William Devin Howell Speaks from Prison: Crime Watch Daily Telephone Interview with Nerissa Knight, 2017

Name: William Devin Howell Speaks from Prison: Crime Watch Daily Telephone Interview with Nerissa Knight, 2017
Uploaded: 2018-01-05T00:00:00Z
Duration: 9 min 48 s
Description: Weeks after his sentence of 360 years, William Devin Howell told Crime Watch Daily by phone that he "chose to do what I did", said he wanted the death penalty, and ended the call when pressed about his victims.

Weeks after his sentence of 360 years, William Devin Howell told Crime Watch Daily by phone that he "chose to do what I did", said he wanted the death penalty, and ended the call when pressed about his victims.

Subject: William Devin Howell
Recorded: about November 17, 2017
Runtime: 9:48

Content warning: Howell describes his rape fantasies and his decision to act on them; concerns the murders of seven people in Connecticut in 2003; no graphic detail of the killings.

The Interview

Weeks after he was sentenced to 360 years in prison, William Devin Howell spoke by telephone from a Connecticut prison with Nerissa Knight, a correspondent for the syndicated programme Crime Watch Daily with Chris Hansen. The programme billed it as his first national television interview. This is the third and last part of the story as the programme uploaded it, and it carries the interview: Howell's own voice runs to a little under three minutes of the nine. The rest is Knight's narration, a family friend of victim Mary Jane Menard speaking about the sentencing, author and attorney Anne K. Howard, and a studio discussion between Chris Hansen and forensic psychologist Dr. Louis Schlesinger.

Historical Context

In 2003 seven people disappeared from the New Britain, Hartford and Waterbury areas of Connecticut. Howell, a Virginia man then living in Connecticut, was linked to the disappearance of Nilsa Arizmendi by DNA found in his van; he was arrested in Hampton, Virginia, in May 2005, and in January 2007 he entered an Alford plea to first-degree manslaughter and was sentenced to 15 years. Human remains were found in woods behind a New Britain strip mall in 2007 and again in 2015. In 2015 he was charged with six murders, and on September 8, 2017, he pleaded guilty. On November 17, 2017, in New Britain, he was sentenced to six consecutive life terms, a total of 360 years.

Circumstances of the Interview

Howell says he agreed to talk "as a favor to Ann", meaning Anne K. Howard, who had corresponded with him and wrote the book *His Garden: Conversations with a Serial Killer*. Knight says she had attended his sentencing a few weeks earlier. Howell is heard over the telephone and is not seen.

What the Interview Covers

Howell says he was raised in a good home, was never abused and does not "fit the mold" of a serial killer, and that he cannot explain why he killed "other than ... for my own selfish reasons". He describes drinking and spending much of the 1990s in jail or prison in Virginia, and the bitterness that followed. He says his fantasy was of rape, not killing, and that he killed to cover up his crimes; he says nothing compelled him and that "I chose to do what I did". He says he is remorseful, that he pleaded guilty because he was guilty and to spare the families a trial, and that he would rather have received the death penalty. He says there would probably have been more victims had he not been caught. Asked about his victims, and then about Mary Jane Menard by name, he refuses to discuss them and ends the call. The narration closes with Howard's belief that there may be more victims and with the police appeal for help identifying women seen on videotapes found in his van.

What Makes the Recording Significant

Other recordings of Howell include his sentencing statement and telephone calls that Howard made public. Here he answers a journalist's questions about motive, remorse and his guilty plea, and the recording also captures the point at which he declines to talk about the victims.

Archival Importance

The interview was recorded in the weeks after the 2017 sentence that closed the case in court, and it preserves Howell's own account, in his voice, of why he says he killed and how he says he regards it now, together with the reaction of a family friend of one of the victims.

Important Caveats

Everything Howell says about his motives, his fantasies and his remorse is his own claim. Hansen notes in the studio segment that in other interviews Howell said he had fantasies of killing women, which is at odds with what he says here. This part is an edited broadcast segment, not the complete call.

Nerissa Knight: William Devin Howell admits to ending the lives of seven people in his murder reveal and stashing their mutilated bodies behind a busy strip mall. Now, in his first national TV interview, we're talking to the man being called Connecticut's most prolific serial killer.

Nerissa Knight: Good morning, William. How are you? This is Nerissa Knight with Crime Watch Daily.

William Devin Howell: I'm all right. How are you?

Nerissa Knight: I know you were reluctant to talk to the media at first. What changed your mind?

