David Maust: Inside the Mind of a Serial Killer (Pts. 1 & 2)

(Below is an approximate transcript of "David Maust: Inside the Mind of a Serial Killer (Pts. 1 & 2)" which aired on December 17th and 19th, 2005.)

(Part One)

David Maust: I took out all my frustration on him, you know. All the frustration i had in the world I took out on him...

Anchor One: For more than 35 years he has brutally attacked teenage boys and young men, killing five of them. And tonight, David Maust is speaking publicly for the very first time. It's a story you'll see only FOX.

Anchor Two: David Maust is about to begin serving life in prison, with no chance of parole. Mark Saxenmeyer is the first reporter to ever interview Maust, and he joins us now with this television exclusive. Mark?

Mark on set: A little over two years have passed since investigators discovered three teenage boys entombed in the basement of Maust's Hammond, Indiana home. Maust was arrested, charged, and eventually pled guilty to the murders. By doing so he avoids the death penalty. Except for his attorneys, Maust has never spoken to anyone about the crimes. Yet tonight, the man dubbed "The Horror in Hammond" has decided to tell all.

(Taped Presentation begins)

Mark: When you were killing these kids did you know in that moment that this was wrong?

David: You don't think about it. I didn't think about that. And after I did it I didn't think about it. I didn't even know if I did it. I put it out of my mind so quickly.

Mark: Did you enjoy doing it?

David: No!

Mark: But what led to that moment?

51- year- old David Maust has a very hard time explaining why--why, in May 2003, he killed his co-worker at this trophy store--19-year-old Nick James--a young man he considered to be a friend.

David: I had planned to kill him two or three other times and I always talked my way out of it but the last time I went through with it .

Mark: But you were enjoying his company?

David: Yeah, when he wasn't there the Monday after I killed him I really missed him a lot. You know I wished he had been to work. I wish that hadn't happened.

Mark: But, David, do you understand that when you say this the obvious question is: "Well, okay, then, why did you kill him?" It doesn't make any sense.

David: None of the others didn't make any sense either.

Maust says he first killed back in 1974--a 15 year old boy named Jimmy McClister.

David: I beat him with a board. He didn't scream or holler or say a word. God let him go to sleep that night

After serving three years behind bars for that murder, Maust killed again in 1981: 15- year-old Donald Jones of Elgin.

David: He passed out when I stabbed him. He woke up and said one thing: "I thought you weren't going to hurt me."

Maust served 17 years for that murder. Released in 1999, he moved to Hammond in early 2003.

David: I was upset a lot and I didn't want to be alone anymore. I've been alone all my life

After Nick James' death in May 2003, Maust began hanging out with 13-year-old Michael Dennis and 16-year- old James Raganyi, entertaining them at his Hammond home.

David: They stayed there the 19th of July and when I woke up the next morning and they were okay I felt pretty good about myself that i didn't stab them or anything. I felt pretty good.

Less than two months later though, Maust says he could not resist the temptation to kill, separately strangling Dennis and Raganyi.

David: They were both passed out drunk . They didn't feel nothing. Why did you put them in the basement? Uh i don't know. It just seemed the place where I could put them.

Mark: Do you think you'll ever have an answer?

David: I think the answer is you have to put my whole life together. You have to go in sequence of events to see what happened and then see where I ended up

(Taped presentation ends)

Mark on set: And that's precisely what we intend to do when we bring you more of this exclusive television interview with David Maust. We'll tell you whether Maust says he sexually assaulted his victims before they died. We'll tell you about other victims who he says he attacked but didn't kill. And Maust finally tries to answer the question "why." Why does he have such an uncontrollable urge to kill, and how did it develop?

(Part Two)

Anchor One: Tonight we take you inside the mind of a serial killer.

Anchor Two: David Maust--the man who admits to killing Indiana teenagers and burying their bodies in concrete in his basement two years ago--Is breaking his long-held silence. In his first and only television interview, he talks exclusively with our Mark Saxenmeyer about his crimes, his victims, and the tragic story of his own life that led him to violence again and again. Mark?

Mark on set: He has killed five teen boys and savagely beaten and stabbed at least a dozen others. He's been called a monster, a man who has twice left prison only to kill again. Those whose lives he's destroyed say they have just one question for him: "Why?"

(Taped presentation begins)

David: He was sitting in a chair ... I came up behind him...

Mark: How many times did you hit him? Hit him once, that was the first blow. He was out of it. Then he didn't know what was happening after that but he was still awake. Then I hit him again. He was still awake and I hit him again

David Maust is describing the night in may 2003 when he bludgeoned 19-year-old Nick James with a baseball bat inside his Hammond home.

David: I wrapped his body in tape and plastic and took him down to the basement...I had dug it up about five days prior to this

Seven months after Nick James was killed, police discovered his body, and the bodies of two other Hammond teenage boys, entombed under freshly laid cement in Maust's cellar. The news was horrifying. Yet these victims were hardly Maust's first. He's been attacking young males for more than 35 years.

