‘Our forever home,’ Harper says, pressing both hands to her heart. ‘Kyle and me feel like the bottom’s literally fallen out of our world—’

‘You can drop the act, Harper. There aren’t any cameras here.’

She hesitates a moment, and then suddenly her face transforms from vapid to shrewd like someone’s shaken an Etch A Sketch.

‘Look, we’ve got a contract with our sponsors,’ she says briskly. ‘This move has got to happen ASAP or we’re going to go broke, and I know you’re not going to sell to us unless you get the Glass House.’

‘And you’ve figured out a way to make that happen.’

‘Yes,’ she says. ‘I have.’

SETtalks | psychologies series

Science ♦ Entertainment ♦ Technology

Inside the mind of a psychopath | Original Air Date 9 July

The transcript below has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

Let’s get back to the Glass House Murders, because I know that’s why you’re really here.

Well, I take issue with whether any of them were actually murders, but we’ll come back to that.

You want the gory details, don’t you? You want to climb inside my mind and know what it’s like to break the ultimate taboo: to kill another human being.

I’m not going to judge you for that.

It’s fascinating to engage with our deviant capabilities and watch what human beings are willing to do when morality’s taken out of the equation, isn’t it?

And trust me, we’re all capable of killing someone.

You know that as well as I do. It’s why you’re addicted to true crime television and murder mysteries: you’re fascinated by your own dark side. Watching The Ted Bundy Tapes is like driving past a car crash: hard to look at, but even harder to look away.

Come on, admit it. You get a secret thrill when you’re driving down the motorway and you see flashing lights and ambulances on the other side of the crash barrier. You hate yourself for it, but it doesn’t stop you slowing to a crawl so you can get a good look, just in case there’s a bloody corpse sprawled across all that twisted metal.

Bizarre, isn’t it? I don’t suppose many of you actually get off on crime scene photos, but you still crane your neck looking for gore. Because it’s cathartic.

There but for the grace of God.

And you’re here for the same reason.

I look like one of you, don’t I? Even now you’re asking yourselves how someone like me could have done something like that.

Being here, listening to me, is like interacting with your darkest thoughts, the ones you usually do your best to ignore. Because society tells you they’re taboo, which only makes them more exciting.

You know the ones I’m talking about.