NEWSREADER: A night of violence in northern Iowa
has left two convenience store clerks dead
in two separate shootings.
A teenage gunman is accused of murdering a clerk in Algona
and then heading south to gun down another clerk in Humboldt.
(THEME MUSIC PLAYING)
The thing inside of me, it's like...
The appetite, it's like a wolf that's...
..feeling the hunger.
(WIND WHISTLING)
He has a complete disregard for supervision,
for sanctions, for the legal and criminal system.
And that's what we see with very criminally oriented people.
It's also what we sometimes see with very, very impulsive people.
I don't believe a statement like, "I don't know why I took the pistol."
They think that his acquisition of guns and leaving
was just going to be to extend what he'd already been fantasising about.
He needs to be powerful.
Psychopathic youths, the literature shows that they are more likely
to be carrying, specifically, firearms than say,
a roll of nickels or a knife or some other type of weapon.
Wanting to carry one, despite knowing you're essentially
a fugitive from the law,
and knowing that it carries really significant consequences with it,
it's just very consistent with psychopathy.
NEWSREADER: It all started in Algona, Iowa.
Pretty heart-breaking story and unbelievable.
NEWSREADER: Investigators say a man wearing a ski mask
walked into the store and demanded Bowman-Hall put cash
and cigarettes into a duffle bag.
She did, and he shot her.
(DOOR BELL JINGLES)
(GUNSHOT)
She thought the gun was fake.
She's challenged his power and he shoots her.
In his case, going for power
is the way he is going to express his psychopathy.
By standing up and re-enacting, I think he's showing off.
I think he's proud of what he's done, and he wants to show someone what he has done.
Swanson is really showing us all the markers
of psychopathic behaviour.
Um...
Swanson doesn't have any real emotion.
He's not upset or bothered by the fact
that he took another human being's life.
He is impulsive, he is detached.
There's just no emotion.
(ENGINE STARTS)
When he was 17 years old,
in 2010, just about a month before
he committed these murders, he was evaluated.
Michael was having some sexual and violent themes,
and there was some concern that he had, and the staff had,
about him being impulsive. Another excerpt says,
"I am concerned that he poses a risk
to society if unmedicated.
And even if medicated, he is still somewhat unpredictable."
That is a very strong conclusion.
If I'm reading this report,
and I'm Swanson's family, I'm scared.
This evaluation is absolutely a warning sign.
So, if we put this in context with the earlier reports saying,
"Hey, since the age of three,
he's had trouble controlling emotions and behaviour,
and he's oppositional and defiant." And then we add to the mix,
writing about sexual issues and violence issues,
we see this progression.
It hasn't gone away.
It seems to be expanding and becoming more pronounced.
Because the doctor's terms are becoming more, um, intense,
like, "severe" and "risk" and "unpredictable".
So, the problem has grown.
His anecdote about being high as a kite
means that he was using enough
to be completely disinhibited
in a public space to take his clothes off.
He has all the characteristic features
that should alarm us.
Swanson has this pattern of drug and alcohol use
and is willing to try anything and everything.
Thrill-seeking behaviour is one of those markers we look for
in psychopathic behaviour and in trying to diagnose psychopathy.
There is a relationship between impulse control and drug use,
and there is a relationship between impulse control and psychopathy.
People with psychopathy tend to...
use drugs more.
I think that's similar to what we're seeing here with Michael Swanson.
2 00:12:23.480 -- 00:12:26.320 align:middle line:90% position:50% REPORTER: 25 miles south, a similar scene.
61-year-old Sheila Myers was shot and killed
while working behind the counter at the Kum and Go in Humboldt.
She's been a clerk at the store for 13 years.
The fact that it's an hour between the first and second kill
is behaviour that absolutely is becoming compulsive.
And, when you add in an emerging compulsivity
with the fact that he's had impulse control problems his entire life,
and he's a drug and alcohol abuser
who is seeking that high,
and in the process of upping that ante we've now gotten to a place
where he's murdered someone. And he liked the high,
he liked the thrill, um...
and he needs it again.
He thinks it's just kind of funny, like watching a comedy show
where someone bangs their head on something.
He has a complete lack of empathy about another human being.
They're just objects.
That indifference is just the hallmark of psychopathy,
and it's pretty disturbing
as he's not that old.
I think Michael Swanson knows there's something...
diabolical.
Or that, that most of society would even call evil
or something like that...
..by laughing right after you take another life.
I think he accepts that about himself and embraces it...
..and shares it with the detective.
I think that's quite likely a very honest report.
He's jovial, he's laughing.
I think that really taps into the high that he experienced.
And, also, maybe some budding sadistic tendencies.
This enjoyment that Swanson's showing us
is highly consistent with psychopathic behaviour.
(COUGHS)
He's a 150% focused on his own well-being.
How he's going to be, essentially, inconvenienced by his crime,
and where he's going to be sent. This is classic to psychopaths.
They don't care about others.
It's 100% about him.
Soldiers who've shot enemy combatants
still feel something after that. He's not talking about
an enemy combatant that he killed in the line of duty.
He's talking about somebody across one or two state lines.
This is so impulsive. This is so pleasure seeking, it must be mania.
Swanson is not being straight with himself.
He's not being, I think, honest.
I don't actually think it is complicated.
He doesn't feel bad because he's a psychopath.
It is really that simple.
(TELEPHONE LINE RINGING)
Swanson's an entirely different person with different tone,
different speech pattern. The pace with which he's talking,
he's alive, he's animated, he's experiencing what feels like a high.
There is a status element in his mind.
He's bragging about what he's done,
and he's acknowledging it felt good.
So, these features of the mimicry,
the thrill, the lack of remorse,
enjoying it and bragging about it,
those are significant features of psychopathy.
NEWSREADER: The prosecution says Michael Swanson did this in part
for the attention he got from it.
The defence says, "He's insane,
and he doesn't know right from wrong."
REPORTER: The State then called a psychiatrist who interviewed Swanson after the crimes.
He says Swanson told him he'd been planning to kill since he was 13.
He said, "I have always been fascinated by death
and violence,
and it was something that I wanted to do -
murder, rape, and cannibalism."
Swanson's mother broke down when the doctor said this...
His original plan was...
..to kill his parents.
Those were the first two people he wanted to kill.
And he's fully capable of deliberating, premediating,
and forming this specific intent to kill.
JURY MEMBER: Verdict number one -
we find the Defendant guilty
of murder in the first degree.
REPORTER: Even after a jury convicted Michael Swanson,
he smiled.
Mr Swanson, how do you feel about the verdict? I'm good.
REPORTER: Earlier in the day, Swanson added two obscene gestures
to that ever-present smile.
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