RedHanded - Episode 213: We Need to Talk About Paris Bennett

Episode Date: September 16, 2021

As she sat with her two children in Abilene Texas one January morning in 2007, Charity Lee pondered, that she may not be a perfect mother, but she did live in a safe neighbourhood, so her ch...ildren wouldn't be killed in their beds.She was wrong. Join the girls for an in-depth exploration of inter-sibling homicide, a crash course in psychopathy, and a cameo from Piers Morgan. Follow us on social media:InstagramTwitterFacebookVisit our website:WebsiteContact us:ContactSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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Starting point is 00:00:00 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.
Starting point is 00:00:43 I'm Saruti. And welcome to Red Handed. We're starting this week somewhere we haven't been for many moons, partially because I forgot about it. We're heading over to Hannah's Classics Corner. We're all familiar with the name Paris, Paris Hilton being the most famous of the Parises, I would argue. A lot of people who are named Paris
Starting point is 00:01:05 are named after the capital of France, but not the subject of this week's episode. This guy, Paris Lee Bennett, was named not after the city, not even after the American Idol star of almost exactly the same name. We've had this list on the list for some time. And when you Google Paris Bennett, the American Idol person comes up. So for ages, I thought there had been some sort of American Idol scandal. I had no idea there was an American Idol person called, well, I don't know anything. She's really famous. Oh, okay. Like, no, I have no idea. Okay, that's a revelation. I did not know that.
Starting point is 00:01:41 Yes. So not that Paris Bennett, very different Paris Bennett. And this Paris Bennett is a particular piece of work. And he was named after the classical Paris, the one from the Iliad. And I'm going to clear something up that has confused me for years. The Iliad is an epic that covers the run-up and the inclusion of the Trojan War. So we're talking Achilles, Helen with her face that launched a thousand ships, etc, etc, etc. The Odyssey is the story of Odysseus and what happens after the Trojan War in his journey back to Penelope and Ithaca. The Aeneid by Virgil is a straight rip-off of the Odyssey, with Aeneas as the main character instead of Odysseus. Aeneas and his followers end up in Italy, and they found Rome. It's not historically accurate, but that's basically what happens when you rip off Homer.
Starting point is 00:02:26 I feel like a lot of people confuse those three texts. So now we know where we are. We're talking about the Iliad today. For those of you who are not familiar with the Iliad, here's the most basic version. Helen is very beautiful and she's married to a very old, unattractive King Menelaus. Paris goes to Troy, falls in love with Helen and runs off with her and this starts the Trojan War between the Greeks and the Trojan famously ends with a horse. Paris is a total classical hunk and a hopeless romantic. When asked by the lady Greek gods who was the most
Starting point is 00:02:57 beautiful he chose Aphrodite the goddess of love and anyone who has read a ladybird version of any Greek myths will know that not choosing Hera the the jealousest of all the goddesses, because she was married to Zeus who turned himself into a swan to shag about, was a bad move. And Paris had an extremely hard time after this, which you can find out about by reading the Iliad or taking the shortcut and watching Brad Pitt in a skirt in the film Troy. And there you go. That is The History of the Ancient World by Hannah Macquarie fully caught up on the situation and Troy I quite enjoy it
Starting point is 00:03:29 as a film I'm not gonna lie I'm sure it's very inaccurate it's right up your alley though it is but like I mean it's all inaccurate because none of it happened
Starting point is 00:03:36 like it's exactly so at this point I'm like does it matter but yeah no I'm not really a big fan of Brad Pitt
Starting point is 00:03:44 or Orlando Bloom in like a lust-worthy way. But like, yeah, I enjoyed the film. It was fun. Well, I mean, it's very 300-esque, isn't it? You know, it's that vibe. Exactly. Exactly. So why are we talking about Paris and the Trojan War?
Starting point is 00:03:59 Well, because it was the Iliad that inspired Charity Lee to name her firstborn son Paris. She had hoped that the name would lead her son to choose love over all other things. But unfortunately, that is not how things worked out. Also, arguably, Paris choosing to love and run off with Helen of Troy killed a bunch of people. That's not like a great story I wouldn't say it's not a great ambition I wouldn't say no charity sort of refers to the like when he has to pick the most beautiful goddess and he chooses the goddess of love okay oh I want my son to choose love above all things actually it was a terrible choice and it fucked up his whole
Starting point is 00:04:41 life and killed thousands of people choose politics choose hero always hero in every single myth if you don't choose here it's bad move for you can we start a much blinded set of choose love choose life choose happy choose politics pick pick the solution that is going to be most politically beneficial for you as an individual that's what i hope any future spawn of mine do anyway what can i name them to ensure that happens i don't know we'll have to have a thing and don't anyone say pretty because i will lose it so charity would be left with uh instead of a romantic love-headed man, I don't know, she was instead left love-headed. I don't know where I was going with that. That sounds horrible. But no, instead she was left with a we need to talk about Kevin situation instead. And Charity actually wrote a book
Starting point is 00:05:40 about this tragic existence, which is called How Now, Butterfly. I don't even know how to like put the inflections on that. How Now, Butterfly? How Now, Butterfly? Yeah, I think it is probably How Now, Butterfly because it's How Now, Brown Cow. And How Now, Butterfly is a tale of survival and trauma. And although there is a documentary out there about this case, so the case of Paris Bennett, you will get far more out of this book, How Now Butterfly, than you will out of the documentary for some very obvious Piers Morgan shaped reasons that we will get to later on. So Paris was born in 1995. And according to his mom, Charity, Paris grew up surrounded by privilege. He was well educated and wanted for nothing. We can decide how true that particular
Starting point is 00:06:35 statement is together, though. Charity is an interesting woman, to say the least. And I have no interest in dumping blame on her. And How Now, Butterfly, you can't enjoy reading it. Like, it's essentially like a collection of diary entries. And it's, it's rough. She could have done with a better editor, I would argue. Anyway, although there were a whole host of mitigating circumstances as he grew up, Paris himself was not exactly a shining beacon of childhood greatness. As Paris teetered on the brink of adolescence, Charity worried that he might hurt himself.
Starting point is 00:07:15 But never, ever did she imagine that he would hurt someone else. But he would. Paris would be a murderer when he was barely a teenager. The key to all killers is usually lurking in their childhood, and that is especially true when the killer is still living it. And actually, Charity's memoir does reveal that there were some very early warning signs that Paris may not have been totally quote-unquote typical.
