The story of a SPREE KILLER - Gary Lee Sampson

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and albert sampson although i believe albert was known as herc i don't know whether that was short for hercules who knows he could have been a strapping man but either way albert's a strange name i haven't heard of it we have alberts in the uk so albert reminds me of very old black and white films is that just me is it just me it's probably just me isn't it his dad had various jobs so he was a fireman he was a salesman he kind of went through different careers back in the good old days that very few of us will remember where you could literally walk out of one job and into another like the same day that was a thing not even that long ago but nonetheless there was some inconsistency within the word roles in the fact that he traveled between them and i suppose we could say arguably that might lead to a particular mindset of an individual who's working if you're constantly changing jobs it tends to be for a reason and whilst one could say well i just want to be interested in trying a new career it can also suggest that the individual wasn't very good at being steadfast in a role and if we've got that kind of chaos it could lead itself into particular parenting problems so the same kind of mindset could apply when bringing up a child and he did have a really tense relationship with his son so albert struggled with gary and when gary sampson talked about his relationship with his father he did indicate that there were quite big problems within the relationship so he was very physically abusive towards him and he felt that he had a particular punishment for wanting to be very very humiliating and degrading towards him he insulted him a great deal and one of his nicknames for his son was [ __ ] which i think we can all appreciate would be incredibly challenging the people who are primary role models in your world ideally are the individuals that bring you up right so if you have loving parents and you get to consider them like your heroes it sets the scene for a pretty good life foundationally where relationships are concerned if however you have a really abusive and certainly somebody who provokes a level of shame in you you are going to struggle with a lot of feelings you might become very emotionally broken or alternatively you can become highly bitter and resentful either way it does not set in store a good future as regards relationships that you experience and inhabit and certainly when we talk about gary lee sampson we can actually see this play out as he gets older now even though he was getting these slurs thrown at him he was actually very very intelligent so gary sampson was very very clever it's just that he struggled with dyslexia and because of that it meant that he struggled in school i'm dyslexic i have a statement for dyslexia which means i had to go through the process of an educational psychologist when i was a child amongst others because i was a handful the consequence of that meant that i kind of got some special attention and exams they gave me extra 15 minutes per hour which meant that i could sit for an extra 15 minutes not knowing what i'd done wrong because the whole premise is obviously dyslexia means that i didn't know what i was doing wrong meaning that it just gave me extra time to sit feeling stupid but i'm sure it meant well i don't know any of you out there who've been in the same situation the time thing never really kind of worked for me just like somebody to go oh we won't mark you down for spelling and punctuation but apparently that doesn't work in english so one of the failures in school was that he didn't get any special education so nobody actually aligned him with any support services he wasn't offered the opportunity to go to a special educational needs school not that i think that would have been appropriate with respect because he was very bright but because he was so clever it meant that there was this mismatch so he was very capable but couldn't translate that to the work that he did and that led to him dropping out of school in the ninth grade he was 15 years of age then also gonna have to bring in the fact that as a young person as a child he had quite a lot of head injuries we know what that means we know quite a lot of our infamous killers have had quite a lot of bangs to the head a lot of evidence as well around orbital cortex damage of the brain just near your eyes just around here and the reality that that in itself can cause problems where impulse control and behavior is concerned and he recounts that he had about a dozen serious head injuries during his life one of those was when he was four years of age and at that point he said he fell down a flight of stairs and he hit his head really badly we could definitely say that as a child with a developing brain that kind of serious injury could cause some problems later on in life he was also diagnosed with a mental illness which was bipolar disorder now i know that a lot of you watching will either know people with bipolar disorder or will have bipolar disorder make it clear that i am not nor is the evidence in research saying for one minute that people who have bipolar disorder become killers that's not the reality however it adds to the complexity of an individual's experience in the world around them particularly if their needs are not being met so it's just an additional layer to gary lee sampson's experience in the world he also early on begins showing sociopathic tendencies at a really early age that's what we consider really deeply anti-social behavior now this type of behavior typically manifests itself via really highly anti-social and often criminal acts and part of the way that he exhibited this kind of problematic behavior is he struggled to control his anger and he very much struggled to control his violent impulses also he started taking drugs and drinking by the age of 11. big red flag brain develops all the way to 25 we have a wealth of research now a wealth of it a body of it that says anything that can affect that kind of development can be highly problematic behavior-wise i know a lot of you might be sat there right now smoking weed i don't know and you'll be perfectly well or definitely and don't deny it some of you have got a glass of wine it takes me quite a lot of strength not to have a glass of wine next to me too but the point is when you have it earlier on particularly if you have a predisposition for certain issues within your life it can be a big problem so drugs and alcohol at that age is going to set the store but also experiencing some further issues around mental health and also impulse control and just the way that he regulates his emotion he started getting involved in criminal acts really early very young age and he was frequently arrested for petty crimes as a juvenile so if you think about some of the attributes that we apply when we look at people who become violent killers he is fitting a lot of those early experiences that we would expect to see from being abused by his parent and humiliated by his parent to drinking alcohol and taking drugs to being violent episodically and on top of that being an individual who's engaged in criminal activity so these are really big problematic behaviors that we see on a gradient that can lead to some pretty serious outcomes he was also considered really physically intimidating and one of the ways this played out was if he didn't get what he wanted he would physically be violent to assume whatever it was he required now a lot of us can say well that's bullying behavior and indeed it is a little known fact about bull is that i think i'll just share with you because i think it's a good one learning point a lot of people think that bullets bully people because they've got low self-esteem low self-confidence low self-worth and are often being dominated themselves and then want to express their behavior so that they can achieve a level of control and also assume at least a level of power in what is considered wider wise in their lives a powerless experience and i get that that makes a lot of sense when you look at it with logical eyes and you've got that common sense perspective but it's not what the research says even though gary lee simpson is clearly in a situation where he is being dominated by his father and humiliated by his father what the