RedHanded - Episode 152 - Daniel Bartlam: The Boy with the Hammer

Episode Date: June 18, 2020

In 2011 a fire tore through the Bartlam home in Nottingham, England. 14 year old Daniel, his little brother Dominic and the family dog all made it safely outside, but Jacqui, their mum didn't. She had been beaten to death with a hammer and left inside the burning building. Daniel told investigators a masked intruder had killed his mum, but discoveries they made on the boy's computer soon put him at the top of the suspect list. Vote: www.britishpodcastawards.com/vote Sources: Documentary: http://crimedocumentary.com/daniel-bartlam-murderers-mothers-coronation-street-killer/ Other References:  https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2012/apr/02/teenager-daniel-bartlam-jailed-murder https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/crime/9180872/Coronation-St-copycat-killer-locked-up-for-16-years-over-hammer-attack-on-mother.html https://www.itv.com/news/2012-04-02/schoolboy-daniel-bartlam-jailed-for-murdering-mother-jacqui-with-hammer/ https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2124034/Daniel-Bartlam-Coronation-Street-killer-fascinated-horror-DVDs-violent-game-age-easy-hold-says-victims-partner.html https://mycrimelibrary.com/daniel-bartlam-teen-killer/ https://www.nottinghampost.com/news/daniel-bartlam-14-year-old-255698 https://www.crimetraveller.org/2015/08/children-who-kill-daniel-bartlam/ https://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/latest-news/coronation-street-copycat-killer-murdered-17116982 https://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/local-news/how-long-children-who-kill-12515206 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-nottinghamshire-17540452 https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/mum-coronation-street-copycat-killer-7940474 https://www.thesun.co.uk/archives/news/1176833/corrie-copycat-killers-loving-mum-hid-teen-sons-warped-behaviour-then-he-murdered-her-and-set-fire-to-her-body/ See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to Red Handed early and ad-free. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. They say Hollywood is where dreams are made. A seductive city where many flock to get rich, be adored, and capture America's heart. But when the spotlight turns off, fame, fortune, and lives can disappear in an instant. Follow Hollywood and Crime, The Cotton Club Murder on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Hannah.

I'm Saruti. And welcome to Red Handed. I don't know what I hope anymore. I hope you're all doing all right. I hope it's all going swimmingly well. I hope so too. And I hope that you voted for us in the British Podcast Awards. Oh, yeah.

It quite literally takes two seconds. Should we just wait? Should we just wait? We'll just wait. Yeah, go do it now. Links in the episode description, britishpodcastawards.com slash vote. Go just click vote, verify, and then you don't have to, you can just skip over this bit next time.

But no, really, we've got like a couple of weeks left, guys. The voting closes the first week of July. So this is it now. Do or die. If you want to get your hands on those extra bonus episodes that we're going to be doing as a big thank you if we get into the top 10, etc. Give us a vote. It means the world.

And thank you very much. Yep. Congratulations for just voting because I all know you did because I trust you because we're a family. Exactly. I trust you. If you're listening to this, that you have voted. Slash are voting now.

Speaking of families, though. I know you guys don't like it when kids die. Weirdos. So no kids die today in this episode. It is, in fact, the other way round. We haven't done a killer kid in absolutely yonks. I'm not even sure if we've actually ever done one on the main show, apart from Charlie, what's his name?

Charlie Brandt. Brandt. No, I can't remember. That seems like a weird thing that we haven't done more of that because I find it endlessly fascinating. What are we even doing for three years? Let's all go and sit and think about what we've done for a minute. Prepare yourself for some, we need to talk about Kevin, turmoil.

We often say on this show that there are good people and bad people in every race, religion, pool hall, micro pig farm and tandem bike riding enthusiast Facebook group. So by the same token, is it fair to say that there are good kids and plain old bad kids. Between 2008 and 2011, 81 children were convicted of murder in England and Wales. In the States, it's estimated that a kid kills a parent five times a week, and that accounts for 1% of the total homicides in the US. So within the sort of matricide angle, which is obviously kids killing their mothers, well, people killing their mothers,

juveniles make up just 16% of matricides. The rest, what's that 60 something else? I don't know. The rest of the percentage that makes it up to 184. Yep, thank you. Those are all grownups. So kids killing their mums is rare, but it happens. So this week the question we are wrestling with is can people just be born bad? The consensus is no they can't. Bad people are generally a product of their environment with possible genetic predisposition to personality disorders unless of course you are a member of the Catholic Church in which case your belief is that every single one of us is born bad and the only thing we can do about it is everything that God says. Or the Hindus, because we were always told, if your life sucks, it's probably because it's something you did in your last life.

And this is just God's wrath and you should just get on with it and try to be a better dung beetle until you can re-elevate into the life of a rich person. I told you about that deaf comedian I went to see who was Indian. He went back to India and he was in a homestay hotel room and he killed a mosquito with his hands and the woman running the like homestay said no wonder you're deaf. That's fucking outrageous but absolutely unsurprising to me. Absolutely unsurprising. Oh god can't can't cope. It's tough. It's tough. And it's unavoidable this week to to not get into the nature versus nurture debate. It's tough. It's tough. And it's unavoidable this week to not get into the nature

versus nurture debate. It's been thrown around so much by so many different people that you will probably find the discussion of it exasperatingly boring. If you don't know what we're talking about, we're basically discussing whether people are born shit or do they become shit because of the way that they were nurtured. Almost every expert on the subject, like most experts on literally anything, will tell you that it isn't that simple and people become shit because of the way that they were nurtured. Almost every expert on the subject, like most experts on literally anything, will tell you that it isn't that simple and people become shit because of a combination of factors. If you would like a more in-depth explanation than that, please read a book because I just can't do it again. We did it in Feral Children. We've done it in so many episodes.

Not today. Because today we have a much more interesting debate to tackle. And it's one that I certainly have been avoiding for quite some time because there are so many grey areas and terms are used interchangeably all the time. But when I was writing this script, I just so happened to have slept through the night for the first time in about eight weeks. So I was feeling really strong and capable. So today is the day that we finally clear up the differences between

a sociopath and a psychopath. But untwist your psycho pants and sit back because we have a way to go before we get there. We're kicking off with something else that we haven't dealt with in a while. A fire. And this particular fire broke out at a house in Arnold, a suburb of Nottingham, in the early hours of Easter Monday, 2011. This house belonged to 47-year-old Jacqueline Bartlem, and she lived there with her two sons, Daniel and Dominic. Daniel was 14 years old at the time of the fire, and Dominic was just six. At around 12.55 that night, one of the neighbours reported hearing an argument between Jackie and her elder son Daniel. They said that they thought Daniel was in the garden and that Jackie was inside. The row appeared to be about the misplaced location of a pair of Daniel's trainers. It ended in Jacqueline begging Daniel to

come inside and go to bed. And this neighbor must have had absolutely fucking impeccable bat-like hearing. Because they also reported that after this, Daniel started muttering to himself in the garden before opening and shutting the shed door. Then the sonic-eared neighbour heard Jackie screaming and things being thrown around inside the house. They said that this altercation went on for about two or three minutes and then the fire started.

