Interview with a Diagnosed Psychopath

Charity, I've never met your son Paris.

I'm about to go inside that prison.

What advice would you give me

about actually coming face-to-face with him

and how I should interact with him?

I mean, I think you should interact with

him just like you do any other person.

He's a human.

I mean, be nice, be personable, be polite,

because that's what he'll be, nice, personable,

polite. He's very charming when he wants to be.

I mean, he is a psychopath.

I'm about to interview a murderer,

unlike any I've faced before.

Psychopaths may seem like us,

but I want to find out how their minds really work.

All right, let me go down there and get this to him,

and we'll start the clock on you when he comes and sits down.

Paris?

Here we go. Come on over here, buddy.

Paris Bennett is a diagnosed psychopath,

and with an IQ of 141, he's considered a genius.

So you're going to be talking to Pierce Morgan, OK?

OK.

The prison regards him as so dangerous,

they've insisted I interview him behind toughened glass.

Hello, everyone.

Paris.

How are you doing?

Good to see you.

Thank you for agreeing to do this. We appreciate it.

You're

welcome. To help us better understand Paris,

I've called upon two of America's leading experts.

Dr Casey Jordan is a specialist in criminal behaviour.

Mark Safaric has over 20 years at the FBI, profiling

violent criminals. I mean, he's going to try and play me, isn't he?

Of course. He's going to think he's smarter than me.

Because for him, it's a game.

I mean, he's got an hour to get over on you,

and he's smart enough to try to do it. And he's narcissistic enough to think that he's smarter than you.

And he's researched you, I guarantee it. And he is sizing you up faster than you're sizing him up.

The experts believe his mother, Charity, will be in danger.

She's watching this interview to assess the risk.

Her son was a juvenile when convicted. so he could be released in just eight years.

He walks out of that prison, and if anything happens to me,

everybody's going to know exactly where to look. So maybe, in some way, it's an insurance policy.

But it's one you don't want to have to cash, because you wouldn't be here.

Seems like this should go without saying, but the last thing I want is for my child to murder anybody else ever again, especially me.

OK, so I got you started at 1105. OK.

Thank you very much.

I suppose my first question for you

is, why are you doing this interview?

What do you hope to get out of this?

I believe that the most important goal for me is to show people that I may be incarcerated,

but that does not necessarily mean that I am a monster or a villain.

That the mistake I made 12 years ago at the age of 13 is not something that defines my life.

I've seen video footage. I've seen still photographs of you together.

You playing the role of, perhaps, protective older brother.

Her as the cheeky, mischievous, younger sister.

Can you rationalise or explain now how you came to do what you did to your sister?

I don't think I can easily explain everything,

because if I could, we wouldn't be talking about it 12 years later.

I think that's been one of the biggest challenges for other people through the years,

because no one likes to be confused.

No one likes to be bewildered.

We like easy answers.

Growing up, no one had suspected that Paris was a psychopath,

and that the murder he'd commit when he was only 13 had been meticulously planned for a reason.

Four-year-old Ella Bennett was fatally stabbed.

Taken into custody was her 13-year-old brother. Paris

Bennett convinced his babysitter to go home early while their mum was gone.

He stabbed Ella 17 times.

From what I've read, you were weighing up various options.

One was to potentially kill the babysitter.

One was to kill your mother, with whom you had lots of anger towards.

And the other was to kill your sister.

And in the end, you determined that if you killed your sister but didn't kill your mother,

that your mother would then her life with the agony of losing her little girl.

And that might be a bigger punishment than killing your mother.

Is that a fair characterization of your thinking?

Yes, it is.