[ominous music playing]
[man] No matter what I do in life,
no matter how much good I've done, some people is gonna look at my case.
They're gonna look at my past.
And I'm always gonna be the monster that they think that I am.
And no, I'm not a monster.
I've never been a monster.
[music continues]
[man] I've been hearing I was crazy all my life.
I used to get angry, pissed off.
I don't think like that anymore.
I just roll with it.
[music fades out]
[eerie music playing]
[man 1] I think we could all be dangerous people.
[man 2]
[man 3] I'm not sitting here saying I'm innocent.
[man 4] I just murdered some guy in cold blood.
[music fades out]
[somber music playing]
[man] When I committed my crime, when I did what I did,
I felt nothing.
It didn't bother me. I just remember thinking,
"I just killed somebody. It's not that big of a deal. It's just a body."
[ominous music playing]
[Rex] At first, I thought I just had one victim.
And then I realized that…
I got a whole slew of victims.
[music builds, fades]
[melancholic music playing]
[Rex] I was born in Logansport, Indiana.
I guess you could say times were great back then.
I remember me and my brothers, we was really close.
I have an older brother named Larry, and I have a little brother named Doug.
Wherever one of us was at, all three of us was together. And if… [chuckles]
Uh, if one of us got in trouble,
my mother knew that the other two was involved.
Whether she caught us or not, we always tried to lie for each other.
We'd try to protect each other.
We was bonded pretty well.
[music fades out]
[somber music playing]
When we moved to Texas, uh,
it's pretty much when our… my mom fell apart.
Back in the '80s, I think she was a great mother.
She was joyful. She was happy.
[melancholic music playing]
But it was like when she lost my older brother,
then she lost everything.
And things just kind of spiraled out… out of control.
She, uh… She fell into drugs, alcohol. She took it really bad.
There was never any food in the house.
Most of the time, we had no running water.
Uh, we had no electricity, no heat during the winter.
Uh…
Then… pretty much the abandonments came along.
She would disappear for days, sometimes weeks at a time.
Um…
I guess you could say I was the one that took it the worst.
[music continues]
I didn't care that we didn't have no food.
I didn't care about anything. I just wanted… [chuckles]
I just wanted my mother to love me.
And, uh… [sniffs]
…she always seemed like, uh, she loved everybody else more than she did me.
[music fades out]
[foreboding music playing]
[Rex] We was probably back here in Indiana probably about four months.
My mom did what she always did. She up and disappeared.
Left, uh… Left me and my little brother with our father.
All's I can tell you about my father is, is that, uh,
he worked on the railroad for almost ten years.
He, uh…
And he was an alcoholic.
He was an abusive prick, is what he was.
And, uh… he started getting abusive,
started getting violent, mostly towards me.
I, uh… I tried to bond with him.
But I don't know. He always looked at me different.
He always treated me different.
Everything that he did to me, he blamed my mother for it.
He would always beat the shit out of me and then say it was my mother's fault.
I, uh…
I always wanted to be good, I always wanted to do good.
But, uh, for some reason, I was just…
Well, I don't know why, I was just angry, pissed off.
If I needed an escape, I'd go to my grandmother's.
[gentle piano music playing]
[Rex] The relationship with my grandmother was…
Actually, I would say exceptional.
She was a really great woman.
She was always in a great mood.
She was always perky, always excited, always happy to see me.
She was my safe haven.
She was my barrier between me and everybody.
[music fades out]
[troubling piano music playing]
[Rex] My late teens, early twenties was like, uh…
I want to say they were really great,
but they were bad at the same time.
I ended up, uh, falling into drugs.
[dark music playing]
[Rex] And, uh, I started out smoking pot, like a lot of people, and…
I was a pretty avid cokehead.
I'd smoke crack every now and then. Ate a lot of mushrooms, acid.
It didn't solve any of my problems. It didn't make any things better.
All's it did was… is that it just made me not care.
And the more I didn't care, then… the easier it was to deal with things,
the easier it was to cope.
[music continues]
[Rex] From about, uh, 23 and on, it was really inconsistent.
All my friends, my brothers, everybody had their kids.
They had their wives, their friends, and here I was, still the bachelor.
My life became nothing but about drugs and alcohol.
I had no food in my house. I felt… It was like being in my childhood again.
Uh, I didn't pay my bills.
I, uh…
I stayed consistent. I stayed fucked up.
[music fades out]
[apprehensive music playing]
[Rex] I thought everybody was out to get me.
If I saw somebody wave at me, or saw somebody peeping out the windows,
I would think that they was plotting on me.
My mindset at the time was, is that, "I need to go kill this motherfucker
and everybody that's in that house before he comes over and kills me."
