Spree Killers - Encounters with Evil - S01 EP08 - True Crime

what is it like to come face to face with evil to confront your worst nightmare [Applause] When a Killer comes calling there's often No Escape a man who can kill is evil beyond belief to truly encounter evil is a rarity most will never experience I believe in evil and I have experienced people that are evil but for those unfortunate few who do and survive to tell the tale the mental scars often never heal back on Brave valves my eyes felt bold and all I could say was his face on my face and he was just

staring into my eyes we meet the men and women whose lives have been forever altered by their brush with the beasts who live among us this is encounters with evil [Music] thank you [Music] foreign [Music] spree Killers it's pretty killer technically is someone who kills three or more individuals within one single fatalistic action they are about I am being ignored and I want to be taken seriously they want to make the name themselves they want to get revenge on the world coming up Adam Lanza a young man who killed 20 children at Sandy Hook Elementary

School Adam lanzer actually wanted to place himself in the annals of serial killers spree Killers Mass killers the horror of the dunblain massacre a Slaughter of Innocence committed by Thomas Hamilton Thomas Hamilton walked in with a clear intention of killing children and the Spree shooting that rocked America at Columbine High School both boys were absolutely obsessed with the whole dark culture you know bombs guns killings but first a story that took the UK by horrific surprise [Music] on the 19th of August 1987 the town of Hungerford in Berkshire was turned upside down by one of

its residents he burnt down the family home and began killing neighbors and strangers even his own mother this lone gunman left 14 injured and 16 dead this became one of the largest mass killings in British history who was the monster responsible for this shocking shooting spree the Hungerford Massacre was a spree killing undertaken by a local person Michael Ryan Michael Ryan lived with his mum in Hungerford he was an unemployed man in his twenties he didn't have much on the horizon Michael Ryan was an only child and as such of course tended to be doted

on by his parents however his mother seemed to know no limits essentially his mum got him whatever he wanted he lived with his mum he didn't need to work and anything he needed his Mum would provide a mummy's boy Ryan did not make a lot of friends growing up so you never said him with a girl and never seen him with any of his mates or nothing sort of just believing his dog he'd never gone out with his mum never sent him down the history of his man or nothing so I've always been on his

own just wandering around fascinating thing is we know very little about Ryan we know that he may have had some schizophrenic tendencies we know that he may have been a bit of a mother's boy we know that he found it difficult to hold down a job we know that he wasn't very bright Ryan was known in the community as a fantasist who was prone to lying he would tell people that he was ex special services he would tell people that he had a girlfriend who was a supermodel he would tell people that his mum was

going out with a former SAS Captain who was giving him flying lessons although Ryan was never a soldier he did have a fascination with the military and firearms he dressed in combat gear a lot of the time and they know he had an interest in shooting at the local gun club the tunnel Rifle Club he became someone who collected guns he had a license to own these weapons Far More weapons than would be healthy for anyone Ryan's appetite for Weaponry casting himself as some kind of military figure may have been inspired by and there was

references to it Rambo and perhaps he did see himself to some extent at some kind of cinematic hero Ryan also had another disturbing hobby he used to enjoy stalking people in the local forests and woods around Berkshire he would wear his combat gear and he would hide and spy on people as they were walking past or couples or children or people walking their dogs and it was in the woods where Ryan began his trail of carnage Ryan had been in seven eight forest and it's possible that he'd been stalking individuals and following them as he

was often want to do but on that day the body of a young mother Susan Godfrey had been found he shot her 15 times in the back this was Overkill her two small children who with her had been left in the back of her car I don't think there was any evidence of sexual assault on Miss Godfrey but Ryan had killed her and fled the scene the next stop on Ryan's Trail of Terror was a petrol station on the road into Hungerford he filled the tank of his Astra and he also filled a petrol canister

he had no money to pay both he and his mother were overdrawn at the time and he had no access to cash so he raised his assault rifle and fired a single shot across the petrol forecourt towards the cashier it was only when he attacked the garage that a report went through this was taken to be an armed robbery not quite the danger that actually Ryan did present Ryan got back into his car and headed for Hungerford he drove back home parked the car on the driveway of his mother's house and he went inside at

