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 Dilley. My name is Kristin Dilley. 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 Over Murder. I'm Kristin Dilley and
I'm Bill Thomas. I would like to give a shout out to my younger
brother Adam, who does not listen to this podcast, but nonetheless, happy
birthday to my brother Adam. Does he refuse to listen to mind over Murder.
No, he just has no interest, he says, I don't want
to listen to that murder stuff. Okay, that murder stuff. I don't
want to listen to that murder stuff even though it's his kid's sister. That's
okay, I'm the older sister. Excuse me. Oh, I'm sorry.
I thought he was I thought he was older. Nope, I'm older by
three years. Oh. I thought with him being cranky and all of that,
he was the older brother. Now, oh, you are the boss
of him. Thankfully, you're not the boss of me. In other true
crime news, and on a much more serious note, we've been discussing the
case of Gabrielle Petito, which is also highlighted a number of other unsolved murders
in the western part of the United States, including a number of Native American
and Indigenous women. There are hundreds of Native American and Indigenous women missing in
that part of the country, as well as other cases which remain frustratingly unsolved.
One of them is yet another lesbian couple who've been murdered in a national
park and their case remains unsolved. Another lesbian couple who were murdered in the
same area. This is a married couple, two women, Kylan Carol schult
Or Shulty forgive Me and Crystal Michelle Turner, age thirty eight. They were
last seen leaving a bar in moab Utah, same area, and they were
found shot to death. And they had told friends they had run into a
creepy guy, someone that made them uncomfortable, but not much more of a
description than that. Moab Utah, which is not far from the Arches National
Park. These are beautiful areas with not a lot of crime. The whole
thing just seems very mysterious. I'm not trying to link Gabby Potato's disappearance and
the murder of Kylan and Crystal. I don't think these things are related,
but certainly you need to explore all of the potential avenues. I'm hopeful that
with additional sources put into both of these cases that we'll see some sort of
resolution. Very disturbing news out of Utah, yeah, very much. A
second case that we've followed very closely, and our friends Lance and Tim and
their Missing podcast have covered this case extensively. That is the disappearance of Mora
Murray, who's been gone now from a New Hampshire and the University of Massachusetts,
my alma mater, where she disappeared more than seventeen years ago. There
may be a development in that case in that bones have been found. Human
remains have been found at Loon Mountain, New Hampshire, which is about twenty
five miles away from Haverural, New Hampshire, where her car was found.
In the early going of the investigation of the Mora Murney disappearance, there were
three young college age men who were on the suspect list who I think we're
skiing and working at Loon Mountain. She disappeared in February two thousand and four,
so this is during ski season. Her car is found after a relatively
minor accident on the snowy road, essentially abandoned. She's never found. One
of the groups of people that they looked into were these three guys that were
working up at Loon Mountain and not trying to tie those two threads together prematurely.
But it did make me think back to discussions of these three suspects persons
of interest in the Mora Murray disappearance and the fact that now bones have been
found at a construction site at Loon Mountain. There's been so many twists and
turns in this Mara Murray case over the years. I think it'll be very
interesting to see if it is finally time for some answers and resolution here,
so we'll definitely look forward to that. It should take a while, I
would assume, to get test results back, so I think we won't know
from many months. It's going to be very interesting to see what comes of
this development. I know that New Hampshire State Police are taking the lead here,
and some of the articles I read indicated that a number of the top
agencies in New Hampshire were going to be involved in the analysis of these bone
fragments. And I think we're looking at least two to three months before we
have some results. And Julie Murray or a sister who's been a family spokesperson
an advocate in that case, was talking with the Boston television stations and radio
stations and so on about how difficult this is. It's the first solid lead
I think they've had in the Morrimarty case in several years. I would say,
we'll look forward to seeing what sort of answers eventually come out of all
of this. We're going to get back to our analysis of all that remains
by Patricia Cornwell, the novel that may or may not be based on the
Colonial Parkway murders, depending on who you ask, and perhaps what day of
the week it is. So you're grinning over there, I can see it.
