- 3 months ago
The most chilling performances ever caught on camera... Join us as we examine killers who looked directly into news cameras and lied about their crimes. These murderers gave television interviews, held press conferences, and shed crocodile tears while hiding their horrific deeds. From Scott Peterson's calculated denials to Chris Watts' disturbing pleas, these cases will make your skin crawl.
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00:00I'm all they have. Right now, they have not been able to rule anyone out. I don't think I'm any
00:05more of a suspect than anyone in this case right now. Welcome to WatchMojo. And today,
00:11we're looking at some of the most chilling interviews given by killers before being found
00:15out. Do you have any thoughts about that, about her disappearance or what's happened?
00:21I do, but I'd rather not speak about that. Mitchell Kwai.
00:24When Lindsay Kwai went missing in 1998, the town of Southport was rocked. For the first year and a
00:31half following her disappearance, her husband Mitchell perfectly played the role of a dismayed
00:36partner. He gave multiple interviews, where he would oftentimes insist upon his innocence.
00:41Yeah, it gives me motive, and I can understand being a suspect, but I'm not going to stand here
00:46and protest my innocence with anyone because I don't need to.
00:49Over time, his demeanor warped from concerned to smug. In one sit-down conversation with the
00:55camera crew, he not only remarked that those who suspected him would apologize to him one day,
01:01he also told them that they would have to just wait and see if he was guilty.
01:05If he thinks that I've killed his daughter, I wouldn't sit in the same room as the guy,
01:10but one day he'll be on my doorstep apologizing.
01:13It wasn't until her body was found in 2000 that the ruse came crashing down, and he confessed.
01:19He was sentenced to life behind bars, where he still remains today.
01:23Did you kill Lindsay?
01:25Wait and find out.
01:28Just wait and find out.
01:29Diane Downs
01:30When she first arrived at McKenzie Willamette Hospital in 1983 with her children,
01:36she was seen as one of the victims of a horrific crime. Diane Downs claimed that she and her
01:41children had been shot by a carjacker, leading to the death of her daughter, Cheryl, and the other
01:46two being critically injured. The police didn't fully buy her story, but that didn't stop her
01:52from doubling down on it. When this man shot my daughter, my first reaction was to snap back
01:56to my childhood, to the pain that had happened to me. She gave a series of interviews, where she
02:02playfully reenacted that fateful night, described the crime in cold detail, and even added new claims.
02:09Detectives couldn't help but notice Diane's seemingly carefree attitude.
02:15I just hit my cat!
02:16Her repeated insistence upon her innocence reeked of overcompensation. She was arrested
02:22in early 1984, and her fate was sealed when her surviving daughter confirmed her mother
02:27had shot them.
02:28She doesn't remember anything. There are many times she said,
02:31Mommy, what happened to your arm? What happened to me? What happened?
02:34Chase Merritt
02:35After a murder, everyone is a suspect, even those closest to the victim.
02:40For three years, their fate baffled investigators.
02:44That's how Chase Merritt, close friend and business partner to Joseph McStay,
02:48found himself being accused of slaying the family in 2013. He gave interviews where he claimed to be
02:54the only one that fully complied with the investigation. He revealed that he was the
02:59last person to see McStay, and how he regretted not picking up his friend's final phone call.
03:04You were the last person he saw.
03:05I'm definitely the last person he saw.
03:07He even mentioned that the killings had to be random, and that no one who knew the family
03:12would want to hurt them. In November of 2014, his veneer of innocence was destroyed when his
03:18DNA was found in McStay's car. He was arrested and was convicted in 2019.
03:24We the jury find the defendant guilty of the offensive murder in the first degree.
03:29Tyler Tessier
03:30When beloved teacher Laura Wallen suddenly went missing in 2017, no one seemed more
03:36devastated than her boyfriend. During a filmed press conference, Tyler Tessier tearfully begged
03:42for her to come home, and for anyone who might have her, to release her.
03:46If somebody has her, please understand that you've taken away a huge, huge person in so
03:56many people's lives.
