Overkill: Nicholas Camfield's Horrific Murder — Interview With A Killer

本站添加: 2026-05-18

[00:00:09]You have a pretty violent record in here. Several assaults on staff.

[00:00:14]>> They're my only friend.

[00:00:16]>> It's my darkest killer interview yet.

[00:00:19]>> Nobody wants to be your friend if you treat your friends the way you treated your best friend.

[00:00:26]>> Right. A window into sheer madness.

[00:00:29]Well, I mean, don't know if you want to get butt neck and rushed by it.

[00:00:33]>> No, thank you.

[00:00:35]>> Tucker County 911.

[00:00:36]>> He's laying in a bedroom on a bed bloody. There's blood all over the kitchen and there might have been a murder.

[00:00:42]>> And the forensic phenomenon known as overkill.

[00:00:46]>> So, the minute he walked in that house, before he started chewing your ass or anything, you'd already made >> I'm going to hit this mother.

[00:00:53]>> Where'd you hit Matt?

[00:00:55]>> Uncle Temple. Pretty good shot. Maybe in the eyeball. He was probably incapacitated after the first strike.

[00:01:04]Why did you keep hitting him?

[00:01:06]>> I thought I could either call 911 or I can kill him. And I said, I'm just going to kill him.

[00:01:12]>> What happens when a killer won't stop at death?

[00:01:15]>> What was going on during those three days in the house with the body?

[00:01:20]You don't seem sorry at all.

[00:01:24]>> Thank you.

[00:01:26]>> That's not a compliment.

[00:01:28]From the depths of depravity comes the case of Nicholas Campfield.

[00:01:33]>> I'm about to start eating on it. You're about to start eating on it. So, how far did the cannibalism go?

[00:01:52]>> Parker County 911.

[00:01:53]>> I'm in Springtown at a trailer house. My son came up here to do a check on one of his buddies and there's blood all over the kitchen. He thinks there might have been a murder.

[00:02:04]>> On January 16, 2013, a disturbing call came into 911.

[00:02:10]On an otherwise quiet night just outside Fort Worth, Texas, a wellness check uncovered a crime scene worthy of a slasher movie.

[00:02:19]>> He's laying in a bedroom. My son wouldn't go in there. He's laying in a bedroom on a bed flooding.

[00:02:24]>> Okay. Is he moving? Do you know?

[00:02:27]>> The killer, Nicholas Camfield, was still inside just feet from his best friend, JD Doss's corpse.

[00:02:34]>> We're scared to go back in the house now because this guy has may have a pistol.

[00:02:39]He's kind of crazy. I don't know if you've ever heard of Nicholas Camfield.

[00:02:43]>> Nicholas Camfield was known as a ticking time bomb. Now he had killed his friend with a pickaxe and the horror continued for days afterwards as Campfield mutilated and defiled the dead body. The brutality went beyond what law enforcement in the county and even the state had ever seen. It's what forensic experts call overkill.

[00:03:05]Immediately after his arrest, Campfield told detectives that he was hearing voices.

[00:03:10]>> How long have you been thinking about killing somebody for? The gears and the voices started ticking in my head.

[00:03:17]>> The shocking case was all over the papers. But just as soon as it started, it came to an abrupt end within mere months of the murder.

[00:03:26]12 years later, questions still remain.

[00:03:29]Was Camfield truly hearing voices? What made Camfield kill a friend so viciously? And why the need for overkill? What I was about to learn was far darker than I could have imagined.

[00:03:42]Camfield is held in a segregated unit inside this maximum security prison in Tex Arcana, Texas. Officials here warned me about Campfield's propensity for violence, including several brutal assaults on staff. He's now on medication to help keep him under control.

[00:04:02]>> All right, I think we're nearly ready.

[00:04:05]Just making the last tweaks to the audio. Okay.

[00:04:08]>> Yes, sir. Probably going to shake her a little bit because of my prolixction, but >> because of your what?

[00:04:12]>> Prolix to anticychotic.

[00:04:14]>> Ah, okay. So, really, we're here, Nick, to try and understand the mindset and motivations behind your actions in this case and why did you want to talk to us today?

[00:04:27]>> And I just figured if anything, it would help my case if it ever came down to it.

[00:04:32]>> But I never got a chance to appeal.

[00:04:34]>> You plead guilty.

[00:04:35]>> Yes, sir. There was no trial. And is this the first time you're publicly talking about what happened? It's a good time to have this conversation cuz now you're a grown man. You're 37 now.

[00:04:46]>> Yes.

[00:04:48]>> Shaking, gaunt, and withered. He's now half the man he was when he committed the murder. Literally. Though he's still known in his hometown as the menacing figure called Fatty.

[00:05:00]>> I was the fattest kid in in school for the longest time. Mhm.

[00:05:03]>> There are not that many um images of you in the record, but the ones that uh that are, you're twice the size of what you look like now. At your biggest, how much did you weigh?