Daniel, his younger brother, and their family dog watched from the front drive as the house was engulfed by flames. Jackie never made it out. Other neighbours noticed that 14-year-old Daniel was in sparklingly clean clothes as he watched his house burn down. And this might not seem that unusual, but we have to take into account two things. One, it was the middle of the

night and he was wearing clothes, not pyjamas. And two, Daniel was a particularly teenage, teenage boy. His neighbours never saw him in clean clothes. His personal hygiene was pretty poor. And that is why it was duly noted by his hawk-eyed, bat-eared neighbours that his attire was quite different from usual. I love even during the middle of like a crisis, like one of the houses on the street is on fire, that these people are noticing these kind of things. I am so oblivious to whatever is going on. I was like downstairs in the living room today, doing some work, replying to some emails, fucking banging noises out of nowhere. And I'm like, what the fuck is that? To my dad, he goes, oh, it's the kid next door. He's playing football and he's banging the ball against our wall.

And I was like, can you go tell him not to do that, please? And my dad was like, oh, well, you know, I feel sorry for him. He's an only child and he's, you know, during lockdown, he's not going to school, blah, blah. I was like, he's an only child. I thought there were like four kids that lived next door. He's like, nope, just the one. I've lived in this house for decades. Don't know a fucking clue.

Make it my business not to know. Make it my business to have the wrong information about your house. Yeah, I mean, I do hawk eye my neighbours now, but that's mainly because I've got fuck all else to do. But mainly we've got trampoline boy next door who gets on the trampoline at six o'clock every morning and makes quite a lot of noise. And he's out there all day, every day.

Good. But same thing. Poor kid, man. He's's got nothing else i think he's got a sister but i think she's really really little anyway there's a trap house opposite my house keep an eye on them count the police raids but that's about it so daniel being the eldest child was the first one to be spoken to by police and he told them that the day his mother died he had watched films on his computer through 3d glasses and many sources will tell you that that one of these films was a part of the saw catalog i checked and apparently saw 3d which is the same thing as source 7 i think it's called the final chapter uh this is probably your area of expertise more than mine saw 7 or saw 3D was released in 2010 so it's reasonable to

assume that Daniel would have been able to get hold of a DVD by 2011. I'm just not sure what the point of wearing 3D glasses in your own home is. Because like I know you could get a 3D TV at some point but like did anyone do that? I mean who even goes to see 3D films at the cinema let alone in your own house? Like this this fucking Saw 3D, man. It was just a cash grab. It was like, hey, look, 3D technology is a thing. Let's make a Saw film and make it 3D. I'm not into the whole thing.

Five quid more to go watch it in 3D? No. And just feel a bit sick all the way through. Exactly. Well, good job cinemas are going to die then, isn't it? I know. I mean, that is a shame. Maybe we will have to watch Piranhas 3D in the comfort of our own homes from now on.

I don't know. But, yeah. So, after the 3D or not 3D Saw experience, Daniel ate a burger and chips and then played on his Xbox before he went to bed. And according to Daniel, the last time he'd seen his mother before the attack was when she'd left some freshly ironed clothes outside his bedroom door. And this is Daniel's story. Sometime after the laundry delivery, a masked intruder had broken into the house, attacked his mother and then set the house alight before running off into the night. Daniel told investigating officers that he'd managed to throw a hammer at the masked man as he left the house. Then he discovered his mother lying in her bedroom covered in blood,

so he took his dog and his little brother and left. Just how the intruder had time to set the fire whilst running out the door after having a hammer thrown at him is quite difficult to know. So remains were found in the burnt out building. These remains were identified via dental records to be that of Jacqueline Bartlem. She had been hit seven times in the head with a hammer and her face exhibited several fractures. Jackie's body was not the only thing that the search team found in the house though. Police discovered the claw hammer that had been used to kill her and another hammer assumed to be the one that Daniel threw at this intruder.

This has led to a lot of hammer confusion in the publication of crime scene pictures. I mean, who knew there were so many types of hammer? Definitely not me and definitely not Hannah. If you've watched the vlog of us trying to build furniture, relatively simple furniture for our relatively tiny office, you will see that we don't know anything about anything to do with tools. And who cares? Because it's all quite boring, really.

God, it's so boring. Like, there's so many, like, different crime scenes. This is the claw hammer used to blubbity-blut. And then there's another picture of, like, what I assume would be a sledgehammer. And they're like, oh, no, this is the murder weapon. I'm like, which one is it? And then realized I it doesn't matter there are two that's what you need to know exactly and we're not saying details don't matter if you listen to the show you know we love details but as you go on to find out this is not something worth getting bogged down in

for reasons that will become incredibly obvious very very soon if they are not already. But if you find Hammerchat boring, don't worry, because what was not boring was the discovery made on 14-year-old Daniel Bartlum's computer. Aside from his Saw DVD, there were loads of other very, very violent films. According to Simon Matters, who was Jackie's partner, Daniel had watched incredibly violent films from the age of eight. It was one of his very favourite activities. Daniel even made compilation clips of his favourite torture scenes and posted them on YouTube. He also made videos of himself speaking to camera.

And to be honest, like, we've seen some of these, he just looks like a normal teenager like a normal 14 year old in 2011 who was like keen to fucking surf the wave of youtube stardom you know it doesn't seem that weird he's yeah he's definitely talking to people like it's not like he's uh i think he'd had some videos that were simply just clips of tv shows and films and stuff but there is definitely footage of him being like hi guys how's it going today we're gonna be you know yeah so he's he's trying to do something with it he's trying to vlog he's trying to he's trying to vlog which in 2011 seems pretty we should ask seb i feel like he

how he would have been young then. Fetus. Daniel's search history revealed something even more concerning. He had been googling people who get away with murder in shows and how to get away with murder. Which, when your mum has been found burned to a crisp after she'd been bludgeoned with a hammer, is not ideal. Even less ideal was Daniel's obsession with soap operas, particularly ones with violent storylines. He again made montage videos of sequences of violent scenes from his favourite soaps, which was Hollyoaks, Emmerdale, and sometimes

he threw in a bit of Trial and Retribution, but his absolute favourite soap of all time was Coronation Street. And for our international listeners, where you are from in the UK directly denotes which soap you watch. Saruti and I are from the South, so we watched EastEnders. I went through a brief period of Hollyoaks, but that's only because it was on after The Simpsons, and everyone who grew up in the golden age of millennialism knows that as soon as you get in from school, you watch Neighbours, then you watch The Simpsons, then The Hollyoaks, and there is, I will hear nothing else about it.

