David Scott Talks Putting Murderers in Hot Seat

David Scott is putting murderers behind some of the country’s most shocking crimes in the hot seat on Interview With a Killer. Court TV provided details (including a first-look teaser below) of the new limited true-crime series exclusively to TV Insider. Each episode sees Scott, former ABC News investigative reporter and Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel, host these jailhouse interviews to find out what went through their mind to commit the unthinkable. 

“We have murders for hire, crimes of passion, serial killers, and crimes of opportunity,” Scott said. “We are opening a window of this ultimate betrayal of humanity in murder from a number of different perspectives…I believe viewers will find this fascinating as we face homicide in contemporary America.”  Among those interviewed include Denali Brehmer, Yaser Said, Brian Steven Smith, Tyler Hadley, and Bo Pete Jeffrey. 

Brehmer was sentenced to 99 years in prison in February for her role in the killing of an Alaska teen after a man catfished her by offering $9 million for footage of the murder. Said is serving a life sentence without any possibility of parole after fatally shooting his daughters and putting their bodies in an abandoned taxi cab. Smith was sentenced to 226 years for slaying two Indigenous women over the summer. Hadley is serving a life sentence after being convicted of bludgeoning his parents to death before throwing a house party. Jeffrey was sentenced to life for killing his wife and hiding her remains in their camper. 

Here Scott gives us an idea of what to expect from the show. 

David Scott/Court TV

Before we get into the new project, how do you look back on your time with Bryant Gumble? You did some incredible work. 

David Scott: It’s hard not to describe it as the dream job. We were a small staff, but we all made a living as merchants of light in an industry that doesn’t always appreciate being held accountable. Immediately. It feels like the landscape is poorer without us. There is nobody doing the IOC stories, or FIFA stories on TV. Everything else seems to be controlled or owned by the league. It’s a sore subject for me, but I had 10 good years as a correspondent on the show. I worked before as a producer. What a wonderful way to see the world and understand life through the lens of sports…It was like this summer of the Olympics. 

Your past experience certainly fits nicely into this current project. 

It does tap into the essential DNA of my career at Real Sports and ABC. The value of investigative reporting. The value of a one-on-one interview, which is the central feature of Interview with a Killer. The thing I think differentiates it from virtually everything else in the true crime space, we’re using the tried and true device of the sit-down interview to probe the mindset and motivation of a variety of convicted murderers. 

In the process, I think we shine new light on some of these cases and how they happened. As different as the project is in subject matter and genre, it really does tap into the same principles of reporting. Even today in a time when the traditional interview has become almost a lost art. Here we are rejuvenating and necessitating it, and I think the audience will see just how valuable it is in terms of these confrontations with murderers. 

Yaser Said/Court TV

How was it getting them to agree to talk to you? 

It’s interesting. The first group of convicted murderers who accepted our interview requests were appellate types. They probably saw in it an opportunity to bid for leniency. Petition their appeals. Perhaps, tee off on their faults of the criminal justice system. We did do interviews with killers who did deny their crimes including the serial killer Brian Steven Smith, who is the subject of the debut on October 20. When we’re talking to people who still deny their crime, our gambit is to find a way to get inside their heads. Sometimes it means getting out of their skin. For that episode and some of the others, the conversation becomes very confrontational. In the process, I think we expose them. 

In other cases, the killer admits to the crime and shows various levels of remorse for the crime. There are different kinds of conversations that unfold. One that is more volitional on their part and where they reveal themselves because they don’t have to feel exposed. They are all uncomfortable conversations, but just in exactly in the way you’d want as a viewer. We’re pushing them all out of their comfort zones, beyond their talking points, beyond their legal defenses. I think what results is both surprising, full of irony, and full of insight into the minds of these murderers. 

A lot of these cases are pretty recent. Among them is  Denali Brehmer, a young person who was catfished. What stood out about your time with Denali? 