(Excerpts from David discussing people he has attacked but not killed:)

David: I stabbed him four times in the stomach for no reason...I cracked him on the back of the head with a pipe...I beat him in the head 11 times...I didn't plan it. I didn't think about it. I just picked up the knife and did it...None of 'em saw it coming...I knew I was out of control you know I knew I was out of control...sitting there asking myself, "why did I do this again?"

Mark: Did you think you were going to be caught? I was hoping. I was hoping i wouldn't do it again. I was hoping that I could meet somebody and not do this

By the early 1980s, Maust was serving time for drowning 15-year-old Donald Jones of Elgin. 17 years later he was eligible for parole.

Mark: You wrote a letter and said "I don't want to leave."

David: Right.

Mark: Why not?

David: Because I belonged in there.

The Illinois Department of Corrections refused to let Maust stay.

David: I cried because I had nothing. I had nobody. There was no one waiting on me there when I got out.

Maust eventually rented an apartment here in Oak Park where he lived for nearly two years.

Mark: There are people presuming that perhaps there are other victims.

David: You can go tear that floor up, I don't care.

Mark: There's nothing there?

David: Buy the building and go tear the floor up!

In early 2003, Maust moved to Hammond where he ended up working with Nick James, before he killed him. Then he met up with two runaways, 13-year-old Michael Dennis and 16-year-old James Raganyi. He strangled them three hours apart in September 2003.

David: They did drink that night ...Jack Daniels...mixed...Michael Dennis liked his with cranberry juice...they were passed out laying on the floor

Mark: So was plying them with alcohol part of your plan or what?

David: Well, if I was going to do this i didn't want them to feel no pain. I didn't want them to suffer or anything. I really didn't want to do it at all. I just didn't know how to get out of it.

Yet the question remains: Why?

David: A lot of reasons. Abandonment and fear of them leaving and that they probably shouldn't even be there in the first place and things that go all the way back to my mother

In the late 1960s, David Maust's mother had him committed to a mental institution at the age of nine, claiming he was dangerously uncontrollable.

David: None of that stuff she said never happened. She used that stuff to have me locked up.

Mark: You didn't set your brother's bed on fire?

David: No.

Mark: You didn't try to drown him?

David: No!

Mark: So why did she send you to that home? Because she didn't like me.

David: She said, "I'm going to get rid of you. One way or the other I'm going to get rid of you." ...I was in isolation. I didn't have no social skills. I didn't have no education. I didn't have nothing.

Four years later he was sent to a home for unwanted children.

David: I should have been destroyed when i left the mental hospital because i didn't have anybody. I was dangerous then and people didn't know it. Having nobody at 13 years old made me dangerous period ... being lonely is what destroyed me...I wanted to be able to love somebody.

Yet Maust insists he never once molested or sexually assaulted any of his victims.

David: The ones that survived, ask them. I never sexually molested them either

Maust has been sentenced to three consecutive life terms, with no chance of parole.

Mark: If for some reason you were to get out of prison do you think that this would happen again?

David: Probably. Not that I would want it to but it probably would...I don't feel bad for me. I deserve what i have coming.

Mark: What do you think you have coming?

David: Death.

Maust has been housed in isolation at the Lake County, Indiana jail. He may not have that luxury when he's soon transferred to a state penitentiary.

David: I believe they're going to kill me which is okay. I'm ready to go.

Mark: You say that with a laugh.

David: Yeah because I'm ready. Yeah, because I think that's what should happen. The tax payers don't want to be supporting me and I don't blame them.

Mark: Are you a religious man?

David: Yeah.

Mark: When you die are you going to heaven or hell?

David: Uh I know God is really mad with me. You know he's really upset so uh... but i believe he's going to let me come home. I think so.

David: I wish it hadn't happened, you know. I think about it all the time. I think about different scenarios all the time. I go deep in thought thinking, " why didn't those kids just stay at home that day" or "why didn't I just leave and go someplace different." Things I think of in my mind....

(Taped presentation ends.)

Mark on set: In my conversations with David Maust, both in person during this interview and in numerous phone discussions leading up to it, he repeatedly hinted at having a plan, a suicide plan, a plan to somehow take his own life behind bars. Although he avoided the death penalty during his court proceedings, he says he should be on death row. And wishes he was.

Anchor One: What really gets you is how matter-of-fact he is about these murders...

Mark: I asked him about that. I said, "You're not showing any emotion. Do you want to tell the family members that you're sorry?" And he said he was. But he said, "You know, I've been thinking about this for years. I've cried for years." And he said that me coming to him and interviewing him isn't going to make him necessarily dredge up emotion.

Anchor Two: And to be clear, any question about whether or not there are any more victims out there?

Mark: He says no. He says you can go dig up that home in Oak Park and you won't find anything. He's matter-of-fact about all these things. He remembers dates like he's "Rain Man." He told me all of these instances in which he hurt people and they didn't die. So if there were more victims I think he would have said.

Anchor One: But he's also fearing for his own safety. He's asked that he be housed away from other inmates and that still hasn't been decided?

Mark: Yeah, that waits to be seen. There are a lot of people who have committed murders and if everybody was put in isolation prisons wouldn't be able to function. So we'll have to wait and see if they grant him that request.

This story was posted 01.18.06 and has not been updated.

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