That is exactly the order of things. Oh, absolutely. I watched Hollyoaks for a very brief period, maybe a few months, and I only watched it, and I don't know what that says about my future career, when they introduced that weird incest plot line. Do you remember? Oh, yeah. Do you remember? You know, Nancy's still in it. I flipped on it the other day and I was like,

how are you still in this and how is your haircut the same and how have you not aged at all? I just, I don't understand what that show is still doing or who it's being made for, but it is still there. But yeah,

I watched the incest plot line and I was like, what the fuck? Then when it ended, I just stopped watching it. You've lost me, Hollyoaks. I think it's filmed near Chester. Yeah, yeah. Anyway, so let's try and explain this geographical typography poorly. Southerners tend to say that the north of England starts at the Watford Gap,

and that opinion gets much less popular the further north you go. The Watford Gap is also incidentally absolutely nowhere near Watford. Nottingham counts as the Midlands. So it makes sense that Daniel was not wasting his time on EastEnders. That's crazy, isn't it? Because I would definitely be like, if you just said, where's Nottingham? And you were like, quick answer, I would say in the north, not in the Midlands. But I hear you guys, I hear you. It's in the Midlands. Yeah, the further north you get, the more people are like, Nottingham's not north. This is the north. I went to university in Birmingham. And when I arrived there, I'd only been there once before when I went to go look at the university. And then I joined. And I was like, Oh my god, I'm so far up north. And everyone's like, you're in the fucking

Midlands. You're not in the north. Yeah, Birmingham, quite famously the Midlands. I know. I know better now. I've grown as a person. So Daniel, not into EastEnders, really, really has a lot of time for Coronation Street. And apparently they knocked off like 10 characters in two years or something. So it was called the most violent street in Britain for a while. It had like a serial killer in it.

Something like that. Yeah, because my parents used to watch it when I was younger. And I remember like seeing bits of it when I would like have dinner. Definitely had a serial killer. Lots of murder. I do remember that. Yeah, because my parents used to watch it when I was younger and I remember seeing bits of it when I would have dinner. Definitely had a serial killer. Lots of murder. I do remember that. I'm also getting a lot of, on Facebook Watch, the videos bit, getting a lot of Bollywood in there now.

I don't mind it. I don't mind it. It's so funny. The network you're now connected to is one that involves my mum and you're just going to get lots of random ad plugins for things that she's looking at. Daniel was particularly fascinated by the coronation storyline of a character called John Stape who killed a character called Charlotte Hoyle with a hammer and then he hid her body in the wreckage of a tram crash and he got away with the murder. What is really interesting and I know we will kind of touch on this later when we talk

about all violent movies violent video games but I'd never sort of thought about it from this perspective. This isn't research-based, it's very anecdotal, but one of my really good friends works as a youth worker with, like, kids who naturally need sort of more support and maybe have more unstable family lives and things like that. And she said that she absolutely cannot stand soaps because she feels like it has a direct impact on the level of like dramatic behavior that she witnesses with her young people because she feels like it kind of normalizes this hyper dramatic hyper reactionary way of conducting yourself. And I thought that was really interesting because obviously we say you know violence it doesn't come from watching violent shows but I wonder

if it does as she says just from her experience not any research that she feels like it has an impact on how normalized or how desensitized people are to very very dramatic actions or lots of cheating and lots of scandals and stuff like this, which I thought was quite interesting. I agree. I think particularly in this case, I think we do see a bit of that because it feels like real life to a certain extent. Exactly. No, you're totally right because a horror film, you can feel like, is somewhat potentially detached from normality,

whereas a soap is built on the basis that it feels like everyday life. And then you build all sorts of crazy... Yeah, totally, because they look like me, they live in a house like mine, they've got a car like me. That's a really good point. So Daniel's obsession with soap opera pre-Watershed violence, because yes, this is all happening very much pre-Watershed, had been linked to the blurring of real life and fantasy,

like we just discussed. He knew that the violent movies he watched like saw were fantasy they felt distant but soaps especially i don't know about other country soaps i feel like maybe american soaps always seem quite glamorized but in the uk they are so not glamorized they are very ordinary looking people in soaps they're just just much more recognisable situations. It's all just much more understandable. And so I think that this violence felt much more real to Daniel and importantly, much more achievable. In Daniel's computer's third backup, so this is the place where the things you think you've deleted go to live forever. The police that daniel had tried his hand at script writing as well as

video editing this reminds me so much of the edmonton killer march twitchell and his sk confessions totally totally the same totally the same thing and also i think he tried to use the same fucking excuse yeah we'll get there yeah but if you guys haven't listened to that one go back and listen because that was just one of the fucking weirdest episodes. SK Confessions stood for serial killer confessions. And the show he wrote was called House of Cards. It's just and he was a grown man. And he's showing the same level of unoriginality as Daniel does. So this computer discovery revealed a story in which Daniel had cast himself in the lead role. This person featured as Coronation Street's longest-running character, and this is the bio that Daniel gave himself.

Quote, From around 2012 up to his death in 2047, Daniel got away with rape, murder, GBH, robbery, and during his teenage years, countless vandalisms against his neighbours. The Daniel in the screenplay goes on to murder his mother Jackie, which he spelled with a CK and his mum spelled it with like the QUI. So he's made a slight change there. But the Jackie in the screenplay was hammered to death by her son Daniel, who then set the house on fire, rescued his brother and waited for the neighbours to raise the alarm.

Sounds pretty familiar, doesn't it? and remember daniel thought that this had deleted that really pissed me off when i read that like obviously i know that like it takes a team of specialists but the amount of times i've lost something on my fucking computer and i'm like it's still it's still there it is still there if you know how to get it the amount of time i lost an entire essay once when i was at uni in like the last hour before the deadline. And it was still there just knowing that it was retrievable by some like crack team. Oh my God, I know. It's so funny because now I feel like I back everything up for the show and we have it all on Google Docs.

We've got it on a drive, etc, etc. But when I used to like work full time at another job, we used to do everything kind of through a desktop. So I don't know. Language, language, language. We used to do everything kind of through a desktop so I don't know language language language we used to do it through there and then suddenly sometimes things would disappear and you would have to call fucking this company to try and dig it out for you and I remember calling them and I was like talking to this guy and I was like Paul you have to help me you have to find this I know it's got to be there you can do this and he was like I'll call you back after I've had a look

and the next time my phone just rang just I was so upset I just picked up and I was like Paul is it you do you have it it wasn't Paul it was just some random person but like it's a very traumatic thing to go through and I love that these people can just go in and find everything why can't we have that kind of IT support I used to sit next to the IT guy at my old job so I was never that worried because I could always just be like Damien I've done it again I would just call that company be like can I speak to Paul yeah has he found my is it is that you Paul can I have you found my papers and be like it's not Paul you've just come through to the switchboard stop fucking calling here definitely over that and the computer Daniel's computer still had a lot more to give. And so did his bedroom. The treasure

trove of horrors that was Daniel's bedroom had more artefacts to give. Police discovered two pieces of paper. One displayed a drawing of a woman with knives stabbing into her eyes with the words die bitch written above the drawing. And the second piece of paper just read death to all. Notebooks were also found that contained endless stories of sexual abuse, rape, violence, murder porn, snuff films and death. And this may all be circumstantial, but it is certainly out of the realms of normal teenage angst. And it was enough to arouse suspicion. And two days after his mother Jackie had died, Daniel Bartland was arrested on suspicion of her murder and kept on remand. Daniel maintained, though, that he had a good relationship with his mother

and that they had only argued about three months before her death. But when he was officially charged with Jackie's murder, he didn't have much to say other than no reply, and he was transferred to a secure unit where he awaited trial. During his time on remand, an incident arose with a female resident who had done something to upset Daniel. When a care officer took Daniel aside and tried to rectify the situation, instead of calmly addressing the situation, Daniel just blurted out, I could kill her just like I killed my mum. He'd been doing a good job keeping quiet about everything up until he just blurts that out.