[00:05:13]>> 260.

[00:05:14]>> 260.

[00:05:15]>> About 140 lb now.

[00:05:17]>> Wow. Before we get into the case, I'd like to try and learn a little bit more about how you grew up, what your childhood was like. I know you have several siblings, right?

[00:05:29]>> Seems like you have very loving mother.

[00:05:31]>> Yes, sir.

[00:05:32]>> Right. Is your father in the picture?

[00:05:34]>> No, I took my daddy away when I was a kid.

[00:05:37]>> In fact, when Camfield was four, his father was hauled off to prison and stayed there for most of his life. The men who stepped in to fill his father's shoes proved no better.

[00:05:48]>> It sounds like there there was some violence in the home. Was it your stepfather?

[00:05:52]>> Yes, sir. It was among his boyfriend. My marriage by common marriage, I guess you could say. He was the one that was a crackhead. whatever whatever they're called, I guess. Uh, crack beans.

[00:06:04]>> Okay.

[00:06:04]>> Every time I would stand up to him to show him, I'm just as big as you are, you know, leave me alone. He'd punch me in the nose.

[00:06:12]>> His mother kicked out her abusive partner, but trouble continued for Camfield. When did the drinking and drugs start?

[00:06:20]>> 15.

[00:06:21]>> Drinking and drugs.

[00:06:23]>> Marijuana.

[00:06:24]>> Nothing else. I took some pills that were in my mom's room and I took them to school for a Valentine's dance and it ruined the Valentine's dance for everybody.

[00:06:33]>> Why? Cuz you you got >> I got busted with um >> What was it?

[00:06:38]>> Hydrocodones.

[00:06:40]>> Campfield ended up with a drug felony on his juvenile record and a love of partying. At age 18, aimless and idle, he made a new friend named J. DS.

[00:06:52]It sounds like you had a good friend in JD Doss. How did you meet him?

[00:06:56]>> He walked into my house one day into my my garage one day when I was smoking pot.

[00:07:01]>> Just randomly walked in.

[00:07:03]>> Yeah. He just walked into my garage one day with the bong. You want to get high?

[00:07:07]Sure.

[00:07:07]>> Huh.

[00:07:08]>> So we started smoking my weed out of his bong.

[00:07:11]>> The two bonded and JD Dawson his family threw Camfield a lifeline when no one else would.

[00:07:19]He was my friend, my best friend at the time.

[00:07:22]>> JD came from a family of proud linemen and held a sought-after trade job maintaining utility poles. He had struggled with addiction, but was trying to overcome it when Campfield entered the picture.

[00:07:35]Is it true that when it sounds like you had nowhere else to go, JD and his family took you in?

[00:07:42]>> Yes, sir.

[00:07:42]>> Is it true that um JD got you a job working the utility poles? Uh his dad did.

[00:07:48]>> But you were happy staying with the Doss family?

[00:07:51]>> More than anything in the world.

[00:07:52]>> Why do you say that?

[00:07:54]>> Uh because it was like a nurtured environment.

[00:07:59]>> Nurturing environment.

[00:08:00]>> I was happy there. I mean absolutely happy there.

[00:08:03]>> And how did it end? Why did you end up moving out of the home?

[00:08:07]>> Uh JD wanted to move in with somebody else that was a druggie. After Campfield left the dosses, he started using harder drugs like heroin and K2, a powerful synthetic known to induce psychosis. And when he couldn't get his hands on those substances, he drank himself stupid.

[00:08:26]By the time you were in your early 20s, you had racked up eight arrests. Some of the um the DWI incidents were described um including one incident where you crashed your car into a ditch and in the car crash you were found drinking gin >> right after the crash you're still drinking in the car right >> smoking and drinking.

[00:08:55]>> That's incredible. You blew a.34 in that incident.

[00:08:59]>> Yep. I'm almost proud of that one.

[00:09:01]>> Did you feel like you were falling apart?

[00:09:05]>> Like your life was falling apart. I I felt I was together.

[00:09:08]>> I don't really feel falling apart unless I'm in the penitentiary.

[00:09:12]>> His desperate mother tried to step in, often to no avail. One day she found Camfield covered in blood in the bathtub and rushed him to the hospital.

[00:09:22]>> They told my mom that I was psychiatric or not psychiatric but schizophrenic paranoid. They put me on. I know it was a spare dog, but it was like $500 for a one month prescription.

[00:09:31]>> Okay.

[00:09:31]>> So, we couldn't keep up with it and it put me in psychosis.

[00:09:37]So, then when I went to county the couple times and I tried to get back on it, it put me even further in psychosis.

[00:09:43]>> The dangerous combination of mental illness and substance abuse made Camfield a menace. Police were called on him seven times in 9 months, including for arson.

[00:09:53]>> It sounds like you're kind of spiraling.

[00:09:56]23, 24 years old, in and out of jail.