Starting point is 00:07:46 When he was three years old, Charity discovered him at her mother's ranch in North Carolina, having collected a bucket of frogs. So far, so good. I feel like that's pretty normal. That's just standard child horseplay. But Paris wasn't doing child horseplay. He was not playing with these frogs. He wasn't even looking at them. He was throwing them off a balcony and watching them splat onto the ground 30 feet below. Charity explained to the toddling Paris that the splattered amphibians were in pain
Starting point is 00:08:17 and that they had to be put out of their broken froggy-legged misery. Three-year-old Paris refused. So Charity had to kill all of the frogs herself. Uh-oh. Yeah, that's definitely bad news. Bad news bears. Yeah, they don't cover that in What to Expect When You're Expecting. No, we would have covered it in What to Expect When You're Expecting a Serial Killer
Starting point is 00:08:35 if they'd let us say that. If we were allowed to ever fucking write it. But no, it's very endemic though, isn't it? It's this idea of, of course, a childhood can shape a killer, but obviously here when it's happening this early doors, we can also point to there being significant possible genetic factors involved in this, which I'm sure we will go on to discuss later. And we do extensively in the book.
Starting point is 00:08:59 And actually, I was really struck by that particular passage in the book because it's so similar to when we interviewed the parents of a psychopathic child and they have an almost identical story of him throwing a kitten against a wall at the same age. Absolutely. And I'm sure all of us have memories of this. Like, I remember we used to spend every summer on my grandparents' farm in India and there wasn't really much to do there. We'd just hang out with our cousins and run around and do whatever. And I remember one of our favorite things to do was to chase around and catch all the baby goats or go to the rice paddies and catch crabs and put them in a bucket. We're like vegetarian families, so no one was going to eat these crabs. We would just look at them for a bit, but it never would have occurred to anybody. And nor once can I remember
Starting point is 00:09:43 any of those crabs getting hurt. They were always like taken back and left where they were brought from. And it's just that shift, isn't it, in how this child was able to do this and how much of an outlier that is. So anyway, getting back to Charity in Paris. Charity didn't just need support to parent Paris because his behavior was already from the age of three starting to show the signs of being quite unruly she needed serious help in other areas too Charity had a history of drug abuse she'd been addicted to heroin for years before she got pregnant with Paris and when Paris was 11 Charity relapsed into drug abuse. So perhaps his childhood wasn't as surrounded by rainbows and unicorns and privilege as Charity's book may claim that it was. And Charity's relapse
Starting point is 00:10:36 featured not her old favourite heroine, but instead she fell into the clutches of cocaine. This relapse lasted about six months and during this time 11-year-old Paris was given no choice but to step up and take care of his toddler sister Ella. Charity did eventually pull herself back into sobriety after that six-month stint and was more able to take up her role as a parent again. But this period of instability left an indelible mark on her son Paris and the signs that something might be very wrong kept coming. When he was 12 years old, Charity shouted at Paris for being nasty to Ella and And instead of sulking, Paris grabbed a knife from the kitchen that he had to have wrestled off him. He's really angry and his first instinct isn't to lie on the floor and beat his fists, it's to get a knife from the kitchen
Starting point is 00:11:38 and he runs outside with it. So it is a unusual response to stress and I think that is the key thing to pinpoint. Yeah, at 12 years old you would assume maybe a child runs upstairs and slams a door and calls you a bitch or tells you they hate you or something. Yeah. I didn't ask to be born! Exactly. The usual, the usual rhetoric. So after this incident, Paris was taken into inpatient treatment at a psychiatric hospital. But nothing really happened. No diagnosis was made and according to charity, no support was offered.
Starting point is 00:12:17 Paris, and perhaps more importantly, charity, were left to fend for themselves with a severe and undiagnosed personality disorder and possible illness lurking in the wings. He was hip-hop's biggest mogul, the man who redefined fame, fortune, and the music industry. The first male rapper to be honored on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, Sean Diddy Combs. Diddy built an empire and lived a life most people only dream about. Everybody know ain't no party like a Diddy party, so. Yeah, that's what's up. But just as quickly as his empire rose, it came crashing down. Today, I'm announcing the unsealing of a three-count indictment charging Sean Combs with racketeering
Starting point is 00:13:04 conspiracy, sex trafficking, interstate transportation for prostitution. I was f***ed up. I hit rock bottom, but I made no excuses. I'm disgusted. I'm so sorry. Until you're wearing an orange jumpsuit, it's not real. Now it's real.
Starting point is 00:13:19 From his meteoric rise to his shocking fall from grace, from law and crime, this is The Rise and Fall of Diddy. Listen to The Rise and Fall of Diddy exclusively with Wondery Plus. You don't believe in ghosts? I get it. Lots of people don't. I didn't either until I came face to face with them. Ever since that moment, hauntings, spirits, and the unexplained have consumed my entire life. I'm Nadine Bailey. I've been a ghost tour guide for the past 20 years. I've taken people along with me into the shadows, uncovering the macabre tales that linger in the darkness, and inside some of the most haunted houses, hospitals, prisons, and more.
Starting point is 00:14:12 Join me every week on my podcast, Haunted Canada, as we journey through terrifying and bone-chilling stories of the unexplained. Search for Haunted Canada on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, or wherever you find your favourite podcasts. So now we've got a bit of an idea of the familial situation. Let's skip forward just one year after the knife incident. After the knife incident. On January the 22nd of 2007, the Lee-Bennett family, so that's Charity and Paris and Ella, all lived together in Abilene, Texas. Charity was 33, Paris was 13, and his little sister Ella was just four. Both children seemed to get along pretty well with each other
Starting point is 00:15:05 and there are a lot of home videos floating around the internet of them playing and of Paris being the typically protective older brother. And I have to say, even though I have a trunchbull strength allergy to children, they're both very cute. Like Paris is very handsome. Not when he grows up. When he's a child, that sounds weird. When he's like a, you know, you would look at him as a teenager and be like,
Starting point is 00:15:29 oh, like you're going to grow up to be really good looking. Good. Keep digging. Keep digging. It doesn't happen, but you know, you know what I mean. They're good looking kids. And there's like videos of them like in the bath together, just like hanging out, playing, etc. So it looks very normal. So on this day in January 2007, the family sat around the table eating breakfast together. Charity was reading
Starting point is 00:15:51 about a four-year-old girl in the paper who'd been killed in a drive-by shooting as she slept. 23 shots were fired into her house. And in her book, Charity remembered thinking that although she was not a perfect mother, although she had hideous addiction problems, at least she lived in a safe neighbourhood where her children wouldn't be killed in their beds. Or so she thought. Just a week later, she would be shown just how wrong she was. The following 911 call was made by her hysterical-sounding son on February 4, 2007, at 11.29pm. I accidentally killed somebody. You think you killed somebody?
Starting point is 00:16:33 No, I know I did. I feel so messed up. Is she breathing right now? No. Is she bleeding anywhere? Yes, she's bleeding all over the bed. Because I stabbed her. As you just heard, Paris is absolutely frantic. But in reality, he isn't.