I think the thing about Daniel is he is not in control all the time, I don't think. And I think that's pretty important when you come to, like, attempting to figure out what's up with him. Like, I don't think he is 100% of the time this very calm, calculated person. No, no, no. So Daniel elaborated after this that he had hit Jackie with a hammer because she had called him a freak, a fucking freak. Apparently, Jackie used this word as a weapon against Daniel a lot and he really, really hated it.

Or so he said. The night of the murder, Daniel and his mum had been arguing about some missing trainers, which confirms what the bat-eared neighbour had heard. Then Daniel had gone into the garden shed to get a hammer, gone back inside the house and beat his mother to death. Then he padded her body with newspaper, poured petrol around her bedroom and set the house ablaze. Suddenly things weren't looking quite so circumstantial anymore. Daniel insisted that this had not been a premeditated murder, rather it was a fit of uncontrollable rage. But it's quite hard to believe him when he'd written a screenplay that followed the events of the night his mother died to the letter. And this takes us

right up to my favourite argument that I will never stop talking about, and that is the thought crime argument. First, we dealt with this in depth in episode 100, and I only remember the episode number because it was 100, Cannibal Cop. So we have to consider, just because Daniel had written about a character with his name who killed his mother

with a very slightly different name, does that mean that he premeditated killing his mum? It's difficult to believe that it wasn't planned meticulously in advance. And to take a thought crime out of the realms of fantasy into conspiracy or even premeditation territory, you need a real-life action that takes a person closer to carrying out the crime in the real world.

And for me, the moment that it becomes reality and no longer a screenplay dream is the moment that Daniel opened the shed door, grabbed the hammer and headed into his house. Whatever way I come at that, that's premeditation. I don't think there's a timestamp on it. And I think it's like, with premeditation, obviously there is the type of premeditation

where it's like, they've sat and thought about this for months and planned everything and researched it. But also premeditation, if you can prove it in court, can just be that you had an opportunity to stop what you were going to do and think about what was going to happen and that you were going to kill that person and you didn't. That would be what takes it away from being, say, a crime of passion. But he doesn't grab like a knife that's already in his hand or on the table next to him and just do it. He goes into the shed, gets it and comes back. I'm thinking you're going to find it very difficult to show that that wasn't premeditated. I watched a very interesting analysis of the George Floyd video, for example, and how some people will say, you know, that you can't prove premeditation. Premeditation doesn't mean that Derek Chauvin left his house that day with an intention to kill George Floyd or kill anybody. All it meant is if he's doing what he's

doing, he has ample time to stop. And the person who was saying this in this video actually made a really good point and said, imagine if his hands were around his neck rather than his knee was on his neck and he was strangling him for that long you would say there were ample opportunities for him to stop what he was doing and he didn't that in itself can be premeditation and also what doesn't help daniel or maybe it does depending on which way you look at it he told his barrister while preparing for his trial that he had not intended to kill his mother at that time. And maybe that makes sense. The character Daniel in the screenplay only started his violent, murderous rape spree in 2012.

Daniel actually murdered Jackie in 2011. So maybe he didn't wake up on the 25th of April knowing that it would be the day he'd kill his mother. But kill her he did. As soon as Daniel grabbed that hammer from the shed, shut the door and headed back inside, he knew that he was going to enact his plan. So just how did this happen?

Let's take a quick trauma check trip through Daniel's life and see what we can come up with. Daniel was born in November 1996. His parents Jackie and Adrian got married when Daniel was three. In 2005, his little brother Dominic was born. But Jackie and Adrian called it quits on their marriage. Jackie had to move her boys into a smaller house. So after the divorce, they moved from their home in Redhill to the house in Arnold,

which was the one that would be burnt down six years later. They say Hollywood is where dreams are made. A seductive city where many flock to get rich, be adored, and capture America's heart. But when the spotlight turns off, fame, fortune, and lives can disappear in an instant. When TV producer Roy Radin was found dead in a canyon near LA in 1983, there were many questions surrounding his death. The last person seen with him was Lainey Jacobs, a seductive cocaine dealer who desperately wanted to be part of the Hollywood elite.

Together, they were trying to break into the movie industry. But things took a dark turn when a million dollars worth of cocaine and cash went missing. From Wondery comes a new season of the hit show Hollywood and Crime, The Cotton Club Murder. Follow Hollywood and Crime, The Cotton Club Murder on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can binge all episodes of The Cotton Club Murder early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus. Harvard is the oldest and richest university in America.

But when a social media-fueled fight over Harvard and its new president broke out last fall, that was no protection. Claudine Gay is now gone. We've exposed the DEI regime, and there's much more to come. This is The Harvard Plan, a special series from the Boston Globe and WNYC's On the Media. To listen, subscribe to On the Media wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Jake Warren, and in our first season of Finding, I set out on a very personal quest to find the woman who saved my mom's life. You can listen to Finding Natasha right now exclusively on Wondery+. In season two, I found myself caught up in a new journey

to help someone I've never even met. But a couple of years ago, I came across a social media post by a person named Loti. It read in part, Three years ago today that I attempted to jump off this bridge, but this wasn't my time to go.

A gentleman named Andy saved my life. I still haven't found him. This is a story that I came across purely by chance, but it instantly moved me. And it's taken me to a place where I've had to consider some deeper issues around mental health. This is season two of Finding. And this time, if all goes to plan,

we'll be finding Andy. You can listen to Finding Andy and Finding Natasha exclusively and ad-free on Wondery+. Join Wondery in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts or Spotify. When Daniel was 11, Jackie got together with a man named Simon Mattis, who we heard from earlier. Simon initially found Daniel to actually be quite engaging, always trying to impress grown-ups by talking about things that he had no knowledge of. Aside from the constant chatter about things he couldn't possibly understand,

Simon also started to clock some slightly worrying behaviours in Daniel. For example, he noticed that when his mum wasn't looking, Daniel would dig into his brother's ribs, pinch him or just outright hit him. Anyone with siblings knows that this can be a very normal part of sibling rivalry oh totally we all beat the shit out of each other yeah yeah me and my brother especially when we're younger we're very very physical with each other and also here like his parents are divorced dominic his brother is much younger than him there's a new man on the scene with simon moving in with them they had to move house most children would feel sort of put out in this situation what's important to say is like none of these things are sort of out of the realms of

normal things that a child might experience during growing up but it's certainly not something that Daniel clearly liked that was happening no I think it's just evidence that he does not deal with things in a what we would perceive to be normal way. He has extremely intense reactions to, yes, difficult situations. And anyone can list about 10 kids that have acted out in this exact situation. But Daniel just seems much more difficult to reel back in.

And I think what's clear to see is that Daniel probably felt quite out of control. His whole life was changing and there was nothing that he could do about it other than torment his brother. Equally because Daniel saw a lot less of his dad Adrian it would have become a lot easier to sort of fictionalize him. We see this time and time again with people who grow up to be killers that if the mum and dad

get divorced a lot of the blame falls on the mum while the dad can sort of be put on a pedestal and be idolized to some extent and I think that's what happens here as well. Daniel seems to have convinced himself that Jackie was the one responsible for the divorce and that it was her fault that they had to move house and like a lot kids, it does seem obvious that he placed a lot of the blame for what was going on in his life on his mum. The documentary on this case that we've linked below is hosted by Chelsea headhunter infiltrator Donald McIntyre. Have you seen that documentary?

