1 00:00:01,080 --> 00:00:07,200 You're listening to the Mind Over Murder podcast. My name is Bill Thomas. 2 00:00:07,719 --> 00:00:12,039 I'm a writer, consulting, producer, and now podcaster. I am now 3 00:00:12,080 --> 00:00:16,000 trying to use my experience as the brother of a murder victim to help other 4 00:00:16,079 --> 00:00:20,239 victims of violent crime. I'm working on a book on the unsolved Colonial Parkway 5 00:00:20,239 --> 00:00:24,280 and murders, and I'm the co administrator of the Colonial Parkway Murders Facebook group 6 00:00:24,359 --> 00:00:28,039 together with Kristin Dilley. My name is Kristin Dilley. I'm a writer, 7 00:00:28,359 --> 00:00:32,039 a researcher, a teacher, and a victim's advocate, as well as the 8 00:00:32,079 --> 00:00:37,359 social media manager and co administrator for the Colonial Parkway Murders Facebook page with my 9 00:00:37,399 --> 00:00:49,840 partner in crime, Bill Thomas. Welcome to mind Over Murder. I'm Kristin 10 00:00:49,920 --> 00:00:55,079 Dilley and I'm Bill Thomas, and we're joined today by author Ron francel journalist 11 00:00:55,200 --> 00:01:00,240 and best selling author of his most recent book, Shadow Man and Elusive Echo 12 00:01:00,359 --> 00:01:04,120 Keiller and the Birth of FBI Profiling Run. Thank you for joining us today. 13 00:01:04,719 --> 00:01:08,079 Hey, thank you Kristen and Bill for having me. I appreciate it. 14 00:01:08,359 --> 00:01:11,680 Go ahead and start by telling us a little bit about your educational and 15 00:01:11,799 --> 00:01:15,680 professional background. You're a prolific author, so we'd love to hear about your 16 00:01:17,040 --> 00:01:21,480 books in particular. It's funny people use that word prolific, and when you're 17 00:01:21,560 --> 00:01:25,879 actually doing it, it doesn't feel like prolific. Feels like it's coming way 18 00:01:25,959 --> 00:01:32,400 too slow. Yes, I've written in books published Number nineteen is coming in 19 00:01:32,719 --> 00:01:36,799 February, not a true crime, but a crime fiction. So that'll be 20 00:01:36,879 --> 00:01:42,879 an interesting little diversion in my path. I'm a lifelong journalist. I ultimately 21 00:01:44,400 --> 00:01:49,239 was a senior writer at the Denver Post, where I was charged with covering 22 00:01:49,359 --> 00:01:55,840 the evolution of the American West, and it kept me on the road constantly 23 00:01:56,239 --> 00:02:00,040 looking for those places where the past, the present and a few you're intersected, 24 00:02:00,560 --> 00:02:04,439 telling the stories of where we've been, where we are, and where 25 00:02:04,480 --> 00:02:09,360 we're going, so that it was a complex kind of mission. It ultimately 26 00:02:09,639 --> 00:02:15,120 led on the nine to eleven to me being dispatched to the Middle East to 27 00:02:15,240 --> 00:02:20,319 cover the beginnings of the Terror war in the Middle East, using some of 28 00:02:20,400 --> 00:02:27,039 the same techniques that i'd been practicing doing that beat, this narrative journalism, 29 00:02:27,319 --> 00:02:32,120 telling stories in a little bit different way than people are usually accustomed to seeing 30 00:02:32,199 --> 00:02:37,159 in a newspaper. Early in my career, I wrote a couple of novels. 31 00:02:37,680 --> 00:02:40,719 So what you do in that narrative journalism, and what I was doing 32 00:02:42,039 --> 00:02:46,120 was trying to tell these completely true stories using a few of the tools from 33 00:02:46,159 --> 00:02:51,639 a novelist toolbox, so that what you ended up with was a story that 34 00:02:52,000 --> 00:02:55,800 had the feel and the texture of a novel. It was a story. 35 00:02:55,879 --> 00:03:00,319 It had foreshadowing, it had characters, had dialogue, but it was utterly 36 00:03:00,520 --> 00:03:07,479 true. And that's what you see there in Shadowman is this idea of telling 37 00:03:07,520 --> 00:03:12,360 a true crime story but telling it in a way that you might expect to 38 00:03:12,439 --> 00:03:16,879 see in a mystery novel. It's an interesting background to have to be telling 39 00:03:17,000 --> 00:03:23,080 true stories in a novelistic style. It was pioneered by the very first writer 40 00:03:23,280 --> 00:03:29,560 of true crime books, Truman Capodi, and that's what in Cold Blood was 41 00:03:29,879 --> 00:03:38,439 an attempt to blend journalism with storytelling. The fact that Capodi was himself a 42 00:03:38,639 --> 00:03:44,960 novelist and a fiction writer trying to do journalism in a creative way has I 43 00:03:45,080 --> 00:03:49,360 think, over the years, evolved in my mind too. I think it 44 00:03:49,400 --> 00:03:54,639 would be better done by a journalist who's learning the fiction, rather than the 45 00:03:54,919 --> 00:04:01,319 fiction writer learning the journalism, because I think where Capodi made some errors in 46 00:04:01,520 --> 00:04:08,039 Cold Blood, it could be attributed to that it was a lack of basic 47 00:04:08,240 --> 00:04:13,599 grounding in journalism. But what I've done, of course Capodi might quarrel with 48 00:04:13,719 --> 00:04:16,519 that too. I came up as a journalist and I took some of those 49 00:04:16,639 --> 00:04:21,519 tools to use to do my journalism. And again that's what you in Shadowman, 50 00:04:23,160 --> 00:04:27,839 in the book before that, Alison jar a homicide love story in my 51 00:04:28,000 --> 00:04:31,199 very first true crime, The Darkest Night. I've actually just been talking to 52 00:04:31,360 --> 00:04:36,480 my ap language in composition class about this very topic with in Cold Blood, 53 00:04:36,600 --> 00:04:42,920 which is the blending of fact and storytelling, and we were definitely talking about 54 00:04:42,959 --> 00:04:46,720 the fact that Capoti took some liberties in ways that he definitely should not have. 55 00:04:46,480 --> 00:04:49,519 So I actually did recommend to my kids today that if you want a 56 00:04:49,639 --> 00:04:57,000 good example of nonfiction narrative, I actually recommended your book, and this is 57 00:04:57,360 --> 00:05:00,680 a great approach to it. It's interesting because true crime, in my mind, 58 00:05:01,120 --> 00:05:08,279 breaks down into two major subgenres, and one is the commercial and it 59 00:05:08,519 --> 00:05:14,439 was typically the kind of books we're seeing in supermarket shelves, and they're fairly 60 00:05:14,600 --> 00:05:18,639 formulaic. There's a crime, there's an investigation, there's an arrest, there's 61 00:05:18,639 --> 00:05:23,240 a