that point it's thought he began splashing the petrol around and lit her fire he then killed the family dog and went back outside to flee Ryan also shot and killed his mother Point his car wouldn't start he tried and tried again but for some reason his car was not going to work he got out of the vehicle he aimed his assault rifle at his car and he shot the radio I think this for Ryan was the final straw enraged Ryan shot at his neighbors he then embarked on foot armed with his AK-47 assault rifle and

two pistols what we essentially had was Michael Ryan moving on foot with assault rifles enough ammunition and in camouflage gear moving down the alleys and streets parks and towpaths of the immediate area around his mum's home it was shooting everything anything was moving animals children anything I see his mother gun down outside the house I mean there was bodies everywhere sit in the movies but you can actually see I think it's going to happen to your own Street Ryan moved from road to Road and house to house firing indiscriminately Ryan went on what we call

a set and run spree he would find a vantage position open fire and then move on quickly to another position where he'd have a tactical Advantage local residents were in complete shock at Ryan's violent actions he shot through people's windows he would shoot people on the other side of the street if they turned a corner there was a policeman killed there was Mrs Ryan his mother is my mother he killed her out again yeah just outside their house and then there was Mr Clements right at the top there were some strange moments in his shooting

he allowed an old age pension who he bumped into to carry on about his business his eyes was terrible he didn't look like himself at all all he said is is that you kicking up all this rumpus I said you're frightening everybody to death and as he walked by me he would be about there and I would stand here I said you silly bugger tragically the local police were not prepared for such an unprecedented incident they weren't necessarily armed and equipped to deal with a single gunman who was marauding and had the advantage on them

Ryan was able to move very quickly through Hedges fences back Gardens and Alleyways and he was always ahead of the police one problem the police had was that they were trying to close down the neighborhood to stop people going into Harm's Way But on some occasions they would send traffic down one road only to find that Ryan was waiting at the bottom of that road and was opening fire on the motorists Witnesses who got close enough to Michael Ryan's face described his expression as his victims fled or fell to the ground one saw him smirk

and grinned down at the rifle he'd just used in the confusion Ryan was able to avoid capture as Ryan slaughtered someone by the time it was reported of course Ryan had moved on considerably so no one at the police end knew exactly where he was over the course of an hour Ryan had killed 16 and injured 14 Hungerford residents actually he found his way to johnagorn Technology College Wade previously been a pupil first floor went into the old maths department and there was a Siege there was a standoff there with police officers for a number

of hours and they were able to communicate with him through a loud hailer he took a few shots at the offices he claimed he had a grenade the officers were not certain and the officers did not actually want to shoot him dead with the police surrounding him Ryan was showing no signs of surrender but he did communicate with them perhaps the most bizarre thing Ryan said during The Siege was when he exclaimed to officers I wish I'd never got out of bed today and that none of this would have happened if only my car had

started and I think that gives a very big clue that Ryan wasn't planning on committing a shooting spree but after the killing of Susan Godfrey he panicked when he couldn't get away in the car and went on a spree it wasn't until he said about the fact that he'd got one round of ammunition left and also I said why why have you kept that one he said it's obvious eventually after firing 119 rounds of ammunition Ryan used his last bullet on himself the police on entering the building were cautious they even pulled his body a

little bit with a rope because they weren't certain if he had actually booby trapped himself with this so-called grenade Ryan was dead and the horror was over but the country was reeling in shock the Hungerford Massacre was really the first large-scale shooting spree we'd seen in this country in modern times the country was absolutely shocked and stunned and couldn't believe that this would happen in a quiet leafy Berkshire town on a Saturday afternoon [Music] Ryan's Legacy is an extreme tragedy but will never be forgotten like most of the Spree killings and spree Killers I investigate

there's always tragedy in there because we know that that's pre-killers are made that way they're not born and it would be really helpful to understand what it was in Ryan's background that led him down this path and what it was in his life that that pushed him over the edge on the day that he decided to kill he was someone who had a grudge against the world and he was someone who was going to let vent to that Vengeance on everybody that surrounded him on the 14th of December 2012 police speed towards Sandy Hook elementary

school in Connecticut a 20 year old man named Adam Lanza has stormed into the school armed to the teeth something going on at our school and um I I just wanted to make sure someone was on their way he shot dead 20 children and six adults before turning his gun on himself what could have driven Lanza to commit such a horrific crime born in 1992 Adam Lanza started to exhibit certain behaviors early in life Adam Lanza's childhood and his background was relatively privileged although his mother and father are divorced he had an older brother and