William Devin Howell: Well, I'm still not real excited to talk to y'all, and I'd rather not be doing it at all, but I did this as a favor to Ann.

Nerissa Knight: Regardless of his reasons for talking, it was an opportunity I wasn't going to squander: getting inside the mind of the man who once called himself the Sick Ripper.

William Devin Howell: Everybody wants to know why, why, why, why? And the truth is, I don't know why, you know what I mean? I was raised by a good family in a good home. I was never abused. I was never molested. I didn't kill animals when I was a little kid or anything like that, so I just don't fit the mold at all that everybody tries to put serial killers in, you know what I mean? So why I grew up to commit these crimes, I have no idea, other than the only thing I can say is for my own selfish reasons.

Nerissa Knight: So then, where did it all go wrong? How did Howell go from being happy kid to killer?

William Devin Howell: I started screwing up my life.

Nerissa Knight: How did you start screwing up your life?

William Devin Howell: Well, through drinking, and I served half of the '90s in jail or prison in Virginia, and it was all for driving a car without a license, and that [unclear: "instilled" / "stored"] a lot of bitterness in me, you know what I mean?

Nerissa Knight: You were angry.

William Devin Howell: Yeah, I was angry inside.

Nerissa Knight: And that's when, he says, the sick thoughts started creeping in.

William Devin Howell: It was something that I had fantasized about for a few years.

Nerissa Knight: So you began fantasizing about killing people in Virginia in the '90s.

William Devin Howell: I didn't start, I wasn't, the fantasy wasn't about killing somebody. I just, I killed them to try to cover up my crime. The fantasy was about just [unclear: "raping them" / "raping"].

Nerissa Knight: What happened? What made you cross the line?

William Devin Howell: I don't know, I just decided to act on my impulses and, you know, I'd been out drinking a little bit and I was pissed off at my, uh, at my girlfriend at the time. I don't know, it's just something made me say, well, [unclear: "tonight's the night" / "tonight, tonight"] I'm gonna cross the line. I'm gonna do it. I'm gonna make my fantasy come true.

Nerissa Knight: And once he crossed that line, he says, horror became habit.

William Devin Howell: It's not like it was a beast that was driving me to commit these crimes. And this may make me even more sinister, but it was something that I, like, chose to do. I didn't have something driving me that I couldn't control, you know what I mean? Or anything like that. And I chose, I chose to do what I did, and I just chose not to care.

Nerissa Knight: But he says that was then, and that today he does feel remorse for what he's done, for the pain he's brought to his victims' loved ones.

William Devin Howell: But I would hear [unclear: "him" / "them"] sobbing in the courtroom, and it just tore me apart.

Nerissa Knight: You're so concerned about the victim families now. You have a heart, as you should, for the victims' families, their feelings, and empathy now. [unclear: "Why do you" / probably "What do you"] think about the family members of the people who you killed on those [unclear: "nights and days" / "days"]?

William Devin Howell: I have no excuse. What can I say? I was selfish. I try and be a good person. I try and live my life with integrity, and then I went and committed crimes that were the total opposite of how I try and live and conduct myself. I am very remorseful for my actions, and if I could go back and take it all back, I would. If I could give my life to bring theirs back, I would.

Nerissa Knight: I was at Howell's sentencing just a few weeks before and caught up with a family friend of Mary Jane Menard to ask what he thought of Howell's contrition.

Family Friend Of Mary Jane Menard: Howell stood up and he addressed the victims' family. [unclear: "Something like he meant what he said" / "So I like what he said"], but like [unclear: "apologizing sincerely" / "I apologized and sincerity"] about them. But what he did was like very bad. I couldn't imagine like going through something like that.

Nerissa Knight: Do you feel sympathy for him?

Family Friend Of Mary Jane Menard: [unclear: "No, not really" / "No, I'm already"]. I wanted to choke him out, actually, that day when we were in court.

Nerissa Knight: Why did you plead guilty?

William Devin Howell: Because I'm guilty. I didn't want to put the families through it. I felt like if I went to trial, I would have been found guilty anyway. So [unclear: "I put the families through it and what put the taxpayers through it" / possibly "why put the families through it, and why put the taxpayers through it"].

Nerissa Knight: In fact, he says if he had his way, he would have gotten a lot worse than the 360-year sentence he received.

Nerissa Knight: So you would rather have gotten lethal injection versus life in prison. You want to die?

William Devin Howell: I would rather have the lethal injection. When I committed the crime, that was the sentence I expected to serve.