Is this the part when I snort derisively because if this book isn't the
Colonial Parkway murders, I'll eat my hat. It is interesting, though,
that we've had some people comment on our first episode. Thank you very much
for all your comments, By the way, we always appreciate them. And
I think we do need to make clear that Patricia Cornwell has never said one
way or the other that this is or is not based off the Colonial Parkway
murders. I don't think she has ever actually come out and spoken about it,
So I don't want people to think that she fled out said oh no,
this isn't based on that case. When we're looking at this and going,
actually, probably it is, we no wan to think that she said
that. She didn't. She's never come out and said it hasn't been based
on the case. You're probably is my You've got to be kidding. This
fictional book I'm putting air quotes around is clearly based on the Colonial Parkway murders.
I know. I'm hedging so that our legal department has something to eventually
wrangle with when she sends her high powered lawyers after us. Let's not plant
that thought. Yeah, let's not at all. Just keep going. Tell
us more, Kristin Dilley, Well, last time that we left off in
our discussion of the book, we were talking about the fact that there are
two characters that are very similar to your sister, Kathy Thomas and her girlfriend
Rebecca Dowski. And those are the two characters in Jill Harrington and Elizabeth Mott.
And we did cover last time that there are quite a few similarities between
the fictional counterparts and the I almost said exactly what you said earlier off air.
I almost said, real life characters. Well, we're not real characters,
are we We're not real characters. There are a lot of similarities between
Kathy and Becky and their fictional counterparts, Jill and Elizabeth. And one thing
I wanted to touch on and get you clarification on, Bill, because you
are the expert on Kathy Thomas. Jill is described in the novel as being
a special and accomplished woman, which of course we know would describe both Kathy
and Becky, but she is also described as being very conflicted about her sexuality
and to the best of my knowledge, that did not apply to either Kathy
or Becky. Can you speak to Kathy for a minute. Yeah, I
don't think any of us ever had the sense that Kathy was conflicted about being
a lesbian. Now, remember, my younger brother, Jack was also gay,
and Kathy were extremely close. They're a year and two weeks apart.
They're the youngest of four kids, and we used to talk about the big
kids, which would be my older brother Richard, and myself I'm three years
younger, and then the little kids. Now Jack's only a year and a
half behind me, but the world got divided up into the big kids and
the little kids. Interestingly, as we grew up and became teenagers and started
to Kathy and Jack were always extremely close, and they were confidants from as
far back as I can remember. I don't think I remember at any point
when Kathy came out to us as being lesbian. I don't think there was
ever any conflict inside Kathy's heart and mind, any conflict that I'm aware of.
Those were external forces, the fact that she was gay at a time
when you couldn't be gay or lesbian and served in the United States Navy her
conflicts would have been with the Navy, with the NCIS who investigated her,
the Naval Criminal Investigative Service who looked into her sexuality in nineteen eighty four and
directly led to her making the decision to leave the Navy. Those were all
external forces with Becky. I think we know less because Kathy was involved with
if a shipmate. She met and fell in love with a shipmate, and
they lived together it's going to be about four years, and then they broke
up directly as a result of the NCIS investigation into Kathy's sexuality. Her girlfriend
was out of the Navy and therefore in the clear by that point. So
her girlfriend then introduced her to a classmate, Rebecca Doowski, and Kathy entered
into a dating relationship with Rebecca Doowski in the spring of nineteen eighty six.
Getting down to the math here, Becky is Kathy's second lesbian relationship. For
Becky, Kathy is her first relationship with the woman. We're not aware of
any conflict that Becky might have been feeling about it. The two women,
Kathy and Becky were very happy and really seemed to be developing a very nice
relationship that was probably stretching on for about six months at the time of their
death. I'm not sure what would have happened after Becky had graduated from william
and married the following year, but certainly at that moment things seem very good
and very happy. Because Becky wasn't out to her family about being in a
lesbian relationship. I don't know if too many people can attest to Becky's state
of mind. Very hard for me to say definitively that Becky didn't have any
conflicted feelings about being in a gay relationship, and that's great. That's a
better response than I would have expected. There is discussion in this chapter two,
which I also think is worth going over, that maybe the two women
Jill and Elizabeth, had been having a discussion of such impassioned a moment that
they wouldn't have noticed someone coming up to them in the parking lot and trying
to abduct them. And I feel like Cornwell puts the two of them at
a rather rundown sort of bar called the Anchor Bar and Grill. We do
have eyewitness testimony that potentially puts Kathy and Becky at the Yorktown Pub on October
of nineteen eighty six. So I feel like there is some merit to the
theory that maybe Kathy and Becky were followed from the parking lot of the Yorktown
Pub onto the Parkway, But I feel like that's also there's only merit to
that theory if we can prove that they were there, and we can't really
prove that they were there. The FBI did look hard at that idea that
two women were seeing at the Yorktown Pub, and I remember they were looking
for a particular waitress who had supposedly waited on them. I don't think they
were ever able to find that waitress or confirm did you wait on these two
women at the pub that evening. It is possible that if Kathy and Becky
went to a secluded spot along the Colonial Parkway, that they could have been
so involved in conversation or making out or whenever, that they might not have
paid attention to their surroundings sufficiently so that someone could have followed them and crept
up to the car. That doesn't seem to be a stretch to me.
