.
	The Dahmers, the Hannibal Lecters, the, you know, on and on and on.
	So that should be very, very interesting.
	I continue to shake my head at so much of what goes on out there, the horrid crimes.
	Here's a man who knows.
	uh... so he'll be our guest in the second power you never know what you'll hear on coast to coast a m with
	george norris You know, there is terrorism out there.
	So, in an effort to try to fight it or combat it, we give up these rights.
	I'm convinced That there are groups out there.
	Sinister, powerful groups.
	That would create this terror to continue to control us.
	I think you're absolutely correct.
	But of course, anybody that's followed the process of government throughout history, once a government has been given a certain amount of power, it always seeks more.
	And to suggest that our government is different because it's America, I guess that just shows how historically ignorant the American people have become.
	Because in a real sense, these things are our fault.
	Americans are in fact now trading liberty for security.
	Every day this is going to happen now in our future that we're going to allow this.
	It's just a matter of time.
	Screen Link, the audio subscription service of Coast to Coast AM has a new name, Coast Insider.
	You'll still get all the same great features for the same low price, just 15 cents a day when you sign up for one year.
	The package includes podcasting, which offers the convenience of having shows downloaded automatically to your computer or MP3 player, and the iPhone app with live and on-demand programs.
	You'll also get our amazing download library of free full years of shows.
	Just think, as a new subscriber, over 1,000 shows will be available for you to collect, enjoy, and listen to at your leisure.
	Plus, you'll get streamed and on-demand broadcasts of Art Bell's Somewhere in Time shows and two weekly classics.
	And as a member, you'll have access to our monthly live chat sessions with George Norrie and special guests.
	If you're a fan of Coast, you won't want to be without Coast Insider.
	Visit CostaCoastAM.com to sign up today.
	Looking for the truth?
	You'll find it on Coast to Coast AM with George Norton.
	What's your take on disclosure?
	Do you think it's going to ever happen?
	I don't think government is going to come out and say, we've been visited, this has been going on.
	What do you think's going on?
	Most people in the United States believe that UFOs are real and the government's covering up something about it.
	So, when they say, well, now that you mention it, that wasn't a weather balloon at Roswell, that was a UFO that came down.
	People yawn and say, yeah, so what?
	now we take you back to the night of july twenty first nineteen ninety nine
	on our bill somewhere in time the bodies of uh... john f kennedy junior as you all know
	by now because everybody's in full coverage here
	and his wife and sister-in-law were found in the wreckage of kennedy's plane
	wednesday They are going to be cremated and buried at sea.
	It looks like they're not going to get the launch off at the Cape.
	I'm monitoring that right now.
	I think they've got about another minute to get it off, and if they don't, it'll be a weather scrub.
	In the meantime, to Washington, D.C., our nation's only UFO lobbyist, Stephen Bassett.
	Stephen, welcome to the show.
	Thank you, Art.
	Nice to be here.
	I know you've got a couple of very, very important announcements you want to get on.
	Yes, indeed.
	We're going to make a little history this evening, and it goes this way.
	On the 13th of this month, the filings were done with the Federal Election Commission, and accounts were opened up, which made it possible to create the first political action committee in history.
	A PAC.
	That's right, a PAC, that is directly We'll directly go after the politics of the UFO ET phenomena and the government cover-up of S.A.M.E.
	I believe this could be a very, very powerful development for a number of reasons.
	The public is not, most of the public are not fully familiar with these organizations, but they are created under federal IRS codes.
	The two most common ones are under Code 501, Section 501 rather, which are charities, 501c3s, and social welfare organizations, 501c4s.
	Under Section 527 is the laws guiding creation of political action committees.
	And these are entities which are required to make financial reports to the Federal Election Commission, operate within certain guidelines.
	And like the other two I've mentioned, they are able to operate tax-free.
	However, unlike the case of charities, 501c3s, contributions to a PAC are not tax-deductible.
	But the Political Action Committee of the three has the largest latitude Give me an idea of what you mean by that.
	In other words, what can you do with that money that you couldn't do with a more restricted budget?
	Well, charities, 501c3s can do certain political activities, but they're limited.
	They're confined to a certain percentage.
	In fact, I think 20% of their total gross expenditures is the most they can spend on lobbying.
	And then there are certain things they can't do, like give to candidates or hold debates.
	501c4 organizations, social welfare, have a little more latitude.
	And that's why the contributions are, in fact, not tax-deductible.
	And they can go a little further in terms of the latitude of political activities.
	PACs have very little constraint.
	They can support ballot initiatives.
	They can hold debates.
	They can actually give money to candidates.
	Does this mean that, for example, Stephen Bassett could go to a senator and say, for example, Senator, I know that you know, and I've got $500,000.
	It could go into your campaign kitty if you want to talk.
	I mean, I'm getting down here to the nitty-gritty, but is that what it comes down to?
	Well, I do not expect that this PAC is going to do much of giving money to campaigns, but that is very limited in terms of how much you can give.
	There are significant restrictions.
	It's not unlimited.
	But most of this PAC's activities will be focused on getting The PAC is going to be called the Extraterrestrial Phenomena Political Action Committee, or XPAC.
	In this case, it's X-P-A-C.
	already in play. There are a number of things going on and providing a vehicle to really
	have the funds to do this. The PAC is going to be called the Extraterrestrial Phenomena
	Political Action Committee. Or XPAC. In this case it's X-P-P-A-C.
	As it happens, there is another XPAC, X-P-A-C. I see.
	And to avoid confusion, let me mention that this PAC, interestingly enough, is a political action committee which is addressing the issues of Generation Xers.
	Oh.
	And on the PAC site that's being put up right now, 4XPAC, there's a link over to that site in case anyone gets confused.
	I'm kind of amused by the synchronicity because the fact is that it is the Generation Xers who are really going to be dealing with the realities of this phenomenon and the implications of
	disclosure far longer than you or I.
	In fact, you and I are pretty much the same age.
	They've got about two to two and a half decades on us.
	And so they are, if anyone, people that really need to get interested in this and excited
	and look at it closely.
	So in a way, I kind of like that.
	But this is XPPAC.
	A website has been created, which is uploaded.
	There's a little bit of a problem up there at the server right now.
	But in a short amount of time, it will be corrected.
	And the website for this talk will be www.xppac.com.
	Okay.
	And there will be a center for raising funds, getting contributions, as well as providing information as to what is going on.
	The implications of this are simple.
	If the American public decides to vote with its pocketbook, and let me put this in perspective, if 1 out of 10 of your viewers, I'm sorry, 1 out of 100 of your viewers, Let me give you a little bit of breaking news, folks.
	The shuttle launch has just been officially scrubbed due to weather.
	money into actually getting this political stuff moved ahead and resolving this issue
	with the government and getting the people involved in this subject as a partnership
	and not as recipients of breadcrumbs from time to time.
	Let me give you a little bit of breaking news folks.
	The shuttle launch has just been officially scrubbed due to weather.
	Go ahead Stephen.
	Sorry to hear that.
	One out of 100, $10, if you put $10 in this pack, you would raise $6 million to drive the political processes.
	Now, what does that mean?
	Well, for one thing, for this political action committee, targeting this issue for the first time in history to get significant funding will be a major media event.
	Okay, but you know what, Steve?
	I want to know if you had, let's say you got your $6 million.
	What would you do with it?
	Well, the PAC will be supporting those tools and initiatives which are in play, as well as probably developing some new ones.
	For example, the UFO State Ballot Initiative, which is just getting underway to try to put language in the 2000 election that MUFON has endorsed.
	Monies could definitely go to that, could be directed back into that to ensure that that moves along.
	Um, the Congressional Hearing Petition could be driven much more, much quickly, with the proper advertising and so forth.
	It might be possible to get a million signatures on that.
	That puts a million signatures into the Senate and the House, directly stating, we want hearings on this.
	Television ads can be run.
	Full page ad in the Washington Post would be trivial.
	The one that has already been written awaiting signatures would then be funded and would require simply signatures to put in play.
	Intention, if the funding is there, to create an evidence center in Washington, very close to the downtown, so that legislative staff and political media, if they want to get up on the subject very fast, can come in and have immediate access to videos and hundreds of books, some papers on that subject.
	The possibility of canvassing voters regarding the subject also direct Support to some campaigns.
	I don't see that as a major issue.
	A major focus.
	But it's nice to have that carrot there.
	If some candidates are willing to really talk about this and speak up.
	That's just the beginning.
	You could actually hold debates on this issue.
	The funds would be there to probably get questions into most of the key campaigns directly to the candidates on the issue.
	Meaning they're on camera.
	They're taking questions, they're running for office, and they get right in the kisser with, what about this?
	What's your response to the situations regarding Colonel Corso?
	What is your response to the statements by Edgar Mitchell?
	These questions are not being asked in the campaigns.
	Money into a PAC would permit that, would allow that to take place.
	And that is just the beginning of a range of things that a political action committee could do.
	People know that PACs are a major force in America right now.
	Virtually every issue that has any importance to any of us is being enhanced and pursued by PACs.
	That is true.
	If you don't agree with the issue, you don't like a PAC.
	If you do, you think it's great.
	But they are here to stay.
	They're not going to go away.
	The government, the Supreme Court has made it clear that money is speech.
	And ultimately, money talks.
	I agree.
	It is my contention, as many other people I deal with, is that this issue is going to be resolved politically before it's resolved scientifically.
	As a matter of fact, it almost has to be.
	Because if you have a government that is sequestering and embargoing and covering up major aspects
	of the evidence, if you have actual efforts to divert, subvert, and hinder the efforts
	of simply private citizens, how can science really proceed well?
	It's amazing that we've done as well as we have done, but it's taken an awful long time,
	50 years.
	Once the political deadlock is resolved, the potential for science explodes.
	Then you will see therefore everyone being able to realize whatever their interests are.
	And so the politics, in my opinion, comes first.
	And that has been totally without funding from the get-go.
	That could change overnight.
	I certainly agree with you.
	It's worthy to give it a shot, Stephen.
	It never really has been done before, so it's worth a try.
	But you know we've had private discussions.
	I don't think this venue is going to be the one that's going to open it up.
	And that's where you and I disagree.
	But that's fine.
	Disagreement is what this is all about.
	You said something the other night, Art, which struck me.
	You said that you were fairly convinced the government is never going to tell us because they don't want to.
	That's right.
	That's a reasonable statement.
	I would say that what the Constitution provides us in a whole range of things, which we've discussed before on your show, I'm with you, friend.
	In other words, I don't want to give up on the Constitution.
	That's why you're on the air tonight.
	And I don't want to give up on your approach.
	It's the right approach.
	I don't want to give up on Peter Gersten's approach.
	In other words, going at them legally with lawsuits and all the rest of it.
	These are both inside the system approaches to getting the job done.
	I just wish I had more faith that there was any chance at all that either one would succeed.
	But I certainly applaud your efforts and we ought to try.
	Well, here's how it's going to go.
	The PAC is going to be set up, it will be set up at xpac.org.
	And I'm going to be doing extensive radio for the rest of this year, probably dozens if not hundreds of appearances, trying to get the case out, get people to contribute to this PAC.
	And in order to ensure that everything is above reproach, in addition to the reporting requirements that are required by the Federal Election Commission, which have to be made regularly in each year, we're going to do something even stronger.
	The webpage will include a transaction page where the entire financial activity of the PAC will be posted in real time.
	That's good.
	Meaning that people will go there and actually see the deposits, they will see the expenditures with explanations as to what the money was spent for and literally watch it take place.
	I assume people can donate anonymously if they wish?
	They can't do it anonymously, but there is a very clear rule in the federal election law, and that is, is that anyone who contributes in excess of $200, aggregately, during a single year, the PAC needs to have their name, their address, their occupation, and their employer.
	But it doesn't have to be published on a website?
	No, it wouldn't be published on a website, but it has to be reported to the FEC.
	And people need, if they're going to give more than $200, bless their hearts, I hope they do, the PAC is required by law to make the best effort to get that information so it can be reported.
	Anything under $200, however, that is not an issue.
	So as the funds accumulate, then decisions are made whether to proceed.
	I've made a clear decision, Amalia, that if the public decides, after considerable effort, that this is not where they want to go, that they're not going to cast their vote on this issue with their pocketbook.
	And by the way, I think you realize, the public has virtually had no opportunity to vote on the E.T.
	issue, ever.
	It just doesn't happen.
	With the exception, notably, of, for example, the NIDS Uh, funded, uh, survey.
	Well, that's a poll.
	I'm talking about actual vote.
	Where you pass a vote in an election that could directly impact our policy on the E.T.
	question.
	I know, but those are indicators of what the American people believe.
	They're very important.
	There's no question.
	Uh, so they, they, the only way the public has really been able to make its, its sense of this known has been through polls.
	And as we know, they've made it repeatedly known that they, They don't believe the government.
	They think they're covering up.
	That's right.
	A majority believe ETs are... I believe, I think the majority number is almost that they certainly exist.
	A significant portion believe they're here now.
	A very large proportion believe UFOs are in fact craft and so forth and so forth.
	Hey look, 8 out of 10 Americans say that if they existed, and they believe they do, the government would absolutely Classify it and make it top secret.
	That's 8 out of 10.
	And you don't get many polls that big.
	And they're ignored.
	And their wishes are ignored.
	But you put a few million dollars into a PAC and watch how quickly, all of a sudden, this issue and their concerns suddenly start to register.
	We all know money talks and the other stuff walks.
	Listen, hold on.
	We'll be right back.
	Stephen Bassett, our nation's only UFO lobbyist.
	And now, I guess, head of a PAC.
	He's my guest, and he'll be right back.
	This is Coast to Coast AM.
	You're listening to Art Bell, somewhere in time, on Premier Radio Networks.
	Tonight an encore presentation of Coast to Coast AM from July 21st, 1999.
	This is a presentation of the Coast to Coast AMX-3.
	the the
	bell somewhere in time.
	Tonight featuring a replay of Coast to Coast A.M.
	from July 21st, 1999.
	If you would like to see a link, get a link to the new X-Pac site, why it's on my website right now.
	Just scroll down to the name Stephen Bassett and jump across.
	If you want to put your money where your beliefs are, this is your opportunity to do that, America.
