00:00:11
thank you [Music] [Music] thank you welcome to Shaker Heights episode 6 A Clockwork Orange
00:00:37
Lisa Peru is dead someone stabbed her 21 times in the early morning hours of September 14
00:00:44
1990. she was found behind the Mansion where her boyfriend Dan dreyford lived with
00:00:51
his parents Dan's friends pointed the finger at the weird kid in school Kevin Young
00:00:57
and although there was no evidence linking Kevin to the crime and even though he had an alibi he quickly became
00:01:04
the prime suspect for the detectives of this small town Department they were out of their league and they
00:01:11
knew it so they enlisted a renowned psychologist from Syracuse University to help them get a confession from Kevin
00:01:19
Young no matter what [Music] yeah I understand that and and indeed that's a very powerful Alibi
00:01:35
um that the father indicates that Dan was in fact in his room and that they both heard the screams together
00:01:41
yes that's that's very powerful there is some I must say that we we had some difficulty still however with Dan's
00:01:51
subsequent Behavior he after they go out to the edge of the property and and I'll go back into the
00:01:56
home apparently satisfied that the source of the scream has left the area or whatever and that they can't find
00:02:02
anything unusual apparently Dan re-exits the house to find the bicycle and then in fact without telling his
00:02:09
parents um calls 9-1-1 on his own uh to report what he believes to be now suspicious circumstances but
00:02:18
then when the parents hear the Pruitt's outside on the lawn you know and they're
00:02:21
distraught and here are all these police vehicles the crime scene being established that Dan goes to bed right
00:02:29
falls asleep but while the parents are waiting for the plane clothes detective to come in and interview them huh right
00:02:36
I found that I found that unusual um and somewhat disconcerting but what we decided here was that dick and I
00:02:45
decided that well that's not that's academic right because it's not Dan that we're going to be interrogating it's
00:02:51
it's Kevin and whether or not he's the guy or not we want to give the full shot to to use the best psychological
00:02:58
coercion we can right um if in fact so that we get an admission out of him if in fact he is
00:03:05
the killer what is the is the Forum talking to Kevin now he's going to well what we're trying to do is get a
00:03:13
investigative grand jury assembled where all Witnesses would be subpoenaed and questioned before grand jury including
00:03:20
Kevin young what kind of immunity is involved in that uh none that I know of is Council Allowed no counsel no counsel
00:03:28
he may take the Fifth Amendment almost certainly Council would advise him to do that given that he has no immunity even
00:03:34
willing immunity in such an interrogation right Kevin is um uh illegally qualifies for adult offender
00:03:42
status is that right that's right let me try to discourse for a minute or two about what I believe to be the
00:03:47
psychological Dynamics behind Kevin's peculiarities there's no question that on the face of it Kevin's evidence is
00:03:54
self-loathing self-deprecation what is sometimes called poor self-image he is in fact uh I I there's some suspicion
00:04:03
that his own hospitalization was for an abortive suicide attempt do you know that to be the case uh the most recent
00:04:11
one yes not to most well he indicated to the interviewer that he had nothing left
00:04:16
to live for I have that person with me the officer that did the interviewing Sergeant gray is here with me in my
00:04:24
office an excellent job by the way Sergeant it was It was obviously a very productive interview even though we
00:04:29
didn't get an admission there are some very revealing points that you undoubtedly felt that he was just about
00:04:36
to Tumble to to roll over dick and I both commented that uh in reading your report that first of all
00:04:43
frequently visiting the bathroom I mean how many times three times within some short span of time right right all the
00:04:51
signs of stress that something is bothering him yeah I mean all the physical signs in terms of eye contact
00:04:57
and motion and sitting back and forth in your chair and all the classic kind of interview things that you'd like to see
00:05:04
once in a while we're all clearly there I mean the stress was real high on his level what did you make of him saying
00:05:10
that he could tell you that he had done it and then he'd go to the hospital for a couple years but he really couldn't
00:05:16
live with himself he didn't tell you the truth I mean I mean it it's almost like is there a
00:05:22
truth other than he did it that or I mean one of the things we had been warned about ahead of time was the
00:05:29
possibility that he had already Justified some sort of course of action in his mind into this justification had
