Interview with Serial Killer Arthur Shawcross

Do you see yourself as something of a celebrity here? Of course. In what way? Well, everybody knows what I'm here for. Do you enjoy the attention?

Sometimes. Sometimes it gets to be a hassle. And from his prison cell, Shawcross continues to invent ever more imaginative justifications for his killing of the women in Rochester. When I picked those women up, I thought I had AIDS,

because one of the women who stopped in the car told me one of the women I took out is HIV positive. I didn't know which one of them were, so I went back and picked up all the ones I dated in two streets in Rochester, and I started killing them. And while I was doing it, I took the vagina of

three and ate it. Why? I don't know. Probably to speed up the, the idea of, uh, the AIDS disease.

So you thought it might kill you quicker? Probably. It's just not a lot of people that I've ever spoken to have eaten human flesh.

Ever eat a raw steak? Ever eat a steak that's got the fat on the end of it? Yeah. Similar. I mean, when you were hauled in by the police,

did you make any mention of the HIV? No, sir, I did not. Suppose it's because some people might say, "Well, isn't that just an excuse to justify killing?"

You believe what you wanna believe. I told you how I killed, why I killed. You don't wanna believe it, that's up to you. One thing, however, remains a taboo subject, the killing of the two

children in Watertown. You're prepared to talk about what happened in Vietnam and killing all these prostitutes. But j- I'm just wondering why you're prepared to talk about it and not Watertown.

I don't wanna talk about it. You say one more question, I leave. Certainly he knows how we all feel about murdering children. Uh, it's just obviously, you know, probably the most reprehensible thing anyone,

anyone can do. And he, uh, he understands that, but the problem is he can't justify it. He can't come up with a selling point or a way to mitigate that. So he's just, just not gonna talk about it.

But in 2001, someone was to enter Shawcross's life who would force him to confront his darkest demons, the daughter he never knew he had. In 2001, Arthur Shawcross received dramatic news. Whilst on leave from the Army in the early 1960s, he had a brief romance

with a woman in Hawaii. 40 years later, the child from that relationship, Maggie Deming, discovered who her father was and decided to make contact. My husband at first was like, "You know, don't go there." You know, "Do you realize that he killed children?"

And I said, "Well, I can't just shut the door on this," you know. You know, this is a part of my life that I just can't close the door. What did you feel when you met him for the first time when you went to prison?

Um, apprehensive, uh, nervous. I didn't, didn't know what to think, you know, what to say. Um, "Hi, Dad," you know? Um, he was very

genteel. He was, um, very soft-spoken. Um, very grandfatherly to my daughter. Uh, he, he joked around a lot. What about, uh, your daughter, Maggie?

She's cool. I seen her just before you showed up. Does, does your daughter Maggie know what you did?

Does she know the details of what you did? She has the information of everything. I told her things that you wanna know, but you're not gonna get. Like what? Uh, you know what you're talking about.

Things that happened in that other place. Watertown. Right. The children that he had killed are, the chil- the, the ages are about the same age as my children are now.

Uh, what he did to them, like I said, was a pretty graphic thing. And that's gonna be between him and his maker. That's gonna be between him and his maker.

Maggie has seven children of her own, and she's been keen to make sure that they, too, have a relationship with their imprisoned grandfather. My older children know

what he'd done. My younger children don't. And my father kinda like said to me, you know, "It's best that the younger ones don't know, but sooner or later they're

gonna find out." Um, they don't really advertise the fact that their, their grandfather was a serial killer. Both Maggie and the grandchildren have become regular visitors to Shawcross in prison. Do, do you love Maggie?

Very much. And do you love your grandchildren? Right. I write to them all the time. They send, the, the grandchildren, the kids in the, in school, they send me their, uh,

school tests and different things. What they're doing in school. Send me pictures. And I draw their picture. I do portraits. Th- th- this is a horrible thought, but I mean, if someone were to,

you know, rape and kill your grandchildren, what should happen to them? That's up to the law. But what do you think should happen to them? That's up to the law.

But what would you think of them as a father, as a grandfather? I would be devastated. Right. Do you have any comprehension of the suffering that you've brought the families of the people that you've killed?

I don't have any remorse, for some reason. But I find it strange that you can have... You clearly feel affection for your, your daughter and your- I know

... grandchildren. That's strange. But you can't feel any empathy for all those people that the families of all the people that you killed.

Yeah. It's not there. Like I said, I'm one side and the other side. I know something inside me is weird.

These events happened so far back in time. Um, these, these things you really can't forget. These sort of things you can't really forgive

on the part of those parents, you know, having to live through that. Um, I don't regret the fact that he's my father. I can't change it. And I don't see

Arthur Shawcross from Watertown with my children in 2008 in Sullivan Correctional. Totally different people. Totally different. There's always a bad man in me. You never can get rid of it. He's behind a door somewhere.

I'm trying to keep him there. I don't want to hurt nobody else. Really? Really. Yeah. Uh, just a final question, Arthur.

I mean, why, what, why won't you talk about the, the two young children? Stop. It's over. Disconnect.

Is it not because... Is it because you're ashamed of it? It's disconnect. It's, this is over. Okay. Arthur, thank you very much for your time