You're listening to the Mind over Murder podcast. My name is Bill Thomas.
I'm a writer, consulting, producer, and now podcaster. I am now
trying to use my experience as the brother of a murder victim to help other
victims of violent crime. I'm working on a book on the unsolved Colonial Parkway
murders, and I'm the co administrator of the Colonial Parkway Murders Facebook group together
with Kristin Dilly. My name is Kristin Dilly. I'm a writer, a
researcher, a teacher, and a victim's advocate, as well as the social
media manager and co administrator for the Colonial Parkway Murders Facebook page with my partner
in crime, Bill Thomas. Welcome to Mind Ever Murderer. I'm Kristin Dilly
and I'm Bill Thomas, and we're joined today by Renee Williams of the National
Center for Victims of Crime or Renee. Thank you so much for joining us
today. I Mind Never Murderer, absolutely, thank you for having me.
Can you go ahead and start by telling us a little bit about your educational
and professional background, how you got into this particular role at NCVC. It's
been a slightly circuitous route here. I actually started as a theater major in
undergrad and my degree actually says acting. That was in Pittsburgh. But while
I was in acting school, I realized that was not the way I wanted
to use the talents that I had been given and spend the rest of my
life. So I went to law school after that and graduated from the University
of Pittsburgh grapesed around for a while in corporate law and in litigation before becoming
a nonprofit executive. And I started out at an organization called Laurel Legal Services
in Pennsylvania and ended up coming to the National Center for Victims of Crime.
So what I do now is a little bit of a blend of both my
legal studies but also nonprofit management. And for anybody who does not know about
the National Center for Victims of Crime, can you tell us a little bit
about what services it offers and how it actually got started. Sure, So,
I think for your podcast listeners, I'll take the second part of the
question first because it'll be a little more interesting. We actually were founded by
one of the true crime drama in the United States, which was the Sunny
Bombuloh case. Sonny was a very wealthy Eres. She was also royalty.
She had married a prince, and her second husband, Klaud Bambuloh, attempted
to kill her by injecting her with insulin. He was having multiple affairs.
Their story is actually hold in a movie called A Reversal of Fortune. Jeremy
Irons won his first Academy Award for it. He played Claud Bambulah and Glenn
Cloth played Sonny Bombuloh. But really the good part of the story is that
Sonny's children were so appalled by how they were treated throughout the justice system.
Because this is really before victim's rights were a movement. They took all of
their inheritance to found our center. So it was originally the Sunny Vombulo Victims
Center, and it's developed. We've gone under three name changes, I believe
to become the National Center for Victims of Crime. But we really started as
one of the first advocacy organizations in the United States to make sure that victims
had a voice in the justice system and that they had rights and that those
rights were acknowledged. So we've developed from that advocacy center to providing victim services
as well. So we still provide some advocacy, but we also make sure
that we have two hotlines for victims, so we're providing direct victim services,
and we also train anybody who helps a victim in the justice system, so
judges, police officers, anybody who sees a victim or is helping the victims
through that justice process, we're in their training them, making sure they're trauma
informed. When we talk about looking for podcasts and other media outlets to be
victim focused and survivor focused, you all are actually taking this from a much
broader perspective, which is all of the components and participants in the justice system
all need to be thinking about this. Are we on the right track?
