Hidden True Crime - A Night Gone Wrong: The Rand Hooper and Graham McCormick Tragedy

Episode Date: September 3, 2024

After an evening of drinking with close friends at Rand Hooper's parents' home, Rand and his best friend, Graham McCormick, took Rand’s boat out for a night drive. This was the last time Graham would be seen alive. The following day, nobody knew where Graham was. After a search ensued, Graham's body was discovered in Carter Creek, 2 miles from Rand Hooper's parents' home. The medical examiner determined that Graham died from drowning, with blunt-force trauma contributing to his death. Initially, Rand mentioned nothing about being on a boat with Graham the night before. Instead, he said that he, Graham, and other friends spent the night drinking and playing cards before going to bed. However, as the investigation revealed more details, including that the boat crashed while Rand was driving, Rand was later charged with felony murder and other serious charges. About Hidden True Crime Lauren Matthias was a television reporter for a decade and has followed the Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell case since 2019. She and her husband, Dr. John Matthias, a criminal psychologist, started Hidden True Crime in 2020 with their Season, 'Beyond the Veil,' a psychological deep dive into the doomsday murders and prophet. What started as a simple conversation at their dinner table became a captivating podcast. Join the dynamic duo of Dr. John Matthias, a forensic psychologist, and Lauren Matthias, an investigative journalist, as they delve into the psychological facets of unthinkable crimes every week. Their unique perspectives and in-depth analysis offer a fresh take on true crime storytelling. Thank you for your support through sponsorships, subscribing, listening, and becoming a Patreon member at Patreon.com/HiddenTrueCrime Our Sponsors:* Check out Acorns: https://acorns.com/HIDDENTRUECRIME* Check out Acorns: https://acorns.com/HIDDENTRUECRIME* Check out Armoire and use my code HIDDENTRUECRIME for a great deal: https://www.armoire.style* Check out Effecty and use my code HIDDENTRUECRIME for a great deal: https://www.effecty.com* Check out Happy Mammoth and use my code HIDDENTRUECRIME for a great deal: https://happymammoth.comSupport this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/hidden-a-true-crime-podcast1836/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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minutes. They made it easy. Transparent terms, customizable down and monthly. Didn't even have to do any paperwork. Wow. Mm-hmm. Hey, have you checked out that spreadsheet I sent you for our dinner options? Finance your car with Garvana and experience total control. Financing subject to credit approval. Hello, hello. We have a very special show and the reason I can say that with sincerity and confident is because this show and this case that we are going to cover, it was chosen specifically by Dr. John. And the reason that he wanted to cover this case is because he's had his eye on this case for a long time and he feels that the conversation that comes from this case is worthwhile, important, and will, you know, make us think. So I am actually, like many of you,

I am an audience member, along with you listening to Dr. John. I'm looking forward to hearing about this case that you have been following and care a lot about and ask the questions we all have. Yeah. So let's, well, first of all, I feel like, so this has been a case that's been on my mind for a few months. The origins of my knowledge of this case actually go to Nancy Grace. and Nancy Grace and her producer reached out to me and asked me if I would be on a podcast

where they were going to talk about Rand Hooper. And I didn't know who Rand Hooper was. Apparently, I'm not the only one. This is not, it has not been a well-publicized case, but since I looked into it after the Nancy Grace podcast contacted me, I've just been completely fascinated by it. It's not a particularly difficult case in terms of the details, but I think the philosophical implications are,

strong. I think there's a lot of really interesting questions here about friendship and morality. And sometimes with cases, we get a unique opportunity to really step back and think about the larger ramifications of a crime. And I think this is definitely one of those instances. Well, let's hear those details. Who is Rand Hooper? So Rand Hooper, his full name is John Randuff Hooper. He goes by the nickname of Rand. Rand Hooper is presently 36 years old. This crime that we're going to be talking about occurred in 2017, August 10th or 11th of 2017. So it's been a while. There's been a lot of twist and turns in this case. And that has been a real, that has created a lot of turmoil for some of the victims as well, I should say. So Gordon McCormick, who's the brother of Graham

McCormick, who's the deceased in this case, has really had a hard time with it. And the sister Catherine, I'm sure she has to. She hasn't been as vocal about it. But Gordon has talked about the toll it's taken and the fact that it's taken so long has really affected his mental health. So I want to say up front that that's a big part of this case is that the family of the victim who's Graham McCormick has really been affected by this. And it's really taken a toll on them. And we don't want to overlook that. So just to get in, to the, there's sort of a long version and a short version. Let me start with the, the short version, and then you can ask questions, Lauren, because you don't know this case very well. So I will be

happy to fill in some of the details. The short version is that Rand Hooper in 2017, August 10th of 2017, invited for other people to his house, or I should say his boat house, actually his father, his parents' boathouse, where they owned a couple of boats in Virginia. I think it was the, I don't know exactly the location of that, but these friends essentially came over to engage in a weekend of partying and boating and whatever else they were going to do. The four friends included Willis Blair, who is Rand Hooper's girlfriend.