trial, and there's a verdict, and the bad guy gets what's coming 62 00:05:23,319 --> 00:05:28,920 to him. They are often centered around domestic violence of some kind, and 63 00:05:29,000 --> 00:05:35,000 they're aimed directly at today's modern true crime reader, which is eighty percent of 64 00:05:35,160 --> 00:05:41,399 female market. Yes. The other subgenre, though, is the more literary, 65 00:05:41,639 --> 00:05:46,680 and a capodi today would fall into that. But we also see people 66 00:05:46,920 --> 00:05:53,079 like David gran with Killers of the Flower Moon and John Barrant with Midnight in 67 00:05:53,160 --> 00:05:57,160 the Garden of Good and Evil and Eric Larson in The Devil in the White 68 00:05:57,199 --> 00:06:01,639 City, which are bigger's stories. They have that storytelling element, they have 69 00:06:01,759 --> 00:06:08,720 a more literary quality, and the crimes are usually much more complex. So 70 00:06:09,240 --> 00:06:14,639 it's the I won't say the least popular of the genres, but I will 71 00:06:14,720 --> 00:06:18,000 say the commercial is the one that makes all the money. And you just 72 00:06:18,199 --> 00:06:23,639 listed a whole bunch of my very favorite true crime books there too. Yeah, 73 00:06:23,680 --> 00:06:26,920 and this is definitely I'm also I'm taking notes here so that I can 74 00:06:27,040 --> 00:06:31,360 take this back to my Apline class as well unfolded into my lecture. So 75 00:06:31,519 --> 00:06:38,279 thank you for helping me do my job appreciating well, I'm happy to help 76 00:06:38,800 --> 00:06:43,399 I was laughing quietly when you were talking about Capodia a few minutes ago. 77 00:06:43,839 --> 00:06:47,759 I know that Kristen uses in Cold Blood as one of the books that her 78 00:06:47,839 --> 00:06:53,079 students study, but I was also thinking about Capodi as a kind of a 79 00:06:53,160 --> 00:06:57,639 personality to watch them on talk shows when I was a god. And when 80 00:06:57,680 --> 00:07:00,959 you said you thought that Capodi might have argued the point, I thought to 81 00:07:00,079 --> 00:07:03,399 myself, Brent, watching him, one probably was a Dick Cabot or something 82 00:07:03,519 --> 00:07:06,319 like that. He probably would have loved to have argued the point, because 83 00:07:06,399 --> 00:07:11,360 man that he could talk. No, he really could, and he's one 84 00:07:11,439 --> 00:07:16,000 of those people who I would love to have a beer with. It's simply 85 00:07:16,160 --> 00:07:20,759 because his mind was working in a way that nobody's mind was working at the 86 00:07:20,839 --> 00:07:27,079 time. He could have continued to be the successful novelist that he was. 87 00:07:27,600 --> 00:07:33,920 He was already a known quantity in Hollywood. He had this idea of taking 88 00:07:34,040 --> 00:07:41,319 a true story and using his novelistic talents to structure it. Norman Mailer was 89 00:07:41,480 --> 00:07:45,639 doing the same thing at the same time. We're both just waiting for a 90 00:07:45,800 --> 00:07:49,959 story to come along that would be that story. The Clutter family murders in 91 00:07:50,279 --> 00:07:56,639 Kansas came along Capodi saw them in the backs back pages of the New York 92 00:07:56,720 --> 00:08:01,360 Times, and he just became first. But Mailer had this same idea and 93 00:08:01,399 --> 00:08:05,800 it was going right at the same time. And these are two great thinkers. 94 00:08:05,959 --> 00:08:09,639 Of course, Mailer then comes back with the Executioner's Song another ten or 95 00:08:09,720 --> 00:08:16,240 fifteen years, and that becomes one of those narrative nonfiction true crimes too. 96 00:08:16,720 --> 00:08:20,319 I would love to talk to Capodan get a little bit of whatever he had. 97 00:08:20,680 --> 00:08:24,879 So let's go and pivot to the case that's at the heart of shadow 98 00:08:24,920 --> 00:08:28,000 Man, and that is the case of Susie Yager. How did the Susie 99 00:08:28,040 --> 00:08:33,799 Yeager case come onto your radar at first? Let me start by saying that 100 00:08:33,000 --> 00:08:37,840 the secret of my success as a writer has been that I never pick a 101 00:08:37,919 --> 00:08:45,000 story I can screw up. Let's give it. The shadow Man fell into 102 00:08:45,080 --> 00:08:50,039 that category. I first came across it when I was doing that job at 103 00:08:50,080 --> 00:08:56,200 the Denver Post and Chris crossing the West and listening to these marvelous stories of 104 00:08:56,320 --> 00:09:01,679 the past in all of these corners of the West where where we don't often 105 00:09:01,840 --> 00:09:05,000 poke our noses, and the story as it was presented to me at that 106 00:09:05,279 --> 00:09:11,840 time was a little tourist girl was camping in a tent in a state park 107 00:09:11,919 --> 00:09:20,720 in Montana when one night somebody cuts into her tent and steals her away, 108 00:09:20,159 --> 00:09:28,120 and without any evidence, without any suspects, the FBI turns to this idea 109 00:09:28,240 --> 00:09:35,960 of criminal profiling and actually creates its first ever criminal profile. That was it. 110 00:09:35,240 --> 00:09:39,200 I didn't know what happened to the little girl, and it just didn't 111 00:09:39,360 --> 00:09:45,279 fit in the journalism portfolio that I had at that point, but I filed 112 00:09:45,320 --> 00:09:50,960 it away. Later when I looked more closely at it, I'm seeing something 113 00:09:50,679 --> 00:09:56,200 very different than that little crazy that I was given to me. It had 114 00:09:56,240 --> 00:10:03,600 a power that was had this universal stuff like perverse love and persistence and devotion 115 00:10:03,799 --> 00:10:09,480 and a mother's anguish. By the time I circled back to it and realized 116 00:10:09,840 --> 00:10:15,039 that it was more than a kidnapping, it was this grotesque series of crimes 117 00:10:15,279 --> 00:10:18,000 in a part of the country where I grew up, and it was a 118 00:10:18,080 --> 00:10:22,919 turning point in forensic history. And nobody had ever told the story. In 119 00:10:22,080 --> 00:10:26,759 fact, most people outside of Montana, even crime buff friends of mine, 120 00:10:26,879 --> 00:10:31,919 had never heard of this. No, it's not a well known story at 121 00:10:31,960 --> 00:10:37,320 all. So let's place some of this in time The original horrible case takes 122 00:10:37,360 --> 00:10:41,600 place in nineteen seventy three. When did you first hear that sort of capsule 123 00:10:41,919 --> 00:10:46,919 version