 The facility, just outside Fallsburg, New York State, it's a maximum security prison, home to some of America's most violent criminals. One of them is Arthur J. Schurcross. His case has raised serious questions about what causes extreme violence and what we understand about the nature of evil itself. We've come to meet him face to face to see if he would tell us what made him such a violent killer. Are you all very connected to these animals before you killed them and ate them? I was just watching him this morning, a Arthur Schurcross and he was like, he got in trouble for murder and he ended up that he was eating his victims. Got in trouble for killing people, obviously. Went to jail for murder and he was eating his victims. What do you think about that? Wow, that's weird. Okay, he was a serial killer. He killed people and it turned out he was eating them as well. All right, kind of good. There's this guy called Arthur Schur, right? And he went to prison for murder and ended up that he was eating some of his victims. Do you think for someone to be capable of killing someone and eating them they'd have to have like a disconnect? Would you agree? Yeah, completely agree. Disconnected from empathy and... Yeah, I don't think you can do it otherwise. Do you think someone to do that, they'd have to have a serious level of disconnect from empathy? Oh, you'd have to be really fucking angry. Do you think you'd have to have a level of disconnect? Absolutely. There's no way that you can stray so far from cultural and societal rules and values to go as far as eating someone to not be disconnected. I think it's impossible. Have you seen the slaughter of an animal? Nah. You haven't? Have you seen animals be slaughtered before? Yes. You have? Well, on TV. On TV? Have you seen animals be slaughtered before? Yes, I have also slaughtered animals myself. Wow, what type of animals? Well, the first thing I ever slaughtered was a chicken. A snapper, a snapper neck. Pulled its head off. And, uh, split it open. And then from there, you know, pigs, pretty common. So, in order for this to take place, there has to be a serious level of disconnect, yeah? Yeah. Like, even from the process. Yeah. So, I like where you're going with this. Do you think that we as a society have a level of disconnect? Totally. Yeah. And if we had that connection to the slaughterhouse from the dairy, we would be less likely to choose dairy in the supermarket, yeah? Yeah, exactly. So, do you think, um, as a society, we've become disconnected as well? Absolutely. 100% we have. We're just living in a conditioned world, where we're just doing what we've been, you know, robotically produced to do, and we just do it without any thought. Is it because you're ashamed of it? It's disconnect. Do you think Arthur was evil for killing, like, directly in front of him, killing someone and slashing? Was there no other food for him? Was that the only thing for him to eat? He had a vegan alternative at the supermarket. Do you think he's evil? Yeah. If you eat human flesh, you're evil. Do you think that he's an evil person? Oh, yeah, absolutely. Like, really, like, actually seriously thinking. Seriously? Yeah, yeah. So if you had a choice and you still choose to kill and eat someone, that would make it wrong, or evil. I suppose so, in a way, yeah. Yeah, I get what you're saying. Or super, or in a survival situation. Yeah, you'd have to be really hungry, otherwise, you know, like, you'd have to get to a certain point before that empathy, like, do you know what I mean? He had alternatives, though. He had, like, he could have gone out and got something else. He could have got the Sainsbury's and got, like, a f***ing ready meal or something. He got some potatoes and beans or something, maybe. Do you eat flesh? We do, yeah. You do? Yeah. Yeah, of course. We really liked it. You eat flesh? Yeah. Do you eat flesh? Yes. You do? Yes. Non-human flesh. Have you, do you eat flesh yourself? I eat meat, yeah. I don't eat, like, human flesh. Do you eat flesh? No. You don't eat flesh? No. No. Okay. Why do you? No, not for five years. But I used to. Yeah. So, like, animals. Animals, yeah. Yeah, so you don't eat animals? No. Are you a vegan? Yeah. I'm like, I'm not a vegan. I'm a vegetarian. You're a vegetarian. You eat flesh. That's right, so, yeah. No, raw flesh. No, raw flesh. Only cooked. But it's cooked flesh, yeah. That's interesting, eh? But then I suppose if you eat fish, that's flesh. Yeah. Because they're animals and we will have muscles. That's flesh and I eat the skin off of fish. That's weird. Did you make a connection there between flesh and meat? Yeah. You wouldn't consider meat flesh? Oh, like actual animal meat. Yeah. Oh, yeah, probably it is. Yeah. Oh, I like the point you're making, yeah. Okay. Connection's being made here, isn't it? Yeah. It's just not a lot of people that I've ever spoken to have eaten human flesh. They're really raw steak. They're really steaks. They've got the fat on the end of it. They're similar. You said it tastes like steak. Well, I wouldn't know. I've never had a human. Have you eaten an animal? Yes. How I said flesh. Yeah. Did that help you make a connection to flesh instead of when you say steak and meat? These are like different words to describe dead animal flesh. Well, the flesh immediately gave me the connotation of human flesh, right? Because otherwise I guess I would have just called it meat, whether it's lamb meat or pork meat. What if Arthur called his victim's leg meat? I can see that as a way to justify it to yourself and to disconnect as well. I mean, it can also be like a protection method. You know that program kill it? You know that program kill it, cook it, eat it? Yeah. If I was such a person that was to do kill it, I wouldn't be able to eat it. So you've got empathy. You're connected to your empathy. I've definitely been nurtured into, you know, don't kill people and definitely don't eat them. This is what you've been taught, it's a conditioning sort of thing. So when it comes to animals, that's why I don't have a moral standing on it. I enjoy it, it's normal for me. And in my opinion, I'm closely connected to it. So I feel the way that I do it is all right for me. And they just laid the flesh up on top of that stick, right? And they bit into the flesh itself. For example, I'm a huge fan of awful at the moment. What's awful? So awful are, it sounds awful, but awful is organs. Organs. Yes, animal organs, for example. While I was doing it, I took the vagina with three and ate it. Why? I don't know. Haggis? Haggis, exactly. That's the type of awful. And they stuff it with other organs as well, like kidney and so on. I'm a huge fan of kidney and liver. 