Starting point is 00:16:57 He's actually just doing a very good impression of a frantic person. Imitation of emotion is a skill that Paris had honed extremely successfully his whole life. Because Paris Lee Bennett is a stone cold psychopath. He would be slapped with this terrifying diagnosis in years to come. And don't you worry, we have plenty of time for a good old psychopathy lesson later in this show. But for now, let's get back to the night that Paris Lee Bennett stabbed his baby sister to death as she slept in her bed. That night, Charity had taken herself off to work as a waitress and left both of her children with a babysitter. Charity remembers that as she left for work, Paris had definitely
Starting point is 00:17:46 been upset with her. She had told him off for something super minor, but he still let her kiss him goodbye as she left for work. There are many versions of what happened next. The story that has been told most consistently in the press since 2007 is that at some stage during the night, Paris, 13-year-old Paris, convinced the babysitter that she didn't need to be there. We don't know too much about this babysitter, but I think we can safely assume that she was little more than a child herself. And this babysitter, whoever she was, listened to Paris and took herself off home. After Paris was left alone in the house, he approached his sleeping sibling's bedroom and once inside, he stabbed her 17 times. He described the experience
Starting point is 00:18:35 as being like stabbing a pillow or a marshmallow. He later revealed that his original plan had been to murder his mother when she returned, but killing someone turned out to be a lot harder than he'd imagined, so he decided against matricide as he ran out of murdery steam. After all, if killing a four-year-old took it out of him, an adult woman would probably be too much. Whether that really was his original plan or not is a question for later on. But for now, let's get back to the night. I know you're thinking, yeah, yeah, we know, the next bit, he rang the 911 and pretended to be upset and then he told them that he killed his sister. But there's a little bit more to it than that.
Starting point is 00:19:22 Before the 911 call, Paris called someone else first. He called a school friend, and he was on the line for six whole minutes. And all he said to his friend in regards to the violent murder he'd just committed was that he had done something that he thought might make his mother mad. And then, after this six-minute calm conversation, Paris called 911 and acted like he was out of his mind with emotion, which he wasn't. Now, contrary to popular belief, psychopaths do have feelings. They can feel excited, angry and even happy. But the stakes have to be a lot higher than for a normal person.
Starting point is 00:20:07 But emotions they don't have the capacity to feel are in the guilt and remorse wheelhouse. And sure, a guilt-free life might sound great, but it of course has its problems. Now to further illustrate how calm and in control of the situation 13-year-old Paris was, we only need to look at his actions while he was on the phone to the 911 operator. So after the section of the call that we listened to, the operator tells Paris to administer CPR,
Starting point is 00:20:39 and she even counts with him. And if you don't know, the correct rhythm for CPR is either nearly the elephant or staying alive. Paris counts along to the rhythm on the phone with the operator, clearly implying that he is attempting to bring his sister back from the dead. But he never actually administered CPR. He was just counting. It was entirely deception that is chilling I think that's the thing for me is this like pretense of like oh this is how people want me to act in this situation and I'm going to make them think that that's what I've done of course and it's the we'll talk about the story that he goes on to spin later as to why he did it. This proves the lack of remorse, right?
Starting point is 00:21:28 If you had done this by accident or if you had done this in the heat of the moment, then immediately afterwards when you snap out of it, bearing in mind he's had a six-minute phone call, he's had time to calm down, he's on a call with a 911 operator who is reinforcing the seriousness of what has happened. If he was at any point going to be filled with rem 911 operator who is reinforcing the seriousness of what has happened. If he was at any point going to be filled with remorse, now is that point. And if you were, you would do anything in your power to be able to take back what you had just done. And he doesn't. He doesn't care. He's happy about what he's done.
Starting point is 00:21:59 This is what he wanted. And this proves it. Because it's six minutes he's on the phone and then he's on phone to 9-1-1 you kind of have to wonder if Ella could have been saved in that time so it's not even that he is not attempting CPR he called his friend and like that's another really key part of the whole story is that like there is no urgency and as you say like if he had done it by accident or if the story he goes on to tell was true, once he had realised what had happened, he would have called 911 straight away if it wasn't a complete deceptive plan coming to fruition.
Starting point is 00:22:38 Absolutely. So at 12.30, an hour after the 911 call was made, the police arrived at the Wings restaurant where Charity worked. So at 12.30, an hour after the 911 call was made, the police arrived at the Wings restaurant where Charity worked. It was the Super Bowl that night, so it had been a very busy shift. And the hand-egg fans that were hanging about were just about trickling out of the establishment as the police pulled up. And the police had to escort a very bemused Charity into the manager's office,
Starting point is 00:23:08 where they told her that her daughter Ella had been hurt. Then they told her that Ella was actually dead. When she heard this news, Charity fainted. And when she came back around, she asked where Paris was, to which the police replied, Your son murdered your daughter. Paris had already been processed and interrogated at the precinct by the time Charity was told what had happened. She was not allowed to see her son until the next day, and when she finally did, he seemed quiet and scared.
Starting point is 00:23:41 He told his mum that he'd fallen asleep next to his sister and that when he woke up Ella had appeared to him as a demon with a flaming pumpkin head and that he was scared and he hadn't known what to do. The pumpkin nightmare before Christmas-esque vision was cackling and Paris had grabbed it, hit it, choked it and eventually stabbed it a full 17 times. He told his mum, quote, she was a burning demon, I didn't know, I didn't know. So he says that in a very agonised tone, but he never cried. He just laid his head on the metal table
Starting point is 00:24:19 and claimed to have not seen it was Ella until it was far too late. Ella's body was kept at the crime lab in Fort Worth for a few days. A majority of her stab wounds were found to be shallow and superficial, meaning that it would have taken her a long time to die. Charity later had Ella cremated and kept her in the house, feeling unable to let go of her. Paris, on the other hand, wasn't mourning his sister at all. He was too busy hating his mother.
Starting point is 00:24:53 And it was at this point that he changed his original story. He no longer claimed that he had intended to kill Charity. Instead, Paris told police that by killing his sister, he had caused Charity more pain than death ever could. This murder had hurt his mother in the most extreme way possible. It had taken away both of her children in one foul swoop. And Paris could watch all of this with glee from his cell. And I believe that this is the real motive for Paris Burnout.
Starting point is 00:25:28 I completely agree. To me, obvious that his intention was like, how can I cause my mother the most pain humanly possible? And he sacrificed himself in pursuit of that goal because that's all he cares about. It's all he wants. So after this revelation, the demon story quickly fell apart in pursuit of that goal, because that's all he cares about. It's all he wants. So after this revelation, the demon story quickly fell apart,
Starting point is 00:25:52 and eventually Paris was charged with the murder of his sister Ella, and he was sentenced for his crime a full 12 years after he committed it. Wow. He was given 40 years inside, which in Texas is the maximum sentence you can hand a minor. And because he'd already served 12 years of his sentence in Texas is the maximum sentence you can hand a minor, and because he'd already served 12 years of his sentence in juvenile detention, Harris could be out in just six years time because parole happens halfway through your sentence. Obviously that's dependent on whether he's granted parole or not, which I think is pretty unlikely. So if parole doesn't happen,
Starting point is 00:26:22 which I don't think it will then his sentence assuming he doesn't rack up extra time for bad behavior will come to a close in 2047 which does feel like a long way away it's not no not even a little bit no we're just gonna blink and be 40 mate exactly look how quickly these last two years have gone in fucking lockdown. So having spent the better part of his life in juvenile detention, and after the age of 18 in the adult prison system, and after committing such a horrifying and violent crime, it's no surprise that Paris has undergone a lot of testing. And not just mental health testing.