00:05:35
something to do with it no I really didn't do it or someone else did it I mean if maybe he had totally blocked it
00:05:42
out we really don't know I mean we were already prepared for the possibility that he had Justified this
00:05:49
somehow and that he wasn't going to feel uh yes this is uh on Jim Wright's advice
00:05:54
right right yeah I I concur um I I think that denial as a defense mechanism for Kevin is high in his
00:06:02
hierarchies of his ego protection he is a he's a fantasizer he's uh his behavior
00:06:09
is compensatory in character let me talk about that a bit I think when you find such virulent self-deprecation
00:06:16
self-loathing I think you need to reach for an accountant it doesn't stand on its own Merit and the the account is
00:06:24
that you look at this the self-loathing as compensatory Behavior as denial Behavior
00:06:30
that is to say denial of the intrinsic the underlying belief that that you are in fact Superior that you are ideal in
00:06:38
every way that you are omnipotent um the opposite of someone who is unworthy you are supremely worthy but
00:06:45
that those thoughts are anxiety producing the Greeks used to call that the the sin of shubris the the notion
00:06:54
that you aspire to godhood that you that you are a god causes enormous anxiety and that that anxiety is compensated for
00:07:02
defended against by the posture of the self-deprecating self-loathing fence so you're very happy to talk about you're
00:07:10
being suicidal you're being unworthy that nobody will talk to you you're not found desirable by either men or women
00:07:17
or what what have you because that's your pose that's your deception what you don't want to talk about is the fact
00:07:24
that you're a God that you control everyone that you believe you control your life Etc and all the people around
00:07:32
you you live in deception oppose the opposite of it seems to me that of what perhaps in the attack we originally
00:07:41
took you don't minimize you you maximize what he did his responsibility his significance his capacity that the crime
00:07:49
is important not minimal he doesn't need help he needs a pause for what he was able to accomplish his significance his
00:07:57
importance Etc his guilt feeling his guilt and there's no doubt that he in fact feels guilty
00:08:04
and that this post-offense behavior of of starting a new life and I found that very significant in the statement that
00:08:10
his profile of the killer suggests that he would move on and start a new life and then when he referred to his
00:08:16
circumstances at College he referred to that as a new life for him right he's in
00:08:22
fact he's very comfortable and whatever guilt he may have had I think he's been able to deal with I think that it's
00:08:29
transparent and obvious that the guilt is not sufficient to compensate or over balance his fears of the punishment that
00:08:35
will accrue to will follow upon confession of that guilt he has already fantasized circumstances of his
00:08:43
imprisonment so what we need to do is is we need to arouse him arouse the guilt again and that that may be difficult
00:08:51
because now he's had ample time to scar over to see that nothing is going to happen that he's been successful his
00:08:58
Godlike Powers have again phased him because he is Invincible but I think that's the tact we need to take that he
00:09:06
should feel guilty he doesn't need help he needs punishment does he feel that guilt still no uh as I'm saying I think
00:09:14
he's originally it's completely he was able to compensate adequately for this because God felt guilt indeed the
00:09:22
opposite he would have been conflicted between feeling the importance of having done something that ordinary Mortals
00:09:28
don't do you know normally Mortals don't kill he understands I think this his problems
00:09:35
with his impulse control he's impulsive he has a great deal of difficulty with impulse control
00:09:41
he has to guard against this incredible power that is within him this this power
00:09:45
to anger to violence and he has to protect himself from that and part of that's his pose of self-deprecation
00:09:52
Etc the self-loathing we need to play to what he believes to be his strengths and in so doing we will
00:09:58
arouse in him his anxieties the anxieties and feeling god-like and those anxieties will trigger his guilt
00:10:05
feelings again we need to do what you would do more with a serial killer it seems to me has in favor the Notions of
00:10:13
power in being able to kill to recreate that sense of power significance that life-taking capacity the interview took
00:10:22
the tact of minimizing you need help well you know they don't really you know youthful offenders we can mitigate this
00:10:30
to the judge because you felt remorse etc etc I'm saying and we know that that didn't
00:10:36
work right I'm saying we maximize the crime instead maximize the power the significance you you go back through the