So our true crime work is only a small piece of the work we do,
and it actually just sprung up in the past two years. Really one
of our strongest suits is making sure that we are working with all victim services
to make sure that they are not doing more harm to victims in the long
run. When you say they RENEE, who's the they you're referencing judges,
prosecutors, police officers. It's interesting because there are a lot of times and
this is not answering your question, but it's going off on a tangent on
my own. I will keep under control later, but we're going to talk
about this right now. There are a lot of times that you will hear
people say a victim's voice is involved, and it's not truly. Prosecutors do
amazing work. They work very hard. They're an integral part of the justice
system, but they do not represent victims, either officially in their formal tasks
of being a prosecutor, but also unofficially. So a lot of times,
if you're watching true crime shows or in policy decisions, folks will say,
we talk to the victims because the prosecutors stepped in. Prosecutors are not trained
to be victims centered, and their job is not to represent victims. Their
job is to ensure that justice is done, and so that sometimes means not
prosecuting a case. That sometimes means making decisions that are adverse to what the
victims might like. Police officers are the same way, and sometimes folks see
those two elements as being victims centered, but they're not. And so we
do a lot of the training on how those specific groups and really anybody within
the justice system can work with victims in a more meaningful way. At INCVC,
you have a vast array of resources that are available for anyone who's been
a victim of crime, and that's either directly, like my podcast partner here,
a secondary victim because he had a family member who was victimized. So
what are some of the things that you, as a nonprofit can offer to
crime victims when they reach out to ENDCBC. Again, we do have the
two hotlines, one is DC based and one is national, and we have
not a dozen victim assistant specialists who are trained to walk somebody through. We
can do safety planning, we can point them to resources, we can explain
the laws and regulations in their state to them, and we can also do
warm handoffs two more local resources. We also have an attorney referral service that
is available where we do try to connect victims to civil attorneys if they'd like
to pursue a lawsuit. And then and again, a large part of what
we do is training other folks who interact with victims to make sure that there
is a consistent victim experience. One of the things that a lot of crime
victims in their families may not realize that they have is a set of rights
accorded to them through the Crime Victims' Rights Act. Can you discuss what are
some of those rights that all crime victims are afforded and what can NCVC do
to help someone who feels that maybe those rights have been violated or not upheld
to the greatest standard that they could be. So the rights that are codified
are really, unfortunately only applicable within the justice system if there is a prosecution.
By and large, those surround the right to be notified and the right
to be present. You have to remember before the eighties, a lot of
times victims and their families were only viewed as witnesses. Drag somebody in and
let them do a testify, and then they trapes them out. They didn't
necessarily have the right to be present at all hearings. We still see quite
a bit of trapesing over crime victims' rights when it involves the notification of a
release. So if your perpetrator is being released, you do have a right
to be notified. That often doesn't happen, And where it came up very
publicly recently is in the anansied case. So that case was overturned. It
wasn't overturned on anything other than the victim's family was never notified that the court
was taking this action. That is an absolute core tenant. They have a
right to be heard and they have a right to be present. Now,
what NCBC can do if individuals feel like these rights are being violated is if
they call, we can try to point them in the direction of where they
can go. We can try to give them language surrounding what they need to
say to trigger those rights. Unfortunately, our justice system still isn't set up
for victims. So even with all of these rights, that doesn't mean that
they're going to be enforced, and there's no overarching oversight bodies. So I
get a lot of emails with people saying this is happening to me and you
should punish them. I don't have that mechanism, and unfortunately very few things
do. There are appeals courts where you can try to enforce rights, and
in certain cases they're ethics panels, but otherwise it's still tough to make sure
they're enforced if they're being violated. How the heck do stuff like this happened
Renee? Why are victims and survivors family members completely forgotten in this process?
I think there are two answers. First, is we have a constitution that
is based in defendance rights. And I don't disagree that's correct, but I
think that we've let the pendulum fly way too far onto that side. And
there's a wonderful meme out right now. It's talking about women rights, but
it actually applies to victim's rights too, And when it says women's rights,
it shows the pie chart and it says, just because somebody else has rights,
doesn't mean you have rights taken away. This is not a pie.
There's not less rights for you. And I think it's the same thing with
victims rights. But people don't quite understand that rights in the justice system aren't
a pie. Making sure that victim's rights are enforced doesn't mean you take defendants
rights away. But a lot of people don't see it like that, and
so there's been a real focus on defendants rights. And I will say the
other issue we're seeing and it is where I can really jork out, So
stop me, give me the signal, and you want to set That's been
a lot of this topic for ten years, and I'm passionate about it.
We have this thing called the justice gap in the United States, and it's
when are you poor enough to get a lawyer? And when are you rich
enough to get a lawyer? And when you're very poor, when does the
lawyer attached? All criminal defendants get a lawyer. Not going to sit here
and argue about how great they are. I know, I've heard it all.
I've seen bad public defe I've seen great public defenders. Doesn't matter.