evidence seems to suggest is that people who go out and bully and dominate tend to have higher confidence levels than other people they tend to believe that they have a superior level to the way that they behave and the things that they think about and that they are able to assume that because of that superiority and because of that desire to make other people do what they want they go ahead and act that way and it comes from higher self-esteem and higher self-confidence so we don't always have to feel that sorry for people who are bullied because they are actively going out of their way doing that behavior because it actually reinforces the confidence that they feel they deserve which is that they're better than people however it's clear that this is working for him as well because another thing that we see behaviorally with people is if they use certain behaviors and they don't get enough consequences it reinforces the action so if i'm going around bulldozing people and bullying them but i'm getting what i want in return then unless there's a really strict consequence i'm going to keep doing it because there literally isn't something stopping me and i'm achieving my aims one of the things that stands out for me about samson is he's really bad at having relationships per se when he's a teenager he gets married for the first of five times it's a lot of marriages particularly in the time scale that we talk about when we look at the age frames within when he made those decisions so he's not very good at forming and forging long-term intimate relationships he then fathers the first of his three children and it's pretty much from this point he spends most of his life in prison so between 1979 and 1995 he's inside he seemingly became a kind of criminal career drifter so that he was constantly involved in crime he didn't stay in places very very long and that would also reflect in relationships both intimate and of course in the wider circle because you have to be in a space and you have to be in a place to connect with people get to know them and have long-lasting relationships and he just didn't have that so there wasn't a lot of support around him to some degree also note that's more sociopathic that fringe behavior that not being engaged in society in a way that's constructive and helpful for the individual and also it means that you can act in certain ways get found out for doing that and move on he was obviously quite happy to do that so in 1995 he gets released from prison he's been inside for theft and at this point he moves to tamworth which is new hampshire he meets karen alexander and then he marries her in 1997 she was pregnant with his child at the time however in true gary lee sampson behavior marriage doesn't last long and in fact he then whilst all this is going on moves on to south carolina or with another woman gets married to somebody who's pregnant stays a very short amount of time manages to meet somebody else and then moves he sounds like the perfect gentleman a real guy to kind of stick with that's what women should look for isn't it a man who's there to procreate and then vacate so procreate vacate then because he's such a busy little bee he goes and meets another woman yes amanda newcomb he actually met her whilst he was in prison may 1998 and he marries her later that year it's always stunning to me that i get that people like pen pals but the guy's in prison he's already been in a relationship with somebody else he's married he's got kids and you decide that he's probably the guy for you think about what i like in a man well fidelity consistency i'd i hope they'd have a job yes that would be none of the things that you went for i don't know maybe he was good at writing letters anyway ironically the marriage didn't last lasted one month one month which i think is quite a record i have once met a woman who got married and left her partner the day of the marriage after it had occurred that happened i actually know that individual it lasted for about four hours which is good going i do understand though i like a good wedding and i don't know whether i'd feel like i had to go through it all the arrangements have been done you know wear the dress enjoy the buffet move on but yeah he's showing this consistent lack of connection with the people that he's having relationships with also think back to his early childhood experiences if he had a very problematic relationship with his parent particularly his father and he has some attachment issues this is going to play out in his life and i always say that because parents need to understand the impact that they have on their child's experience later on in life if we are not firm and caring and compassionate and loving and present and kind then we set children up to play out these awful relationship roles later down the line and it goes one of two ways the child either internalizes it as they become an adult and feels worthless and useless and as if no one will ever want them and this makes them highly likely to meet people who are going to exploit them like predators or you get the other which is a person who literally cannot commit because they never formed the understanding of what made a good relationship and they're constantly striving to achieve something that they idolize in their head as a potential reality they can achieve if they meet the right person because they're always seeking the ultimate where somebody can make them feel loved and cared for and completely accepted and unfortunately they're looking for a good parent and that's not what relationships are and they can never achieve it because you can't be parented as an adult so you play this out and it's disastrous for a lot of individuals now after this relationship ends he thinks to himself you know what i need to do i need to work on myself i think that's right gary lee something you need to take some time out you need to identify the missing links in your foundation and experience as a child work it through ideally therapeutically and then go ahead and have a strong relationship with an individual that you can commit to so he doesn't do that at all no he gets back into a relationship immediately with somebody called ricky carter who's a transvestite actually and they begin a relationship and i'm bringing in the fact that they're a transvestite because it will fit in later on you'll understand why now they moved to north carolina and it's here that gary lee samson falls back into his old ways gets back involved in drugs and alcohol abuse and clearly that's going to cause major problems because we already know he has bipolar disorder we already know that he's struggled with the way that he has impulse control and anything that's going to add to that such as drugs and alcohol dependency is going to cause a plethora of issues both relationally in the people that you spend your time with and action based in the things that you end up doing so this relationship ends again and at this point is kicked out of his apartment but fortunately he meets karen anderson in april 2001. and one of the things that he suggests to karen that they do together is you know to go picnicking maybe do some caravanning maybe learn a new skill together get involved in crafts no he says you know what we want to do we want to be like bonnie and clyde let's go and rob banks and karen was like i'm not that desperate you have a serious problem which is the right response but nonetheless the point is that imagine having that kind of a boundary with somebody you know you're in a relationship with them you like them they like you and your automatic belief system goes to well if they like me they probably won't be completely concerned about the idea of going robbing banks together on the weekend really poor impulse control isn't it because you would keep that to yourself you wouldn't just be like this is what we're going to do on our thursday date night and she unsurprisingly says i'm going to resist that wonderful opportunity and i'm going to probably walk backwards slowly away from you out of the building where i never see you again you absolutely strange human being he's 41 as well at this point and his criminal record has gone over 25 years quarter of a century he's been involved in this kind of behavior and it's worth noting that 40 is an age that often we see drop-offs in crimes so particularly petty career criminals get