The one on him or on Donald McIntyre? On the Chelsea headhunters? No, because I read this in the notes and I was like, what's she talking about? In the sort of late 90s, early 2000s when football hooliganism was massive in the UK,

I know it's still huge in other places like Poland and Italy and stuff, but it's less at the front of everyone's mind in the UK and has been for some years. But the most notorious hooligan gang is connected with Chelsea FC and they're called the Headhunters and Donald McIntyre infiltrated them and made a documentary and he got you have to get a tattoo of the like CFC tattoo and he faints in the documentary as he's getting it so funny that's so funny no but i would definitely watch that i find that whole thing as a concept like

football hedonism a very interesting idea um i don't know what the right word is it's just tribalism that's all it is people love it for sure and um i don't know if you watched the documentary we may have even spoken about for frankie boyle when he goes to russia to No, I haven't seen it, but I really want to. Yeah, to uncover sort of the roots of and the kind of life of a football hooligan in Russia. It's really, really interesting. I would definitely recommend it, especially watching a recovering alcoholic. Well, not recovering.

I guess like, are you always a recovering alcoholic? I don't know. Basically, he doesn't drink anymore. And going to Russia, people do not trust you if you will not drink vodka with them is what he discovered, especially as a man. It's a very interesting documentary

if you can find it. So we'll leave the football hooliganism for a moment. I'm lying. The rest of the episode, we're not going to talk about it. Maybe in something else, we'll have a look at it.

Donald McIntyre, who is much more sort of white haired than he was in his Chelseaelsea headhunter days sits in front of what i would describe as a pathetic excuse for a murder wall honestly i've still got the murder wall that we use for the cover art in my house and i keep pretending that i'm going to auction it and i really feel like i should but it just it's just got its place now and it's massive it took hours to put it together and i'm so proud of it there's i was like you have been how many millions did it cost to make this fucking series and it's literally just

a picture of fred west a picture of rose west connected with a bit of string that's it fucking nailed it guys crack this one wide open also my problem with the documentaries it's called murderers and their mothers which fine and the more experience we have with this the more i understand the need to just squash whatever case you can in some sort of series arc but like the opening sequence is like how much are their twisted relationships with their mothers like making them a killer i don't really think that jackie fits into that fucking box. I don't. It felt tenuous to me.

And it was the first season, its first episode in the series too. So if you're starting off on a tenuous link, where are you going? Definitely, definitely. No, I completely agree. And we will go on to discuss sort of Jackie as a mother more in the episode.

But like, I just felt like a lot of blame in that documentary was sort of being edged towards her. I thought that. And I was kind of like, guys, can we not just please? So in front of his murder wall, Donald speaks to various experts on what went wrong for Daniel. And although some of Daniel's behavior,

it was pretty normal, although extremely irritating for a teenager, some of his behaviours were not normal at all. We already know about the murder videos and the soap clips, and of course we've all heard the argument that violent films and games make people violent. I'm not sure how much time I have for that argument in its purest form. I think there has to be pretty severe underlying issues for children exposed to inappropriate levels of violence to become as violent as Daniel did. I don't think being allowed to watch Saw when he was eight years old

can be the whole story. But I do think that the whole reason we love horror films is that they activate our fight or flight response. We love the adrenaline rush of being scared. And that's why horror movies continue to make bajillions of dollars at the box office. There is research to suggest that consistent overload of graphic violence especially from a young age wears out the fight or flight response so the viewer needs to watch more and more extreme scenes to initiate the same response in their brain. So when Daniel had got all he could from horror films and violent soap storylines, he started to write his own accounts. And he didn't hide these either. He proudly presented a story that he had written to both Simon and his mum. And in this story,

two schoolboys fall out and one of them ends up stabbing the other one. It's so difficult to think whether he's actively trying to upset her by seeing how far he can push her or whether he's just desperate for attention. It's so difficult to know which one is which. It truly is. And I think, you know, we will reiterate this continuously during this episode is that we are not mental health experts. We are not diagnosing him. We're just discussing everything that it could be given our research and our reading. But I think even the people who did meet with him didn't have a fucking clue because you can't know for sure. You can only go on what that person is telling you. And we already know that Daniel is very good at hiding things. And some have argued that when Daniel started to write his own stories, it was only a matter of time before he would become violent himself. I think hindsight is

a wonderful thing. I don't think you can just immediately assume because your kid is writing violent stories. And he is a teenager as well. He's not four. You can immediately assume the absolute worst. But I mean, you'd keep an eye on it, I suppose. Yeah, that's it. I should be like, we'll just keep an eye on this. We'll see how it goes. But it is interesting, you know, what you were saying about some of the research suggesting that viewing violent imagery can dull that fight or flight response. Because in the research that we've been doing, children with conduct disorders or sort of antisocial personality traits tend to have very underactive brains. And so they are the kind of children who would be drawn to over-the-top

stimulus in order to bring their arousal levels up to a normal level or range. Like Free Solo Man. Exactly. Exactly. And if you haven't watched Free Solo, oh my God, go watch it. It's on Disney+. I have watched it several times. And yes, when we're saying arousal levels, we don't mean sexual arousal necessarily. We're talking about arousal within the brain because it is so underactive. And these kids or these people with that kind of antisocial personality traits can also struggle to manage that fight or flight response because they struggle to accurately

recognize emotions in other people's faces. So I thought it was really interesting that the things that they may seek out to heighten their brain arousal may also incidentally be making this other symptom of not being able to recognize emotions and the flight or fight response not being managed even worse, which is an interesting cycle yeah i thought that because i have you seen you must have seen the iceman tapes yes and he talks about yeah he's uh people you often use him as a very clear example of a psychopath but he says that he would watch videos of bodies being eaten by rats because it was literally the only thing that made him feel anything exactly we are going

to talk about this in a lot more detail in an upcoming bonus episode that we've got planned for you guys but essentially what all the research seems to show is that the prefrontal cortex of children people with antisocial personality traits just seems dulled it doesn't light up as much it's not as responsive. Therefore, their reactions can be altered. There's just a lot of challenges that there is a difference to the brain chemistry and the way in which they respond to stimulus. So there's a lot going on. And like I said, we are not experts. We've done all the reading research we can, but nobody also seems to agree. You know, even the experts don't agree on what's going on. Let's come back to Daniel now. So Simon

Matters who if you'll remember is Jackie's partner recalled an incident where he had spent the entire day cleaning the garden pond at Jackie's house. Then Simon went out for a bit and when he came back he found that Daniel had chopped up all of the plants completely and destroyed the pond. Daniel claimed that he was just trying to help, and then he lost his temper and he cried. He also ran away from home more than once. He was also found making his way back to their original family home in Redhill. There was also another occasion where Daniel wanted to order a pizza.

Jackie had said no, but he ordered one anyway. This then descended into a shouting match that ended with Daniel standing over his mother with his fists clenched as she sat on the sofa. Then he stormed upstairs, where he started to hit the walls, and then himself. Again, these are obviously very traumatic things for a parent to deal with.