03:57His emotions seemed so real that to the untrained eye, one would have no idea of his potential
04:02involvement. Little did he know that he was a suspect, and that the appearance had been
04:07planned to confirm that.
04:19Police later used Tessier's frequent trips to Damascus, Maryland, as grounds to get a
04:23search warrant. They found Wallen's body shortly afterward. Tessier was arrested, and while
04:29a motive wasn't determined, it was revealed that her disappearance had occurred shortly
04:34after learning about his infidelity.
04:37Richard Satchwell
04:38A foundation made of lies is always bound to crumble eventually. From the moment Tina
04:43Satchwell went missing in 2017, her husband Richard insisted upon his own innocence, and
04:49that she was actually still alive. As the investigation continued, Satchwell moved from print interviews
04:55to on-screen ones, where he wept and begged her to return.
04:59Tina, come home. There's nobody mad at you. My arms are open.
05:04He also insisted that she'd been seen and talked to by a witness, making it appear that
05:09she'd simply left.
05:10Why do you think, Richard, that people think that you might be involved?
05:14Well, I suppose it's the first thing that comes into people's minds. Oh, it has to be the
05:19husband.
05:20Little did interviewers know that when they had questioned him in his home, they had been
05:24standing near her the entire time. After his brief arrest in 2023, the residence had been
05:31searched, and her body was found encased in concrete. He was swiftly re-arrested and was
05:37convicted in 2025. We are thankful that this investigation has provided answers.
05:42Craig Pyre
05:44Days after Christmas in 1986, the body of Kara Knott was found in a ditch just off Interstate
05:5015 in California. A day later, police officer Craig Pyre gave an interview on a local news
05:56station to warn other motorists, women in particular. Anything could happen.
06:00He advised them to stay in their cars and not trust strangers offering to help. The camera
06:06picked up markings on his face, indicating he'd been scratched beforehand.
06:10Once you get in that other person's car, you're at their mercy.
06:13At the time, no one had any clue they'd been caused by Kara herself.
06:18After his appearance aired, other women in the area reported him unlawfully stopping and harassing
06:23them, which led to suspicions against him. Further investigation at the scene found physical
06:28evidence linking him to the college student's death.
06:31The reaction only flickered across Craig Pyre's face as he was convicted of first-degree murder.
06:36Fotis Doulos
06:38While some are able to conceal their involvement for years through interviews, others sound guilty
06:43the moment the cameras turn on.
06:45They're constantly on my mind in that I love them and I miss them very much.
06:49When Fotis Doulos took to the news following the death of his estranged wife Jennifer, he fell
06:54solidly into the latter camp. He and his girlfriend Michelle Traconis had been charged with evidence
07:00tampering, but there wasn't enough evidence to push for harsher charges. Doulos used the TV spot to
07:06proclaim his innocence and chide those who'd already assumed his guilt, urging them to wait for details
07:12and for the truth to be revealed.
07:26Well, the truth did come out, but those calling Doulos a killer had seemingly been right the whole time.
07:32In early 2020, he was arrested and charged with murder.
07:36But it's my understanding that Mr. Doulos was just arrested and charged with the crime of murder as to his wife.
07:42Letitia Stouck
07:44In January of 2020, members of the Colorado Springs community were shocked to learn about Gannon Stouck's disappearance.
07:51Various members of his family came forward to plead for his safe return, including his stepmother Letitia,
07:57who had been the last one to see him. She granted KKTV News an interview, where she faced away from the camera the entire time.
08:05I can't wait until you can come home and let everyone know that you're okay.
08:09As if that wasn't odd enough. She also victimized herself and referred to Gannon in the past tense,
08:15despite the fact that his death hadn't been confirmed at that point.
08:19And then I really hope I get a sincere apology from everyone who has made all those things, especially from my husband.
08:27In the background, a rental van could be seen. The same one believed to have transported his body.
08:32Two months later, Stouck was charged with his murder and later sentenced to life in prison.
08:39And now the woman who reported him missing is charged with his murder.
08:43Scott Peterson Lacey Peterson and her husband Scott made national headlines when the latter reported the former's disappearance in 2002.
