Inside the Mind of a Serial Killer (2015–…): Season 1, Episode 3 - Anders Brevik - full transcript

Inside the Mind of a Serial Killer looks at Anders Breivik a far-right Norwegian spree killer and terrorist who was responsible for the 2011 Norway attacks where he killed 77 people at a ...

[narrator] Utøya Island, 500 meters
off the coast of mainland Norway.

It's our paradise. It's, like, the...

This island
is the most beautiful thing on Earth.

[children screaming]

[sobbing]

[narrator] On Utøya,
children, the youngest 14,

group leaders in their early 20s
and mentors.

A man called Anders Behring Breivik
wanted to kill them,

one at a time.

The paranoid schizophrenic
had 654 from whom to choose.

These children were like sitting ducks.



There was nothing they could do.

When he started to shoot,
everybody just ran everywhere in the cabin

screaming and shouting,

and it was chaos inside,
and I was just under the bed,

but I thought,
"Oh, my God, he is going to get in.

He can hear that so many
people are inside."

[Nora] The text messages were saying,
like, uh, "There's shooting out here,

I'm hiding, I'm underneath a table,"

"I see dead people around me,"
uh, "My friend has been shot,"

"I love you, I love you, I love you."

[narrator] In the water that day,
a group swimming for their lives.

[indistinct yelling]

When I saw that he was aiming for us,

I thought that
I am going to swim normally,



and I hope that if he hits me,
I hope that I die and I die quick.

I don't want to... To suffer.

[narrator] Anders Behring Breivik.

Blond, middle-class,
what he might call "Aryan."

Behind the appearance,

what was going on
inside the mind of a serial killer?

[theme music playing]

[camera shutters clicking]

Anders Behring Breivik had planned
his big entrance for a long time.

This was his stage,
his moment in the spotlight.

Why had he killed 77 people?

Because Norway was broken.

[Linda] He was the one
that had to fix this.

He was the one that had to give
everybody a wake-up call.

The whole world, all of Norway,
couldn't see what was going wrong.

It was up to him.

And once he started this,

then the whole world would get it
and he would be a hero.

[narrator] The Norway
of Anders Behring Breivik

was pure, uncontaminated,

clean.

A land of extremes, and of beauty,

with boundless drifts
of virgin snow in the north,

plentiful seas in the south

and sophisticated towns and cities.

Its capital, Oslo, the envy of Europe.

Rich, too.

Oil rich.

Breivik may not have approved,

but it is also the birthplace
of a global institution

whose very name resounds
with the country's values.

When you think of Norway,
you think of tolerance,

you think of the Nobel Prize,
you think of peace...

Certainly you don't think of murder,

or certainly you don't think of racism.

[narrator] For Breivik, Norway had gifts
that few other nations could dream of.

And God had made it that way.

Norway's Lutheran church
had always preached simple principles.

Austere, unfussy, imposing doctrines

of hard work and loyalty
to the king and country.

For Breivik,
a Norway pure in word, deed and race.

An Aryan Norway.

White.

But a Norway at risk.

To the paranoid Breivik,

it was under attack
from people of different color,

different faith.

Norway has an incredibly
vibrant immigrant community.

In 1980, there were about
1,000 people of Muslim extraction.

Thirty years later, there are 120,000.

This didn't really agree with everybody,

and we know that Breivik
didn't like it at all.

[narrator] There is not liking something,

and then there's detonating a bomb
in the heart of a city

before deciding 69 times later that day

to take aim and kill a person.

Anders Behring Breivik,
something of a loner,

needed followers to his anti-immigrant,
anti-Islam cause.

He needed it to become noticed,

and what better way than to murder
as many of his enemies as he could,

and to target their children, too.

Those he called "Category B traitors."

[indistinct chatter]

Suddenly, he fired maybe five shots
and all I can remember

is that suddenly there was a kid
missing from our group.

[narrator] The journey to understanding
Anders Behring Breivik

begins with his childhood.
Privileged, but troubled.

Breivik's family, uh, were actually
very well-respected in Norway.

His father was a diplomat,

his mother came from an old,
well-established, well-respected family.

So, in many ways,

he had all the founding to kind of grow up
and do something that could have mattered.

