Shaker Heights - Episode 6: A Clockwork Orange | Forensic Files

thank you [Music] [Music] thank you welcome to Shaker Heights episode 6 A Clockwork Orange
Lisa Peru is dead someone stabbed her 21 times in the early morning hours of September 14
1990. she was found behind the Mansion where her boyfriend Dan dreyford lived with
his parents Dan's friends pointed the finger at the weird kid in school Kevin Young
and although there was no evidence linking Kevin to the crime and even though he had an alibi he quickly became
the prime suspect for the detectives of this small town Department they were out of their league and they
knew it so they enlisted a renowned psychologist from Syracuse University to help them get a confession from Kevin
Young no matter what [Music] yeah I understand that and and indeed that's a very powerful Alibi
um that the father indicates that Dan was in fact in his room and that they both heard the screams together
yes that's that's very powerful there is some I must say that we we had some difficulty still however with Dan's
subsequent Behavior he after they go out to the edge of the property and and I'll go back into the
home apparently satisfied that the source of the scream has left the area or whatever and that they can't find
anything unusual apparently Dan re-exits the house to find the bicycle and then in fact without telling his
parents um calls 9-1-1 on his own uh to report what he believes to be now suspicious circumstances but
then when the parents hear the Pruitt's outside on the lawn you know and they're
distraught and here are all these police vehicles the crime scene being established that Dan goes to bed right
falls asleep but while the parents are waiting for the plane clothes detective to come in and interview them huh right
I found that I found that unusual um and somewhat disconcerting but what we decided here was that dick and I
decided that well that's not that's academic right because it's not Dan that we're going to be interrogating it's
it's Kevin and whether or not he's the guy or not we want to give the full shot to to use the best psychological
coercion we can right um if in fact so that we get an admission out of him if in fact he is
the killer what is the is the Forum talking to Kevin now he's going to well what we're trying to do is get a
investigative grand jury assembled where all Witnesses would be subpoenaed and questioned before grand jury including
Kevin young what kind of immunity is involved in that uh none that I know of is Council Allowed no counsel no counsel
he may take the Fifth Amendment almost certainly Council would advise him to do that given that he has no immunity even
willing immunity in such an interrogation right Kevin is um uh illegally qualifies for adult offender
status is that right that's right let me try to discourse for a minute or two about what I believe to be the
psychological Dynamics behind Kevin's peculiarities there's no question that on the face of it Kevin's evidence is
self-loathing self-deprecation what is sometimes called poor self-image he is in fact uh I I there's some suspicion
that his own hospitalization was for an abortive suicide attempt do you know that to be the case uh the most recent
one yes not to most well he indicated to the interviewer that he had nothing left
to live for I have that person with me the officer that did the interviewing Sergeant gray is here with me in my
office an excellent job by the way Sergeant it was It was obviously a very productive interview even though we
didn't get an admission there are some very revealing points that you undoubtedly felt that he was just about
to Tumble to to roll over dick and I both commented that uh in reading your report that first of all
frequently visiting the bathroom I mean how many times three times within some short span of time right right all the
signs of stress that something is bothering him yeah I mean all the physical signs in terms of eye contact
and motion and sitting back and forth in your chair and all the classic kind of interview things that you'd like to see
once in a while we're all clearly there I mean the stress was real high on his level what did you make of him saying
that he could tell you that he had done it and then he'd go to the hospital for a couple years but he really couldn't
live with himself he didn't tell you the truth I mean I mean it it's almost like is there a
truth other than he did it that or I mean one of the things we had been warned about ahead of time was the
possibility that he had already Justified some sort of course of action in his mind into this justification had
something to do with it no I really didn't do it or someone else did it I mean if maybe he had totally blocked it
out we really don't know I mean we were already prepared for the possibility that he had Justified this
somehow and that he wasn't going to feel uh yes this is uh on Jim Wright's advice
right right yeah I I concur um I I think that denial as a defense mechanism for Kevin is high in his
hierarchies of his ego protection he is a he's a fantasizer he's uh his behavior
is compensatory in character let me talk about that a bit I think when you find such virulent self-deprecation
self-loathing I think you need to reach for an accountant it doesn't stand on its own Merit and the the account is
that you look at this the self-loathing as compensatory Behavior as denial Behavior
that is to say denial of the intrinsic the underlying belief that that you are in fact Superior that you are ideal in