08:52The following year, her remains were discovered and he was arrested.
08:56Before then, he'd taken to the airwaves to plead his innocence on national television.
09:01Did you murder your wife? No, no, I just thought, and I had absolutely nothing to do with her disappearance.
09:09He made two appearances on Good Morning America, where he not only revealed his affair, but denounced every claim made about him thus far.
09:16Did your wife find out about it?
09:18I told my wife.
09:20When?
09:21Early December.
09:23Everything from the life insurance policy he'd taken out on her to the blood in his vehicle had a convenient explanation, seemingly proving his innocence.
09:32Any excuse he made evaporated upon the uncovering of her body.
09:36He was later tried and convicted, resulting in a death sentence that was commuted to a lifetime one in 2021.
09:43She would have been the best mom.
09:45Scott Peterson did not speak.
09:47He wore a red jail jumpsuit and a mask and did not show any visible emotion.
09:51Susan Smith
09:52For just over a week, she created a media storm that nearly fooled the country.
09:57In October of 1994, Susan Smith took to the police following a tragedy, a man having kidnapped her sons while stealing her car.
10:05That they please, I mean, please bring them home to us where they belong.
10:13She weaponized the perpetrator's race as well, adding an extra layer of racism to her misdeeds.
10:19She gave several news interviews where she doubled down on her lies by begging for both of her sons' safe return and insisting she had nothing to do with it.
10:28They were screaming, hollering, crying.
10:30And I'm just scared that he just lost his patience or something.
10:34In early November, however, her innocent ruse came crashing down.
10:38She admitted to not only fabricating the story, but to letting her children drown.
10:43After less than three hours on the stand, she was found guilty and given two life sentences.
10:49Susan Smith has been arrested and will be charged with two counts of murder.
10:55Chris Watts
10:56This harrowing case is reminiscent of the 2014 film Gone Girl, except this time, the husband actually did it.
11:04The last time I talked to her was this morning, she said she was going to take the kids to a friend's house and that's where she was going to be.
11:11On August 13th, 2018, a pregnant woman named Shannon Watts and her two daughters, Bella and Celeste, were reported missing from their Frederick, Colorado home.
11:20By the next day, while an extensive investigation into their disappearance was ongoing, Shannon's husband, Chris Watts, granted an interview to a local news station.
11:29If somebody has her and they're not safe, like, I want them back now. Like, that's what's in my head. Like, if they're safe right now, they're going to come back.
11:38Watts pleaded for the safe return of his wife and daughters, only to be arrested the very next day for their murders.
11:44The oil field worker eventually confessed to the crimes, apparently motivated by a desire to start a new life with his mistress.
11:51There's a reason you feel sick to your stomach. When people hold stuff inside, it makes you physically ill.
11:58And I can just tell on your face, I can tell you, tell from the second you walked in, that you were wanting to just come clean and just be done with this.
12:07He was handed five life sentences without parole. Darren Vickers.
12:13Every time you turned on the television, Vickers would be there.
12:19In May 1997, Jamie Lavis, a schoolboy from Openshaw Greater Manchester, vanished without a trace.
12:26Over the next few days, a man named Darren Vickers befriended Lavis' parents, Karen and John, claiming to be a bus driver who was the last to see the boy before he went missing.
12:36Vickers warmed his way into the Lavis' lives, appearing on TV as their unofficial spokesperson and participating in searches for the lost child.
12:44By saying he got the backing of the Lavis family, by telling the members of the public via the media, that why are the police picking on me?
12:53Because I am the man leading the searches. I am the pillar of strength behind this family.
12:59At some points, he even moved into their house and slept in their bed.
13:04It was soon revealed that it was Vickers who had kidnapped the boy and taken his life.
13:09Two years later, after Lavis' body was finally discovered, Vickers received a life sentence for the murderer.
13:16What he did to that family, the way that he destroyed that family from within, there's no other word I can find to describe him except evil.
13:25Ian Huntley.
13:27Best friends Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman left the family barbecue at Wells' house in Sawham, Cambershire in August 2002 and were never seen alive again.