I believe that's his wife now, although I can't confirm that. Willis Blair has a sister Winston Blair and her boyfriend Ralph Daniel was also present in addition to, and all of them lived in the area. And then Rand Hooper specifically reached out to the victim here, Graham McCormick, who lived in Atlanta, and he invited him up for the weekend. And Graham came up because apparently they're very close.

They had a very close relationship. And so Graham flew up and was quite happy to be there apparently. So the evening starts with a lot of drinking. How old was Graham? How old was? Yeah, so they're all roughly. I don't have the ages on all of them. But at the time of the crime, Rand Hooper would have been 30 years old.

And I believe Graham was roughly the same age. So they're all roughly going to be in that age range, 30-ish, give or take. Their ages are not listed in the court documents. So I only know Rand's age specifically here. But I presume that they're all more or less in that same age range. So this is a group of post-college students that are still in the part. They're still your young adults or getting on the verge of getting out of young adulthood, but very much interested in partying.

And that was the intent for the weekend. So 31 years old was Graham McCormick. Just looked it up. Okay. At the time of the, okay. At the time of the crash. This has a, I'll be honest, a Murdoch beginning field. Yeah.

Go on. Right. Yeah. Right. I was going to mention that, that there are shades of Paul Murdoch going on here for sure. The difference is that Paul Murdoch was in a boat with several other people. And when this particular crime occurred, Graham McCormick was the only one in the boat at the time. So this group starts drinking.

And I, you know, they go to dinner. They go to some bars. They're, I'm sure they're pretty inebriated. They decide to go out on the Rappahonic River in Virginia. And that presumably is where. The boathouse is located somewhere on the Rappahannock River. So they go out boating as a group. They're drinking.

They're having fun. They come back. They continue on the wharf by the boat, continue to party and talk and drink and listen to music. And at some point, a couple of the people present, specifically Willis, I believe, and her sister Winston, they all go to bed. And then Ralph Daniel falls shortly after, which leaves Graham McCormick. and Rand Hooper still awake, roughly around 11.30 p.m. that evening. And we don't know why, but for whatever reasons, Rand, I think, convinces Graham McCormick to continue their party on the boat. The boat is a 21-foot Boston whaler. I just, I googled it quickly, and this appears to be a really,

a fairly expensive, high-end brand of boat. But again, I don't know anything about boats. But these boats new run anywhere from what I can tell, 25,000 to $200,000 depending on the make and model. So not a cheap boat necessarily. And as it is aside, the family owns multiple boats, apparently. So this might be part of the story at some point. Okay. I'm like, okay. We'll get more into that. When we talk about this potential sense of entitlement with Rand Hooper, I think that will become a part of this story. So they go out on the boat and I don't if Graham was intoxicated, but clearly Rand was very intoxicated. And it seems like they were heading back to the boathouse on a certain part of the river when the boat collides with a bulkhead.

And for those of you who don't know what a bulkhead is, and I didn't know until this case, but I'm just going to read from the court documents, they define a bulkhead as, quote, a retaining wall along the waterfront. So it's a retaining wall, Often they're made of wood or metal, and the boat crashes into this retaining wall, damages the retaining wall, it damages the bulkhead, and it damages the side of the boat and the under part of the boat. When the boat crashes into the bulkhead, Rand Hooper is thrown to the right of the boat, and Graham McCormick is thrown off the boat into the river.

So this is where it gets complicated. So according to a later story that Rand Hooper tells, well, first of all, he denies. that there's any crash. He denies that they even went out on the river. There's all kinds of changes in story here. But essentially, he makes a statement later and he says that I'll read it. While the two men were riding in the Boston Whaler that night, Hooper remembered, quote, that the boats hit something hard. Hooper then stated, I recall immediately turning the boat's engine off, turning its deckline on, and calling out for Graham's name, unquote. Hooper said that, quote, he did not see nor hear Graham, unquote. Hooper then, quote, restarted the boat's engine and headed to the boat dock up Carter's Creek

towards my parents' home there without McCormick. So by Rand Hooper's own admission, he's driving the boat, he hits this bulkhead, Graham is thrown out of the boat, he does the most cursory check to see if Graham's okay, he doesn't hear anything, he doesn't see anything, and it appears like within minutes. He turns the boat around or he takes the boat and heads home to his parents' house. So he left him. He left him. Right. He left him.

He essentially left him for dead. I mean, he later changed his story a number of times. And actually, he first denies it. So the next morning, the group notices that Graham is not there and they're worried. And Rand Hooper says, well, maybe he had a panic attack and he went to the hospital. Rand goes up to his bedroom. he notices the bed hasn't been slept in. He acts like he doesn't know where Graham is.