My… My drugs, my alcohol was just taking over.
[music fades out]
[pensive music playing]
[geese squawking]
[Rex] That day started out, uh, like any other.
I was sitting around smoking pot.
And, uh, I started thinking about everything that was done to me.
The beatings, the abandonments, how my life was a failure.
And it set me off.
[foreboding music playing]
Just this rage that I couldn't control.
I popped open the Xanax and started chewing on 'em,
and, uh, I was trying to calm down.
So I start chugging beers, trying to smoke weed.
Or I was smoking weed and nothing seemed to be working.
I don't remember what other fucking pills I ended up chewing on, but…
Um…
I was just getting madder, and I was getting worse.
The rage and the hate that was in me, that was coming out, it was, uh…
I don't know, but I felt like everything that was going wrong in my life
was because of my past, and my past was because of my family.
I don't remember what happened, but I ended up dipping out, and, uh…
I took off heading towards my dad's house.
And I was gonna go kill my father.
[music fades out]
[ominous music playing]
[Rex] I came to that fork in the road, and as hard as I tried to go right,
something was veering me left, and then I realized that…
I need to go to my safe haven.
My grandmother's house.
"Because if I go to my grandma's, I'll see my grandma."
"Everything will be fine. I'll mellow out."
"Nothing ever bad happens there. It's, uh… It's my neutral grounds."
Uh, fuck. This is where it's gonna get bad.
[laughs]
Oh man.
That poor woman, fucking…
-[music crescendos] -[exhales]
[grim music playing]
[Rex] When I first walked in the door,
she was excited to see me, and I was fucked up.
Man, I mean, I don't know how I was functional.
I remember it was around 11:30, midnight, when I looked at the clock,
and, uh, I was coming out of the bathroom.
I don't know if I opened the door too fast, or if I opened it too hard,
but I know that I scared her.
The rage just… hit instantly. We made eye contact and…
and I remember thinking that, "I have to kill her."
"She's got to die, and she's gonna be my first."
[ceiling fan whirring]
The next thing I know, there's a pair of shearing scissors in my right hand.
She never stood a chance.
[music builds]
I stood there and watched until I knew she was dead.
And, uh, I looked at her.
And I remember thinking, "I can't leave her laying on the floor."
So I scooped her up, and I carried her to bed
and… and I laid her in her bed,
and I wrapped her up in her blanket.
[laughs]
This is where it gets a little weird. But, uh…
I don't know why I did this weird shit either, but…
I climbed in bed with her, and I grabbed her arm,
and I pulled her arm over me, and I snuggled up next to her body. And…
went to sleep.
[music fades out]
[tense, rhythmic music playing]
[woman] This was the most bizarre case
that I had ever been involved in in my 35 years of law enforcement.
My name is Catherine Collins.
I was a Detective Lieutenant, um, with the Logansport Police Department.
I ultimately conducted the interview of Mr. Groves at the Cass County Jail.
As soon as we walked into that interview room,
the first thing that he said to us was, "You didn't disturb Grandma, did you?"
And we both felt that that was rather odd.
And then he started talking,
and it was almost like a struggle for him to even stop.
[Rex] she was there, and I grabbed ahold of her
and went fucking crazy on her.
- -I couldn't stop it.
I couldn't control myself.
It's kind of like where you're… You know, standing outside your body.
You're watching yourself do something.
I fucking remember thinking, "Why can't you stop?"
[Rex laughs]
[Catherine] It was really strange that we had somebody that literally was
pouring his guts out to us about what he had done.
And we hadn't even had a chance to investigate it yet.
We looked at each other when he started talking to us, like, "This guy is nuts."
I don't know. I just wanted to hurt somebody, I guess.
I'm not all there in the head, and I know it.
I need to see a psychiatrist or a shrink.
[Rex laughs]
Fuck it. Too late now, huh?
He told us all kinds of, um, information in regards to what had happened.
However, he couldn't provide us with a reason why he did it.
We absolutely knew that we were dealing with somebody with a mental health issue.
We absolutely knew that.
I kept thinking there, shit's running through my head.
"This is fucked up. I just killed my grandma."
"I don't have one bit of fucking sympathy, sorrow, no emotion. Nothing."
You know my grandma, she was the last of the elders of all my old elders?
- -And I just fucking… I killed her.
[Rex laughs]
[Catherine] We just don't typically interview somebody
that seemed like they almost enjoyed saying what they were saying.
And then it got even more bizarre.
[Rex]
I'm out to kill any and every motherfucker I can get my hands on.
I said, "I wanna go out, start picking motherfuckers off."