Starting point is 00:27:02 It turns out that Paris has an IQ of 141, which although we have covered the many cultural problems with the IQ testing system, we should state that the average is considered to be around 100. So 140 is absolutely high. And you'll see it everywhere that you look up this case, like literally every single documentary book, story, article that covers this case, that Paris Bennett being 141 is considered to be a genius. But that's just not actually true. To be considered a genius, you need an IQ score of 160. So although Paris Bennett definitely tests highly and is probably extremely intelligent,
Starting point is 00:27:47 he is not, by Western IQ test standards, a genius, contrary to the reporting. It is everywhere. As you say, every single article. It's not true. Guys, just Google it. It's not hard. It's just the myth-making, isn't it, of this. We are so obsessed. We're so obsessed with this idea of the genius psychopath who is just so cunning and omnipotent and manipulative and just, you know, five steps ahead of everybody else. We're obsessed with that.
Starting point is 00:28:17 And it's not our fault. We're obsessed with it because it's what we have consumed and it's what we have fetishized through like Hollywood films and stuff. I cannot think of any Hollywood films that really portray a realistic depiction of a serial killer, which is just someone who's a bit fucked up living on the fringes of society and getting away with it because they're killing people who have no connection to them. Like that's literally it. There's very few psychopathic serial killers who are just genius levels. That is just not true. And I've definitely talked about it before. And there's a psychiatrist on YouTube who debunks kind of the Hannibal myth of this idea of how a psychopath
Starting point is 00:28:58 of that extremes could like go on to become like a medical doctor and go on to become a psychiatrist because they'd just be too bored. They would just be too bored with that whole process. They would never see it through. And I think it's fascinating the way in which we view psychopaths in particular. And it's just so misguided. It truly is. And I think the biggest misnomer for me is this idea of this like cold, calculating, emotionless psychopath. No, psychopaths get fucking furious and they can't control it in the way that people with normal brains can. I think that's the thing,
Starting point is 00:29:29 is there is the difference between the sociopath and the psychopath. We'll talk about this later, but definitely like the idea that the psychopaths are omnipotent beings who are operating at genius levels and that in any way, intelligence and genius are linked with psychopathy
Starting point is 00:29:47 is just uh is just flawed in its thinking they're not connected they may occur in the same person simultaneously but they're not connected i think the connection that a psychopath maybe has to what we think of omnipotence is imagine if you spent all of your time thinking about nothing else other than how to lie and manipulate people. Then you would, of course, be fucking good at it. And that's what some psychopaths do. And that's why they're so good at it. And that's what Paris did.
Starting point is 00:30:14 And I think that's why we think of them as being so omnipotent, possibly. So to put this into context with Paris Bennett scoring a 140, 141, Einstein, who of course we would consider a genius, had an IQ of 160. Stephen Hawking has an IQ of 160. Hungarian chess master, Judith Polgar, weighs in at a whopping 170. So Paris Bennett is not even close to what we would call a genius. But is Paris Bennett intelligent? Like we said, absolutely, almost certainly, of course he is. Could he be the leader of an international scientific community had he only had the right steering in life?
Starting point is 00:30:56 Probably not. Yeah, perhaps not. He probably would have got very good SAT scores, but he's not the next Stephen Hawking. No, and also there is, if we're talking about like becoming a business magnate or a leader of industry, the studies are very clear on this actually, that beyond something like an IQ of, I think it might actually be 140, but maybe it's lower. It's beyond a certain IQ, either 120 or 140, beyond which IQ and intelligence makes no difference to a person's success in life.
Starting point is 00:31:28 Because it then becomes the other skills that they have, like their social skills, interpersonal skills. These things become more important. Being like, this person has an IQ of 180. They must be a genius and would become a billionaire and be super successful. No, it's irrelevant. After a certain point, it just falls off a cliff. It's like marginal returns. It does not determine one's success. Not that that's what we're saying here. But you know what I mean? Like this fetishization of Paris as a genius is,
Starting point is 00:31:53 is tired. It is tired, but it probably isn't what Paris thinks. Because psychopaths tend to have extremely high opinions of themselves. And if you want to go and see, all you have to do is take a flight to Texas and go and visit him in prison. Obviously, please do not do that. You can instead take yourself over to Netflix and watch a documentary that is presented by none other than Meghan Markle's best friend and the king of being able to hand it out but not take it, stormy offy pants, Piers Morgan. Why Piers Morgan has been awarded so many true crime series is actually beyond me. There's one that's like, Piers Morgan, killer women.
Starting point is 00:32:31 I'm like, why are you, why, why is he the one that you give a woman-specific true crime series to? I don't know. I wish I had an answer. I really don't know. I haven't got a clue, but it's out there. 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,
Starting point is 00:33:01 that was no protection. Claudian 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 Plus. 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
Starting point is 00:33:43 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 Plus. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. Right, so this documentary that's on Netflix and hosted by Stormy Offy Pants is called Psychopath.
Starting point is 00:34:26 And according to Piers Morgan, who knows less than nothing about the subject, quote, true psychopaths have a chronic mental disorder that manifests itself in a number of personality traits, including amoral or antisocial behavior, extreme egocentricity, a lack of ability to love or establish meaningful relationships, and no sense of guilt, shame, or embarrassment. It's uncomfortable, but I'm not going to say anything. I'm just going to move on. According to Piers Morgan, Paris Bennett ticks every single one of those boxes. But if you think we're going to let Stroppy Knickers Morgan take the lead on this one,
Starting point is 00:35:04 you have clearly never listened to this show before. In which case, welcome to the Thunderdome. Paris has in fact been diagnosed with psychopathy by a number of experts. We're not just throwing that word around for no reason and it's not just Piers Morgan who is using that term. Now we all love throwing the term psychopath around, but do we actually know what it means? And we do thanks to the red-handed book, which is out today or tomorrow, or maybe even Tuesday, depending on whether you're a Patreon supporter and which part of the world that you're currently calling home. But psychopathy as a medical diagnosis doesn't really exist.
Starting point is 00:35:48 What does exist is antisocial personality disorder. And inside that selection of treasures, you can find psychopathy and its cousin, sociopathy. Now, sociopathy is a story for another day. I know I've said that in so many episodes, and I promise one day we will do it. I'm just like, psychopaths today, sociopaths tomorrow. It will get there, I promise. We will. We promise. We've got years, guys. We've got years to get there. So those diagnosed with antisocial personality disorder exhibit some, if not all, of the following symptoms. And you need a minimum of three of the following for an official antisocial personality diagnosis. And those include violating social norms, deceitfulness, impulsivity,
Starting point is 00:36:29 irritability, irresponsibility, being manipulative, and a lack of remorse. Interestingly, antisocial personality disorder affects about 3% of the general population and around 80% of the incarcerated population. Antisocial personality disorder is a mental condition. You have it or you don't. So it's a very like discrete thing. It's on or it's off. It's binary. But psychopathy is more of a construct that exists on a spectrum. It isn't just that someone is a psychopath or not. It exists on like a sliding scale of severity. Psychopaths are usually charming, narcissistic, superficial, impulsive, callous and unemotional. It sounds like Paris so far, and it's about to get a lot more Paris-centric.