[narrator] When a baby,
Anders' parents divorced.

Later, a custody battle
coincided with poor performance at school.

Two reports suggested
he be taken into foster care.

At some point, issues started to emerge.

[Linda] He was experiencing
a big sense of rejection.

In fact, it was reported
that there had been suggestions

that he should be taken into care
because this divorce was so difficult.

If a youngster is exhibiting
psychological stress,

whether due to a parental split
or issues at school,

then these should be addressed.

Usually, they will resolve themselves,
but if they don't,

then we might have something
to worry about.

[narrator] But who could possibly know
how worried Norway should be?

As he grew,

Breivik seemed to seek certainty
in institutions other than his family.

He became a regular
in a Church of Norway chapel.

At school, he formed few friendships.

He joined the right-of-center
Progress Party's youth wing

at the same time as it was proposing
tightening immigration laws.

By 15, he was a low-level delinquent,

ordered to do community service
and pay a fine for spraying graffiti,

one of three minor offenses

that brought the adolescent Breivik
to the attention of the authorities.

Upon leaving Handels Gymnasium, or school,

Breivik avoided military service
in the Norwegian army.

He may have felt rejected.

If he did, it became a pivotal moment
in the history of Norway.

Breivik opted instead to pursue
a different means of serving his country.

In 2001, he began to write
a manifesto of his beliefs.

[Glenn] Breivik establishes
two separate lives.

The official one
that is known to his friends,

and a darker side in which
he is writing a manifesto of hate

against Islam and against
the immigrants in his country.

Uh, and promoting himself
as a successful businessman

when in fact, he is a failure
living at home with his mum.

The business ventures haven't worked,
socially he is not very popular,

he doesn't have
any meaningful relationships

either professionally or personally.

[narrator] The manifesto, as he called it,
became Breivik's Mein Kampf.

It was to reveal his mind
as few other killers have ever done.

He espouses the virtues
of far-right political thinking,

details the wrongs of immigration

and, bizarrely, champions the cause
of an ancient order of knights

who fought in the Crusades against Islam.

But the manifesto also, chillingly,
detailed his plans for systematic murder.

It was a simple thing, really,
a simple sequence.

Publish the workings of his mind,

commit the mass killings

and then step back and await the uprising.

[narrator] There was one other thing
about his manifesto.

For now, he was keeping it secret.

The first day of camp, 2011,

was like those for young people
going back a generation.

Utøya was cloudless, warm.

Not only Labor Party supporters
loved the island.

I was there with an organization
called Nature and Youth,

and, uh, the island, uh,

very much reflected exactly that.

Uh, it was awfully idyllic.

It's the kind of vacation
you never, ever want to end, you know.

You just think that,
"I want to live here forever and ever,

and the world would be
only a peaceful place

if everybody would get the chance
to spend a week here."

[narrator] Breivik was on his way
to the island paradise,

the place of peace.

If anyone had been able
to read his manifesto,

they would know
he didn't feel the same way about Utøya,

or those currently on it.

[children screaming and sobbing]

In 2011, the mind of
a 32-year-old Norwegian, Anders Breivik,

had descended into a dark,
dangerous place.

His childhood had been
blighted by family discord,

he'd had turbulent teenage years,

and, as an adult,
he had failed at business.

He had not made it into Norway's army
and had few friends.

Rejection is a powerful driver
of discontent.

So, if this feeling is internalized,

if Breivik feels
that he is a total failure

and at the same time
other issues are developing

such as an extreme hatred of immigrants,

then we have the development
of a dangerous situation.

Nobody can tell, uh,
what might happen to Breivik.

He's a loner, he feels rejected
by the people that he most believes in,

and he's not talking to anybody about it.

[narrator] Breivik was deliberately
keeping a low profile.

If you don't communicate
what you're thinking or what you're doing,

you'll fly under the radar.

He wasn't part of a right-wing scene
in Norway.

He didn't use the Internet
to communicate with others,

and so, nobody really knew
what was going on.

[narrator] For the decade before 2011,
Breivik refines an image of himself.

He creates a character
in his own definition of the world.

One far removed from the multi-cultural,
multi-ethnic Norway of the 21st century.