every way that you are omnipotent um the opposite of someone who is unworthy you are supremely worthy but
that those thoughts are anxiety producing the Greeks used to call that the the sin of shubris the the notion
that you aspire to godhood that you that you are a god causes enormous anxiety and that that anxiety is compensated for
defended against by the posture of the self-deprecating self-loathing fence so you're very happy to talk about you're
being suicidal you're being unworthy that nobody will talk to you you're not found desirable by either men or women
or what what have you because that's your pose that's your deception what you don't want to talk about is the fact
that you're a God that you control everyone that you believe you control your life Etc and all the people around
you you live in deception oppose the opposite of it seems to me that of what perhaps in the attack we originally
took you don't minimize you you maximize what he did his responsibility his significance his capacity that the crime
is important not minimal he doesn't need help he needs a pause for what he was able to accomplish his significance his
importance Etc his guilt feeling his guilt and there's no doubt that he in fact feels guilty
and that this post-offense behavior of of starting a new life and I found that very significant in the statement that
his profile of the killer suggests that he would move on and start a new life and then when he referred to his
circumstances at College he referred to that as a new life for him right he's in
fact he's very comfortable and whatever guilt he may have had I think he's been able to deal with I think that it's
transparent and obvious that the guilt is not sufficient to compensate or over balance his fears of the punishment that
will accrue to will follow upon confession of that guilt he has already fantasized circumstances of his
imprisonment so what we need to do is is we need to arouse him arouse the guilt again and that that may be difficult
because now he's had ample time to scar over to see that nothing is going to happen that he's been successful his
Godlike Powers have again phased him because he is Invincible but I think that's the tact we need to take that he
should feel guilty he doesn't need help he needs punishment does he feel that guilt still no uh as I'm saying I think
he's originally it's completely he was able to compensate adequately for this because God felt guilt indeed the
opposite he would have been conflicted between feeling the importance of having done something that ordinary Mortals
don't do you know normally Mortals don't kill he understands I think this his problems
with his impulse control he's impulsive he has a great deal of difficulty with impulse control
he has to guard against this incredible power that is within him this this power
to anger to violence and he has to protect himself from that and part of that's his pose of self-deprecation
Etc the self-loathing we need to play to what he believes to be his strengths and in so doing we will
arouse in him his anxieties the anxieties and feeling god-like and those anxieties will trigger his guilt
feelings again we need to do what you would do more with a serial killer it seems to me has in favor the Notions of
power in being able to kill to recreate that sense of power significance that life-taking capacity the interview took
the tact of minimizing you need help well you know they don't really you know youthful offenders we can mitigate this
to the judge because you felt remorse etc etc I'm saying and we know that that didn't
work right I'm saying we maximize the crime instead maximize the power the significance you you go back through the
crime with a kind of fallacious dwelling upon the details but particularly with respect to the power the sheer marvelous
power of being able to take a life do you follow me yes I mean almost pornographic and I'm as you're saying
this I'm thinking I know how we could do that I'm just not sure how to do that under the controlled circumstances
here's what I was thinking what are the we need to shape up a behavior the same way you would try to shape up a behavior
in a laboratory Mass I'm going to go through that scenario this this behavioral shaping that's very
dramatic works very well you look you take a mouse a rat a laboratory rat and you want him to let's say twirl around
three times clockwise in a sort of valet like pirouette so what you do to control is you're in
control over the reinforcements you don't need to punish but you can withhold the reinforcements so what you
do is you wait for the animal to turn its head and look to the right and then you give it a little bit of food
then you wait and it turns its head to the right and you don't give him food now again for for turning right you wait
until he moves his shoulder to the right along with the head and then you give him a piece of food and then you keep
waiting for more and more exaggerations of this form of behavior until it's a quarter of a turn and then it's a half a
turn then it's a full turn it takes an enormous amount of patience because you have to wait for this
Behavior to appear in classical conditioning rather than operant conditioning you of course make the
response appear that you want because you're dealing with some reflexive response that you're just going to
change to a different stimulus but in operant conditioning you have to wait for the behavior to to occur