Starting point is 00:37:19 Psychopaths will do whatever it takes to get their way. And they actually gain pleasure from the maltreatment of others. According to Lucy Falks, in her study on inverted social reward, psychopaths get a similar endorphin boost from being nasty to people that most of us get from being nice. And they won't feel bad about it either, making them intra-species predators. And that's the thing that's interesting when you look at Paris's motivation. So this is why I believe his motive was to kill his sister in order to hurt his mother, because one of the key traits of psychopathy, when you're talking about extreme levels of psychopathy, and it's linked with violent behavior, is this predatory behavior, predatory violence. And that's what we see here. He went after the easiest target in order to cause the most pain. He wanted to punish his mother and he knew the exact right way to do it
Starting point is 00:38:09 and it fits perfectly with the behavioural outcomes we would see of a violent psychopath. Exactly and behavioural differences in violent psychopaths are actually because their brains are made differently. Dr Koenig from the University of Wisconsin has discovered for the first time that psychopaths have less connectivity between their prefrontal cortex and their amygdala. And you can read all about this in the very imaginatively named Reduced Prefrontal Connectivity in Psychopathy, or you can buy the red-handed book.
Starting point is 00:38:41 But the basics are that psychopaths don't have an emergency break like quote-unquote normal people. They can't regulate their emotions in the same way, so they are callous and unempathetic, just like Paris Bennett. You've probably heard of the psychopath test, whether it's the John Ronson book or something called the PCLR. The PCLR was invented by Dr. Robert Hare, and it includes 20 characteristics commonly associated with psychopathy. A score of 30 or more will get you a psychopath diagnosis. But you only need 25 in the UK. Low standards all round.
Starting point is 00:39:16 And here are the characteristics. Feel free to score yourself. Probably not a great idea to try it on anybody else. No, please don't try it on anybody else it's not like the test we did in the jimmy salvo episode this no it's not this pclr test um should only be used by medical professionals by mental health professionals in assessing people with psychopathy it shouldn't just be done willy-nilly by us no no no willy-nillies please so here are the 20 characteristics gl Glibness and superficial charm.
Starting point is 00:39:46 Grandiose sense of self-worth. Pathological lying. Conning, being manipulative. A lack of remorse or guilt. Emotional shallowness or a shallow affect. Callousness and a lack of empathy. Failure to accept responsibility for actions. A tendency towards boredom slash a need for stimulation.
Starting point is 00:40:06 A parasitic lifestyle, a lack of realistic long-term goals, impulsivity, irresponsibility, poor behavioral control, behavioral problems in early life, juvenile delinquency, criminal versatility, a history of revocation of conditional release, skipping bail, for example, violating parole, stuff like that, multiple marriages or many short-term relationships. And then promiscuous sexual behavior. Those are all 20 aspects of the psychopath test. So we know psychopaths are around and may not be super fun to be around. But are psychopaths really more likely to kill than a normal person?
Starting point is 00:40:44 Well, kind of. Because over a third of convicted murderers are psychopaths. And the more violently extreme the murder was, the more likely that the perpetrator was to be a psychopath. To the point that 86% of serial killers are psychopaths. Difficult to ignore that. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. So if we assume that Paris is truly a psychopath,
Starting point is 00:41:09 as he has been diagnosed many a time, can we say that Charity and her relationship with her son caused this psychopathy? Well, kind of no. And this was a really interesting thing that Hannah and I discovered during the course of writing the book. Because if Paris were a sociopath, that may be a different story. Because it is generally accepted by medical professionals, the sociopaths are made, they're created through adversity, through trauma,
Starting point is 00:41:36 whatever it may be. Whereas psychopaths are born. And this was one of the most interesting things, I think, certainly for me during the research, is this idea that psychopathy, and of course there are people who disagree with this, but generally speaking, it is widely accepted today, that psychopathy is a congenital condition. And this again explains why psychopathy starts to show itself in very early childhood. Because it already exists. It's already there. People with psychopathy are to show itself in very early childhood. Because it already exists, it's already there. People with psychopathy are born with the connectivity issue that we talked about earlier, and that lack of communication between the prefrontal cortex and the amygdala is there from birth.
Starting point is 00:42:17 Psychopaths begin to show signs that something might not be quite right early on in their development, and those traits stay fairly solid throughout their lives. And according to Dr. Hare of psychopath test fame, psychopathic children are, quote, inexplicably different than their peers. And the interesting thing is that the majority of psychopaths don't come from abusive households. So we don't know exactly how psychopathy is passed on, but it does look like it is congenital. So we really can't blame Charity for the way Paris' brain is connected, but could she be responsible for his rage? Well, maybe.
Starting point is 00:42:56 He clearly harboured a lot of anger towards her for her checkered drug past and perhaps for being forced to grow up too fast. So let's refer back to our psychopath test list. If I could pick out one characteristic from that list that is instantly applicable to Paris Bennett, it would be a shallow affect. If you watch the Netflix documentary that we talked about, the one with Piers Morgan, and it is immediately evident the second Paris Bennett walks into shot and says, quote, Hello, everyone. Since it's going to be done for ITV, would you like me to speak in the Queen's English?
Starting point is 00:43:32 Shows what he knows about ITV. He literally is like a human embodiment of a flatline. Like, it's just nothing. Like, obviously, I'm obsessed with Alien Warners. Hashtag I love Alien. But the interviews towards the end of her her life she's like very erratic but there's it's still sort of dead behind the eyes and in her earlier interview she is just very flat and I think Paris Bennett definitely has a shallow affect I think it's a very clear example of it absolutely and
Starting point is 00:44:00 it's also interesting because um there's also been a lot of research into where the shallow affect comes from because it's not only psychopathy that is linked to that particular characteristic. And in some, it's say that it can be developed because say you have a parent that is dealing with a child, they have a shallow affect themselves and they don't respond positively or with exaggerated reactions to everything that child does. Because if you think about it, that is like our biological reaction to seeing a child or a baby. We are exaggerated. We speak in a baby voice. We coo and we are overemphasizing things. And parents that don't do that can actually induce and cause their child to develop a shallow affect because the baby almost needs it to be at such a heightened
Starting point is 00:44:40 form. And I thought that was interesting. I'm not saying that's what happened here because, as we said, psychopathy is congenital, but interesting. So before we meet Paris in the documentary, Piers does a lot of serious talking with two experts, Dr. Case Jordan, a specialist in criminal behaviour,
Starting point is 00:44:56 and former FBI top gun, Mark Safrick. These specialists, who I am not the biggest fan of, honestly, counsel Morgan on what to expect during his impending interaction with Paris Bennett. They tell Piers that Paris will most certainly have done his homework, and he'll spend the entire interview trying to outsmart Piers. And they also perpetuate the very dull lie that Paris has a genius IQ,
Starting point is 00:45:19 which we already know, from the most cursory of Google, is not true. Piers tells the camera that Paris is narcissistic enough to think that he is smarter than him. I'm just going to leave that there. Just hanging in the air, pendulous. The point that these experts are trying to make is that Paris will think that he is ahead of the game and he will be trying to manipulate the interview in his interest, which is probably true. And then the experts tell Piers that Paris sees himself as superhuman, exceptionally smart, cunning and capable of acts that us mere mortals could only observe, never perform. Which honestly is not even really close to the impression that we got of him and to be honest is why the whole documentary feels a little bit shoehorned and disingenuous the experts are sort of watching it all on a on a monitor and they're like oh did you see that he did this thing and i'm
Starting point is 00:46:20 like no he didn't yeah yeah i just, I was not a fan of it. I really was not. But who gives a shit what I think? I'm not the prime minister. It doesn't matter. No, I mean, watch a Netflix documentary and make up your own mind. It's just, it just felt very like showmanship and very like, oh my God, look at him.