13:37For two weeks, police and locals desperately scoured the area. It was every parent's worst nightmare.
13:45There was a sense of real fear and dread in the village. People were starting to get more and more desperate as to what might have happened to these two little girls.
13:56Both young girls lost their lives after being lured into the house of Ian Huntley, who lived in the local community.
14:02For about two weeks, Wells and Chapman were thought to be missing, with hundreds of police officers working full-time to find them.
14:08You may, as it turned out, have been the last person to actually chat to them before they vanished.
14:12Yeah, that's what it seems like.
14:14During this period, Huntley appeared on multiple TV networks, granting interviews in which he appeared to speak for the community.
14:21Huntley's strange behavior in some of these interviews soon raised suspicions that eventually led to his arrest.
14:27It's very frustrating knowing that we have people that way inclined amongst us and us not knowing who they are.
14:35People that way inclined among us.
14:39What we've just seen there is a flash of pleasure.
14:42He was found guilty of both murders and received two life sentences.
14:46Huntley is currently being held at Franklin High Security Prison.
14:50It can be no doubt in my mind that Huntley really enjoyed the notoriety.
14:57He liked being a focus of attention, and he loved being interviewed.
15:01Deborah Kinsey.
15:02I called him as soon as I found her in the kitchen, and I couldn't get any response out of her.
15:07In October 2015, Deborah Kinsey of Oakland Park, Florida, called 911 to report the discovery of her neighbor's dead body.
15:1564-year-old Charlotte Nicholas had died on her own kitchen floor, reportedly of multiple stab wounds.
15:22The following day, Kinsey appeared in a teary interview with a news reporter in which she described the tragic scene she had discovered and her supposedly close relationship with the victim.
15:32It turned out that that was far from the truth.
15:35Apparently, Kinsey and Nicholas had had a heated dispute over jewelry that drove Kinsey to murder the retired nurse.
15:41Surveillance footage from a local pawn shop showed Kinsey selling off Nicholas's jewelry while wearing a bloodstained shirt.
15:48She was swiftly arrested on murder charges.
15:51People in the neighborhood describe Kinsey as troubled but say they never imagined something like this.
15:57Gerard Badenclay.
15:59Gerard Badenclay had reported his wife Allison missing on the 20th of April 2012.
16:04The two had been married for roughly 15 years and had welcomed three daughters in that time.
16:09Just a few days later, while authorities searched for Allison in the area around their Queensland, Australia home.
16:15Badenclay stood before news reporters with tears in his eyes.
16:20Alas, they were nothing but crocodile tears.
16:23I'm trying to look after my children at the moment.
16:26They've got three young girls and we really trust that the police are doing everything they can to find my wife and we just hope that she'll come home soon.
16:36At the time, the real estate businessman was just a suspect in the case.
16:40But when Allison's body was discovered in a creek ten days after her disappearance, it quickly became clear that her husband was the culprit.
16:49After a two-month investigation on the 13th of June 2012, police arrested 41-year-old Gerard Robert Badenclay and charged him with the murder of his 43-year-old wife Allison.
17:02Apparently, Badenclay was having an affair and hoped to cash in on his wife's sizable life insurance policy.
17:08It's a supreme arrogance and feeling that he could just pull the wool over everybody's eyes and they'd buy it.
17:19Neil and Margaret Archer
17:21In 2015, 20-year-old mother of one Jodie Myers disappeared from her hometown of Munham, South Australia.
17:28Afterwards, her fiancé Neil Archer and his mother Margaret gave multiple TV interviews in which they appealed for Myers to return home.
17:36We miss her. We want her to come home.
17:39Margaret and Neil know the nation is watching, wiping away the tears, playing the part well.
17:46But these emotional performances were just that. Performances.
17:51This is getting really bad.
17:54In reality, Archer had already murdered Myers and buried her under a concrete slab in his parents' backyard.
18:00His mother had helped him cover it up. The two were caught after surveillance cameras showed that they'd used Myers' ATM card to withdraw money for the cement used to bury her.