[00:09:59]Were you at that point getting any treatment for your mental illness?

[00:10:02]>> Nope.

[00:10:03]>> You're homeless, squatting in a vacant school building.

[00:10:07]>> Yep.

[00:10:07]>> In weather. Why did you start the fire in the basement of that building?

[00:10:12]>> Cuz I wasn't allowed to live there no more.

[00:10:14]>> What do you mean?

[00:10:16]>> The cops kept yelling at me. Cuz if I can't live there, no one can.

[00:10:20]>> That was the mentality.

[00:10:22]>> It's still the mentality.

[00:10:23]>> It is.

[00:10:24]>> Yes, sir. Well, if you can't help me, then why should I help you?

[00:10:26]>> So, if you couldn't live there, no one could. That's what you said.

[00:10:31]>> Yes, sir.

[00:10:31]>> And so, you destroyed it.

[00:10:33]>> Mhm.

[00:10:33]>> And where was JD staying at that point?

[00:10:36]>> I have no idea.

[00:10:37]>> You weren't in touch with JD.

[00:10:38]>> I mean, the the deal was every time I'd get a job, he would show up and tell me, uh, going to go drink and go get high.

[00:10:44]You know, you want to drink? And I'd be like, sure, why not? And then when I would get caught getting high by myself, the deal was, you know, you need to quit getting high and get a job and do something with your life. Did you blame him for that?

[00:10:58]>> We live in America and we believe in things like manifest destiny.

[00:11:01]>> I noticed Camfield's growing resentment of his victim. There's something very personal behind this murder and very twisted in the killer's mind.

[00:11:12]>> It's like he took my drugs every day. He needed me to, you know, uh, pay for his way into the bar again so he could rip me off for $400.

[00:11:21]>> In fact, it was JD Doss who had gotten sober. And after battling addiction for years, he was keeping his distance from people like Campfield. But today, Campfield reverses the roles and attributes to JD a corrupting influence on him to justify his crimes. Do you see how you're putting on him all these acts of aggression on me every chance he got?

[00:11:47]>> On January 13, 2013, Campfield's delusional thinking and resentment towards JD Doss would bring him to a breaking point. Campfield would find himself alone with Doss in a mutual friend's mobile home. JD Doss didn't know it, but Camfield's brain was occupied by murderous thoughts. Were you hearing voices that told you to do this? Or was that voice who you really are?

[00:12:18]Was it your voice >> that told me to kill him?

[00:12:21]>> Yeah.

[00:12:27]>> In the winter of 2013, Nicholas Campfield was broke and homeless, possibly even psychotic. No one knew quite what to do about him, but everyone knew to stay away from the creepy drifter known as Fatty.

[00:12:41]>> It sounds like a lot of people that had been in your life had basically turned their backs on you.

[00:12:48]Is that fair? Is that true?

[00:12:50]>> Oh, counts.

[00:12:52]>> At times, >> I believe so. Because I mean, >> Camfield's circle of friends had grown especially weary of him. JD Doss had drifted away and another friend who owned the mobile home had banned Camfield from the premises. So when the owner went on vacation, he asked JD Doss to housesit and told him to keep Camfield away. But on January 13, 2013, Campfield showed up there anyway.

[00:13:18]You make your way into the trailer home where JD was housesitting.

[00:13:27]>> A friend's house.

[00:13:28]>> You were in an uninvited guest. How did you get into the house?

[00:13:33]>> Uh, the door was kicked open.

[00:13:34]>> You kicked it open?

[00:13:35]>> No, the door was already kicked open. It was We were remodeling the trailer house.

[00:13:40]>> You say we, but but I understand that the owner didn't want you there.

[00:13:44]>> He was one of my one of my real good friends. Well, he was, but then he wasn't right.

[00:13:50]>> I don't know why he wouldn't be.

[00:13:52]>> It's also in the record that he did not want you there.

[00:13:56]>> Just a few hours later, JD Doss, the housesitter, arrived to check on the property and found the intruder making himself at home.

[00:14:04]>> When he came home and saw you there, JD was was pissed. Right.

[00:14:09]>> He was mad about the weed that the weed was missing. I had smoked maybe a gram of what looked like weed.

[00:14:17]>> But he was also mad that you were there, right? And you were eating up the food.

[00:14:21]And this is based on what you told the police at the time.

[00:14:24]>> When he came in, it was like he was a completely different person. When he came in, I just the love wasn't there no more.

[00:14:33]>> There was nothing left between the two of us. It was, you know, get on or get it over with. Well, as soon as he started yelling at me, I was like, "Never mind. Never mind. Never, never, never mind. You're not my friend no more. No.

[00:14:47]>> He was right. JD Doss was in addiction recovery and had been trying to cut ties with Camfield. Camfield's deep sense of rejection was about to boil over inside that mobile home, but he would buy his time. Why didn't you just leave?

[00:15:04]>> Cuz he was in the way.

[00:15:06]>> In the way.