Starting point is 00:46:39 We've got one. We've got one from the wild, the elusive genius psychopath. Yes, exactly. And it's just like, yeah, this kid's not, like, this guy's not okay. He fucking stabbed his baby sister to death. But, like, we don't need to weirdly fetishize it and glamorize it, which is what they're trying desperately to do. And it's very uncomfortable.
Starting point is 00:46:59 So once the two peas, Piers Morgan and Paris Bennett, are sat opposite each other, separated by extremely thick glass, again, like he's fucking Hannibal, would a pair of handcuffs not have sufficed, is my question. What is he going to do? So yeah, once they're in this situation, Morgan looks very nervous and asks Bennett why he's doing the interview, to which Paris Bennett replies,
Starting point is 00:47:26 to show people that I'm not a monster or a villain. And when asked to explain what he did to his sister, Paris says, I can't easily explain everything. I think that's one of the biggest challenges for people through the years because no one likes to be confused. No one likes to be bewildered. We like easy answers. And I do think I would agree with Paris on that. I would say that that is one of the resounding things you will find in all the world of true crime, which is people want a real
Starting point is 00:47:57 clear answer. They want it to be a gene. They want it to be a smack on the head. They want it to be an abusive childhood. They want it to be like bish bash bosh. That's why he did it. And we know, spooky bitches, that that is just not the case, don't we? So Paris also clarifies that he had what he calls a, quote, flaming ball of wrath in his stomach that he directed squarely at his mother. The reason for this fiery ball existing is never really explored, which again, you have to say, great interviewing, Piers. But one can only assume
Starting point is 00:48:33 it was a resentment born out of his mother's drug addiction. I would think that the most obvious question to ask as an interviewer would be like, why do you hate your mum so much? But it is never even touched one. And Piers Morgan looks actively terrified the whole time. And I think, you know, one of the reasons he's given these true crime series, and I think specifically this one, it's like, oh, well, he's just going to like give this psychopath a really hard time and like really be very aggressive in his questioning.
Starting point is 00:49:01 No fucking way. He just sat there like a baby. Or is it meant to be like a part of the ploy that here's Piers Morgan who takes no shit and he's like hard on everybody. But look, even he's scared
Starting point is 00:49:12 in front of these criminals because that's how scary they are. Yeah, maybe. Who the fuck knows what's going on in these people's heads that put this fucking documentary together. But like, yeah.
Starting point is 00:49:21 Not me. I also have this image in my head of like a fucking intern or a runner being like um so guys i looked it up and a genius iq is actually 160 and they're like shut up james get out of here fucking sack this kid who let him in ruining the whole narrative so pierce does a terrible job of questioning paris about his mum but he does attempt to probe into a psychopath's understanding of love, which if you've listened to our Jimmy Savile episodes,
Starting point is 00:49:49 you'll know is tricky territory. Whereas Jimmy Savile identified that he loves nature when asked the very same question, Paris said, I can't just point at something and say, OK, that's love. I can't recognise it and feel that. He goes into detail about a dark part of himself
Starting point is 00:50:07 that he is insistent he would never let out again. His mother, Charity, refers to this entity as his wolf or his tentacles. Paris says that this is the force that would make him kill again, but if he ever felt those tentacles emerging, he would just remove himself from the equation. Which doesn't seem like a solid enough promise. No, I mean, it wouldn't totally convince me that he wasn't going to be a danger ever again to anybody. No, because it's not a plan of action. It's just like, oh, well, I just won't do it.
Starting point is 00:50:43 I'm like, well, yeah, exactly. And that's like, yeah, that's not the most convincing argument. But yeah. One of the most shoehorned aspects of this interview from these like experts is where Paris is talking about reading. He reads scary stories like horror. And they're like, you see, you see, like he's exercising this part of his brain because like he has this horrible imagination. I was like, guys, come on. Come on. Come on.
Starting point is 00:51:06 Jesus Christ. I mean, it's hard because I like, I get it in there. When they do it to everybody, I'm like, oh, fucking shut up. I can understand that with context that he stabbed his little sister to death. You'd be like, maybe read something more wholesome, Paris. But obviously, as we know, this isn't indicative of somebody. That is not the indicator of somebody with problems. That is not the indicator of somebody who is dangerous.
Starting point is 00:51:31 Like, that is something that we can plainly say. And the whole love thing about Paris talking about what love is and Piers trying to delve into what love means to a psychopath, obviously, like, it's a very difficult thing to explain. Like, how would you explain what love is? But I do think that psychopaths and we've heard from some of our listeners who are psychopaths who have emailed us and told us about their emotions around this kind of thing which we absolutely appreciate and I've
Starting point is 00:51:55 sat down and read all of them we both have and there was one that was really compelling where they were talking about maybe I don't feel love in the same way as other people do, or as intensely as other people do. But I still, like what people mean to them, and like the role that they play in their life is the way that psychopaths value a person. So for example, Bundy, he had like that long term girlfriend, and they had like, she had a kid and everything, and he was perfectly normal to them. But it was because of what she provided him with, which was this normality, this stability, and one part of his life that he craved. So he loved her in the way that he could as a psychopath.
Starting point is 00:52:32 And it may not be how we would experience love or describe love, but it's how they feel it. So again, I just don't want to add to the mythos that like psychopaths don't feel any love because they do it's just in a different way to the rest of us and paris's love of horror isn't the only literary hook that we have for this episode he actually does our favorite thing which is to quote margaret atwood saying if we were all on trial for our thoughts we would all be hanged which fine but paris has definitely acted out his thoughts it's a different thing
Starting point is 00:53:07 and this is the thing Paris you can only quote quotes like that if you didn't stab your little sister to death yeah right stabbing her 17 times yes probs yeah leave Margaret alone he goes on to say yes I did commit a monstrous crime but that one mistake doesn't define my entire life. Which, okay. But, like, no, it doesn't define your entire life, but maybe being a psychopath does. Yeah, and also, it's just, again, with the whole, the commentary on this and with Piers Morgan,
Starting point is 00:53:39 I just feel like Ella is so lost in the conversation. No one gives a single fuck about four-year-old Ella who got stabbed to death. And he's just like, doesn't define me. I did it because I hate my mum. Wrath, blah, blah, blah. And Piers Morgan's just sat there looking scared and talking about psychopaths and all of this.