now of course you can make the behavior more likely to occur because you've got him in a situation where the animal is
hungry right and and inactive you can't condition an animal that's asleep college classes and introductory courses
and psych curriculum says I've always done this it's it's a nice demonstration the class gets together and decides that
they're going to have the professor stand on his left leg deliver the whole lecture on his left leg
so what they do is they wait for him to shift his weight to the left and then all of them just nod and smile and they
look very interested in what he's just said and and that's a powerful reward for the professor and then they wait
until it happens again and then they all nod and smile and between this they would they would hold the reinforcement
they look bored inattentive to maximize the reward and it's very dramatic it works it works every time the professor
by the end of class is hopping around on one leg and doesn't realize why just seems to like to be on the on that one
leg to talk on that one leg now here's forgive all the anecdotal sort of thing we need to operate condition Kevin
Clockwork Orange on Kevin if you've seen that film and the way we do that is when
he takes the fifth and he almost certainly will take the fifth you turn your back on him you ignore him you in
fact even better would would be to make a side to somebody else talk to someone else so that Kevin understands that
there is reward out there to be given because Kevin loves attention Gods expect people to worship them it's
their due but if you ignore them gods don't like that gods don't like to be ignored they like attention and notice
that Kevin in when when you interviewed him he wow you know he was ready to go for the whole night
I mean you were you were tiring more than he was right absolutely and ready to go forever he
loved it oh he loved it you know he wanted the polygraph he wanted everything oh geez you know yeah let's
go I love it you know just just keep giving me attention worship me worship me worship me if he wanted anything if
he asked for a drink of water you turn and give him his fullest attention oh yes yes Kevin you shower him with
attention affection reward now the next time he asks for water we don't now you don't need it again
because now you need something more you need a demonstration of his cooperativeness
Etc I think you get the picture we just need to manipulate the reinforcements and you
have to do it in a very conscious way trying to get him to talk and then as soon as he starts to talk if
he starts to talk then we need to shape what he says we want him to shape talk about we want
to reinforce talk about guilt personal responsibility we withhold the reinforcement for
intellectualization the the mechanisms of denial third person stuff and uh obfuscation you know the distractions
trying to get at what comes closer and closer to a personal confession or a revelation of what he's done
I don't think he would gladly take the fifth and I think what you need to do is avoid letting him get reinforcements for
taking the fifth and that would be for example just continuing on one question after another so he he gets a chance to
say on advice of counsel I refuse to answer that question on the grounds it may tend to incriminate me and he loves
that what a performance wow you know uh one after the other and then it gets very dramatic you know because of its
repetition under the stress and conditions will it be possible for this attorney to condition him enough to just
stick to that Fifth Amendment no no I I don't think so he's going to want that attention I I think I think that he
prefers not to do that he would prefer to try to charm manipulate be the center of attention center stage in this
testimony for the grand jury and there's nothing nothing that the attorney can tell him that would convince him of that
you've seen this I mean people absolutely self-destructive in such situations because their personality
will not allow them to be silent so I think that Kevin's position I I think you would like that I think what he
needs is well without confessing he needs to have and that's what I think he did in the interview he came so close to
confessing what had happened in this third person form but that's expiation that's expiation of sin that's
Absolution of sin you gave him you absolved him of sin because you didn't stand up and say how disgusting how
absolutely unadulterated disgusting you can sit here and talk like that about murdering another human being and expect
me to sit here and say well Kevin you know I want I want you to be able to live with this you've got to [ __ ] he
went away from this interview saying wow it's wonderful it's really not that big
a deal is it I mean here's another guy that was hey he didn't get angry he didn't get upset
and Kevin told us that he wanted somebody to get upset he says through the interview he says you're gonna
you're gonna have to pound on them you have to keep after him over and over and over again
what he was saying was hey I did an important thing and and you tell him it wasn't important
it makes sense that's not a criticism the way that you went about your interview no no no no no no and when I
looked at it I said to Murray that you did every textbook thing that Quantico ever thought of doing and I was very
impressed with what you did no had it worked we would have done the perfect thing it didn't work so
