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 Ever Murder. I'm Kristin Dilley.
I'm Bill Thomas, and you sound incredibly chipper. I am exhausted at
the end of a school day, but I'm pulling it together for our listeners
so that they get the absolute best of me. I like it. You're
inspiring, You're energetic, how smiling. I'm going for it. I hope
it comes through in my voice, you know. So we're here for We're
here to be inspirational and energetic, and we hope that everybody who listens really
enjoys listening to us. We are here for you, I hope. So
damn you're sounding pretty convincing, mayor girl. I know right the Bill's the
only person who can see the manic smile on my face. But you know,
yeah, I'm good. Well, you've got that snack in after getting
home from school and you're good to go. I am good to go,
can confirm. So we want to make sure that we take a couple of
minutes here at the top and talk about a wonderful event that Bill and I
are both blessed to be able to take part in that is coming later in
October, and that is a memorial for Keith Call. Bill, you want
to fill us in on some details. I know you did press about this
earlier today. I did. The wonderful people from the Cumberland Historic Cemetery Organization,
a guy named Ed Taylor, had reached out to the Call family and
they've put together a really wonderful program to commemorate Keith Call's life and mark its
passing. And as I was talking about with a reporter earlier today, when
you have missing people like Keith Call and Cassandra Hailey, there's never a memorial
or a funeral or something like that to mark their passing, because, of
course, you know, the hope is that they'll come home someday or the
doorbell will ring and there they'll be. Obviously, that hasn't happened, unlike
the rest of us in the colonial Parkway murders who sadly ended up receiving our
loved ones back so we had their remains, and then typically there's a funeral
or a memorial service or something like that. That never happened in the missing
person's case, at least not typically. So when the Cumberland Historic Cemetery Organization
or HCO approach the Call family, Joyce Call Canada consulted with her brothers and
they thought, as a family, this is a great idea. So what
they're gonna do is they're going to add a beautiful commemorative stone to the family
plot where the Calls are buried at Rosevelt Cemetery in Hayes, Virginia. And
so on Saturday, October fourteenth, at two pm, there'll be an event
that's open to the public. All are welcome to attend and there'll be a
dedication of this memorial stone. I think it's going to be a wonderful event.
I am looking forward to speaking. Although I am generally averse to public
speaking of any kind, I am perfectly fine second up in dealing with it
in order to do this for the Call family, because I feel like it's
very worthwhile and I'm really pleased that this is happening. And let's take a
moment, indeed to shout out Ed Taylor, who has really done the legwork
on this and has made this really wonderful and moving gesture. Ed is a
listener, So Ed, thank you very much from all of us, all
the Colonial Parkway murders families and us here at my Never Murder. We really
do appreciate the work you've put into this. I can't say enough wonderful things
about mister Taylor and the HCO. Mister Taylor is going to speak, Rick
Allen will be doing invocation. Our friend Blaine Pardo, who's the author of
a Special Kind of Evil, the book on the Colonial Parkway Murders, will
speak. I will speak, Kristen Deli will also speak, and then Andy
Fox of w a v Y TV ten, who has been covering this case
for thirty seven years, which is we'll also speak and then members of the
Call family will be there. I think it's going to be a lovely event,
and his two brothers, Doug and Steve, and Call are actually going
to unveil this monument, which is basically an addition to the family plot or
the Call family, and the hope is that someday, when Keith and Sandy's
remains are recovered and this case is solved, that Keith would be interred in
the family plot. This is a nice way to acknowledge the family's loss.
Yes, Keith's life. There are things you can do now with a memorial
stone that you couldn't do that many years ago. So this actually incorporates a
beautiful picture of Keith and a little write up about him as a young man.
I thought it was beautifully done. Everyone is welcome and you'd be more
than welcome to attend at two o'clock on Saturday, October fourteenth. Yeah,
looking forward to it. We certainly hope that we will see a number of
our listeners out there, if they're so inclined. We're going to get back
to our third episode of Ask Us Anything, because we just keep getting questions
about this case, which we are so thankful for. Thank you to everyone
who asks the questions and wants to know more about the case and helps to
keep it alive. We appreciate ate it. This section is going to be
the DNA and FGG Forensic genetic genealogy question section because we had so many of
them. They all do hinge around this first sixty four thousand dollars question and
we're going to attribute it to Kathy Marie because she's the first person, but
certainly not the last person to ask about it. So Kathy Marie asks,
drumroll please, any chance DNA will be tested in the Colonial Parkway murders.