[Rex laughs]
[Catherine] He was able to tell us that after he had killed his grandmother
that his next intention the following morning was
he was going to go to his father's house and murder his father.
When I left Grandma's, I went and got me some cigarettes and headed for my dad's.
I was gonna go smack him over the head.
I was going to bash his head in with a ball-peen hammer.
[music fades out]
[somber music playing]
[woman] You don't ever want to think bad about somebody that was so close to you.
It just makes you question everything.
We always had a close relationship. Rex was always there.
All we had to do was call, and he would be there.
I am Courtney, and I am Rex's niece.
My uncle is 15 years older than I am.
When we were in school, we would always want him to pick us up
because he had the big Dodge truck, and he always blared Eminem.
And to us at the time, we thought it was cool.
And all the kids loved him because he was always fun.
He always joked around.
I mean, he was my everything.
He was my world at the time.
[music fades out]
This house right here is where we lived at,
where Rex came to that day.
[ominous music playing]
[Courtney] My mom was at home.
She knew something was going on 'cause he wouldn't stop, he was pacing.
And he started, you know, talking crazy.
He said that he… he killed somebody.
She didn't believe
that's what actually happened, but she didn't know what else to do.
And he just had her take him to the police station.
That's when they found out he…
he did commit the crime that he said he did.
And that
is when it came out…
that his intentions were…
That he came to our house to… I mean, kill our family.
[music fades out]
[eerie music playing]
Makes you think about a lot, makes you question a lot.
You know, that day could have went a lot different.
How could somebody go from loving you and doing anything for you
to saying that they were going…
to intentionally kill you?
I mean, I talked to him just the day before it happened,
and we just had a regular conversation.
There was no signs that would make me think, you know,
something's about to happen.
Nothing was wrong.
[chilling crescendo]
[waves crashing]
[gentle melodic music playing]
[man] No part of it makes sense.
As a child, he was just as normal as me and you were.
My name is Douglas Groves, and my older brother is Rex Groves.
We were best friends. Always together, always exploring.
[fishing line whirs]
[Douglas] A lot of love.
Yeah, we had a great time growing up besides, you know…
the things that make it not so great. You know what I mean?
[music fades out]
[somber music playing]
[Douglas] My father was definitely abusive.
Blackout drunk shit, you know.
My… My mom, the same way.
It was hard, especially for Rex.
That was kind of something that I don't think
most kids our age were dealing with, you know what I mean?
[troubling music playing]
[Douglas] What transpired in Texas
was, uh, as you would say, the catalyst for…
the end result of this.
There was a time, and I can't say what age we were,
we were staying at my mom's friend's.
My mom was dating this guy.
Uh, at one point,
that old man ends up in the room laying on the other side of my brother.
And he touched my brother.
He was laying right beside me.
I would definitely call it molestation, given what I know now.
Rex never talked about it with anybody.
I told my mom, but my mom was so convinced
that this guy wasn't a fucking child molester.
Uh…
She actually stayed with this pervert, we'll say.
I don't know how long after that
the abuse that my brother was dealing with went on.
It could've been a week. Could've been six months.
[music continues]
[deep breath]
Oh man.
[teary sniff]
[voice breaking] It's hard, because…
you don't ever wanna see somebody you love…
[sniffs]
…deal with something like that.
[sniffs]
I believe 100% that if that would have never happened,
he'd be right here.
[music fades out]
[disturbing music playing]
[Douglas] After we'd moved back to Indiana, I started seeing the changes.
Rex was probably about 13, 14, 15. Somewhere around there.
And the weirdness started coming along.
He said, "Bro, I've got these voices in my head
that are telling me to do bad shit."
"To hurt somebody."
I would say, uh, you know, "That's just your conscience, bro."
"We all have it."
Uh…
[sniffs]
[sighs]
"You're not any more crazier than
the people that live next door, you know what I mean?"
Uh…
[sniffs]
[Douglas] Over the years, I started to see a decline with the normal Rex.
He wasn't the same old brother that I had growing up.
I really feel like, uh, there was a mental disconnect.
I think this is all stemmed from the abuse, the… the… the molesting.
I didn't deal with that shit,
and I didn't murder anybody. You know what I mean?
He dealt with it, and he murdered somebody.
[music fades out]
[tense music playing]
[man] Doctors sometimes come to different conclusions,
and if I may, should come to different conclusions
based on seeing people at different times.
I reviewed the other doctor's report.
And his diagnostic impression was schizophrenia paranoid type,
but I did not come to that conclusion.
I did not see enough clear, consistent evidence of psychosis.
[music fades out]
I'm Dr. Don Olive.