To him, he was Breivik,
the cultured young businessman,

the Freemason,
the heir to the Knights Templar,

the Crusaders who had tried
to wipe out Islam.

And all of this, he puts in his manifesto.

[Linda] He begins by interviewing himself,

so, you know, this narcissism,
um, it shines out so strongly.

He asks himself 100 questions

because he believes this is clearly
what the world would want to know.

They'd want to know
who this important, brilliant man was.

So, you know, the first pages aren't
necessarily about what's gonna happen,

it about, "This is me,

and you need to know,
'cause you'll wanna know about me."

It is very punctuated by the need
to be seen as someone important,

as a game-changer,

as someone who will be...
Go down in history as making a difference.

[narrator] Breivik obsessively
played video games.

Records show him spending
hundreds of hours a year online

playing World of Warcraft.

In it, he embarked on missions and quests.

Crusades.

He borrowed from its iconography
in his manifesto.

He had some very specific drawings
for how his tomb should look.

A Knights Templar construction
with columns and gold lettering.

He had this kind of fantasy land
that he lived in

of the fatherland Norway
battling the communist hordes.

It's strange to think
how he came to arrive at the age of 30

with this extremely warped
view of the world.

A sickness in his mind
that just grew and grew and grew.

[narrator] In Breivik's world,

there are the bad guys
and there are those who kill them.

The good guys, like him.

[Linda] Someone who is very narcissistic
like that can't say,

"Well, it's my fault. It's my fault.

Maybe I should have made
different choices,

maybe if I go back to school
there's something I can do."

They won't think about it constructively.

They'll fester, they'll get quite angry,

and they'll think,
"Well, whose fault is it?"

And it's always easier
to blame other people.

And what better than to blame something

that, historically,
happens time and time again.

We blame the minority.

We blame the other.

We blame institutions, people,
that seem to be getting on.

And for Breivik,
it was the political establishment

and the Muslim minority in Norway.

They were at the center of his hate,
they were the cause of who he had become.

Obviously,
if you are an immigrant to Norway,

uh, you are a target,

but, uh, he was also angry with others,

the politicians that he saw as responsible
for the immigrants being there.

Particularly politicians of the left.

Breivik was planning mayhem and murder,

and nobody knew.

[Linda] He comes up with his plan.

He is going to make
as much noise as possible.

He's going to be as disruptive
and destructive as possible,

kill as many people as possible,
because when he does,

then people will read his manifesto
that he is gonna publish online.

And then, his theory is when they do,
they'll be inspired.

They won't be horrified.

They'll be inspired,
they'll understand him.

And then all the social change
that he's been hoping for,

that would make him great,
well, that'll start.

[narrator] Breivik,
Norway's deluded, self-styled avenger,

had chosen his targets.

Category A traitors
were politicians and immigrants,

category B were their friends and family.

He spent years planning,
traveling in all weathers

throughout eastern Europe,

building an arsenal
of weapons and explosives.

He was incredibly meticulous
about the detail.

He made sure that, again,
he flew under the radar.

Military grade, um, hardware,
but bought over periods of time

from different places.

He made sure that he bought them
outside of Norway.

And it was the same with the chemicals.

He had to amass amounts of chemicals
that he needed to create these bombs,

but he did it over three years.

Meticulous planning,
always outside Norway,

so the authorities ignored him.

[narrator] On July 22nd, 2011,

staff were arriving at government offices
in Oslo city center.

Eivind Thoresen,
a keen amateur footballer,

was training to be a lawyer in Oslo.

That day, he had a date.

I was walking, uh, back from work

and, um, was supposed to
meet my girlfriend in the town.

[narrator] Norway's
national newspaper, VG,

has its offices adjacent
to the government district.

That day was like any other
to veteran reporter Jon Magnus.

I've been covering, you know, conflicts

and earthquakes and tsunamis
and stuff for 40 years,

and, uh, I'm not that easily scared.

[narrator] For news editor Marius Teitle,
a Friday also like any other.

I was on duty as a news editor
in our newspaper.

Uh, we were just finishing our meeting

where we were planning
our weekend editions.

[narrator] Around the corner from them,

Anders Breivik had put in motion
the plans of a decade.