We did also hear some speculation at one point that they may have been at
Nick Seafood Pavilion and not the Yorktown Pub, but again, I don't think
we've ever found any solid evidence that they were there either. The one thing
that might make me push back a little bit against the Knicks theory is that
I guess you could get a hamburger at Nicks. The autopsy results showed hamburger,
ground beef, lettuce those things in their systems, So that kind of
steers you towards burgers or tacos tacos or something like that. And as we've
talked about, Williamsburg thirty years ago is a very different place. Your late
night dining options are pretty limited. So you've got like McDonald's or a place
like Taco Bell yep, or you might have the Yorktown Pub, but it's
not a long list of places that you could go. And then, of
course, what you're looking for is a place that would have served ground beef.
The Yorktown Pub is definitely on that list. There are also a series
of delis in Williamsburg near the Wayman Mary Campus that they could have gone to,
but I feel like if you're headed out to the Parkway and that's your
end goal, probably the Yorktown Pub is a better bet. The other thing
is that I've often wondered if two women gay women, would two lesbians go
to the Yorktown Pub what we've been told, And again, a lot of
people are looking at the Yorktown Pub in twenty twenty one and trying to offer
their perspective, which is valid, but that's not necessarily the same thing as
the Yorktown Pub now. Coming up on thirty five years ago, people that
were around back then have said to me they'd probably be fine. It was
a kind of a tourist trap during the day and still is yeah, and
has had more of a bar scene at night. Yeah, definitely, two
women. Everybody probably would have been fine. Now. I don't think that
Kathy and Becky would have participated in public displays of affection or anything like that.
It's a very different world thirty five years ago than it is now.
I think they would have been very discreet. It's unfortunate that it's never been
confirmed that they were there, because I actually think they're pretty distinctive. You've
got two attractive women in their twenties, one with dark wavy hair to her
shoulders and one with long red hair past her shoulders. It's really unfortunate that
they were never able to confirm those potential sightings at the Yorktown Pub, because
that would at least give you a next stop along the trajectory of their evening.
They go from William and Mary leave the campus, go to get something
to eat, and then they end up on the Colonial Parkway, and it
would be really great to know what the other stops might have been along the
way. And for the remainder of that chapter of the book, there really
is not too terribly much else that parallels the actual events of the Colonial Parkway
murders, and that goes the same for the following chapter, in which Scarpetta
and Marino and Abbey Turnbull the reporter are just throwing out theories, talking about
the killers m trying to figure out essentially what fits. So there's very little
in chapters fourteen and fifteen that have anything to do with the real Colonial Parkway
murders, although in chapter fifteen you do start coming toward the end of the
book and Scarpetta and Abbey run into the man who does ultimately become the killer,
and that is bookstore owner named Steven Spurrier, who runs a small bookstore
called the Dealer's Room, which ties into the playing cards which were left at
the crime scenes, so we get a long look into the life and habits
of a serial killer. A lot of this. I would love, actually
to give this fictional killer to one of our profiler friends who say, does
this matchup with a real how a real killer would behave? As we talked
about in last week's episode, one of the things that has impressed me about
Patricia Cornwell is that she does do a tremendous amount of research. And it's
very clear now that she's had this thirty plus year career, she has access
to some of the best minds in true crime. So when she offers these
theories and ideas that she puts forward in this book and in her other successful
novels, they're based on people that she knows real life experts. Yeah,
so it wouldn't surprise me if a lot of the fictional characters and storylines that
she puts forward much in the same way in this book. All that remains,
and we're comparing this to a real life case that we're familiar with,
I think there's a very good chance that most of her characterization of the Spurrier
character the killer in this particular book. I'll bet these are pretty well grounded
in reality. You're listening to Mind over Murder. We'll be right back after
this word from our sponsor. We're back here at Mind over Murder. She
certainly does lay out a litany of characteristics that would check off boxes. I
think he's a loner, never married, underachiever, but who is nonetheless arrogant
and aloof, someone who has no success with women and is angry about the
fact that he has no success with women. He's described as being voyeuristic and
indulging in violent fantasies as well as violent pornography. His house is full of
maybe not anything that would directly put him at the crime scene, but his
house is described as having no fabrics so that you can't pass on fiber transfer.