Well, the truth is, Kathy, that DNA evidence has been tested in
the Colonial Parkway murders. From what we understand, and this is from law
enforcement to the Colonial Parkway Murders families, we have potential. We have to
underline that potential offender DNA in three of the four crime scenes in the Colonial
Parkway murders, So Thomas Dowski, Edwards Nobbling, and in Call Haley there
is some DNA evidence. Finally, in Phelps Lauer incident number four on Interstate
sixty four. That's the one where their bodies were found at the Hunt Club
after being out in the weather for six weeks. To my knowledge, we
don't appear to have any DNA evidence at this point. So DNA testing has
been done. Here's the challenge, though so far nothing has proven to be
a match. If you have DNA, remember you have to be testing it
against something, so for example, they might upload it to the FBI CODIS
database. If there's no match, that's where you are at that point.
Now have they chosen to do forensic genetic genealogy. That's a whole separate question.
But there has been DNA testing. What the families in the Colonial Parkway
murders are looking for is additional testing. Kathy Murray's question is a really good
one. I recognize the answer isn't quite as simple as the question was.
This actually is a good follow up to that from Sarah T. And Sarah
asks, can you elaborate on whether law enforcement will do any DNA testing on
any of the suspects from the nineteen eighty six to nineteen eighty nine time frame?
And we'd like to remind you from last time, folks that the long
list is one hundred and fifty people, and the shortlist is probably smaller than
that bill do we know if law enforcement has actually compared here's our short list,
here's our long list, and here's DNA or are they not telling us?
They're mostly not telling us. Now, keep in mind you've got one
hundred and fifty persons of interest, and this is just completely my guest.
Let's say there's ten or fifteen people on the short list. We do have
to be respectful and law enforcement has to be respectful of the fact that no
one is guilty of anything until they've been charged and then ultimately convicted in a
court of law. People will kick around different suspects names and ideas about how
they might be involved in the Colonial Parkway murders, and I've done plenty of
it, and Kristen has two. We can't be publicly accusing someone of being
involved until law enforcement has identified someone as being a suspect and then ultimately has
indicted them charged them in a court of law. So again the answer gets
kind of nuanced. We do sometimes say publicly the names of some of the
suspects who've passed on and offered what we might know about whether DNA testing has
been done with any of those suspects. Beyond that, we're kind of restricted,
even though we're civilians. There's a legal process here, and you can't
just say, well, I think so and so is involved in the Colonial
Parkway murders, and I'm going to state so publicly. I don't think that's
a smart thing to do, and it's probably not an appropriate thing to do.
We know for a fact that DNA testing has been done on people's suspected
of involvement. I don't know that we can say that publicly. Robin C
also asks a similar question, although I don't know that we're going to be
able to answer this one unfortunately. Robin C asks how often does the FBI
run the DNA found at any of the crime scenes against codus for any new
hits? And I think it's a great question, and it's a valuable one,
but I don't know that we know an answer, do we. I
don't think we do know an answer here. I would love to know that.
I think it would be a really interesting question to ask to our current
agent and see whether they are able to speak to that or Now I'm shaking
my head because I know they're going to tell us they can't tell us.
Yes, it's a great question, Robin, And unfortunately, for a lot
of the questions with relation to DNA, we do have to basically say we
would love to know that too, but we do not know, and the
FBI just is not likely to share or my alternative answer, which has excuse
me for a second while I go bang my head against the wall. Yeah,
one thing I will say, to my knowledge in talking to FBI and
forensics experts, I don't think these are automated processes. So, in other
words, I don't think it's a matter of it just happens once a week
or once a month. I am aware of the fact that they have run
DNA profiles in the Colonial Parkway murders against codists and perhaps other databases multiple times.
But I don't think it's something that just happens in a routine manner,
or that's computerized, or you hit a button and say, Okay, every
Monday morning, we're going to run all of our available DNA profiles against the
CODIS or State of Virginia DNA databases. I don't think it happens that way.