For the image-obsessed Breivik,
those plans began with dressing the part.

In his mind, the moment he puts on
those black military clothes

and gets in the car and decides to do it,

that's his moment of transformation

from Breivik the failure
to Breivik the warrior.

[narrator] He was dressed to kill,

and earlier, he had uploaded
his life's work to date.

His manifesto.

It's not very often that a multiple killer
writes down what he's going to do

for the whole world to see,

and that's exactly what Breivik did.

He wanted people not to think
that he was some random crazy killer,

that he was, you know,
a very learned, thoughtful person

who'd put thought into this.

This also was a testament, again,
to how he saw himself, as important.

This was his press release to the world
about who he was.

[narrator] Breivik had already
parked a van packed with explosives

in Grubbegata, the government district.

He chooses the area of Oslo
where the government has its offices.

The government has let
the immigrants into the country,

and so, politicians are also his target.

[narrator] At 3:25 in the afternoon,
Breivik detonates the bomb.

[woman screaming]

The first thing I remember is,
um, a thunder,

or what I thought was a thunder,

that turned out to be the bomb attack
in the center of Oslo.

Uh, I was sitting at work
and finishing up a reportage,

and, uh, we just heard, like, a huge bam.

And, uh, it was reported
to be horrible weather that weekend,

so we thought, "Okay, now it's starting."

Um, and then we started getting reports in
that there had been a bomb in the center.

[shouting in Norwegian]

I was walking along the pavement
at Grubbegata, um,

when suddenly I heard a huge bang.

And I saw flames coming in
to my right-hand side.

We can feel and hear this big blast.

Well, I was, you know,
sitting on the foreign desk in my office

sort of minding my own business
and suddenly it's, boom!

[narrator] Anders Behring Breivik,
product of a broken marriage,

army reject, failed businessman,

delusional adherent to a medieval cause
who, up to the age of 30,

spent most of his time at home with Mum,

who hated Islam, immigrants
and Norway's leftist politicians,

had left the world of fantasy
and video games

and was causing misery, terror, death.

He is a mission killer,
he's doing God's work.

He believes that he has the right
to go out there

and slaughter a whole lot
of innocent people.

I could see, um, a lady,
just 10, 15 meters from me.

Uh, and...

Yeah, she, uh...

There wasn't a whole body.
Uh, there were parts of a body.

So, yeah, that was horrible to see.

We looked up to this main building
in the government district,

where the prime minister has his offices,

uh, and the building
was totally, totally damaged.

All windows were blown out.

There were people screaming, crying,

but in the middle of the screaming
and crying there was...

It was dead silence, in a way.

I mean, it was just
very, very scary. [inhales sharply]

Uh, I saw people, you know,
who was kind of walking about bleeding,

people lying on the sidewalk bleeding.

Uh, I went for a walk
around the government block,

like a five-minute thing,

I saw dead people there.

Uh, I saw a guy hanging out from a window
in one of the ministries.

He was lifeless.

[narrator] The work of the tortured mind
of Anders Behring Breivik.

Eight people died.

On the operating table,
Eivind Thoresen was hallucinating

under the influence of the drugs
that he'd been given.

I heard, um, really, in the background,
"Damn, we lost him."

And, um...

I was lying there in the darkness
and I was convinced that I'm dead now.

And I thought to myself that, um,

I really wanted to get more of my life,
and this is so unfair,

and I was actually really mad.

[narrator] Breivik had
carried out his spectacular.

The world did now want to know
about who had carried out the atrocity.

It was assumed the worst was over.

I definitely thought that it was just
one incidence that happened.

I had a hard time believing
this had even happened, and once it had,

obviously, we're not used
to things like this in Norway,

so I can only speak for myself,

but I... I definitely thought
that then it was over.

I may be too stupid but, uh,

but I thought, you know,

"This happens once.
It doesn't happen twice."

[narrator] But that was to be ignorant
of the mind of Anders Behring Breivik,

who was on his way to Utøya.

Utøya Island, owned and managed
by the Norwegian Labor Party, AB.

Small, a short walk
from one side to the other.

To generations, members of the AUF,
the youth wing of the party,

summer camp on Utøya
is more a state of mind than a place.