his mother was catered For in the alimony settlement because she didn't need to work she did however tend to focus a lot of her attention on Adam and he became much more needy and codependent than his older brother he was OCD he had developmental delays he had poor social skills per se Adam's issues extended beyond that of a merely shy and awkward child he was classified as having Asperger's Syndrome possibly autistic as well but he certainly started to develop problems when it came to socializing and mixing he refused to eat food unless it was provided

and prepared in a certain way so very early on we see this obsessive kind of quality about his beliefs he hated being touched he didn't like social contact he avoided having conversations in communication with children his age there was one activity that Adam seemed to thrive at Adam and his brother were introduced to Guns by their mother at a relatively early age it wasn't something that was seen as being a problem by his mother or his father at the time he was very comfortable around guns he became quite a competent shot guns very early on

the relationship with his mother and one of the fundamental connectors that Adam had in his world was with his mother and their shared interest in guns outside of this hobby Adam's relationship with his mother was fraught I'm sure that Lanza's mother had the best intentions for him I'm sure she was genuinely looking for a solution to make her son better and to make her son healthy and happy the problem is there was nothing wrong with Lanza in that particular sense he had what we would say is a developmental disorder the problem was that whenever Adam

had issues his mother didn't want to acknowledge them but also would avoid taking the advice of the professionals who were giving her the information that really she needed to help Adam with this huge array of problems but Adam's mom Nancy found it difficult to come to terms with Adam's problems Adam was struggling to connect at school with his peers academically he wasn't succeeding he chooses not to go to school but she's not making him she's not doing anything to get him to go back into education and actually he starts to then withdraw not only from

the world around him but from his mother from the one connecting relationship that he has by now Adam was becoming more and more isolated as he's going into adolescence he's stopping having any contact with his father again another possible option for him to have some kind of outside communication is broken [Music] so essentially we have a child living in a dark world with only access through a screen Adam was now spending almost all of his time in his bedroom focused on his unhealthy interests in spree killing and Firearms using the internet to access the world

he became more and more interested in atrocities he read more about mass killings not just political mass killings and bombings but also more mass killings that were close to the home Lanza becomes so obsessed with guns and gun crime that we see him searching for lots of information about school shootings to the degree where he's ingesting it he's checking it he's even correcting it on Wikipedia when he sees that the facts aren't quite correct and that has to be because something is growing within him that's making him associate more and more with this type of

behavior there is something to be said about poor mothering about cold-blooded mothering leading to problems in children but there is also something to be said about overmothering about giving in to a child too much and allowing that child's perhaps darker fantasies to actually grow and become something in the real world Adam was now completely isolated this is an individual who wasn't getting out much he was learning how to conduct a spree by watching films such as class by watching documentaries about spree killings and learning what he should do where Lanza is concerned you just feel

an absolute sense of tragedy you know a young man who has got so many huge problems who hasn't had any kind of help any kind of intervention all the red flags have been missed he has no friends he doesn't fit in he doesn't like the way that he looks we know he has anorexia for example he despises the community he belongs to he despises the community who he feels has rejected him he's bitter he's hostile he's angry at some point in 2012 Adam's mother Nancy announced that it was time for a change a move to

another state we do know that shortly before the Spree occurred his mother had been discussing the idea of setting up another town and moving herself and Adam away the idea of moving away from everything that he was able to cope with his secure bedroom that could have filled him with so much dread and tension and stress that that could have been the triggering agent that tipped him over the edge and on the morning of the 14th of December Adam finally snapped well Adam wanza decides that he's going to carry out the massacre the first thing

that he does is he kills his mother we then know that he armed himself with a Bushmaster X-15 two side arms and another shotgun he dressed himself predominantly in black with a bushranger hat with foamier plugs with with gloves he stepped into what was really part video game and partly a retribution for all the ills that had been put on him the bullying the ridicule at this point Adam had nothing left to lose Lanza then drove his mother's car to Sandy Hook Elementary School San Diego an electronic gate system which locked at 9 30 but