bored i know that might seem strange but it's true it can become very very repetitive the whole experience of going to court going to prison and so on and so forth and a lot of individuals grow out of it but at 41 he's still very much in the throes of wanting to continue this kind of crime spree and it seems that it isn't just a point where he's asking other people to get involved it's also a point where it's intensifying for him so his criminal behavior really begins to intensify between may and july in 2001. during this three month period he goes ahead and commits of five bank robberies i mean that's pretty astounding to get away with one bank robbery seems quite shocking but five nonetheless it shows that he's got at least some kind of organization in the way that he does it and during the actual robberies what he would do is he'd walk in and he threatened to shoot female bank tellers obviously when you're having your life threatened you are going to pass over the money and rightfully so you can't be replaced but the money can and let's be honest banks have a lot of it and it's all ours but a lot of the time they charge us to use it still don't get that anyway moving on it shows that he's really willing to use threats of violence isn't it and he's not afraid to even threaten women so this is something that's quite disturbing and this is a really common pattern among violent criminals with sociopathic tendencies they tend to graduate from animal abuse and torture to petty crimes and then to violent offences and that means that they're on this gradient and spectrum which can essentially lead ultimately to murder or even multiple murders and the latter's going to apply to samson after the fifth bank robbery in july 2001 he flees to massachusetts and this is where unbelievable oh chilling horror starts to play out it really does and the worst bit is going back to what i said at the very beginning of this video this should never have happened ever because every single one of these deaths would have and could have been avoided because the 23rd of july 2001 samson decides that he's had enough and he wants to turn himself in now there's a whole heap of reasons why he could have decided that he wanted to turn himself in first of all he could have had some self-awareness he could have thought to himself i am noting that my behavior is becoming more problematic my violence is growing and there is a strong possibility that i am going to kill somebody if i'm not stopped that could be what's happened there it could also be that because he knows the fbi are after him he's been basically recorded on surveillance tapes robbing banks which isn't very helpful you know quite organized but not that organized that he didn't get caught on cctv that said as much as i'm coming down hard on him for being caught on surveillance he did actually try to disguise himself a little bit because he had lived with crossdressers and transvestites in the past and because of that he'd taken tips off them and he'd learn to use elaborate makeup to kind of change his appearance so he hadn't made that effort nonetheless there's been some chaos in his actions you know this incremental increasing in his violence and also his constant criminal behavior probably did trigger this idea within him that there is only a matter of time and remember if you are clever to some degree as a criminal if you turn yourself in you know that the likelihood is that will look favorably on you when they come to giving you a sentence in court so it could have been all of those things but nonetheless whatever motivated him samson contacts the fbi's boston office confesses to all the crimes and arranges to be picked up right so this is where the story's gonna end because he literally called the fbi admitted to his crimes gave them an area to pick him up and guess what the call was accidentally disconnected which the phone clerk by the way would say didn't happen until phone records clearly proved otherwise and so samson apparently waited at the time and placed it given on the call and he waited several hours but no one came to arrest him no one this is a guy who's massively unstable to some degree who clearly is aware and conscious of an escalation of his behavior he's told the fbi that he wants to be arrested to stop him and they don't come think about the impact on his mindset now on one level he could take that as a sign to continue you know they haven't come to apprehend him may as well escalate my behavior further this way they will apprehend me for example or it could be that he actually feels a level of resentment and anger he went ahead he told them what they needed to know and they didn't even have the respect to come and get him that in itself could be very triggering for somebody with a mindset of gary lee samson so this is a crucial moment because had they got him had they locked him up the people i'm going to talk about who died would never have died and it feels like this is a sliding doors moment for beverly samson because later he passes several police stations and he doesn't turn himself in which he could have he could have gone in and said look this is going to have happened i've never been picked up but they haven't turned up i'm going to give myself in now but he doesn't do that so like i say there's a switch and instead he would literally go on to choose a drastically drastically different path and that different path it started the next day now before i move on to what he did within his crimes let's look at another trait of sociopathic individuals it's the willingness to exploit others to satisfy their desires and this would absolutely apply to samson because good samaritans they'd become his prey so the very people that went out of their way to help him they'd become his victims one of the issues that samson had was that he didn't have any transport and he wanted it so he decided to devise a plan he posed as a hitchhiker and carjacked whoever gave him a lift philippe mccloskey was that very unfortunate driver philip was a really well-loved 69 year old father and grandfather from taunton in bristol county massachusetts he was retired he'd worked as a boston gas plumber for more than 40 years he's also not very well he's in pretty poor health had a history of heart problems he also had shortness of breath probably angina and on 24th of july 2001 this poor man made the ultimate mistake he showed kindness to samson he's basically driving his car through weymouth massachusetts he'd also just bought some flowers for a friend so i'm painting a picture of this lovely man who even had flowers in his car for a friend because it's just such a juxtaposition to the individual that he's about to pick up and he spots a hitchhiker also the hitchhiker looks to be well-dressed he looks to be a businessman and it's samson and he dressed that way to deceive he knew that he had to manipulate the situation to his own advantage nobody's going to pick somebody up who looks scary or disheveled so by presenting himself as a contender in business instantly it makes the person who's going to pick you up feel comfortable and we see this think about ted bundy yes he used a different kind of ruse which was he would wear his arm in plaster or like he was limping he made you feel like he was vulnerable and people would think well if he's vulnerable he's hardly a threat and that was their downfall and it's the same in this moment this guy picks him up because he looks like somebody you can trust and we know what they say killers who are willing to just mercilessly murder they say they look for people who are available and vulnerable and picking up a hitchhiker it makes you available and vulnerable and it's worth noting that that's not for one minute to say that you should just ignore all hitchhikers if that's what you do i'm just saying that's what they tell us that's what the killers when they're interviewed said that if you're available and vulnerable you are very desirable to them you know when you have to think about philip mccloskey's mindset he's just seeing somebody that he believes he's in need so philip pulls over offers him a lift however when philip later on tries to drop samson off unfortunately there is a police officer nearby and sampson doesn't want to be dropped off there because at this point he produces a knife and he tells him to keep driving and he directs him to this