of the story at its most basic level. How many years later would 124 00:10:46,960 --> 00:10:52,919 that about? It would have been maybe two thousand and two or three there, 125 00:10:52,039 --> 00:10:58,080 so we're talking thirty years later when I hear this little tidbit and I 126 00:10:58,399 --> 00:11:05,080 file it way. It's another ten years before I come back to that and 127 00:11:05,679 --> 00:11:09,960 decide to dig a little bit deeper, and I find all of that other 128 00:11:09,240 --> 00:11:13,399 stuff. The more I dug into it, the more I wanted to know. 129 00:11:13,679 --> 00:11:18,399 I was finding this history in a very peculiar place, and so there 130 00:11:18,440 --> 00:11:22,720 were all kinds of these little parallel dramas going on in it, But it 131 00:11:22,879 --> 00:11:28,399 all came back to this little girl that got snatched in the dark from her 132 00:11:28,519 --> 00:11:33,360 ten in a campground in the summer of nineteen seventy three. I want to 133 00:11:33,399 --> 00:11:37,679 be a little bit literal here for a second. When you say you filed 134 00:11:37,759 --> 00:11:41,960 it away, do you mean you actually wrote something down someday I want to 135 00:11:43,120 --> 00:11:45,960 explore this case, or did you just put it in the back of your 136 00:11:46,000 --> 00:11:50,240 mind. No, I actually wrote something down, and I'm an old school 137 00:11:50,320 --> 00:11:58,039 journalist. I maintain what I call a future's file, and a future's file 138 00:11:58,360 --> 00:12:03,960 is simply a collection of notes to myself to check back in on this at 139 00:12:03,080 --> 00:12:09,200 some point. It's not working right now, doesn't have a news peg there. 140 00:12:09,360 --> 00:12:13,759 Maybe it's just an interesting person whatever it is, but right at the 141 00:12:13,799 --> 00:12:16,639 moment, I can't use it, so I stick it in that future style. 142 00:12:16,960 --> 00:12:24,360 And you're right, it's usually can be a handwritten note to mysell check 143 00:12:24,440 --> 00:12:28,919 back on this at some point in the future. To this day, still 144 00:12:28,000 --> 00:12:33,080 go back to a folder like that and check my whole card. Basically, 145 00:12:33,200 --> 00:12:37,639 yes, what do I have here? When you said old school? Are 146 00:12:37,679 --> 00:12:43,399 we talking three by five cards or eight and a half by eleven usually whatever 147 00:12:43,559 --> 00:12:48,519 piece of paper I could find at the moment. But probably, and I 148 00:12:48,720 --> 00:12:54,080 believe in this case, it's true that it was a page from my reporter's 149 00:12:54,159 --> 00:12:58,919 notebook that I had heard this story, possibly a lunch or from a sor 150 00:13:00,919 --> 00:13:07,320 somebody I was run into, and I just scribbled down the very basic bones 151 00:13:07,480 --> 00:13:11,960 of the story. At some point when I was back in civilization, I 152 00:13:13,360 --> 00:13:18,159 tore the page out and stuck it in that folder. This is such an 153 00:13:18,240 --> 00:13:22,240 interesting story, and as you said a minute ago, it is really not 154 00:13:22,440 --> 00:13:26,120 something that has had a lot of coverage outside of Montana and then of course 155 00:13:26,159 --> 00:13:31,360 outside of this book. But David Meyerhoffer, your shadow man of the title. 156 00:13:31,799 --> 00:13:35,600 He's horrifying, He's insidious. And I was sitting there reading over this 157 00:13:35,720 --> 00:13:39,360 and going, why have I never heard this case before? This is crazy, 158 00:13:39,799 --> 00:13:46,600 especially given that it really is the first time that the FBI used profiling 159 00:13:46,840 --> 00:13:52,960 to solve a case. Why is it? Do you think that certain perpetrators 160 00:13:52,039 --> 00:13:58,360 and cases rise to the top of public consciousness and stay there, whereas others, 161 00:13:58,440 --> 00:14:01,600 like the Meyerhoffer case don't get the same amount of notice. Let me 162 00:14:01,679 --> 00:14:05,759 address the Meyerhoffer case first, and then let's take off on some of the 163 00:14:05,879 --> 00:14:11,480 others. It happened at the beginning of our awareness of serial killers. This 164 00:14:11,639 --> 00:14:18,399 is nineteen seventy three and seventy four. We don't even have the term serial 165 00:14:18,559 --> 00:14:24,120 killers. We don't even have the term criminal profiling. Yeah, back then, 166 00:14:24,799 --> 00:14:30,440 these guys were called mass murderers or chain killers. But there wasn't yet 167 00:14:30,799 --> 00:14:37,639 any solid scientific suspicion about their motivations or behavior or psychology until around this time. 168 00:14:37,840 --> 00:14:43,240 And that's when Howard Teeton and Pat Mullaney, a couple of FBI ages 169 00:14:43,360 --> 00:14:50,919 very accomplished guys had been brought into the training new training Academy at the FBI 170 00:14:50,080 --> 00:14:56,480 in Quantico, Virginia. Mullaney was trained in psychology. Teton was one of 171 00:14:56,519 --> 00:15:03,320 the FBI's really expert crime scene analysts, and so they were brought into teach 172 00:15:03,440 --> 00:15:09,480 workshops in both of their expertises. They noted together by the way, they 173 00:15:09,639 --> 00:15:13,320 happened to be there together, and when they met, they started talking about 174 00:15:13,399 --> 00:15:18,840 this idea. It wasn't popular. J Edgar Hoover himself hated the idea. 175 00:15:18,960 --> 00:15:22,399 He thought it was hopecom. He thought it was black magic. He thought 176 00:15:22,440 --> 00:15:28,320 it was stupid. And so they weren't given permission to continue, but they 177 00:15:28,440 --> 00:15:33,039 continued regarding this case, why isn't it better known? It's in the summer 178 00:15:33,120 --> 00:15:39,000 of seventy three. It's a mere kidnapping in a rural corner of the West. 179 00:15:39,440 --> 00:15:43,720 For more than seven months, it was only a kidnapping. There were 180 00:15:43,759 --> 00:15:50,440 suspicions that maybe it was worse, but officially it was a kidnapping. So 181 00:15:50,679 --> 00:15:56,399 two reporters and editors it was a local story that didn't warrant national headlines. 