I think it does require some action steps by the FBI or Virginia State
Police to make it happen. Now that you've mentioned that, I do kind
of want to know what is stopping that from happening. What would it take,
theoretically, hypothetically to the FBI analysts, who I'm sure is listening to
these podcasts to make sure we're not saying anything on toward what hypothetically would need
to happen to make it an automated process so that you could have here's the
DNA that we have in one file, here's the CODIS database and the other.
Now, let's automate it so that it runs every Monday morning or every
Friday night, so that we come back to work on Monday with brand new
hits. I'm sure that's possible. We have the computing power. How can
we make that happen? I don't know. We're going to have to ask
our colleagues, particularly former FBI folks, if they know the answer to this
question, because I, for one, do not know the answer. I
think this next question is another one that we're going to have to say we
don't know one, but let's go ahead and get it on the record.
Anyway, Mandy g asks, are they meaning the FBI and esp Are they
doing genetic genealogy searches on the DNA in this case yet? And if not,
why not? Mandy, This is a fantastic question. This is the
question I feel like asking every single day. I'm not sure I know the
answer. We have pushed hard and will continue to do so. We feel
very strongly that this evidence should be tested and that we would like to see
all of these open unidentified DNA profiles that are available in the three crime scenes
where we believe we have evidence, we think they should be doing forenic genetic
genealogy. We're going to keep pushing on this. The FBI has established forenictic
genealogy teams on the East Coast and the West Coast. The East Coast is
out of the Baltimore Field Office. They've done some great work. The FBI
has recently helped break cases and including the Gilgal Beach for Long Island serial killer
cases, and they're hoping for more identification as a result of genetic genealogy in
those cases. That work was done by the FBI together with Authram Authorm doing
the lab work, the FBI doing the genealogy. I believe the teams exist.
We just want to get in the queue so that they're doing this work
for the evidence in the Colonial Park my Murders as well. And I think
it's important to note at this point that literally every expert that we know who
is in the DNA or the FGG field has offered carte blanche, we will
do the testing in the Colonial Park, my murder space. We will do
it for free. All that the FBI and the VSP need to do is
give over the evidence. When the FBI said we don't have the money for
that, you don't need money for that. The FBI and the VSP they
have offered to do the work for free. All you need to do is
be willing to give over the evidence. And that's the part that kind of
ticks me off, is they don't seem to be willing to do that.
And it's like, if you can't do anything with it, please give to
a lab that well. Yeah, there's all sorts of weird institutional foot dragging
that's going on here that I find incredibly incredibly frustrating. It seems like there's
one excuse after another, we don't have the funding. Oh when I say
this lab, this lab, and this lab have all offered to test this
evidence at no charge. They know how hard the Colonial Parkway murders families have
worked to try to move this case forward. And I'm not saying that the
FBI, Virginia State Police, and other agencies haven't also worked hard. But
let's just take it that much further and see if we can put this thing
over the goal line. If we could solve one of the Colonial Parkway murders,
I would regard that as an incredible victory, and that might lead us
in other directions. In the other incidents. I just think the foot dragging
and the institutional resistance, and oh, we prefer to do it in house
at our lab where the queue is over a year long, for instance,
at fat Quantico. That's just for kill us. When we have state of
the art labs who've said to us, we'll test your evidence at no charge.
We're going to see a bunch of these people, by the way,
when we're at Crime con very soon. YEP. I can pretty much guarantee
that when I see those folks, they're all going to be asking about the
Colonial Parkway murders. How are things going in your sister's case? And everyone
wants to help, let's accept some of that help and just move forward.
There's enough credit to go around, FBI, Virginia State Police, National Park
Service Police, they've all done great work. Why don't we just push this
thing over the goal line? You know? And it does become a point.