	And who knows?
	It may well be that that's what it will take.
	Despite my somewhat skeptical feelings about it, I do know one thing.
	Money talks, and everything else gets left behind, and I think you know that in your heart, too.
	So, if you really want to give it a shot, if you want to give it a try, and you've got a few extra dollars to, you know, donate to the cause, why, now, finally, there is an official setup through which you can do that.
	It's on my website right now.
	Now we'll learn more about it and more from Stephen Bassett in a moment.
	Now we take you back to the night of July 21st, 1999 on Art Bell's Somewhere in Time.
	Now we take you back to the night of July 21st, 1999 on Art Bell's Somewhere in Time.
	Top of the hour, Dr. Hugh Ross and his book and his theory of looking into the eyes of a killer.
	In the meantime, back now to Washington, D.C.
	and Stephen Bassett.
	Stephen, welcome back.
	Yes, sir.
	So, the upshot is this.
	A political activity has been created to go after this issue full bore.
	It's located at X-PPAC.org.
	People can contribute by sending funds to this address.
	X-PAC, X-PPAC, 4938 Hampton Lane, H-A-M-P-D-E-N, number 161, Bethesda, MD, Maryland, 20814.
	49 rather 38 49 38 Hampton Lane HAMPGN number 161 Bethesda Maryland MD 20814
	and of course this address is and all this information is up on the website
	What was the zip code again?
	20814.
	That's EXPAC at 4938 Hampton Lane, number 161, Bethesda, Maryland.
	The E-P-H-E-S-D-A.
	20814.
	The email address is EXPPAC.
	EXPAC, but E-X-P-P-A-C.
	Right.
	At AOL.com.
	Okay.
	And that information is there.
	Okay, and I assume they would make out checks to XPAC.
	XPAC.
	The funds will be held at Nations Bank in Bethesda.
	And all transactions will be shown on the website in addition to filing with the FEC.
	And of course, updates will go out to those who request it and they can do that on the website as well regarding the activities and what is going on, what initiatives are being assisted and so forth.
	And we will go from there, and I will obviously keep you appraised of what's happening there closely.
	And obviously, this has been announced on your show for the first time for obvious reasons.
	We won't go into it.
	Number one, I'm a supporter, I think, of the freedom of expression of this issue, and I'm really pleased that it was reported on your show.
	So am I. And I've got one more announcement.
	Alright.
	Alright, the other announcement I think is also non-trivial, and that is that effective tomorrow, and it will be posted at that time, The Paradigm Clock, at the Paradigm Clock website, ParadigmClock.com, which is also, you can go to your website and jump over to it, the clock is going to be reset based upon events over the last several months, 45 seconds closer to midnight.
	And so it will be set at 11, 57, and 15 seconds.
	uh... eleven fifty seven
	and fifteen seconds what what uh... what events are you basing that on
	there are essentially five principal events high principal things that happened in the
	last number of months
	that have done this Thank you for watching.
	First and foremost, 15 seconds of this time is a result of the emergence of Joe Firmage into this field.
	He has clearly had a significant impact in a number of ways, which we could spend, I'm sure you'll be talking about tomorrow night, with him.
	But at minimum, he's attracted a huge amount of media to the issue.
	and uh... that is spilling over to other areas he has gone on national television nbc and stated flatly
	that he is convinced the extraterrestrial processes is absolutely
	certainty uh... this is powerful stuff
	he's also a uh... i uh... an example for any number of other very wealthy young entrepreneurs in
	this country who want to make a major difference
	and are not afraid to go where uh...
	a lot of people are afraid to go and really challenge this issue.
	So the impact is dramatic.
	Another event that increased at five seconds was, we've already mentioned, the NIDS rover poll.
	Not only because that poll seemed to indicate increasing awareness on the part of the public, but I believe, based on other things that I'm hearing, that it seems to reflect a change in NIDS and that NIDS is becoming more open, more aggressive in its research.
	Well, as you know, in addition to interviewing Joe Firmage, tomorrow night, next week, I will interview Robert Bigelow, who has never done A radio interview before.
	That's correct.
	And so, the emergence of NIS in a more outward position, I think is significant and reflects some internal changes.
	Let me stop you for one second.
	Alright?
	Since I'm going to have Joe Firmage on tomorrow night, and since I'm going to have Robert Bigelow on next week, they are the two biggest money figures in this, there's no question about it, in this field, right?
	Yes.
	So, if you were to make an appeal to either one of them, To try to get them interested in pursuing the way you think this can be broken open, how would you make that appeal?
	Well, first let me say, I will answer your question, but first let me say, I think it's very, very important for the public, the people in the street, the average citizen in this country, to make a statement.
	In other words, there's enormous power to one million people putting $10 behind this.
	Yeah, but you know very well that either one of these men could write you a check.
	For six million dollars in two seconds.
	I can assure you that X-Pac is not going to turn down huge checks from any individual.
	I'm sure not.
	I think, you know, Joe and I have discussed the political issue, and I think early in our discussions, he seemed very supportive of that.
	Lately, I'm not so sure.
	He's had some comments.
	I think he's a little dissatisfied with the pace of the government.
	And he's finding his way.
	But I will say this, that he has made it very clear that The science and the implications of this are straining against the bounds of the cover-up.
	In other words, people are literally looking at it and they must know more about this because they see not just the fact, but the implications.
	And he talked to that very eloquently.
	He's been going all the way around the country with a very significant emphasis on the science.
	Same thing with Mr. Bigelow.
	He's funded a lot of the scientific work in a number of areas.
	And millions upon hundreds of millions of dollars are going to be spent on the science of the UFO and ET phenomena after disclosure.
	You can be sure about that.
	I know, but... The problem for these gentlemen is that there's a political wall there.
	The government simply refuses to yield to the citizens' desires.
	They've actually, you know, the government spent a lot of money in intelligence and subversion and other efforts to basically keep us Uh, in the dark on this issue.
	I know, I know.
	And so we're up against a formidable force, and I would say, look, for every, for every dollar put into the political initiatives right now, the effect in terms of opening the door for science could be worth a thousand dollars put straight into science.
	Because you know how it's gone?
	We do science, we do science, we do photos, we do videos, we examine this, we examine that, we put it in front of the government, the government says, whoa, whoa, I don't see anything.
	There's nothing there.
	The media goes, you know, we can't really cover that.
	The universities simply, you know, put a bag over their head and flee in terror.
	The point is that it's a rigged game.
	That's what politics is for.
	When something is rigged or unfair, when you're up against forces, when, say, a minority exert an unfair disadvantage over the minority or vice versa, that's where politics and these tools come in to balance things out, to even the playing field.
	And so I'm saying to them, put Money into the political initiatives, and if these things move forward, watch what happens to the scientific possibilities when the wall of secrecy starts to break.
	That's the best pitch that I could make to them.
	Now, let me talk about some of the other things that are going to move the clock.
	A ten-second impact comes from something that just happened July 16th.
	As you know, a French report was published in France, we're still waiting on the full translations, by a group called COMETA, C-O-M-E-T-A.
	Made up of a number of former high-ranking French government officials.
	This report makes a very strong case for very good possibility the E.T.
	hypothesis is valid and the crash at Roswell was real.
	What I think this report reflects is a loosening up of the NATO embargo on this.
	Meaning that most of us know that NATO has been I think you're a little less willing to go along on embargoing this thing.
	That is very significant.
	There's going to be more about that.
	this issue too. And these governments have deferred to the United States for a
	host of reasons. I think this report reflects a sort of a loosening up of
	that coalition. I think you're a little less willing to go along on embargoing
	this thing. That is very significant. There's going to be more about that. That
	gets five seconds. I'm giving five seconds, if you don't mind, to the
	creation of this Political Action Committee.
	I think this is a first.
	If the public embraces it, it could have enormous influence.
	And I really can't understate that.
	The ability to put ads, full-page ads and papers, even run some television work, to be able to go to the candidates with that type of vehicle and say, look, I want to talk about this.
	We want to talk about this.
	You can't imagine the impact.
	So I've added five seconds to that issue as well.
	And when you sum it all up, the clock, in my opinion, has advanced 45 seconds closer to midnight.
	The other factor is that in this last period that we've just gone through, Art, you may have noticed there really haven't been Well, I don't know what you mean by setbacks.
	Yes.
	say four four five months uh... that would what put pressure the other direction
	and so that's another factor here well i don't know what you mean by setbacks well in other
	words uh...
	for instance when colonel corso died last year yes
	that was a significant setback oh i see because he
	he was he was never he was never interviewed thoroughly
	by the major media certainly the post and the times he was not
	challenged on this issue by the government He was never really given an official medium to be able to discuss these issues.
	They basically ignored him, hoping he would go away.
	So that was a setback.
	We haven't really had much of that.
	uh... really in the last five months there have been some problems in the
	field there have been some issues yes but not the kind that actually in my
	opinion push us away from midnight set us back
	and so the effect of of these positive things which have developed
	uh...
	are i think stronger And of course, during the same period, you have the continuing airing of new documentaries on the usual channels, such as TLC and Discovery, that had not been out before, such as Roswell's 50 Years of Denial.
	These new documentaries are bringing in, in a stronger way than before, the political side of this, the government issue, government posture.
	And so these are a positive force.
	They're sort of part of the total picture.
	But these events that I've mentioned, in my opinion, are pretty significant in moving us along toward an eventual yielding of the government on this issue to disclose and make us partners.
	And that is the key, in my opinion, word here.
	The government is not the enemy.
	The citizens are not the enemy.
	But the government is not our parent, and we are not its children.
	The government is there for one reason only.
	Every single person down there by the Potomac, both elected and appointed and simply hired, every single one of them, all of those buildings are there for one reason only, and that is to serve the public.
	There is no other reason for them to be there.
	Oh, Steve, you know, I hate to be such a cynical bastard, but I am.
	Government is there to serve us.
	Government is not our enemy.
	Please.
	I'm sorry, I don't believe that, Steve.
	In other words, not all of government.
	The majority of government workers are fine people.
	They put their pants on every day.
	But in terms of the cover-up, the larger issue of the cover-up, and secrecy in general, if you want to refer to that as an enemy of the constitutional process that we're all holding so dear, Then I'm sorry, I think they are an enemy to us.
	Well, when I make that statement, let me be very clear about it.
	I'm not saying that the government, on occasion, doesn't act as if we're the enemy.
	And I'm not saying that there aren't people out here, in the private sector, that have taken the position that the government is the enemy and act accordingly.
	What I'm saying is, is that while this does happen, in the larger context, the context of the nation as a totality, The government was not set up to be our enemy, and we are not set up to be the enemy of the government and citizens.
	The Constitution isn't structured that way.
	It's structured to create a partnership between government and citizens, and to put the government to serve a role.
	And I'm saying since that's the way it's supposed to be, then that's what you have to demand.
	Right, but here's the one thing I'll give you.
	You put enough money in the right pockets, and you'll pry the secret loose.
	Now that, I believe.
	I wouldn't.
	I would hesitate to put it that harshly.
	I don't hesitate.
	That's it exactly.
	I put it exactly that harshly.
	You put enough money in the right pockets and you bust it loose.
	Well, technically that's right, but let me make it clear to your listeners.
	The X-PAC was not created to buy disclosure.
	It was created to have the money to properly pursue the political initiatives which have always been there for us, but we have really not been able to do.
	Well, you and I both know what the process ought to be and what the Constitution ought to mean to us and ought to be in reality.
	But we also know, and you know better than I do, because you're back there, how the damn thing works.
	And the whole thing is greased and moved by money.
	The mother's milk.
	Money, money, money, money.
	But you know, there is a transition going on.
	I think one of the cynicisms that exists in government, and I think that Jesse Ventura has talked about this, is that money is speech.
	And it's not going to be significantly curtailed by the Supreme Court.
	The cynicism that the American public is feeling is they're really reacting to the improper use of money.
	Yeah, they don't like to see issues brought.
	They don't like to see politicians brought.
	They don't like to see them having to raise or spend all their time raising vast sums of money.
	On the other hand, they full well know That money in the hands of good organizations, who have the interest of the public at heart, and using the mechanisms that are constitutionally there, has played an enormous role.
	and participate in the right to the evidence steven steven every time there's an initiative for uh... campaign
	finance reform it goes right into the proper Again, one of the problems is a dilemma.
	Money is speech, and it's going to be very hard to regulate it.
	The problem is less that money is inveterately evil, but rather that it is being misused.
	And so the answer therefore, in my opinion, is to put greater pressure on the system
	to make sure that money is not misused within that system but you simply can't
	then withdraw from the field and say well the way to do it if it uh... the issues that matter
	we won't we won't we can't we can't put money into those you you you have to
	i think you will see an adjustment in the political arena in which
	money will be it will shift in the manner in which it's applied
	and i think that will come because the public demands it
	Corruption is a thing that swings back and forth like a pendulum.
	Power tends to corrupt, and it also corrupts the transfer of money.
	These things swing, and I think you're going to see it swing the other way.
	In other words, people know that the environmental groups out there that are pursuing a whole range of issues, and by the way, one of the key things that this PAC would be able to do that other groups might not, is to, particularly if it's got money in it, if it's funded, Reach out to some of these environmental groups and other secrecy reform organizations to coalition with them, because they're a major common interest.
	And there's nothing like having a fat bank account to get those groups' attention.
	That would be very significant, because as you well know, Art, the implications of the ET issue extend completely into the environmental question.
	It extends into technology.
	It extends into the human condition.
	And there are groups pursuing those things, but without the ET factor.
	And as we know, many of those groups don't have many people behind them, but the ET question has got tens of millions of people behind it.
	So there's a basis for coalition.
	That's why the first person that's going to be working with this PAC is a gentleman by the name of Paul Nehe, who is a local environmental activist, and his role is to try to develop coalitions between the PAC and other environmental groups.
	And American people know that without money those environmental groups could get nowhere.
	And if they didn't get anywhere, the environmental problems we face now would be far, far worse.
	I agree.
	And so the question is, you know, if you really think that the time has come to bring this
	issue of the extraterrestrial presence to a head and get in a partnership with the government.