182 00:15:56,480 --> 00:16:03,200 The interest ticks up a little bit when another case happens about nine months later, 183 00:16:03,559 --> 00:16:07,799 and they appear to be entangled. Even then, it wasn't big news 184 00:16:07,879 --> 00:16:14,399 outside of Montana and Michigan, where little girls Susie Yeager lived. We also 185 00:16:14,480 --> 00:16:18,120 have to remember that back then the news media was nowhere near as prevalent and 186 00:16:18,320 --> 00:16:25,200 sensational as it is today. We were deeply mired in Vietnam and all the 187 00:16:25,440 --> 00:16:33,000 turmoil it was causing. Here Watergate is happening, Manson has scared the Bejesus 188 00:16:33,120 --> 00:16:37,080 out of everybody. Just within the last couple of years. Before this, 189 00:16:37,480 --> 00:16:42,480 domestic terrorism by groups like the Weather Underground and the Black Panthers, these were 190 00:16:42,559 --> 00:16:48,919 scaring the socks off of people in places like Manhattan, Montana, and outside 191 00:16:49,039 --> 00:16:55,360 of Manhattan. Outside of Montana, a couple of stories about a couple of 192 00:16:55,480 --> 00:17:00,120 unsolved crimes about two girls going missing just never got on the radar of big 193 00:17:00,200 --> 00:17:06,759 city editors. Another thing is that, without spoiling too much here, is 194 00:17:06,880 --> 00:17:12,960 that the suspected killer was arrested on a Friday afternoon. On Saturday, he 195 00:17:14,079 --> 00:17:19,839 confessed to killing both of the two that the FBI was interested in, and 196 00:17:21,079 --> 00:17:25,599 delivered two more that nobody had been looking at. Within the next twelve hours 197 00:17:25,880 --> 00:17:30,240 he's dead. He hangs himself in his cell. For further truths we might 198 00:17:30,319 --> 00:17:34,000 have pursued out there, they died with him, and the case was closed. 199 00:17:34,359 --> 00:17:38,720 That these four cases were closed. Today there's a suspicion that there are 200 00:17:38,799 --> 00:17:44,559 many more, but for reasons maybe too complex of going to at this moment, 201 00:17:44,720 --> 00:17:48,920 he only talked about these four when he was gone. They closed the 202 00:17:48,000 --> 00:17:52,400 book on this, and so a lot of the reporting never got out there. 203 00:17:53,039 --> 00:17:56,599 And again, like I say, it happens before the words serial they're 204 00:17:56,640 --> 00:18:03,279 the phrase serial killers. And then we still haven't clicked at that moment, 205 00:18:03,400 --> 00:18:08,519 we haven't clicked to this fascination that we have with serial killers in this country 206 00:18:08,680 --> 00:18:12,680 right now. And I think in nineteen seventy three, it was possible to 207 00:18:12,799 --> 00:18:18,880 have a regional story like this that might have even created a significant amount of 208 00:18:18,039 --> 00:18:23,920 coverage in Montana, but somehow didn't make it onto the national radar exactly. 209 00:18:25,200 --> 00:18:30,240 And you're exactly right about that, And it's in fact not just possible. 210 00:18:30,400 --> 00:18:37,519 It's likely that an editor in Miami or Chicago or la is just not going 211 00:18:37,599 --> 00:18:41,759 to see the kind of quality in this story for his or her reader. 212 00:18:42,000 --> 00:18:49,519 Today, you think about the number of media sources we have at our fingertips 213 00:18:51,000 --> 00:18:55,440 literally on the Internet. Back then, that just wasn't the case. Remember 214 00:18:55,519 --> 00:18:59,759 that, even then we had three TV networks and that was it. And 215 00:19:00,480 --> 00:19:03,799 you might read your local paper. But if the local paper didn't pick up 216 00:19:03,839 --> 00:19:06,559 the story, you don't know about it. And it just didn't have that 217 00:19:06,960 --> 00:19:11,119 national kind of feel. And if the wire services back then didn't pick up 218 00:19:11,200 --> 00:19:17,039 a story, it really didn't go national. It remained a local story. 219 00:19:17,200 --> 00:19:22,519 And unless AP or UPI or one of the newspaper groups picked up the story, 220 00:19:22,799 --> 00:19:26,519 it just it might have been very important news, and it probably was 221 00:19:26,599 --> 00:19:30,000 quite chilling for a lot of parents and people that lived in Montana, but 222 00:19:30,240 --> 00:19:34,559 beyond that, not so much. Beyond and I try to put myself in 223 00:19:36,039 --> 00:19:38,480 there. I was alive during that time. I was a kid growing up 224 00:19:38,519 --> 00:19:44,720 in Wyoming. I just am aware that from places like Casper, Wyoming, 225 00:19:44,920 --> 00:19:49,880 or Manhattan, Montana, or any number of small places in throughout the West, 226 00:19:51,359 --> 00:19:55,480 throughout the United States, really people could look out there and think the 227 00:19:55,559 --> 00:20:00,599 world is going to hell, and they everything they read was scaring them. 228 00:20:00,799 --> 00:20:07,599 And this kind of didn't rise to the level of Vietnam and Watergate. This 229 00:20:07,000 --> 00:20:14,799 was or domestic terrorism or andy war protests or bombings or anything. It just 230 00:20:15,119 --> 00:20:18,160 never got there for whatever reason. We look back at it now and say 231 00:20:18,240 --> 00:20:22,400 to you, that probably should have been bigger news, but that's a difficult 232 00:20:22,599 --> 00:20:27,599 call them. It's great that you're able to place this in the canon of 233 00:20:29,000 --> 00:20:33,559 BSU history. At this point, let's take a minute and kind of talk 234 00:20:33,640 --> 00:20:36,559 about and again without giving too much of the book away, because we do 235 00:20:36,680 --> 00:20:40,680 want our listeners to buy the book and support your amazing efforts here, but 236 00:20:40,839 --> 00:20:44,359 talk a little bit about what were some of the big strides that were made 237 00:20:44,519 --> 00:20:49,119 in policing as a result of the profiling work that was done for this case 238 00:20:49,200 --> 00:20:55,839 in particular. Of course, today there's hardly a primetime TV crime drama, 239 00:20:56,160 --> 00:21:00,720 movie, mystery, or crime thriller book that doesn't feature profiling in some forms. 240 00:21:00,759 --> 00:21:06,640 Easy to think that cops have just always been intuitive about the bad guys 241 00:21:06,680 --> 00:21:10,680 they're chasing, and that this science has always been laying there, But in 242 00:21:10,799 --> 00:21:15,960 fact, it was less than fifty years ago that these two FBI agents formulated 243 00:21:15,000 --> 00:21:21,759 the idea that if you looked at crime scene evidence in the right way, 244 00:21:22,519 --> 00:21:26,559 you could see a lot about the behavior and the psychology of the perpetrator, 245 00:21:26,799 --> 00:21:32,400 and I'm telling that story in there. When we go back and we look 246 00:21:32,480 --> 00:21:37,240 at this very first effort by the FBI, I won't say off the radar. 