00:10:43
crime with a kind of fallacious dwelling upon the details but particularly with respect to the power the sheer marvelous
00:10:50
power of being able to take a life do you follow me yes I mean almost pornographic and I'm as you're saying
00:10:59
this I'm thinking I know how we could do that I'm just not sure how to do that under the controlled circumstances
00:11:04
here's what I was thinking what are the we need to shape up a behavior the same way you would try to shape up a behavior
00:11:11
in a laboratory Mass I'm going to go through that scenario this this behavioral shaping that's very
00:11:17
dramatic works very well you look you take a mouse a rat a laboratory rat and you want him to let's say twirl around
00:11:24
three times clockwise in a sort of valet like pirouette so what you do to control is you're in
00:11:31
control over the reinforcements you don't need to punish but you can withhold the reinforcements so what you
00:11:38
do is you wait for the animal to turn its head and look to the right and then you give it a little bit of food
00:11:44
then you wait and it turns its head to the right and you don't give him food now again for for turning right you wait
00:11:51
until he moves his shoulder to the right along with the head and then you give him a piece of food and then you keep
00:11:57
waiting for more and more exaggerations of this form of behavior until it's a quarter of a turn and then it's a half a
00:12:03
turn then it's a full turn it takes an enormous amount of patience because you have to wait for this
00:12:09
Behavior to appear in classical conditioning rather than operant conditioning you of course make the
00:12:15
response appear that you want because you're dealing with some reflexive response that you're just going to
00:12:20
change to a different stimulus but in operant conditioning you have to wait for the behavior to to occur
00:12:27
now of course you can make the behavior more likely to occur because you've got him in a situation where the animal is
00:12:32
hungry right and and inactive you can't condition an animal that's asleep college classes and introductory courses
00:12:40
and psych curriculum says I've always done this it's it's a nice demonstration the class gets together and decides that
00:12:47
they're going to have the professor stand on his left leg deliver the whole lecture on his left leg
00:12:53
so what they do is they wait for him to shift his weight to the left and then all of them just nod and smile and they
00:12:59
look very interested in what he's just said and and that's a powerful reward for the professor and then they wait
00:13:04
until it happens again and then they all nod and smile and between this they would they would hold the reinforcement
00:13:10
they look bored inattentive to maximize the reward and it's very dramatic it works it works every time the professor
00:13:18
by the end of class is hopping around on one leg and doesn't realize why just seems to like to be on the on that one
00:13:24
leg to talk on that one leg now here's forgive all the anecdotal sort of thing we need to operate condition Kevin
00:13:33
Clockwork Orange on Kevin if you've seen that film and the way we do that is when
00:13:39
he takes the fifth and he almost certainly will take the fifth you turn your back on him you ignore him you in
00:13:46
fact even better would would be to make a side to somebody else talk to someone else so that Kevin understands that
00:13:54
there is reward out there to be given because Kevin loves attention Gods expect people to worship them it's
00:14:01
their due but if you ignore them gods don't like that gods don't like to be ignored they like attention and notice
00:14:08
that Kevin in when when you interviewed him he wow you know he was ready to go for the whole night
00:14:15
I mean you were you were tiring more than he was right absolutely and ready to go forever he
00:14:24
loved it oh he loved it you know he wanted the polygraph he wanted everything oh geez you know yeah let's
00:14:30
go I love it you know just just keep giving me attention worship me worship me worship me if he wanted anything if
00:14:37
he asked for a drink of water you turn and give him his fullest attention oh yes yes Kevin you shower him with
00:14:43
attention affection reward now the next time he asks for water we don't now you don't need it again
00:14:50
because now you need something more you need a demonstration of his cooperativeness
00:14:56
Etc I think you get the picture we just need to manipulate the reinforcements and you
00:15:02
have to do it in a very conscious way trying to get him to talk and then as soon as he starts to talk if
00:15:08
he starts to talk then we need to shape what he says we want him to shape talk about we want
00:15:15
to reinforce talk about guilt personal responsibility we withhold the reinforcement for
00:15:21