Nerissa Knight: But Howell also admits that if he hadn't been caught, his killing spree very well may have continued.

William Devin Howell: Probably, [unclear: "they would have" / "there would have"] probably been more victims.

Nerissa Knight: So then, did Howell have genuine remorse, or was it just that he'd been caught? I decided to ask him some specifics about his victims, and that's when the tone of our conversation suddenly shifted.

Nerissa Knight: Do you remember the names of any of your victims?

William Devin Howell: I know who they [unclear: "all are" / "are"]. I'm not gonna get into that.

Nerissa Knight: But the families deserve to know, so I pushed on.

Nerissa Knight: So when you hear the name Mary Jane Menard, do you remember the person who it was that night?

William Devin Howell: I'm really tired of talking about this. I don't like talking about it at all anyway, you know what I mean? And you just, you won't, you won't let it go. I've said what I wanted to say about that subject. If you can't find something else to talk about, [unclear: "rather just in the conversation" / probably "I'd rather just end the conversation"].

Nerissa Knight: And when I tried to press one more time, that's exactly what he did.

Nerissa Knight: What about [unclear: "no-sick" / "no"; possibly "Nilsa"]?

William Devin Howell: I'm telling you, how many times do I have to say? You know what, I'm done. Ask Ann. Read the book.

Nerissa Knight: Unfortunately, our call ended before I got to ask one crucial question: did Howell's six-month killing spree really stop with those seven unfortunate souls, or are there others? Anne Howard, the woman who literally wrote the book on Howell, believes there could be.

Anne K. Howard: A detective has asked me to sit down with the New Britain Serial Killer Task Force and discuss the important [unclear: "possibility" / word not in captions] that there may be more victims out there.

Nerissa Knight: In fact, in a chilling new revelation, police are now saying they found several videotapes in the back of Howell's so-called murder mobile, which show other women who have yet to be identified. Take a good look at these grainy screenshots. Investigators say they need your help putting names to these faces, identifying whether or not they too fell victim to Connecticut's most prolific serial killer.

Chris Hansen: William Howell is certainly a fascinating case, so to help us understand how a human being could commit such heinous crimes, we've brought in top forensic psychologist Dr. Lou Schlesinger. Lou, thanks very much for being here.

Dr. Louis Schlesinger: Thanks, Chris.

Chris Hansen: Howell has said that he had fantasies of raping these women and only killed them to conceal his crimes, but in other interviews, he said that he had actual fantasies of killing women. What does that say about him?

Dr. Louis Schlesinger: Well, these murders are serial sexually motivated. To understand serial sexual murder, the best way to do it is to view it as an abnormal sexual arousal pattern, a paraphilia. And in these cases, the violence is eroticized. There's a fusion of sex and aggression, so that the aggressive act itself is sexually arousing.

Chris Hansen: He called his van the murder mobile. What does that say to you? Is that a trophy for him?

Dr. Louis Schlesinger: Well, I wouldn't say it's a trophy for him, and the naming of his car is a little bit unusual. But serial killers have an interesting connection with their vehicles. They use it for a lot of purposes. One thing that's interesting is many serial killers drive excessively with their cars because they're trolling for victims. They're looking for abduction spots, and they're looking where they can dump bodies. In some cases a serial killer will take the doorknobs off the inside of his car, so once the woman gets in, she can't get out.

Chris Hansen: Yeah. Is a guy like Howell born this way, or did something horrendous happen to him that made him this way?

Dr. Louis Schlesinger: The best way to understand this is from a biopsychosocial perspective, but with a heavy emphasis on neurobiology. An abnormal sexual arousal pattern isn't something that's learned. It's not a result of poor parenting or stressful events.

Chris Hansen: Is it the way he's wired?

Dr. Louis Schlesinger: Basically the way he's wired. It's unknown whether it's chemical, electrical, hormonal, a combination of all factors, plus head injury, plus horrible psychosocial events. It takes a lot to create a serial sexual murderer. That's why they're very rare. They've been in every country, in every culture since pre-modern time, and there's absolutely no evidence whatsoever that they're increasing.

Chris Hansen: Dark but fascinating stuff. Dr. Louis, always appreciate your insight. For more on this story, please go to CrimeWatchDaily.com. I'm Chris Hansen.

Chris Hansen: If you like this story, make sure you tune in every day to Crime Watch Daily. You can find where the show airs in your city at CrimeWatchDaily.com. Watch it live or record it on your DVR and watch it at night. And to all those criminals out there, remember: we are watching. ---