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. Would you feel any guilt if you had to watch an animal be butchered every time we ate them? Yes. Do you feel guilty? Yeah. Would you? Yeah. It would be more guilty, because it would be more visual, wouldn't it? This is a horrible thought, but if someone were to rape and kill your grandchildren, what should happen to them? I would be devastated. He said he had no remorse for his victims that he killed an ape, and they asked what if it was your grandchildren or your family, and then he said I'd be devastated. But I find it strange that you can have, you clearly feel affection for your, your daughter and your grandchildren. I know. 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. If you were friends with the animal, would it make it harder to see them be butchered and killed, and would you still want to eat them? I would imagine it would definitely make it harder. I used to have three dogs, so then if I imagine butchering my dog, yeah, that's pretty weird. However, it's also a house animal. I've never had a farm animal in a house setting. However, yeah, I can definitely imagine it would make it tougher, you know? Have you seen footage of animals be slaughtered? I took a couple of hits, but the head came off. She body dropped to the ground, you just bled out. If he conditioned himself to kill human beings, and you've been conditioned to kill animals, and others haven't, if they were to see animals being killed, they would react differently to someone who was sort of connected and conditioned to the slaughter process kind of thing. Is that, would you think they would change the way the society eats if they were faced with that? Yeah, so they bolt gun the animal in the head, slash their throat open, drain them of their blood, skin them, saw them in half and hang them up? I didn't see it. I'd split the body in half. I think absolutely. I mean, first of all, it's a pretty gruesome process, in all honesty. It's quite gross. I didn't go all the way deep into the stomach carrier. Just split it open. I don't know why. Does that make sense? We weren't told that was wrong? You weren't consciously killing someone like Arthur was. But when we pay for animal products, we're paying someone else to kill animals for us. So it's like a supply and demand thing. Very, very interesting. When you pay for the flesh of an animal, you're paying someone to kill the animal for you. So it's kind of like a supply and demand. You demand the killing and we eat the flesh, yeah? So similar, like, do you agree? Yeah, that's true, yeah. So you're actually a vegan in your heart? I've just had a burger. You've had a burger just now? Yeah, I've just had a burger. Oh my God. You ate someone? I ate a cow. You paid someone to kill someone and you ate them? I ate a cow today. Oh my God. This is making me feel bad. I've got to get a train now. I've always been very connected to what it is to eat and how to feed yourself. You were very connected to these animals before you killed them and ate them? Shaw Cross knew what he was doing. And if you know it's wrong, then you're responsible for your acts. That's the way it works. To some extent, he very well may have known what he was doing or been somewhat aware, but then, you know, you lie to yourself, you convince yourself as well. Everybody reads what they want, believes what they want, you know, and hears what they want. Do you believe animals are humanely treated? Absolutely not. But I don't think we're humanely treated either. On the same level as animals being slaughtered for food? Oh yeah, that's like next level though, isn't it? Do you believe that it's morally justified to kill animals and eat their flesh? It's a bit of a loaded question, I know. It's a bit loaded, yeah. I wouldn't necessarily say... I don't have a formed opinion on the moral sense. I don't have any remorse... for some reason. So I think there's a distinction between people who are just uneducated and those who are like literally connected to the killing process and still don't care. And sometimes it can be upbringing, I reckon. Upbringing, yeah. Conditioning, you know. First time I went hunting I was about 12 years old and I went pigeon hunting and afterwards we made pigeon tacos. Because we're growing up if it's something that's put in front of you, you don't know You're actually not as disconnected as I might have thought. No, absolutely not. And also as a chef I have butchering experience not so much slaughtering in a professional sense but I have butchering experience as well. I'm definitely very connected to the whole process. I know something inside me is... weird. You don't think that people who eat me are just inherently evil? No, I don't know. I don't think... No, it's just not seen. You wouldn't consider like yourselves evil people at all, would you? No. So you don't think that flesh-eaters, meat-eating public are inherently evil like a serial killer is, of course. Well, they are in some like, you know, aspect but I feel like they don't know that. You've opened my mind today. Wow. Sure. Are you evil? Yeah, the closer you are to an animal, the closer their diseases reflect our diseases and then upon eating an infected animal you are much more likely to accept those diseases. It's like when they use a pig for heart transplant surgery. Yeah. They're very close to us because they're mammals. Yeah, and they have a very similar organ structure. I thought that he was eating his victims. Yeah. It could be the new alternative now that we can't eat cows anymore. So we could just move on to human flesh and we could solve the entire population problem at the same time. It could be on the summit. It could be good for the environment. It actually could be. Could we give the planet a good clean out and get all the serial killers and just like put them in the designated areas and just get fucking just eat people up.