really secluded area in marshfield massachusetts or just phillip to pull over into a wooded area make sure that there's nobody around then he forces him to walk up through a wood and also up a very steep hill which would have been very very scary for philip firstly because he's being essentially held hostage and secondly had real problems with his breathing difficulties and heart so this would have exacerbated those and would probably have likely made him panic sampson also says to phillip don't worry i just want to steal your car tells him you know if you don't fight if you don't cause any issues if you just follow my instructions everything's going to be all right and i'm not going to harm you it's at this point it tries to restrain fill it with the belt and phillips struggles and rightly so he probably recognizes this is not how somebody would be acting if they just wanted to steal your car because he could have taken the car you just asked phillip to get out threaten him with a knife and driven off when he can't get this around phillips neck samson starts to knife him and it's a frenzied attack he stabs him 24 times and the wounds are incredibly severe he's got his wounds to his neck his chest his abdomen his back and just to put it in context one of the wounds to his neck was so severe it was nearly an eight inch incision when he stabbed him we damaged his trachea and he even severed his carotid artery which basically is where you bleed out can you imagine for a minute the physical and psychological trauma that philip was going through it must have been absolutely horrific and according to samson when he reflected on that crime he said there was a point where philip exclaimed ah i'm dying just brutal isn't it to imagine the moments of confusion and fear and just shock and then to feel your life ebbing away and to know that that's literally where your life was gonna end a victim of this outrageous crime it's not enough though that he recognizes he's dying in that moment because samson just carries on the attack and the attack was so severe that he basically all bought decapitated phillip think of what was going on there i mean that's overkill that's a blitz isn't it it's a blitz killing and what rage is pent up in samsung because you don't need to carry out that level of aggression and hostility on a corpse essentially but he does and after he's done that he takes his wallet he also tries to take his van but he couldn't actually move it because i had a kill switch so he's not even achieved what he set out to achieve which was to have transport so for several days afterwards samson just wanders around the south shore however three days after he's carried out that gruesome brutal tortuous killing of philip sampson he's again stood by the side of the road hitching a lift the next unsuspecting good samaritan is jonathan rizzo oh it's only 19 years old all-american boy college student for kingston just home for the summer working at a restaurant and his family reflected that it was a time of great joy for them because he had returned home he was spending time with his parents with his two younger brothers just having a really great time but on the evening of the 27th of july 2001 jonathan's driving along the road in plymouth massachusetts he left work around 9 00 p.m and as far as he was concerned he spotted a stranded traveler on the waterfront so he did what he no doubt believed was a decent thing to do he pulled over at samson again dressed to deceive in his business clothes he knows that it's worked before so he knows that it's something that he can use to procure a victim they've been driving for about five or ten minutes and it's this point that samson follows exactly the same mo when he pulls out the knife forces jonathan to drive to abington massachusetts and jonathan's pleading for his life he's 19 my son is just coming up for 19. the idea that he would do a good deed and then he would spend time in those final moments before he was murdered just begging for his life it's just terrifying and deeply distressing and for the family i can't imagine where that knowledge has taken them and it's in abington massachusetts where samsung has basically constructed this makeshift campsite and he actually gets jonathan to carry his belongings into the wood and again he's basically saying to jonathan i'm not going to harm you i just want to steal your car i'm just going to leave you in the woods he then ties jonathan to a tree gags him stuffs his own sock into his mouth because he didn't want him screaming and you don't want him drawing attention to what he was going to do next because he didn't just leave jonathan in the woods first of all he sprays him with insect repellent and then he just launches this frenzied knife attack his completely helpless victim totally unable to fight back he uses the same razor sharp remington pocket knife that he'd used to kill philip jonathan suffered multiple horrific injuries he was stabbed 15 times he had his jugular vein severed it is trackier severed he had his heart pierced his lungs and liver pierced too at least seven of the wounds that he experienced would have killed him would have been rapidly fatal so again massive unnecessary overkill and think about the manipulation even as he was being led to his death samson was reassuring him that he had nothing to worry about and that reminds us again of serial killers doesn't it because if you're a serial killer one of the things that you're going to do is you're going to coerce your victim into believing that if they comply it will be all right and he uses that same technique the reality is don't be compliant that is something that i want to scream constantly when dealing in criminal cases don't be compliant fight because honestly it will help you in most circumstances a rapist is only ever going to rape you a murderer is going to kill you so at least if you're fighting back there's a strong possibility that they will find you too much trouble that's not victim blaming by the way people comply because they are good and they believe that if they do as they're told in a society where we're literally told constantly do as you're told they'll be a good outcome so don't be compliant as a victim that's a really important piece of advice that i've got to give you now as he did in the previous murder he takes jonathan's money and he also this time manages to take the car he also admits when he reflects on this crime that the actual killing was premeditated once he got into the car it always planned to kill jonathan jonathan's body which was found just blooded and crumpled when it was discovered by the police was slumped on the ground his hands were still tied to the tree horrible discovery both for the police who found him and also for his family because he came from such a loving family so now samson has killed two people he decides that he needs to drive elsewhere so he drives to new hampshire and he breaks into a vacation home that's empty on lake winnipesaukee now the caretaker of that property was 58 year old robert eli whitney he'd been a former city councillor he's a family friend of the owners of the vacation home so on the 30th of july he goes to inspect the property make sure that everything's in place and he finds samson hiding there it's at this point something threatens him with a knife and after a brief struggle samson manages to overpower robert and he ties into a chair he then wraps a nylon line around his neck and he slowly strangled him to death and i'm gonna put slowly strangled him to death in there because that is how samson describes it he later stated that robert died slowly over the course of about five minutes which is absolutely harrowing after robert's died he drags his body into the bathroom and then he returns into the living area goes in the kitchen and he cooks himself breakfast is it just me it's just me like you've just killed somebody slowly and now you're hungry level of disassociation between reality of actions is profound and then of course because robert's turned up in a vehicle he's got access to that so he takes both his belongings and the car and he heads for vermont and he drives robert's vehicle until it basically breaks down but also i imagine he abandoned it because it's very easy to locate somebody when they have a number plate isn't it so you're probably wanting to get away from any connection