Sleeping in tents, it was making friends,
it was getting your first kiss.

We played football, we played volleyball,

uh, people meet, people fall in love,

you get friends for the rest of your life.

It was, uh, staying up late
with your guitar.

There was great weather, we swam,
we learned so much about AUF

because that was...

I'd just become a member
just three days before.

It was probably the best week
of every summer, uh, throughout my youth.

[Lisa] I made friends for life there.
It was incredible. An incredible summer.

And I think that I became
more active in AUF

after the first time I went on Utøya
because it was so great.

Very many people have a very strong
emotional bond to this place,

and it's very understandable.

[Nora] If you look at the names
around the island,

how you call, like, that different pathway

or that little... [stammers]
The little mountain that's over there.

It's all, like, you know,
it's the "love path"

or it's "the little mountain
of friendship."

Utøya is peace, Utøya is love,
Utøya is friendship,

and it's joy and it's youth

who want to change the world
for the better,

and it's always been like that.

[Johannes] I think it's unique
for so many people

to go to this place
and to this summer camp

out of their own free will
and just be together

because they share a political view.

[narrator] A political viewpoint
not shared by Anders Behring Breivik.

To him, Utøya was a breeding ground
for left-wing policies,

the ones which had encouraged immigration

that caused the contamination
of Christian, white Norway.

Breivik drove the 90 minutes from Oslo

to arrive at a jetty
where a ferry is moored.

It provided the only means
of getting to Utøya Island.

He knew he had caused
a spectacular killing.

Uh, that was what he wanted.

He could have stopped right there,
but he did not.

[narrator] News of the explosion
was spreading.

Details were scant.

Online, we were able
to publish the first newsflash

right outside from, uh, from the streets.

Uh, the front-page editor,

he, uh, borrowed a laptop
and then just published one sentence,

"There has been a big explosion
in Oslo city center.

We will get back
with more information later."

[Johannes] A guy from another county
comes into this room and says,

"Oh, my God!
You have to open the news net site."

And suddenly, you know,
there's this big headline,

"Explosion in Oslo."

[Lisa] We said that, first of all,
we're just going to stay here.

"It's the safest place on Earth,"
she said.

Um, "And we're going to have a barbecue
and we are going to have fun."

[Johannes] On a situation
with a lot of youths on an island, uh,

hysteria could spread,

um, quite fast, so they, you know,
they spent a long time saying,

you know,
"Utøya is the safest place to be," uh...

"And we are on an island
and nothing can harm us here."

[narrator] A response Breivik
had surely anticipated in his planning.

And I remember that people
raising their hands and asked,

"Is there still going to be
a disco tonight, is there..." [laughs]

"Still going to be the same program?"

And they said, "We don't know yet,

so just try to get in touch
with everybody in Oslo,

and we will come back later."

[narrator] Onboard the MS Thorbjørn,
Johannes Giske received a message.

[Johannes] At that point
I got a call on the radio

from the mainland, uh, saying that
there is a police officer who wants to,

uh, go, to cross onto the island,
and could a boat come over?

We had canceled all the rest
of the scheduled boat, uh, crossings

because we weren't expecting anyone,

but I called the captain
and we decided that,

"Okay, we're gonna go down,
we're gonna pick this guy up."

[narrator] As he approached the mainland,
Johannes saw Breivik

dressed in what appeared
genuine police uniform.

Breivik was a man of many uniforms.

He was wearing a kind of, like, a wetsuit.

It looked a bit like a wetsuit,

with, um, with body armor
or something on his chest,

uh, and a handgun on his thigh, um,

and a very large rifle.

And he had this very, very heavy, um, box,

black, kind of hard case,

um, which someone helped him
to carry onto the boat.

[boat motor running]

He had this iPod headset,

um, that I thought was a bit strange,

um, because, you know, this is...

This is the heaviest police in Norway,

has to be, you know,
they're coming here to protect us,

um, and why are they using iPods?

But, you know, I thought,
who am I to judge?

You know, this could be some
top secret fantastic contraption

they use to communicate
with each other or something.

[narrator] In fact, in his manifesto,

Breivik had written that
he would need to listen to his iPod

as he began shooting,
to drown out the noise of any screaming.

It might affect his resolve.