when he got there just after 9 30 he shot his way through a glass pane next door to the to the gates and forced his way into the school then essentially he goes from classroom to classroom hi I'm Colin from Sandy Hook school there's something going on at our school and um I I just wanted to make sure someone was on their way and there are some loud noises that almost time and when you could get into a classroom he did and he was able to shoot children and teachers as they cowered for their own

safety and he annihilates 20 children and six members of staff he didn't say much he didn't engage in conversation with many of the victims according to Witnesses but he would say things such as look at them over there or look at me but predominantly he was shooting his victims with the semi-automatic Bushmaster Lanza then turned a gun on himself he killed himself just after the police had arrived and he would have heard them arriving on the scene first it was the local police then the state police but he killed himself before a shot was fired

by law enforcement and before even a Siege or a standoff could ensue the tragedy rocked America and left everybody asking the question why it's my view that Adam Lanza actually wanted to place himself in the annals of serial killers spree Killers Mass Killers Newtown is a place where even the Christmas trees have been turned into shrines and where the usual Sounds of the Season have been replaced by The Silence of almost unspeakable grief it was very narcissistic he saw himself as being more precious and special than other people whatever was troubling him he felt it

was his justification to kill other people to prove his point I think he was a lonely broken psychologically disordered personality affected individual who had been let down systematically by his mother and to a degree by A system that should have protected him spree killings always shock the random nature of the violence the callous indiscriminate use of powerful firearms and they make us question the nature of the individuals capable of such murderers shooting Rampages what we do tend to find time and time again in spray Killers is a high amount of narcissism almost to the point

that they have some form of personality disorder where they see themselves as so important and precious and other people in the world is meaningless and unimportant they're not manipulative they are not about sex they are not about Envy they are not about money they are about I am being ignored and I want to be taken seriously I will not allow the world to forget me we often find with spree killers that they're killing for a very limited number of reasons in some cases they want revenge upon a community or a town or a college or

a workplace in other spree killings they're just isolated loners who want some kind of notoriety and some kind of infamy but it's almost always to my mind about no one understands me I want the world to notice me and I want to make my point I want my 15 minutes of fame if you like these traits were certainly present in the lone gunman Thomas Hamilton on the morning of the 13th of March 1996 he entered the primary school gymnasium in the Sleepy town of dunblang Scotland Thomas watt Hamilton leaves home carrying two browning nine millimeters

and two three five seven Magnums and 743 cartridges he goes into the school goes into the gym with a clear intention of killing children the shooting spree that ensued would take the lives of one teacher and 16 children Hamilton displayed many of the signature characteristics of a spree shooter born in 1952 Thomas Hamilton lived on his own in dunblane Scotland is a classic isolated individual who had chip on his shoulder about the way life was treating him he also had the unfortunate characteristics that time and time again we see makeup spree Killers so firstly he

was a narcissist by that I mean he had an extreme belief in his own importance he was someone who had learned to never take responsibility for his actions he never blamed himself for what went wrong he always blamed other people during the 1980s he worked with the scouts he'd been quite difficult as a scout leader he often fell out with other people in the organization on one occasion he took some children camping in a completely unprepared fashion some of them got hypothermia nearly died but following a number of other disagreements he finally was kicked out

of the scouting Association he began to set up his own boys clubs his motivation in his own words was to prevent boys from becoming folks and tear aways and he wanted to create athletes in young boys and and instill discipline in them for less than 10 pence a day a child could spend a day with him doing gymnastics or swimming or some sport activities with other children sometimes he would insist that children did it in their underpants and sometimes they would take part without their shirts there were many rumors about Hamilton having an unhealthy interest

in the young boys there's been a suggestion of pedophile Behavior but there's no evidence that he ever interfered with any young boys or anything like that the complaints always seem to be that he was a bit too heavy on the discipline and very kind of militaristic rather than sexual he would have pictures all over his wall semi-naked boys and this was in plain sight for his neighbors to see they all commented on it he would he would take videos of young boys Hamilton also had another unwholesome obsession Hamilton was a pistol Shootist he would shoot

at a local gun range he wasn't a particularly proficient Marksman and he didn't have many friends at the gun club I think at the time of the murders he had something like 5 000 rounds on munition in his home he had all these guns completely legally the police were well aware that he he owned this Arsenal I would have called it what turned this loner and gun fanatic into a deadly child killer Hamilton was facing a time where it was all starting to unravel for him he was in financial difficulty his business has failed parents

