Signs of a Psychopath: The Submarine Killing (True Crime)
For this piece, as with my other true crime commentary, I won't use actual names. Unfortunately, it does not soothe the fact that this crime was real, shockingly horrible, and brutal beyond the comprehension of most humans.
There's a fluid theory that people watch true crime as a catharsis. A way to exhale, if only for a moment, with the feeling of being safe. I agree.
But there are other times, when the viewing serves a more primal purpose…survival. What do we see in the aftermath that everyone else missed during the live version leading into the crime? What can we gleen from the retelling of the events so that we can avoid them like a plague from our everyday lives? How can we use these details to be active and vigilent with keeping ourselves safe?
I had not heard of the submarine killing, so when I turned on an HBO limited series, I thought I was about to watch a regular, fictional detective-style murder mystery: A submarine built by a nautical enthusiast had disappeared overnight with both the owner and a guest (an internationally respected journalist). By morning, the sub was found in distress (sinking) with only the owner on board. Where was the journalist?
As the first episode continues, the detectives discuss the circumstances as they unfold. The owner and builder of the boat, let's call him The Psychopath, is not an onscreen character. He is discussed but not seen. According to his first account statement, he dropped off The Journalist ashore and then went back out to sea for the rest of the evening. But no one, not even her boyfriend, whom she had a close relationship with, had seen her since she boarded the sub the evening before. The detectives rely on the intuition that something is not right, so they hold The Psychopath in custody.
After some time, a torso is found in the same bay as the sub. Then severed legs. Finally, a head. The remains were gruesome and had been horrifically brutalized, even before death.
At this point, I pause the show. The details, not even seen but only spoken about, are too much for me. I wonder who would write such an awful story, and with so many atrocious details. Then I realize…this isn't fiction.
I tend to listen to shows (even on YouTube) more than watch them, for background as I do other more focused tasks, so I must have completely missed where it mentioned or noted that the series was based on real life events.
The absolute horror I felt in that moment. To know that a real person had suffered so much, with no hope for escape. I turned the show off, and didn't think of it again. That was some years ago, before I even began watching true crime media.
Last week, a friend sent me a post about must-watch true crime shows. On the list was a name that immediately stood out. It was time to face the fear.
I steadied myself and then clicked on the Netflix series. This wasn't a dramatization, like the HBO show, this was a documentary within a documentary. A few months before the terrible act, a documentarian had contacted The Psychopath, at that point he was seen as an eccentric, but well-liked, engineering genius, who had built a sub to prep for an amateur rocket launch into the atmosphere, and asked if she could film his endeavours. The Psychopath had easily agreed.
The documentary about the space quest quickly devolved into a public record of a madman's sick appetites. These were not an actor portraying a writer’s interpretation of the events. This was The Psychopath Himself laughingingly speaking about hacking people up, shooting them point blank, a website that featured horrific fetishes, and more. At one point, he texts one of the young women on his team and asks if she wants to take a trip on the sub the next day. She agreed. But The Journalist made the trip first, the evening before, and never returned. As the young woman tearfully recalls the messages, she realizes that she was the actual intended victim. Only timing had saved her.
The documentary footage, originally intended to highlight an unofficial genius and his ragtag crew of young and dedicated interns, was later used as critical evidence during the trial. Clips are replayed where one of the presumed weapons is visible in the background a few days before the horror then missing from the spot during footage recorded after.
A chilling interview monologue plays at the close of the documentary where The Psychopath outlines the signs of a psychopath: disregard for others, an enviable persona, and powers of persuasion and manipulation. He says these things as if he had memorized them from a textbook. He says there are real psychopaths hiding in plain sight. He says that if he were one, how would he know, because psychopaths don't recognize these things in themselves. He says these things, and many others…out loud, on camera, to another person…who says nothing in return (that we can hear, to be fair).
During one of the clips of an intern’s thoughts on everything, he says that friends and family keep questioning him about how he did not know that his boss was a madman. He wonders the same. I wonder the same too.
Time after time, we hear and see The Psychopath’s mask slip. He tells us the dark thoughts behind his eyes over and over again. He tells us. We’re not hearing expert interpretation of what he might have been thinking. He. Tells. Us.
The audience hears it later. His friends, employees, investors, and everyone else on the film heard it live. Could they not see and hear the signs of a psychopath too.