	Not necessarily that the government must come clean with every bit of information on our national security issues, but we get treated as adults and full partners so that we can be making the policy that's going to affect the biggest event in the history of the human race.
	Alright, having said that, we're out of time.
	Give the address if they want to send a check.
	What is the address?
	At 4938 Hampton Lane, number 161, Bethesda, Maryland, 20814.
	And all of this information is on the site at www.x-tpac.org.
	Okay, gotcha.
	Stephen Bassett, thank you so very much.
	Oh, thank you, Art.
	I very much appreciate this opportunity, and I look forward to talking to you about this in the future.
	Good night, Stephen.
	Good night.
	All right, there it is, folks.
	You can put your money where your belief is.
	And there is one thing I do believe, and that's with enough money, you can try it loose.
	This is Coast to Coast AM.
	You're listening to Arc Bell, Somewhere in Time.
	A night featuring a replay of Costa a Costa Am from July 21st, 1999.
	Be it sight, sound, smell or touch, there's something inside that we need so much.
	The sight of a touch, or the scent of a sound, or the strength of an oak when it's deep in the ground.
	The wonder of flowers to be covered and then to burst up through tarmac and the sun again.
	Or to fly to the sun without burning a wing.
	To lie in a meadow and hear the grass sing.
	To have all these things in our memories.
	I'm leaving you with this.
	No!
	No!
	You're my girl, yeah!
	I'm not gonna do it again.
	Why would you take his place?
	On this trip, just for me?
	Why?
	They could be right.
	I wish I could take this pain off this grip, just for one day.
	But I think I'd be right, in the place I must be, in my dreams.
	I wish I would speak to you, with more heart than to whisper fear.
	I'd do it my last before I left, but by now, I know I can't.
	I wish I could take this pain off this grip, just for one day.
	Premier Radio Networks presents Art Bell, Somewhere in Time.
	Tonight's program originally aired July 21st, 1999.
	And the ride you're about to take is going to be courtesy of Dr. Drew Ross, who is going to take you straight into a gaze into the eyes of a killer.
	He is a forensic psychologist, and he's studied some of the worst.
	We'll talk about that in a moment.
	Thanks for watching.
	Post AM has a new name.
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	Visit coasttocoastam.com to sign up.
	Looking for the truth?
	You'll find it on Coast to Coast AM with George Norton.
	What's your take on disclosure?
	Do you think it's going to ever happen?
	I don't think government is going to come out and say, we've been visited, this has been going on.
	What do you think's going on?
	Most people in the United States believe that UFOs are real and the government's covering up something about it.
	So, when they say, well, now that you mention it, that wasn't a weather balloon at Roswell, that was a UFO that came down.
	People yawn and say, yeah, so what?
	Now we take you back to the night of July 21st, 1999, on Art Bell's Somewhere in Time.
	A murderous and bizarre crimes are in the headlines seemingly every day now.
	Benjamin Nathaniel Smith of Illinois, member of a hate cult, Goes on a killing spree, murdering Asians and Jews, then commits suicide in Littleton, Colorado.
	Two high school students massacre their fellow students, then commit suicide.
	Terry L. Nichols, convicted in the Oklahoma City bombing, is seeking files now in a bid for a new trial.
	Somewhere, Sam, a new Spike Lee film is based on the son of Sam murders.
	David Berkowitz, son of a sad murderer, is now said to be a model prisoner, counseling other prisoners.
	Charles Manson.
	Uh, Charlie.
	A Charles Manson follower and convicted murderer, who stabbed the actress Sharon Tate 16 times in a bizarre cult murder some 30 years ago, is now seeking parole.
	Maybe in an area near you.
	What goes on in the mind of a murderer?
	In looking into the eyes of a killer, Dr. Drew Ross, who spent seven years as a criminal forensic psychiatrist, reveals what he knows about murderers while he was on the job.
	What he found out about them, and tonight he's going to tell you.
	Dr. Ross, welcome to the program.
	Thanks, Art.
	Way to the west of me, huh?
	You're out there in Hawaii someplace?
	Yep.
	I'm on the big island of Hawaii.
	You're on the big island.
	Doctor, what drew you into this particular field of medicine?
	I was, at the time, very fascinated with the interplay of the brain and psychiatry, with the intersection of neurology and psychiatry.
	How those things, people who had brain damage and epilepsy and those kind of things, and knew that a lot of people with those type of problems were in the criminal justice system and wound up getting into it in that kind of backhanded way.
	My interest was actually not directly on that to start.
	And then once I began work in the field, I very quickly became totally intrigued with what I was looking at with the issues of violence, with the Isn't it pretty strange?
	using intersection of law and psychiatry and all of the tremendously difficult
	issues and questions that uh... we had to answer
	uh... for the court and for the correctional system when working with these
	very difficult people isn't it
	isn't pretty strange to i mean what what's it like to come face to face
	uh... with one of these uh... one of these horrible murderers of what
	what you've got to do it you know do you come away i mean i'd
	just read for example model prisoner
	uh... model prisoner now all of a sudden a lot of the uh...
	one of these uh... people on death row seem to suddenly embrace
	the lord and the bible and they get religion and all you know
	What's it like?
	Have you ever, for example, interviewed somebody totally unrepentant?
	I've seen interviews with Manson.
	He's not at all repentant.
	Oh, there's definitely people that are unrepentant and that just offer no remorse, blame the victim.
	It was the victim's fault.
	Basically sign their own death warrant by messing with this person or by disobeying whatever street rules that killer believes in.
	There's definitely people that are just boldly unrepentant and almost perhaps more frightening are the people that appear to be remorseful but their remorse is only in the ears of the people that they want to hear it.
	They don't act remorseful.
	They're not really remorseful, but they're trying to... The parole board, most likely.
	Right, the parole board, or if they think that the psychiatrist or psychologist can do something to help them, that they will try to pull one over on you and act remorseful.
	Those are in some way, for me, more chilling, because they sometimes can start to get you going, especially if you're not observing them.
	Outside of the interview room if you're just believing what they say to you and you don't watch how they talk to you.
	Well, were you the psychiatrist that would sit down with these murderers at times and trying to determine if in fact they were truly repentant in some way, felt differently about everything, or masking it all so they can get out there and kill again?
	Yeah, I did both treatment and evaluation and the evaluations were a whole array of evaluations including evaluations for the insanity defense and evaluations related to sentencing and also those that were related to whether someone who had been acquitted by reason of insanity and had been put in a secure hospital, whether they were ready to be released to a less secure setting.
	So the answer, the simple answer to your question is yes, I was a psychiatrist sitting with a person trying to make a report so that the court could make that decision.
	That is a responsibility that would keep even a professional up very late at night sometimes I would imagine, no?
	Yeah, it's a very difficult job and I Whenever I would start to get a little bit relaxed, a little bit maybe even just a touch cocky, a feeling like I had it down, that I understood what was going on, that I kind of knew where my line was for whatever evaluation in question, whether it was insanity or these other evaluations, that I kind of knew what was on the insane side and what wasn't.
	Whenever I started to feel like I was getting the hang of it, Uh, then it seemed like the very next evaluation, that defendant would be right on that line, or would come from some different angle that challenged my whole system.
	Whenever I was just beginning to feel like I got it down, something would come along that would just throw my whole theory aside and I'd have to kind of go back to the blackboard.
	Do you, for example, in interviews of that sort, do you try to push Do you push certain buttons to see if you get the reaction that you expect you're going to get based on your evaluation of that person?
	Sometimes.
	Sometimes you try to push a certain button or you will be appearing to ask in a certain line and really trying to see what else is going on.
	A lot of times, though, by leaving a lot of open ground, the person gives you the information that you need.
	It tends to trip up if they're trying to fool you when you give them more open questions, because they are prepared for narrower questions.
	In other words, you give them enough rope to hang themselves.
	Exactly.
	The fact of the matter is that we tend to sometimes think of these people as being somewhat like some of the fictional characters of these brilliant, very educated, very bright, very sharp people but the fact is a lot of them are pretty impaired
	and are not very well educated and are not necessarily very sharp or slick at
	fooling you.
	A lot of times those attempts, especially when you've been doing it for a while,
	are not that hard to find. It's the rarer one that is the tougher one that
	can really get you going that can be really slick.
	There are those, and you're always watching for them.
	You know, there's been a change in America.
	At one time, you were most likely to be killed by somebody you know or love, or at least somebody you know.
	Generally, domestic disputes of one sort or another, that sort of thing.
	And we've turned some kind of corner, where now you're more likely to be killed by somebody you don't No.
	And so, something in America changed.
	While overall crime stats are down, the nature of crime seems to have changed, and the reasons they're committed, that sort of thing.
	Yeah, well, I think that it's interesting because maybe that explains the fact that people tend to overestimate their statistical danger.
	You know, that people tend to not know that Some of the statistics for crime are down and people tend to believe that they're in more danger, tend to have a perception that they're more likely to be the victim of violent crime than statistically they are.
	And maybe it's that kind of wild card factor that you're talking about.
	The feeling that there are people out there and you have no idea of them.
	They're not somebody that you get to have any clues about.
	I mean, if you meet somebody and you Sure it is, because there's no way to anticipate it or know about it, so it is naturally a bigger fear.
	you know, then start to worry about them.
	At least you can separate from them, you know, kind of cover your tracks.
	But when it's somebody that you don't know that just pops into your life out of nowhere,
	then certainly that's a far bigger fear for any of us.
	Sure it is, because there's no way to anticipate it or know about it, so it is naturally a
	bigger fear.
	A brief comment from you about sociopaths.
	Sociopaths, the synonyms are antisocial personality disorder and psychopathy essentially mean
	all the same thing.
	We're talking about people who have a disregard for other people.
	They generally have a repetitive pattern of not taking responsibility for their actions, criminal activity, often generally starting in childhood.
	And not taking responsibility in terms of relationships, in terms of child care, in terms of jobs, and repetitive criminal activity.
	Very controversial issue in the intersection of mental health and the law because it is technically a psychiatric diagnosis.
	It's in the book of diagnoses.
	You see what I'm driving at here is, in the venue of what you presented to me, Where does the sociopath fit in that picture, in those pictures?
	They are going to be the toughest part, or one of the toughest parts of any system, and certainly the system I'm talking about, because the most effective ones of those, the ones that are very bright and very cunning, will try to learn that system and fake it out if at all possible.
	Sure.
	They will try to convince whatever board is overseeing them, whatever board is deciding Whether they can move on to the next level, they are remarkably effective and adept at fooling people and convincing them that... Yeah, they're the ones that will go through your system like a hot knife through butter.
	Well, that's the danger.
	I think that you can design a system to make it more possible to catch that, more possible to be sure that that's not the case, but you're always worried That's something I talk about in the book.
	You're always worried about, in the kind of work that I did, is this the truth?
	Is this a very effective psychopath that's fooling me?
	What causes, generally, people to go to that edge, to kill, to commit very violent acts, or to murder?
	Well, in most or maybe even all cases, there are multiple causes.
	And when you look closely at these cases, it's rarely one thing, although the media sometimes likes to pick up on that to simplify.
	And it's often over-determined.
	That is to say, that there are these multiple causes all within that person's framework, pushing them toward this.
	And if one of those factors were to You just said two very important things.
	the person still would be violent uh... on a biological level many of people who uh... who
	murder have some type of brain damage
	uh... some psychiatric or neurological problem and there is a the vast majority
	in my experience are under the influence of alcohol or drugs at the time
	alright you you just had two very important things the first is that most
	who kill have an actual physical
	detectable mental
	malady is that well about that that's a matter of a lot of debate whether they
	have a detectable malady Many of them do.
	Many of them have more subtle problems that are not necessarily immediately detectable, but if you do a big search for them, you'll find something.
	Although, the age-old question is, if it's, again, usually a male, usually has had a rough life before they get to the point of murder, has been in fights, has been in brawls, has been in car accidents, Are these problems something that caused them to live a violent lifestyle, or are they the products of a violent lifestyle?
	Well, you know what?
	The American people mostly don't give a damn.
	Right.
	And frankly, I'm one of them.
	Sure.
	And that brings us to the whole insanity defense.
	Well, let me finish answering your question.
	There's a bunch of other things that cause violence on a historical level.
	A lot of these people have Although they will sometimes inappropriately use it as an excuse, they've often been abused, neglected, and certainly very rarely have been taught values.
	On a personal level, there is often, or perhaps almost always, a profound disconnection from the person's sense of who they are, what they believe, the heart and soul of the person, often profound sense of alienation from everyone and themselves, and shame.
	On a social level, again disconnected from From a proper social environment, often connected to a violence-associated gang or group or belief system or subculture, and often very allied with the violent media and high media exposure of violence.
	Well, you know, I certainly have compassion for their hard life.
	It would be manifested, for me, Doctor, I would say, I'm so sorry you had a hard life, drop the cyanide pellets now.
	Well, you know, as a psychiatrist, I can't say I counsel anybody to commit suicide, but I want to be clear that when I'm talking about these causes, I'm not meaning to say that the person doesn't bear a responsibility for their behavior.
	I'm talking about the gas chamber, not suicide.
	Right.
	Well, I've got to tell you that I'm not for the death penalty.
	Good.
	Why not?
	I believe that the death penalty represents an almost perfect modern analog for the so-called primitive culture's sacrifice, which of course was practiced in Hawaii in ancient times.
	We're still figuring out why it was practiced here, but in current times with the death penalty, I believe that on a psychological level, we do the following thing as a culture.
	We take what are unacceptable parts of ourselves, our own aggression, our own hatred, our own intolerance, bigotry, our own violent urges, our aggression, our road rage, all of our stuff as a society, and we project it onto this violent person.
	The media exaggerates them, pumps it up, and then we kill that person, symbolically killing our own Our own evil, our own unacknowledged, what we call the dark or shadow side.
	You and I are going to have a big disagreement with this, which is fine, because it'll be good radio.
	As far as I'm concerned, if you would like to go back to throwing them into volcanoes, then I wouldn't have a problem with that.
	So hold it right there.
	We're at the bottom of the hour, and we'll come back and do more of this.
	Dr. Drew Ross is my guest.
	Looking into the eyes of a killer.
	That's right, right down into the volcano.
	We'll be back.
