"I Don't Have a Conscience": Arthur Shawcross and the Cannibal Documentary

In a prison interview filmed for a documentary on cannibal killers, Arthur Shawcross repeated his claims of eating human flesh, while doctors in the same programme looked for the cause in his brain.

Subject

Arthur Shawcross

Recorded

about 2003

Runtime

14:34

Content warning: A serial killer describes mutilating and eating parts of his victims' bodies, and alleges sexual abuse by his mother; the programme refers to the murders of two children.

The Interview

This video is a fourteen-minute excerpt from a television documentary about killers who claimed to have eaten their victims. A British reporter, identified in published accounts as Katherine English, drove to Sullivan Correctional Facility in New York State to interview Arthur Shawcross. On camera she says she was frightened of him. Asked whether he cannibalized any of his victims, he says "three", tells her "That's hard to talk about, lady", and claims he cut parts from their bodies. He repeats his story of cooking and eating a woman's leg in Vietnam, and, asked what it tasted like, answers with a question about roast pork. He refuses to talk about Jack Blake, the boy he killed in 1972, and says he has no conscience and no remorse.

Historical Context

In 1972, in Watertown, New York, Shawcross killed two children, Jack Blake, 10, and Karen Ann Hill, 8. He served about fourteen and a half years in prison and was paroled in 1987. Settled in Rochester, he killed women there between 1988 and 1989, many of them sex workers, leaving several bodies near the Genesee River and Salmon Creek. He was arrested on January 5, 1990. At his Monroe County trial he pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity; the jury convicted him of ten murders. He later admitted an eleventh killing in Wayne County and was sentenced to a total of 250 years. He died in custody on November 10, 2008.

Circumstances of the Interview

The programme compares Shawcross with two other killers who claimed or practised cannibalism, Issei Sagawa and Andrei Chikatilo. The interview took place at Sullivan Correctional Facility, where Shawcross was held. Crime Library and Wikipedia date it to 2003, and Crime Library names the programme as "Cannibal: The Real Hannibal Lecters"; neither the date nor the production company has been confirmed for this page. The Crime Library account also says that Shawcross was scornful of the reporter's attempts to get him to describe morbid acts.

What the Interview Covers

Between the interview passages, a narrator sets out the case and the doubts about Shawcross's claims. Shawcross tells the reporter that his mother abused him when he was four; the narrator notes that his mother rejected this and that no evidence was produced to support it. Neurologist Dr. Jonathan Pincus says that whether or not the cannibalism happened, Shawcross wants people to believe it because it makes him seem important. Psychiatrist Dr. Richard Kraus, who examined him for the defence after his arrest, describes three findings: an XYY chromosome pattern, high levels of a chemical called kryptopyrrole, and frontal-lobe damage from head injuries. Shawcross shows the reporter the scars from a discus blow and a sledgehammer blow. The last two minutes turn to neuroscientist Adrian Raine's brain-scan research on murderers.

What Makes the Recording Significant

Crime Library quotes Shawcross's "roast pork" answer from this interview. It records his cannibalism and Vietnam claims in his own voice, in the same programme as experts who question them, and shows him refusing to discuss the murder of a child while talking freely about eating human flesh, a contrast the narrator draws directly.

Archival Importance

Shawcross's claims of war trauma and his medical findings were central to his insanity defence in 1990, which the jury rejected. This programme preserves both his own telling of those claims and the arguments of the doctors who examined him, set alongside research of the time on the brains of violent offenders.

Important Caveats

Shawcross's cannibalism and Vietnam stories are his claims. The programme itself says the autopsy evidence on cannibalism was inconclusive. FBI profiler Robert Ressler, reviewing his war claims for the prosecution, called them untrue; in Vietnam Shawcross served with a supply and transport unit, never in a combat position. His account of abuse by his mother is uncorroborated; she denied it. The narration contains small errors: it gives Jack Blake's age as eleven (he was 10) and calls Dr. Pincus a psychiatrist (he is a neurologist). The expert views on genetics, kryptopyrroles and brain damage are those of the speakers at the time, not settled findings. The upload is an excerpt of a longer programme, and its date and producer are not confirmed.

Narrator: We're on our way to Sullivan Correctional Facility, New York State, to meet one of America's most notorious living serial killers.

Katherine English: Six o'clock, got in the car, drove 280 miles to a really weird meeting.

Narrator: Most terrifying are the bare statistics. In 1972, Shawcross killed two children. He served 15 years in prison. Within a year of his release, he was killing again, this time prostitutes. He murdered 11 within 18 months, the last two on the same night.

Katherine English: I'm frightened that, you know, what's he got to lose? He could just, in the interview, stretch over and grab my neck, or, I don't see what there is to stop him doing that. He's in there for 230 years or whatever. It doesn't make much difference.