to the crime involving robert it's at this point you have to ask yourself we have graduated from being yes a thug yes a bank robber but now it feels like he's developed a thirst for killing this is a guy who was 41 when he started doing this kind of crime maybe a feeling that was dormant for a long period of time but it was always there anyway the next day he just thinks he's going to carry this out again so he stands by the road hitchhiking poses as a stranded businessman we know that's his mo he's worked for him very well before and william gregory is driving near west bridgewater vermont sees samson pulls over offers him a lift same pattern pretty much minutes into the drive samsung pulls out a knife holds the blade to william's throat orders him to drive down a dirt road however and bear in mind what i said to you before about compliance at this point the pattern is about to change because william is not going to be as compliant as samson's previous victims no he spots a rest area by the side of the road skids into it jumps from the moving vehicle and legs it very sensible man literally thinks i'm gonna die either way i'm gonna do it on my own terms if it's gonna end for me so literally throws himself from that moving car samson is obviously highly riled and angered by this so he climbs over into the driver's seat and basically tries to run william over with his own car but he fails so at this point he flees a scene in that car now judging from samson's pattern of offending behavior we have to acknowledge that william escaped absolute certain death there was no doubt that he was going to be murdered in similar fashion to what we've heard of he immediately goes and reports it to the police and i guess that samson at this point knows that the game's going to be up because now sunday is able to tie him to this kind of abduction and potential murder and they're going to be looking for someone who fits that description aren't they so it seems that samson has like a switch of mindset he breaks into a ski shelly in plymouth vermont by the way setting off the burglar alarm not that bright also i find it really disturbing when there's a burglar alarm so even if i was a criminal i'd have to leave that environment because it drives me mad so he calls the police and he turns himself in now i guess that there were lots of why's he did that you know first of all he probably realized that the game was up secondly we could say that there was a moment of conscience he had an epiphany realized he had to stop not so sure about that one but let's throw it in there maybe it even satisfied his violent urges maybe he wasn't enjoying the experience anymore and he kind of ultimately used up all that desire to carry out whatever rage he had within him i think it's really telling that it was after an individual managed to escape him that it promotes and provokes that behavior because again i think if you know that you're going to get caught and you do give yourself up there is a potential for more leniency as to your actions and we know in the states people can get put to death for their actions so anything that could limit that as a potential might be something that a narcissist who wants to do anything that was self-sacrificing would use to their advantage to prevent finding themselves you know in the electric chair or being injected with something that kills you these are things that they would avoid narcissists really don't like having the power taken away from them he's arrested at this point by vermont state police and he then leads them to jonathan's body and it's during questioning that he basically admits to killing philip jonathan and robert he even gave really detailed tape recorded confessions to massachusetts state police and they pose a question to him and say to him why why did you kill philip and why did you kill jonathan if you just wanted the cars he responded i don't like to leave witnesses witnesses can tell on me i think in hindsight let's be honest just through his actions he was always going to kill them he had ample opportunity to change his mind during the drive to the murder sites also he constructed an opportunity where he took them to a secluded location he was always armed with a knife and he also took things that meant he could restrain them and then kill them so this is very premeditated he was highly highly cunning and highly highly manipulative he was a con man basically and he went out of his way to procure very vulnerable victims he was also somebody when questioned who said later on down the line that he had this constant awareness that he had these very violent impulses that he found near but impossible to avoid he just felt that he didn't have any control over his behavior however i don't necessarily believe him and i'll tell you why because if these violent impulses were so overpowering then how come on the same night that he killed jonathan when he managed to hitch a ride with a 240 pound former football player he didn't attempt to kill him seems that he was clearly able to deal with these violent impulses when there was a person who could have beat him to a pulp in the car so obviously what he means is i have violent impulses when i see people who are vulnerable and i can have dominion and power over you know he attacked people on his own terms when it was to his advantage that is not someone who cannot control their behavior it was fully controlled he only went for people that he could overpower and dominate so he's a very vicious predator samson also told authorities that one of the things that he'd done whilst killing was switch from stabbing to strangulation and you want to know why do you want to know why specifically because he didn't like getting blood on himself can you be any more narcissistic and self-centered it's not about the victim it's completely about you he didn't like getting blood on his hands he didn't like getting blood on himself so he changed the way that he killed and we see this don't we with killers who kill more than one person they perfect their mo it changes over time the modus operandi develops based on the experience that they have and how they feel about the efficiency of the way that they murder and clearly he didn't feel stabbing somebody to death even though it was a blitz killing was effective for him because of the way that he was left with blood all over him samson initially faced two state murder charges in relation to philip and jonathan's deaths later he was also charged separately in new hampshire state court with robert's murder to this he pleaded guilty and he received a life sentence in 2004. so even though he got a life sentence he wouldn't face the death penalty for philip and jonathan's murders because in massachusetts where the crowds were committed they had abolished the capital punishment in 1984 however state charges were later withdrawn in favor of two federal carjacking charges with intent to cause serious bodily injury or death now as killings had started with carjackings they were classed as federal offences so now as samson was facing federal charges death penalty was back on the table so the death penalty act 1988 allows federal prosecutors to seek the death penalty for some 60 offences including carjacking resulting in murder so sure enough 19th of november 2002 government filed a notice of intent to seek the death penalty i don't know why i'm smiling i worry about myself sometimes i'm kind of smiling because it's one of those things that the prisoner wouldn't expect so they think that they're quite in control he's turned himself in and he isn't aware of this particular law he's not aware of the legislation that can be used to put the death sentence back on the table and it's not that i think that the death penalty is a good thing it's more that there is nothing like a criminal realizing they're not as clever as they believe they were particularly when they've gone out of the way to eradicate these innocent human beings lives so this narcissistic behavior was something that would really compromise his understanding of what was going on it's not going to play out for him like that it would have really riled him now it's the mental health expert's jobs to examine him for the sentencing so they need to do a report on him to say what he was dealing with on a mental health level and during this period the authorities recorded a telephone call