[00:15:06]>> Finished wash clothes.

[00:15:09]>> You played some video games. tractor you >> he falls asleep eventually >> he went to sleep and I said that you know that son of a [ __ ] that son of a [ __ ] let me in the house burn myself in the strangest of ways right at that point I said >> you were going to kill him >> I'm going to kill him >> this is sort of the moment of truth right so tell me in as much detail as you can what exactly happened that night >> he fell asleep in front of me for no Well, maybe he was just tired. It sounds like you had a lot of grudge against JD.

[00:15:47]>> It turned into a grudge when he went to sleep on me.

[00:15:51]>> He falls asleep and and that was the trigger for you.

[00:15:54]>> That was the trigger.

[00:15:55]>> Why? Can you explain it to me? It doesn't sound like some big insult or offense that the man fell asleep in the house where he had permission to be and you did not.

[00:16:05]>> Maybe I needed somebody to talk to that day. Or maybe I needed six that night.

[00:16:10]Or maybe I needed a ride that night. Or maybe I just needed a hug or somebody to say, you know, it's okay, bro.

[00:16:15]>> But why does that mean to >> kill him?

[00:16:18]>> Yeah, >> because he now hinders me.

[00:16:22]>> No, he's not doing anything to you.

[00:16:24]>> He's in the way because every time I get a job, somehow he's going to turn up or somehow he's going to call my mom. He knows my mom's phone number. He knows my sister's phone number. He knows my little brother's phone number.

[00:16:35]Do you see how you're putting on him all these acts of aggression that don't really explain this crime?

[00:16:45]>> Manifest destiny though.

[00:16:48]>> You saying the killing was manifest destiny?

[00:16:50]>> It was meant to happen for a reason because everything is meant to happen for a reason.

[00:16:55]Why would you get so furious or psychotic and attack him because he falls asleep >> because I just knew it was time to go.

[00:17:11]It >> was time.

[00:17:12]>> It was time to go, you know. I mean, I thought I had clean clothes. I thought I was safe for a minute to get away from him and then he shows up and he wants to yell at me. So, I seen him and I said, "Boy, I can get the rock pick and just hit him in the head. And then you go in the back and you get the pickaxe.

[00:17:27]>> The rock pick. Yes, sir.

[00:17:28]>> And what's in your mind at this point?

[00:17:30]What's your mindset at this point?

[00:17:31]You're angry. I'm >> pin him to the floor and steal his truck and drive like hill.

[00:17:36]>> Camfield may well be mentally ill. But it's clear to me that he's also criminally minded and totally unrepentant.

[00:17:44]And I'm more skeptical of the voices in his head that he blamed at the time.

[00:17:49]>> Was he sleeping when you attacked him?

[00:17:51]>> Yes, sir.

[00:17:52]defenseless. Uh, >> I hit him like somewhere in the head and he said and I hit him again.

[00:18:00]>> When he hollered, it was a mercy killing from then on. I mean, I'm sorry.

[00:18:04]>> It can't be a mercy killing if you >> and the first place.

[00:18:08]>> Correct.

[00:18:10]>> But why make one more stomach to fill when there are mouse to feed?

[00:18:17]>> What do you mean by that?

[00:18:19]>> There's a a person over there that we have to tube feed.

[00:18:22]or you have to die. I'm sorry, but the two Peter has to die.

[00:18:28]>> Yeah. Does that make sense to you?

[00:18:30]>> More than anything in the world, bro.

[00:18:32]>> Is this the voice in your head that you were hearing that night?

[00:18:36]>> This is my psyche in general.

[00:18:40]>> So, the voice that you were hearing is you >> is is me. Is maybe it's God himself, herself. When the killing was over, Camfield had struck the victim at least six times in the head with a pickaxe.

[00:18:53]But he still wasn't done. And I was about to learn the ugly meaning of overkill.

[00:19:10]On January 13, 2013, wielding a pickaxe, Nicholas Campfield killed his best friend, JD Doss. But he wasn't done yet.

[00:19:21]He was probably incapacitated after the first strike. Why did you keep hitting him?

[00:19:28]>> I thought I could either call 911 or I can kill him. And I said, I'm just going to kill him. And then I finished it up one. You don't let that deer just run off in the woods and just sit there and die. I mean, you chase it down and you bring it back and you knock it in the head and eat it.

[00:19:45]>> But JD wasn't a deer. He wasn't prey.

[00:19:48]>> He wasn't my dear for a long time. He was my beloved best friend. But when he left me, I left him.

[00:19:56]>> The excessive force used in the murder puts Camfield's case in a special category of homicide. what forensic scientists call overkill, when death itself is not enough to satisfy the killer's bloodlust.

[00:20:10]Overkillers are motivated by a perceived sense of rejection or a grudge, sometimes coupled with a prolonged state of psychosis. For Campfield, it lasted for days.