He has half a dozen nylon warm up suits, which would also leave
a few fibers with the tags cut out of them. He's got boxes of
surgical shoe covers, decks of plane cards like she does actually lay him out
very well, I think, so. I gotta give her a lot of
credit for having put together a pretty creepy guy and someone that easily could be
based on real life characters and real life serial killers. I think she learns
about a lot of these things from the access that she has to experts from
all of these fields now exactly, and for every other book of hers that
I have read, and I haven't read all of the Scarpett of stuff.
I haven't picked up a Scarpett of books and it's been a while. All
of her killers are very convincing. All of her research is thorough. She
really does a bang up job. I would imagine that if we ran this
by one of our profiler friends and said, Hey, how many boxes does
this check for you, they'd probably go, yeah, it sounds about right.
It's funny. Even from the hours that we've spent with the profilers that
we know, this guy does sound like the kind of individual that often fits
a profile of a serial killer. And it will be very interesting one of
these days when there is an arrest in this case, and there will be
an arrest in this case, if not multiple arrests, because I'm now increasingly
convinced that not all of the Colonial Parkway murders are directly related. I think
it will be interesting one day when we have arrests or an arrest, to
see how well the arrest he actually checks off some of the boxes that our
profiler friends have put forward to us. Very interesting point and that will be
hopefully in the near future. That is something that we look forward to for
sure. The final two chapters are really as a tailspin worthy of television.
It would be interesting. I know we've talked before about the fact there always
seems to be a Case Carpetta film or TV series in the works, but
never really actually hitting the airwaves. This is something that I would expect to
see in a movie or a TV series, a limited series. Even these
final two chapters, it's a rollercoaster. Cornwall is exercising her creativity as a
writer and having some fun as an author. I think she wants to keep
you on the edge of your seat, sure that she keeps you there to
the very end. And so though twists and turns I think are part of
something that she enjoys in terms of laying out the plot for a book like
this. Oh yeah, and when I do my own writing, the best
part is always the big climactic seeing at the end, or you're typing as
fast as you can because you really want to get your characters through the scene.
And it's great stuff. And she does a great job with the final
showdown, And even though we've spoiled the vast majority of the book for our
readers already, I'm not going to spoil the final full details for the final
showdown other than to say that there's a gun battle when a bunch of people
die. That's as far as I'm willing to go. I'm not going to
tell you in between who and not going to tell you who bites the dust.
I don't know. You're giving away an awful lot. It is really
interesting, though, all these final revelations that come out about about the killer
and so how they ultimately catch him and all of that. I'll I will
leave for anybody who is not already disgusted by the fact that we have pretty
much spoiled this novel, the Scarpet survive. She's got another twenty four books.
Yeah, she's around for another twenty four books. Yeah, yeah,
exactly. And is a good time to remind that, even though there are
arrests made in the fictional case, no arrests have ever been made for the
Colonial Parkway murders, any of them. Not one, I'm single one.
Scarpetta does reveal some interesting, little fun science facts in there, and again,
I don't want to spoil this too terribly much, but let's just say
that there's some interesting fun facts about DNA and the fact that it is possible
to have two different types of DNA in your body. I'm not going you're
looking confused because it's in my notes, but I'm not going to spoil it
because I think it's a great little it's a great little thing for people to
read into. But she gives you some fun science facts. Let's say it's
interesting too, because what year did the book come out again, ninety two?