If you've committed a crime, you get a public defender. Victims don't ever
get an attorney, first of all, but also we don't get any attorney
in the civil justice system, So victims of domestic violence don't necessarily get an
attorney. And it matters on how poor you are. And so until that
justice gap is addressed, until victims get representation in court, their rights are
still going to be at play and possibly ignored. If you were queen of
the justice system running the world, whatever you want to call it, and
you could add some rights that all victims are guaranteed. What are some of
the things that you would want to add that every victim is guaranteed no matter
what. The funny thing is, I think those rights are already there and
they're codified. They're just not followed. Okay, that is the right to
have notice of any proceedings. That is, the right to be present at
all hearings and to at least know what is happening. The only thing I
would add would be the right to have a voice in all proceedings. I
don't know how we would make that happen, because a prosecutor, again does
not represent the victim. They represent the state, and in a criminal case,
that's going to be tough. But it's that a lot of the actual
laws are already there. It's just enacting them and making sure that they are
observed. Just as a quick follow up to that, I know Bill wants
to turn here in a second. Do you feel like victim's impact statements in
the courtroom? Is that enough of a voice or does there need to be
more opportunities for victims to have voices? There need to be way more opportunities.
Victim impact statements are great. They certainly allow the victim a way to
heal and tell their story, and we've seen a lot of the victim impact
statements do good. However, keep in mind and that's at the end of
a trial. So I think victims need to have a right to have a
voice at the very beginning of a trial. Is this plea bargain? Good?
Do I agree with it? And that's where they're kept out. I'm
going to speak for myself here. We haven't had a single arrest yet in
the Colonial Parkway murders. But even in discussing theoreticals which make me crazy to
start with the pushback from the FBI against family participation or input, or even
my sharing my thoughts, it feels like such a brick wall that the idea
that, for instance, if charges are ever brought in our case, it's
likely that there could be federal charges because at least two of the double homicides
happened inside a national park and therefore would be federal charges. And then two
of the double homicides in the Colonial Parkway happened outside a national park and therefore
would likely be state or local charges. When I've even mentioned the possibility of
speaking to the federal prosecutor about this, I get so much pushback it's they're
not even subtle. I already anticipate that someday, note the optimism when arrests
are made in our case, I'm fully expecting I'm going to meet that brick
wall personally, because that's just the way it feels, and we're only part
way through. Dare I say the pursuit of justice a word I'm not completely
comfortable with. Wow, the attitude. Even when I've said I'd like to
speak to the federal prosecutor, they're having none of it. What are the
reasons they give? Ask the podcaster thank you for the podcast. Well,
basically the implication, and they're clever in their phrasing, but the implication is
that I have no role, that my family would have no role whatsoever in
discussing how a prosecution might proceed. It's interesting because victims are the moral core
of the justice system, but we've managed to cut them out completely almost And
there's this idea of because they wouldn't know what they're doing and they don't know
the technicalities. All true. Possibly the problems is that we've excluded individuals,
but it's not making it better for anybody. The justice system is not working
for anyone. The justice system does not work for those accused of crimes either.
It really doesn't, and so we've created this hap hazard system and we
have excuses everywhere. I believe in the justice system. I believe in the
promises of the Constitution. I don't think it's working the way it was meant
to right now. And I think that's because we like band aid approaches in
the UNI United States, and we don't like to dig into the wound,
and so we have this kind of house of sticks made up, and we're
afraid to knock the health of sticks over, so we just patch it up
where we can. One of the things that I genuinely believe is that if
we paid more attention to victims and dumped one fifth of the money that we
dump into incarcerating people, if we dumped that money into victim services, the
minute of crime is committed and we're able to get victims help, you would
start to see crime rates go down. Why in your opinion, would crime
rates go down. So what we know about incarceration is about ninety percent of
the individuals who are incarcerated have been victims of crime themselves. Most of the
time they have not received services. A lot of it is domestic violence and
childhood trauma and their very high aces adverse childhood experience scores. Once you start
to survey incarcerated individuals, those individuals have not been given and the tools do
not re enter a cycle of violence, and that certainly even from when you
read about Obviously, Kristin and I are following a lot of cases, not
just the Colonial Parkray murders, but dozens of other cases around the country,
and people approach us constantly and ask us would we be willing to cover a
particular case or discuss a particular case. But even in the consumer online reporting
newspaper level, you often see that the offenders have a history of violence,
and that doesn't come from nowhere. That comes from as you're saying, households
full of abuse, whether it's sexual or physical or mental. These are damage
to individuals in many examples who are lashing out. I don't want to make
it sound like I'm completely absolving offenders of their crimes. I'm not saying that
at all. But you can see how someone that's been through what they've been
through ends up lashing out and hurting people in some way. And it's a
very delicate conversation to have. There are a lot of individuals in the victim
services world that get very unhappy when you say things like hurt people. So
we try to avoid saying that I'm speaking as the brother of a murder victim.