[00:20:23]>> And over the next 3 days is where the other strikes come from. Was just hitting the dead body.

[00:20:28]>> Why?

[00:20:31]I don't know. I'm in the way again.

[00:20:35]>> Meanwhile, Camfield was still in the mobile home and still in the mood for murder and had his eyes set on his next victim, another former friend who came to check on JD.

[00:20:47]Your friend told police that he couldn't get in touch with JD for days and so he went over to the trailer home to see if he was okay. Really? I was thinking about killing it for some reason, just to get as many bodies as I could and just stop the househel.

[00:21:04]>> Campfield led him into the bloodied bedroom.

[00:21:07]>> Well, I showed him the body.

[00:21:09]>> Why'd you do that?

[00:21:12]>> See if he wanted to poke it with the stick, I guess.

[00:21:16]>> The friend bolted out of the home, narrowly escaping with his life, and notified his father, who dialed 911.

[00:21:23]>> Parker County 911.

[00:21:25]>> My son, he ran out. He went down and called me. My son walked over and looked in a bedroom door and there's somebody laying in a bed.

[00:21:34]>> Okay. All right. We'll get someone out there, too. Okay.

[00:21:38]>> JD Doss's body was discovered and Camfield was arrested without incident.

[00:21:45]>> When I got called, I was it was approximately 1:30, 2:00 in the morning.

[00:21:50]Veteran homicide investigator and Texas Ranger Anthony Bradford braced himself for a raving lunatic now in custody. He was surprised by the softspoken killer he met.

[00:22:02]>> How you doing?

[00:22:03]>> Pretty good.

[00:22:05]>> Oh, not too bad.

[00:22:06]>> It was the unconcerned nature that just stood out. The matter of factness. I mean, he he knows he just got found in a house with a deceased person, and he knows he's been placed in handcuffs and brought to the jail, and yet it was like he was there for a traffic ticket.

[00:22:25]>> And in fact, Camfield went on to confess to the killing so nonchalantly, it suggested something deeply sinister at play.

[00:22:32]>> I might have whacked him in the head about 2:00.

[00:22:35]Kind of sat around hitting him with a pick for a while, >> just listening to him talk.

[00:22:42]I remember feeling like this guy's really he doesn't have both ores in the water. Okay. And and and he he was so matter of fact. He seemed like, you know, he kind of enjoyed it.

[00:22:55]>> Especially when Campfield recounted texting photos of his crime to a girl he liked, posing as his victim.

[00:23:02]>> Was like, "I killed Fatty." She's like, "No, you didn't." I was like, "Yeah, I did." She said, "What for?" I was like, "He smoked all the pot."

[00:23:10]Camfield was revealing himself to be a proud killer.

[00:23:14]>> I mean, I kind of felt bad, but not really. I mean, it was just one of them things.

[00:23:21]>> A meticulous killer.

[00:23:23]>> I washed him and put him into bed.

[00:23:25]>> What' you wash him with?

[00:23:27]>> Um, my toiletry kit, soap, and water.

[00:23:30]>> And a sick and twisted one.

[00:23:33]>> I figured skin him cuz I was going to put the pit through his ribs and hang him upside down.

[00:23:40]It sickened me. It's probably the most disturbing description of what a killer did to a victim postmortem that I've ever personally experienced.

[00:23:55]>> And this is where the story gets darker.

[00:23:58]Much darker. Some viewers might find the details too graphic.

[00:24:03]>> Did you do something else to him before you put him in the bed?

[00:24:06]>> Put him in the tub.

[00:24:07]>> Put him in the tub. You tell him to him twice.

[00:24:10]>> You did what now?

[00:24:13]>> How'd you do that?

[00:24:13]>> In the butt with condom.

[00:24:15]>> Did you do it? You said you did it more than once.

[00:24:18]>> Did you use a condom both times?

[00:24:19]>> I didn't put pickles in his ass the third time.

[00:24:22]>> Where'd you get the pickles from?

[00:24:23]They're fresh.

[00:24:24]>> Fridge.

[00:24:25]>> Yeah, they bitched to me for eating them.

[00:24:28]>> Okay.

[00:24:28]>> So, I sent them with him. When I ask Camfield about these shocking disclosures 12 years later, he's just as forthcoming and matter of fact. What was going on during those three days in the house with the body?

[00:24:41]>> Necroilia.

[00:24:43]>> Necroilia. Necroilia.

[00:24:46]>> Right. Is uh a kind of fetish with dead bodies, often sexual.

[00:24:54]>> I'm actually struck that you you identify it as necroilia.

[00:24:58]Were you getting pleasure from all of this? I >> found the porn stash and I was just like >> So, you were getting sexual >> pleasure from it.

[00:25:09]>> But it didn't end with sexual assault on the corpse. Camfield would also admit to mutilating his victim and worse.

[00:25:17]>> Cuz we scalped him to cut the hair off his head.