He'd acts like nothing happened or he's not aware of what happened. He essentially plays dumb. So at some point around 10.30, 11-ish that morning, one of the members of the party, which is Winston, who's Rand's wife's sister, Winston calls the police and reports a missing person. Rand Hooper knows that Graham's in the boat and he fell off the boat and he hasn't seen or heard from him for hours.

In fact, this is one of the most interesting parts of the... I'm going to read a... I'm going to continue to read the court doc here. This tells me a little bit about Rand Hooper, by the way, which we'll get into more. But Winston testified that she and Daniel woke up together the following morning, and they met Hooper and Willis in the main area of the house.

Willis, Winston, Daniel, and Hooper then walked the dogs together. When they returned, Hooper scheduled tea times at a nearby golf course for the group. This scheduling tea times thing is just unfathomable to me in the sense that this guy's pretending like nothing happened. He knows his friend is out in the river, right? Probably dead. And yet he's acting like nothing happened.

In fact, not only that, he wants to go play golf with his buddies. He walks the dogs. He pretends like... It's not too bad of a hangover. He's walking the dogs. He's walking the dog, right. Right. He's doing okay.

He's not like laying in bed with a massive migraine either. Right. This is somebody I think that can probably handle a lot of alcohol fairly well, by the way. So he has a history of DUIs, at least multiple DUIs. During one of his DUIs, apparently he shot someone by accident. So that's an interesting part of this story too. But this picture of him waking up, pretending like he doesn't know where Graham is, making a tea time for golf.

So his parents apparently are in Africa. I don't know why they're in Africa. I imagine they're like on safari or something. And, you know, so his parents are in Africa. He's at their boathouse. He's running around and his parents, Boston Whaler, partying with his buddies, making tea times for golf.

None of that necessarily might be relevant except for the fact that I think clearly there is some sense of entitlement here. And part of the story here is that wealth and privilege probably play a role as well. So one piece of this story is that the judge, so Rand was supposed to go before the judge in 2019. It took two years to get to that point. So again, like Paul Murdoch, there's all these delays.

The judge recuses himself because he acknowledges that he told the prosecution that there probably wasn't sufficient evidence to convict someone of a crime. So in other words, the judge is essentially saying that he's biased. And then he doesn't feel like he can conduct a fair trial because he thinks the evidence is flimsy. By the way, anybody who reads the Court of Appeals of Virginia document will see that the evidence is not flimsy at all. I mean, it's not a lot of it's circumstantial in the sense that they're getting statements from witnesses and they're getting statements from Rand, but there's still quite a bit of evidence here. So Winston Blair contacts the police. they show up.

And Rand says he doesn't remember what happened. Again, there's a sort of amnesia going on. He's in denial. He's not acknowledging that he was in the boat. And then about 30 minutes later, a neighbor by the bulkhead where the boat crashed and notices two things. He notices one that there's a body in the water face up.

And he notices that the bulkhead has been damaged. So he calls the police. They come and discover, they find the body, they contact the police that are over at Rand Hooper's house. And Winston Blair, you know, who reported the missing person, she's actually the one who goes and identifies the body. Not Rand Hooper, he's nowhere to be found. He doesn't, he just, he wants to keep his distance. He doesn't want anything to do with this. As, you know, someone pointed out, Stephanie pointed out, this is like a hit and run. It's pretty much a, except that he was in the

boat with him, but it's the same thing as a hit and run. Just nobody saw it. I'm just going to go to bed and everyone else is going to clean up after me. Right. That's a great observation. In fact, the charges change frequently in this case. So it starts off a second-degree murder and then it becomes involuntary manslaughter. And they added hit and run felony hit and run. So in fact, it does become a hit-and-run case, actually.

The difference, however, between, and this is a really critical difference, the difference between a typical hit-and-run and this particular case is that Graham McCormick is his best friend. You know, typically in a hit and run, you might hit a pedestrian that you don't know or a stranger or right, but. Yeah, like in that, you know, that hit and run last year that I did. No, just kidding. Yeah. Yeah. No, I know. When you hear about hit and runs, it's usually a stranger hitting. Right. And I think that's what makes this case so interesting is, I mean, tragic. You know, let me just to say that. Tragic, really tragic, because that's another piece of information that's really critical in this case, which is when Graham McCormick goes into the water, he's alive. He doesn't die from injury sustained after the accident. He dies from

drowning. So that's part of the tragedy too here, is that if Rand Hooper had done the minimal amount to try to find his friend and or called the police instantly or the Coast Guard or whoever needs to get involved, Graham McCormick might still be alive. he was found right there. He could have found him. He absolutely could have found him, right. And the cause of death being drowning, essentially, it makes it even more tragic in the sense that he goes into the water alive.