It’s fascinating because it is one of the most modern crimes. It was dubbed in the media as the catfish murder. When you scratch the surface, you find it’s actually full of nuance. For example, it’s not clear to me still who was the predator and who is the prey in the catfishing relationship she reportedly had with this shadowy figure who offered her $9 million to kill her best friend. Denali Brehmer she reveals was already a predator. She was already selling drugs and carrying guns on a daily basis. She was already involved with the online sex trade. Not just with her own body, but with others including children. She got a lot of consideration in the adjudication process as this young woman who had a terrible upbringing. No doubt that was true, but she was also someone when you bring her into sharp focus who was criminally minded, and criminally involved, and it was not even clear who first brought up the subject of murder for money. 

She told the police it was Darin Schilmiller, but the police recorded her on the phone with her mother taking credit for the idea. This is a good example of how we are really probing the murderer herself in this case. She is the only woman murderer in this limited series of five, but it’s a good example of how we probe them and the surprising results that come out. Ones that even contradict the record as it stood prior to our interview. That’s a super interesting one. She takes responsibility for the crime, but she spends a lot of our interview pointing the finger at her codefendents. Is she petitioning herself for some bid for leniency? Entirely possible.

Brian Steven Smith/Court TV

How does Tyler come to terms that he murdered his parents?

The Tyler Hadley case is in some ways one of the purest examples of what we set out to do with this series. He is somebody who admits his crime and who get the sense needs to talk about it now that he is 30 looking back at who Tyler Hadley was at 17. He is projecting himself onto his teenage self. In gripping detail, he not only recounted the mechanics of the crime but what was going on in his head. Getting into the mind of Tyler Hadley as he reveals himself is chilling and fascinating. In that hour, we’re focusing on the questioning of the teenage mind and teenage brain and the unusual and dangerous things it’s capable of. As a parent, I think every parent in America will be able to take something from this extreme example of what could go wrong in the teenage brain. 

It just hit you in the heart when you hear him talk about what he did, how the idea got trapped in his mind, and how he couldn’t get out of his head until he acted on it. There is actually a mental illness condition that one of the battery of forensics psychiatrists is identified with this crime. When I read the definition of this condition to Tyler, it’s almost like a lightbulb goes on. It resonates within. Even after all these years later, he tries to understand what could have driven him to such extremes and cruelty. Each of these stories has a different focus. 

How would you compare his reaction to what you receive from Yaser for example? 

Said, it’s this idea of an honor killing. Scratch the surface and he has other motives including his own sexual assaults against his daughters which they were talking about again. Did he kill them because of what he perceived as their disgraceful behavior? Or was it his own way he was covering up? Did he kill them to shut them up? We have this conversation in the prison where he will hopefully spend the rest of his life. That’s a case where I work to expose him, but it is equally illuminating for the viewer to watch and get a glimpse into his twisted mind. We talk over an hour and doesn’t shed a single tear for those girls. Nor for the family members, he made accomplices including his own son. He is now serving long prison sentences in federal prison for aiding and abetting him for his 12 years as a fugitive. This is all brand new material nobody in the world has heard these stories in this detail from this perspective. He is the only one of the five who even took the stand for his own defense. Most of them haven’t talked publicly at all. In his case, we shine a whole new light on who he is and what happened in that case. 

What was your takeaway from meeting with these individuals? 

I’ve interviewed the head of the Chechen Republic, who a mass murderer of sorts. Clearly, a ruthless dictator. We were embedded with a hundred park rangers trying to save the last thousand elephants from the ivory war in central Africa. We’ve been in the political underground in China. I’ve been blessed with a rich career in international journalism where I have seen a lot, but this is different. This kind of intimate encounter with what some people may call evil. Ones who may have acted out of their own kind of desperation. This is new for me. Yet my technique as an interviewee applies in all cases. My takeaway is we are all permanently scarred by homicide. 

It’s a uniquely permanent crime and form of violence. Whether it’s in your family or community, the damage is permanent…We have a need to understand how these crimes can happen and are part of the human condition. These cases are complex and the killers are complicated. What drove them to such extremes may vary, but the lasting impact and permanent damage they’ve done in a way to all of it warrants this kind of exploration and examination. I’m so pleased to be a part of it because I believe we are breaking new ground in the genre. 

Interview With a Killer premiere, October 20, 8/7c, Court TV