A US serial killer opens up to Piers Morgan about how slaughtering innocent women was his "life's passion" in a new Confession of a Serial Killer with Piers Morgan documentary this Thursday. Get ready to buckle up - because this is going to be a rough and emotional ride.
Killer Bernard Giles murdered five women and girls during a three-month spree during the 1970s at the age of just 20. Bernard picked up unsuspecting hitchhikers (a practice which was much more common at the time) before driving them at gunpoint to a remote spot, sexual assaulting and killing them.
The killer previously admitted that he spent most of his life knowing that he had an evil desire to cause sexual violence against women.
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Setting out to discover what drives the atrocities of a serial killer the Good Morning Britain host chats face-to-face to the murderer about his life and crimes.
"It was my life's passion. To murder... to murder women," he tells Piers. "For me, this was my life's passion up to that point."
Piers draws fascinating psychological revelations from Bernard Giles. The murderer acknowledges that even as a teenager, he knew he was destined to kill. He admits that he first experienced the nascent thrill of sexual violence as a six year old boy, when playing a game with his female next door neighbour.
When he was just a child, Bernard says he was playing a game with a young female pal when he pinned her down.
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"I remember straddling her and strangling her," he explains. "Playing... but that was my initial sexual imprint.
"From that point on, anything that I saw or read that had anything to do with sexual violence against a woman was a sexual impulse.
"As a child growing up, I became obsessed with this."
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Bernard tells Piers that by the time he was a young man, he could no longer control this violent impulse. And although he struggles to remember the names of the women he killed, he can still recall the sensations he felt in his victims' last moments.
Talking about the first of his first cold-blooded murders, he admits he felt: "Very stimulated, very provoked. I mean, what is your passion in life? "What is the thing you like to do more than anything else? You're doing it and you are so there you can almost see the atoms vibrating... it's hard to describe."
He also says he felt "extraordinarily hyped" about the thought of killing women.
Bernard Giles' chose victims were young females he picked up hitchhiking on the highway near his home. Over a three month period he murdered five who all were local to the small Florida town of Titusville.
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All five women and girls were taken to remote spots where he killed them either by strangulation or gunshot.
Writing about his experience in his column for the Daily Mail, Piers said Bernard's killing were all the more remarkable as he had a perfectly "ordinary" upbringing. He was one of four kids from a "stable family", Piers writes, who had a "happy, loving childhood".
At the time of the killings the 20-year-old killer had an 18-year-old wife, Leslie, and five-month old daughter called Heather. He had no prior convictions.
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He admits to killing 22-year-old Paula Hamric, 18-year-old Nancy Gerry, Carolyn Bennett, 17, and 14-year-olds Krista Melton and Sharon Wimer during the interview.
Chillingly, Bernard also reveals that one unsuspecting woman narrowly escaped becoming a victim.
When Piers questions the criteria for his victims, Giles replies simply: "Access."
Piers then points out: "That made you an unbelievably dangerous man for any young woman."
To which Bernard responds: "Yes, sir. I'm not defending my position - I'm describing the position. It was what it was and where I was at."
As Piers explores the effect these murders had on this tiny community in Florida, the police admit they had no idea they had a serial killer in their midst.
Over the course of the interview, Piers strives to discover how a seemingly ordinary family man such as Bernard could commit these monstrous crimes.
He tries to understand what it means to be driven by the impulse to kill and gains a powerful and vivid insight into the mind of a murderer as Giles describes the very act of killing itself.
Confession of a Serial Killer with Piers Morgan airs on ITV on Thursday at 9pm.
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