He probably could have been found. If Rand Hooper can't find him because he's too intoxicated, he could have gotten other people over there who could have found him. But he claims that he calls out his name, he doesn't hear anything, and at some point he just decides that he's going to leave the scene and leave his friend for dead. So that's what happened. So I think the part of this crime that I just can't get past is the fact that

Graham McCormick is supposedly his best friend. Right, his best friend. I'm trying to think of my best friend and I hope that I have no friend. Somebody, right, somebody's just with friends like him who needs enemies, right? Exactly. And a best friend, let alone a best friend. So this case evolves over time. COVID comes into play.

Things get delayed a lot. the defense attorneys are trying to get the case dismissed, saying there's insufficient evidence, all this kind of stuff that typically goes on. Finally, it goes to trial. A jury convicts him. He's sentenced to 15 years. Nine of those years are suspended. So he gets six years, which given the laws in Virginia, if he's a reasonably good inmate, he'll probably do 60% of that. But in spite of that, this is another part of the case that's kind of head scratching. In spite of that, Rand Hooper wants to continue to deny his involvement in the crime in the sense that in the appeal, he argues that there's insufficient evidence, number one, and number two, he argues not only is there

insufficient evidence, but he wasn't driving the boat. Again, right, shades of Paul Murdoch. Yes, many shades. And-shades. Right. He changed the story a lot, but he wasn't driving the boat became a big part of his argument because presumably nobody could prove it. So initially he didn't say that.

Well, initially he said that he wasn't on the water at all, but they were able to show that the boat had damage that was consistent with the paint on the bulkhead, right? They were able to tie the boat to the bulkhead and show that there was an accident and they were able to show, obviously, that Graham McCormick's body was right by the bulkhead. So that was part of the evidence.

But this is what Rand Hooper says at sentencing. It doesn't say a lot, but this is what he says. He says, quote, Graham McCormick is one of the greatest people I've ever met, unquote. And then he said, which here's a moment of, I don't know what, vulnerability or admission or disclosure. He also says, quote, the safety of everyone at that house was my responsibility. And for that, I am sorry. And this is before the appeal.

This is before he comes back and says, I wasn't driving the boat. So essentially, he basically recants his, his, very weak apology at sentencing. But notice that the statement at this apology at sentencing, he says the safety of everyone at that house was my response. Yeah. I noticed that. Yeah, what's that about? There's no apology for Graham. The interesting part about that is he's still not taking responsibility. He's just saying everyone at the house, even though he was on a boat with Graham. He's indirectly, I guess, acknowledging his involvement in this crime, but he's not. And Gordon, McCormick, says later that he felt a certain amount of closure over that statement, like Rand Hooper was

actually showing a bit of remorse. Without mentioning his name? Right. Without mentioning his name. Yeah. Right. Exactly. How I always feel.

Just say, say, you know, yeah, wow. So there's never, there's never a moment here where Rand Hooper says, I'm so sorry that I caused my best friend's death in this accident. I didn't intend this. It was an mistake. It was an accident, right? But I, every day I miss my friend, right? There's none of that.

There's simply this really weak apology without mentioning Graham. And then you go to the appeals where he says, guess what? You know, I'm sorry. I didn't, I didn't really mean that. Graham was driving the boat. I wasn't. So let's just get rid of this whole thing. The part about this case that I just can't get over is the friendship piece.

Right. We hear about hit and runs. We hear about hit and runs, sadly. It's their heartbreaking and they're awful. May justice be served. But we hear about them. We never really hear about this when it's a friend, let alone a best friend.

And you could save their life. Right, exactly. And so one of the thoughts I had when I was thinking about this particular crime was there's something in psychology called the bystander effect. The basic idea behind the bystander effect is that when a crime is committed, that if people are observing that crime, neutral parties, bystanders are witnessing that crime, oftentimes people are going to be less inclined to act to help a victim the more people that are present. The bystander effect comes into play because in 1964 in New York City,

there's a woman named Kitty Genovese who was attacked by an assailant. It started as a robbery. And this happened near a bunch of apartments. and homes. There were a lot of people that witnessed this event. And during the attack, the assailant noticed that nobody was intervening and nobody called, the police weren't coming. And so he actually was leaving and then he returned and he assaulted the victim and he committed a homicide. So after that, the social psychologists were particularly interested in, why aren't people helping? And why, you know, what's going on with the bystander effect?

Why would a bystander, let alone a best friend, not help? Yeah. So let me make some distinctions between the bystander effect in this particular situation, however. The bystander effect usually involves multiple parties observing a crime. Here, you have one person, Rand Hooper. There's no bystanders. However, I think because the accident was so unexpected that Rand Hooper is in many ways, I think he perceives himself to be a bystander.