The ferry slowly
made its way to Utøya Island

before docking 100 yards
from the main reception hut.

When the captain left he said,

"Okay, but if you leave,
you have to lock the boat."

We never did that,
but now he said, "Lock the boat,"

because, you know, this is strange,
something is happening.

And it is while I am doing this,

while I am trying to lock this boat,

that I hear gunshots for the first time.

[narrator] It was 5:22 in the afternoon.

Breivik was armed with a Glock pistol
on which was engraved the word "Mjollnir,"

the name given to the hammer
used by the Norse god Thor.

He also had a bayonetted rifle
on which was engraved the word "Gungnir,"

the name given to the spear
used by the Norse god Odin.

He first killed two adults,

then he ordered a group of youngsters
to gather around him

before beginning to shoot them.

Some ran.

I saw two girls running

up towards the tent camp,

and they were shot and killed.

It was so weird to see

because we're used to seeing
in movies and such

that there is blood splatter
and people screaming

and all that kind of stuff,

but they didn't make a sound.

They just fell to the ground
and suddenly, they didn't move.

[narrator] Breivik walked slowly

from one group of young people
and children to another

as he methodically killed.

He wore headphones
and he would go from cabin to cabin,

from tree to tree,
literally picking off people

the way that he'd probably done
a thousand times before in his games.

And one wonders if that's
how he played the games.

Was it, you know,
getting into that mindset of, you know...

Maybe that he was drowning out
the cries and the sounds...

But I wonder if it was just...

It was just something
that improved his shot.

It was just getting into that game
that he was good at.

[narrator] Despite his precautions,

Breivik's headphones
will not have shielded him

from the noise of those he was hunting.

It's likely that
between tracks on his iPod,

he could hear the kids.

They were screaming, they were running,
they were terrified, but on he went.

[narrator] It was probably around 5:55,

just over half an hour
after he had first killed,

that Breivik approached the cabin
in which Lisa Marie Husby was sheltering.

She had been able to hear
much of what was going on.

Suddenly we heard somebody outside.

And he turned the doorknob.

It was chaos inside
and I was just under the bed,

but I thought,
"Oh, my God, he is going to get in.

He can hear that so many
people are inside."

So he shot two times through
the window of the door, but he just left.

And it's a miracle
because we were almost 50 people inside.

[narrator] There were 564 on the island.
Was he going to kill them all?

[Glenn] He wants a spectacular,

to make a big impact
all over the world and overnight.

He wants to be the killer
of a lot of people.

[narrator] Breivik had killed
relentlessly for 50 minutes

as Kristoffer, and the children
that were following him,

ran frantically away
from the sound of gunfire.

Suddenly, there were some shots
that went through the trees.

We could hear them really, really close,

uh, which made, I think, all of us
just snap out of what we were doing.

And it suddenly became really clear to me

that we had to get away from here
really quickly.

I was standing around maybe 30 kids,

uh...

And I just yelled out to all of them
that we have to get away from here.

So we're going to run down to the beach
and we're going to swim, uh, for land.

[narrator] Breivik will have known
that safety advice

for anyone swimming
in the cold waters of a Norwegian fjord

included wearing a wetsuit at all times

and never going beyond
ten meters from shore.

Cramp can set in so quickly

that being able to return
to the shoreline promptly is vital.

The youngsters with Kristoffer
now faced a journey of around 200 meters

without wetsuits.

So I yelled out to everybody
that they should take their clothes off

and get into the water and start swimming.

I think he very much wanted
to create chaos and terror.

This was something
that wasn't a knee-jerk reaction,

he'd thought about this
for a very long time.

He knew that this would cause
the utmost chaos.

The very location of this island
you can't get to by car,

which means it would have given him,
you know, the longest amount of time.

This wasn't something
the police could just run and come to.

These children were like sitting ducks.
There was nothing they could do.

The water was cold, and it was rainy,
and windy, and everybody was panicking,

some were getting cramps already,

and we weren't even halfway over.

I figured that if I do backstroke,

it's more, not relaxing, but I didn't use
quite as much energy doing it.

So I started to do that
and I could also get an overview

of what was happening
with the kids that were back on land.