made by samson and in it he's basically boasting that he's dancing around quote the medical experts who are evaluating him total superiority complex this is where narcissism lives absolutely believe that they are the individuals in charge of the world around them so they think that they are almost directing a movie where they cast the players and they genuinely think that with a level of manipulation they can coerce people into doing whatever it is that they want so he believes he is more intelligent and more superior to these experts and this is something we see within narcissism also before he's sentenced violent nature is completely highlighted again even though he's in a court environment so during the jury selection samson basically threatens his own defense team what is it about these people that they're like well these guys are defending me they're here basically to make sure that i live ideally maybe even get a reduced sentence or something and the way that i'm gonna really impart my trust loyalty and thanks and gratitude to these individuals is to threaten them with violence we see this quite a lot don't we in the cases that i cover where these individuals think that they are brighter and better than those that are meant to be serving their defense and actually with respect to the defence team they took it really seriously they were like very concerned for their own personal safety so this resulted in stamps of being confined to a cell for the next four hearings that's right he wasn't allowed to go into court for four of the hearings when he actually was allowed back in court they made him wear leg irons how very victorian but it demonstrates doesn't it that this is somebody that they felt really had the potential to do some serious damage even in a court of law the defence team were that concerned about his actions that they actually made an application to withdraw their representation but the court were like no it's your problem sorry you've already been put through this trauma you may as well see it to the end what more can he do he's in leg irons and we don't let him hear very often you just deal with it it's going to take far too much time to do elsewhere but it shows you doesn't it this was an individual who was controlling and dangerous and manipulative to the point where his own defense team were like we don't want to be near you one of the things that his defense team wanted to do was to present witnesses to testify that samson had been physically and sexually assaulted in prison in the past now this could have been a very powerful mitigating factor in sentencing of course it could because at the end of the day if somebody has been horribly brutalized in prison then it's gonna impact on the way that they feel about the world around them it's traumatizing and essentially it means that that person is carrying some rage some scars some emotional dysregulation and dysfunction of course that's what we'd expect to see and you would imagine that if samson had experienced that and it was a mitigating factor remember we're dealing with something that could essentially see somebody put to death you would want that introduced but samson doesn't want it brought in in fact he says that the witness who's claimed that he's been sexually abused was lying i don't know whether that's true or not maybe the witness did see this happen and samson doesn't want to be known as an individual who's been abused bear in mind he was going to go to prison for a long time or even worse so he's going to have to suffer other inmates being aware potentially some of this information so he might see that as being seen as weak and that might be problematic for him now again was this genuine was it in his nature that he didn't want people to know about his sexual abuse was he the predator in this case or was he the prey and that's something that only he knows on the 9th of september 2003 he pleads guilty to both counts of carjacking and the intent to cause serious bodily injury or death and in this sentencing phase the jury had to decide if samsung faced life in prison or death he could only be sentenced to death if the verdict was unanimous now even though he's pled guilty the jury have to therefore hear all of the graphic details of the murders and see the gruesome crime scene photographs because of course they have to make that decision is this an individual who needs to be put to death medical experts were brought in the defense said that samson suffered from bipolar disorder but it was clear that he knew the difference between right and wrong however there was a problem with his impulse control so even though he knew that this was right and this was wrong he couldn't control the way he responded to that because of his mental impairment you won't be surprised to know that the expert for the prosecution completely disagreed they were like he's not bipolar he's a psychopath basically you were like anti-social personality disorder however he can control his conduct like i said he took lifts with other people who didn't murder them it does seem that he knew how to procure a particular type of victim so does that show poor impulse control probably not his defense team argued that samson had posed no threat to guards or inmates if sentenced to life in prison he was allegedly through with his violence and i am smiling at this point because his defense team tried to sack him off because they were terrified of him and he needed to be in leg irons in the court but they're like honestly okay so our client is in leg irons in the court and hasn't been allowed to attend because he's really dangerous and we tried to get rid of him because we're all scared for our life but fortunately he said he's over it now and that means that we can completely believe him and he'll be totally okay around prisoners and guards just be kind to him not the strongest argument who is representing this guy was it ted bundy because that's the level isn't it it doesn't make sense when you think about his behavior before prosecution bringing of course loads of evidence they bring in ironically lots of evidence of misconduct in prison including a threat to kill a deputy federal marshal during an angry confrontation it's not going well is it furthermore samson had already spent 16 years in prison in new hampshire and massachusetts for a variety of offences including burglary and theft before murder charges he also attempted to escape a new hampshire prison in 1988 it's not going well for him is it the prosecution argued death not prison was appropriate on the 23rd of december 2003 this is after a six week penalty phase trial and ten hours of deliberation the jury unanimously recommended the death sentence on both counts on the 29th of january 2004 samson was sentenced to death during that period of trial samson showed no emotion at all until one point that's when jonathan's mother gave her victim impact statement she did this while she was crying and cradling a picture of her son and at this point samson apparently wiped hairs from his cheeks now whether he was genuinely remorseful or he was just dealing with self-pity at the death sentence who knows it's absolutely devastating to imagine a 19-year-old's life cut short this way isn't it and after the jury made the decision jonathan's father stated we are very happy about this verdict there's no question about that but we're not going out and celebrating anything here our son is still dead and we will live with that for the rest of our lives phillip mccloskey's son scott also said to the reporters he felt really relieved by the verdict but he said that the chair his father had always sat in when the family gathered in his house on christmas eve would always remain empty it's just heartbreaking that isn't it samson's violent conduct by the way continued in prison so his defence team were wrong he was a threat and there were also various incidents of misconduct whilst on death row after his 2003 trial in fact he was considered to present future danger to the prison guards and to other inmates directly in conflict with what his team was saying about him and this is evidence because on one occasion he attempts to assault a corrections officer by thrusting a broken broomstick through the food slot on the cell door not sure why he had a broken broomstick in there that doesn't seem like a standard thing a prisoner would have