I was appointed by the Cass County Superior Court
and the state of Indiana to complete a competency
and sanity evaluation on the defendant, Mr. Rex Groves.
[ominous music playing]
[Don] When friends understandably say they think the person is insane,
uh, I'll say something like,
"I know what you mean, but not necessarily so."
"Legally speaking, insanity is… is a legal concept,
not a clinical concept."
When I met with Mr. Groves,
I didn't see any evidence of, for example, psychosis, delusions, or hallucinations
that may have rendered him legally insane at the time of the offense.
And unable to appreciate the wrongfulness of his conduct,
which is the way insanity's defined in the state of Indiana.
More broadly, he was just full of rage, right?
Angry at himself, angry at the world.
"Nobody loves me. I'm this hated, unloved person."
[music becomes tense rhythmic]
[Don] For that, among other reasons,
I diagnosed him with, uh, features of personality disorder,
namely antisocial and borderline personality disorder.
And when you look at that diagnostic history
combined with disinhibiting drugs,
to me, it's like adding gasoline to a fire.
But this appears to be, however horrendous,
a fairly isolated event in terms of the… the severity,
lethality of his offense.
So, in my opinion, he was not legally insane at the time.
[music continues]
[music intensifies, steadies]
[Don] Once a person is convicted and is sentenced to prison,
uh, they have access to medical treatment.
I believe that if Rex commits himself to that,
he could potentially do relatively well when released
because the vast majority of these folks sooner or later will be released.
[music becomes suspenseful]
[man] Rex was sentenced to 50 years in the Indiana Department of Corrections.
But unless he commits another crime while in prison,
Rex only has to do around half of that time.
[man] When he gets to that threshold, there's nothing anybody can do
to stop him from being released, and that includes the parole board
or anybody else who might be concerned
about the fact that he's not quite ready to get out.
He's gonna get out.
[music fades out]
My name is Brad Rozzi, and I'm a local attorney.
I was assigned to represent Rex Groves in this murder case.
[melancholic music playing]
[Brad] I'm very concerned about what his mental state will be
when he walks out of that facility
because when you're somebody who has deep-rooted psychiatric problems,
and you're… you're capable of doing something as heinous as what he did,
and then you go spend 15 or 20 years in a prison,
I can assure you the chances of you having the clear mind, an entirely clear mind,
that in and of itself is extremely unlikely.
I'm not taking a shot at the prison officials.
But the circumstances and the environment that they're in
is not conducive to therapy.
And, you know, it's frustrating, because I have never seen
a more compelling case for an insanity plea
that's ever landed in this office,
and we've been around for 115 years.
[music fades out]
[troubling music playing]
[Rex] on some pretty heavy antipsychotics.
They, uh, put me on them
because they diagnosed me as being bipolar,
uh, anger, suffering from depression, anti-sociopath,
paranoid schizophrenia.
Uh, what else was there? Uh…
Fuck, uh…
Uh, possible multiple personality disorder,
but I quit taking medications about a year into my incarceration.
And then, uh, I've been off the medications ever since.
And, uh, I'm super psyched and amped. Uh, I'm excited to get out of prison.
I feel really great about myself personally.
Don't get me wrong. I still get angry every now and again, but, uh…
When I catch myself, I've learned breathing techniques.
I've learned coping mechanisms.
I believe that I'm more than ready for society. I just, uh…
I don't know if my family is ready for me.
[music fades out]
[Brad] Well, it is terrifying.
If that second evaluation
would have been a little stronger in favor of incompetence,
I think Rex would have ended up in a mental health institution,
where his treatment undoubtedly would have been more focused
and of a higher quality than what he's had.
[tense music playing]
The psychiatric staff and the medical staff
changes routinely in places like that.
So the idea that someone's on and off medication is not surprising at all.
But if he were on some other type of court order commitment
in the mental health facility, there would have to be some results
generated to show that he's no longer crazy, essentially,
before he could leave there.
And the concern is, will he hurt somebody when he gets out?
That very well could happen.
That's what's scary about his release.
[music fades out]
[darkly melancholic music playing]
[Douglas] He's written me several times, and I've never read any of the letters.
I just cut him off.
It… It's a fucking horrible excuse, but…
I got wrapped up in life.
I miss him a lot.
But I want to see my brother be who he was.
You know? And the reality is he probably never will be.
The last time I saw Rex was right after he was convicted.
I remember sitting there thinking
what I seen in his eyes was not my brother.
Uh…
And what I mean by that is they're almost solid black,
almost as if he's possessed.
I thought he has the Charles Manson look on his face.
He was gone, mentally.
And I remember thinking…
"I don't know that I'll be coming back to see you."
I would have much rather seen him go to a mental institution than to prison.