uh indeed you have to go that way first you can't go from the way I'm suggesting
backwards you can't go from where I'm suggesting to nurture him no way I mean after you do this after you maximize the
crime you you can't minimize it you're called out but you can go from minimizing to maximizing he gave us the
opening of it needed to be done over and over which gave us the format to change
however once the attorney stepped in it was minimize it don't talk to his client
we we kind of got stuck on that the other thing is that I think that one needs to see behind one needs to see I'm
starting out from the presumption that the suicidal self-effacing self-deprecating self-loathing needs an
account you can't just say oh oh that's true and accept it as if it were the basis it's not the basis it it is in
fact it needs an explanation I presume I'm not seeing this kid but I presume he's he's not deformed he's not some
monster no oh no he's just another ordinary kid huh [Music] foreign [Music] he reports to him when he gets to
college suddenly some girl comes up to him after class and talks to him I I mean he doesn't present the image of
this loathing where nobody wants to talk to him nobody likes him Etc he wants to have shock value in in all
those writings all his baloney is for its shock value it's designed to say well listen I want your attention I want
importance I want to have an effect on you and that's what we use as the reinforcement
for manipulation so my explanation is that when I see something as virulent as as the self-loathing I need to reach for
an explanation and the most typical explanation for that is it's uh compensatory Behavior anything that's
showy and a facade like that appearing showy in that form usually has an explanation compensation it's it's the
guy that's the homo Basher the homosexual Basher the super masculine guy whose anxieties are because he
believes himself not to be masculine so it's showing right it's it's a demonstration more for an audience than
for anything else we must not we must not give him the Applause must not be the audience that he wants us to be
we've got to reach underneath for the secret places that he hides and so the trick in interrogation it seems to me
whatever he wants to talk about we don't want to talk about whatever he volunteers is not what we want to be we
want to be where the secret place is you know the the last thing he wants to say
are those things is that plan the issue of him wanting to be in control or feeling in control oh there's there's no
question about that too yes he's he's very manipulative very controlling but in addition control is important for
this kid because as I say and and I think this is intrinsic he's got impulse disorder he's impulsive and and I
believe that he says that he's scared of the capacities he knows are in him when
he loses control he can just flip out and and I think that's one of the reasons that makes him a very good
suspect because my impression of this crime scene was that it was an Impulse act okay have you talked to Jim again
since before you should talk to Jim and maybe run some of this by him see what all the inputs you can get would be
useful have you talked to him yet to Jim Wright yeah no we haven't we haven't talked to him since the interview but we
haven't I can't believe you woke him up at three o'clock in the morning I I I just can't believe that well gee that's
what he gets for giving us his home phone number that's why you see what he said to you I I think you're tired I
think you ought to go to bed let me throw one other thing into this we have a group of kids that were involved with
him that we keep in contact with regularly in fact Kevin has been in a couple of parties over the last couple
weekends Kevin always somehow brings up the issue of Lisa I mean it's always brought up by Kevin in one instance he
made some statements to the effect of it's too bad the police never had any sort of suspect or any leads or anybody
that they could look at for this is there any way we can play into that or does that mean anything to us the
general response is kids don't even want to talk about it they just say yeah yeah
yeah and leave them which is the other thing is that I think I think you need to we need to look at this in in the
salacious pornographic interests that are that are being served Kevin has to be able to by bringing it up able to
recreate a moment of real power real significance real unusualness at the same time he continues to to get this
acceptance let me let me tell you an anecdote that that amazed me May Rouse your intuition about how I'm
trying to explain this we've all had the experience of having a very Vivid active dream the kind of
dream that's very strong very Vivid and waking up and think to yourself wow what
a dream that was and then as you try to hold on to the details of that dream it gradually slips between your fingers and
it just Fades as you the harder you try to look at the content of the dream the more it fades and yet it was Vivid and
very real and very active and you sense that by contrast to those instances where you
wake up and it's a it's in a vivid dream and you turn to the significant other in
your life your partner or somebody or you you go to work and you say my Lord I had this dream last night you wouldn't
believe this dream I had and you're able to relate all those details in that dream I mean one from the other
Now One account of that might be as follows the the content of the dream that you cannot remember is anxiety