I don't know what other term you want me to use. Well,
And that's the thing is, so a lot of folks will kick back and
say, Bill, you're a great example. Yes, I was hurt,
but I didn't go do harm, and so it's not an excuse. That
is correct. But we also know how trauma works, and if you don't
address a pain immediately and you allow things to fester, you can't predict which
way somebody is going to go. We get asked a lot. I get
asked a lot when we're speaking because we do a lot of prison reform.
What my views are on mandatory minimums, what my views are on mandatory maximums,
and I'm against mandatory anythings. I don't believe that either works because I
think you have to look at the person, and that's what you have a
judge there for, is to look at each person. But I will say
that a lot of people tried to say there's absolute evil in this world.
I don't quite believe that, and I think that you can't make snap decisions
on anybody. But I do think that if we addressed victimization and trauma at
its genesis, when it first happens, you would start to see the level
of at least violent crime go down, and it would take decades. It
would not be away. This would not be oh, look, Renee was
right, or we watched the crime rates drop this year. It would take
decades. I think that there's it's so cyclical when you're talking about violence,
crime and victimization. But what would you have me say different when I say
her? Is there another word that's somehow more? It would not even be
no, And it wouldn't be that I would have I'm trying to think of
how to say this. It wouldn't even be the word. It's not how
to say it. It's that there are many victim advocates who would say,
but I was and I did not. That's the sensitive point for a lot
of individuals. Renee. I want to take a second and talk about the
last place where we saw you, which was at Crime Con in Orlando,
which it feels much longer ago than it actually was. It's only a couple
of weeks, and you moderated a wonderful panel at crime Con with my podcast
partner Bill Thomas. So I want to talk about the panel, but I
also am just curious who reached out first. Did Crime Con reach out to
you. Did you reach out to them? Like, how did this partnership
come into being? I think it was mutual. Maybe Kim Goldman and Jim
Clement, who are very involved in Crime Conn, are both on our board
of directors, and so last year, when we were trying to think of
ways to get the NCBC name out in a board meeting, crime Con came
up as an idea. And so I believe Kim reached out to the Crime
Con folks and said, you asked me to speak this year, but you
have to have Renee too, and they very graciously accepted, And so I
got to moderate two panels last year and we got invited back this year.
Kristin and I had both seen him speak at Crime Kind a couple of years
ago. I want to say that was in Nashville, but I remember it
was a packed ballroom, and she's an amazing speaker. Of course, she
spoke about losing her brother Ron to a violent crime, and she's a tremendous
advocate. I didn't get a chance to just say hello to her, but
I just walked away completely blown away by how passionate and incredibly well spoken she
was. So I want to be Kim Goldman when I grow up. He
too, and her hair is perfect. I had this discussion with her what
because it was seven am. We were at a conference and she walked in
and her hair was perfect, and she gave me your tips. None of
them have worked for me, but yes, I also would like to be
Kim Goldman when I go. I'm not going to worry about the hair thing.
It's too far gone. So the panel that you moderated, which Bill
also attended, was eight Rules for being an Ethical True Crime Fan. And
as soon as I heard that topic, Bill called me and said, Hey,
guess what I'm getting to do a panel. I get to do it
with Kathy Kleiner, I get to do it with Brian, and I get
to do it with Renee Williams. So excited, I said, what's it
about? He said, eight rules for being an ethical true crime fan?