And again I say this for the FBI analyst listening, you reach a
point where if you keep coming up with excuses to turn down the help,
it really does start to smack of cover up or conspiracy. And if you
don't want that to continue, just accept the help. A ton of it
is being offered hands out for free from people who legitimately, really and truly
care about this case and want to see it solved. Please just accept the
help. It's just unfathomable to me why they won't do it. It's one
of those things. Of the many things about this case they keep us up
at night, that is the one I think that is most infuriating. That's
the adjective values. There are many more. It's a family show. We
have to keep it clean. Yeah. The next question comes from Dora T
and Dora writes, I realize it's been an arduous journey. What do you
believe it will take for the FBI to test remaining DNA in this case,
petitions, letters, billboards. Honestly, I cannot fathom this. Hmm,
this is a hard one. I'm going to really have to think about this,
Dora. It's something we do think about a lot. We have done
letters, we've done billboards. I guess a petitions not out of the question.
I don't know that I have a brilliant answer for this, but it's
something I think we're going to have to continue to revisit and figure out.
There are times when I sit here and I quietly think what sequence of switches
do we have to throw in order to get some movement, particularly with the
FBI. Yeah, and it's a really tough thing to figure out. I've
actually asked someone who shall remain nameless, but this is a person that worked
at the DJ for a number of years and knows these people and policies very
well. And I asked this person, in their opinion, would the FBI
ever not solve a case because it was politically embarrassing to them? And when
you think about it, with the leaked crime scene photos and the discarded evidence
and the missed opportunities in the Colonial Parkway murders, I understand that this case
is probably a bit of an embarrassment to the FBI. But I asked the
question, would they ever not solve a case that was politically embarrassing to them?
Their answer, after very careful thought. We talked about this for over
an hour, and I asked a question two different ways, once fairly close
to the top of the conversation, and I revisited at the end of the
conversation. Their reply was yes, And boy, that brought me up short.
There's your conspiracy, there's your cover up, except it's not really a
conspiracy. Do institutional interests supersede case interests and the interests of justice? It
should not, but I fear that it does. I have a real hard
time accepting that, and that's why I revisited the question. After an hour
of discussion, I came back to it and asked a question in what I
thought was a completely different way, and they said yes a second time.
A second time around, they said, sadly yes. Believed even having worked
with this organization, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, for all those years,
they believed that the FBI would fail to solve a case if it was politically
embarrassing to the Bureau and I think that's unacceptable, as do I. Next
question comes from Crystal T, who says I would like an update on the
hair that was found in Cathy's hand. I know it's a huge source of
frustration for you too, but I have to ask. I thought it was
out for testing over a year ago, if my memory serves me correctly.
Well, Crystal, I appreciate the question, even though I'm going to take
a second here and go bang my head against the wall for a bit.
They have done testing, the results have been inconclusive, and I can't seem
to get any answer beyond that point. They just refuse to answer the question.
I have suggested the use of outside labs, as Kristen was talking about
a minute ago. They're all always seems to be this institutional resistance to using
outside labs. The FBI always wants to use the Quantico lab, and the
Virginia State Police always wants to use the Virginia State Lab, even at times
when the science is more advanced at private labs. So I have asked the
FBI repeatedly to consult with Austraia, one of the top hair labs in the
country and one of the top DNA labs in California, and I just keep
encountering resistance to this, even though Austraia is very interested in testing the hair
in Cathy's hand and any other evidence in the Colonial Parkway murders. And I've
spoken to the principal, Ed Green and the number two person there, Kelly
Harkins Kincaid, both of whom are amazing scientists. They are fully committed to
helping the FBI in any way they can, and that hair testing, and
we just can't seem to get the FBI off the dime. And it's so
frustrating because if the families controlled the evidence, we would have sent this out
to the private labs. We would have found ways to raise the funds cover
the costs, and this work would have been done years ago. And yet
because we don't control the evidence, and the FBI in the Virginia State Police
control the evidence, we can't seem to get them to move in the direction
of using these private labs. I definitely wish that there was a statute of
limitations on you have had this case long enough. Now it's time to turn
it over to someone else. I know that will never happen, but I
really wish that there was a time limit upon which you can have a case
in your possession and work on it until it's time for someone else to take
over, give it some fresh eyes, give it new time, attention,
and resources, and just take another crack at it. That rams up against
the whole institutional image. I'm sure that for several institutions that would probably feel
very embarrassing to turn over old cold cases. But honestly, if the best
interest of everyone is justice, if that's what we are all ostensibly aiming for
at the end of the day, then at some point or another, someone
is going to have to put the egos in check and say, in the
interest of justice, in the interest of what is right, we do need
to turn this over. We need to see if somebody else can make it
happen. And again, that will never be something that the FBI or any
other policing agency is interested in, but gosh, I wish there was such
a thing. It goes back to that whole concept of accountability that I was
ranting about last episode. I just wish that at some point or another,
some of these law enforcement agencies would look and go, you know what,
this is more than we can handle. Somebody else take it from here.