247 00:21:37,400 --> 00:21:41,160 By the time that Teaton and Mulaney create their profile, Hoover has died 248 00:21:41,680 --> 00:21:45,960 and a little more progressive leadership has come in at the FBI, and they're 249 00:21:47,240 --> 00:21:52,279 letting them have a little longer leash. But it's still an unproven thing, 250 00:21:52,680 --> 00:21:59,799 and there's still plenty of pushback in local law enforcement, even inside the FBI 251 00:22:00,000 --> 00:22:06,440 among agents. And I will say that even today, there is pushback in 252 00:22:06,599 --> 00:22:14,839 local law enforcement and among FBI agents about profiling. It's not the deadlock that 253 00:22:15,200 --> 00:22:18,559 we think. It might be the same thing with DNA, by the way, 254 00:22:18,920 --> 00:22:25,960 and we tend to give it the gold standard label and it's certainly useful, 255 00:22:26,440 --> 00:22:32,119 but it is not infallible that applies to profiling. And you know, 256 00:22:32,920 --> 00:22:40,559 a lot of lucky stars aligned over this. Tragically unlucky little Susieger just happened 257 00:22:41,160 --> 00:22:45,279 that the timing was right, or you might argue the timing was all wrong 258 00:22:45,480 --> 00:22:49,960 and that we wish we never needed to do this, But in her case, 259 00:22:51,759 --> 00:22:56,839 their profile eventually proved to be a useful tool, and it has been 260 00:22:56,920 --> 00:23:00,240 a useful tool in many cases, not all, but many cases, and 261 00:23:00,359 --> 00:23:07,359 Bill, you're familiar with one where it has not been especially successful. And 262 00:23:07,519 --> 00:23:11,599 as an aside, I'll mention something that just resonated with I'm not going to 263 00:23:11,680 --> 00:23:15,240 go into a lot of detail here, but I spoke at length with the 264 00:23:15,559 --> 00:23:19,759 case agent and my sister Kathy Thomas's and her girlfriend, Rebecca Dowski's murder. 265 00:23:21,319 --> 00:23:26,880 This is just the other day, and that case agent made dismissive. I 266 00:23:26,559 --> 00:23:30,319 was going to say disparaging, I'm going to go with dismissive, which I 267 00:23:30,319 --> 00:23:37,079 think is a little more accurate. Comments about profiling and DNA, so that 268 00:23:37,759 --> 00:23:41,720 skepticism on the part of law enforcement. I'm just going to use this one 269 00:23:41,880 --> 00:23:48,519 example of two one hour conversations back to back. Very interesting here it is. 270 00:23:48,559 --> 00:23:51,880 It's all these years later, it's late twenty twenty two, and I'm 271 00:23:52,039 --> 00:23:57,079 still running into that attitude. Dismissive comments about not wanting to hear anything more 272 00:23:57,160 --> 00:24:04,039 about profiling regarding my case, and kind of openly dismissive about the potential for 273 00:24:04,240 --> 00:24:10,359 DNA to provide a breakthrough in the Colonial Parkway mourners that might take it too 274 00:24:10,440 --> 00:24:15,920 far for my comfort. Profiling and DNA are very good tools in the toolbox 275 00:24:17,079 --> 00:24:22,799 of the investigators and of the FBI. Part of what might have been on 276 00:24:22,960 --> 00:24:27,440 this particular agent's mind is that a lot of law enforcement has put too much 277 00:24:27,720 --> 00:24:34,960 emphasis on DNA and profiling DNA. We think DNA will solve any crime. 278 00:24:36,039 --> 00:24:40,480 There's even a word for a phrase for it called the CSI of fact. 279 00:24:40,640 --> 00:24:45,680 Yeah, we've talked about that, that the general public thinks that it proves 280 00:24:45,799 --> 00:24:51,279 everything. Ay, it's not infallible, but b DNA plays a role in 281 00:24:51,359 --> 00:24:57,400 about one percent of violent crime investigation. The rest of it, the fingerprints 282 00:24:57,599 --> 00:25:06,119 are more important in investigation today and break more cases than DNA does. Profiling 283 00:25:06,319 --> 00:25:12,119 is also sold on TV. And you know something that it is not right. 284 00:25:12,480 --> 00:25:19,160 What your agent might have been reacting to is probably pressure on law enforcement 285 00:25:19,240 --> 00:25:22,920 of all kinds by the general public to hurry up and solve these things. 286 00:25:23,039 --> 00:25:30,960 You use DNA, use profile that those are more more important than they really 287 00:25:30,039 --> 00:25:34,359 are. You're listening to Mind over Murder. We'll be right back after this 288 00:25:34,480 --> 00:25:42,720 word from our sponsors. We're back here at Mind over Murder. Look at 289 00:25:42,759 --> 00:25:48,079 the Idaho college murders right now. I was just thinking something. Days into 290 00:25:48,200 --> 00:25:53,359 this, we've heard a few profile a few of the profile elements, but 291 00:25:53,440 --> 00:25:57,519 they still don't have their guy. And I think too. And it's actually 292 00:25:57,599 --> 00:26:02,000 this was alluded to in the book. I think a lot of people still 293 00:26:02,079 --> 00:26:07,400 have this kind of profound misunderstanding of how profiling actually works. I know that, 294 00:26:07,640 --> 00:26:11,839 and we don't. Popular media doesn't actually help that either. I was 295 00:26:11,960 --> 00:26:15,599 reading and it was in the book that Howard Teaton went on to be a 296 00:26:15,920 --> 00:26:22,720 creative consultant on Profiler, which was a late nineties TV show, the earliest 297 00:26:22,799 --> 00:26:26,200 to depict profiling, that it was the inside of this violent Crimes task force. 298 00:26:26,759 --> 00:26:30,319 I watched the show and I loved it, but a lot of times 299 00:26:30,559 --> 00:26:33,480 and now that I do go back and watch it, it really is presented 300 00:26:33,519 --> 00:26:36,599 as like almost Harler trick, and that's not what it is at all. 301 00:26:36,920 --> 00:26:41,400 That is not the way that profiling works. But it was definitely presented in 302 00:26:41,519 --> 00:26:45,920 that way because it's fun for us to talk about some of the odd, 303 00:26:47,480 --> 00:26:51,359 the odd profiling elements that can come out there. They can look at I 304 00:26:51,440 --> 00:26:55,000 don't know, I don't even have one on the tip of my tongue right 305 00:26:55,039 --> 00:26:57,720 now, but look at a and say, oh, this person is left 306 00:26:57,759 --> 00:27:03,079 handed, and how I think John Douglas in Ted Bundy at some point looked 307 00:27:03,119 --> 00:27:07,680 at something and said, oh, he probably drives the Volkswagen. Yeah, 308 00:27:07,039 --> 00:27:10,960 or like the Mad Bomber, somebody knowing the Mad Bomber was going to be 309 00:27:11,039 --> 00:27:15,480 wearing a three piece suit with a button. Yeah, exactly, And we 310 00:27:15,640 --> 00:27:19,119 think that's really cool. So then we think that's how it works, that 311 00:27:19,240 --> 00:27:26,599 they can look at some apparently inconsequential piece of evidence and come up with a 312 00:27:26,759 --> 00:27:33,519 case breaking revelation. And that's just not true. In this original profile in 313 00:27:33,680 --> 00:27:37,440 shadow Man, we have about fifteen to twenty elements in that original profile. 