Serial Killer Documentary - Joseph Franklin - Prison Interview

0:00Your path to pharmacy can be closer than you think. West Coast University's hybrid doctor of pharmacy program can be completed in as little as 33 months, and no bachelor's degree is required to apply. If you've started pharmacy coursework elsewhere, WCU may accept eligible transfer credits to help students keep moving forward. Learn online, train hands-on at our Center for Graduate Studies in Los Angeles, and prepare for real-world pharmacy practice. West Coast University, as real as it gets, visit westcoastuniversity.edu. WCU cannot guarantee employment. It's fall in Jeep country, and during the driving to fall sales event, get a great deal on four-by-fours that refuse to be contained, like Jeep Wrangler, confidence built into every drive with the most awarded SUV ever, Jeep Grand Cherokee, and freedom that can't be denied, with the open-air freedom in Jeep Gladiator. After 85 years, it's no surprise that Jeep became America's SUV brand, get a great deal during the Jeep Driving to Fall Sales event. Jeep is one more awards over its lifetime than any other SUV brand, even the Jeep Grill or Registered Trademarks of FCAUS LLC.

1:57The first thing we can tell you at this time that we're positive of is that there have been two people shot here at this location. Larry Flint, the publisher of Hustler Magazine. He and his lawyer were walking down the sidewalk when somebody on the street opened fire. His method's very making him nearly impossible to catch. We know that they were shot by a sniper. The rifle is a high-powered rifle with a scope on it. Remember the two teenage boys in Cincinnati that you shot? You could see that they were young. The well-known Clans leader said, when I go out to kill rattlesnakes, I don't make any difference between little rattlesnakes and big rattlesnakes because I know the little ones who grow up and bite me when they get big, so I looked at blacks the same way. I totally understand that he will be in control of this interview, and that is the way I'm planning it. Now a veteran FBI profiler enters death row and steps into the criminal mindscape.

3:13These interviews for me are fascinating. They are absolutely the most intriguing experience that I've had in the FBI. Mary L. N. O'Toole, Spender Career at the FBI, including 15 years in the Bureau's famed profiling unit. I work specifically on profiling serial murder cases and assisting law enforcement all over the world and how to understand these offenders and how to make sense out of their crimes. I think Joseph Paul Franklin will be very interesting to talk to because if you scrape away the racism, he is still a cold-blooded, predatory individual who was driving around the country, shooting and killing people. And so to say that that's the reason that he killed is very difficult for me to accept. Interviews like this are extremely helpful. Will they identify all the answers? No. But they will give insights into why certain behavior at the crime scene,

4:14why not certain behavior? Who are we looking for? What were they like 20 years ago? What was their family like? How are they deciding on their victims? Why did they kill some victims and some they didn't? He doesn't have to talk to me. He does not have to open up to me. He can walk out of that interview anytime. By way of background, I'm a retired FBI agent after about 28 years as an agent. Oh yeah? And you learned a lot. Yes. 20 years ago. A lot. And actually the last 15 years I've spent back in the FBI's profiling unit. Yeah. And we're located at the FBI Academy. And most recently, my area of expertise was in the serial killer unit. Well, I don't claim to be a serial killer though. Okay, I don't know. And I want to talk to you about that. I'm going to put myself in that category. Can you tell me what your idea of a serial killer is? Well, I've read in the news, the definition in the newspaper, you know? Sure. And it says that someone who commits various killings

5:17with cooling off periods in between. Tell me why you don't fit into that definition of a serial killer. Let's say Ted Bundy, who was out when you were out. I don't feel like I have anything in common with the dude. You know, I'm just a completely different type of person, you know? A lot of these other criminals, you know, these serial killers, they were just into one thing, strangling women and stuff like that. See, they've been trying to associate me with the scumbags like Ted Bundy, who were killing innocent women, you know? Let's take everything political away from my case. Over and over again, you can hear on the newscast, serial killer, that serial killer, that, to try to incite hatred against people like me, you know? I was an alpha-moan pleasure. I was motivated by the love of the white race. Joseph is a serial killer and he's different from other serial killers, just like they're different from him. There's no one profile of a serial killer. So you have cases where you were a sniper and then you have,

6:20well, it's not a sniper. Well, you were not a sniper, so you really have both. Yeah. In 1977, Joseph Paul Franklin, aged 27, is a versatile criminal, a successful shoplifter and bank robber who is ready for murder. He claims to have found his very first victims somewhat spontaneously in Madison, Wisconsin. He was in the parking lot of a shopping center. He had a 357 magnum tucked alongside of him. This first case in Madison, Wisconsin was kind of an unplanned thing. What put you in that parking lot that day of the shooting? Well, I was driving around and I saw a couple of young girls standing at a bus stop, pull over and picked them up. I was often do that. I would just pull over and see a couple of broads waiting at a bus stop and off to the maraud. They say, they go into this mall, so I gave them ride to that mall. And I'm pretty tall and black dude, about 62.