[00:25:22]In that kitchen, police found parts of JD's scalp next to two open blades of a Swiss Army knife that had his flesh on it, right? You also had an electric knife out.

[00:25:40]You know where I'm going with this, right?

[00:25:41]>> I was thinking about eating it.

[00:25:43]>> Sorry, >> I was thinking about eating it.

[00:25:45]>> At the time, he told police he had a long fascination with cannibalism.

[00:25:50]How long you been thinking about that for?

[00:25:54]>> I don't know. I guess like since I was born cuz it's kind of like bred in kind of thing, you know. I don't know. I seen it on TV and stuff. All Hannibal Lecter and all like the serial killers off of TV and history books and eat people and drag the people off and stuff.

[00:26:11]>> How far did the cannibalism go?

[00:26:14]Um, I sat down with his like this uh calf in his foot in my lap and I kind of looked at it while I was eating pickles and changed my mind.

[00:26:24]>> Change your mind?

[00:26:26]>> I just didn't want to know anymore.

[00:26:29]>> Camfield's appetite for violence and cruelty continued. Still holed up inside the mobile home with Doss's body beside him. He began texting women from the victim's phone, sending photos of the crime scene to one and baiting another by posing as JD.

[00:26:45]You sent her photos. Why'd you do that?

[00:26:48]>> I just wanted to talk to somebody.

[00:26:50]>> What were you intending to do when you used his phone to try and lure that woman >> to get laid?

[00:26:58]>> So, what what was your plan?

[00:26:59]>> To get laid like a son of a [ __ ] Of all the killers I've sat across from, Campfield showed the least connection to humanity and the least shame.

[00:27:10]>> Can you now looking back, do you have any sense of how depraved, just how thick these acts were?

[00:27:21]>> Um, at times >> you defiled, you sodomized with a pickle, too.

[00:27:28]>> I'm not laughing. I'm crying.

[00:27:29]>> No, you're laughing.

[00:27:30]>> I'm not laughing. I'm crying.

[00:27:32]>> You're laughing. And what do you think that says about you that you're laughing?

[00:27:36]>> I don't know that that I'm really crying the whole time.

[00:27:41]>> Camfield is clearly deranged, but at the time of the murder, it was unclear if he was legally insane. He claimed he had heard voices that told him to kill.

[00:27:51]>> How long you been thinking about killing somebody for?

[00:27:54]>> The the gears and the voices started ticking in my head.

[00:27:58]>> But did he really? Can you admit now that it was not some disembodied voice but you that was driving these decisions?

[00:28:09]>> You uh took some antiscychotic medication.

[00:28:13]>> When's the last time?

[00:28:14]>> Been a while. I want to say 6 to 8 months.

[00:28:17]>> Who put you on the antiscychotic? You remember the doctor or was it was it while you were in jail somewhere?

[00:28:22]>> I don't remember cuz like um started hearing voices or something.

[00:28:30]An hour and a half into being interrogated, killer Nicholas Campfield, who had appeared sober and clear-minded, suddenly mentioned hearing voices.

[00:28:39]>> The gears and the voices started ticking in my head.

[00:28:42]Cuz when I read the Bible, I wrote about the three Billy Goats Gruff, like a story we read in high school.

[00:28:50]Campfield reminded me of many killers I've interviewed who malinger, the term experts use when a criminal invents a severe mental illness or verbal or visual hallucinations to excuse their actions and claim insanity. Were you hearing voices in your head?

[00:29:05]>> No, >> you told police. You're denying it now, but you told police that you were hearing voices that told you to do this, right? I'm saying maybe the voice in your head was really you, >> right?

[00:29:20]>> And isn't it convenient to blame it on some voice or the devil as people do rather than just own up to the fact that it's you driving these decisions?

[00:29:33]>> Yes, sir.

[00:29:35]>> What What do you think about that?

[00:29:37]>> Um, I don't know. I mean, maybe it's just that I needed to to come to my circumference.

[00:29:48]I needed to find my center. Can you admit now that it was not some disembodied voice, but you that was driving these decisions?

[00:29:59]>> No, >> you can't admit that. Why not?

[00:30:04]>> Cuz I believe in God, >> right? But God wasn't the voice, right?

[00:30:08]your your actions in this case were were so depraved and went on for so long that it makes me think that it was you all along. Were you hearing voices that told you to do this or was that voice who you really are?

[00:30:28]Was it your voice that told me to kill him?

[00:30:31]>> Yeah, >> rather.

[00:30:33]>> This finally had the ring of truth.

[00:30:36]There was no disembodied voice. Just Campfield's own deranged mind consumed by feeling scorned and driving him to overkill.

[00:30:46]>> I was abandoned.

[00:30:49]>> I mean, when you get kicked out of your nest, you either fly or you fall and rewind.

[00:30:58]>> But that doesn't really make sense because he was in a home where he had permission to be not hurting anybody.

[00:31:05]Right.

[00:31:07]>> Except my feelings.