18:11It's the lowest act. They couldn't even use their own money to go and do what they needed to do.
18:18Archer also confessed to his younger brother, who eventually turned him into the police.
18:23Stephen McDaniel
18:25Are you okay, sir?
18:27I think I need to sit down.
18:29Back in 2011, Lauren Giddings was a recent graduate of Mercer Law School who was preparing for the bar exam.
18:36Sadly, before she could achieve her dreams of becoming a lawyer, her neighbor and former classmate Stephen McDaniel broke into her apartment and murdered her.
18:45After Giddings was reported missing, McDaniel granted an interview to the local news station WGXA, putting on the act of a concerned neighbor and friend.
18:54No one has seen her since Saturday. I haven't seen anything. I mean, I've always seen noise outside, but it's just people walking by pretty much.
19:02Things took a bizarre turn halfway into the interview when McDaniel learned that some of Giddings' remains had been discovered.
19:10This strange interview, coupled with incriminating evidence found on his computer where all police needed to bring him in for questioning, McDaniel eventually pleaded guilty and was sentenced to life.
19:31Christy Abrahams
19:33It's an image that could bring almost anyone to tears.
19:37The mother of a missing child stands before a bevy of reporters but can't stop crying long enough to speak.
19:43In this case, that mother was Christy Abrahams, whose daughter Keisha had supposedly disappeared from the Sydney, Australia home they shared with Abrahams' partner, Robert Smith.
19:53Do you understand her? Can they please go to the police?
19:57But the case turned out to be far more deceptive than what was portrayed.
20:01Abrahams had repeatedly behaved violently towards her daughter, culminating in one incident that tragically took the girl's life.
20:09Together with Smith, she burnt and disposed of Keisha's remains, before falsely reporting her missing.
20:15Probably one of the saddest cases I've ever worked on. It was a very, very hard investigation.
20:19Abrahams and Smith were eventually convicted and handed varying prison sentences.
20:24Responsibilities of parents is to look after your kids and give them a chance.
20:30Matthew Haverly. When the body of a woman was found in a creek in Wea-Lusing Township, Pennsylvania, it didn't take long for reporters to turn up in the area, interviewing local residents.
20:41I'm like, what the hell is going on? And now I realize that's what they were actually doing. I had no clue.
20:49One such person was Matthew Haverly, who initially expressed shock at the strange occurrence.
20:55It's sad to say that that's someone's either daughter, mother, whatever, both, child.
21:01Then, Haverly began offering theories as to what could have happened to the woman, and even talked about how concerning the situation would be for his mother.
21:10I'm guessing my mother, she would be concerned, and probably a lot of the other neighbors would be concerned.
21:17Bizarrely, the body found was that of Haverly's mother Patricia, who had been murdered by Haverly himself just hours earlier.
21:24The same day the interview was given, Haverly was arrested by police.
21:29After claiming to have backed out during the incidents, Haverly pleaded no contest to involuntary manslaughter.
21:35Stuart Hazel
21:40In August of 2012, Tia Sharp was reported missing from her granddaughter's home in New Addington, South London.
22:00Stuart Hazel played the part of the loving grandfather, and he has just carried out the ultimate betrayal.
22:07At the time, Sharp's grandmother Christine Bicknell lived in the house with her then-boyfriend Stuart Hazel, who soon became a person of interest in her disappearance.
22:15Well, if they believe what they read in the papers, they can do whatever they like, because I know deep down in my heart that Tia walked out of my house.
22:23She walked out of there, and I know damn well because she was seen walking down the pathway.
22:27I know she made that track down to that way. What happened after that is I don't know.
22:32On August 9th, Hazel appeared in an interview that ITV News had conducted with Sharp's family and denied any involvement in her disappearance.
22:40The very next day, however, Sharp's body was discovered in her grandmother's house, and Hazel was eventually arrested for her murder.
22:47Incriminating pictures and videos of the girl were found in Hazel's possession.
23:01He pleaded guilty to the murder and received a life sentence.
23:05Which pre-arrest TV spot do you find the most unsettling? Let us know in the comments below.
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