So DNA was a thing, but it was it was really being used
in a forensic capacity until the late eighties. So once again, here's Cornwall's
intensive research and access to top experts allows her to be writing about DNA,
which was relatively new in the early nineties. And yet she's able to write
about DNA and the twists she creates around different types of DNA. Yeah,
at a time when DNA identification and testing was still quite new. She does
some fun, weird science stuff at the end, which of course is explained
beautifully by Scarpetta, who is the chief medical examiner. And it all has
to do with a plastic anemia and blood transfusions in bon Mara from family members
changing your DNA and all of that. I can't remember the full one details
the way that she described it, but it's pretty cool science. So anybody
who's interested in cool science, check out that final chapter. You're listening to
Mind over Murder. We'll be right back after this word from our sponsors,
we're back here at Mind over Murder. And then we do end up with
Cornwell leaving the story. I'm just a little bit of a mystery by sharing
that there is a possible Camp Perry connection to Steven Spurrier. After all,
see you get laid down those breadcrumbs earlier in the book. Yes, you
do get a nice little hint that maybe there is a darker conspiracy afoot with
regard to Camp Perry. I don't know. I don't buy it necessarily.
As I said last week, I actually think that the author is the origin
of that Camp Perry story which we've been hearing about for years. People are
insisting to us, Yes, it's a rogue agent from Camp Perry group who's
come out. They've gone over the edge and they're testing out their assassination techniques.
Yeah, finding the innocent citizens of Virginia. I think that is wholly
she is wholly responsible for that one. And it's fun. It's a fun
theory, although I guess if you take it seriously, it's not so fun.
But it's very unlikely that's actually taking place. I will admit that I
found some of our discussion last week very interesting in that the idea that trainees
from Camp Perry would go out and try their techniques of surveillance, tracking people,
following people, it surreptitious photography and recording and so on, that they'd
go out and mix it up and go to Colonial Williamsburg and downtown Williamsburg and
the shopping centers in the area and that sort of thing, almost like homework
practice these techniques. I'm sure, as we talked about last week, the
citizenry wouldn't be thrilled about that. Yeah, did I think that was an
interesting idea. I'd meant that as someone that enjoys a good story as much
as the next person, I thought that was intriguing. Yeah, I don't
know that I'd want to be that person who was followed and listened to and
shadowed, but at the same time, get that is an interesting possibility.
Yeah, they'd go out on field drips. Since, yeah, we're gonna
we're gonna leave and go do some other stuff for a little bit, we're
gonna go off base and have a field drip. I do the idea of
and that I live pretty close to Camp Perry, I don't. Yeah,
it's one of those things that I'm not gonna let it keep me up at
night. But every once in a while it crosses my mind. I wonder
what they're doing behind that fence, or I wonder what they're doing following me
down. Yeah, the thought has crossed my mind a number of times.
The place where I think we get to a real stretch is then thinking that
trainees at Camp Paire are going to go out and kill innocent people who have
done nothing wrong. That part I think, Okay, now we're well into
the realm of fiction. Yeah, for sure, all that remains. It's
not the only fictional work about the Colonial Parkway murders, but it is the
only one that has actually been strongly contested by the family of the victims as
being too close to the facts of the case. So in nineteen ninety seven,
the Phelps family did take Patricia Cornwell to court. I was doing some
reading on various news articles about the lawsuit, and an article from the AP
said, according to missus Phelps, this is not fiction. Cornwell should not
be making money from someone else's misery, which I can wholly get behind,
and Bill, I'll get you to weigh in on that as well. I
completely understand where they're coming from. It's very frustrating to feel that your loved
one's real life story and tragic ending is being used in such a thinly disguised
way. The Phelps family was extremely unhappy about the book and remain so.
They brought it up with me several years ago. As you mentioned, there
are other fictional books. There's a book called twenty three Miles that came out
in two thousands fifteen by Renee McKenzie, which is a work of lesbian fiction,
which is a specialty. And at the same time, Renee based the
book on the Colonial Parkway murders, specifically that of Kathy and Becky's. But
she also contacted me and told me what she was doing and asked me if
she could ask a bunch of questions. She was a bartender at the Hershey
Bar, which was a very popular lesbian bar in Norfolk, which actually ties
in directly to Kathy and Becky's murder. There's a possibility that the Hershey Bar
may have played a small role in Kathy being investigated by the NCIS. So
when Rene McKenzie contacted me, it was a very friendly inquiry and she wasn't
just going to write a book without learning more about Kathy and Becky. She
knew who they were and had met them and probably had served drinks to them
at the Hershey Bar. He approach was very respectful and she I'm sure if
I had objected to her writing the book, she wouldn't or basing the book
on Kathy and Becky's murder, she would not have moved forward in that example.