intellectualization the the mechanisms of denial third person stuff and uh obfuscation you know the distractions
00:15:29
trying to get at what comes closer and closer to a personal confession or a revelation of what he's done
00:15:36
I don't think he would gladly take the fifth and I think what you need to do is avoid letting him get reinforcements for
00:15:43
taking the fifth and that would be for example just continuing on one question after another so he he gets a chance to
00:15:50
say on advice of counsel I refuse to answer that question on the grounds it may tend to incriminate me and he loves
00:15:56
that what a performance wow you know uh one after the other and then it gets very dramatic you know because of its
00:16:02
repetition under the stress and conditions will it be possible for this attorney to condition him enough to just
00:16:08
stick to that Fifth Amendment no no I I don't think so he's going to want that attention I I think I think that he
00:16:15
prefers not to do that he would prefer to try to charm manipulate be the center of attention center stage in this
00:16:22
testimony for the grand jury and there's nothing nothing that the attorney can tell him that would convince him of that
00:16:28
you've seen this I mean people absolutely self-destructive in such situations because their personality
00:16:34
will not allow them to be silent so I think that Kevin's position I I think you would like that I think what he
00:16:41
needs is well without confessing he needs to have and that's what I think he did in the interview he came so close to
00:16:47
confessing what had happened in this third person form but that's expiation that's expiation of sin that's
00:16:54
Absolution of sin you gave him you absolved him of sin because you didn't stand up and say how disgusting how
00:17:00
absolutely unadulterated disgusting you can sit here and talk like that about murdering another human being and expect
00:17:07
me to sit here and say well Kevin you know I want I want you to be able to live with this you've got to [ __ ] he
00:17:15
went away from this interview saying wow it's wonderful it's really not that big
00:17:19
a deal is it I mean here's another guy that was hey he didn't get angry he didn't get upset
00:17:25
and Kevin told us that he wanted somebody to get upset he says through the interview he says you're gonna
00:17:31
you're gonna have to pound on them you have to keep after him over and over and over again
00:17:37
what he was saying was hey I did an important thing and and you tell him it wasn't important
00:17:43
it makes sense that's not a criticism the way that you went about your interview no no no no no no and when I
00:17:49
looked at it I said to Murray that you did every textbook thing that Quantico ever thought of doing and I was very
00:17:54
impressed with what you did no had it worked we would have done the perfect thing it didn't work so
00:18:01
uh indeed you have to go that way first you can't go from the way I'm suggesting
00:18:06
backwards you can't go from where I'm suggesting to nurture him no way I mean after you do this after you maximize the
00:18:13
crime you you can't minimize it you're called out but you can go from minimizing to maximizing he gave us the
00:18:20
opening of it needed to be done over and over which gave us the format to change
00:18:25
however once the attorney stepped in it was minimize it don't talk to his client
00:18:29
we we kind of got stuck on that the other thing is that I think that one needs to see behind one needs to see I'm
00:18:38
starting out from the presumption that the suicidal self-effacing self-deprecating self-loathing needs an
00:18:44
account you can't just say oh oh that's true and accept it as if it were the basis it's not the basis it it is in
00:18:52
fact it needs an explanation I presume I'm not seeing this kid but I presume he's he's not deformed he's not some
00:18:59
monster no oh no he's just another ordinary kid huh [Music] foreign [Music] he reports to him when he gets to
00:19:46
college suddenly some girl comes up to him after class and talks to him I I mean he doesn't present the image of
00:19:52
this loathing where nobody wants to talk to him nobody likes him Etc he wants to have shock value in in all
00:20:00
those writings all his baloney is for its shock value it's designed to say well listen I want your attention I want
00:20:07
importance I want to have an effect on you and that's what we use as the reinforcement
00:20:12
for manipulation so my explanation is that when I see something as virulent as as the self-loathing I need to reach for
00:20:20
an explanation and the most typical explanation for that is it's uh compensatory Behavior anything that's
00:20:26
showy and a facade like that appearing showy in that form usually has an explanation compensation it's it's the
00:20:34
guy that's the homo Basher the homosexual Basher the super masculine guy whose anxieties are because he