I'm sure there's a certain amount of shock. He can't believe he's in this situation. but here he is, his friend is overboard, potentially somewhat traumatized. And the question is at that moment, what is he going to do? When bystanders, especially multiple bystanders, are witnessing a crime, the question is, are they going to intervene? And the research on the bystander effect shows that there's a couple of elements that predict whether someone will take responsibility for helping a victim.

Probably the most important one of those is the person typically asks, Is the person deserving of help? Another one is that people are looking at the competence of the bystander. Okay. Like if a child is drowning, can the bystander swim? Right, exactly. So that would be another element that would predict whether the bystander becomes involved. You know, presumably Rand Hooper knew how to swim, but maybe he didn't, right?

So I don't know. But you have the first one is the person deserving of help. What's the competence of the bystander? If it's drowning, can they jump in and swim? And the third element is the relationship between the bystander and the victim. So typically, if the bystander knows the victim, there's more likelihood of intervening. And when you say does the victim deserve to be helped, is it because is that the whole, they got themselves in this situation or is that a dehumanizing thing too?

Like, oh, you know, a sex worker might not be helped as much as, say, a child. Or what do you mean by deserve it? Yeah, yeah, yeah, right. It's all of the above. that the bystanders, especially if they don't know the victim, they're making some assessment of whether the person deserves help, whether they can help themselves, the nature of the crime. If somebody, like you said, if somebody falls, if a child falls into the water and can't swim, is that person deserving of it versus maybe the victim is in a fight with a boyfriend? There's some domestic dispute. and right, like maybe the bystander in that case feels like, well, if I intervene, I might get harmed.

So just based upon those elements, any social psychologists would predict that this person should intervene. And it gets worse, by the way. So they've done more research, obviously, since the 1960s and 70s on the bystander effect. And one of the things that they found is that the more dangerous the situation and the more potentially lethal and the more of a crisis, the situation is, the greater the likelihood of the bystander intervening. So in other words, if a bystander is winning into a crime that they believe is fairly mild and there's little risk of harm, they may or may not intervene. But if the bystander perceives that there's a serious crisis that could have life and death

implications, they're much more likely to intervene. Again, this is a life and death thing. Right, exactly. And again, again, this is just, it's head scratching in the sense that all of the research on this bystander effect would predict that Rand Hooper should be intervening, at least in the most minimal way, you know, keeping the boat there, calling people for help. He's not doing any of that. His friend is presumably still alive at that point.

So he essentially leaves his best friend for dead. And it's just, right. Nothing's making sense with all these studies, all these. It would be you would help him. Right. Just as an aside, one of the interesting consequences of the Kitty Genovese case and the bystander research and effect is that that's what led to what we now refer to as Good Samaritan laws, which Good Samaritan laws are essentially that if you're...

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then you're protected. legally from if you do create some harm, you're protected if you're trying to assist a victim in a way that would potentially save their life or relieve them of some type of significant harm. As are, by the way, many states have what are called duty to rescue laws. So in the case of Rand Hooper, it actually, that's why they were able to charge him. Because a duty to rescue law essentially states that if you're in a situation like Rand Hooper is, you have a legal obligation to try to assist that victim. And if you don't, there could be legal consequences.

Again, like the hit and run, we talked about earlier. But to get into the heart of this case, so the question is, why doesn't he act? This is his best friend. Why doesn't he act to help him? What's one financial lesson you learned the hard way? I'll go first. It's not too late to start saving.

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After all, you don't want your old phone to die on you when you're lost. Perfect. Or for your broken phone to glitch at the worst possible time. Hey, can I get your number? Trade in your old phone for a brand new iPhone 16 Pro iPad and Apple Watch. Visit Verizon.com today. Additional terms apply. Service plan required for Apple Watch and iPad. So part of the answer to that question has to do with what psychologists call the fundamental attribution error. And the fundamental attribution error states this is a principle that's discussed often by social psychologists.

People like Phillips Zimbardo of the Stanford prison experiments, Stanley Milgram, of the experiments where people were shocked. some of the most famous experiments in the history of psychology have to do with the fundamental attribution error. And the fundamental attribution error states that people often overstate the importance of personality and the influence of personality and shaping one's behavior when the situation has more influence than they recognize. So in other words, if you think about like the Milgram experiments, which I think most people know, you know, you have somebody in a white coat telling a subject to shock someone

and to harm them. And the idea is that the situation involves an authority figure and a subject who feels like they have to comply with the authority figure. And so they're much more likely to shock someone who, by the way, is screaming out in pain. But they're much more willing to shock the person because of the situation. So in other words, the situation is what typically might lead to that outcome and not the person's personality. So the fundamental attribution error states that we often point the finger at someone in their personality variables rather than assessing the situation. And as a forensic psychologist, by the way, so if I'm assessing risk of whether someone

should get on probation, for example, this is the first thing I want to look at. So I'll do a lot of personality tests and I'll look closely at the situation to look at what was the impact of that particular situation. Is it a one-off situation? There's a situation that's very unlikely to occur again. And if that's true, if it is an unusual situation and somebody doesn't have a personality disorder, let's say, then you would attribute a lot of it to the particular situation and not to the person. So there's always this interaction between the environment and personality.