I think there was a significant effort made to make sure that Kathy's family
was okay with it, and we were, And just to be clear,
so that we are very clear, Patricia Cornwell has never contacted your family or
any of the families that you're aware of. Correct, that's correct. While
you and I were going through this analysis of all that remains in revisiting these
details, and you did some outstanding research and thank you for that. You
reminded me just how closely that Jill Harrington and Elizabeth Mott characters also parallel Kathy
and Becky. I understand the frustration that the Phelps family and the Lurs.
Although I have not spoken with Allowers about this particular issue that they may have
felt, I completely get it. They felt violated. They were also suspicious,
and they said so in their court filings. They felt that it was
possible that Cornwell had used her job at the Commonwealth of Virginia Medical Examiner's Office
to make unauthorized use of the contents of what should be confidential medical files regarding
their deaths. Let me make sure that I actually quote from that directly so
that I can make sure that we're clear on this. So this is again
from the ap associated press piece. The lawsuit contends that when Cornwell worked in
the Medical Examiner's office, she obtained autopsy details that were never made public because
the cases unsolved, and was never prosecuted. According to the lawsuit, the
autopsy report stated that as phelps eyeballs were missing and two front teeth were knocked
out and found next to her body. The two bodies were found positioned arm
in arm, faced down. The couple contents those are among the details contained
in Cornwell's book. I can't say definitively what was in their autopsy report because
I've never seen it, but that does appear to be the kind of level
of detail that was not made public, and I think this is what set
the Phelps family off. And as we talked about last week as well,
the whole thing with the examination of the bones by the Smithsonian Institute, all
of those things were so directly, precisely duplicated in what is supposed to be
a fictional book, and the description of the crime scene and all of those
details were so spot on. There's no way it's a coincidence. So I
understand the Phelps family's frustrations. Ultimately, they were not able to prevail in
their court proceedings, partly because it's very difficult to prove access. Yeah,
but when as we took a look at the book very carefully over these past
couple of weeks, I was struck by how many parallels you found, Kristen.
There were a lot, there were, I know, And interestingly though,
I did want to note that, Yeah, here's where things do get
a little marky. There are no missing eyeballs and missing front teeth in the
book, like that is not a thing that is mentioned. It does say
that Deborah Harvey is missing chief, but it is not her front ones and
they were not found next to the bobby. And there's never any mention of
eyeballs. So there is This is the part where it's like who got the
details wrong? Did the reporter get the details wrong? Did Cornwall get who
got the details wrong? Here? But there are definitely some things that were
can tended in the court filing that do not appear in the book. Things
that appear in the book that don't appear in the court filing. It's murky,
as you say, though, And I'm not taking a shot at the
reporter or the Associated Press. We're not looking at the court filings themselves that
we're looking at a quote from Jewel Phelps missus Phelps, Yeah, the mom
whom I know to the AP. As you say, it gets a little
murky. And the Washington Post did do an article about not only this lawsuit,
but about in nineteen ninety seven there were two other authors who had lawsuits
filed against them for very similar reasons. Janet Daley, who is a romance
writer, was one of them, and Joe Klein, who wrote Primary Colors,
which everybody remembers as being a pretty thinly veiled knock at Bill Clinton,
you think. And both of them had lawsuits filed against them, and so
the Post did do an article about that, called Crimes of Passion, and
it did have this to say, the accusations against miss Cornwell are murkier.
There is no legal basis, at least in America, for the notion that
people own the rights to events that have happened to them, or that they
can sue to control the imaginative use of such events in fiction. The exception
is cases where a real person is clearly recognizable. So then I guess the
question becomes, are Anna Maria and Daniel so clearly recognizable in this that you
would have a case. There's a lot of things that center around the right
to publicity, but most of those things also are built around public figures.
Yeah, so if you wrote about somebody who was a fifties rock star with
dark hair slicked back who sang about the Blue Moon of Kentucky, people might
expect that you're actually referring to Elvis Presley in that example, because Anna Maria
Phelps in Daniel lower were not public figures, and most people wouldn't know what
a fictionalized version of their lives or in this case, their tragic death would
constitute. I understand that the creative world, authors, etc. Scriptwriters and
so on could easily slide on whether or not. If the standard is would
the average person recognize them, they might be able to get away under that
standard. As we talked about with the Joe Harrington and Elizabeth Mott characters in
the book, Well, I challenged you a couple of times and said,
oh, come on, they've barely changed the detail. This is Kathy Thomas
and Rebecca Doowski without a doubting William and Mary in the whole nine yards of
Joel Harrington was a top salesperson for a computer company computer company, whereas my
sister had left the Navy and become a top salesperson for a stock brokerage.