You're listening to Mind over Murder. We'll be right back after this word from
our sponsors. We're back here at my over Murder. Well, you know
what's going on? Is this institutional interests supersede investigative interests. I believe in
my heart of hearts. Yes, let's talk about the Gilgo four, Long
Island serial killer case and the recent developments therein a corrupt, an incompetent law
enforcement agency. And I'm not implying anything about the FBI or the Virginia State
Police when I say this had blocked the support of the FBI and other agencies
who wanted to assist in the investigation into what was then called the Long Island
serial Killer and has now been kind of broken into the gil Go Beach and
Long Island serial killer cases. As I mentioned in our recent podcast episode with
Robert Kolker discussing this book, Lost Girls, it couldn't be lost on anyone
that when a new group of investigators came into play, a new police chief,
a new district attorney, a new task force, and this is key
involving County, New York State Police, FBI and other agencies all working together
which should have happened years before in the case, they started a new task
force in early twenty twenty two. Six weeks after the task force was established,
a New York State trooper, one of the people on the team found
a tip regarding a large, what they described as an ogre like man,
very tall, kind of oddly shaped guy driving a very distinctive Chevrolet Avalanche truck
as being the last person seen with lisc Victim Amber Costello the night she disappeared.
Six weeks after that task force came together, this New York State trooper,
one of the task force team members, discovered that tip had been sitting
in the files for it, maybe as long as twelve years. In going
back over the evidence, this trooper found that put it forward to the team.
They started looking at it and everything came together, as Robert Coulker was
telling us, very very quickly. They then put the man under surveillance and
that we're talking about rex human at this point, and he checked so many
boxes. He lived in Massapequa Park, which is the place that they felt
that the killer most likely lived. He worked in Midtown Manhattan, right near
where the cell phones had pinged when the killer was calling the sister of one
of the victims. So many things made sense. He'd drove a Chevrolet Avalanche.
He was six four and kind of big overlike guy. He checked so
many boxes, and so they put this man under surveillance and they quickly realized,
here's our guy. Now. That tip was in the files for all
of those years, but it took fresh eyes and fresh enthusiasm and a new
team of people to put it all together. Good work, lots of good
work had gone into that case, and they'd probably come close, but not
quite close enough. And this is the kind of thing that was obviously tremendously
embarrassing to James Burke and the highly corrupt and incompetent leadership of that previous investigative
team. I mean, Burke actually ended up in jail, as did the
district Attorney Thomas Spotta, well deserved, I might add. Yeah, this
idea of avoiding institutional embarrassment, I think is one of the areas where we
get tripped up kristin what you were saying a moment ago, after X number
of years, agencies should be compelled to allow other people, whether it's the
families, other investigative agencies, what have you to look into evidence and to
review evidence. I think you're really going to have to push hard to overcome
the institutional resistance, because can you imagine how embarrassing it would be if it
was a situation like this Gilgal Beach case where Rex human is arrested they had
this evidence ten twelve years ago. How embarrassing would it be for the FBI
and the Virginia State Police if someone else took a look at this evidence and
said, we ran this test and we've identified the person we believe maybe your
suspect, after yeah, thirty seven years of failing to do so. I'm
not saying it's an acceptable excuse, but I believe it is playing into the
kind of institutional resistance we're seeing in the colonial murders right now. It makes
sense, it really does. We've got a couple of other questions here,
not related to DNA or FGG, but just some random things that were thrown
out here by some listeners and said, I think to wrap up here,
we're just going to take as many of these as we can. So one
of our longtime listeners, Leova, asked the excellent question, if there is
one thing you would change about law enforcement in the US. What would it
be? I know I saw the question. I was like, oh my
god, where do I start? Yeah? How much time do wee?