And it's really important to try to tease those out because they both influence our behavior to a very large degree. And I think this particular case really, you know, forces us to look at this issue. This is obviously an unusual situation. The fact that there's this massive boat crash and someone flies off the bone and they die from that particular behavior is it's not an everyday scenario, right? So clearly the situation here is unique, probably very stressful. It's very traumatic, right? It's the type of situation that would kind of engender a fight or flight. type response. So I guess you could argue that maybe Rand Hooper is completely overwhelmed by the

scenario, by this accident, and he doesn't know what to do, and he flees. So if this is a version of fight or flight, this is a guy presumably who he just flees. He recognizes the severity of the consequences. And so that's one argument. Fight or flight, yeah. Fight or flight, right. The problem I have with that, however, is that this is such an outlier, this is such an unusual situation. To have a best friend flee a scene when he knows his friend could be alive, it's still extremely unusual. When I think about this situation, I think we have to dig a little deeper. I think it is an unusual situation, but I think there's more going on here. And thinking a little more philosophically, one of the other things I thought about with this

particular case is what's called force majeure. Force majeure, broadly speaking, means an act of God, but or overpowering event. So when I thought about it in terms of this case, I thought of the movie. So there's a Swedish movie from 2014 called Force Majure. And it's about a couple who takes their two kids skiing to a ski resort in France. It's a beautifully done movie. The acting is amazing. The cinematography is exceptional.

I would recommend people watch it. I mean, there are some subtitles, but it's an exceptionally well-done movie, and it raises a lot of important questions, which is why we're talking about it now. So here's a spoiler alert, for those of you haven't seen the movie. I'm going to summarize the most important moment in the movie. So if you haven't seen the movie and want to watch it, you might want to turn off now. But in the movie, the family is dining at a restaurant at the bottom of the ski slopes, and all of a sudden they notice an avalanche is coming their way.

And the husband, his name is Tomas, notice this is, he says, well, it's a controlled avalanche. Don't worry about it. I think we're okay, meaning that a lot of times in ski resorts, they'll create avalanches so that the risk of skiing is, so the risk of avalanche is when people ski is much less. But Tomas says it's controlled, don't sweat it. And the next thing you know, the scene goes white. So as the avalanche is heading downhill towards this restaurant, you can also see that Tomas, he gets up from the table, he grabs his cell phone, because you've got to have your cell phone,

no matter what. He grabs his cell phone and he runs out of the restaurant. When the dust settles or the snow settles, you see that his wife, his wife and the two kids are sitting there with Ebba and Tomas is nowhere to be found. And then a few minutes later, when you can finally see the whole scene, Tomas returns. The whole movie is about, so you have this forciure, which is this so-called act of God, even though it's created by the ski resort. And you have Tomas essentially fleeing from his family, not trying to help him in any way. And Eba has a problem with that. Ebba is extremely upset that her husband just decides that his self-preservation is greater than the family's self-preservation. And it really causes her to reevaluate the entire marriage

and their family dynamics. So a lot of the movie is about the tension that goes on there. And there's a similar question here. There's a similar, this raises a big moral question about what exactly are our obligations to other people? What morally are we obligated to help other people, even if it's our family or our best friend, do we need to do that? So does Eba have a point?

Is she correct in going after Thomas and saying, look, he basically says, you really showed me your true colors because you're a coward and you didn't have any interest in helping the family. And I think there's a similar dynamic with Rand Hooper, right? Does he have an obligation to help his best friend? And of course, if we're asking that question, you know, this gets us in the realm of morality. And I think of, for example, the golden rule from the gospel of Matthew about doing unto others as they do unto you. But I also think about a German philosopher named Emmanuel Kant, who Emmanuel Kant had this thing called the categorical imperative. The categorical imperative essentially is a version of the golden rule, but it says that

you act as you would want others to act towards you and you treat that as a universal law. And Kant says that this is the basis of all morality, that if we use reason to evaluate situations, that we really need to act in a way that we would want others to act towards us. So it's essentially the golden rule. That idea has been the basis for almost all ethical and moral debates and philosophy for centuries. In both this movie force majeure and in the case of Rand Hooper, one's fiction, obviously, but it's still raising these issues. The point I'm making about morality is that it's intrinsically social, that the way we treat and act towards others is what defines something as being a moral act. And when you look at Rand Hooper, for example, I think one of the things that's so upsetting about,