314 00:27:37,680 --> 00:27:41,559 They added a few as they went, and I think it started at twelve 315 00:27:41,680 --> 00:27:45,440 or thirteen, and then they were adding. And it's interesting that Teeton and 316 00:27:45,559 --> 00:27:51,799 Mulaney were absolutely correct on nineteen of the twenty and the twentieth. They weren't 317 00:27:51,880 --> 00:27:56,640 wrong. It's just that we never knew wease circumstances in the case overtook our 318 00:27:56,680 --> 00:28:03,799 ability to know what the answer was. Of What went into this initial profilers 319 00:28:03,160 --> 00:28:08,039 was experience, It was logic, and a little bit of it was guesswork. 320 00:28:08,920 --> 00:28:14,599 You might remember that Teton and Mulaney had no rulebook, had no system. 321 00:28:15,119 --> 00:28:18,799 They were experts separately in psychology and crime scenes, but they had no 322 00:28:19,079 --> 00:28:26,319 model on how those things should work together. Some of their profiling was based 323 00:28:26,519 --> 00:28:30,119 purely on what they knew from their experience, and some was just low hanging 324 00:28:30,319 --> 00:28:34,880 fruit. For example, today we all know from TV that the typical serial 325 00:28:36,000 --> 00:28:38,680 killer tends to be a white male in his twenties. That's because we have 326 00:28:38,839 --> 00:28:45,599 more than fifty years of data. Today's profilers have a database a thousands of 327 00:28:45,759 --> 00:28:51,400 intensive and expert interviews with these killers. Teton and Mulaney had visited with a 328 00:28:51,519 --> 00:28:57,119 couple of them, and they had no database, So they merely deduced that 329 00:28:57,279 --> 00:29:02,279 the killer in these cases was a white male in his twenties. Because the 330 00:29:02,400 --> 00:29:10,599 crimes required an astounding degree of stealth and strength that suggested the killer probably had 331 00:29:10,839 --> 00:29:17,720 military experience, which was largely male during Vietnam, and that it required knowledge 332 00:29:17,799 --> 00:29:22,559 of the surroundings and local law enforcement, which suggested that he was local, 333 00:29:22,640 --> 00:29:26,799 which is a ninety nine percent likelihood in Gallatin County, Montana, that he 334 00:29:27,000 --> 00:29:33,000 was white in this rural, mainly white county. They believed one thing they 335 00:29:33,079 --> 00:29:41,559 believed mainly from talking to Emperor's one of their only real good sources as they 336 00:29:41,599 --> 00:29:45,920 were thinking about that. Believed the suspect or the perpetrator in the case of 337 00:29:47,279 --> 00:29:52,720 Suzie Yager and Sandras Mulligan that his psychicopathy was based on conflicts or flawed views 338 00:29:52,759 --> 00:29:57,920 about sex. But they admitted that was just an educated guess based on what 339 00:29:59,319 --> 00:30:03,559 ed Kemper told. I thought they did a marvelous job. And they did 340 00:30:03,599 --> 00:30:07,119 an amazing job. It didn't rise to the level of the Mad Bomber case, 341 00:30:07,519 --> 00:30:12,799 where some of the elements of the profile were truly apprehensible. How they 342 00:30:12,920 --> 00:30:18,079 arrived at it, And it's worth noting that the NYPD didn't go back and 343 00:30:18,519 --> 00:30:25,519 successfully use profiling after the Mad Bomber case. Just that happened and everybody said 344 00:30:25,559 --> 00:30:30,079 wow. And it's not until here in nineteen seventy four that Millennium Teton bring 345 00:30:30,160 --> 00:30:36,160 it back. How does the FBI come to be involved in what was originally 346 00:30:36,240 --> 00:30:38,640 the Susie Yegger case. How did they get involved in a case that's in 347 00:30:38,759 --> 00:30:44,400 Montana, in a rural area. How did that get moved onto the FBI's 348 00:30:44,519 --> 00:30:49,640 radar. Blame Charles Lindberg in the thirties, when Lindbergh's baby is kidnapped, 349 00:30:51,240 --> 00:30:57,640 local law enforcement is in over its head. The delay between the kidnapping and 350 00:30:59,720 --> 00:31:06,799 the local law enforcement asking for help was probably fatal, and so a law 351 00:31:06,960 --> 00:31:12,000 was passed that said, anytime a child is kidnapped, anytime there's a possibility 352 00:31:12,079 --> 00:31:18,519 of a ransom or crossing state lines or anything like that, the FBI has 353 00:31:18,599 --> 00:31:22,839 to get involved within twenty four hours. Only in this case they would have 354 00:31:22,000 --> 00:31:26,000 been involved within twenty four hours. But this happened in a rural place, 355 00:31:26,200 --> 00:31:33,160 a small state park near Manhattan, Montana and near Three Forks, Montana that 356 00:31:33,279 --> 00:31:38,000 had actually been donated to the state for the state park by a family that 357 00:31:38,119 --> 00:31:45,519 had homesteaded there. A son of that family was now an FBI agent in 358 00:31:45,640 --> 00:31:49,000 the area. And it's one of the weird little things that happened in this 359 00:31:49,200 --> 00:31:55,319 case. But the notification was made within a couple of hours and the FBI 360 00:31:55,559 --> 00:31:59,279 was on the scene within four They were there by law, but they were 361 00:31:59,359 --> 00:32:05,680 there as the agent in charge really had a personal interest in all of this. 362 00:32:06,359 --> 00:32:08,880 Let's talk a little bit about your research process. You've said you're an 363 00:32:08,920 --> 00:32:13,119 old school journalist, and I know that means pounding the pavement, knocking on 364 00:32:13,319 --> 00:32:15,599 doors, and doing a lot of one on one interviews. But I also 365 00:32:15,680 --> 00:32:19,759 know there's more to it. When you are focusing on a crime, especially 