does it never mind also another thing he used to like doing was he used to get his own feces and just throw it in the faces of officers samson also started to backtrack a little bit on the reasons for his behavior and in fact he said that it was experiences in state prison before his capital offenses that had transformed him from prey to predator so again we can say well was there some weight to that claim that that individual witness brought forward suggesting that samson was somebody who was really badly abused in prison and that could have been the case it could have we've heard stories about that it's not unusual and it must be deeply traumatizing for anyone to be sexually abused whilst they're locked up in 2007 he unsuccessfully appeals his sentence and conviction and it's unsurprising because he obviously murdered three innocent people but it says something about his desire to save his own life doesn't it and it doesn't stop there because when he does those appeals he has to drag the families through the appeals process and think what they've been through already is horrifying on the 11th of may 2009 samson filed a motion seeking to vacate which is to set aside or correct his conviction and death sentence samson claimed he'd been denied a fair trial because three jurors at capital penalty phase trial lied during guardia if you've never done jury service void dear is a process used by defense of prosecution to select a fair and impartial jury the jury had been on the 27th of october 2003 following a 17-day voidia samson claimed three of the jurors had been dishonest during questioning one juror in particular he said had lied about her history of suffering domestic abuse therefore the argument was that the jury was potentially biased so on the 20th of october 2011 the district court agreed he'd been denied a fair trial in violation of sixth amendment rights the government then in response to this appealed that decision but they were unsuccessful they claimed the court had reversed a conviction based only on a showing of inferable bias in relation to jury selection not actual or implied by us anyway a new penalty phase trial was scheduled for autumn 2016 in boston imagine what the victims families were going through imagine the heartache for them all of those feelings that are always bubbling under the surface but are just dragged up and to make matters worse the pre-trial proceedings they dragged on for years and it's at this point that samson also appoints a whole new defence team which is going to be massively problematic think about the history in this case how much work is going to need to be taken place during this period of getting to know the case so he's stalling for time as well it's very tactical so following the second penalty phase trial the jury couldn't reach a unanimous decision in relation to phillips carjacking and murder samson ultimately receives life sentence for this without possible to parole now in relation to jonathan's carjacking and murder the jury unanimously fined in favor of the death penalty so after more than 10 years of appeals re-sentencing to death occurs on the third of february 2017. apparently during the sentencing samson cannot control his anger he's just erupting with it and he's so aggressive towards the federal judge he's swearing at him constantly which is not what you do when your life is genuinely in somebody else's hands but obviously shows that he just doesn't care at this point also the family of the victims have another opportunity to confront samson in court phillip's son says he hopes samson rotted in hell for killing his father and he stated he braze and gloats about what he's done they don't come any worse than gary lee simpson an eye for an eye a tooth for a tooth now whatever your views on death penalty i think we can all understand how we would feel in that situation and it feels like a very justified emotion when jonathan's mum spoke you know she talks about i will never forgive you for this and i don't believe god will either i think that i'm in line with her beliefs as well and his 17 year old brother nicholas said how when he was little he used to rush into jonathan's room on christmas morning to wake him up so they could open their presents together that's what happens when somebody steals a human being from the lives of those that love them it's a wound that never heals it's an absence that is perpetually present and it's a void that no one will ever be able to fill it's awful all of those victims family members have to serve their own life sentences because of samson's actions now i'm sorry to bore you with the law but then i'm not actually because i find it quite interesting so just stay with me on this because i think it's interesting to understand how conviction and sentence at trials is genuinely just usually the start of a really long appeals process and that appeals process is something that victims families and friends have to endure you know it's something that they constantly have to go through also when we look at profiling well when you look at samsung it's really interesting because he looks technically like he's a spree killer so a definition of a spree killer according to the fbi is a person who kills two or more people some say three or more in different locations but it has to be in a short space of time so if you look at what samson did during three days he killed three strangers in different places now even though you could say well doesn't that make him a serial killer no it doesn't because there was no cooling off period between the kills there has to be a cooling off period when it's a serial killer involved the fbi actually stopped using the term spreekiller in 2005 because they seem to be a confusion and overlap with serial killers and mass murderers but lots of experts disagree because they see the value in retaining spree killer category term because it's still widely used by criminologists when you look at spree killers they are relatively unique psychologically so when you think about a serial killer for example well they always aim to keep killing for as long as possible and often if they're an organized serial killer they thoroughly plan their crimes mass murderers which we think about in situations like terrorism or let's think about sandy hook school massacre they usually expect to die during the rampage during the killing but spree killers they seem to live in the moment they move rapidly between criminal experiences and they really have very little thought on the consequences about their future they often use different methods to kill so they don't stick to one particular type of mo and the killings usually occur in commission of another crime so in samson's case that was the theft of the car so if you look at the classification that samson would probably fall into it would be the robbery and thrill classification of sprinklers that's that the thrill of the kill seems to be a driving force and then the theft is more of an afterthought there were also completely senseless killings weren't they there was not a necessity to use the extreme violence that we see played out in these crimes he absolutely went for overkill and you think about the injuries that those first two victims experienced they were just horrific near decapitation going through the main arteries just harrowing deaths now the belief is that spree killers usually have a mission and that mission is fueled by anger or hatred for a group or for people or for an organization for example but samson doesn't seem to fit that category because he just seems to be angry at everything so he could just be angry at the world and his third wife described him as literally that he was angry with the world and that he had this really explosive temper and it just makes you think that thank god he did give himself in at the point that he did thank god william his last victim gave him thoughts that maybe he would be apprehended so that he decided to go and have himself apprehended probably in power play to get a reduced sentence that didn't work out but i'm so glad that william got away and thank god samson is behind bars because he is one hell of a dangerous predator he displayed no value for life no value of his victims he had no remorse showed no empathy violent pretty much from the get-go in his life and violence seems to be his default setting it really does he also