it is there's a fundamental violation of that expectation. There's a fundamental violation of the social contract, which is, it's, again, going back to these duty to rescue laws, the social contract says that if you're in this type of situation, you have a legal and maybe moral, I mean, that's why I'm raising this, you have a legal and maybe moral obligation to assist the person in need. And if you don't do that, the law will hold you accountable. And that's where this case starts moving over into criminality. That's where this case starts becoming something criminal. And that's when you start thinking about this case, you have to think about like the criminal psyche in the sense that in many ways Rand Hooper is operating outside of normal social norms and normal social

expectations and normal social roles, right? That's what makes this problematic. And I don't know a lot about Rand Hooper's history, but I do know a little bit. I do know that there's a history of DUI and then I know one time when he was drunk, he shot a friend while he was intoxicated. And so I think it's fair to infer that, you know, it's one thing to have one DUI. Right. You get a DUI. You know, you went out with friends, you went party and you get drunk. You get in your car, right?

You get punished. You learn from it. You don't drink again when you drive. But not Rand Hooper. Rand Hooper has no problems drinking and driving repeatedly, even though he's being caught and charged with it. And presumably, I don't know, I can't find, we don't have. have the police report on shooting his friend, but he even shoots a friend one time by accident.

I'd like to see more of that. By accident? Well, yeah, I don't know. Again, I don't know the details of that. But my point is that there's something here that based on that bit, there's something here, I think, that does have something to do with personality in the sense I think we're moving over more into the territory of something like narcissism. You're moving over into, so I'm not, I can't, I'm not going to diagnose him.

I've never met him. I don't know his history. I'm just, I'm talking in general about how a circumstance like this may look narcissistic or how someone like this may have narcissistic features. They break the law repeatedly. They're not concerned about the consequences. They leave their best friend for dad, right?

There's something here that has to do with entitlement. That's why I talked about that stuff earlier. You know, his father apparently is pretty well. his father presumably is a part of him fighting the charges and encouraging him to fight the charges, even though he killed his best friend essentially, right? So at the very least, you see a lack of empathy. Can I add to the lack of empathy really quickly? Graham's brother, I read one article right before we started, his brother had just passed away.

He lost a brother to brain cancer. and the family was mourning that death. Yeah. So just when you bring a lack of empathy of a best friend, so not only is his best friend, but his best friend has lost family and been heartbroken over the loss of his brother. It's just, sorry, just go on, you know.

I just, it's heartbreaking. This is where this case starts moving a little bit away from the unique situation into something that resembles more to do with personality. And we can infer that because he's completely indifferent to the fact that his best friend, in the water, and he's indifferent to his friend's suffering, his friend's pain, and even his friend's life. And he's also making the assessment clearly that his life is much more value than

in Graham McCormick's, and that if he can somehow evade responsibility for this, then he perceives, I think, that he can just go on with his life unfazed, right? And all of that would start kind of encroaching upon this narcissistic turf, the diagnosis of narcissism from the DSM-5, grandiosity and self-importance, a sense of superiority and specialness, a sense of entitlement, manipulation and exploitation of others, a lack of empathy, arrogant and contemptuous attitudes and behaviors. So those are all ones that I picked up on that may be related to this particular crime. There is manipulation going on here too because he lies to the police. He tries to mislead he gives them false statements. He misleads them. So I'm going to. And as people have

pointed out he even ended up speaking at his funeral because the family didn't yet know how involved he was in the death. Just so many, just so many things that showed a lack of empathy and disconnect. Yeah. Yeah, that's right. I mean, the way he handled the situation, I can't even, I wouldn't have even guessed. I didn't know that, but that's, that's crazy that he spoke at the funeral. This, by the way, brings us into, so I wouldn't, I don't think it would be a surprise to most of our viewers to learn that that there might be some personality issues. involved here and that there's a relationship between narcissistic and criminality. I don't think that's, that's probably not new news to anyone.

But I'm going to read, this is from a chapter 13 in a book called Clinical Forensic Psychology. It's a fairly new textbook. It's excellent textbook. But there's a chapter 13, narcissistic personality disorder and deviant behavior. This is page 245. I'm going to quote this because it's relevant to what we're talking about. Quote, a situation can also become too emotionally overwhelming and intolerable, which makes narcissists unable to respond appropriately.

Proceeding others' emotions can evoke overwhelming powerlessness, disgust, shame, or loss of internal control that can trigger strong aggressive reactions or emotional and physical withdrawal. So I really like that quote because it starts getting close to explaining what's going on here. that this is both a combination of personality and situation, maybe 50-50. I don't know. I wouldn't put an exact number on it. But their point is that emotions are difficult for narcissists to begin with. If you put them into a rarely stressful situation, an overwhelming situation where there's

emotional overload and they have to make sense of a situation that, you know, when Graham McCormick goes in the water, you're asking someone to have an emotional, an appropriate emotional response to that scenario. And that person may or may not be able to have that appropriate response. In this particular case, obviously they don't. The response is to flee. So part of this has to do with potentially with the way a narcissist might respond to this type of stressful situation.