had begun to talk about him they thought there was something strange about him he was a bit of an oddball some parents had mentioned that he'd sometimes brandished his gun when talking about the clubs to try and perhaps scare them or intimidate them on other occasions he'd actually allowed local children to come to his house to hold his gun and to look at his guns there was a campaign to stop his boys clubs completely so we did the accusations leveled against him of suspicious Behavior towards boys could have been one of the contributory factors to

the break that led him to dumbling he'd run out of access to children when all of those things start going wrong for a narcissist who can't accept blame that's when they suffer what I called the triggering event on the 13th of March 1996 Hamilton's psychological trigger was finally pulled on the morning of the Spree he packed his ammunition guns balaclava near Defenders into his vehicle and he drove off towards the primary school he went in with four guns more rounds of ammunition than he will ever need and he went in there simply to kill at

about 9 30 that morning he walks into the school and into the gymnasium where there is a class and a teacher and two assistants the PE teacher responsible for this particular group asks him what on Earth he's doing and he promptly kills her he then opens fire literally randomly across the children killing in the process 16. in an act of unimaginable cruelty and Despicable brutality so it was soon very fast it sounds like something yes only it wasn't it wasn't constantly fine he had a lot of space between the shots I saw him flying at

us after about 15 to 18 minutes of shooting he turned the gun on himself and killed himself he was an individual who didn't want to get involved in a shootout with the police and he didn't want to be taken alive he took the coward's way out and killed himself which I can imagine for for some families was a relief that he was dead but also anger that he didn't face punishment for what he did a community numbed by the horror at their local school a community asking why above all a community asking why here de

Blaine a peaceful Cathedral City suddenly having to face up to an unspeakable tragedy the terrible and selfish actions of one man had laid Devastation to dunblane [Music] world news world's media turned its attention to dunblane and initially dunblane did find it very very difficult but they were also able to show great elements of unity and community it's only 20 years ago this happened so it's in our living memory and a lot of the children then are only watching the mid-20s now and they've gonna have that memory with them for the rest of their lives Survivor

Amy Adam remembers her ordeal on that fateful day I don't actually remember him when or like sort of opening fire or anything it was all just sort of happened and then I don't know what I must have just sort of realized that there wasn't something quite right I kind of felt a bit strange a bit it's like weird and it's quite smoky in the room and my PE teacher was actually beside me and she noticed that we had been wounded and there was a big um gym Hall which kept all the equipment in so um

she said to crawl into their sort of yeah to I don't know save ourselves the single most horrifying element done Blaine for me was the utter Randomness at that point I had two small children both of them were in primary school and the thought that I could have delivered them to school that morning half past eight and within an hour but madman had arrived and killed them for no reason at all and how the parents of dumb Blaine have survived and coped with that is an extraordinary Act of Bravery in my view this one shocking

and terrible morning created a deep scar on the psyche of Scotland the only person that really knows why he did that why don't blame why primary school children why on that day the only person who knows that is Hamilton which I'm unlikable yes got on with yes happy to have in the house hi nice man very nice I thought he clearly planned his murders he was very thorough in the way he went about it Hamilton wasn't mentally ill he had a personality defect a very serious personality defect and we have to remember that spree killers

are made they're not born and through his personality and his interactions with the world and the choices he made he became an angry isolated man who thought it was acceptable to kill children in my opinion Hamilton is one of the worst types of killers there are he was weak he was coward he annihilated the most innocent people in society that did absolutely nothing to him on an April morning in 1999 two students of Columbine High School in Colorado arrived on campus with a deadly purpose in mind the two killers Eric Harris and Dylan claybold started

shooting and setting off explosives first in the school parking lot onto the cafeteria then to the library they were going to bomb their own school and the people within it and shoot a few of the Stray individuals who escaped the bomb the massacre that ensued would injure 24 and claim the lives of 13. what drove two students to unleash such hell enby Massacre was basically Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold forming a strange kind of Pact try and wreak Vengeance on a world that didn't deserve them who bullied them and ridiculed them Harris and Cleveland a

manipulator somebody who was born in my opinion a psychopath Glee bold was a very different individual he was a depressive he talked about suicide the childhoods were within the range of normality Harris was kind of a rather explosive clebolt was somebody who is a little bit more receptive and easy companion for Harris to manipulate as with any school Harris and Klebold held a particular position within the social hierarchy they were kind of Outsiders they were loners there would often be the point of ridicule with homophobic remarks with General bullying how recently both had an absolute