selected victims who were exactly the opposite of who he is and all they did was show kindness and compassion and all he did was exploit it fully to his advantage phillips family just for your interest actually went on to file a 10 million lawsuit in 2004 against the fbi and the phone clerk who disconnected samson's call to turn himself in before the killings i am not surprised i am not surprised now as i said at the beginning of this video that telephone clock initially denied the conversation he said he'd inadvertently disconnected the call when trying to switch it to an agent and he actually got sentenced to six months in prison for lying under oath the family's lawsuit ultimately was unsuccessful and it was dismissed by a court in 2005 which i find strange because chain of causation the reality is none of those deaths should have happened and samson went to hand himself in and waited to be collected and it never occurred and if he had been all those individuals would have lived so i feel that the family weren't looked after there because i think the death of philip and all the others was completely preventable and it was on the actual legal services that had failed to complete catching him that led to these issues it's also worth noting at this point that the pain for the families of samson's victims continues jonathan's family stated in a victim impact statement instead of gathering around the tree at christmas we now gather around jonathan's grave in 2005 there was speculation that samson was going to write a book why did he let them do this it's like the same one i hear about people doing art galleries full of prisoners work and i'm not saying that an average prisoner doesn't deserve that of course they do where reparation and restorative justice is of course they should get their work on because let's hope that they can go live better lives outside but when you're talking about serial killers and it has happened that serial murderers have had their work displayed in galleries and sold their work it kind of defies logic i think that they lost their opportunity to be notable in any positive way when they carried out the horrible crimes they carried out when they prevented all of their victims ever being able to do anything again so apparently this working title of the book was the dna of a killer society's child by gary lee sampson the dna of a killer society's child when you think about richard ramirez he used to say that killing is the same whether it's done for country duty or fun and that bloodthirsty times led to this kind of situation and it seems that gary lee sampson comes from that same belief system i.e you created me i'm a child of this society also it's worth noting that within that apparently he was going to discuss the fact that there was caution to what happened to him i.e he had mental illness he used to use drugs and alcohol and therefore it's important to get the message out there because there are a lot of young people who are influenced into taking drugs and are unaware of the long-term consequences of that kind of action he claims that he wanted to save the lives of young people behavior-wise previously i'm not sure whether i completely buy into that and the families of his victims are like no you don't you're just a massive narcissist who just wants everybody to think he's really clever anyway it's not been published as yet but i suppose it's still time and again it's just so unfair for the families isn't it they should just be asked the question is it okay if gary lee sampson releases a book which is appetaining to try to prevent other people going in the same direction as him but might mean that he also gets his ego fed lots what do you think no it's a no okay gary you can write it in your cell and keep it to yourself do you know what i mean that's fine let him write whatever he likes it's called a diary lots of us have them we don't need them published do we and i think that respecting the families in these circumstances is so powerfully important now in a letter to a friend that samson has he writes that nowadays he finds comfort and faith in god and the religious instruction he receives he wrote in my actions and in my deeds i strive to show remorse that happens quite a lot a lot of our serial killers find god i understand why if i was a serial killer or a masculine or a spree killer and i was alive still i would probably think to myself when i meet my maker i may need to have been seen to be a decent human being and that would be true if their maker were god and not potentially the devil just say him richard ramirez stayed true to that didn't he was like probably made by the devil i'm just going to stick with satanism but it might be that he's found some conscience it might be that now he's not drinking alcohol or taking drugs in prison he doesn't have access to those things it affects his mental health differently and he can kind of reflect on his behavior but that will be no comfort whatsoever to the families of his victims samson is now 62 years of age he still remains in a 12 by 7 foot cell on death row and he's still awaiting execution so in spite of the fact that he didn't want to be killed by the state there is still a possibility that he will but imagine how many years have passed for his victims families i mean they wanted him to be put to death and essentially that's still on the cards but for me it's such an intriguing system in the states that somebody can literally be found guilty sentenced to death and then the appeals process begins and continues and seems almost never-ending and it puts the families of those victims in absolute purgatory they are trapped because they were ultimately given a belief that the individual who stole the people that they loved would be dealt the justice that the courts and the jury bestowed on the individual perpetrator and it just doesn't happen it hasn't happened so psychologically they haven't been given the outcome that they were promised and this constant dredging up of this horrible detail that they lived and that they relive both in their minds and in the press and even in situations like this where i tell the story they essentially haven't had their closure not obviously the closure to the family member that will never happen but the closure to the crime being ultimately given the justice and in this case the sentence that it deserves so i imagine it's incredibly challenging for them i hope that you have found this case interesting i also hope that you feel a level of anger with the fact that none of those individuals needed to die it should have been an open and shut case after the crimes of bank robbery were committed he did five and he admitted to them he said pick me up and then they didn't the consequences for the victims family is a lifetime of pain preventable pain and i'm also quite surprised it didn't receive any damages because there is nothing more damaging than a 19 year old child being denied a right to live after being murdered in the most horrific of circumstances for doing what for picking up a hitchhiker for caring for another human being and that shouldn't have happened that boy and those men they should never have died if you found this case interesting and you haven't subscribed to me go and do it now immediately because i put a lot of effort into this and there's a lot of information so get your notifications on subscribe so you'll get me every wednesday and sunday and also leave me a comment give me a like like that as well join me for a live i'm usually there most of the time i'm there it tends to be that something big has to occur for me not to make a live premiere and it's always great my community is incredible really supportive really lovely really articulate and interesting and they know a lot about crime so if you want to become part of that join kenny's crime call i'll see you again next time take care and again thanks for your support on patreon [Music] [Music] you

Channel: Emma Kenny

Views: 64,078

Keywords: emma kenny, emma kenny crime channel, true crime with emma kenny, emma kenney, serial killers, crime, youtube crime show, youtube true crime, true crime community, true crime podcast, female true crime show, Eleanor Neale, Bailey Sarian, Gary Lee Sampson, PhilipMcCloskey, Jonathan Rizzo, Robert Whitney, spree killer

Id: sqM3GBVJj9M

Length: 75min 40sec (4540 seconds)

Published: Sun Oct 31 2021