366 00:32:19,799 --> 00:32:22,799 one as old as this one. Tell us a little bit about your research 367 00:32:22,880 --> 00:32:28,279 process for digging into the particulars of the Shadowman case here. I've worked with 368 00:32:28,359 --> 00:32:34,799 a lot of reporters more recently that are perfectly okay with doing interviews on Twitter 369 00:32:35,119 --> 00:32:39,160 or buy email or text. I'm not that way. It's about the sensory 370 00:32:39,279 --> 00:32:45,160 details, especially for narrative nonfiction. You need these details that bring it to 371 00:32:45,319 --> 00:32:47,759 life. So I need to be there. For me personally, it's about 372 00:32:49,319 --> 00:32:53,680 standing there and listening and tasting and smelling and hearing everything that I can, 373 00:32:53,799 --> 00:32:58,319 and talking to these people face to face, and more than one hundred and 374 00:32:58,480 --> 00:33:05,240 fifty people in this particular case, it's absolutely necessary in the kind of writing 375 00:33:05,359 --> 00:33:09,279 that I do, just my obligation to telling a story honestly, that I 376 00:33:09,640 --> 00:33:14,000 can look these people in the eye and judge what they're telling me, and 377 00:33:14,039 --> 00:33:17,039 then they can judge me. We were saying off air that neither of us 378 00:33:17,119 --> 00:33:22,200 are particularly extroverted individuals. Was talking to one hundred and fifty people about this 379 00:33:22,359 --> 00:33:27,440 case a hardship, or do you actually enjoy the process so much that it 380 00:33:27,519 --> 00:33:30,680 becomes easier to do. It's easier when you know you have to do it, 381 00:33:30,960 --> 00:33:35,640 and you know what you're going after, and you're knowing the essence of 382 00:33:35,680 --> 00:33:39,039 the story you're trying to tell makes it easier. And frankly, most people 383 00:33:39,200 --> 00:33:43,200 that somebody walks up to on the street and says, Hi, I'm a 384 00:33:43,279 --> 00:33:45,480 reporter and I want to talk to you about this serial killer, they're not 385 00:33:45,839 --> 00:33:53,480 much more extroverted than I am. So there are moments when you have to 386 00:33:54,000 --> 00:34:00,319 rely on old fashioned just keep talking and see you'll get to it. In 387 00:34:00,519 --> 00:34:05,039 terms of looking at what must have been some pretty horrific crime scene photos, 388 00:34:05,400 --> 00:34:08,079 how do you process all of this? Every author that we've talked to talks 389 00:34:08,119 --> 00:34:12,480 about processing in a little bit of a different way, and how they have 390 00:34:12,599 --> 00:34:15,280 to get out of their head at certain points just to cope with the material. 391 00:34:15,519 --> 00:34:20,239 How do you cope with this kind of dark material? I recently did 392 00:34:20,280 --> 00:34:23,920 a book in twenty sixteen called Morga Life and Death, and I did it 393 00:34:24,039 --> 00:34:30,000 with one of the world's great medical examiners, doctor Vincent to my own to 394 00:34:30,199 --> 00:34:36,280 tell stories about thirteen cases that were significant in his career. I had to 395 00:34:36,360 --> 00:34:39,440 wade through a lot of those photos of autoxies and that sort of thing. 396 00:34:39,880 --> 00:34:45,039 I won't say it was easy. I will just say that a journalist, 397 00:34:45,039 --> 00:34:52,079 cop, a medical examiner, surgeon, we all have this quality or we 398 00:34:52,199 --> 00:34:58,239 won't be successful of being able to compartmentalize these things. And so I can 399 00:34:58,400 --> 00:35:00,719 look at this stuff and say this is it's important for me to do my 400 00:35:00,880 --> 00:35:05,320 job in a subtle way to say, this is my job. I have 401 00:35:05,519 --> 00:35:08,360 to look at this. I'll cry later. In fact, at my website 402 00:35:08,400 --> 00:35:14,559 at ron Franzel dot com, I have a blog that I wrote about compartmentalization, 403 00:35:14,679 --> 00:35:17,639 about oh reapproach these things, and how when I'm doing my work, 404 00:35:17,840 --> 00:35:22,239 I can see these grizzly things. I can hear these grizzly things. I 405 00:35:22,280 --> 00:35:27,280 can talk to mothers, and I can protect by say putting it over here 406 00:35:27,320 --> 00:35:31,280 in this bucket, that's my job, and that I can tell myself listen, 407 00:35:31,360 --> 00:35:36,519 cry later now. I will tell you that later has never come. 408 00:35:36,760 --> 00:35:40,880 And maybe that's one of the dark sides of this on people like me and 409 00:35:42,079 --> 00:35:47,199 cops and victims families have to wait around in this stuff. You get desensitized 410 00:35:47,320 --> 00:35:52,320 to it. I just never want to be desensitized to the point where I 411 00:35:52,480 --> 00:35:57,159 can't see these things and be moved. But I don't want to be at 412 00:35:57,199 --> 00:36:00,840 the point where I'm stopped dead in my tracks either. One of the most 413 00:36:00,960 --> 00:36:06,920 chilling things in the book is the point that you make about writing about David 414 00:36:07,159 --> 00:36:12,719 Meyerhoff the killer, you also learned that his brother Alan became a serial sex 415 00:36:13,000 --> 00:36:19,119 offender known as the North End rapist. It's just so horrifying to learn something 416 00:36:19,280 --> 00:36:22,639 like that. What do you make of that? How do you think that 417 00:36:22,920 --> 00:36:28,480 happens? Something was happening in that family, something happened to them. I 418 00:36:28,679 --> 00:36:30,559 don't know what it is. I could never get to that. Again, 419 00:36:30,960 --> 00:36:37,960 circumstances overtook our ability, mine the FBI's, the world's ability to know all 420 00:36:38,039 --> 00:36:43,639 the facts here. Nonetheless, I plunged into that. I did an interview 421 00:36:43,760 --> 00:36:50,599 with this serial child rapist brother who exhibited many of the same behaviors. It 422 00:36:50,880 --> 00:36:57,880 suggested something that I couldn't fathom. Actually, I asked, in one of 423 00:36:58,039 --> 00:37:02,639 the most surre interviews of my life, when you're sitting talking to a serial 424 00:37:02,800 --> 00:37:08,679 child rapist about some of these things and about his brother and is growing up, 425 00:37:08,880 --> 00:37:15,199 I'm not a forensic psychologist. I wish that I could put this fellow 426 00:37:15,320 --> 00:37:22,000 with a forensic psychologist like Richard Walter and have somebody tell me what's likely. 