And I said that is great. I can get behind that. Can you
ay tell us how did that come about? In BA? Can you do
the rules please? So how it came about was last year when we went
to Crime Con. We were so embraced by the true crime community, but
there was a lot of confusion and people were asking questions about how can I
be good true crime consumers? And so I started to dig into what was
happening in the true crime world, and I found a lot of really good
things, and I found a lot of really appalling things. Everybody, and
not to knock this podcast, I think the world of you both, but
there are a few others, and Phila and I have had this conversation,
so I feel safe saying this. There are a few others that you give
somebody a mic and a Wikipedia page and they think they're a true crime expert,
and ye too, it's terrifying to me. But to be fair,
my first thought was why can't they follow the rules? And then I thought,
because there are no rules out there, and so you can't get mad
at people for not following the rules of the road if you don't give them
the rules of the road. So we thought, how do we do this
and how do we start to make the change in this community in ways that
are meaningful and non judgmental and are actually achievable. And so we have two
other media guides coming out. One is for victims how to navigate the media,
and one is for all content creators. Now we had media guides for
a long time, but they were for journalists who abound by their own rules,
And so we thought, what if there are people that just want to
do a good job that they've not had to an ethics course, So we
are trying to give them a crash course, not in ethics, but in
how can I speak to victims? And if I got into true crime to
do good, to tell somebody's stories, how can I do that in a
way that does not either do harm to the investigation or for their traumatized folks.
Part of that was also coming up with rules for the public of how
they can be true crime consumers. And again that was because we had such
a good experience last year and people so fully embraced it that we thought,
if we could get some folks attention around this, I bet we can start
to make some changes. And I love that concept, because you're right,
it is a wonderful, warm, loving community for the most part of people
who really want to try to do good. There are a couple of people
out there who are like determined to be chaos and cause trouble, but I
would say any community has those. It is so nice to know that there
is this set of rules out there, and I'm hoping that at some point
or another we can all kind of embrace that so that it just becomes like
these are the standard norms by which we operate. You're listening to Mind over
Murder. We'll be right back after this word from our sponsors. We're back
here at mindover Murder. Can you go over those eight rules real quick and
then we can get into more of them in more detail. Sure, So
these are the rules for the general public when consuming, not necessarily podcasters,
because we're hoping the general public will take it and say, hey, we
are not going to listen to this anymore if you are not being at the
goal. So the first is there is no such thing as victim lifts true
crime. We're both giving that a big thumbs up. Yep. The second
is there is no timeline for trauma. The third is investigate, investigate,
investigate. The fourth is require the presence of victim's voices. I can get
behind that one too, yeah, very much. The fifth is due no
harm. The sixth is respect boundaries, the seventh is don't fall victim yourself
to true crime, and the eighth is turn your interest into impact. No.
I flew through those, but You guys know that there are long explanations
to each So where do we want to start unpacking? Yes, the main
touchstone out of this is the very very first one, so let's start there.
There is no victim less true crime. So why is it that there
are victims who get written out of their own stories. We were talking about
this with Kathy Kleiner the other day when she's talking about the fact that Ted
Bundy is of vastly more interest than his victims are, Like, why,
he was a loser. He was not charismatic, he was not handsome,
he was not charming, he was not smart, all right, and yet
here we have so many people interested in him, and even those types of
people who show up at crime con who are interested in him. Why aren't
we focusing more on the victims? Talk to us a little bit more about
the fact that there really is no victimless true crime. We're not watching true
crime stories about pyramid schemes. Netflix and its progeny will release one every so
often, but I don't even think they get higher reviews. They're boring.
Let's be honest. They are the crimes that are intriguing individuals and have intrigued
distance the beginning of time are those with victims of violent crimes almost always and
exclusively. But I think our psyche especially now allows us to turn that into
a story and a form of entertainment. So you can then take a victim
and make them a character. Yeah, Ted Bundy himself is not Ted Bundy
the person. He is Ted Bundy the character. And that's what intrigues people.
Nobody actually likes Ted Bundy, that knew him. We've allowed this storyline
to arc around and move to where he's sexy and romantic and misunderstood, none
of which is true and smart and oh so clever, Yeah, and handsome
and charming, and he was a wonderful stepfather. Ted Bundy was an amazing
human except for that inconvenient fact that none of those things were true, and
he was a killer. But with the amount of media that's out there,
and the stories and the books and everything that's allowed to encapsulate him, he
gets this weird halo glow and we're not looking at him as a person,
and so that's why he become so much more intriguing for his victims. If
we can turn a victim into a character, they become maybe slightly more interesting,
but there's something very real about victims, and there's something very deep that
they're harder to turn into just characters, and that starts to feel a little
bit less comfortable, and it's a little bit less fun to hear about.