	You're listening to ArcBell, somewhere in time, on Premier Radio Networks.
	Tonight, an encore presentation of Coast to Coast AM, from July 21st, 1999.
	The End.
	You're listening to Art Bell's Somewhere in Time on Premier Radio Networks.
	Tonight, an encore presentation of Coast to Coast AM from July 21st, 1999.
	Dr. Drew Ross is here, and I can see we're going to have a good spirited conversation.
	We're going to talk about the death penalty a little bit here in Killers.
	Dr. Ross does not believe in the death penalty, and actually, I overstated my position a little bit on it.
	And I'll clear that up in a moment.
	I firmly support the death penalty.
	I actually don't support throwing people in volcanoes, or the gas chamber, or the electric chair, or any of those torturous methods of exacting society's justice.
	Very important word.
	I don't support those.
	But a nice goodnight Charlie Brown needle, that one's fine by me.
	And I've said that many times, and that actually is my position.
	So I wanted to clear that up.
	That being cleared up, be assured, it should be spirited coming up.
	We'll be right back.
	You're listening to Art Bell, somewhere in time, on Premier Radio Networks.
	tonight on core presentation of coast to coast am from july twenty first nineteen
	ninety nine once again doctor drew ross and uh... dr ross again
	uh... so that we're clear i do not support a torturous method of uh...
	eliminating a murderer uh... executing death penalty i'd
	I think that a needle and goodnight is sufficient, and I don't think society needs to go to the level of those who have tortured their victims, but I do support the death penalty.
	Well, you know, I don't agree with you, but I think that it is an easier position to support, in my opinion, when you haven't worked in the criminal justice system.
	I don't know if you have, but... No, I haven't.
	...having worked in the system and having seen when the criminal justice system doesn't work so well.
	We have seen recent cases in which a person sent to the death penalty was then later found to not have committed the crime.
	That's true.
	Um, and, um, you know, one of the other things is that we, we in the public, uh, tend to see the cases that, uh, they're, that, you know, the, the media is interested in.
	And of course, once you get media attention, both sides, uh, gear up, they do a, and the judge gears up, they do a whole different, uh, different thing than for those cases where the cameras are not in the courtroom, where the families are not so, um, not so interested.
	And where you've got not that much attention going on, and boy, it's a lot different type of court thing.
	A lot of corners are cut.
	A lot of things are done more quickly.
	And having been in the position that I'm in, where I have often spent, in many cases, probably more time with the defendant than anybody else in that courtroom except for their close family members, For me to know at that level, from my best estimate, what actually happened, and then to see what gets presented as happening and what gets judged, boy, I'll tell you, it really puts a different spin on things.
	As a matter of curiosity, how do you take care that you yourself do not become a victim of the Stockholm Syndrome?
	Well, I'm sorry, you're going to have to explain the Stockholm Syndrome.
	You begin to identify with your captors, but you can translate that over to, you begin to identify with the person that you've been counseling, the murderer, the convicted person that we're talking about here, the terrible killer.
	You begin to, in effect, see them for their human qualities and a form of the Stockholm Syndrome, You do have to watch for that, although part of doing what I do, part of being a psychiatrist, attempting to understand people, is looking at those human qualities.
	You may accuse my book of looking in the eyes of a killer of being a Stockholm Syndrome in the sense that one of the things I found is that these people Uh, are human in the sense that they're portrayed by the media as being inhuman, as being, their reasons being completely out of the blue.
	And in general, their reasons are remarkably similar to our reasons why we think about, why the rest of us think about being violent.
	That is, you know, love, hatred, abandonment, rejection, etc, etc.
	The same kind of human emotions that lead the rest of us to get angry or hang up the phone or whatever, lead these people to more severe The more severe actions.
	You can keep being an example, a living example of the Stockholm Syndrome, but I think that as a psychiatrist you have to use that.
	Even with the most difficult people, you've got to use some degree of empathy in order to understand them, in order to understand their motivations.
	At the same time, you do have to be careful with over-identifying and beginning to believe their spin on the thing, which is often and obviously an extremely distorted view of the world and often an extremely distorted view of
	what they did and you've got to be careful not to start Emphasizing so much that you begin to see things too
	clearly from their worldview and not the other options that they
	That they had in your view Doctor of the terrible killers that we are discussing
	tonight And you list the worst ones, you know in media material
	that you sent out What percentage can be rehabilitated and safely put back on
	the streets? I I can't give you a percentage, but I want to tell you that I'm not naive.
	I don't think that we need to say, oh gee, you know, the society, it's the society's fault.
	Poor, poor guy.
	And, you know, we just need to give you a better chance and, you know, a little bit of education.
	I mean, that is a very naive position.
	And we generally, in our country, seem to have oscillated between a more severe A punishment model and then we go to a kind of overly reform model where we're too lackadaisical and then something happens and we go back and forth between the two.
	So I've been sitting with these people and certainly I know what they're like if they're released and I don't have a naive position that these people, it's an easy thing.
	Well then give me your realistic estimate.
	Surely you can tell me Well, perhaps 1 in 10 could be rehabilitated, or 1 in 20, or in your experience?
	In my experience, I think it's probably well less than 1 in 10.
	I think it's more along the lines of 1 in 50 or 1 in 100.
	And that's just for the people I've seen.
	That's not a great statistical study.
	Alright, the alternative to the death penalty is life in prison.
	In our current system, yes.
	I take it you don't agree with that either?
	Well, you know, I got to this place that the book kind of chronicles my journey into this bizarre world of work in which I entered, into work with murderers, and eventually out of it and the reasons I got out of it.
	And I surprised myself with where I came, that I came to feel that the criminal justice system as it is, Um, was not working, or at least I could not take part in it.
	And I began to question the idea of the state being able to inflict punishment.
	The state, with all of its frailties, with all of its inaccuracies, with all of its foibles and political squabbles and corrupt dealings, having the authority to decide how to punish its citizens.
	And I was really surprised.
	I didn't walk in there with that kind of an opinion.
	I was much closer to, I think, where you were when I walked in there, and I came to see how frail this system was.
	If not the state doctor, then who?
	Well, I think that the model that I would have is a model of personal responsibility, and if you think that that is an easy model, in a lot of ways, I would be giving some of the people less rights, in the sense that I would want to follow these people There would have to be some system of isolation.
	You could say that that would be prison as it is now, but I don't think prison as it is now, with the rapes that occur, with the violence that is tolerated, I don't want it to be like that.
	Then what would you see in place of that?
	There would have to be a system of isolation.
	There would have to be a way in which you could keep someone for a long period of time out of the circulation so that they could not Could not hurt anybody else.
	But the person's introduction back into society would be based upon their proven record of behavior with lots of little steps.
	It wouldn't be, here's your $10, there's the door, you've done your time, and in the meantime you've learned how to become more violent in prison.
	It would be, including the time that they were out of isolation, they would still be monitored They would still have a gradation of their ability of what they could do, of what they were allowed to do, based on their behavior and their responsibility, with always the ability that at the point that they don't do what they need to do, that they back up in the system and they go into more supervision and more control over their behavior, so that we can always pull them, if it's a serious crime, we can always pull them backwards
	And watch them more closely, and it's not an issue of total confinement, and in many cases, extreme punishment, and then complete freedom with just hoping that the police will catch them if they do it again.
	Doctor, please, let's talk practicality for a second.
	Without the system of jails, as we now know them, what form of isolation would serve?
	Well, the thing is that this is one of the problems that I'm talking about because immediately what I'm talking about would there be a great temptation for the system to just turn it back into a jail and just to call it something different.
	There would have to be isolation.
	What I would have different about that system is that in there, rather than having the tolerance of violence that we have, rather than having the tolerance of sexual violence that we have, That there would be, first of all, only the people that need to be isolated.
	Would we be paying to isolate them?
	We put a lot, we put a significant number of people in prison, that if you and I looked at it, they would not be dangerous to other people.
	We're putting them in to punish them for what they did, but we could put them somewhere else, somewhere cheaper.
	Okay, you're not going to get an argument from me there.
	In other words, we've got a lot of people in there on drug charges and all the rest of it, even the greatest percentage.
	And I think that's ridiculous and insane.
	But that's not what we're talking about.
	We're talking about murderers.
	Now, you tell me how you isolate a murderer in an environment that is not a jail.
	I want to know what that would be.
	The only difference between what I'm talking about and what we now call jail and prison is the issue of punishment and the feel of the place.
	I don't know if you've spent very much time in them.
	But they are places in which an enormous amount, in many cases, I don't want to say all cases, in many cases an enormous amount of physical and sexual cruelty is tolerated, in some cases even promoted.
	And places in which there is an enormous amount of physical and emotional violence inflicted among the various people there, sometimes, unfortunately, including the guards.
	Yeah, jail's a rough place.
	It's a very difficult job.
	Jail's a rough place.
	Right.
	Okay, fine.
	The question is, what are we training there?
	What are we paying for?
	We're paying a lot of money for people to be there.
	What are we paying for?
	Are we paying for people to become less violent?
	Because, let's face it, not all of them are going to serve a life sentence, even if it's a serious violent crime.
	We're not talking about the whole At least I hope we're not.
	The whole justice system now, and the whole variety of crimes, we're talking about murderers.
	Right.
	But not everyone who commits murder serves a life sentence.
	That's right.
	They don't.
	A lot of them get out.
	And how do they get out?
	What are they like?
	What have we done to them during the time that they've been in prison?
	I have to say that one of the things that prison as it is does What it does now, when it's a long sentence, is it involves time.
	It involves the person grows older and we know statistically that as these are usually men, that as these men age, they are less likely to commit a violent crime.
	But in terms of what they've been exposed to in prison, in terms of what the feel of that place is, what they've been trained to do, the way that they've been trained to survive, what have we done?
	What, for example, is Charlie Manson going to learn in jail that we should be worried about?
	He's one of the names you listed.
	Right.
	What is he going to learn in jail that we should be worried about?
	about which are meant to do that with the an exception to the is
	not going to whatever we do know he's one of the names you listed
	a what what if you don't learn in jail that we should be worried about it might
	be my learning jail that he can but he can do it again that he can get people
	to follow him that uh... that upright
	a bright person who's a who's a flip talker
	you get other people to follow him he may learn that uh... that he can't that he can do that
	that if you know if god forbid you were to get out that he could do that again in terms of getting people to
	follow him because i would not be surprised to keep sympathy of contact with
	other prisoners that he's able to be something about of a uh... unfortunate
	leader No doubt.
	Because of his personal characteristics.
	No doubt.
	Well, there's a lot of people who feel that Shelley Manson uh... shouldn't be around to even be uh... a lobbying for parole uh... that Charlie Manson shouldn't even be alive right now but i i i but what i'm saying is with respect to prisons and just sticking without argument for a second i just i can't imagine with these serious killers serial killers most of the names that you've listed here that that any of them uh... would learn anything in prison
	And that they should ever be out of prison, and I can't imagine any alternative to prison as we presently have it.
	Prison is a rough place.
	I mean, what do you propose to turn it into?
	A place where they're not exposed to a possibility of violence while they're in prison?
	Well, I think it would be possible, especially if you take those, the other people out, the people that don't need isolation, I think that it is possible to make a place in which violence is not tolerated.
	And I think that if we have a place that violence is not tolerated, we're going to serve everybody better, including the public.
	Prisons are presently little societies of their own, where in many cases, the prisoners run the asylum.
	Right.
	And the guards know it, and everybody else knows it.
	Right.
	And how the hell would you change that?
	I don't see how you would change it.
	Well, we get into a lot of details there.
	Part of it is the problem of numbers, that we're sentencing so many people that we overwhelm our systems.
	Part of it is also the physical design of the places.
	A lot of these places have been built a long time ago, built not to house as many people as they have.
	We've also got a strange system now, where on the one hand we have this very punitive model that I'm talking about.
	And on the other hand, we've had generations of prison civil rights attorneys litigating for weird rights that wind up making it possible for these people to be violent again.
	Weird rights of where they're able to go, and what they're able to do, and whether they're able to have television and have things in their cell that they can use as weapons.
	We've got this weird mix of a real punitive thing on the one hand, And then so-called prison rights, on the other hand, that actually make it more possible for them.
	We've got people arranging crimes from the inside.
	Right.
	Running underworld.
	Absolutely.
	Right.
	In other words, you seem to lean toward a more pleasant atmosphere For these incarcerated people?
	Well, you know, that's the thing, is that I want to make it more pleasant for them, and you're right in the sense that the time that they'd be in isolation would be more pleasant, but the time in which they were out, if any of these people would get out, I'm not talking about the serial killers, but people who have committed one violent crime often get out.
	The time that they would be out would actually, probably they'd rather have your system, unless you were going to kill them all.
	You'd probably, they'd probably have rather your system in mind because I would be monitoring them, they would be, you know, the stuff of their rights in terms of privacy would be gone because we'd be watching them, their behavior would have to be monitored, they would be, and the steps out of that isolation would be very progressive and slow, that they'd go from, instead of maximum security, medium security, minimum security, camp and out, there'd be a lot more ranges Of slowly moving that person out so we can watch them and see what they're going to do so that it's not a matter of what they say to the parole board, of what they say to someone, or just the expiration of their sentence, which is what really scares me.
	Yes.
	But an issue of their behavior.
	What do they do?
	What do they show when given that rope?
	Do they hang themselves in it?
	Or do they begin to change or not?
	The problem we have now is we've got to remember that in general what I'm talking about are not the Manson people, not the people that the public light is on.
	It's the guy that did the stick-up and killed somebody and got such a sentence and has not gotten the disciplinary reports, and the prison is getting crowded, the guy's getting a little older, and he's the guy that's getting out.
	That's the people I'm talking about.
	High profile people are going to be in isolation.
	They're going to be holed up forever.
	I'm talking about the ones that don't make the paper.
	Alright, let's talk about the one you just specified.
	Let's talk about the guy who goes into a 7-Eleven and puts a bullet through some poor little teenager who's there working late at night.
	Why should that person not forfeit their life for that act?
	Well, the issue is a couple things.
	There certainly is an attraction to the idea that this person killed somebody, so why shouldn't they forfeit their life?
	You bet I'm attracted to that.
	Doctor, hold on.