Okay, but it says one thing. So you've already heard me go on
a tangent about about accountability and making sure that there is more oversight. I
want more oversight into cold cases in particular, and I want the I'm given
proper attention and time and resources, and I want there to be a body,
an overall body. I don't know what that would look like that can
say things like, Okay, it's been twenty years on this case. Time's
up. Move it to someone else. So if there's one thing that I
would change about lawn first someone in the US, it is a greater sense
of accountability with a larger Not that we need more government in this example,
but we do need a governing body of some variety. All right, Bill,
how about you? Okay, I'm gonna try to articulate an idea I've
had for a while that I think could be helpful and I think might help
address Legoba's questionable. We could change about law enforcement. This will take me
a second to explain. Oh, I know what this is. I know
what it is go ahead. It's something you and I have talked about before.
I come from a military family. I come from a Navy family,
as many listeners know. I think that as a country, we're spending too
much money on our defense department. I think we should be putting more resources
into law enforcement. And here's my idea from my point of view, I
think the fact that there are two hundred and fifty thousand cold case homicides here
in the United States and growing. I've heard a new number that may be
to sixty and I've even heard a number as highest two hundred and eighty thousand.
Let's go with two fifty just to be fair or use around numbers.
Two hundred and fifty thousand cold case homicides I think should be a national scandal.
Let's tie in those two comments I just made together. What if we
were to take one hundred thousand of our best and brightest from America's military,
many of whom might transition into law enforcement when they finished up their military careers
as it is, what if we took one hundred thousand of our best and
brightest from America's military and transferred them into positions around the country, they would
apply, be like applying for a job to take full time paid positions based
on need with law enforcement, and the goal would be to reduce America's two
hundred and fifty thousand cold case homicides by fifty percent in ten years. This
is a little bit like when I was a kid, President Kennedy proposed that
we go to the Moon in ten years. I'm doing this for memory,
but you know something similar, like a ten year period. Do you set
yourself a goal and it's a high bar, but you're trying to get there.
I think we need to put one hundred thousand of our best and brightest
distributed around the country based on need, and their focus would be on cold
cases. So we'd have new investigators, forensics experts, additional scientists. There's
a lot of amazing, incredibly dedicated people in America's military. They would make
a fantastic addition to our law enforcement team. And if we were to permanently
fund these positions. So these are good jobs with good wages and benefits,
and people would live in the cities and towns they want to live in.
Some people would be returning back to places that they grew up in or know
and love from their service, and we thank them for that service, and
now we're going to put them into a new role. We could do amazing
things if we took some of our military resources and put them into this idea
of like a forensic moonshot or cold case moonshot, but the idea that can
we solve hundreds of thousands of these cases. Experts tell me it could be
done, but as usual time, attention and resources. Yes, that's my
idea. I'll climb off the soapbox now. Now I've liked it every time
you've mentioned that. I think it's a good idea. Nancy G presents a
question that I don't know that I have the brain to deal with right now.
I'm going to give it my best shot anyway, okay, because it's
a great question, but it's also the end of my work day and I'm
tired. Nancy G asks what is the biggest shift in the criminal justice field,
including forensics outside of DNA? Right, and she also continues, how
do you feel DNA and FGG his influenced law enforcement and the District Attorney's office.
I don't know if I got it in me, man, but I
will try. Well, Nancy, I'm not an expert. It's a great
question. I guess i'd push back lightly. I think the biggest shift in
the criminal justice field from my point of view, and again, we're just
following along, we're not criminal justice experts. One of the things I think
is really cool about hosting Mind over Murder, and you know we're trying to
do something worthwhile with our life experiences and losing loved ones, is the opportunity
to talk to these amazing people and learn from them. We had Joe jack
alone on a couple of weeks ago talking about his work as a cold case
detective, and he was talking about the Long Island serial killer case, which
is a case that he has followed very closely. Even though he was an
NYPD homicide detective and cold case specialist, he lived in Long Island, so
he's followed that case for years. To talk with people like that, I
think we can listen and learn. I think the biggest shift from my point
of view is definitely in the forensics area, and DNA has just grown so
tremendously. I think the biggest thing is actually the smallest, which is how
little DNA is required. Yeah, to create a working searchable DNA profile,
even in the last five years, it's grown tremendously because it's actually got so
much more refined in Actually I'm holding my fingers together to make them very small.