Mutual loathing for their school peers this loathing manifested itself in Harris's online posts and blogs he was somebody who spent a huge amount of time writing about how dissatisfied he was about Society about how pathetic he found other human beings he was constantly provoking arguments online really interested in Hitler and Nazi propaganda when you read his posts they're full of these seeds which are saying watch out for me you might not see me coming but I'm here the boys began to nurture dark interests both boys were absolutely obsessed with to be honest a whole dark

culture you know bombs guns killings they really really liked for example looking at past shootings and spree killings it was something that was quite fixated for both of them their response to this was to create a fantasy world where the two of them were all-powerful where they actually gravitated towards mass killings and and learn from these it wasn't long before fantasy started to become reality they became fairly proficient in the use of weapons they acquired weapons legally and illegally Harris and to some extent Cleveland became quite Adept at producing pipe bombs until they had pretty

much an Arsenal and definitely something in the region of a bomb Factory when it came to supplies we know that Cleveland Harris were obsessed with bomb making and their friends talked a year earlier about the fact that they were making their own pipe bombs [Music] in fact the boys had hatched a plan to exact revenge on the school that they loathed Eric Harris was pretty prolific when it came to actually sharing all the information that he had about his intentions he actually would produce photographs online about the weapons he had and and what he would

do with them even perhaps you know suggesting he would you know kill his fellow pupils essentially they were getting equipment that meant that they could blow up a school and practicing their skills they were homing their skills for at least 12 months prior to carrying out the Columbine attack imagine that in someone's brain it hurt my wrist like a son of a [ __ ] but so they've been planning it for a long time you know there has to be a day you can't talk about it forever on the morning of the 20th of April

1999 Harrison Klebold packed up their explosives and weapons and headed for Columbine High School on the day of the attack both the boys arrive at the school and they plant the bomb they plant the bomb in the canteen with one intent that that's going to cause a huge explosion and people are going to start wanting to escape from that and at that point they can pick their victims off that's the plan but the plan didn't unfold as the boys had hoped the bombs that they had planned to actually initiate the assault or fail to go

off so they make a decision that they're going to carry on with their plan and they take the guns into school and they start their sprinkling finally for them they're in control they own the high school they're now at the top of the pyramid and they're enjoying it they're absolutely enjoying what they do one of the most terrifying things about this spree killing is the fact that they were laughing Witnesses saw them laughing smiling joking even dancing around they were having an absolute hoot as Columbine High School panicked both boys were really excited and doing

exactly what they wanted I mean when they were shooting in the library we heard them screaming after they chewed up something they'd go just a pleasure Farm that's all it is clebould and Harris moved through the school picking their targets at will they could see that they were fellow peoples hiding underneath desks and ducking behind cupboards and cabinets and they would calmly and silently creep around the library surprisingly individuals as they found them cowering and on some occasions they asked them questions if the if the victims gave the right answer they would let them go

if they gave them the wrong answer they would shoot them dead there and then people were getting shot all around me most free killers are killing their their victims from a distance here we've got Harris and Klebold literally getting into the face of their victims toying with them like a cat and a mouse the two guys were around and they were shooting people left and right as the authorities arrived at the high school the boys commenced with the final part of their plan after they've carried out their mainsbury coming Patty Nielsen who's a staff member

at the school hears them she's actually locked in a break room trying to hide and she hears them shout one two three in a Unison they shoot themselves before their suicide Harrison Klebold managed to kill 13 people and injure 24. the fact that two young individuals would want to wreak this kind of Havoc death and horror on a school when they could perhaps have had Ambitions to be something in the world to do something great is a horrific thing one of the things that came out of the reports that were taken from the actions of

Harrison Cleveland was that clebold was an individual who was internally hurting and in pain and Harris was somebody who just wanted to cause her and pain and together they synergized as The Perfect Storm [Music] [Music] thank you