7:21Was sitting in the car with a white girl. And I beat that because he was driving too slow. He then began traveling about five miles an hour just to aggravate me. So I sat on the horn there. You know, he real loud. So he stopped his car and front of me, got out of the car and began walking toward me. He had his real sky on his face at first, walking toward me. So without even thinking, I just reached in there with my right hand and whipped out my 357 magnum with a six-inch barrel. And then when he saw the gun, the sky turned into a surprise, you know. And then, then he just closes out like that, just keeled over. That was a very risky thing for you to do. There you were in a shopping center. And it was daylight and there was a whole bunch of people. A whole bunch of people. Why did you shoot the woman in the car? I figured, well, I'm gonna get to the interracial couple. She was one half of an interracial couple, you know. I thought, well, I might as well get both of them because I'm gonna probably get caught for this. So I shot her and sped out the parking lot.

8:23Man, I was burning rubber. I meant, you know, trying to get out of there. And luckily, there was a whole bunch of lights all in front of this mall, you know. And every single one of them turned green from me. I got on the interstate and took off. And got out of medicine with constant. It's pretty amazing that that's the first time that you committed murder. That's a pretty cold-blooded thing to do to a complete stranger. Yeah. Joseph identifies a first murder, which is a double murder at Point Blank Range. Joseph has very good recall of that incident, broad daylight, in a parking lot of a shopping center. My question is, is that, in fact, the first incident or is that the first one that he wants to talk about? What were you feeling at the time you pulled that trigger? Uh, fear, you know, if I get him to fight with that guy, I'll be arrested for all this bank money I got in the trunk. I just hit the bank in Columbus a few days earlier, you know.

9:24He had a very difficult time describing his own internal feelings. He could say what he was thinking, but he could not articulate or describe how he was feeling. I don't know. I guess it's kind of like, uh, you know, you see this stuff going on until you see a lot, you know. And it seems to de-synthetize you. Maybe that was it. I did not do an official assessment of Joseph, as to whether or not he was a psychopath, but it's my opinion that he does show traits of psychopathy. This underlying personality disorder known as psychopathy does seem to be present in most serial killers. It's difficult for people who do have traits of psychopathy to identify feelings because they don't feel the same way that regular people feel. Coming up. You feel like you were actually hunting human beings? Well, I was. You know, it's the way people

10:27sit out there and wait for, wow, game, I guess. Before launching his career as a serial killer, Joseph Paul Franklin was a deeply troubled young man, searching for identity and belonging. First among evangelical Christians, then with right-wing extremists. During the early 70s, you kind of see a metamorphous with Franklin. He begins to associate with the Nazi party. He begins to associate with the Ku Klux Klan. And then you see a little bit of the trial and errors of his criminal behavior. You became, for a brief time, a member of the American Nazi party. And even the Ku Klux Klan. I was involved with the party, then that was in 1973. You were a member very long. Just a year for that one. I didn't stick with any of them. One of them were just filled with FBI on formats. And people just always trying to get information from you. But how did these groups think about you? I mean, you weren't there for a very long time.

11:28Were they too conservative for you? They were mostly weren't doing anything. Most of them were in the talking. That's the average Klan's, but an average not so you know. They're all talking and that's that's it. And what were you into? I was into action, you know. Doing things. I wanted to get, you know, actually do something. I wasn't sure exactly specifically what I wanted to do, you know. So you became kind of a loner? Yeah, yeah. You got to be because you can't trust anybody. I thought when he gave that explanation, he was more or less legitimizing why he left those organizations. Even though he touched on it, I think part of the reason he left was because they weren't extreme enough for him. Then you begin to see him focus a little more and more on what he ends up being for the rest of his time before he's arrested, which is a sniper. St. Louis, 1977. At QVC, shopping is more than just checking out.