	We're at the top of the hour.
	We'll be right back.
	Dr. Drew Ross is my guest.
	This is Coast to Coast AM.
	You're listening to Art Bell, Somewhere in Time.
	Tonight featuring a replay of Costa Costean from July 21st, 1999.
	This is a record of a concert in the Costa Costean, Spain.
	The concert was held on July 21st, 1999.
	The concert was held on July 21st, 1999.
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	This is going to be very interesting.
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	You're listening to Art Bell, Somewhere in Time.
	Tonight featuring a replay of Coast to Coast AM from July 21st, 1999.
	Well, good morning everybody. This is going to be very interesting.
	Dr. Drew Ross, who is a forensic psychologist. Psychiatrist, actually.
	and And has had intimate contact with killers.
	All kinds of killers.
	So we're talking about killing, and killers, and the death penalty, and incarceration, and more.
	And I'm sure you'll have some comments.
	Just hang in there, we'll get to you shortly.
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	now we take you back to the night of july twenty first nineteen ninety nine
	on our bill somewhere in time uh... raise your voice when you should reinforce your
	argument uh... and i'm gonna try to keep it that way with you doctor uh... as we
	are mark touch on these very very very controversial topics
	I'd rather, I guess, reason with you than... The temptation is to raise one's voice.
	It's so emotional.
	These things are so emotional.
	But we were talking about... Let's go back to where we were.
	Somebody goes in and murders a young teenage girl working in a 7-Eleven or whatever.
	And I can't imagine why this person... Why society doesn't have a right Why that person's, that girl's family doesn't have a right to justice.
	And what is justice?
	Well, justice is, in my eyes, an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.
	It really is, Doctor.
	And if that is not justice, tell me why it isn't.
	Well, there's three things.
	One is the issue of the accuracy of was it the person that you think it was that killed the girl?
	The second issue is the power that we wish to give Our state.
	And in my work, as chronicled in my book, Looking into the Eyes of a Killer, I found that the state is not nearly as accurate in the criminal justice system as we would have them be, especially when the media and the public is not looking.
	The third thing, and the third thing we haven't touched on, is the question of where do we want to go?
	Where do we want to go as a species?
	Where do we want to go as a society?
	And when we endorse capital punishment, we As a society, to the extent that our government really is by the people, then we are killing that person who killed the girl.
	Yes, we are.
	And I don't think that killing stops killing.
	I think killing generates killing.
	You do?
	Yes.
	Well, it certainly stops that person from doing it again.
	You're right.
	And that is the attraction.
	That is the attraction of the death penalty, and that's where it's... Actually, my position, Doctor, is that The death penalty, if it's ineffective, is ineffective because most death penalty prisoners sit laughing at society for sometimes about ten years before that is finally exacted.
	And if the death penalty were implemented with quick appeals, I'm not in favor of taking away the appeals process, but relatively quick appeals, and in cases where there seems no doubt And a jury of peers has said, death penalty, then carry it out.
	Well, a lot of people have said that.
	First of all, I doubt that people waiting for that moment when they're going to be killed are laughing at society.
	There are some that are, but I think that most of them are not.
	The second issue is this issue of doubt, because the juries are often very sure, the prosecutors are often very sure, and yet there can, when you look at the cases, There are some real glaring problems in some of the cases.
	And of course, statistically, there are some real worrisome issues.
	The death penalty cases are generally minorities.
	They're generally people that are quite poor.
	There is an over-representation of those groups, even within the larger group of murderers.
	So there's some real worrisome things about the use of the death penalty in this country.
	And of course, you touched on another thing, which you want to change.
	And that is the fact that death penalty is very expensive.
	It takes years and years.
	And generally, I believe, costs within its current system are more than life imprisonment.
	That's actually a true statement.
	But that is another thing to complain about with respect to the entire system of incarceration and punishment and the justice system, the whole rest of it.
	In other words, it could be relatively inexpensive, much cheaper to execute than it could be to keep a prisoner for life.
	If it were done properly, the way we do it, yes, you're correct, it's more expensive because it is in itself an insane process.
	Right, but I want to say to you, having the word insane is a good one because that was what I was working with and what I talk about in my book, that the problem is as you get closer into this system, as you get into it and you sit in the courtrooms and you go to the prisons and you go to the jails, the system starts to look more and more insane.
	You start to see the holes, you start to see The place is where the injustice is done, the plea bargains that aren't right, the situations in which the person that's accused doesn't know what's going on, and the whole system starts to break down the closer you look at it.
	It is far easier to come up with things that sound swift and just when you're thinking in the abstract, but when you're dealing with living beings and the state of evidence We tend to think of these, you know, wonderful new FBI things that we come up with, but the vast majority of the cases, the evidence is a whole lot weaker than that.
	And there is this enormous presumption of guilt, because statistically, the person accused usually is guilty.
	And there's this enormous presumption of guilt that happens in these cases, and it's really frightening when you've gotten close into the case and there are some holes in the case that never get presented.
	Doctor, why should psychiatry, frankly, and this is my view, be at all involved in the
	process of punishment for capital crime?
	Well, a lot of psychiatrists don't want psychiatry to be involved in the issue of capital punishment
	because as physicians our job is healing and the job of the issue of the death penalty
	is killing someone.
	So a lot of psychiatrists agree with you.
	The reason why it's there from a procedural standpoint is the issue of whether someone... generally there's a number of issues, but one of them that's the most harrowing is the issue of someone's competence to be executed.
	The idea that in order for the state to be able to kill someone, they have to...
	that convict has to be confident to receive his penalty.
	It's usually him, his or her penalty.
	And of course that creates a bizarre situation of potentially medicating someone in order
	to then put them to death.
	It's a real bizarre twist, a real strange use of psychiatry.
	There are other places in which psychiatrists can get involved in terms of psychiatric issues
	being mitigated circumstances such that the death penalty might be discarded and a life
	sentence instead.
	Why should a person's past mitigate a capital crime at all?
	Well, again, you know, you're asking a person who doesn't believe in the death penalty, but the issue is that the idea that the death penalty is to be used for those Clear-cut kind of cases you were talking about and the issue is if the person has a mental illness and if the mental illness played some kind of a role in the crime, then maybe this was not as clear-cut, as crystal clear of a case of the type that you were talking about earlier.
	That maybe this is something that muddies the water enough for the finder of fact to decide to not give this person a death penalty.
	With due respect, Doctor, a lot of us feel that what you do is take what is a clear-cut case and muddy the waters.
	Well, there very well may be people in my profession that do that.
	My personal experience, as I talk about in my book, has been something of the opposite.
	When I got into the case, And what the issues were, that I was in muddy water, and when it got presented in court, it sometimes was presented as a whole lot clearer than it actually, than the facts, from my viewpoint, admittedly, seem to be.
	So I would, from my experience, I would say the opposite, but there very well may be people in my profession who do exactly that.
	I can't, I can't represent all of us.
	Of the murderers that you have had an opportunity to work with, how many would that be over the years, do you suppose?
	The number of people that murdered over the years, that's a good question.
	Just a rough guess.
	I'm going to guess that the number is around 100, although the book takes the reader with me as I interview various people and confront the issues.
	It's obviously a far less number that's covered in the book in order to get Okay, but in your career in this regard, you're saying about 100, more or less.
	Of that number, how many did you conclude were innocent?
	Well, you know, I've never had the job of deciding guilt or innocence.
	In interviewing them, we all know that in prison a lot of people, just about everybody is innocent, they were framed.
	But in your work, in getting into their psyches, how many did you personally conclude of that We're innocent.
	I gotta add one more thing.
	One of the good things with the insanity defense is technically an insanity acquittee is not guilty by reason of insanity.
	I think you're asking me something different.
	You're asking me how many of them that I think did not do it.
	That's right.
	That's what I'm asking.
	And I want to say that I'm thinking that About two.
	One that I'm really honing in on, and I think there was a second as well.
	Completely innocent?
	In other words, you actually concluded they were innocent and didn't do the crime?
	In my mind, I would not have the ability to know for sure, but on the basis of what I saw, it would be my belief that they did not actually do the crime.
	Two of a hundred.
	Alright, let's talk about the insanity defense for a moment.
	I take it that in your career... I just want to say, two of a hundred is a small number, but let's think of two of a hundred putting him to death, and that number starts to loom a lot larger.
	Yes, it does.
	It's an argument.
	No doubt about it.
	I also want to say, in your defense, that we're talking about the people that get examined by a psychiatrist are the more confusing cases, the ones in which insanity is an issue, the ones in which there are problems with evidence, the ones in which it's not a straightforward case because we never see the ones in which there's no question of mental illness, And that it's a totally straightforward case.
	So in your defense, that number would probably not be the accurate number if I were to see every case that came through.
	You think it would be far smaller?
	It would be smaller.
	In my mind, no matter how desperate the straits may be for a person, to go into a 7-11, I mean, there was a day in America When most crimes of that sort, robberies, did not end up with a bullet through the brain of the poor clerk.
	But in modern America, for some reason, it seems like we hear more times about somebody going in, robbing a 7-Eleven, taking the money, beginning to back out of the store, and putting a bullet through the head of the clerk as an afterthought.
	You with me here?
	Yeah. So by what measure is that not insane?
	This is an age-old question.
	Many people who I've talked to about my job have said, isn't anybody who kills somebody insane?
	Isn't that an act of... Well, let me qualify it a little bit.
	In other words, I know that if a husband comes home, finds his wife in bed with somebody else, You don't necessarily put that in the same sort of category as you do the person who, as an afterthought, puts a bullet through a clerk's head on the way out after a robbery.
	Although, to be honest with you, the one in which it's the husband is often closer, legally speaking, closer to the insanity defense than the other.
	Well, that would be a temporary insanity.
	Right, exactly.
	I can almost buy into that.
	I think most Americans can.
	Although it's a real tough examination to figure out.
	But this casual killing, how can you not call that insane?
	That's the question.
	Okay.
	I talk about this a lot in my book, Looking into the Eyes of a Killer, about the issue of the insanity defense and how it's defined.
	And the insanity defense is defined legally, and it's defined by statute, and it varies from state to state.
	There's a federal statute for federal crimes.
	And these statutes can differ.
	So literally, technically speaking, the same crime can be found insane in one state and not found insane in another because of the difference in definition.
	That said, the definitions use words that can be very difficult for those of us who have had to make these determinations for the court.
	They use words like substantial impairment.
	What is substantial when you're talking about impairment?
	It's a very, very difficult examination and decision to make.
	But to answer your question more directly, these things are defined statutorily by the legislature.
	And they generally say, first of all, you've got to have some kind of mental illness to begin with.
	Second of all, that mental illness has to impair Either the person's ability to appreciate whether the act was wrong, or it was against the law, or their ability to behave, their ability to conform their conduct is the language that's often used.
	I'm using a standard called the American Law Institute Standard, which is used in a lot of states.
	And again, it differs from state to state and federal thing, but there is a legal definition of this and the mental health person is asked to make this determination according to this standard.
	So, one of the questions you get in with your person in the 7-11 is, is there the presence of a mental illness?
	And again, one of the difficulties with that is it depends on how hard you look for it.
	Are you looking just for a previous history that the person has actually been hospitalized or saw a mental health practitioner?
	Or are you going to do an exhaustive search where you're doing CAT scans and MRI scans and all kinds of stuff looking for something?
	And then you've got to look for those other things that the mental illness specifically impaired their ability to basically know what they did or appreciate what they did was wrong.
	Or their ability to behave accordingly, to conform their conduct.
	And if that sounds murky to you, it is murky.
	It does sound murky to me.
	And to me, it's far simpler.
	To me, it's why doesn't society owe the husband of that woman, the family of that woman, Justice, which I consider in this case to be an eye for an eye.
	That is very straightforward.
	And how is it defeated by your murky argument?
	Well, the issue is that you're using an example.
	The question is if you get something in which the illness is more obvious, in which you have somebody who has had a psychotic illness for years, has been hearing voices and is paranoid by virtue of this illness and whose relative, his uncle, has been beating this person for years and the person comes to believe by virtue of their illness that these beatings are part of a conspiracy that his uncle was part of to do harm to other members of the family and that this uncle is going to kill the rest of the family and the only choice that this person has to save the family is to kill the uncle.
	And so the question then is, is a family owed for that person who has this psychotic illness to be killed?
	I agree there are degrees of homicide, and that's why we have degrees of homicide.
	But when you get down to premeditated murder in the first degree, That's where I think you and I go down different paths.
	Well, I have to tell you that I have had problems with the insanity defense as well, and I talk about this a lot in my book, because it shines a weird light on this whole issue.
	It shines a strange light on the criminal justice system and kind of gets you into the inner workings of this issue of guilt and innocence And it really starts to get more and more bizarre the more that you work in it.
	To me, I'm telling you how it works and how these decisions are made, but the fact of the matter is that it's very, very difficult and you get into startling issues of how ill.
	What do you do when a person is very ill, but also kind of diabolical in a way?
	To use a layman's term, they're both evil and ill.
	They're bad and mad.
	what do you want about what in that case and that is not infrequent
	that happened i've seen it
	and so you know i'm telling you how the insanity defense working it does serve a
	purpose in the sense that that there's sort of an intuitive
	understanding that uh... there's some people that are so ill that what
	they did was not murder in the way that we think of murder
	Alright, Doctor.
	On that note, listen, I've got a break on the clock, sorry.
	Bottom of the hour, we'll be right back.
	You're listening to Arc Bell, somewhere in time, on Premier Radio Networks.
	Tonight, an encore presentation of Coast to Coast AM, from July 21st, 1999.
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	Premier Radio Networks presents Art Bell, Somewhere in Time.
	Tonight's program originally aired July 21st, 1999.
	And my guest, Dr. Drew Ross, that's Drew, D-R-E-W, Drew Ross, who is a forensic psychiatrist and has treated, interviewed, worked with many, many, perhaps as many as a hundred murderers.
	Uh, probably some of the worst.
	And we're talking about, I guess, crime and punishment and more.
	And we're about to go to the phone, so hang in there if you have a question for Dr. Ross.
	I've got a couple of other things that I want to cover with him very quickly.