Starting point is 00:53:59 And I'm like, fuck's sake, man. Like, I don't know. It's all so ill-conceived. And I'm like, the fact that no one seems to care about Ella is the thing that makes me, it's just it's all so ill-conceived and I'm like the fact that no one seems to care about Ella is the thing that makes me that it's like the saddest part of this whole story in many ways and if you need another reason why this documentary might not be uh the pinnacle of journalistic prowess there's also an allusion to Paris having a photographic memory for every other part of his life except his sister's murder which I don't think
Starting point is 00:54:26 is particularly relevant to anything but we should crack in here that photographic memory in the sense that we all understand it doesn't actually exist or at least it's never been proven to exist I think we have this idea of like this photographic memory where you just have a file in your head and you can bring out information that you've heard 10 years ago and you can see it very clearly, blah, blah, blah. It doesn't really work like that. Idetic memory is the ability to recall an image in fine detail, having only seen it once for a limited period of time.
Starting point is 00:54:55 So like people who can read a script once and know it off by heart. Bastards. But like Paris doesn't really appear to have either type of memory. So I don't really understand why they're perpetuating this myth. It just seems very odd to me. They're like, oh, let's throw another genius quality at him for no reason. But Paris doesn't really appear to have either. And in addition, he insists to this day that he has no mental illness,
Starting point is 00:55:19 that he takes full responsibility for his crimes, but that it was not down to insanity. And therefore, he is of no risk to others and should be released. I mean, I don't totally understand the logic of that statement. It's not very joined up thinking, is it? I wasn't insane when I did it and therefore I'm not a risk to society.
Starting point is 00:55:40 Absolutely who I am as a person. There was no overlay of mental health health I just am a murderous bastard but I'm fine now yeah I mean the only thing I can think of this is like he doesn't want to get sent to a psychiatric hospital from where he will never be released because it is impossible once you're in there to prove that you are not insane any longer well not impossible obviously it happens um but much, much harder. And here maybe he's like, I'll just take my chances with the parole board.
Starting point is 00:56:08 I don't know. This is a weird statement though from Paris. And whether you believe that or not comes down to what you believe about psychopathy. If you're Dr. Casey Jordan, your belief would be that psychopathy cannot be cured and that Paris cannot change. Only managed, which is why he should stay in prison.
Starting point is 00:56:28 And the major concern being that if he's released, Paris would come out and kill his mum, Charity, who, by the way, still visits him regularly in prison, saying that she doesn't want to abandon her only son, which considering that when she does visit him, he tells her that he killed Ella so that he could see her pain. So when he's saying this kind of thing, it's quite complicated to understand why she still goes to see him.
Starting point is 00:56:59 I mean, I understand, like, a mother's love being unconditional, she's lost Ella, she's only got Paris left now but he's not like saying a lot of remorseful things to her about it no he's being actively vile and another factor that complicates the situation is the following revelation and this is something you won't read about in most of the coverage out there. And it's something that even Big Balls Morgan didn't touch upon. As Paris was being held in a juvenile detention centre, Charity was pulled aside by police and told that not only did Paris stab Ella, four-year-old Ella, 17 times, but that he also sexually assaulted her. I feel like this is a part of the story that is literally never talked about. And I don't understand why. Oh my God, I found one article,
Starting point is 00:57:54 one article. And the only, the only detail you can find on it anywhere is in Charity's book. And they know this because Paris's semen was found on Ella's body and on her bed. And in the hours before he killed her, Paris had searched for and watched extremely violent pornography and even searched for snuff films. He later told his mother that he had searched for these films on her computer to make sure she knew about it. And in her book, Charity writes, quote, He admitted the more violent he became, the more excited he became, ending in death for her and climax for him. But yet his
Starting point is 00:58:34 stabs weren't frenzied. They were slow and methodical. Charity gives a lot of descriptions of her visitations with Paris in her book. And she describes his eyes being like black pits filled with rage and also details multiple violent outbursts, including him getting her in a headlock. Because let's remember, he has no emergency break, which is the only thing that stops the rest of us from getting our mums in headlocks. And I can't stop thinking about Charity,
Starting point is 00:59:02 which I really was not expecting. And particularly one passage from her book is bouncing around my mind whole. She's in the shop when a complete stranger, a mother, walked up to her and said, I know who you are. I know who your son is. He should be drawn and quartered and you should be forced to watch. He is a monster and you raised him. Fuck off. I mean, that... Leave her alone.
Starting point is 00:59:27 Like, does she not seem like a woman in enough fucking pain, lady? Yeah, her fucking four-year-old daughter got sexually assaulted and stabbed to death by her son. Like, who is this Karen bitch who's just wandering around yelling at grieving mothers? Like, shut the fuck up. Oh my God. That's horrific. That's so the fuck up. Oh my God. That's horrific. That's so grotesque. And it only gets worse
Starting point is 00:59:50 because Charity has never been offered any counselling. And she told the press on multiple occasions that she has forgiven Paris for what he did and that she even loves him. Although she admits that should he be freed, that she would fear him and what he is capable of. And as always happens when children commit any sort of offence, let alone murdering and raping their own sister,
Starting point is 01:00:15 the question, where were the parents, is always quick to follow. So the point becomes, can we blame Charity for how Paris turned out? Charity is the first to admit that she has suffered from substance abuse issues and had a far from ideal childhood According to How Now Butterfly, her dad was Her mother was charged with orchestrating his murder, but was later acquitted, which, let's face it, would fuck anyone up.
Starting point is 01:00:50 And then when Charity was a bit older, she fell into a drugs crowd, desperate to be noticed. By 16, she had tried heroin and fallen in love with a feeling of absolutely nothing. Soon enough, she had left home, moved in with her boyfriend and was shooting smack every day. Absolutely nothing. Soon enough she'd left home, moved in with her boyfriend, and was shooting smack every day. And she nearly lost an arm to an abscess.
