“Be careful with Spahalski, Mr. Morgan,” warned the prison guard as I prepared to meet one of New York’s most infamous serial killers. “He’s a very dangerous man. He once broke out of handcuffs with his bare hands.”
As I tried to imagine just how strong you’d have to be to do that, Robert Spahalski was led into the small interview room.
He’s a tall, very muscular man and radiated quietly spoken deadly menace.
His crimes were particularly heinous and unsettling because he repeatedly murdered people – at least four, probably more – that he knew, including sexual partners and neighbors, in sudden explosions of extreme violence because they “triggered” him.
And chillingly, he had absolutely no remorse afterwards.
In fact, he told me he never gave them another thought.
Spahalski, who features in my new 8-part series, “The Killer Interview with Piers Morgan,” which drops on Fox Nation this Tuesday (September 12), was described as a “psychotic, soulless human being” by law enforcement officers, and is one of the most unnerving people I’ve encountered during a decade of interviewing many of America’s most evil and notorious killers for crime documentaries.
When I asked him whether he still has “homicidal urges,” he initially said no, but then cautioned: “If you push my trigger, you’re done.”
a “psychotic, soulless human being.”
It was a very intimidating moment that needed urgent clarification.
“What you’re saying is, if I press the wrong trigger with you in this interview, you might feel homicidal?” I asked.
His dark, brooding eyes bore into mine.
“Absolutely.”
I didn’t doubt it for a second.
The question of what makes people kill other human beings is a very complex one.
The motive for most murders has been condensed by expert criminologists into the 4 “Ls” – Lust; Love; Loathing; and Loot.
And many of my subjects for this new series certainly fit into these more easily explained categories.
They include a preacher who killed his wife to be with his younger mistress and an insurance fraudster who killed anyone and anything he could claim money on.
But then there are killers like Spahalski, whose crimes defy any rational explanation, and who just seem to murder because they feel like it.
Take Levi King, who shot five people dead in a random rampage for no reason at all, including attacking two parents and their children as they slept in their isolated farmhouse.
“You’re every family’s worst nightmare,” I told him, and he didn’t disagree.
As with Spahalski, I’ll never forget the way King’s face became totally dead-eyed and detached of expression as he talked calmly about the horrific details of the murders.
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It was like they were both talking about a trip to a grocery store.
Serial killers aren’t all male.
The apparently sweet innocent face of nurse Kimberly Saenz as she sat in front of me belied the appalling reality that she deliberately killed five patients by injecting bleach into their dialysis machines.
Why? I spent an hour grilling this cold callous creature as she lied through her back teeth, and still have no real clue. I’m not sure she does, either.
It’s this kind of crime which haunts me most after I interview the perpetrators because they make no sense and could literally happen to any one of us if we happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Just being in such close proximity to some of these monsters – I do all the interviews face-to-face with them in maximum security prisons across America – often makes my skin crawl.
And I’m always thankful for the presence of the guards standing a few feet away keeping watch over their lethal inmates, knowing that some of them wouldn’t give a damn about adding me to their murder record.
Several times, I’ve had cause to be genuinely concerned for my safety.
During an increasingly confrontational interview with a man dubbed the Kansas City Strangler, Lorenzo Gilyard – who throttled at least 13 women to death during a 17-year killing spree — I suddenly realized the lone guard had wondered off to the end of the larger room than usual, and I nervously pondered what would happen if Gilyard jumped up and tried to strangle me, which he looked like he wanted to do.
“How long would you have kept the cameras rolling before pulling him off me?” I asked my producer afterwards.
“One second before asphyxiation,” he chuckled, ruefully. “Though if I got the timing wrong, it would be great for ratings.”
Then there was the disturbing moment when the same producer dramatically stepped in to stop filming as I sat opposite Bernard Giles, a truly despicable man who kidnapped and murdered five young women hitchhikers near the Kennedy Space Center in Florida – using guns, and whatever sharp objects he could find, to horribly mutilate them.
“What’s the problem?” I whispered.
“I’ve just seen a metal pen protruding from his shirt chest pocket,” he whispered back.
Yikes.
The truth about serial killers, and this may sound self-evident, is that they’re just different from the rest of us.
They tend to have a high degree of intelligence, like fictitious movie villain Dr. Hannibal Lecter, which is how they evade detection for a long time.
They also tend to have zero empathy with their victims, and usually don’t care who they kill.
When I asked Bernard Giles why he choose the poor women he murdered, he replied simply: “Access.”
Serial killers are the most dangerous people you’ll never want to meet.