Just as I had figured out that,
he took up his rifle

and he shot the kids
that didn't want to swim.

Because at the point there was no place
to hide at all, it was all open.

Few serial killers get to kill
as many times as Breivik.

But on that island,
he took a conscious decision.

He looked out, he took aim,
and he killed 69 times.

[children screaming]

[sobbing]

I saw him pointing his rifle at me, at us,

and I thought that
I'm not going to watch him shoot me,

so I'm going to turn around
and swim normally again,

and if I die I hope I die quickly.

And he fired some shots,
I tried to keep my head low,

so I was a bit underwater and stuff.

But suddenly, there was a kid
missing from our group.

I didn't know where he went.

[shouting in Norwegian]

[narrator] Perhaps tired, perhaps he felt
enough victims had been claimed,

but at 6:25 he stopped shooting
and reached for his mobile telephone.

[police dispatcher
speaking over phone in Norwegian]

[Breivik speaking over phone in Norwegian]

[police dispatcher speaking]

[Breivik speaking]

[police dispatcher speaking]

[Breivik speaking]

[police dispatcher speaking]

[Breivik speaking]

[police dispatcher speaking]

[dial tone]

[Linda] Then there comes
a moment where he stops,

he feels that, uh, his mission is complete

and he calmly picks up the phone,

um, calls the police, says,
"I am Commander Breivik,

I'm finished my mission.
You can come and get me."

So, at no time does he see himself

as someone who has perhaps caused
one of the most horrific,

um, attacks of recent memory.

He sees himself
as a commander, as a leader,

as someone who has to do this
to wake people up.

He went there

because he wanted to get
right into the heart

of attacking the Norwegian Labor Party.

And, uh, he saw young Norwegian people

becoming the political leaders
of the Labor Party

and, uh, and he wanted to attack
where it hurt the most.

[narrator] Breivik now believed
Norway would change,

the country would unite behind him.

In fact, it united against him.

And the young people
who had survived his merciless killings,

determinedly unchanged.

My values might be even stronger
than they were before.

I feel sorry for him, in a way,
and I know that it sounds weird,

but I think that
we are so many people standing together

and it must be so lonely in his world.

Imagine, he has nobody now.

He's going to be alone
for the rest of his life.

And we are hundred of thousand
that stands together

and believe in our cause,

and we have each other,
and we will always have each other.

I, um... I just see him and he's there,

and, yeah, I don't...

I want to feel a sort of hate
to him, um...

Uh, I feel, of course,
a bit of hate, but it's empty.

It's empty inside of me.

This guy was white, he was a Christian,

he was born a Norwegian, raised Norwegian.

I guess, at least, we have learned

that evil doesn't necessarily come,
need to come from outside.

It might be among us.

[narrator] Is Breivik a serial killer?

To be considered by criminologists as one,

Breivik would have struck in Oslo

then disappeared from the scene
only to resurface later.

But his was a plan which sought
maximum and immediate impact.

Victims would need to come thick and fast.

Nevertheless, he may well qualify
in this appalling category of killer.

This is not just the act
of a spree-killing madman,

it is a series of murders.

He might have stopped at Oslo,
he might have stopped at the ferry,

he might have stopped
after the first cabin that he shot into,

but, no, he goes on and on
searching for more victims.

[camera shutters clicking]

[narrator] Psychologists interviewed
Breivik for many hours.

Their lengthy findings concluded
that he was a paranoid schizophrenic

and had been since at least 2006,

but that he was sane throughout
the day that he'd killed 77 people.

Breivik was eventually sentenced
to 21 years in prison,

but is unlikely ever to be released.

Unusually, we know much
of what was going on inside his mind

and about his life.

[Linda] Yes, he...
He experienced the trauma of divorce,

but so many kids do.

Yes, he experienced difficulty
of not fitting in, a lot of people do.

Yes, he wasn't successful in his job,

but almost all of us at some point,
like, have to experience failure.

In and of themselves, these things
couldn't have made him who he was.

But it was like a perfect storm.

At every point of his life,

whether it was rejection,

whether it was a feeling
that he didn't belong,

whether it was a projection
onto a minority,

whether it was his narcissism,

whether it was his bio-chemistry,

everything came together.

[theme music playing]