Starting point is 01:01:12 Requiem for a dream style. So would that have affected her mothery vibes? Who's to say? But we do know that psychopathy is the most hereditary of all personality disorders. So maybe we can't blame her entirely. But having said all of that, can a psychopath really be cured? Cured? No. Lead a functional life within society? Turns out maybe. But not through retribution. According to a study conducted by Dr. Kent Keel at the University of New Mexico, it might be that psychopaths need us to be nice to them. Punishment doesn't tend to work because psychopaths don't care about
Starting point is 01:01:50 consequences, and after prison psychopaths are six times more likely to re-offend after they are released from prison time. And until Dr. Keel ran something called the decompression model at a juvenile treatment center in Wisconsin, everyone thought that that was just the way it was, a kind of an immovable object. The decompression model was basically positive rather than negative reinforcement. Kids with psychopathic traits were given candy bars and video games when they exhibited positive behaviour. And the kids that were included in the decompression model experiment
Starting point is 01:02:20 re-offended 34% less than the boys who weren't in the experiment. And the boys who did go through the decompression model system were 50% less likely to commit a violent crime and literally not a single one of them went on to commit a murder. Compared to the control group of psychopathic boys who were not put through the decompression model, it's pretty staggering, because that group went on to kill 16 people between them. So maybe Paris could be released, and with restorative justice, he could be less of a threat.
Starting point is 01:02:57 But is it likely that he's been treated that way in a prison in Texas? Probably not. But if you have seen the Piers Morgan documentary, you might have noticed something. I was quite surprised by the way that Paris was spoken to and the way he was dressed. He's wearing all white, which in a prison environment, I've never seen.
Starting point is 01:03:16 And he's also wearing two necklaces that wouldn't look out of place on Richard Hammond when he went through that really weird midlife crisis situation that inexplicably included shark tooth jewelry. Like I would have thought that a necklace is something you can't have in prison because someone could choke you with it. Like I would have thought that was like an across the board thing. And they're like on, they're like pendants on like string. Yeah. Maybe they let you put it on if you're going to be on TV. Because I think there's been
Starting point is 01:03:43 stuff like where I've definitely watched some sort of documentary where there were female inmates being interviewed and they had allowed them to like have a bit of makeup or something when they were going to maybe in Dali Rutier who was also in Texas. Maybe there is a thing of that. They'll let you get glammed up
Starting point is 01:03:59 for that. I don't know. I might be totally wrong. No, I mean that sounds like it would make sense. But the guard calls him buddy on camera, which seems odd to me. But then maybe I just have a complete misunderstanding of the system. Or maybe he is being treated better than we imagine. But also maybe not. Don't know. It just seems odd. So what's next for Paris Bennett? Well, he could be released in 2027. Although there is no saying how likely that actually is. Perhaps a more interesting question is, what next for Charity? She has learned to live with the past, she has her book, and she also set up the Ella Foundation in 2007
Starting point is 01:04:38 to help those who are affected by mental illness, violence and the criminal justice system. And to bring us back to Classics Corner, the Paris of the Iliad was hated. Quote, he was hated among all of them, as dark as death hated, for causing, you know, the little old Trojan War. And his mother Hecuba had a dream warning her of such. This charity, in our story, was not cursed or blessed with this foresight, but she still has some words that are worth noting. We are not saints. We are
Starting point is 01:05:16 not monsters. We don't have to be heroes. We just have to be ourselves, come what may. We have to be ourselves come what may we have to be human which like i that well said honestly i think naming your son paris specifically because of paris of the iliad is yeah obviously i'm not going to say it foreshadowed his whole existence but paris sucks everyone hated him so much and like it's just an odd, an odd choice. But I do think there are some sentiments in Charity's book that are quite like heartwarming. And if you're wondering why Charity's book is called How Now Butterfly, worry no longer because we are going to round off today's episode and tell you. Ella and Charity used to read How Now Brown Cow together.
Starting point is 01:06:00 And then as time went on, they started looking at one another when either one of them was stumped about a problem, a situation, a dilemma, anything like that. And they would ask each other, how now, butterfly? So that's quite nice. Yeah. In a fucking heartbreaking way. Oh, God. There's a lot of very visceral, emotional storytelling in the book.
Starting point is 01:06:22 So there you have it. Paris Bennett, a psychopath crash course, Piers Morgan making a cameo appearance. And I guess the question is like, did Paris ever stand a chance? I don't know. I think there were challenges there in his upbringing, obviously, because Charity had her own challenges around substance abuse in her bad upbringing. But I also think absolutely the fact that we saw that behavior so early in Paris from the age of three, I would say absolutely. If we're saying psychopathy is congenital, I would think it was there from birth, which is something that charity couldn't have done anything about.
Starting point is 01:06:53 But I also think, did Ella stand a chance? And I don't think she did. And that's the thing that makes me very sad. So yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So on that enormous bummer, we have reached the end of this week's episode and we'll be back next time with something else. In the meantime, you can follow us on social media. You can go and buy the book wherever good books are found. You can subscribe to our YouTube channel if you felt so inclined.
Starting point is 01:07:22 You can also bop on over to Patreon where we'll be going straight on to record Under the Duvet. And here are some people who have already become patrons in November last year and we're almost in November again so we're really, really not doing well.
Starting point is 01:07:38 Samantha, Draco Graham Kavan, Kat Morland, Emily Yates, Jasmine Wellborn, Aisha Wilson, Sarah Scott, Kate Roddy, Janine McDonald, Fran Wild, Sophie Naramore, Elwald Osman, Armani, Lucy Gemmel, Elwood Osman, Megan Asbill, Kate Keller, Catherine Benson, Amanda, Elise Perrin, Alicia Driggers, Shanice Rennie, Thank you. Liz Jones, Leslie Hooks, Isla Robertson, Rebecca Hashim, Amanda Perry, Gemma Stacey. Tag. Pubnissic.
Starting point is 01:08:30 I hope I'm saying that correctly. Emma. Laura McCoy. Gemma Roltz. Andrea Piper. Megan Cirrus. Cirrus. Sorry.
Starting point is 01:08:42 Aubrey Hamp. Paul Miller. Josie Brissy. Hayes. Hayes. Holly Riggs, Rose Griffiths, Tess Smith-Roberts, Eleanor Goetz, Imogen Page, Judy Tang, Annie Gilman, Coral Pell, Magda Lakowska, Alexandra, Jennifer Parsons, April Moore, Sophie Hopkins, Megan Bossard, Katie Moen, Alyssa Hutchins, Bernie Myers, Olivia, Isabel, Alexandra Will, Sophie Evans, Leah O'Donnell, Jessica Jay, Stacey Foreman, Jana Lajaranta, Laura Mannion, Bailey Mason, Ali Simon, Thank you so much, everyone. Yar, and Tom Brumpton. Thank you so much, everyone. Thanks ever so much. We will see you next time for something else entirely. Goodbye.
Starting point is 01:09:53 Farewell. We'll be right back. 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 L.A. 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.
Starting point is 01:11:00 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. Hi, I'm Lindsey Graham, the host of Wondery Show American Scandal. We bring to life 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 they're sending teacher Krista McAuliffe into space aboard the Space Shuttle Challenger, along with six other astronauts. But less than two minutes after liftoff, the Challenger explodes. And in the tragedy's aftermath, investigators uncover a series of preventable failures by NASA and its contractors that led to the disaster.
Starting point is 01:11:52 Follow American Scandal on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. Experience all episodes ad-free and be the first to binge the newest season only on Wondery+. You can join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. Start your free trial today.

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