00:20:40
believes himself not to be masculine so it's showing right it's it's a demonstration more for an audience than
00:20:46
for anything else we must not we must not give him the Applause must not be the audience that he wants us to be
00:20:53
we've got to reach underneath for the secret places that he hides and so the trick in interrogation it seems to me
00:20:59
whatever he wants to talk about we don't want to talk about whatever he volunteers is not what we want to be we
00:21:06
want to be where the secret place is you know the the last thing he wants to say
00:21:11
are those things is that plan the issue of him wanting to be in control or feeling in control oh there's there's no
00:21:18
question about that too yes he's he's very manipulative very controlling but in addition control is important for
00:21:24
this kid because as I say and and I think this is intrinsic he's got impulse disorder he's impulsive and and I
00:21:31
believe that he says that he's scared of the capacities he knows are in him when
00:21:37
he loses control he can just flip out and and I think that's one of the reasons that makes him a very good
00:21:42
suspect because my impression of this crime scene was that it was an Impulse act okay have you talked to Jim again
00:21:49
since before you should talk to Jim and maybe run some of this by him see what all the inputs you can get would be
00:21:56
useful have you talked to him yet to Jim Wright yeah no we haven't we haven't talked to him since the interview but we
00:22:03
haven't I can't believe you woke him up at three o'clock in the morning I I I just can't believe that well gee that's
00:22:08
what he gets for giving us his home phone number that's why you see what he said to you I I think you're tired I
00:22:14
think you ought to go to bed let me throw one other thing into this we have a group of kids that were involved with
00:22:19
him that we keep in contact with regularly in fact Kevin has been in a couple of parties over the last couple
00:22:25
weekends Kevin always somehow brings up the issue of Lisa I mean it's always brought up by Kevin in one instance he
00:22:32
made some statements to the effect of it's too bad the police never had any sort of suspect or any leads or anybody
00:22:37
that they could look at for this is there any way we can play into that or does that mean anything to us the
00:22:44
general response is kids don't even want to talk about it they just say yeah yeah
00:22:48
yeah and leave them which is the other thing is that I think I think you need to we need to look at this in in the
00:22:55
salacious pornographic interests that are that are being served Kevin has to be able to by bringing it up able to
00:23:03
recreate a moment of real power real significance real unusualness at the same time he continues to to get this
00:23:10
acceptance let me let me tell you an anecdote that that amazed me May Rouse your intuition about how I'm
00:23:17
trying to explain this we've all had the experience of having a very Vivid active dream the kind of
00:23:23
dream that's very strong very Vivid and waking up and think to yourself wow what
00:23:29
a dream that was and then as you try to hold on to the details of that dream it gradually slips between your fingers and
00:23:36
it just Fades as you the harder you try to look at the content of the dream the more it fades and yet it was Vivid and
00:23:42
very real and very active and you sense that by contrast to those instances where you
00:23:48
wake up and it's a it's in a vivid dream and you turn to the significant other in
00:23:54
your life your partner or somebody or you you go to work and you say my Lord I had this dream last night you wouldn't
00:23:59
believe this dream I had and you're able to relate all those details in that dream I mean one from the other
00:24:07
Now One account of that might be as follows the the content of the dream that you cannot remember is anxiety
00:24:14
producing and so you need not you don't want to think about it you want to put it behind you so it slips through your
00:24:20
fingers because it's too anxiety provoking the content of the dream that you have this urgency to tell somebody
00:24:26
about is is content that you need to test against somebody else so for example and typically the person you
00:24:31
want to tell it to is the person that's significant in the dream so you turn to your partner and you say I've had this
00:24:38
incredible dream about and and it was you and me and we were and and you go on with this and suppose
00:24:45
that the content just suppose the content of that dream is symbolically reflective of you killing this other
00:24:50
person so you go through this in gory detail but but symbolically it doesn't sound obvious that you're killing the
00:24:56
person it's well you see I dreamed that you were on this cliff and and and then we were floating down and there were
00:25:02