[00:31:09]>> Except your feelings. And so because he hurt your feelings and you couldn't handle it, you killed him.

[00:31:18]>> Yes, sir.

[00:31:20]>> Sometimes the motive is shockingly and simply evil. Campfield murdered JD Doss and defiled his body, enraged by a sense of rejection.

[00:31:30]>> And at 37 years old, do you think that makes sense? That's justified.

[00:31:36]Like most of us get our feelings hurt and we have to be adults about it.

[00:31:40]>> You know where the word berserk comes from?

[00:31:42]>> Where?

[00:31:43]>> Berserker.

[00:31:44]>> Berserker. Yeah. Mhm.

[00:31:47]>> Kind of like Blitz Craig.

[00:31:48]>> Is that what happened in your mind?

[00:31:50]Blitzkrieg.

[00:31:52]>> But would Camfield's mingering pay off in court? Could he use his mental problems to excuse his crimes?

[00:31:59]>> My name starts with a You know insane.

[00:32:09]>> This is the place where I grew up. We're a small tight-knit community. You basically know everybody.

[00:32:15]>> For prosecutor Nikki Gro, the Nicholas Camfield case was personal.

[00:32:20]>> We don't have murders often in Parker County, and that's a good thing. But when someone does take a life, I wanted to be one of the people that made sure that justice was done, that the death was answered for. In this particular case, I looked at Campfield's criminal history, and I knew that there was more to this story. This was a person who continuously engaged in criminal actions.

[00:32:47]>> When he grabbed that pickaxe, at what point did you decide you were going to hit him in the head with it? About the time he came in the house, >> he already made >> said, "I'm going to hit this mother."

[00:32:56]>> JD's the only person you killed.

[00:32:58]>> Yes, sir.

[00:32:58]>> Okay.

[00:32:59]>> Tried a bunch of frogs with 22.

[00:33:02]>> Run Armadillo over one time. Not chasing Skunks, but he's the first person I ever killed.

[00:33:10]>> In 2013, after confessing to murdering JD Doss, Nicholas Campfield was hoping to get off by reason of insanity, but prosecutors didn't buy it.

[00:33:21]I knew that this guy wasn't just an insane, you know, person who didn't know what he was doing.

[00:33:28]>> I was skeptical, too. Do you think you're sane or insane?

[00:33:36]>> My name starts with the insane.

[00:33:41]>> Oh, that's not how you spell insane. You know that, right? Aha.

[00:33:45]>> I noticed that your your lawyer was going to file for insanity defense and then that never happened.

[00:33:54]>> I couldn't wait to get it to trial so maybe the the chance of insanity would come out.

[00:34:00]>> Okay. But but there was a lot of evidence of rational behavior on your part punctuating all the depravity of those three days. for example, you seem to come out of the zombie-like state long enough to have dinner with your mom, uh, to confess, to pose as JD and try and lure women into some kind of sex trap.

[00:34:22]>> But what about the fact that the whole time I was in county, I don't remember hardly any of it.

[00:34:28]>> Okay. Well, blackout is also a very convenient excuse that criminals somebody sometimes use. Yeah. I don't remember any of it. We've seen that on on our show.

[00:34:39]>> Oh, >> but you're not claiming that you don't remember this crime.

[00:34:44]>> I remember a crime more than anything in the world.

[00:34:47]>> It was difficult to get straight answers out of Campfield. It was also hard to discern whether during our interview he was actually in psychosis or just pretending, malingering. But police and prosecutors had a smoking gun to use against him. Proof that he was legally sane at the time of the crime. When you did those things, were you aware that you were doing all those things and that they were wrong?

[00:35:09]>> Yes.

[00:35:10]>> Okay.

[00:35:11]>> Campfield had admitted to police that he knew what he was doing when he murdered JD Doss and that he knew that it was wrong. Under Texas law, he had no claim to insanity.

[00:35:22]>> When you killed JD, you were aware.

[00:35:25]>> I mean, I kind of felt bad, but not really. I mean, it was just one of them things, you know.

[00:35:32]>> But you knew what you were doing, right?

[00:35:35]pretty much.

[00:35:38]I mean, there's all pretty much today.

[00:35:41]>> With that admission, prosecutor Nikki Gro was determined to go to trial and pursue the death penalty.

[00:35:47]>> He knew it was wrong and he killed his friend. And he did it in the most horrific evil way. It's really just pure evil.

[00:35:57]>> Do you think you deserve to die for what you did?

[00:36:02]>> No.

[00:36:03]>> No.

[00:36:05]I was having a bad day.

[00:36:08]>> A bad day?

[00:36:09]>> What about taking responsibility for your murderous action? In the end, the two sides struck a deal. Just 5 months after killing his one-time best friend, Campfield agreed to plead guilty to capital murder and accepted a sentence of life without parole.