That someone who can process emotions better and someone who would be less overwhelmed by emotions, they might handle this in a much more effective manner. So in that sense, I think you're starting to see, if I'm thinking about this in terms of the fundamental attribution error, you see how these two components of personality and situation really blend here. And I think that's probably the best, maybe the best way to explain what's going on. That would be my attempt to begin to explain the why of, you know, why he flees. But I think we still have to think about this friendship component because that's the, component that I just can't, I can't get past, right? It's, it's the thing that has really kept me glued to this case and thinking about this case for a while. And again, I want to bring in this

movie force majeure. I don't know if anyone's seen it. It wasn't a super popular movie, but the thing about this scenario with Rand Hooper and the movie Force Majure, this idea of friendship and how far we can go, right? I think that the question this movie raises, it's an existential question. And the existential question is that friendship really makes demands upon us. The question in that movie is for Tomas, who's the husband, is who is he? It's fundamentally asking about who he is and why he's not able to assist his family in this moment of need or crisis. I think that's a question, by the way, in the movie that his wife constantly is bringing up. You know, she taunts him with it. You know, why didn't you act? You're a coward. I mean, and there's issues of masculine.

there too, by the way. So our man expected to always protect their families, right? You know, so, but that's part of that movie. I think in many ways true friendship can be a test, especially when there's trauma and there's moments of crisis. Those types of situations really ask us to evaluate who we are and what we're willing to do to help other people. And so I think if you see it that way, you know, to me, the Rand Hooper, situation is a test that he obviously fails. You know, he fails hugely. And the question I keep asking myself is, why does he foul that test so egregiously? Why is he so? And as best I can determine, so in thinking about this for the past few months, you know, I would say, and again, this kind of brings

us into the criminal mind. I think if I had to kind of figure out why he fails the friendship test, I would say that the components of this crime that seem to stand out to me are denied shame, narcissism, fear, self-preservation, powerlessness, vulnerability, and entitlement. If you put those elements together, which by the way, those elements are present in people that commit much more serious crimes. So to see those qualities in Rand Hooper is in some ways to say the jury got it right. That's not to say that this is going to be a career criminal or that he's necessarily a criminal in a larger sense. He's probably not. The situation was certainly unique. However, those components I just mentioned, those qualities often show up in very serious criminal

behaviors. They show up and sometimes in serial killers, right? And so, and again, I'm not calling Rand Hooper any of those things, but it's interesting for me to reflect on how in some ways friendship becomes a reflection of who we are. That if you fail at that fundamental act of friendship of your best friend, if you're not willing to save his life, then there's probably deeper problems going on. There's probably something there that you really need to look at. Right.

There's probably something there that you really need to solve about yourself because things are not working well when you do that. So I'm just going to, I want to finish with a quote here for anybody who's interested in this topic of friendship from the philosophical standpoint. I recommend this book on friendship by Alexander Nihamas. He's an excellent author. He's written some really outstanding works of philosophy. This book was published in 2016. This is from page 225. Quote, some ancients thought that friendship binds the whole universe together. We are more modest.

Friendship does no more than bind a few people together. the people who can say to each other, I love you because it is you, because it is I. But friendship finally makes us ask, who here is the you and who the I? Let me repeat that last line. Friendship finally makes us ask who here is the you and who the I. So my question is,

what happens to us, to our communities, our society, when we start to eliminate the U's and we're only left with the eyes. Because clearly somebody like Rand Hooper doesn't have much sense of the use. The other beautiful part of that quote, the idea that friendship binds the universe together, although the author disagrees with that, I think it's beautifully said in the sense that without friendship, we lose that.

I think without friendship, we lose that social connection. And in some way, So if friendship is, according to the ancients and the Greeks, if friendships is what binds the universe together, then destroying friendships is what unravels the universe. And I think that's, to me, that's what's so disturbing about this case with Rand Hooper, is that, again, if friendship is the glue that holds the universe together,

then when we start seeing these types of behaviors repeatedly, when we start engaging in really hateful and harmful behaviors, especially towards our friends, then in some ways I think that's where the universe begins to unwind and unravel, and I think that's where we're all in trouble. And I think that's why I've lost sleep over this case, because in some ways I think that Rand Hooper, for me at least, has poked a big hole in my universe and really forced me to question this idea of friendship

and morality and where we're at in our society at the moment. So I think there's a lot of big questions here. and I just hope that for most of us we can continue to find we know the I part and we need to figure out who we are and what that means but I think we always need to keep in mind that there's

always a you out there too and that you oftentimes is equally important and that's what makes friendship your old or broken phone can let you down but at Verizon trade in any old phone from our top brands and get iPhone 16 Pro with Apple Intelligence with a new line on my plan and iPad and Apple Watch Series 10.

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