these rocks down below and here you are describing to the person how you're going to kill him you know like uh well
00:25:09
you're you're gonna be splattered all over those rocks and then what what does the person say to you they don't say as
00:25:16
I said you know stand up and say you son of a [ __ ] there's no way in the world
00:25:19
I'm gonna sit here and have somebody who dreams like that and have any respect for such a person or even any affection
00:25:25
no now now what did they say oh you have such a wonderful imagination oh wow isn't that wonderful that's that's
00:25:31
really interesting isn't it I mean here's the person you just said to them I'm gonna kill you saying isn't that
00:25:37
wonderful you're just a marvelous person and so you have expiated the sin of these desires to hurt the other person
00:25:44
by the other person accepting them and continuing to say you're a nice person you're okay
00:25:51
well every time Kevin raises this and and doesn't have people get up and shun him he successfully establishes the
00:25:58
point that what he did was was not so bad after all well what would happen if they did
00:26:04
what do you think his reaction would be if they shunned him and got real upset about it well I think he'd have to try
00:26:09
to convince them I I think that that you know he was not the person that he was not worthy of their loathing while at
00:26:16
the same time believing that he was and indeed might become suicidal at that point so that he could further
00:26:22
demonstrate that he was repentant that he really didn't enjoy having killed her dick asks he wrote me why are why are
00:26:29
writing me a note just jump in here whether or not he would admit to another kid under any circumstances
00:26:35
I think he could I think he definitely could uh for its shock value for it's convincing the the person that that's
00:26:42
significant I think that your account of his doing this at parties is almost tantamount to
00:26:47
that it is of the same character of skirting the confession that he did with you doing this thing in the third person
00:26:53
well the kids talk about all the angry things they'd like to tell Kevin but they're kind of afraid to tell him
00:26:58
because they don't know how he's going to react oh I'd advise them just the opposite
00:27:03
[Music] foreign [Music] detectives tried to Clockwork Orange Kevin he never gave them a confession
00:27:23
and here is where the tragedy is compounded the prosecutor assigned to the case in Cuyahoga County ends up
00:27:31
being Carmen Marino nobody knows it back then but eventually Mourinho would get in a lot of trouble
00:27:38
for misconduct and other murder cases he did things like withhold evidence from defense attorneys and allowing
00:27:46
witnesses to lie on the stand what Mourinho did wrong was go to the psychiatric unit where Kevin young was
00:27:54
treated for stress after being interrogated by police and got a female patient to say Kevin had confessed to
00:28:01
her in the hospital off that testimony from a mental patient Mourinho got an indictment against Kevin
00:28:08
for Lisa's murder the case went to trial on June 28 1993 it was one of the first trials to be
00:28:17
broadcast on court TV a trial of his peers acquitted Kevin Young on July 21st in the eyes of the law Kevin young was
00:28:27
not guilty of the murder of Lisa Pruitt but in Shaker Heights that wasn't good enough they had been told by their
00:28:35
trusted police detectives that this was the guy who did it and to this day the majority of people who lived through the
00:28:43
ordeal still believe Kevin got away with murder life was not kind to Kevin Young
00:28:50
the publicity of the case he found it difficult to find a date all they had to do was Google his name
00:28:57
he moved back in with his parents and painted houses around town eventually he got his own efficiency
00:29:04
apartment on the east side he died at the age of 44. in February of 2017. he maintained his innocence to that day
00:29:16
buried in the police files obtained from Shaker Heights are a few letters that Dan dryford wrote to Lisa Pruitt when he
00:29:24
was in psychiatric care Dan writes quote I tried to kill myself I need Ada here this place has [ __ ] me
00:29:32
up after I get out give me some time to return to normal I don't want you or I to make any poor decisions because of
00:29:41
this place in another note Dan warns Lisa quote someday I'll go too far and I'll do
00:29:49
something very bad and you'll yell at me and be serious and I won't be able to handle it but you
00:29:57
can't let me get away with murder I look at you and I see what I've done to you I'm a bad influence on people
00:30:04
Chris is another example of this and believe it or not I think I've made Kevin worse than he already was
00:30:12
later he goes on to write quote I want to poke your eyes out with my favorite pocket
00:30:19
knife [Music] [Music] thank you foreign