Okay, a few details are changed, but it's pretty close, and I
think in total, when you look at the entire story of the Colonial Parkway
murders, particularly what was known in nineteen ninety two or so when Cornwall would
have been writing the book, I think where Cornwall starts to push the envelope
is a lot of things that Cornwall was writing about had not been made public.
A lot of this stuff that has come out partly because of this podcast,
the television series, the many television, radio and podcast interviews that I've
done in other family members have done. More details have come out about the
Colonial Parkway murders in the thirty years since back then in the early nineties when
Cornwall was writing and researching this book. I think there's a tremendous amount of
detail that she includes in her fictionalized version, calling it all that remains that
had not been made public at that point, and that's probably le an area
of some vulnerability. And certainly, as you mentioned earlier in this podcast,
she's never publicly stated it's not the Colonial Parkway murders. And I've even said
once or twice in previous episodes of this podcast. I defy her to do
that, because I would publicly challenge her on that. I think she's way
too savvy to get caught up in saying something like that. I think she's
rather just quietly go on about her business of being a successful author and not
engaging in debate about whether or not this particular book is based on this particular
case, but in my mind there's no question. So that's Bill Thomas's final
thoughts on the matter, and here are mine, essentially. I'm still at
the end of this. I'm still very conflicted about this book. I came
to it at a super young age, like eleven or twelve, because I
was interested in the Colonial Parkway murders case. It did not give me correct
information about the case that I knew at that point, but it did spark
my interest in it, which continued it a low flame in the back of
my fevered, crime ridden brain until I reached out to you in twenty sixteen.
I think it was Wow, it's been a while, and when was
no start doing some work on this case. I can't bring myself for that
reason to holly dislike the book, because actually it's because of the book that
I'm here, and I wouldn't trade I'll be sentimental for a minute. I
would not trade my relationship with you or any of the other family members for
anything. This has been an incredible, amazing, moving, emotional journey and
I would not give that up for anything. So we have to give Produce
Cornwell some credit for that. I gotta give her some credit for that,
and so I can't bring myself to dislike this book. She's a great writer,
she's a great researcher. I've enjoyed almost every anything else she's written.
She did some crappy stuff with one of her characters that I did not approve
of, but that's just me. Do I see that there are issues with
the book? Knowing what I do now about the crime scenes and the pain
that it causes those families, particularly the Phelps and Thellours, I see those
issues. Do I think she included details that are strikingly similar to the crime
scenes in the book on purpose? Yeah? Do, But as you said,
you can't prove or disprove intent, so we're never going to know what
she was thinking or doing at that point. And you can't prove or disprove
access, so we're not going to know how much she did or didn't have.
So do I see that there are issues? Yeah? Do? I
still like the book? Kind of? I feel bad saying that, but
like less now than I did. But I still do like the book.
And am I still a fan. Haven't read anything of hers in a really
long time, so I don't know. Maybe I'll pick up Autopsy when it
comes out, it's supposed to be pretty interesting. How do I feel about
this book? Man, That's where I'm at. Maybe I don't know.
I sort of like it, but there's issues with it. But do I
still kind of like it? Yeah? I guess that's about as murky er
response as I can come up with. But it is so troublesome trying to
deal with the feelings about this book. It's very cut and dried for you.
It always has been. In fact, one of the first things that
I asked you about when we started talking was how did you feel about the
book? And of course you snorted derisively and you were like, oh,
it's worth seventy five cents, which is what I paid for it. But
I still have real trouble with this book and what it presents to me,
both as a book lover and now as somebody who's very invested with this case.
So I don't know. It's difficult, And as always I remind you
this book is available at your public library. Yes it is. It is,
so feel free to borrow it, but you don't have to buy it.
And feel free, of course, at any point to us your thoughts,
your insights, your arguments anything with regard to our series of episodes on
All That Remains, because we would love to hear from all of you what
you think about this book. And next week we get back into the Colonial
Parkway murders and further exploration of true crime. Yes, thank you so much
for listening to this episode of mind Over Murder. 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 McLeod. Mind Over Murder is
distributed in partnership with Coral 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.