427 00:37:22,360 --> 00:37:24,639 But we never got to that. Never got to that, and that's a 428 00:37:24,760 --> 00:37:32,000 disappointment. And it's part of the psychopathy that Teaton and Mulaney identified ahead of 429 00:37:32,119 --> 00:37:37,599 time, before they knew who the killer was here. They told us he 430 00:37:37,920 --> 00:37:43,960 was going to try to take control of everything before this is over. And 431 00:37:44,480 --> 00:37:49,440 they made the warning and it went unheeded. The control that David meyer Hoffer 432 00:37:49,559 --> 00:37:54,880 exerted leaves us without a lot of answers. It is an absolutely fascinating book. 433 00:37:55,280 --> 00:37:59,920 It is one of the more bone chilling cases. And I Bill will 434 00:38:00,159 --> 00:38:02,800 tell you, I've read a ton of true crime. It probably more than 435 00:38:02,840 --> 00:38:06,000 it is good for me. Definitely more than it's good for me. But 436 00:38:06,239 --> 00:38:09,199 this is your job. Yeah, but boy, this is one of those 437 00:38:09,239 --> 00:38:13,760 books that once I started reading it, and I also listen to the audible 438 00:38:13,840 --> 00:38:17,239 version, couldn't put it down. And it was absolutely blood chilling. And 439 00:38:17,519 --> 00:38:22,320 so kudos to you for an absolutely amazing book. What is next for you 440 00:38:22,679 --> 00:38:25,639 in terms of projects? I don't know how you're going to top this one. 441 00:38:25,719 --> 00:38:30,679 I really don't what are you looking at next? COVID drove me indoors 442 00:38:30,199 --> 00:38:34,599 and all of that boots on the ground research that we talked about. I 443 00:38:34,639 --> 00:38:37,480 couldn't do it. I couldn't get into motels, couldn't eat in restaurants, 444 00:38:37,519 --> 00:38:43,199 couldn't get into libraries or court houses. I certainly couldn't talk to people. 445 00:38:43,480 --> 00:38:46,679 So I stayed at home and I wrote a murderment That Murder Mystery is coming 446 00:38:46,760 --> 00:38:52,480 out in February, and I'm working right now on a sequel. I've got 447 00:38:52,559 --> 00:38:58,280 my eye on several cases that I might like to jump into. The problem 448 00:38:58,480 --> 00:39:04,800 one of the problems is that modern true crime publishing wants resolution. Yeah, 449 00:39:05,679 --> 00:39:09,119 a lot of pieces like Colonial Parkway. If they don't have a resolution, 450 00:39:09,280 --> 00:39:15,280 they lack some interest among the people who bring these books to the world. 451 00:39:15,679 --> 00:39:20,400 I think that's unless it's Jack the Ripper, the Black Dahlia or something like 452 00:39:20,519 --> 00:39:25,239 that. They aren't interested until somebody gets what's coming to It's funny. I've 453 00:39:25,280 --> 00:39:30,280 told Kristen this. I wrote a manuscript about the last several years of the 454 00:39:30,360 --> 00:39:35,000 Colonial Parkway murders investigation and sent it out to agents and publishers, and I 455 00:39:35,119 --> 00:39:37,239 got very good feedback, and people said, you're actually a very good writer. 456 00:39:37,599 --> 00:39:42,679 We really like this story. But and it's funny how people I don't 457 00:39:42,719 --> 00:39:45,360 think they mean for this to sound as called as it did to me. 458 00:39:45,000 --> 00:39:49,360 They said this story would be so much better if it had a happy ending, 459 00:39:49,639 --> 00:39:52,719 and they seem to lose sight of the fact that we're talking about the 460 00:39:52,760 --> 00:39:55,760 Colonial Parkway murders, which I have a direct family connection to. Of course, 461 00:39:57,079 --> 00:40:00,400 I'd love for it to have a happy I'm putting air quotes around that 462 00:40:00,679 --> 00:40:05,039 ending where bad guys get walked into jail and handcuffs, But we're not there 463 00:40:05,159 --> 00:40:07,480 yet. And I said to Kristen at the time, welcome to my life. 464 00:40:08,960 --> 00:40:14,480 Well, it's not an ending, No, it's not real. Sixty 465 00:40:14,599 --> 00:40:22,840 percent of homicides in America today or solved or closed. Forty percent of homicides 466 00:40:22,880 --> 00:40:29,320 in America today are unsolved. They go unclosed, unresolved. And how can 467 00:40:29,599 --> 00:40:35,880 we honestly say that isn't true. I want to write true crime, and 468 00:40:36,000 --> 00:40:40,880 that might mean that this case has ruined lives, has upended our laws, 469 00:40:42,039 --> 00:40:45,360 has upended our communities, but we don't know who did it. In modern 470 00:40:45,480 --> 00:40:52,000 publishing today, it's more likely that book could not be published because of the 471 00:40:52,119 --> 00:40:57,039 lack of resolution. Yeah, Death Row is your next book. So this 472 00:40:57,239 --> 00:41:00,519 is a work of fiction. This is a murder made of the fact that 473 00:41:00,559 --> 00:41:04,039 your publisher has decided to put it out on February fourteenth, which I think 474 00:41:04,119 --> 00:41:10,480 is very romantic. You know, if you're looking for a gift for Valentine's 475 00:41:10,559 --> 00:41:16,880 Day, the mystery lover in your life. Ron, It's been a real 476 00:41:16,960 --> 00:41:21,559 pleasure having you on and we can't thank you enough for your insights. The 477 00:41:21,719 --> 00:41:30,320 book can be found where everywhere anywhere you buy books everywhere, Amazon, Walmart, 478 00:41:30,760 --> 00:41:34,239 local bookstore. God bless you. If you can walk into a local 479 00:41:34,320 --> 00:41:38,199 bookstore and buy books, that's what you should do. Ask for shadow Man 480 00:41:38,320 --> 00:41:43,039 by name, please do. That's going to wrap it up for this episode 481 00:41:43,039 --> 00:41:55,800 of mind Over Murder. We'll see you next time. Mind Over Murder is 482 00:41:55,840 --> 00:42:01,960 a production of Absolute Zero and Another Dog Productions. Our executive producers are Bill 483 00:42:02,039 --> 00:42:07,400 Thomas and Kristin Dilley. Our logo art is by Pamela Arnois. Our theme 484 00:42:07,480 --> 00:42:13,599 music is by Kevin McLeod. Mind Over Murder is distributed in partnership with Coral 485 00:42:13,679 --> 00:42:17,639 Space Media. You can follow us on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram. You 486 00:42:17,760 --> 00:42:22,440 can also follow our page on the Colonial Parkway murders on Facebook, and finally, 487 00:42:22,679 --> 00:42:27,440 you can follow Bill Thomas on Twitter at Bill Thomas. Five six. 488 00:42:28,039 --> 00:42:30,960 Thank you for listening to Mind Over Murder.