12:32It's discovering something new every day. Start with today's special value. Then explore exciting finds across the brands and categories you love. From beauty and fashion to home, culinary and outdoor living. Shop now at QVC.com. At QVC, fall shopping is more than just checking out. It's discovering the brands you love across beauty, fashion, home and culinary, all in one place. Whether you're getting ready for crisp mornings, cozy nights, or everyday moments, QVC has what you need for the season ahead, with brands like Lori Geller, philosophy, ninja, and so many more. Shop now at QVC.com. Your path to pharmacy can be closer than you think. West Coast University's hybrid doctor of pharmacy program can be completed in his

13:33littleest 33 months, and no bachelor's degree is required to apply. If you've started pharmacy coursework elsewhere, WCU may accept eligible transfer credits to help students keep moving forward. Learn online, train hands-on at our Center for Graduate Studies in Los Angeles, and prepare for real-world pharmacy practice. West Coast University, as real as it gets, visit westcoastuniversity.edu. WCU cannot guarantee employment. Two months after Franklin's first murder in Wisconsin, a group of people chat in the parking lot of a synagogue. They are about to become the targets of Joseph Paul Franklin's first sniper shooting. There was a total of five shots. One shot struck a man in the chest, which killed him. Police that are arriving on the scene didn't know where it was coming from.

14:34I don't think we can tell you at this time that we're positive of is that we have the weapon, the rest post, and we have five spent carriages, which is right up there in that telephone pole. It appears to be someone planned to come here and do justice. This was not an impulsive act whatsoever. This was an act that required planning lots of patients. He chose this location. It had all the features that he was looking for or that he needed to set up his rifle to give him an escape route and to be able to sit there for two hours, laying in wait for his perfect victim. The victim is almost the last thing he decides to do before he commits the homicide. For his first sniper killing, Franklin boldly leaves the murder weapon behind, having removed both his fingerprints and the serial number from the rifle. The St. Louis police eventually traced the gun back to Texas.

15:35It would never lead them to Franklin. Being a sniper is a very unusual type of serial killer. You choose the place that you're going to shoot. You're kind of off, so minimizes any contact whatsoever with people you're going to shoot. And I'm wondering, what is it like when you're laying there? Getting ready to have a person walk in front of your sights. The white people were sitting down there and waiting for a while game, I guess. I guess it's the same, you know, hunters who find a tree stand or something. It's a summer situation. I guess just sit there waiting until the target appears and shoot. I would just take out an area, find a good place to hide, bushes, or just to bake at yard, as long as it was dark. And I knew that I could see them, but they couldn't see me. You go over everything, every little step you'll take, so that when you do get all you're adrenaline going, you can just fall to the plan that you already had in mind. You don't have to worry about getting so scared that you can't even move. Did you feel like you were actually hunting human beings?

16:38Well, I was. You wouldn't call that hunting them? I would. Well, hunting them and shooting them. Well, you know a lot of people in the military do the same thing all the time, kill people they don't even know. Some of the heroes of this country were the same way, you know, but they killed the enemy soldiers, so they're not looked down despised by the society, whereas people like me are. Some people are just born hummusiles, what I was saying. And maybe not, you'll find a lot of people in the Bible who fit into that category, who are prophets of God. Look at all the Philistines, Samson killed. He's implying, how can you judge me for doing the same thing that people in the Bible have done, and heroes and Vietnam have done, and soldiers in Iraq have had to do? So he said, I had to do this. This was a good thing. I mean, it may sound bad, but it's a good thing, and I had to do it. So don't judge me on the basis of my actions, because I'm not that different from people in the Bible. I'm not that different from heroes and Vietnam in the Iraq War.

17:39Coming up. Blacks all over the country will be afraid to walk out of the street. I would be terrorizing the entire United States. Just one layer. What a sense of power. After his st. Louis sniper killing, Joseph Paul Franklin hits the interstates, looking for new opportunities to carry out his racist wrath. From 1977 to 1979, he commits similar shootings in Virginia, Tennessee, and Oklahoma. You begin to see this really what I would call very mission-oriented serial killer, who's killing a lot. He's driving around a lot. He seems to have perfected the method of his killing. In addition to blacks and Jews, Franklin sets his sights on an infamous magazine publisher who dared to print pictures of an interracial couple. Larry Flint, the publisher of Hustler Magazine, he and his lawyer were walking down the sidewalk

