[theme music playing]
[man] The thing inside of me, it's like...
the appetite.
It's like a wolf that's...
feeling the hunger.
[De La Torre] So the guys that actually work on the oil rigs,
they're called roughnecks,
and they're called roughnecks for a reason.
This is a job where masculinity is key.
You have to be strong, and you have to be tough.
This kind of job is very, very dangerous.
So everything is about the bravado and the machoism
of working a job like that.
[Tussey] It's a missing persons case at this point,
yet he's describing her in a way
that he's almost blaming her for the circumstances.
She dressed provocatively,
she had a smart aleck attitude, she had a bad temper.
He's got a lot of negative things to say about her,
but you don't hear any concern about, where is she?
Is she OK?
It's just a lot more like potential victim blaming
is what we're hearing here.
The first big signal is the fact that he said,
"I've never been arrested for beating somebody up."
If somebody asked me, I would say, "I've never done it."
So the fact that he's already saying I was never arrested
shows he knows he can get away with this.
He's done it before, and there was no consequences.
One thing that people with psychopathy hate is
being questioned.
It undercuts their authority,
and so he's actually thinking,
why should I have to answer to you?
This is my situation.
I'm in control.
That's why he's getting so irritated throughout
this conversation.
He doesn't run, he stays.
He thinks, I'm in control of the situation,
and that really shows his narcissism.
What we're seeing emerge is the start of pathological lying.
I mean, he's changing his story.
He knows he's at risk of getting caught,
and you see him rapidly coming up with these
quite manipulative, deceptive stories.
He shows enthusiasm as he's telling the story of
his girlfriend's head getting beaten in,
and he's excited about it.
It makes him --
the technical term would be aroused.
He's clearly showing signs that this is something
he's interested in,
and that tends to happen in psychopathy.
[reporter] Horrific news out of Carlsbad tonight.
Police say they found the body of missing third grade teacher
and mother of two, Emily Lambert,
beaten and barely clothed behind this bar near Loving.
Her boyfriend, Robert Earley, initially told police that
Lambert took off with another man.
However, authorities now say Earley has confessed
to her murder.
For psychopaths, when they have a grandiose sense of self,
it can often take particular forms.
For Earley, it's related to his masculinity and being
the most macho guy in the room.
He has unconsciously already revealed the reality of what
has happened.
There was something that she did not like,
and because she didn't like it, she decided that she was going
to use her own agency and stop that thing from happening,
but because that threatened his masculinity,
he's going to be violent.
Definition of first-degree murder is that you had
an opportunity to cool off and still engage in
the behavior anyway,
and if his plausible story of
"It was self-defense, we got into a fight,"
was true, none of these things would have happened.
Emily wouldn't have been on the ground when he's kicking
her in the head if he was engaging in self-defense,
but he continues on with this.
It's just getting worse and more brutal
and grotesque and sadistic,
and he's just enjoying the torture of her.
So after committing this heinous crime, Earley goes back
to the hotel room and is able to fall asleep.
Somebody who had remorse for their actions, or even just
the physiological reaction we would expect someone to have
after so violently hurting another human being,
doesn't seem to be in place for Earley.
He's able to just drive back to the hotel and go to bed.
For a psychopath, they know the words that people
expect them to say, but they just don't have
the same definition.
I think what he actually means when he says that he loves
her was that Emily was willing to be the toy that I wanted
her to be,
and like any other little kid, when they're tired of the toy
and they want to throw a temper tantrum,
they're going to kick that toy.
Psychopaths need other people in order for them to get
their own wants and desires fulfilled, but they're only
ever a tool.
An object can be discarded once the object has threatened
the person's own ego.
I think that he finally becomes aware that the investigators
are going to charge him with murder, but he's thinking,
how can I still control this situation?
And I think he's trying to, even now, while he's
essentially confessing to the murder, saying,
"Well, if I can get the charges that I want, then I still won."
[reporter] It was our first look at Robert Earley, the oil worker from
Texas accused of killing his girlfriend of three months,
Emily Lambert, while working in Carlsbad.
Lambert, a third grade teacher and mother of two, was visiting
Earley for the weekend.
Investigators found her body behind a barn.
Earley is charged with first-degree murder.
♪