[dramatic music playing]
We're hearing from the person who came to the aid of a Caledonia man
severely beaten in a road rage incident.
[man] I heard a loud noise.
It sounded like hitting the truck maybe.
But when I got to the vehicle and seen the gentleman,
I noticed there was no damage to the truck.
So it must have been them repeatedly beating the gentleman.
For people to be that angry, and it's just ridiculous.
[intense music playing]
[man 1] The thing inside of me is like...
[man 2] The appetite, it's like a wolf that's...
feeling...
the hunger.
[reporter] The victim, 64-year-old William McFarlan,
is fighting for his life in a hospital tonight.
The suspect in the case, 18-year-old Christian Hillman from Ada.
[intense music playing]
[Dr. Charles] So what's really noteworthy
about his behavior is it's very unlikely
what we would expect in a normal teenager
who's gone in for questioning with the police
in that circumstance.
We might expect someone to look a little apprehensive, a little nervous.
But he appears relatively calm.
He says, "For sure I know why I'm here".
And then he moves into a discussion,
almost as if bragging about the different kinds of motorcycles that he has.
And my view is, this is the immature manifestation
of what people with psychopathy will do,
which is to set the stage for where the conversation is going to go,
to kind of get your attention onto a topic they want you to be focused on.
From what we know from police evidence
is that this explanation that Hillman's giving
is really not plausible.
He's making up this narrative, this story
to displace the blame
from himself onto the victim, that he was targeted.
What we know about William McFarlan is that he as an older adult
that had mobility and health issues,
and so we wouldn't assume
that someone in that kind of position would be able to engage
in such road rage or aggression
or have anything to do with a teenager.
I feel that the crime that Hillman committed
was a disorganized and very impulsive action,
and he goes from zero to 100 in a matter of seconds.
I mean, even if the victim was honking at him
or something like that on the road,
that in no way justifies this degree of violence.
That he takes pride in his physical prowess
and that he was able to exert and inflict this kind of pain,
he wants people to know what he's capable of
and that he's not somebody to be messed with.
[Dr. Charles] The fact that he doesn't show any signs
of what we would call social normative behavior
is upsetting to the police officer.
He's calm and cool.
We refer to that technically in psychopathy
as this shallow affect
that they don't experience and express the range
or the feelings that are appropriate
for the situation they're in.
It's an absolutely normal human reaction
on the part of the police officer,
but it is triggered by the pathology that they are running into.
It is triggered by the fact that they're meeting with someone with psychopathy.
[Dr. Nicole] What we know in psychopaths,
and what I think we see here with Hillman
is the classic attentional-deficit that they experience.
Because they have problems in information processing.
Specifically in the beginning of that system,
where they are so myopically focused
on whatever is right in front of them,
that they fail to process the information around them.
So he's trying to repeat back so he can track what they're doing.
But he's so just focused in the moment.
[eerie music playing]
[cell phone ringing]
Here Hillman's calling his father
trying to get someone to bail him out.
He's trying to manipulate him to get him out of a situation
that he's uncomfortable in.
He wants to be rescued now,
and he's not being able to manipulate his father.
So what we're seeing here is Hillman moving on
to his next potential victim, which is his mother.
[cell phone ringing]
[sighs in exasperation]
[Dr. Miranda] He's again painting himself as a victim
when in reality he really hasn't been wronged in any way.
In fact, he's the one here who killed someone.
[Dr. Charles] He does throw in a few questions to find out
what do the police know?
What have they found?
Remember, this is about control.
So, he's not in control if he knows less than the police.
[rattling]
[Dr. Charles] He does what I think is intimidating,
and I suspect that's what's influenced Mom's behavior in the past,
where "We don't want him upset" is the message.
"I'm getting real upset",
"You don't want me upset, you need to fix this".
[Dr. Nicole] A core feature of psychopathy is superficial charm,
its disingenuous features that they make themselves out
to be better than what they are.
He's trying to be charming, engaging, likable.
He's trying to get something out of them as well.
These detectives are not taking any sort of bait.
They're very disenchanted with him.
[camera shutter clicking]
[Dr. Charles] He does not think before he acts,
and I think we're seeing
the spontaneous, immature, impulsive side of him right there.
He just had a thought, "Oh, get my good side".
So he said it. He doesn't censor.
And that's why he gets into trouble.
[suspenseful music playing]
[Dr. Miranda] Hillman makes statements that my friends would never do that to me.
They would never speak to the police.
And here we're seeing
in real time Hillman's poor sense of reality
and how out of touch he is in his relationship
that he feels that these individuals
would do anything to protect him.
[Dr. Charles] The whole idea about making sure they get the story straight
is about when there's witness tampering
that is about control.
That's about trying to now do damage control
and to get what he wants.
He doesn't care what will happen to them
if they go along with his plan
and then they're found out,
and then they would get charged with the crime as well.