18:42when somebody on the street opened fire, shooting Flint in the stomach and his lawyer in the side, and then escaped, both are in critical condition. To Franklin's frustration, neither the police nor the media recognized that one person is behind this shooting, the one in St. Louis and those in other cities. These would have been very difficult crimes to link. There's such a limited amount of evidence at those crime scenes. There's no interaction with the victim, so the detective has very, very little to go on. By 1980, Franklin finds a strategy he thinks will demand law enforcement's full attention. So what did you decide to do in 1980? We're just to keep doing a whole lot more of them so they could not ignore it. All the law enforcement officers knew all about it, but they wouldn't tell the media that it was a national thing. I guess they figured until we catch the guy, we're not going to let give him any kind of national publicity. That had to be frustrating. Yeah, it was kind of frustrating, but that just made me want to do even more.

19:45That's why I wanted to shoot Jesse Jackson the most. That's when I stalked up in Chicago, went to operation, pushed headquarters up there. Evidently, I might have been a little too obvious because I was driving down that road one day, and I looked and saw a car behind me, and I thought it looks like that dude is following me in that car, and I'm more police car. I'm going to take the next ride, and if he takes the right to, I know he's following me. So I took the next ride and sure enough, he took the right to keep on going. I thought somebody is tailing me here. I better get out of town, you know. The paranoia really in a way is very justified because he knows that he has shot and killed people all over the United States. It's that personality trait of his that actually led to his identity and ultimately to his arrest. After Franklin's plan to shoot Jesse Jackson fails, he stumbles upon another high profile target, civil rights leader Vernon Jordan.

21:13Somehow I was able to convince her to give me the room number. So that's all I took. I was able to set up an ambush out of the other state, you know. That's how that went down. Vernon Jordan is said to be very serious, but at least stable condition at a Fort Wayne Indiana hospital this morning, while local and federal officials are trying to find out who shot him and why. He talks about going after high profile targets like Mr. Jordan and Larry Flint, and actually stalking them, getting up close to where they were staying and where they were at the time, which really is very stupid because when you go after people who are famous, you're going to unleash an enforcement from all over the country. Was there something that triggered it that happened to you or what did you decide that I need to kill somebody? I was actually trying to get a race war started. That was my goal, committed enough racial incidents all over the country to get the blacks all stirred up, you know. And they would start

22:14killing whites, and then the whites would then get angry and retaliate for that, and they would go back and forth until a full scale race war was going on. Joseph wanted blacks and Jews to fear that anywhere they went, they could be gunned down. That is such a grandiose scheme and it's unrealistic and having unrealistic goals is consistent with people who manifest traits of psychopathy. In fact, that's one of the traits of that disorder is that they have unrealistic goals that never would have happened. And yet he believes that he was capable of being able to accomplish that. I guess if I would have been able to do it long enough, they would have had to give me national publicity. Blacks all over the country, international couples would be afraid to walk out of the street. I would be terrorizing the entire United States. Just one million. What a sense of power. Yeah, they didn't want to freak out the blacks all over the country. That's why they wouldn't give me all that new national permission. Wow, that must have made you feel pretty important.

23:14No, I wasn't really important. You know, it was just the fact the acts I was trying to do, my goal was to get the race war started, you know. But you weren't successful. No, I wasn't successful. I got caught after the assault, like city shootings, three years later. I think underpinning a lot of his criminal behavior was the need for attention, this need to get credit for these crimes. It's what we call need-driven behavior. And his need-driven behavior was law enforcement recognizing that one person and one person alone was capable of creating chaos and fear in the United States. Coming up. Remember the two teenage boys in Cincinnati that you shot? You could see that they were young. Yeah, I was trying to wrap it up the violence. At QVC, fall shopping is more than just checking out.

24:15It's discovering the brands you love across beauty, fashion, home, and culinary, all in one place. Whether you're getting ready for crisp mornings, cozy nights, or everyday moments, QVC has what you need for the season ahead, with brands like Laura Geller, Philosophy, Ninja, and so many more. Shop now at QVC.com. Your path to pharmacy can be closer than you think. West Coast University's hybrid doctor of pharmacy program can be completed in as little as 33 months, and no bachelor's degree is required to apply. If you've started pharmacy coursework elsewhere, WCU may accept eligible transfer credits to help students keep moving forward. Learn online, train hands-on at our Center for Graduate Studies in Los Angeles, and prepare for real-world pharmacy practice. West Coast University, as real as it gets, visit westcoastuniversity.edu. WCU cannot guarantee employment. At QVC, fall shopping is more than just checking out.