	But I'm sure there's already plenty of issues out there on the table for you, and so we will shortly go to the phone.
	Stay right where you are.
	Now we take you back to the night of July 21st, 1999, on Art Bell's Somewhere in Time.
	Stay right where you are.
	Dr. Drew Ross back now, and he's a very controversial character, that's for sure.
	Remember now, as I open the phone lines, Remember that commercial that I run that I think is applicable here.
	Do not, ladies and gentlemen, raise your voice when you can instead reinforce your argument.
	That's a wonderful line, and you should keep it in mind as you call in this night, I hope.
	There are, however, a couple of other things that I would like to quickly touch on with you, Doctor.
	Popular entertainment.
	Movies, books, music.
	uh... that uh... many many people in our society and in years past have blamed for these murder sprees and uh... these murderous actions that some people take uh... of late now society seems to be changing its view of that and they're not blaming these things so much anymore kind of an interesting change but what is your take on it I talk about that a fair amount in the book.
	I think that the media does play a role, although it's not always a very immediate role, in the sense that it doesn't necessarily mean that the crime occurred five minutes after seeing something, although that's happened.
	No, I understand.
	but that is all our violence but it's right it forms for for many people and
	they and they grow up in our society now uh... media
	such a big part of their milieu of their of what they see of what they come to see as being normal
	as usual but that the
	source of the of their values and i think it is in that place
	that is really worrisome it's not necessarily
	even an individual peaceful though that that can be a problem too
	but the overall thing of When you have a kid that's playing violent video games, watching violent movies, acting it out with his friends or her friends, and the group forms itself around those values, emulates their heroes or the heroes from those things, all of that worries me a great deal.
	How old are you, Doctor?
	I'm 38.
	I'm 38.
	I'm 54.
	38?
	38.
	I'm 54.
	And, Doctor, when I was young, we had a lot of violence on TV.
	And I saw the, you know, TV first come alive and had the little 7-inch screen.
	We had people killing Indians, and violence was always very clean, very antiseptic.
	People clasped their chest, and they fell down, and they were dead.
	You never saw blood, you never saw gore, you never saw violence.
	Today, in the media, we see the horrendous, horrific, reality of violence.
	They get very real about it.
	I mean, you see bones torn from people and people shredded with chainsaws, and it's horrible.
	Now, which of these two examples is the more harmful for society, since you do believe media overall has an effect?
	Which is the more harmful?
	You know, it's interesting because there does seem to be a qualitative difference.
	There's something about the The way violence has changed, I think that for one thing, even though some of the values would not be values that we would agree with today, there was a certain difference in the way in which violence was portrayed in terms of the values, in terms of the use of it, that somehow there is a feeling, I can't describe it terribly well, but I think if you watch the two things, there is a greater degree of glorification, a greater degree of the sense
	Remember, what kids are looking at is to be cool and there is a greater sense in the newer
	media that violence is cool.
	I don't think that showing violence as antiseptic and showing it as if nothing happens is great,
	but I also don't think the newer stuff which shows the gore but often doesn't show the
	results of violence.
	It doesn't show the pain that it has caused, the prison and punishment, the victim.
	It still doesn't, you just see the guy swing the gun over and boom, the guy is out of the
	way after a thin justification for why he should be so violent.
	So then you would control some of this violence, you would see laws or regulations or I don't know, something or another to control the amount of violence depicted in the manner you've... Well, let's do something more simple first, and let's agree that we're going to be more careful about what we purchase, about what we rent, and what we watch.
	Let's start doing this at a grassroots level before we start trying to legislate it.
	It isn't going to happen.
	Look, the movie industry, television, they operate on the basis of one thing, and that's the bottom line.
	They produce what sells.
	And if it doesn't sell, maybe it's out of there.
	But it sells.
	That means there is a demand.
	So the law of supply and demand is in effect here, and the only thing that is going to change that is going to be a law, if you really want to change it.
	Well, probably so, but the thing is that people feel that they are powerless in the face of violence, and yet they're not as powerless as they presume.
	The question is, what are you reading?
	What are you looking at?
	Not the question of whether it has anything to do with violence, because that is an issue we deal with, but how does it portray it?
	What are the results of it?
	How does it deal with it?
	And, you know, you're going to make mistakes, you're going to watch the wrong thing, but overall... Look, I've played the doctor, I've played Doom, I've played Doom 2, and I've blown away a million people with some of the nastiest weapons you've ever seen, and I have no desire to go out and kill anybody.
	You're right, but you may be serving people if you don't have it around so that your twelve-year-old kid is playing it, too.
	What about stuff like the Hannibal movies?
	I guess the same thing, huh?
	Matrix, you put down here, or Summer of Sam?
	Well, I'm worried in general about all of them.
	Again, I'm not trying to say that any movie or book that has something to do with violence You know, we shouldn't read or think in any way about violence.
	It's something we have to look at.
	The question is, how is it portrayed?
	Is it glorified?
	Is it sanctified?
	Is it made to be cool?
	That's the issue that I really worry about.
	Alright, as a psychiatrist, address for me, we have the tragedy in Littleton, and immediately following that tragedy, we had, God, I bet we had Reported and unreported, I'll bet we had a hundred imitators out there threatening or copying or trying to copy that crime.
	Even though, of course, they didn't really do it.
	But there were attempts.
	And so, tell me a little bit about this copycat thing.
	Well, obviously I can't tell you a lot about the individuals because I didn't examine them.
	But the issue of copycatting is, for one thing, this thing attracted an enormous amount Of attention.
	And the perpetrators became infamous and had an enormous amount of attention focused on them.
	And although they were obviously feared and it was a negative attention, it was a powerful attention.
	And one of the themes of Littleton, at least to the extent that you believe what the media is portraying, which is always an issue, is the theme of the underdog, the theme of the kid that gets made fun of, that's not the jock, that's not the top dog, and that is an enormous theme for a lot of kids and a lot of people in our culture.
	So the underdog becomes powerful even in a harshly, terribly, horrifically negative way.
	It's something that resonates with a lot of people and the attention that was given it.
	And we know that immediately after that, that was the motivation.
	You're saying that was the motivation.
	I think in some of the cases, I think in some of the cases that that was, that was part of the motivation.
	And so that's, that's done concluded and all finished at the time of the crime, because of course they know they're not going to be around to see whatever negative notoriety they generate.
	They just, they know in their minds they will do it.
	And that is, I'm sorry, I was talking about the copycatters more than I was talking about the original people.
	I see.
	Alright, well let's go to the originals for a moment.
	I take it that that is your take.
	In other words, that they will get some retribution for their underdog position, they'll get some notoriety.
	Why did they do it?
	Those are some themes that I'm worried about.
	I have to be careful because, obviously, this is stunningly obvious, I didn't interview these kids.
	There's a lot of stuff that the media has put out.
	I had a very strong feeling that certain things that the media found, because the story was so hot, they really focused on it and played it up and portrayed it as being very unusual, when some of the things may have been fairly typical for that age range.
	I felt that the water there was really muddy and it's real hard for me to look at my television set and tell you why these kids did it.
	I worry about media issues.
	I worry about this issue of empowerment and a sense of feeling disempowered and made fun of.
	I worry about the accessibility of firearms.
	But I don't want to tell you why these kids did it because I didn't get to talk to them.
	I never got to see them.
	As I said, it's usually multiple causes.
	Those are some of the causes I've seen highlighted, but we have to be careful.
	It's really easy to make a judgment call, but I felt like the information out of that thing felt distorted to me.
	It felt like certain things became very highlighted because it made headlines.
	Doctor, do you think that a citizen who has not been committed of a crime and has not been found to be not of sound mind Should or should not have the right to bear a firearm?
	I personally believe that it should not be an unrestricted right.
	In other words, I think that there are other factors I would like to look into besides whether or not they've committed a crime.
	Or are of sound mind.
	What other issues would you look into before you'd allow a person to own a gun?
	I would like to know whether they've been accused of some serious crimes, whether there have been reports of domestic violence, whether there are records that show a pattern of chronic substance abuse, a pattern of impulsive and reckless behavior, and other areas in addition.
	I'd like to know more about that person so that we can scrutinize the reasonableness of this person owning And what process would you suggest that would accomplish that range of qualifications?
	That's not one that I cover in my book, and not one that I feel that I'm an expert on, but I think that if we sat here for the next 20 minutes, you probably could come up with a fairly reasonable process.
	Well, I mean, for example, if I wanted to own a gun, would you say that I should have to come to somebody like you who would evaluate me?
	I don't know that I feel that every single person that signs up needs to come and see a mental health professional in order to get kind of a mental health screening.
	I think that sounds like it might be awfully cumbersome and awfully expensive.
	It may be that if there are certain indications that sound like it's in my area, then maybe you would need to come in and see somebody like me for a screening.
	But I think you'd have to meet some criteria to make make the person worry that that's the area that you need
	more information on.
	But I don't think if we need to march everybody through the mental health practitioner's office,
	that sounds very cumbersome to me.
	Well, other than some sort of police record, I cannot imagine what a system could dispense the
	information that would begin to put up a red flag.
	Primarily, you're going to be looking at police records.
	You're right.
	Primarily, you're going to be looking at arrests, at accusations, at calls, at whether there's been restraining orders against the person.
	But accusations and things like that are made all the time.
	And there is this Second Amendment thing, which is part of our Bill of Rights, as much of a part of the Bill of Rights as you've been using to, in some cases, Talk about the way punishment should not be administered or should be administered.
	It's as much a part of the Bill of Rights as the rest of it, isn't it?
	Yes, it is.
	The question is, does that require it to be unrestricted?
	Can we make reasonable restrictions and reasonable investigations to feel that this person is, to put it in your way, of sound mind?
	Does not have a criminal record, does not have indications of reasons that we would worry about this person having a firearm, or at least owning a firearm.
	Well, there are moves now, as you well are aware I'm sure, that those who have been arrested for domestic violence shall not own a firearm.
	Those who have various blotches on their record, but I mean you're even going beyond that and you're saying You should look at people who have been accused of things.
	All I'm saying is that that triggers a further investigation into what's going on so that you can find out if this person has been subject to unreasonable accusation.
	The problem is if the problem has been that the person has been beating up their spouse for years but they've never gotten convicted of it because they intimidate the spouse into backing down, etc.
	etc.
	You want to be able to find that person, and so the issue for me is not that, oh, any accusation, boom, you're off the list.
	The question is triggering a further investigation by a reasonably skilled investigator to look at that issue, to just trigger, okay, this person is not in the category of completely clean, okay, let them do it, nor are they in the category of, you know, forget it.
	They're in the category of let's look into this further.
	That's what I'm talking about.
	Boy, you're talking about a lot of money and manpower.
	Boy, but you just, you know, one violent crime.
	You know, how do you put a price tag on that?
	Yep, that's right.
	Alright, let's go to the phones.
	Let's see what's out there.
	This should be interesting.
	Wild Card Line, you're on the air with Dr. Drew Ross.
	Hello.
	Good evening, gentlemen.
	Good evening.
	Hi.
	Oh, it's fascinating.
	I need to be in bed.
	Where are you?
	I'm sitting up listening to you two at home.
	No, no.
	I got that part.
	I mean, but what part of the country?
	Virginia Beach, Virginia.
	Okay.
	All right, Dr. Roth.
	Yeah?
	I have two things that I would like to hear you talk about.
	And the first one is, I've always wondered why they don't call it guilty by reason of insanity.
	And the second thing, I haven't heard you address any of the mind-altering Controls by surgery or medication.
	And these are things that I know they're working on.
	Why don't they use some of these and eliminate some of the long prison terms?
	Alright, let's take both of those.
	Guilty by reason of insanity.
	That has been tried in some states in which the person who... that there's another verdict in which the person can be found guilty but insane There have been, it's a real controversial verdict.
	In other words, the current insanity defense is not guilty by reason of insanity.
	The idea is the person is so ill that they are in fact innocent of the crime in a somewhat analogous way that a child would be.
	They couldn't have really committed a crime, they're not capable of it.
	There has been this sort of intermediate verdict tried.
	Guilty but insane.
	And the idea of it is that the person is found guilty, is sent to the correctional system But there is theoretically some extra guarantee of treatment.
	In at least one of the studies of this, there really wasn't much of a guarantee of treatment, and it was really kind of a sugar-coated guilty verdict.
	It was basically a guilty verdict that people could feel more comfortable in acknowledging that there was a mental illness.
	Are you familiar with the name Kaczynski?
	The Unabomber?
	Yeah.
	Did you happen to read a Los Angeles Times article that indicated that Kaczynski was A voluntary mind control experiment.
	Were you aware of that?
	I heard something about that.
	I did not read the article, but I saw something, I believe, on the internet suggesting that.
	I didn't get the details.
	It was in the Los Angeles Times.
	Does that surprise you?
	No, not really.
	I'd like to know more about it, but I can't say it completely surprised me from the story.
	Of our question is the issue of mind altering drugs and surgeries and I believe that the question is using those as a sort of a form of correction of the behavior problems such that the person doesn't have to be held in jail.
	The answer to that is kind of a complicated one but the issue is the efficacy, how effective are these How effective would a surgery be to sort of guarantee that the person is not violent while still allowing them to be functional?
	Obviously, one of the difficulties is historically the past use of prisoners as guinea pigs for experimentation would make this a big issue of ethical stuff.
	Frontal lobotomy.
	Right, frontal lobotomy story would certainly come back into question.
	And the other question is just how effective can that be?
	I'm not a neurosurgeon.
	I think there's issues there.
	The second thing is drugs.
	The person would have to still take the drugs after they left.
	It's the top of the hour.
	we'll be right back this is close to close to you you're listening to work well somewhere in time
	tonight featuring a replay of close to close to him from july twenty first
	nineteen ninety nine the
	the the
	the Oh
	Please tell me what's left I know it sounds absurd
	Please tell me who I am I said, what would you say?
	We're calling you a radical, a labyrinth of a magical criminal.
	So won't you sign us a name? We'd like to see your accessible.
	Premier Radio Networks presents Art Bell's Somewhere in Time.
	Tonight's program originally aired July 21st, 1999.
	Top of the morning everybody. Dr. Drew Ross is my guest.