I want to hear about people in the hospital and what they had to overcome
and talk about their therapy. I also think that some of the crossover between
the world of fiction and nonfiction it gets very blended. Keeping in mind that
if, for instance, if you're going to tell a story about a serial
killer or a repeat offender of some sort, the victim is introduced, however
briefly, and then he or she quite often it's she, is, then
something terrible happens to them, and then they're actually eliminated basically from their own
story because there's very little reference made to them after that. And then in
a typical serial killer type story, whether it's nonfiction or fiction, then there's
another victim introduced, but they almost become like dominoes or something. They're just
being stacked up, knocked over next next, and there's a diminishment of their
humanity because they're just briefly introduced, killed off, and then we're onto the
next victim. You're absolutely right. We've been doing this for hundreds, if
not thousands of years, since all the way back to the penny press,
where people wanted to read about Jack the Ripper or whomever. The protagonist.
The offender becomes the through line and not hero necessarily, but they're definitely pushing
the story forward. I think what happens in true crime now is that we're
picking up a lot of those tropes from fictional stories or stories that have been
around for so many hundreds of years that people forget that Jack the Ripper actually
was a real life serial killer. It's interesting. So my favorite actor in
the world is Patrick Page, the very famous Broadway actor, and he's doing
a show right now called All the Devils Are Here. It's soft Broadway.
Oh I've heard about this, Oh my god. So I went to see
it in before it opened because I'm obsessed with him. But he talks about
Shakespeare's invention of the villain and what the villain was before Shakespeare came along was
very caricature and dramatic and weird. Where Shakespeare took the villain and villain didn't
mean evil. I can't remember what it meant, but it meant something else,
but he took the villain and made it psychological. And actually several of
Shakespeare's villains are sociopaths, but he talks about it in That's part of why
Shakespeare became so popular because in his villains we found such complex characters that we
psychologically feel the need to understand. And I think that's what we see with
serial killers that we are now idolizing, is we view them as these psychologically
complex humans and we're trying to understand them. And part of it's that we
think we could never do that, and part of it's trying to understand what
they are doing. And then part of it's I think a desperate belief that
nobody could ever just be that evil without some underlying tragedy or story or backstory.
And so that's why the killers are so interesting. Meanwhile, victims are
everyday people, and we're not trying to sort them out. No, exactly.
I am curious before we go back into the rules, I'm really curious,
out of the panelists that you had available to you for this panel at
Crime Con, did you get to choose who your panelists were or were you
told these are your panelists? Please? Work with them. Oh, No,
Crime con was very lovely. They let me put together. I asked
them if I could have a one hour topic the topic of my choosing and
the method and madness of my choosing, and they told me to basically do
what I wanted, and so I got to pick the individuals. Okay,
the topic everything. I'm just going to put Bill on the spot here for
a second. Why was Bill a really good choice for your panel? Bill
was a very good choice because he both knows the world professionally and what it
takes to get into it and the pitfalls, but also how it feels on
the other end, and it was very important to me. And that's also
why Brian and Kathy were included. Kathy's story and her way of telling it
is beautiful and amazing, but it is one sided and it had to be
one sided, right Like it's not her job to know what the media does.
Brian Etton is the same way. He is going to be one sided
and say this is what I do. So I needed both of them,
and then Bill bridged them both love that and that was very important because I
think when you're doing a panel like this, if you actually want people to
hear what you're saying. You can't just come at it from one side,
because you give people the opportunity to write off what you've said if there's any
gap. So if it was just victims on that stage with me, the
audience could say, that's fine that victims feel this way, but what are
people supposed to do? Then you have somebody sitting there that this is what
you're supposed to do. And by the way, we know how to do
it because we do it every day. On a personal note, I'd just
like to say, I'm really disappointed that I wasn't brought in because I'm the
personification of evil, which is really my goal. You have the voice for
it. Oh, I love that. Yes, Halloween is coming up within
days at the time of this taping, and a number of times that he
gets people are like, oh, your voice is like silk, it's like
satin, it's like olive oil's. But I've never heard someone say his voice
is voice of evil. And I love it. I love it every single
I'm going to use that every single time someone talks about how smooth and cherman
and lovely his voice is made for radio. I'm going to come back with
yes, but he also sounds like the personification of evil. I love it.
Look, we all have goals and aspirations, and until I get that
booking as the personification of evil, my work here will not be done.