25:15It's discovering the brands you love across beauty, fashion, home, and culinary, all in one place. Whether you're getting ready for crisp mornings, cozy nights, or everyday moments, QVC has what you need for the season ahead, with brands like Laura Geller, Philosophy, Ninja, and so many more. Shop now at QVC.com. In 1977, serial sniper Joseph Paul Franklin begins wandering the country shooting people he calls enemies of the white race. His victims are chosen at random, except for two. Civil rights leader Vernon Jordan and Hustler magazine publisher Larry Flint were targeted for their high profile work. By 1980, Franklin, feeling that his crimes are not getting the attention they deserve, escalates his violence. A serial sniper is a tough, tough offender to understand.

26:15He decides who will be in his sights. He realizes that that person's life rests in his hands. So the ultimate thrill and sense of power and control over another human being has to be considered as part of the motivation for being a serial sniper. It appears that Franklin also decides to expand his target list to include children. On June 8, 1980, the sniper unleashes his pain on Cincinnati, Ohio. You have two teenage boys who are shot and killed in Cincinnati. No one sees anything, no one identifies anybody that was responsible. The victims Dante Evans Brown and Darryl Lane, cousins and best friends were 13 and 14 years old. Give our brother Dante peaceful rest in this grave, the father, the son, and the whole spirit.

27:17Come on you and remain with you forever, amen. Up until that point, we had not seen really young victims 13 and 14 years of age, who now were targeted by this serial sniper. And it really suggests that Joseph was changing his MO. He was increasing the number of crimes and he was even changing his victimology to include these two very sympathetic victims. If we could go back to the choice of the remember the two teenage boys in Cincinnati. The what? The two teenage boys in Cincinnati that you shot. They were 13 and 14 and this was during that period of time that you described that you were going to do things differently. Yeah, I was trying to ratchet up the violence. Is that why you picked two young teenage boys because you had a scope on your weapon at that time

28:19and you would have been able to see the neighborhood. You could see that they were young. There was only one time during the interview when his body language became defensive and that was when we started to talk about the homicide and Cincinnati involving two young African-American boys ages 13 and 14. I couldn't really tell exactly how old they were. I figured they were young but maybe just 18 or 19 years old, you know, sitting in there in a dark, you know, and seeing just your silhouette, you know, the shadows, you know, it was kind of hard to tell how old somebody was. I had no idea they were yet young. I knew from reviewing the case and from talking to other people that not only could he have seen through that scope, but he wasn't all that far away from those two young victims. When you know and only shoot young children, the repercussions for you as the offender can be far greater, especially when you are incarcerated in prison.

29:20And people think of you differently when you shoot and kill children. It didn't matter what it mattered in that, you know, I had no conscience as far as the blacks go, you know, you know, when you remember the clan and you were spent years around white supremacists, you began thinking of blacks and that's non-human. Connie Lynch, who was a well-known clans leader, said, when I go out to kill rattlesnakes, I don't make any difference between little rattlesnakes and big rattlesnakes. Because I know the little ones who grew up in white meat when they get big. So I looked at blacks the same way. So it appeared to me that he was speaking out of both sides of his mouth. He was talking about not knowing that they were younger victims. And yet if he shot two young boys, he knew that he would get much more attention from the media and much more attention from law enforcement. Coming up, I was a little kid. It was beat up and starved. You get so traumatized, you just trying to pay back other people all the pain that you suffered.

30:30In the summer of 1980, an unusual type of serial killer, a racist sniper, roams the US looking for targets in states from Virginia to Oklahoma. He's used high-powered rifles, shotguns, and a 357-magnet to kill. In Salt Lake City, detectives are facing a double homicide that has all the trademarks of this serial killer. We had reports of several shots fired when we arrived where we had two victims down. We do have confirmed on two of the victims that they have expired. Two young men, 18 and 19, both black and well-regarded in the community, are dead. The two white girls they were jogging with escaped. I responded that night. It looked like the sniper had laid in weight inside this field and then shot these four people as they were coming across the lighted intersection.