I believe he didn't get the help he needed initially,
and I don't know that he's gotten it now.
[music fades out]
[gentle acoustic guitar music playing]
[music fades out]
His letters are always short and sweet.
"Hey, runt. How's life on the outside?"
"Good, I hope. Things in here have not changed a bit."
"People come and people go. That's jail for you."
"Thought I would drop a line and say hey, so hey."
"Love always, Uncle Rex. XOXO."
[melancholic music playing]
The first letter I got was…
October 10th of 2008.
I think at the time, it was…
kind of helping with the coping mechanism of it
to help keep contact,
to try to fill in some of the blanks as to why it happened.
Like, why he did it.
[music fades out]
I've asked him, but he avoids the question.
The only thing he says is, "drugs and alcohol."
[ominous music playing]
As far as would I trust seeing him, you know, out of prison?
I honestly don't know.
I have visited him. I was comfortable there.
I was okay there because I knew, you know, nothing could happen.
In several of his letters, he's mentioned that, you know,
he's done the drug and alcohol classes.
He said he's went to therapy.
He's completed it. He's done this, and he's done that,
but… has he did all that to make himself look good in prison?
Rex has always been a talker.
He can tell you anything and make you believe it.
But nobody's really gonna know if he's reformed or,
you know, the change is good until he is released,
until he's back in society.
[music continues]
It's a hard decision because on one hand, you want to… you want to see him do good.
You want to see him get out of prison, and, you know,
reform the life and society and…
make something of himself, but then on the other hand, you don't…
you don't want him free or out,
because you don't want to take the chance of
you know, it happening again.
And if he does, do I want to be close enough to where I could be,
you know, the next victim?
So I think that definitely plays a big role in
the fear of ever having a relationship with him outside of prison,
because you don't know.
We didn't see it coming then.
What's to say if he does it again, we're gonna see it coming then?
[music fades out]
[tense music playing]
[Rex] I'm scared to get out. I'm not gonna lie.
What if it happens again? What if it could happen again?
What if I can't get the help that I need at that one moment in time,
and I turn around and freak the fuck out?
There's always gonna be the "what if" factors.
The question is, is how am I gonna deal with it?
[music fades out]
[unsettling music playing]
[Brad] who has deep-rooted psychiatric problems,
and then you go spend 15 or 20 years in a prison, I can assure you
the chances of you having the clear mind, an entirely clear mind,
that in and of itself is extremely unlikely.
If that second evaluation would have been stronger in favor of incompetence,
I think that Rex would have ended up in a mental health institution,
where his treatment undoubtedly would have been more focused
and of a higher quality than what he's had.
It definitely wouldn't have hurt to probably, uh,
send me to a mental institution.
I probably would have got cured a lot faster.
Oh, I'll definitely admit I have paranoid schizophrenia.
There's no doubt to that.
It's just I have, uh… I have more control over it now.
I don't need medications to tell me or to calm me down,
and I'd say I probably got rid of the voices, uh…
Everything probably mellowed out around 2015.
[ominous music playing]
[Douglas] was right after he was convicted.
I remember sitting there thinking
what I seen in his eyes was not my brother.
Almost as if he's possessed.
I thought he has the Charles Manson look on his face.
He was gone, mentally.
Yeah, it's, uh… Well, yeah.
He's half right, half wrong.
One thing is, is that when, uh… When I got sentenced…
I was on heavy, heavy, heavy antipsychotics.
Those meds had me zombified,
but I mean, I understand the whole insanity,
uh, the psychotic break, psychotic episode.
I guess you could say I'm in denial of it. I don't want, uh…
I don't want to be known as the… the fruitcake.
The difference between me today and the difference between me, uh,
back then is that I got resources now.
And, uh, I'm doing everything that I can to make sure that, uh,
people feel safe and secure when I get out.
[music fades out]
[interviewer] Did you have urges to hurt your family in the years after this crime?
-[somber music playing] -[laughs]
Oh yeah.
I don't mean to laugh. It's not funny. Um…
It's my coping mechanism.
At the time, that was my regret.
That was my only regret is that I didn't finish what I started.
I hated myself that I didn't fucking get all of them.
But last time I wanted to hurt any of my family
was, I want to say around 2015.
See, it took me a long time to actually… [chuckles] …get over a lot of things.
I mean, I understand. They have every right to be scared of me.
If it was the other way around, I'd… Yeah, I'd feel the same way.
Uh, it's…
I'm not blaming them.
But you're still supposed to be my family.
I just wish you guys would talk to me. Give me a chance. Anything.
That's about all I can say.
[foreboding melancholic music playing]
[music fades out]