	And he has written a very, very, very interesting book.
	looking through the eyes of a killer.
	And I guess he's looked through quite a few eyes, and he has quite a few opinions.
	We'll get back to him in a moment.
	Sound of jet engine.
	You never know what you'll hear on Coast to Coast AM with George Norris.
	You know, there is terrorism out there.
	So, in an effort to try to fight it or combat it, we give up these rights.
	I'm convinced that there are groups out there, sinister, powerful groups, That would create this terror to continue to control us.
	I think you're absolutely correct.
	But of course, anybody that's followed the process of government throughout history, once a government has been given a certain amount of power, it always seeks more.
	And to suggest that our government is different because it's America, I guess that just shows how historically ignorant the American people have become.
	Because in a real sense, these things are our fault.
	Americans are, in fact, now trading liberty for security.
	Every day, this is going to happen now in our future, that we're going to allow this.
	It's just a matter of time.
	Now we take you back to the night of July 21st, 1999, on Art Bell's Somewhere in Time.
	Alright, uh, one minute.
	Once again, the good doctor is back.
	Is there anything else you want to get out before we dive back into the phone stock?
	I just want to say the title of the book is Looking Into the Eyes of a Killer.
	The book covers more than the issue of punishment.
	It is really my journey into working with people that have been violent, trying to explain and understand different forms of violence.
	There are a couple of chapters about people who are sociopaths or psychopaths.
	Other types of people who have been violent, the issue of remorse, the issue of abuse as a thing that leads to violence.
	A lot of the reader following me is I interview people who have been violent and try to figure out what went on with them and try to understand the system as it deals with them and understand why I was doing that kind of work and then it kind of concludes with my struggles with the system and the issue.
	A punishment, but I wanted to let people know it's not all just about the punishment.
	Let's talk a little bit about a different kind of crime.
	Or maybe it's not a different kind of crime.
	Maybe you're the one to tell me.
	A couple of white guys take a black guy and tie him to a fence, pour gasoline over him, and burn him alive.
	Okay?
	That's a heat crime.
	That's what we call a heat crime.
	Do you look at this in some way other than you look at other crimes, these terrible heinous crimes?
	Is a hate crime a different kind of crime?
	In some ways, yes.
	How so?
	A lot of crimes, as we talked about earlier, are committed by someone who knows the person.
	uh... marital or or arguments between uh... sexual partners or or friends or
	gambling or drug deals uh... right cetera which are talking about is a crime that as far as we know
	is committed on the basis
	of the membership of of a group of the person who hate the different group
	right and who's select this person out
	entirely because of that right colors and religion whatever and i
	think that if uh... i can't quote for sure but my hunch is if you look at the
	demographics of those people it would be a bit different than the other type
	And I do think it's a different crime in some ways.
	Warranting, what sort of different treatment from your perspective?
	as you have described the way you think that uh... you know somebody committed
	to as a convicted of uh...
	a first-degree murder should be treated then how would you treat this person
	in a different way well you you i'd i don't know if you would treat them
	differently in terms of uh... of the
	of the the justice system although the chances of that person
	uh... changing their values about that hatred uh... seem to me to be generally pretty low
	uh...
	and it.
	But the issues of prevention would be different in terms of working with people on tolerance and in terms of working with people on humanity and realizing that even if a group is different than you, that seeing them as being human in the way you are is essentially the golden rule.
	So working in terms of prevention may be different.
	But in terms of the justice system, I certainly would be real wary of someone who has gone to that length.
	This is not a crime of a momentary extreme passion.
	It's of a long lasting hatred and in many cases a belief that such a crime is justified.
	In some ways it's more chilling.
	More chilling?
	A deserving of a greater degree of punishment?
	Or do you just avoid that word?
	Using different language.
	Deserving, in many cases, of a greater degree of caution in terms of the issue of safety of that person back in the community, if we're considering that.
	Very interesting.
	All right.
	First time caller on the line, you are on the air with Dr. Drew Ross.
	Hello.
	Hi, Doctor.
	How are you?
	Good.
	This is Stephen.
	I'm calling from Maui, and I'm also a lawyer.
	I have, over the years, represented a number of criminal defendants.
	Quite a few homicide cases.
	So, to a certain degree, I do share some of your insight into the kind of people that do this.
	The most bizarre kind of folks in the world, it seems to me, that get involved in homicide.
	To some of the other people that have commented tonight, I've got to comment, this is an absolutely fascinating show and I really appreciate you doing it.
	The concept of the number of people who have been put to death by the state wrongfully.
	There are a great number of them, as the doctor is well aware.
	We just can't list the names, but there are certain websites that will have that stuff.
	But I think most telling was the seminar earlier this year or late last year at Northwestern University where they had almost two dozen people up there who had been released having sat on death row and wrongfully convicted and whose convictions were overturned or Or their convictions were challenged because of DNA evidence that you've been able to use to prove conclusively that they weren't the guy.
	I mean, regardless of your passions about wanting to just eliminate people who do some of those most heinous things, it has to be tempered with the reality that sometimes it's wrong.
	And I realize that in some of the cases I've handled myself, I was convinced beyond all doubt that my client ultimately was guilty of the offense for which they were charged.
	You sit there and look straight in the face and say, how the hell did you do this?
	Actually, I would rather look you straight in the face and ask you, how the hell do you defend someone like that?
	That is the easiest question for a lawyer to answer.
	Answer it.
	It's simple.
	The answer is that you have a system, whether it's in the federal government or in the state.
	I used to live here, so you know it's a small state.
	A million strong, it's one million versus one.
	It's the resources of one million, that's our state of Hawaii that is, versus one person.
	And we as criminal defense lawyers, whether we're retained and paid by the defendant or retained as court appointed by the state, we're given very little resources.
	So the fact of the matter is our function is not so much to get the guilty off, it's to make damn certain that the system works, that the proof of their guilt is done beyond a reasonable doubt.
	But it's irresistible for me to ask you, because let's say that you're halfway through a trial of somebody who's been convicted of a blatant murder, walking into a 7-Eleven, putting a bullet through the guy's head or the gal's head, something like that, and you know they're guilty, and yet somehow you are able to locate some loophole through which this person Well, it's the greatest fallacy known to man.
	It's the Santa Claus is alive kind of thing.
	It isn't what happens.
	It is so seldom that that happens.
	knows what how can you live with yourself
	uh... after assisting in the release of that person
	well it's the greatest policy known to man santa claus is alive kind of thing
	it isn't what happened it is so seldom that that happens but the question you must
	be asking how do you justify criminal behavior on the part of the
	government That's the real question.
	And then you have to ask the real question.
	What is the percentage of times that in spite of the fact that you can prove conclusively that the police officers violated the law?
	One has to remember it's not a loophole.
	It's the Constitution.
	Unless we hold the Constitution to have no value.
	And that the Constitution is not a guideline by which we should run our... No, it has great value.
	I simply... I didn't ask that.
	What I asked was how you could live with yourself.
	Well, but you have to ask the question whether or not that really happens.
	The fact of the matter is that if the officer or the government does engage in illegal conduct and you're able to establish it, the real question mark is how many times did the judges have the strength of character To say that conduct is wrong and as a consequence we're going to engage in some sort of remedial act, which may be to exclude certain evidence.
	It happens so rarely that it's like plane crashes.
	It makes the news when it happens, not when it doesn't happen.
	So it's not the norm, okay, but... It is so rare.
	I mean, that's kind of like talking about how many innocent people are executed.
	It's very rare.
	I don't think that...
	As you well know, Hawaii is not a death penalty state, thank God.
	But I mean, even nationwide, the good doctor here has admitted that basically it's very rare.
	Well, doctor, I think that isn't quite accurate either.
	The number is high.
	I mean, there are a large number of cases where it has happened.
	The problem is twofold.
	After somebody is dead, who goes back to prove that they were wrongfully executed?
	It's those who are still alive that the Innocent Project, for example, really spends a lot of their time and money trying to save.
	Secondly, you're also looking at very ancient records, too.
	It's trying to prove a negative to a certain degree, trying to establish that John Doe, who was executed in 1955, was in fact wrongfully executed.
	It's a tough question.
	And of course, the anecdotals.
	In my office, I must get half a dozen people a month who call up and say, my son, my daughter, my uncle, my sister in the blanks is wrongfully convicted.
	Can you please help?
	There's that emotional appeal.
	When you review the evidence, you're wrong.
	I doubt it.
	The evidence is just overwhelming.
	But the number of people for whom they really are wrongfully a accused of the be convicted it's not a great number
	look at the statistics from the supreme court well i was asking you about a rare thing as well that it is
	really stipulated was rare and i i was asking how you would
	how you would handle that how during the course of the case once you became convinced
	that you were about to to to do something to prove something
	that's going to get somebody who was killed and will probably kill again put
	back on the street That's a tough question, can you answer that?
	This is a darn tough question, Art, and the answer is based, once again, in your basic faith in that, A, if you don't stand up for the Constitution, if you don't stand up for the system, and it's not the system just to say the system, but a system that actually is checked and balances on what can be an overly oppressive government, How do you protect society?
	It's the same thing.
	At some point, a lawyer, whether it be some schmuck like me or some big time guy like F. Lee Daly, somebody has to say, you can't go beyond this line.
	If you don't draw the line, then they're at your door, in your house, going into your bedroom.
	The Constitution as defined currently by the Federal Government, I'm sorry, by the Federal Supreme Court.
	You know, I absolutely have sympathy and completely agree with all of your arguments, but my question was a very personal question for you.
	And I'd still like an answer.
	I mean, when you know your guy has killed and you're about to get him released and he's going to kill again, how do you as a human being handle that?
	Do you go home and sort of lay the Constitution on your lap and you're comforted?
	Do you face the reality that you're cutting somebody loose who is about to take another life?
	Well, it's not an easy situation, and fortunately it has happened so rarely that it's not something you think about too much.
	But if it did happen, and I have to put it in the prospective rather than... Humor me with the possibility.
	It would be terrible.
	I am not going to say that I would feel good because, once again, I made the streets freer and safer for criminals.
	Clearly, that's not what we want.
	I guess the comfort zone here is it's like flying on an airplane.
	If you knew that every time you got on an airplane, the chances are 1 in 10 would crash, you'd never get on one.
	But that isn't really what happens.
	But nevertheless, I agree with you.
	It would make me feel like crap.
	And I wouldn't want to have to face that if that were the situation.
	Well, listen, I couldn't resist.
	I'm sorry.
	I appreciate your answering the question.
	Doctor, do you have any for him?
	No, I think he did answer your question.
	I think it is difficult and some of the issues that we face as mental health people, but we're not quite as directly in there as a lawyer is, certainly as a defense lawyer is.
	We've got these situations where we know a lot about the case and the issue is how much Are we supposed to reveal when our role is limited and some of these other technicalities that can be real difficult situations to be in as a psychiatrist in the case, but it's not the same degree of a cliffhanger as what you're talking about.
	Alright, let's try this one out on you.
	This is not necessarily the case of a killer, or maybe there is killing involved.
	There are states like Washington State and some others that have passed sexual predator laws.
	Which basically say that if you are a repetitive sexual predator, a pedophile, the possibility of your rehabilitation is so impossibly small that even when your sentence is done, if we conclude that you are likely to repeat your behavior, and or statistically we have concluded that you will repeat
	your behavior.
	We will keep you locked up past the day when you're supposed to get out.
	Forever, if necessary.
	Your comments.
	One of the problems with those statutes is that they generally put the person into a mental health facility.
	And I have a lot of concerns about that.
	And a lot of times these mental health facilities have people who have not been convicted of any crime.
	Have either been found not guilty of reasonable insanity or in many cases are there on civil commitment.
	And you're putting a sexual predator in a mental health facility because that's a place that you can keep that person locked up.
	And so I have some difficulty with that on a procedural level.
	The idea, however, that release should be contingent upon behavior rather than expiration of a sentence I don't have a problem with it.
	Okay, let's try this.
	Let's put you in the same position I put the lawyer in.
	It's really a hot seat.
	Okay.
	And that is, let's say that you are in charge of reviewing somebody who has sexually attacked seven children, killed three of them, and obviously you are sitting there having to make a judgment about whether this person can be rehabilitated.
	Is there any circumstance under which you can imagine you could recommend such a person be returned to society knowing what you know about this type of disorder?
	I strain to imagine a situation with seven offenses and three murders.
	Only the most unusual and bizarre situations of a person who had some kind of really strange illness that has now been fixed.
	I can't imagine anything realistic upon which you could base the idea that the example you've given would be able to be rehabilitated.
	If it was found that a certain type of brain surgery, let's not talk about frontal lobotomies for a moment, but something a little more like a surgical strike, the military would call it, was an effective means of changing behavior Would you say that that would be a reasonable alternative to long incarceration or execution?
	Well, again, you're going to look at efficacy, you're going to look at side effects, etc., etc., and it's certainly something that would be worth considering, and it may be something where, again, if you have a system in which the convict bears some of the cost in terms of workload, in which this person might be able to even have a choice
	that they could accept this surgery and get out sooner or not accept the surgery and be in longer and be working
	during that time.
	Obviously, if the state's costs are entirely borne by the state,
	then the issue of whether that person should have a choice becomes more complicated.
	But certainly it's going to be something that we're going to be looking into
	if we find a surgery that has that degree of efficacy.
	Again, that's putting a lot of pressure on our surgeons to be able to deliver a surgery of that level of accuracy and efficacy.
	I mean, if you look at medical procedures and medical effectiveness, we generally are not at quite that level of... No, we're not there yet.
	We're not there yet, but we may well get there.
	And then that will be a well-argued question, I'm sure.
	Alright, hold on, Doctor.
	Bottom of the hour, once again.
	Dr. Drew Ross is my guest.
	Looking into the eyes of a killer is his book.
	You can get it.
	We'll be back.
	You're listening to Arc Bell, somewhere in time, on Premier Radio Networks.
	Tonight, an encore presentation of Coast to Coast AM from July 21st, 1999.
	so so
	you could remind my love what a tale my thoughts could tell just like an old time movie about a ghost from a wishing
	well in a castle dark or a fortress strong with chains upon my feet
	You know that ghost is me And I will never be set free As long as I'm a ghost you can't see If I could read your mind, love What a tale your thoughts could tell Just like a paperback novel, the kind the drugstore sells.