But it's like you said, hindsight is 50-50. Hindsight is 20-20. You can look back at these and be like, they are red flags. But also, I've witnessed many arguments like this in my own home. So is it that weird? I don't think so. No, I definitely, I think that specific incident of being like, you can't tell me what to

do it's my own money if I want a pizza I'll order one I don't care if I already had my tea and even the pond thing yeah it's like a fuck you to Simon Mathis he's doing shit in the garden he's fixing it up he's like fuck who the fuck you're not my dad I'm gonna fuck this up like piss off yeah I've certainly seen loads of fits like that. But things did take quite a dramatic turn for the worse when Daniel had to leave the private school he'd been attending and move to a state school. And again, moving school is very difficult and disruptive for loads of kids. But again, because he doesn't handle things in what we would expect to be a usual way,

Daniel found it particularly difficult and he took it very badly. He never managed to settle and in 2010, five months before he killed his mum, Daniel started to shout in the middle of a class that his tie was called Fred and Fred was trying to kill him. Daniel was removed from this class and then he told the counsellor that he was hearing voices and these voices were telling him to hurt other people with a knife. He never said anything about wanting to kill his mum. Just six weeks before he killed Jackie, Daniel Bartlem was found by mental health assessors to demonstrate no mental illness or emergent mental health process.

So essentially, he and his family were just told that there was nothing wrong with him and that the voices didn't exist. Which does beg the question, was Daniel really hearing voices? Or was he lying and trying to gain sympathy from his teachers? Or perhaps he was just lying to get out of the school that he hated so much? Like, it's very hard because again, you can only go on what the information this person is telling you. It's a very personal experience. How can you prove one way or another that he is or he isn't? I don't know.

Yeah, I'm really not sure. And there are those people that think that Daniel is so manipulative that he could have planned the whole Fred the Tie incident to ensure that he could get his way later down the line. Maybe if his mum thought that he was ill, she would give him what he wanted. And also, I think I would argue that hearing voices is probably the most famous symptom of severe mental illness. And it's reasonably easy to fake it, I think. Yeah, I think that's the thing. Perhaps the only way you can sort of tell if it's true or not is do their other symptoms and their other behaviour align with conditions in which they may be hearing voices and again we're not experts these people who saw him said that they that they possibly didn't and that's why they didn't believe him yeah I'm not saying that people who say who hear voices are making it up I'm just saying in this particular

instance we don't know and I also think as a teenager I mean I certainly was hyper aware of schizophrenia at 14 and I thought all it meant was hearing I mean, I certainly was hyper aware of schizophrenia at 14. And I thought all it meant was hearing voices. You know, I think I would have made that connection at that age as well. Simon Matters has always been of the opinion that Daniel never heard voices. And the whole thing was a stunt for attention. Simon found other things in Daniel's bedroom that could point to legitimate schizophrenia or perhaps a schizotypal disorder. This was particularly troubling when I watched the documentary and read these notes,

because even though Daniel had an en suite in his room, he had been urinating and defecating in Tupperware boxes full of expensive toys that he kept under his bed. That is quite extreme. Is it? I feel like it is. Is that just horseplay? My understanding of it is that this wasn't a one-off. He'd been doing this for quite some time. And, you know, is it, uh, fuck you, I hate you, you've bought me these toys, I'm going to ruin them? Is it, I just can't be bothered to walk the three feet to the bathroom? Or is it something obsessive? It feels like in teenage years, if this is happening,

it seems like a pretty big red flag. But again, is he doing it to be manipulative and create a narrative of somebody who is not very well? Or is he not? It's hard to know. But Simon also discovered other things. He discovered a suitcase full of Jackie's underwear that Daniel had stashed away.

When he told Jackie about this, according to Simon, she just laughed it off. And Simon, being the stepdad, or not even stepdad because I don't even think they were married, didn't feel like he could step in because, after all, like he could step in. Because after all, Daniel wasn't his son. Isn't there a book called Other People's Children?

I'm sure there is. If there's not, that should be written. Merged family, blended family thing just being so hard because, you know, they're in your life all the time, but they're not your fucking kids. So, like, where is the line? How and when can you pull up your partner on the parenting techniques of kids that aren't yours? It's so difficult. It really is, especially because by the time Simon comes into Daniel's life, he's teetering on the edge of adolescence.

Like, maybe with Dominic he can, but with Daniel it's so late already. So, coming back to the underwear that he stole from his mum, forensic psychologist Professor Kevin Brown alleges that he believes that this wasn't a psychosexual move by Daniel, but just another attempt to grab his mother's attention. He wanted to be told off because being told off is better than no interaction at all. It seems very specific, though. Stealing underwear. Professor Kevin Brown is in the documentary. They are trying to mould this case into their documentary storyline,

which is mothers fucking their kids up and then they go on to kill. That's what they're trying to prove here. Again, not an expert. Could it have been a cry for help? But I also feel for Jackie so much, not only because she's fucking dead, but when your kid is doing this and you're a single mom essentially I'm not even sure Simon lived with them how what do you do with that you know I I really feel for her and I I think that we we just we will never really know

what Jackie and Daniel's relationship was like because Jackie's dead and it's unlikely that her family are going to say oh yeah she was a she was a terrible mother. People do come out and say, you know, the boundaries weren't quite there. But I don't think that's that unusual. No, it's not like there was sexual abuse or anything like that. Yeah, I think it's hard to stomach the documentary sort of pointing the finger at her. What I think is most likely, again, not an expert, but just my opinion, I think it's most likely that Daniel had a severe personality disorder, which in turn sort of throws into doubt whether you can really trust his account of things. People who are diagnosed with antisocial personality disorder

display the following traits, attaining self-esteem from power, personal gain or pleasure. They're egocentric, they're self-centered. They set goals based on personal gratification with little or no regard for law or ethics. And again, no doctor, but I would argue that Daniel Bartlum hits all of those boxes pretty squarely on the head. Simon Matters admits that, you know, there was a potential hole in Jackie's parenting style. She very rarely stood up to Daniel and that did make matters worse. But I could, you know, it's just impossible to know what to do in a situation like that. And the link between parenting and things like antisocial personality disorders is very interesting,

because there seems to be almost like a two way street that in some cases, poor parenting, and I'm not saying that's what Jackie was doing I'm just saying poor parenting or not warm parenting can be the cause of or the contributing factor towards the development of antisocial personality disorders but also there is evidence that if it's already pre-existing that antisocial personality disorders can lead a parent to not engage in warm parenting and therefore be more cold and be less than ideal parents because this child is difficult. Maybe even from being a baby, they don't smile. They cry all the time. It's hard to unpick which came first often.

Exactly. And again, there are people, I just feel like Jackie's getting slapped from all angles. Some people argue that Jackie was the barrier to Daniel getting help, that she just sort of like swept it all under the rug. She doesn't really want to deal with it. Criminal psychologist at Manchester Met, Dr. David Holmes, is one of these people. And he claims, quote, if she'd been firmer with him, his fantasy world would not have grown. She covered up an awful lot. She hid much of what he was doing, his reclusiveness, his obsessive, obstinate behavior. Jackie tended to tolerate

his behavior rather than oppose it. She was far more giving than most mothers. He might have been treated if it wasn't for that. And perhaps Jackie didn't see the real problem. Maybe she thought Daniel was just on the upper scale of stroppy. Everyone talks about how difficult teenage boys are. Also, maybe she wanted to hide any issues from her ex-husband in case he accused her of not being a fit mother. And I can see that.