Katherine English: Um, can I call you Arthur? Is that all right?

Arthur Shawcross: [unclear: "Call me" / "Call him"] anything you want. Yeah, just late for dinner.

Katherine English: [unclear: "My brother is" / "Your brother's"] called Arthur.

Narrator: Shawcross parades himself as the real Hannibal Lecter, the baddest of the bad.

Katherine English: You know, you're in here now. For how long?

Arthur Shawcross: I got 10 years, five months, and I got 239 years, seven months [unclear: "ago" / "to go"].

Katherine English: Right.

Narrator: Shawcross claims he ate the vaginas of three of his prostitute victims.

Katherine English: Can you tell me about what cannibalism occurred with your victims, your prostitute victims?

Arthur Shawcross: Ah, repeat it.

Katherine English: Did you cannibalize any of your prostitutes victims?

Arthur Shawcross: Three.

Katherine English: What happened?

Arthur Shawcross: What did I do? That's hard to talk about, lady. Well, I, uh, cut parts of the body out. One part, vagina. And [unclear: "assume that" / "the sun there"].

Katherine English: Why?

Arthur Shawcross: I don't know.

Narrator: There is disagreement on whether Shawcross's claims of cannibalism are true or a weird form of bravado. Autopsies showed mutilation in the genital area, but the bodies retrieved from the river were so decomposed that the evidence on cannibalism is inconclusive. Either way, it's become part of the legend Shawcross has created. On the internet, he has his own website, devoted to everything from his taste in poetry to his taste in flesh. Dr. Jonathan Pincus is the most recent psychiatrist to question Shawcross about his cannibalism.

Dr. Jonathan Pincus: I'm not sure why someone would claim to do that if they hadn't done it. And now, whether it occurred as often as he says it did, whether it occurred at all, it's obviously something that gives him satisfaction to talk about and to think about and to pose about.

Dr. Jonathan Pincus: Let's say he didn't do it. Let's say he's just fantasizing about the whole thing, or lying about it. It really doesn't matter. Obviously he wants people to think that he was a cannibal and he ate these victims. It represents his mastery over these women whom he killed, his complete control. Makes him seem important and, and, and, uh, unusual, and, uh, I guess in his own mind, um, competent.

Narrator: Shawcross was born to a U.S. Marine and a teenage mother in 1945. He claimed at his trial that his life was blighted from the outset. Under hypnosis he said he was an abused child, that his mother had forced him to perform oral sex on her.

Katherine English: Can you describe what happened to you as a kid?

Arthur Shawcross: My mother, when I was four, introduced me to something I don't want to talk about in front of you, as a female. [unclear: "Well, really" / "You know, really"].

Katherine English: It's okay, honestly. That's what I said before, that, yeah, well, if you can, I'd like you to be frank.

Arthur Shawcross: She had me put my head between legs. And that's hard to talk about.

Narrator: Shawcross's mother rejects these claims, and no evidence has ever been produced to support them. Psychiatrists can only confirm that severe disruption of the maternal bond can lead to antisocial behavior. By 18, Shawcross had become a petty criminal with burglary and arson convictions. At 23 he went to Vietnam. He claims it was there he first discovered a taste for human flesh. He says he tracked two Viet Cong women in the jungle, ambushed them, and tied one to a tree alive while he cut up and cooked the other.

Arthur Shawcross: And I took the leg, the right leg from that woman's body, from the knee to the hip, took the skin off, took the cords out, took the fat off, and it was only about that big around anyway. And I had crushed rock salt in one of my ammo pouches, and I sprinkled the water on it, and I'm staring at this other girl, because I don't know if she speaks English or whatever, or broken English. And I'm putting the rock salt on it, and I'm sitting there cooking over a fire, you know, and when I bit into it, looking at, staring at this other girl in the eye, she just urinated right there, you know.

Katherine English: So what did it taste of?

Arthur Shawcross: When's the last time you had a nice roast pork?

Katherine English: A while ago.

Arthur Shawcross: I don't think you're going to eat it again, are you?

Arthur Shawcross: If you take a fresh [unclear: "ham for a" / "pan, a"] roast pork, and it's the butt end where it's a little burnt, that's what you taste like.

Katherine English: And why did you, why did you eat it?

Arthur Shawcross: I have no idea.

Katherine English: Were you hungry?

Arthur Shawcross: No.

Narrator: If the Vietnam story sounds like fantasy, what is beyond doubt is that in 1972, now living in New York State, Shawcross committed his first recorded murders. He killed an eight-year-old girl and a boy of eleven, Jack Blake. He later told a psychiatrist he ate the boy's penis.

Arthur Shawcross: That I won't talk about.

Katherine English: Why is that?

Arthur Shawcross: Because I won't talk about it.

Katherine English: It's just that, you see, we're trying to make this film about, about cannibalism, to understand.