31:33Both the boys were shot even after they had quit moving. They weren't wounds to the legs or the extremities. These were all in shooter talk. These were all like kill shots. I'd like to talk to you about the Salt Lake City shooting. That was August 1980. Why did you travel to Salt Lake? Well, I've been there before already back in 1975. Okay. And I had noticed a lot of misregination. What is that? Next thing of the race is especially white with non-whites. It would be a good place to target. I saw two inter-arition couples jogging toward the park. Two black dudes and two white chicks. So I thought, well, I'll just keep waiting here until they come back. And so I was a man to dirt there so I was, you know, concealed the tall grass and everything. You know? Salt Lake City had been used to dealing with a number of very violent crimes. So there was tremendous experience in the department.

32:35But this was a very different kind of offender. Although Franklin has killed his intended targets, the crime is sloppy. We did find some tire tread marks in the field where the shell casings were found. They were a prototype tire and they were only sold in a very limited amount of states. But every one of those states were east of the Mississippi River. They had to be from somewhere back east. It's not long before witnesses come forward and describe seeing a dark colored Camaro parked in the field near the sniper's position. We found a man who was walking by about a week later and he actually saw the Camaro. And he gave us a very good description of the car. Soon a local prostitute confirms that she's done business with a man who drove a similar car. He didn't want to trick in the car so he says, we'll go to my motel room. She thought he was from the south because he had a southern accent but she couldn't remember where

33:35in the south. What made it interesting to me if she mentioned that she saw some handguns and rifles in his room. Then he told her that he was a hitman for the Cluclec's clan. The witness is able to help police put together a composite of the suspect. When we knew that there had been other killings back east and we now knew that this guy was from that area. I think from the composites alone we're pretty much convinced that we were on the right road. The registration card from the motel also lists the Camaro's license plate number and the name of its driver. While the information is phony, Salt Lake City police soon discovered a trail of similar aliases in motels across the region. So from the 9th of August to August 20th we could place him and I think seven or eight different motels. We never found him after August 20th which was the night of our shooting. It's like he just disappeared off the face of the earth.

34:38The Salt Lake City police catch a break when one astute motel owner writes down the Camaro's license plate number. A month later this information pays off. Your path to pharmacy can be closer than you think. West Coast University's hybrid doctor of pharmacy program can be completed in as little as 33 months and no bachelor's degree is required to apply. If you've started pharmacy coursework elsewhere, WCU may accept eligible transfer credits to help students keep moving forward. Learn online, train hands on at our Center for Graduate Studies in Los Angeles and prepare for real-world pharmacy practice. West Coast University, as real as it gets, visit westcoastuniversity.edu. WCU cannot guarantee employment. Hi, this is Dave Roberts. Heading into summer without a medical emergency kit, that's a risk. Summer colds can linger and getting sick on vacation can derail everything. That's why everyone needs a medical emergency kit. It includes doctor prescribed medications to treat common and serious illnesses. So if you wake up sick, at home or on the road, you already have what you need.

35:41It's like having an urgent care and pharmacy at home. Say $45 with code blue at urgentcare kit.com. Slash blue. Urgentcare kit.com. Slash blue. Your path to pharmacy can be closer than you think. West Coast University's hybrid doctor of pharmacy program can be completed in as little as 33 months and no bachelor's degree is required to apply. If you've started pharmacy coursework elsewhere, WCU may accept eligible transfer credits to help students keep moving forward. Learn online, train hands on at our Center for Graduate Studies in Los Angeles and prepare for real-world pharmacy practice. West Coast University, as real as it gets, visit westcoastuniversity.edu. WCU cannot guarantee employment. I think 11 o'clock one night I got a call saying, head to the airport, they found this guy and were flying you to I think the little town was called Erlangur Kentucky and they'd arrested him at a motel on our warrant. In an odd turn of events, police in Boone County, Kentucky,

36:46while arresting a burglar at a local motel, encounter an angry and paranoid man in the room next door. They check his identification, they check his vehicle and they realize that his vehicle parked in the parking lot is a vehicle that is wanted by the Salt Lake City Police Department in a double homicide. Finding two high-powered rifles and handguns in the man's room, police take him in for questioning. So law enforcement in Kentucky didn't realize when they brought him into the interview room, really who they had, they didn't know how many homicides that he had committed and how committed he was to not being apprehended. And it wasn't until they got him into the station and then they started talking about Salt Lake City and shootings, I think then that's where he got worried and he manufactured his escape and he took off. During a break in the interview, Franklin escapes out an open window and disappears. One of America's deadliest serial killers is back on the