It's just hard. I don it's just hard I don't know whether I don't I don't know when when do you draw the line I feel like these people are asking a lot because yes she did hide things but I think the way in which they imply it to be like she covered up a lot she wasn't covering up for personal gain she wasn't covering up to not deal with her she was having to deal with it every single day in the house. And I also think what's interesting is with people like Dr. David Holmes saying that she didn't do anything, she didn't draw a line, she wasn't firmer. They're kind of implying that if she had gone and asked for help, that it would have just been readily available to her. We know time and time again, that even if people ask for help in situations like this,

those resources just don't exist. So I'm not totally here for that argument that this was all down to Jackie sort of hiding things. But we do have to say that Jackie never told the people assessing Daniel when he eventually was assessed about the kind of secret boxes full of feces under his bed, his violence or his obsession with horror films, it does seem pretty obvious that someone who is claiming to hear voices engaging in violent fantasies and defecating in their room, especially at the age that Daniel was, has something pretty serious going on, whether it's a cry for attention or not. Whatever was going on with Daniel, he stood trial for the

murder of his mother at Nottingham Crown Court in 2012. The trial lasted two weeks and Daniel never showed any remorse or revealed a motive for what he did. Daniel stuck to his story, well his second story, that the murder was not premeditated, but rather that he had lost his temper during an argument. He pled not guilty to murder and guilty to manslaughter. The prosecution, of course, were not having any of this, and they claimed with the support of Chief Inspector Kate Maynall that Daniel, quote, lied consistently throughout the investigation. It showed some degree of preparation

because he was so consistent with the story he was giving. He stuck to it all the way through. It does look like Daniel was trying to get away with the perfect murder, but there are still a lot of gaps that need filling. How long had he actually been planning this attack? Did his brother see what happened? Where did he get the petrol from? Had he ever really heard voices? The defence argued that Daniel's explosive attack on his mother was the result of years of inappropriate parenting. And who knows, maybe Daniel will tell the truth one day, but that seems unlikely, as he was found guilty of murder unanimously by the jury and sentenced to life in prison with a minimum term of 16 years. He kicked off his time in a juvenile facility.

As he passed his recommendation for sentencing, Mr Justice Flaus said, quote, this murder has devastated everyone involved. There is only one person who knows why it happened and Daniel has lied consistently throughout, making attempts to besmirch Jacqueline's character. Everyone who knew her knew she lived for her children and was a warm, loving mother. Justice Floss also stated that Daniel had shown clear intention to kill his mother. Daniel was found to be extremely dangerous. Throughout his trial, Daniel showed very little emotion, except for what Simon Matters described as a smirk. During his sentencing hearing, Daniel shook his head repeatedly, and when he was being led away, he glared at the gallery.

He glared right at Simon Matters and drew his index finger across his neck, as if to say, you're next. The remainder of Daniel's family gave the following witness impact statement. Quote, there are no was the right result at court. How a boy you have loved for 14 years can do something like this is so difficult. The most difficult part for us, and something that only Daniel can answer, is why. DCI Kate Maynall said the circumstances of this crime are shocking and difficult to comprehend. Maybe one day Daniel will tell the truth as there are several gaps that only he can fill. So maybe Jackie was a bit of a

parenting pushover but it does also seem like Daniel had serious issues, a personality disorder perhaps, maybe a mental illness. Some have even gone so far as to call him a psychopath. And that word gets thrown around a lot these days, especially by the unqualified, said the true crime podcaster with absolutely no medical training. And I think that's one of the many, many reasons that conversations about this topic are often unclear. It's because, like everything that should be interesting, it's actually quite complicated in some parts, boring. So let's

decide what we're actually talking about when we use the word psychopath. And while we're at it, let's tackle sociopathy as well. Dr. Kathleen Hyde from the University of South Florida is the woman to go to if you want to understand why children kill their parents. She's found that these children come in three different categories. One, the severely abused child that kills to end their abuse. Two, the severely mentally ill child whose delusions or hallucinations have pushed them to kill. Three, the dangerously antisocial child who will kill to get what they want. Depending on how generous you are feeling, Daniel Bartlum is either a two or he's a three. Seven hammer blows to his mum's face seems to suggest rage.

But he also concealed his crime, rescued his dog and his brother, and calmly lied to the police for weeks. Mentally ill people rarely understand what they have done is wrong, or they cannot believe that they've actually done it. They don't try to hide it, like Daniel. Sociopathy and psychopathy are actually not medical diagnoses. They are branches of antisocial personality disorder. As such, they can't technically be medicated for,

although mood stabilizers and anti-anxiety medication may be administered. Both psychopaths and sociopaths share these personality features. A disregard for laws and social norms, a disregard for the rights of others, a failure to feel remorse or guilt, and a tendency to display violent or aggressive behaviour. Here's what the differences are. Sociopaths are more likely to be nervous and easily agitated. They're emotional and prone to fits of rage. They're much more likely to be on the outskirts of society because unlike psychopaths, they can't hide who they really are. It's difficult but not impossible for sociopaths to maintain relationships with others.

They have a conscience, but it's very, very quiet. And the normal rules of society mean little to them. Psychopaths are totally unable to form emotional attachments. The relationships they have will be shallow, but they're better at hiding it. They're experts in manipulating people around them to get what they want. Psychopaths feel no empathy and they have no conscience, but they are as charming as they come. To the outside eye, they are unflappable in a crisis. Some academics will argue that psychopaths are born and sociopaths are made but again just like everything else just as many academics claim that it just isn't that simple. Psychopaths can follow social conventions when it suits their needs. Sociopaths

are much more likely to fly off the handle and react violently when they're confronted by the consequences of their actions. So let's break that down a bit. Sociopaths will make it clear that they don't care about how other people feel, and they recognise what they're doing, but they rationalise their behaviour. Psychopaths, on the other hand, pretend to care about people, but they fail to recognise other people's distress. They can maintain a pretty normal life life especially when it's a cover for criminal activity they may love people in their own way but it's almost unrecognizable to a quote unquote normal person and slightly off topic but i read a really interesting article called the hidden suffering of the psychopath by someone called willem hj martins and essentially what this article

says is that quite a lot of psychopaths do experience pain and loneliness, not often, but sometimes. Just like everyone else, they long for acceptance, but their own behaviour makes that impossible for them. And they know that. So felt a bit sad for the psychopaths then. Not loads, just a little bit, little moment. No, I mean, I actually definitely do feel really sad for psychopaths and sociopaths. And if we're saying they can't necessarily be diagnosed as such, but people with antisocial personality disorder, because like Hannah said, we obviously talk about them quite a lot, but it's generally in relation to bad stuff that people with these conditions have done. And don't get me wrong, disproportionately, they do tend to be highly overrepresented within groups that have committed violent crimes. But I