Arthur Shawcross: But that has nothing to do with that, uh, section of my life in Watertown, New York. Is that what you're referring to?

Katherine English: Um, I'm referring to Jack, Jack Blake.

Arthur Shawcross: I have no idea. That I don't even talk about.

Katherine English: Is that because you feel...

Arthur Shawcross: Like I said, I won't talk about it. Okay? Mum's the word.

Narrator: Shawcross's reticence may be sheer cunning. To admit pedophilia brings only loathing, but to be a cannibal killer of prostitutes makes him infamous. Talking about eating human flesh presents no problem.

Katherine English: It doesn't bother you at all?

Arthur Shawcross: No. I think about a lot of things, but for some reason I don't have a conscience. I don't have remorse for anything.

Narrator: After Shawcross's arrest in early 1990, psychiatrist Richard Kraus was commissioned by the defence to carry out tests on Shawcross's mental and physical state. The results were remarkable.

Dr. Richard Kraus: Specifically, I found three major areas of impairment. Number one, genetically he's abnormal. Um, something in the order of, I think, one in a thousand male births will be an XYY. Uh, in prison you will find them in the order of 10 to 20 per thousand. Secondly, he has very high levels of a chemical called kryptopyrrole.

Narrator: Kryptopyrrole is a chemical produced in the liver from an abnormal breakdown of red blood cells. If it appears in the bloodstream, it is normally excreted in urine. It has similarities with the drug LSD and impairs the functioning of the brain. Arthur Shawcross turned out to have four times the average amount.

Dr. Richard Kraus: When these kryptopyrroles are very elevated, it is directly associated with a great deal of emotional instability, um, and depression and moodiness, uh, and a host of other symptoms and behavioral changes, including violence, including violence. And, and this seemed to be to me the second key in beginning to move towards an explanation of Arthur Shawcross.

Arthur Shawcross: When I was 18, I got hit here by a sledgehammer.

Dr. Richard Kraus: And then on top of that, he had clearly demonstrated brain damage to the frontal parts of his brain from injuries that he'd sustained over the years.

Dr. Richard Kraus: He was knocked out and had to be taken to the hospital. Now, that sounds like significant [unclear: "head injury" / "headache"] to me. And he's got the scars to prove it.

Arthur Shawcross: This one here, where the guy hit with the discus in high school.

Katherine English: And where's the other one, from the sledgehammer?

Arthur Shawcross: This indentation right here is where [unclear: "he hit with a" / "you hit a"] sledgehammer.

Katherine English: [unclear: "Yeah" / "Here"], I can feel it.

Narrator: Four different types of brain imaging confirmed that the two severe blows left permanent scars on Shawcross's frontal lobe, which contains the prefrontal cortex.

Dr. Jonathan Pincus: In the cases of Shawcross, Sagawa, Chikatilo, the common denominator in all three of these cases is frontal lobe abnormality. When we get completely outrageous, bizarre behavior, like cutting people up, eating their flesh, it's not surprising to find in these cases that there is frontal lobe abnormalities.

Katherine English: Okay, thank you very much.

Unidentified Voices: [unclear: "No. Why are you shaking? Good one, Arthur. I thought that was very quick." (Whisper only) / "Mm-hmm." (captions)]

Narrator: Physical brain damage may help explain why Shawcross, Sagawa and Chikatilo became killers. At this time in America, Adrian Raine, a neuroscientist, was researching frontal brain abnormalities in violent offenders.

Adrian Raine: The prefrontal cortex sits right above your eyes and just behind your forehead. In animals, only three or four percent of the brain consists of prefrontal cortex. In the human brain, it's 29 percent.

Adrian Raine: The prefrontal cortex of the brain is a bit like the guardian angel on our behaviour. It's really what makes us human and allows us to live and function in human societies without being aggressive. It stops us doing antisocial, aggressive, outrageous acts. We've always had the idea that perhaps damage to the frontal region of the brain may be involved in violent offending and in creating the psychopathic-like personality.

Narrator: Neurologically, the prefrontal cortex acts as a controlling mechanism for the basic human emotions of anger and aggression, which emit from the limbic system further back in the brain. In the early 90s, Adrian Raine did a series of brain scans on a group of 41 murderers in Californian prisons and compared them with normal people.

Adrian Raine: The cool colours indicate poor brain function, and the warm colours indicate good brain function. You'll see in this brain scan of the normal individual that the very top of the brain, the prefrontal cortex, is highly activated. Now when we turn to the brain scan of the impulsive murderer, you'll see a distinct lack of activation in the prefrontal cortex. So we believe that there is something fundamentally wrong with their physiological emotional circuitry, and that at a basic level there are brain deficits which in some ways account for the malfunction in the emotional circuitry in violent murderers and cannibals. ---