producing and so you need not you don't want to think about it you want to put it behind you so it slips through your
fingers because it's too anxiety provoking the content of the dream that you have this urgency to tell somebody
about is is content that you need to test against somebody else so for example and typically the person you
want to tell it to is the person that's significant in the dream so you turn to your partner and you say I've had this
incredible dream about and and it was you and me and we were and and you go on with this and suppose
that the content just suppose the content of that dream is symbolically reflective of you killing this other
person so you go through this in gory detail but but symbolically it doesn't sound obvious that you're killing the
person it's well you see I dreamed that you were on this cliff and and and then we were floating down and there were
these rocks down below and here you are describing to the person how you're going to kill him you know like uh well
you're you're gonna be splattered all over those rocks and then what what does the person say to you they don't say as
I said you know stand up and say you son of a [ __ ] there's no way in the world
I'm gonna sit here and have somebody who dreams like that and have any respect for such a person or even any affection
no now now what did they say oh you have such a wonderful imagination oh wow isn't that wonderful that's that's
really interesting isn't it I mean here's the person you just said to them I'm gonna kill you saying isn't that
wonderful you're just a marvelous person and so you have expiated the sin of these desires to hurt the other person
by the other person accepting them and continuing to say you're a nice person you're okay
well every time Kevin raises this and and doesn't have people get up and shun him he successfully establishes the
point that what he did was was not so bad after all well what would happen if they did
what do you think his reaction would be if they shunned him and got real upset about it well I think he'd have to try
to convince them I I think that that you know he was not the person that he was not worthy of their loathing while at
the same time believing that he was and indeed might become suicidal at that point so that he could further
demonstrate that he was repentant that he really didn't enjoy having killed her dick asks he wrote me why are why are
writing me a note just jump in here whether or not he would admit to another kid under any circumstances
I think he could I think he definitely could uh for its shock value for it's convincing the the person that that's
significant I think that your account of his doing this at parties is almost tantamount to
that it is of the same character of skirting the confession that he did with you doing this thing in the third person
well the kids talk about all the angry things they'd like to tell Kevin but they're kind of afraid to tell him
because they don't know how he's going to react oh I'd advise them just the opposite
[Music] foreign [Music] detectives tried to Clockwork Orange Kevin he never gave them a confession
and here is where the tragedy is compounded the prosecutor assigned to the case in Cuyahoga County ends up
being Carmen Marino nobody knows it back then but eventually Mourinho would get in a lot of trouble
for misconduct and other murder cases he did things like withhold evidence from defense attorneys and allowing
witnesses to lie on the stand what Mourinho did wrong was go to the psychiatric unit where Kevin young was
treated for stress after being interrogated by police and got a female patient to say Kevin had confessed to
her in the hospital off that testimony from a mental patient Mourinho got an indictment against Kevin
for Lisa's murder the case went to trial on June 28 1993 it was one of the first trials to be
broadcast on court TV a trial of his peers acquitted Kevin Young on July 21st in the eyes of the law Kevin young was
not guilty of the murder of Lisa Pruitt but in Shaker Heights that wasn't good enough they had been told by their
trusted police detectives that this was the guy who did it and to this day the majority of people who lived through the
ordeal still believe Kevin got away with murder life was not kind to Kevin Young
the publicity of the case he found it difficult to find a date all they had to do was Google his name
he moved back in with his parents and painted houses around town eventually he got his own efficiency
apartment on the east side he died at the age of 44. in February of 2017. he maintained his innocence to that day
buried in the police files obtained from Shaker Heights are a few letters that Dan dryford wrote to Lisa Pruitt when he
was in psychiatric care Dan writes quote I tried to kill myself I need Ada here this place has [ __ ] me
up after I get out give me some time to return to normal I don't want you or I to make any poor decisions because of
this place in another note Dan warns Lisa quote someday I'll go too far and I'll do
something very bad and you'll yell at me and be serious and I won't be able to handle it but you
can't let me get away with murder I look at you and I see what I've done to you I'm a bad influence on people
Chris is another example of this and believe it or not I think I've made Kevin worse than he already was
later he goes on to write quote I want to poke your eyes out with my favorite pocket
knife [Music] [Music] thank you foreign