	When you reach the part where the heartaches come, the hero... You're listening to Art Bell's Somewhere in Time on Premier Radio Networks.
	Tonight, an encore presentation of Coast to Coast AM from July 21st, 1999.
	My guest is Dr. Drew Ross.
	And he's written a book called Looking into the Eyes of a Killer, a psychiatrist's journey through the murderer's world.
	Pretty chilling stuff all the way around, and extremely interesting.
	I'm going to go ahead and get started.
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	Looking for the truth?
	You'll find it on Coast to Coast AM with George Norris.
	What's your take on disclosure?
	Do you think it's gonna ever happen?
	I don't think government is going to come out and say, we've been visited, this has been going on.
	What do you think's going on?
	Most people in the United States believe that UFOs are real and the government's covering up nothing about it.
	So, when they say, well, now that you mention it, that wasn't a weather balloon at Roswell, that was a UFO that came down, people yawn and say, yeah, so what?
	Now we take you back to the night of July 21st, 1999, on Art Bell's Somewhere in Time.
	Alright, here we go again, Dr. Drew Ross.
	Thank you for hanging in there, doctor.
	Sure.
	Here they come again.
	First time caller line, you're on the air with Dr. Drew Ross.
	Hi, Dr. Russ.
	Hi.
	I have a few comments to make and a couple of questions.
	I've read your book.
	It's very interesting.
	Oh, thanks.
	I had somebody in my family murdered.
	I think initially I wanted to see them dead but I think over the last six months or so
	I've come to the conclusion that I would be sinking to their level to kill them or to
	have the state kill them and I still think capital punishment is wrong.
	I'm also calling from Canada and the guy from Montreal, I think the three people he was
	thinking of were David Milgard from Alberta, Guy Paul Moran from Ontario and a fellow by
	the name of I think it was Donaldson in the Maritimes who all wrongfully convicted and
	imprisoned.
	My questions are how often is brain damage and actual physical neurological problems
	seen in violent criminals as compared to say the general population and what sorts of brain
	damage and physical and mental illnesses are seen in violent criminals?
	Alright, well that's a big question.
	Let's stick with the physical part of it.
	What percentage, doctor, do you think?
	It's a controversial issue because it depends on how hard you look.
	If you do high-level imaging studies and neuropsychological testing, you tend to find a higher percentage than if you look at historical records of what's already been diagnosed.
	Remember, people that are violent are often people that are from the lower socioeconomic classes.
	They generally have not received a lot of medical care or diagnostic workups.
	So it depends on how hard you look for it.
	I can't give you a number, but I can say that in some of the studies that Dorothy Otnow-Lewis has done of people on death row and juveniles and stuff, it was quite high.
	If you look for it with a high level of suspicion and you spend a lot of money to look for it, it's often there.
	I don't know the percentages off the top of my head.
	All right.
	I've got a question, and then we'll go back to the phones.
	You know, so often we hear, oh my god, look, another killing, and look at this, the person was on Prozac, and they blame Prozac.
	Now, my take on that has always been, well, if they're on Prozac, it's because they've already been diagnosed to have a serious problem, so obviously you're going to come up with a higher percentage of people who are, somebody's attempting to medicate, And it perhaps just simply isn't working.
	So you're going to have a higher percentage of people committing crimes who are taking Prozac than not.
	And so for that reason, I don't throw the baby with the bathwater.
	What's your attitude about Prozac and like drugs?
	I pretty much agree with what you've said.
	Prozac was the first of a new generation of antidepressants.
	It was very hot, very touted for being almost a cure-all for a lot of things.
	And once something gets that high in the press' esteem, it then becomes news if there's anything negative on it.
	So, Prozac has taken a whole lot of heat from it, and it has become a bit of the target for people that oppose psychiatry and psychopharmacology.
	My feeling about it is that it's antidepressant.
	It has some things that are not so wonderful about it, and it has a lot of things that are beneficial about it.
	There is something that's in the psychiatric literature that a small percentage of people will apparently have something of a substantial personality change on Prozac and similar medications.
	In general, if that happens, you want to take them off of it.
	However, again, I think that the majority of those Cases are people that are looking for some kind of a defense.
	You mean a negative change?
	A negative change, right.
	Because what you want with Prozac is you're trying to achieve a change.
	Well, not in your overall personality, but in your mood.
	You still want to be the same style of person in general, but you want your mood to be restored.
	The other thing, of course, is when you have a situation, there was a case recently on Maui in which Prozac was raised.
	I don't know.
	I didn't work on that case.
	I'm not giving you any inside information here, but one wonders in those kinds of situations whether the surviving family wants to find something external to focus on because it's really hard for anyone to deal with the possibility that a relative did something violent.
	When someone is brought to light as being accused or convicted of a serious crime, those people who knew them pretty often are looking for some kind of external cause because it's really hard to fathom that somebody that you knew or somebody that you trusted may have done something so difficult.
	It's a pretty understandable human reaction that may not necessarily be scientifically valid.
	All right.
	Wild Card Line, you are on the air with Dr. Drew Ross.
	Good morning.
	Good morning.
	You forgot about me.
	I've been on here 45 minutes.
	No, I haven't forgot you.
	Here's why.
	The first thing I want to ask you is please to bring us up to date on the death of your cousin, Freddy Lentz, because not only for the rest of us, but there's some people that I know that have followed him.
	They knew that he taught against any kinds of drugs of any kind, especially the illegal ones.
	And then what I wanted to say because you have brought up about Prozac and I was on that subject that was part of my question and also the mineral imbalance in the brain and I just am kind of thinking that perhaps they haven't studied the brains of these people enough because when they have done these studies they have found incredible results when they've chelated out excess manganese for example which was directed by the Violence Research Foundation in California And I have advocated Red Hodges to be on your show and Dr. Gottschalk of the University of California at Reed Irvine to explain all that to be on your show.
	So I have their numbers if you need it.
	And also Anne Blake Tracy, PhD, who wrote a book, Prozac, Panacea, or Pandora, and she was not only writing about Prozac, but about a whole host of what you call, I think, psychotropic drugs.
	I think her point in her book was that these children who are murdering other children in schools
	are either been on those kinds of things or trying to get off of them
	and either way they're thrown off totally in their brain development
	and for young children to have these kinds of things given to them
	and ABD stuff and Ritalin and all of that is to the detriment.
	Alright, that's kind of the opposite of the argument I was making and the doctor was agreeing with a little while ago, but is there a trend that overdoes it, doctor, that overprescribes these drugs as just an easy out?
	Well, this has been a big controversy.
	I'm not a child psychiatrist, but I think that like many situations in psychiatry, there is probably areas in which there is over-diagnosis and areas in which there is under-diagnosis in which it's not.
	A lot of times we worry in terms of the under-diagnosis of kids that are inattentive but not behavior problems.
	In other words, they're not troublemakers.
	They're not real hyperactive or real fidgety, but they aren't able to attend very well.
	They often don't get identified because they're not making trouble in the classroom.
	On the other hand, we also worry about situations in which you have high-achieving parents that expect the child to be high-achieving and sometimes will get latched onto the idea of a diagnosis and medication treatment because their child, for whatever reason, is performing at B-level and they want to expect the child to be A-level and there may not be a diagnosis and we worry about situations in which those kids get treated.
	So, I think there's pockets of both.
	I think there's pockets of over-diagnosis.
	I think there's pockets of underdiagnosis.
	And I also think, you know, that it's hard with a lot of schools to sometimes be able to tailor things for the needs of these kids.
	And sometimes we, you know, again, it's this continuing debate of do we wind up falling back on medication too much?
	And, of course, the health care system is asking for doctors to do things quicker, less frequent visits, less time.
	And with children, you want to spend time not only with the children, but also with I have a couple of comments and a couple of questions.
	It is a complicated area.
	I don't want to make a sweeping opinion, but I think there is a bit of both underdiagnosis
	and overdiagnosis in those cases.
	East of the Rockies, you are on the air with Dr. Drew Ross.
	Hi.
	Hello, Dr. Ross.
	Hi.
	I have a couple of quick comments and a couple of questions.
	One, I am very concerned with what you perceive to be the social impact on violence.
	For example, I am in Indianapolis, Indiana, and we have declared ourselves to be the,
	quote, amateur sports capital of the world or the sports capital of the world.
	And since that time, we've seen a dramatic increase in crime.
	And I guess I'm very concerned with the violence level of the contact sports, and what impact this is having on young people, Because it would seem as you review the number of sports figures involved in at least aggressive crimes against females and very often just aggressive behaviors.
	Does this contribute in any way to a community's increase in violence?
	I think people want to emulate what they perceive to be stardom And I noticed that you said early on that so many of the people who you diagnose come from lower economic backgrounds and have received minimal medical care in their past.
	and so many of the professional sports personnel are coming from, I mean this is a realm of
	achievement for them, but most of them were not necessarily high achievers academically
	prior to their involvement in the professional sports industry.
	Well I think that, I do worry at times that we have different styles of coaching and different
	styles of parental involvement with sports and I do worry about those situations in which
	the coaches and or the parents, we should call it sports personship, are not as engaged
	The idea of playing a fair game, the idea of going out there and doing your best but
	giving the other person a fair shake, the idea of congratulating the other person and
	enjoying yourself out there and enjoying the game whether you win or lose.
	I think that there are different values that can be taught to kids in sports.
	I do worry about the level of aggression that is sometimes taught and the level of aggression
	that is promoted in the United States.
	I remember when O.J.
	of some of the professional sports, some of the language.
	If you listen to the language of some of the sports announcers, it's awfully violent language,
	war type of language, killer instinct, etc., etc.
	It's remarkable to me.
	I remember when O.J. Simpson was first charged and what was surprising to me was that so
	many people were surprised that he could be charged with such a thing because his image
	was generally kind of the good guy image.
	It reminds me of in the 70s the way the wrestlers, the worldwide wrestling or whatever it's called, where there would be a very prototypical bad guy and then a good guy.
	The good guy would come up and talk with the announcer and, well, I hope it's a good match.
	Then they'd both go and bash each other's heads for half an hour.
	And so that good guy image can sometimes be a veneer, and yet a lot of these sports are very focused on aggression.
	Okay, hold up a minute now.
	Let me jump in here.
	Okay.
	I'm a really, really big fan of the NFL.
	Okay.
	There's a lot of violence in the NFL.
	There's people hitting people.
	Boom!
	You can hear it.
	heads clashing down on the field would it be your view that uh...
	such games are actually a cause of violent thought and violent
	tendencies and violent actions or that
	perhaps the airing of such things allows people to vicariously live out what otherwise might become a personal violent
	tendency All right.
	I think there's some degree of chance of both.
	To be honest with you, I worry more about the direct training of kids with their sports than I do about the broadcast sports.
	I worry more about the broadcast movies and I worry more about the video games than I do professional sports.
	But I think it's possible to answer your question that there's both.
	Some what we call cathartic things.
	All right.
	West of the Rockies, you're on the air with Dr. Drew Ross.
	screaming about the game and kind of you know getting it out and carelessly living it.
	Right, right. And some degree of ways in which people may get pumped up by it.
	But in general I worry less about that than I worry about the movies and the video games too.
	All right. West of the Rockies, you're on the air with Dr.
	Drew Ross. Hello.
	How you doing, Art?
	Okay, sir.
	You're going to have to yell at us.
	You're not too loud.
	This is Eric from Blythe, listening to you on Real Audio.
	Yes, Eric.
	I'm recently retired from the Department of Corrections, and I can tell you that if capital punishment was carried out the way it was designed, it would work, and inmates themselves prove that it works.
	In what way?
	In that... You're going to have to yell at us.
	You're not loud.
	Okay.
	When I was working in what you would call the hole or the segregation unit, the prison of the prison, these two inmates were talking back and forth.
	One of them said, I wish we ran the Department of Corrections.
	I said to him, I wish you guys did too.
	He said, what do you mean?
	I said, if someone broke into your cell, what would happen?
	We'd kill them.
	If someone stole something from you, what would happen?
	We'd kill them.
	If someone ratted on you, what would happen?
	They'd kill them.
	And it's very difficult to get a statement from an inmate after something happens.
	You interview people you know saw what happened.
	I was reading... Well, I don't want to be facetious here, but a lot of people believe that they do run the Department of Corrections.
	Oh, they do.
	Anytime you have two officers in charge of 300 inmates, we have control because they let us have control.
	And we encourage, you know, obviously the alternative would be, you know, a harder life for them.
	So it's a delicate situation.
	But anyway, since, you know, it's difficult to get anybody to what you would say rat on anybody and tell you what they saw, because in there the capital punishment is carried out effectively.
	If a rat is picked out or, you know, someone is a rat, there's no Okay, well that is an extremely interesting point.
	I wish we had more time to develop it, but Doctor, he does have an awfully good point.
	since the the crime is that mean the punishment is laid out very clearly there's no plea bargaining or
	anything and after i laid it out to them not only those two inmates
	agreed with the rest of that role
	all chimes in they said no you guys keep reading and keep running it on your left that
	is an extremely interesting point i wish we had more time to develop it but
	doctor he does have an awfully good point
	there is an environment where capital punishment is
	laid out without uh... the slightest reference to the constitution
	or right to a trial or anything else Boom.
	You do it.
	You're dead.
	It's effective.
	Your argument would be?
	What if you're talking about people meting out capital punishment for ratting, for telling the guards who did something?
	So that means that you're talking about the death of an inmate who tells the guards which guy sexually assaulted another inmate who may have done a minor crime.
	Yeah, whatever.
	Right.
	So that's what you're... I just want to be clear what we're talking about.
	That's what we're talking about.
	And he's making that argument, saying capital punishment works.
	Well, I guess it works in the sense that it might prevent some episodes of ratting, but it certainly is not the kind of model society that we That we won, in which people will die if they tell the authorities... You know what, Doctor?
	We're out of time.
	I'm sorry, because I would... We'll do another program.
	It's been great having you here.
	You're a controversial guy.
	Looking into the eyes of a killer.
	Doctor, gotta go.
	Okay.
	Night all.
	We'll do it again.

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