have been reading a lot about this recently and it is really hard because take a child with antisocial personality traits. They usually exhibit conduct disorder and what they call limited pro-social emotions and it's important to state that no one is ever diagnosed with antisocial personality disorder until they are 18. Before that, it is referred to something like an adjustment disorder or like we said, conduct disorder. These children usually have great difficulty with concentration, for example, in school, and so they fall behind. But this is completely unrelated to actual intelligence. They just cannot concentrate. They also, as we said earlier in the show, have problems recognizing emotions in other people, especially in their peers. And they usually

become therefore socially ostracized from other kids who will become scared of them. They also have rages at authority, making it harder for parents to bond with them. This all leads to them falling behind in almost every aspect of life, in school, in relationships with their family, in relationships and friendship building with other children, and thus they develop a really low self-image. And then if you couple this with that low brain arousal that we talked about earlier, they tend to find themselves being drawn into crime and a life that is somewhat on the outskirts. And something else that we should all be aware of is that people with antisocial personality disorders are not always violent. They are much more likely to be verbally and emotionally

manipulative. So if we had to pick the easiest way to tell them apart, I would perhaps say, look for the hot-headed erratic sociopath and the cold-hearted in-control psychopath. Psychopaths are therefore the people who may more successfully climb the corporate ladder, whereas sociopaths are much less able to play the game and it is much more obvious that they are not interested in others. That whole idea of like the cards that you're dealt, if there is the sort of underlying issues, that brain activity, the inability to concentrate, the inability to recognize emotions in others, the kind of the brakes aren't working, if we will, so they're very impulsive. It sets them up for a lot of hardship and a lot of failure and potentially a lot of pain and ostracization. I feel for them and I feel like the crime element becomes a place for them to shelter because they have no other place

in society or so they may feel. It's quite difficult if not impossible to know what Daniel has been diagnosed with now he's an adult. We also don't know what sort of help he will be receiving in prison. Simon Matters received a letter from the Ministry of Justice telling him that Daniel could be out just three years after killing his mother. This sentence review is just a formality related to the moving of Daniel into an adult prison, but it sure put the shits up Simon. The letter from the ministry read, this review will look at whether his tariff can be reduced as the belief is that a youngster has the ability to change more rapidly than adult offenders. Are the Ministry of Justice just throwing around the word youngster?

Is that allowed? Are my taxes paying for that? You're right, that's such a weird word. Do we not have better words to use? Juveniles? Anything? Anyone? Juvenile offender?

Anyway, Simon said, I am absolutely and utterly against this. I don't believe that he can be rehabilitated. Daniel was not released at this time, and it looks like he won't be until at least 2028. But is he a sociopath or a psychopath, or can we even put him in either box? I am reluctant to go down. I think some, it's difficult,

because I think he shows traits of both. Like, he does lose his temper. I agree. 100%. And, like like I don't think there's any way that a fully fledged psychopath as it were would give the game away when they're being held on remand and I agree the only thing I could say is perhaps he is a psychopath but that level of control does it come with age an sociopath would never learn to be able to control themselves? I don't know. I don't know. Because yes, psychopaths are much better at hiding things. And he does do that, you know, when he's being questioned, he doesn't say a word, it spills out, you know, they're not

inhuman in their ability to not ever feel anger or frustration. So I would err more towards psychopath. But what is interesting is, if you believe the sociopath is made and a psychopath is born we just don't have enough information about Daniel's early early life to know when this kind of behavior started because the documentary and a lot of the reports sort of make it sound like it all starts after the divorce which is quite old if you're starting to see potentially psychopathic traits but, I don't know. So Daniel is set to be released at 26 years old and he will have the whole of his life ahead of him. The question becomes, will he or can he be rehabilitated?

If he does have a personality disorder, which obviously we don't know, we're just spuriously deciding. The treatment of it is so difficult. It's not a mental health issue. And that's the tricky thing. It is very tricky. And again, you know, I've sort of tried to do a lot of reading into this recently for another project we're working on, which we'll announce very soon.

But it does seem that although there are lots of sort of alternating views on whether sociopaths or psychopaths or people with antisocial personality disorders can be rehabilitated. There is evidence that suggests if intervention starts early, so in childhood, that significant changes can be made. And what I thought was really interesting is that some of these studies that have been done to show a real change in behavior are one one-thousandth of the cost of just incarcerating people in later life. Basically what they're saying is that the traits can't be disappeared. The person can't sort of lose the traits of psychopathy or sociopathy. What can happen

though is that they can be taught to be functionally successful. So it's not so much a recovery, but an adjustment to life. And I think this is what I was saying earlier, like people saying, well, she should have asked for help talking about Jackie. These kind of programs don't exist. They should. And we actually discussed it in the Alicia McPhail case, where a psychiatrist came out and said, we need to sort of actually be labeling children a lot earlier so that we can get them the help. Again, I know that is a very controversial topic because of, like, predeterminism. If you start labelling it, does it become a self-fulfilling prophecy?

But if you ignore it and don't label it, does that person get the right help? Do we even sort of create the right help? It's a big question mark. And even if the right help is in place, which it probably isn't, Simon reckons that Daniel will never be rehabilitated. He actually thinks that he's capable of pulling a giant Ed Kemper and manipulating the parole board into releasing him

but so far that hasn't happened. So psychologist Adrian Rain reckons quote we like to think a mother and a father's love can turn everything around but there are times where people are just doing the very best they can but the kid even from the from the get-go, is just a bad kid. I feel like that's quite a harsh statement. And I don't know if Daniel was just a bad kid or how much of a role Jackie's parenting had to play in the manifestation of his aggression that led to her murder. I don't know.

We're just going to have to wait and see when Daniel comes out, I guess. In this particular case, that's all we can do. I don't think Daniel Bartlett holds the key to the rehabilitation of people with severe personality disorders. A lot to think about there for you this week. Go and read about it, please, before you all take to the internet. And we've actually...

Do I tell them now? Yes. So coming up for all you $10 and up patrons, we have actually been contacted by an incredibly generous lady whose child has displayed very severe psychopathic traits. And she's unbelievably said that she is willing to talk to us about it. So we will be releasing that as soon as we have it we're working on scheduling just now so we're really hoping to be able to dig a little bit

deeper into what life entails when your kid is is displaying such severe personality traits so really excited to speak to her look out for that and in the meantime go and fucking vote, dear God. And here are some patrons who just deserve a thank you because being nice is nice. We've got Jeannie Gordon, Kelly Hart, Cara Good, Olivia Rodriguez, Becky Slade, Megan Velo, Sophie Schott, Aubrey Lopez, Una Baker, Alice Boxall, Felicity Fenton, Kristen Chambers, Quincy Moe, Sophie Harris, Keely Jones, DJ Kento, Rebecca Foster,

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Jennifer Hall, Katie Graham Whitehouse. Thank you ever so much for listening and for supporting the show. And have fabulous weeks because things have got to get better eventually. Precisely. And we will see you very soon. Goodbye. Bye. Hi, I'm Lindsey Graham, the host of Wondery Show American Scandal. We bring to light some of the biggest controversies in U.S. history. Presidential lies, environmental disasters, corporate fraud. In our latest series, NASA embarks on an ambitious program to reinvent space exploration with the launch of its first reusable vehicle, the Space Shuttle. And in 1985, they announced

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