Shaker Heights - Episode 6: A Clockwork Orange

www.TrueCrimeGarage.com

In the early morning hours of Friday, September 14, 1990, 16 year old Lisa Pruett was stabbed to death in Shaker Heights. This is a 6 part true crime series. The bulk of the story comes from actual police interviews. As the story unfolds, ask yourself, who do you think killed Lisa Pruett?Directed and produced by True Crime Garage. Co-produced by The Philosophy of Crime and narration written by James Renner

A BIG Thank You to all of our voice actors!Jordan Bonaparte - www.NightTimePodcast.com Tyler Allen - www.MindsofMadnessPodcast.com Jessica Bettencourt - True Crime Garage & Scene of the Crime Podcasts Mike Bussing - Executive Producer of Truth & Justice with Bob RuffBob Ruff - www.TruthandJusticePod.com Tim Pilleri - www.CrawlSpace-Media.comAaron H - www.GenWhyPod.com & www.FramedPod.com Maggie Freleng - www.MaggieFreleng.com Bill Huffman - My Passion Case and Who killed Podcasts - www.SloBurnMedia.comMorgan - The Captain & Morgan Podcast Jessica Yuan - www.AsianMadnessPod.Podbean.com Melissa Lee - Victimology PodcastScotty Boombox - www.ScottyBoombox.com Jesse P Pollock - Author of “Death on the Devil’s Teeth” & “The Acid King”James Renner - www.PhilosophyOfCrime.com

The full archive of True Crime Garage is available on the Stitcher listening app - for FREE. Our show “Off the Record” is only on Stitcher Premium. For a FREE month of listening go to http://stitcherpremium.com/truecrimegarage and use promo code GARAGE

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Brief Summary

Lisa Pruitt's murder investigation focuses on Kevin Young, who was wrongfully accused and acquitted, yet remains a controversial figure in the community.

Key points

The Murder of Lisa Peru. Lisa Peru was found dead, stabbed 21 times, leading to a shocking investigation.
Kevin Young Becomes Suspect. Despite lacking evidence, Kevin Young is named the prime suspect in Lisa's murder.
Psychological Manipulation in Interrogation. Experts discuss the psychological tactics needed to extract a confession from Kevin.
Kevin Young's Trial. Kevin Young was acquitted of murder, but the community still believes he was guilty.
Dan Dryford's Disturbing Letters. Letters reveal Dan's troubled mind and his influence on Kevin.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

he quickly became the prime suspect.

0:59WatchNov 17, 2022

Tension

70/ 100High tension

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