37:48street. But now police have his real name. On September 25th 1980, Joseph Paul Franklin, age 30, is now the object of a nationwide man. One month later, the FBI, aware that Franklin regularly sells his blood, catches him at a blood bank near Tampa, Florida. Franklin proclaims his innocence while proudly admitting his racist views. Do you have white racist views? Oh, definitely. How do you feel about blacks? His denials don't last. In the coming years, Franklin confesses to numerous murders. For the sniper killing at the St. Louis synagogue, Franklin is sentenced to death. Mr. Franklin has set bad. His motivation was to eliminate what he referred to as ugly people from the community. In my opinion, that is an explanation that he thinks would give him more

38:50credibility. But as far as what caused him to become a serial killer, I think that was an excuse. So how did you, Joseph, evolve to the point where you could do something that seems so cold-blooded? You get so traumatized that you're just trying to pay back other people all the pain that you suffered. That's what happened to me from the time I was a little kid and was yelled at all day long and beat up and starved. It had an effect on me when I got older, you know. Just about everybody in the family had alcohol problem, you know. They all drank my crazy, including my dad was an alcoholic. After spending all his paycheck, my mother would start flustered and they would be fighting, cussing and screaming each other and he would be beaten heard. You know, that's the way it went. I remember the landlord would come and bang on the side of the trailer and he would just terrorize us. He would hit the trailer real bad and start yelling at my mother to pay the rent, you know. And she had no money because my father would take all the money and spend it for alcohol.

39:53Eventually they split up in 1965. They were divorced and they left us on welfare, you know. And so she began abusing us even worse after he left. I was the only child in the family who was always bringing animals home. One afternoon there was a little terrier dog, you know, for the neighborhood. We were all out in the yard of us kids petting this little terrier. It was a cute little dog too, you know, with a little tail that stuck straight up, you know. And just as friendly as it could be, you know, the moment he'd been sitting in her lawn chair and watching us and went into the house, set a pot of water on the stove and began boiling it. She got the water up to a full boil, you know. And poured it right on the little dogs back, you know. And he went, you know, screaming and running away real fast, you know. She had a lot of cruel behavior. Oh man, she was the saddest. How old were you? About 10 or 11. Joseph talked about a childhood that was chilling. The question is,

40:56despite the harshness and the severity of the abuse, does that act as a cause and effect for him later to go on and become a serial killer? We have no research at this point to say that there is a cause and effect just with childhood abuse because we know that there are, unfortunately, many people who are raised in very abusive situations and they don't go on to become serial killers. So I think we have to incorporate that environment that he described, but I think it would be wrong to say that he was a serial killer strictly and solely because he was raised in an abusive environment. How many? Do you think you were born to kill? Yeah, I guess you could say that. I was under the influence of the devil. What do you think is going to happen to you when you die? Joseph Paul Franklin has been on Missouri's death row for more than a decade.

41:56Extreme hatred and what appears to be an utter lack of conscience. Drown him to kill some 20 people and injure many others. How do I feel about someone like Joseph? Do I pity him? What are my feelings towards him? I feel that it's important that we understand how he developed to be able to go back and say, was it possible early on to prevent this? Was it possible to do something that would have changed the course of history? You're first thoughts of killing somebody. How old do you think you were? About 17 years old. When I was watching all these Westerns on TV, I guess I would see people wanting them to get shot. Here he was watching TV, watching Westerns, lots of shootouts. He particularly enjoyed when the bad guy was successful in the late 50s and during the 60s, the era of Vietnam, John Kennedy was assassinated by a sniper. Charles

43:02Whitman was a particularly successful sniper at the University of Texas in 1966. It was a period of time of a lot of violence. A lot of violence that didn't make any sense. So you have to wonder about the impact of some of the events of that period and what role they played in him and his decision to ultimately become a serial sniper. Was there a point in time where something could have been done to put you on a different course? Was there some kind of intervention that could have happened? If I had some people that teach me and encourage me to go to school and get an education all when I was little, my wife would have turned out a whole lot differently. You think you still would have become a serial sniper? I don't think I would. I wouldn't have built up all that hatred over the years. It's the thing that people, everybody does. When they get hurt, they want to pass that pain on. I just kept getting angry. Do you think you were born to kill? I guess you could say that. Some people just born with a streak that they can do something like that. There's other people,

