During December of 1986, Charles Edwin Reece purchases a gun in Stockton, California, and receives it after the mandatory fifteen-day waiting period. On Christmas Day, Reece, wearing a red jacket and sunglasses, approaches the suburban home of Mrs. Barbara Ellis. When her mother, Mrs. Hendrickson, answers the door, Reece steps inside and shoots her. He also kills Mr. Hendrickson, and wounds Barbara Ellis. Reece drags the women upstairs, gets a knife from the kitchen, and retrieves a garbage bag from his pocket. As he mutilates the women, Reece has a vision of washing himself in their blood in front of a tiger. Later, Assistant District Attorney Anthony “Tony” Fraser is called to the crime scene. The upstairs bedroom is covered with blood, and the killer drank the women’s blood before leaving with several of their organs. While observing the gruesome scene, Tony has a flashback to his young daughter’s brain-death due to pneumonia, when he had to authorize ending her life. The District Attorney alerts his staff that when the killer is apprehended, they will seek the death penalty. Tony feels the killer is insane, but the District Attorney insists on pursuing capital punishment. Tony meets with a friend, Judge McKinsey, and they discuss whether a jury would believe an insanity defense, with the judge noting that he once tried a case in which the jury believed the killer must be insane because no normal person could commit such a heinous crime. In a suburban neighborhood, Gene Tippets, his wife, Eileen, and their two sons, Andrew and Aaron, bury the family dog in the backyard. Certain their neighbor, Charlie Reece, killed the dog, Gene notifies police. After Gene takes Andrew to the dentist, Reece sneaks into their house. Gene and Andrew return home to find Eileen’s mutilated body and Aaron missing. When Tony arrives at the scene, police inform him that a witness description of a man wearing a red jacket and sunglasses matches the description of the suspect in the Ellis case. However, this time, the witness recognized the man as Charles Edmund Reece, who lives nearby with his mother. Tony and police officers rush to the Reece home. Inside, they awaken Naomi Reece, who declares her son is not home and is innocent. Outside, officers notice a locked bulkhead door and break it open. In the cellar below, they discover blood, human organs, and bullets, as well as religious and Nazi material. Officers go to the gas station where Reece works. He pretends to be someone else, but the officers notice his red jacket. Reece runs away, and the officers chase him to a park where they arrest him. At the police station, Reece protests his innocence. Admitting he has seen many psychiatrists in the past, he claims that Tony will never understand him because Tony is not chosen. Dr. Paul Rudin, the on-call psychiatrist, arrives and Tony asks him to get any information possible on Aaron Tippetts’ whereabouts. After the meeting, Dr. Rudin reports that Reece has problems, but Rudin believes that Tony can make a case for legal sanity. The public defender, Albert Morse, visits Naomi Reece and learns that Reece’s father died when he was six. Prior to his death, Naomi’s husband abused her and she left him. However, she returned two months later because she missed her son. Naomi admits Reece was upset when she committed him to a psychiatric hospital, but insists he got better and the doctors released him. Tony studies the evidence to convince himself that pursuing the death penalty is the correct decision. He concludes that Reece might be crazy, but had the presence of mind to premeditate aspects of his crimes, and did not seem to panic during the murders. Medical scans of Reece’s brain indicate everything is normal, with no sign of brain damage or disease. Public defender Albert Morse brings his psychiatric expert, Dr. Keddie, to meet Reece. Morse claims their best defense is insanity, but Reece does not agree. Reece declares his actions were justified because he heard Satan on the radio, and needed his victims’ blood to replenish his own. Reece admits to drinking some of Aaron Tippetts’ blood and believes he put the boy in a trash can. Gene Tippetts and his son, Andrew, visit Tony at home. While Tony tries to convince Gene to testify, his wife, Kate, comforts Andrew. Tony reveals they are pursuing the death penalty so that Reece can never be released to murder again. Gene is reluctant to participate, noting his only concern is taking care of Andrew. Tony understands Gene’s situation, and reveals that he had to make a decision regarding his daughter’s death, and must now do the same for Reece. Later, as Gene and Andrew return to their motel, Gene decides to leave town and drive around the country, promising that his son will have fun again. Dr. Keddie, the defense psychiatrist, visits Dr. Paul Rudin, the on-call psychiatrist who interviewed Reece upon his arrest. Keddie discovered that, unknown to the District Attorney’s office, Reece was a patient at Sunnyslope Hospital and released six months prior to his killing rampage. Dr. Rudin declares he is not responsible because one of his staff doctors handled Reece’s case and made the decision to release him from Sunnyslope. However, Keddie insists that Sunnyslope will be sued when it becomes known that the staff certified Reece’s sanity and released him. Keddie claims Rudin does not have to falsify his interview with Reece, but should state that upon further reflection, he realized that Reece suffered from paranoid schizophrenia. Keddie declares the death penalty is intolerable and they must “stretch the truth” to save Reece’s life. In Judge McKinsey’s office, Morse asks Tony to agree to an insanity plea. However, Tony is confident he can prove Reece is legally sane, and refuses the plea bargain. As the trial begins, Judge McKinsey informs the jury about the components of a trial involving an insanity defense. The jurors must determine guilt, and also must determine sanity at the time the crimes were committed. If Reece is found to be sane and guilty, the jurors move to the penalty phase, which includes the option of the death penalty. When Dr. Rudin takes the stand, he backtracks on his previous statements to Tony, who confronts him as a hostile witness and gets him to admit that Reece could be declared legally sane. Later, Tony is called to another crime scene when Aaron’s body is found in a river. Reece telephones Tony at home and asks to be moved to another jail because he is being poisoned. Tony orders Reece to never call his home again. In court, Dr. Leon Gables testifies that Reece is legally sane, and knows right from wrong despite a “peculiar belief” that he needs other people’s blood to survive. As officers transport Reece in a van, he uses a handmade knife to murder two of the officers and escapes. That night, Reece breaks into a church and murders a priest. Police arrive to find Reece drinking the priest’s blood from a chalice. Morse gets evidence of Reece’s escape and subsequent murders suppressed as the trial resumes. However, as Dr. Keddie takes the stand and declares Reece to be insane, Tony slips in the escape attempt during his questioning. He attempts to discredit the psychiatrist’s opinion, noting that Keddie’s beliefs would free both Reece and the Nazis from responsibility for any criminal actions. During their closing statements, Morse cautions jurors that the death penalty is an irrevocable decision, while Tony reminds them of the victims and their suffering. The jurors return a guilty verdict. Afterward, Morse requests a PET scan of Reece’s brain, arguing that this new method of scanning for mental illness is essential prior to the penalty phase. The scan shows abnormal patterns in Reece’s brain, indicating mental illness, and Reece is sentenced to a state mental hospital. Reece writes a letter to Gene Tippetts, rationalizing his need for blood and asking for Gene’s help. During his first four years in a state mental facility, Reece had one hearing to determine his eligibility for release. His next hearing is due in six months.