You got to play what you got to play an evil else in Santa Maybe
right, you're getting it on. One of our friends, Jason Usfree,
asked me to play part in his wonderful Christmas production of Santa Maybe, And
originally I was going to be an elf, which I was real happy to
be an elf, and so I was working on my whole thing and then
he said, oh, We've got this guy who's like a real sort of
Hollywood sleees kind of guy. And I said, oh, I can do
that. That's me. I can do that. My horse's name is Vincent
Price that I've been looking for a voiceover for him. Oh. I love
Vincent like whenever I want to post him on Instagram because I feel like he
has a voice and he's just waiting to use it. So I can offer
you that role. There we go. I love that. No, and
I love the fact I think you did choose the best set of panelists possible
for your eight Rules panelist. And I know I'm a little biased because he's
my partner and all that, but I really think you made some excellent choices
there, and it was it was a hit. It was a really excellent
panel, and I honestly think that more people could have benefited from seeing and
hearing it like a larger stage. The great news is it's still available,
and actually NCBC has posted it on our website The Wire. Oh, I
didn't know that, Thank you. That's wonderful. We got permission from crime
Con to use it, so we have the video and the video is up.
So if any of your listeners would like to watch Bill in live,
not live, but on a video, you want to hear from Kathy Kleiner
Rubin and Brian Anon too. They're both amazing and each of them brings their
own incredible background to the table. So after your time at crime Con,
did you have any feedback from participants or discussion with people there that really struck
a chord with you, Renee, or anything that you took away that you're
still mulling over even all this many weeks later. I know a lot of
individuals said that it really changed the way they viewed true crime. We had
I was approached in the hallway and asked because one of the topics that we
discussed and went on a little bit of a bandwagon about was the sharing on
social media and don't share? Why are you sharing? Think before you comment,
think before you post. And somebody approached me and actually asked, aren't
we being helpful if we share? And I had to walk her through the
ways that sharing was not always helpful. But I think to some extent it
just affirmed that people are doing this to be helpful. Just because they're not
helpful in the way that we want them to be helpful. That can't take
away their intention. It just maybe needs to be redirected. I will tell
you I have been contacted by a victim whose story was told Her mother was
killed, and her story was told on Oxygen, and she was not contacted,
had no idea what was going out. A friend of the family saw
the previews and saw some pretty gruesome photos, so she contacted me for help.
And it's I think this bleeds into the there's no timeline for trauma.
I think it had happened in the nineteen eighties, so the producers thought it
was not a big deal, and for her it was very traumatic, and
I think hearing from her after we did this was further affirmation, because when
you put things like this out, you're not sure if you're exactly right on.
You do all of the work you can, as far as round tables,
but you're not sure you've encompassed everything. Or in my mind, sometimes
I think I'm being overly dramatic about something and I'm too focused on one thing
and not focused enough. So I think her reaching out really just confirmed the
prevalence of we've got to protect these individuals, because I will tell you she
had nowhere to turn. I frankly did not know that I'd be able to
help her at all. I got lucky on helping her, but when she
first emailed me, I thought, she, I don't know what to do.
I don't know how to help you. And if I don't know how
to help you, we're in a world of trouble because that means there's no
one who can, but you clearly need the help. Her reaching out affirmed
a lot of this and also made me realize there's a lot more work to
be done, because if I'm going to put myself on a stage and put
out a video instad on podcasts about the wonderful work we're doing. I better
be able to help somebody in that position in two and her email sent me
for a loop. What words do you have for anyone who has been a
victim of crime and who needs support and if they don't know where to go?
We're not going to say everybody should just email Renee because you are very
busy. What would you say to anybody who just I don't know where to
go, but I know that I need some help? Where would you point
them? I would honestly start by calling our Victim Services Hotline. Okay,
there are so many different paths for victims, so there are places where you
cannot get a victim advocate unless you're cooperating with law enforcement, and maybe you
don't want to cooperate with law enforcement for a multitude of reasons. There are
a lot of victims that rely on their friends and family, which is wonderful
for emotional support, but does not provide a level of expertise or enclosure that
some individuals needs. Start with our Victim Services Hotline, but also know that
there's not one right path and that a lot of people have a lot of
differentions about what you should and shouldn't do, and none of those are right
if they're not right for you. Yeah. One of the things I've learned
over time, even with the Eight Families and the Colonial Park murders and talking
to victims and survivors of other crimes, is that everyone's different and the impact
of these terrible events will be different and may even be different over time.