44:03I guess it's the same thing that happened. They wouldn't have done anything. Joseph referred to himself in previous interviews as a natural born killer and I asked him about that and he agreed that that was a possibility for him. Again, almost a recognition that in spite of this environment that he described as abusive, he still was a natural born killer. And the research up to this point seems to suggest that there seems to be some part of it that is hardwired. In other words, genetic link to this personality disorder. Do you think there was a part of you that at that time enjoyed the killing? I don't know. I would say enjoy it as you said and I felt I had to do it. There was nobody else doing it so I figured I had to do it. How did you feel once you finished the shooting? I was just glad to get away. Was it sexually arousing when you were pulling the trigger? Not at all. Have you had violent sexual fantasies? What do you mean by violent sexual

45:10fantasies? Violence and sex are involved in your fantasies. That would be a VSF. No, I never had any of those. I wasn't under that. The only thing I got sexually aroused with was women. I was either out chasing skirts trying to get laid or I was out trying to kill an interracial couple or or black man. That was what I was spending most of my time doing. For some people, killing is very sexual. I know there's some sick puppies out there. I don't follow that category though. The most frequently seen serial killer in my unit are those serial killers who are motivated for sexual purposes. In other words, they're sexually gratified in some way as a result of murdering the victim. Joseph does for the definition of a serial killer. Now his motivation was different and he talked about his motivation being non-sexual which is obviously a very touchy area to get into with an individual. Is he telling the truth? There's no way to know that. We're depending on him

46:14to tell us that. If it is true, it may be too embarrassing for him to admit or they may not have been sexually motivated. And as we close, let me ask you this. How do you feel about the people that you killed? I feel sorry for him. I regret having done that. What does regret feel like to Joseph Paul Franklin? Well, I just another words I just wished I had not done it. You know, I feel so worried for the people. You know, it was really wrong for me to do that. I think like most serial killers, Joseph knows right from wrong. He talked about regret but whether or not that was a sincere, remorseful regret, I can only tell you what my opinion was based on my experience with these types of offenders and I did not walk away with the sense that he had those feelings of remorse and guilt. I was under the influence of the devil to be quite honest. I know that sounds, you know,

47:17I'm not trying to say the devil made me do it but the devil does put thoughts in people's minds. That is a fact. At the time when Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy were both assassinated the same year in the Port A. Carrida article that had, it was titled, two enemies of the white race die. That's the kind of stuff I was feeding my mind for years and years. That's why I began to think, again, thinking of blacks as nothing but subhumans who go around commit nothing but rage and rape and white women and killing. I know that's just a criminal element. Now there's a lot of hard work in blacks who don't do that stuff, you know. You mentioned heaven and hell and you're... Yeah, I will bitch his eyes and so does the Quran. What do you think is going to happen to you when you die? Well, I'm trusting in Jehovah's mercy, you know, trusting God's mercy. I think Joseph lives in the here and now. I think he lives for the present moment. I think he's obviously cognizant or aware that he has the death penalty hanging over his head. But there also

48:21may be a part of him that thinks that something may happen ultimately and he won't be executed. Many serial killers who are psychopaths are very optimistic in terms of their future. Thank you very much. Joseph was hardly a disappointment. Joseph smart, he's articulate and in listening to him talk about what he wanted to do, what his hope purpose was, made him even more frightening of an individual than we realized thirty-some years ago. I think that he was absolutely a very, very dangerous serial killer set apart from many of the other ones that we saw then and that we see today. One of the reasons for this kind of interview is not just to develop a better understanding of these kinds of offenders, but also to help investigators the next time that this type of crime occurs.

49:23Joseph Paul Franklin will not be our last serial sniper and we know that because we had the beltway snipers right after 9-11. A lot of the information that Joseph talked about is information that we can take into not only prepare the investigation, but also help prepare for the interview with the next serial sniper. Hi, this is Dave Roberts. Heading into summer without a medical emergency kit, that's a risk. Summer colds can linger and getting sick on vacation can derail everything. That's why everyone needs a medical emergency kit. It includes doctor-prescribed medications to treat common and serious illnesses. So if you wake up sick, at home or on the road, you already have what you need. It's like having an urgent care and pharmacy at home. Say $45 with code blue at urgentcare kit.com slash blue urgentcare kit.com slash blue.