[00:36:29]As much as I think that this evil person deserved the death penalty, there are reasons that he was given a plea, we listened to the family and what they wanted. And they didn't want to have to go through years and years of an appeal, which is what happens when someone is, you know, given the death penalty in Texas. Appeal after appeal, dragging it out. And that was something that they couldn't fathom given what they'd already been through.

[00:36:58]Campfield also agreed to one final condition to close out the case forever.

[00:37:03]He can never appeal his sentence.

[00:37:06]>> Do you think you deserve your sentence?

[00:37:10]>> Probably.

[00:37:11]>> The victim's father declined our request for an interview, but gave former assistant DA Nikki Gro his permission to speak for the family. You know, it's been 13 years since I've seen him. And I knocked on the door and I saw his face and he knew who I was. And we sat on his front porch. And yes, I want people to know who my son was. And the world deserves to know.

[00:37:43]The world deserves to know that justice was served and that Canfield is exactly where he belongs.

[00:37:52]At one point, uh, JD's parents actually let Campfield move in with them and he was working as a lineman with JD and so they were helping him learn a trade.

[00:38:03]They were trying to make sure he could manage his money appropriately because, you know, they wanted to help the guy.

[00:38:10]And that's in part what makes it so much more horrific and hurtful to the family that, hey, you know, we opened our home and our hearts to you and this is what this is what you do.

[00:38:23]This is how you repay us. This is our son. He still gets to talk to his family in jail. He still gets to talk to his mom.

[00:38:31]JD's family, they don't get that.

[00:38:35]And the last memories that they have are calling and he's not answering. And the worry, where is he? And then finding out the details of what happened. The things that Campfield had done to JD are horrific and no one deserves to die like that.

[00:38:58]This is a guy who has been your friend >> for since I was 18.

[00:39:04]>> This is a man who brought you into his family home and let you live with him.

[00:39:10]>> And he stayed in my family home multiple nights.

[00:39:13]>> JD's father >> Mhm.

[00:39:16]>> blamed himself >> for trusting you and for helping you.

[00:39:24]Can you imagine what it's like for him to have to live with this?

[00:39:31]All because you took such offense in your psychotic mind that he fell asleep. That was his great crime against you. He fell asleep on you.

[00:39:45]>> Right. And for that, you took his life, defiled his body, and sentenced his family to a life without their son. Can you imagine how they feel?

[00:40:02]You can.

[00:40:04]I'm not convinced.

[00:40:06]Camfield's parting words leave no doubt he is still a man devoid of empathy or even the capacity to fake it. Do you think you've changed? Are you a changed man or are you the same man capable of the same things?

[00:40:23]>> Unless I had to and then I still wouldn't want to.

[00:40:27]>> I'm not sure you know the difference between have to and want to because you didn't have to kill JD.

[00:40:35]>> And I don't have to do it again. And that's I really really really really want to.

[00:40:41]I tried to do it in here and I got paper sprayed for the first time.

[00:40:44]>> You have a pretty violent record in here. Several assaults on staff.

[00:40:53]>> They're my only friends. Sh.

[00:40:55]>> What's that?

[00:40:56]>> Said they're my only friends.

[00:40:57]>> They're your only friends. Well, nobody wants to be your friend if you treat your friends the way you treated your best friend, >> right?

[00:41:06]>> Well, I mean, I don't know. You get one neck and rush about it.

[00:41:10]No, thank you.

[00:41:11]>> Okay.

[00:41:12]>> You're almost giddy remembering the golden details. No, no. I'm talking about like the smiling, the laughing, the giggling.

[00:41:22]>> Do you have any remorse in your heart?

[00:41:25]>> Just say I'm sorry.

[00:41:26]>> To feel that you're not just sorry, but deeply deeply ashamed for the harm that you've done to that family and that man.

[00:41:37]You know, I feel I'm uh an outstanding American citizen.

[00:41:41]>> You don't seem sorry at all.

[00:41:45]>> Thank you.

[00:41:47]>> That's not a compliment.

[00:41:52]>> JD's friends and family described him as a person who was a good-hearted man. He was a hard worker. He was a third generation lineman in his family. So, he took a lot of pride in what he did and he had a good work ethic.

[00:42:05]and his friend said that, you know, you couldn't ask for a better friend. He was a good listener. He was supportive.

[00:42:14]>> JD Doss had tried for years to be a friend to Camfield when no one else would. Before his death, he had succeeded in purging bad influences from his life, including the man who would take it. Nikki Gro and his family see a tragedy in the timing.

[00:42:31]>> Everybody struggles with their demons.

[00:42:32]Sobriety had been one thing that JD had struggled with in the past. But the day that JD died, his sobriety chip was in his car in the visor so he could always see it. And that person, that strong person, that person who was making a better life for himself, that was making the right choices, that's the person that died that day.

[00:42:58]Okay.

[00:43:01]I left Camfield reeling from my trip to the dark side and thinking about the men and women who have to supervise him for the rest of his life less Camfield kills again.