Our case stretches back thirty seven years now, so we're seeing even generationally things
shift in terms of the impact of this series of violent crime. One of
the things I say to Kristen is your mileage may vary, It may sound
a little flip, but what I mean is that everyone is going to deal
with this trauma in their own way, and even over the course of their
lives. This will stay with them forever. It isn't the situation is resolved,
a suspect has identified, tried, convicted, and everything in your life
just goes on perfectly because nothing's ever going to change what's happened, and our
justice system is woefully unable to help victims all of the time. Sometimes you
have to accept that resolution, enclosure is not going to come through the justice
system, just not. You have to find another form of justice or find
some closure that is going to work for you. We see that a lot
in frankly, victims of child sex abuse. They know who did it.
It was in the nineteen eighties, it was a family member, and they
come to us with paperwork and their hat in their hands, begging for help.
And the answer is just this isn't something that the justice system can address.
With a lot of victims Kate with domestic violence, with multiple victims cases,
it's just something that the justice system is not set up to address.
Through nobody's fault. You have to have multiple pathways if you want closure,
because it's not always going to come from one path. And almost everyone I
know that's been through this, whether they have had suspects identified or not,
whether they've been through a trial or not. Everyone I've met so far,
which is probably in the hundreds now, every single person I've talked to,
makes some sort of analogy about the fact that they feel like they've been through
a meat grinder and there's a process, but at the end of it,
something awful us gets spat out at the other end. No one I've met
yet has expressed anything more than a smidgeon of satisfaction. Or feeling like whatever
we call this thing, that they somehow achieved justice. That's twice now I've
used that word, which is a word I'm not crazy about, because I'm
not seeing any and even the people I know whose cases have been adjudicated and
seen all the way through, no one has ever said to me yet I
felt like I achieved some level of satisfaction or dare I say justice again?
It just doesn't seem to be part of the process. And there are times
when the justice system can make things worse when you are parading out every intimate
detail in public in a courtroom, whether it's about a family member who has
died, or if you're a victim of a violent crime and the defense has
the right to ask you the wise and they can get ugly. What would
you like to see change in the true crime space in the next couple of
years to help us reach a point where we are more friendly and aware of
victims and what we need to be doing to help them. I think we
start with consumers who care, who are holding the content creators accountable. And
I think that consumers in the true crime field don't realize how powerful they are,
and they think that just one view on the Netflix or one listen to
a bad podcast doesn't really mean anything. It does, and if people start
reaching out and saying, I don't want to hear this unless you're doing this,
things will start to change. But again, it's getting the awareness out
there. At crime Con, I will tell you I did talk to one
podcast team who literally told me they did not care about having the victim's voice.
They're just doing it for fun. I'm not gonna say, Wow,
we're just here to have a good time. We don't want to get into
that. And I said to them, you literally just told me you don't
care about having the victim's voice or discussing anything with accuracy. No, we
don't. We're just here to have fun. It's just fun. We're just
trying to have fun with it. We're not trying to get into the serious
part of it. And I was like, you're doing a podcast about murder.
You're getting into the serious part of it. So I would love to
see folks like that run out of town. And I do think that consumers
have the ability to do it. And I think that's where we start with
people viewing every single thing they watch that's in this space, not as a
story that they're being told, but as something that actually happened, and the
victims as individuals who need some sort of help or that something awful happen to
them, but viewing them as real people. Can think of a better note
to end on than that one. Reneve Welliams, thank you so very much
for joining us today. We really appreciate it. Thank you for having me.
That's going to do it for this episode of mind Ever Murder. Thank
you so much for listening. We'll see you next time. Mind Over Murder
is a production of Absolute Zero and Another Dog Productions. Our executive producers are
Bill Thomas and Kristin Dilley. Our logo art is by Pamela Arnois. Our
theme music is by Kevin McLoud. Mind Over Murder is distributed in partnership with
crawl Space Media. You can follow us on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram.
You can also follow our page on the Colonial Parkway Murders on Facebook,
and finally, you can follow Bill Thomas on Twitter at Bill Thomas five six.
Thank you for listening to mind Over Murder.