And then of course the for geneticalealogy and many of our friends are working
in this field now. It's so exciting to see that highlights the ability that
law enforcement have now to solve not just cold cases, but terrible cases that
happened last week, where there's evidence left behind and you can grab that evidence,
get it profiled, and start searching for who the identity is of that
individual. So this can solve a murder or a rape that happened last week
just as well as it could solve something that happened, say, thirty seven
years ago and the Colonial Parkway murders. I hope my excitement and enthusiasm is
coming across because I think that's the single biggest change that I've seen as someone
who is a fan of and is someone who is pulling for everyone's success.
Private labs, public labs, local state, county, and federal investigators.
There's so much opportunity here. We just have to work together to figure out
how can we fund this, how can we make this work. How can
we cut in half our backlog of two hundred and fifty thousand cold case homicides.
I agree. I have to say for my own part, first as
a spectator in the criminal justice field, and now doing what we do with
the podcast and being around all of these very smart, very accomplished people FGG
forensic genetic genealogy has definitely felt like the biggest shift for me. And I
remember it actually is longer ago now than I would care to admit. After
the Golden State killer arrest and it was revealed how that happened, you could
feel just a seismic shift. I mean I remember thinking, my god,
this is going to change everything. And then it was Awthum and Parabond just
breaking one cold case after another after another after another after another. It was
like, wow, here we are look at these old cases, and I
mean it felt like multi decade cases were just falling one after the other.
And of course we were both sitting here going all right, this is great,
Like when are we going to use it for our case? That's still
it's still a question I have still waiting, still waiting, But I mean
it was it was insane, just the number of every day or two.
And because I'm on Autham's Facebook page and Instagram and everything else, we see
it every single time David or Kristen Middleman is like, hey, we got
a case announcement coming up. It's like, oh my god, dude,
five six a week. This is nuts. They're really just they're setting them
up and knocking them down. I haven't been as excited about anything forensic related
as I have been with FGG. Getting into talk to Colleen Fitzpatrick and Barbara
rave Thunner about their work, that's really just encouraged me in that enthusiasm even
more. They're doing phenomenal work. Well said. Let's see question from Julie
C. This is interesting as a team that seems to work well. I
think emphasis on the seams there is oh your cynic You come on as a
team that seems to work well. What do you consider each other's strong suits
and what do you separately bring to the table. Do you want to go
first or second? I'll go first. I will say that I think that
the greatest thing that Bill brings to the table is definitely his wizard like ability
to instantly connect with anyone and be the extrovert and the person who like,
I've never met a person that Bill can instantly connect with him talk to.
It's it's crazy, like I don't have that ability in any way, shape
or form, because I'm too introverted for that. So Bill is definitely the
guru when it comes to let me connect with you, let me feel,
let me find a connection between between us, and it's amazing. I absolutely
love just kind of like watching Bill worker room is hysterical because he's going to
leave any room that he walks into with like twenty five new friends, a
bunch of business card and contact info for everybody. And I'm lucky that he's
willing to be the extrovert because sometimes I'm too exhausted to do it. So
I network very differently than Bill does. I love the fact that I've got
one half of my podcasting team is team extrovert when I have to be team
introvert. So I really appreciate that, and I love the fact that I
get to work with somebody who is so warm and approachable. Well thank you,
Okay, Well, Julie, he's having to sake about it, folks.
Oh no, Julie, I think it's a fantastic question. I can't
say enough one ful things about Kristen. Kristen is brilliant. She's an incredible
writer. She's very, very funny, She's got a great spirit. She
makes me laugh at times when it things can get stressful, and you know,
we're dealing with situations that are sometimes a real struggle. She's an incredible
partner. It's funny. I have to make a differentiation when I talk about
Kristen because I always say podcast partner because we both have life partners. You
know, I always want to call Pamela my girlfriend, and she hates that
expression. So I'm trying to be a good partner, and so I use
the word partner, but I'll say partner or life partner. But Kristen is
an incredible podcast partner, business partner. We work together very effectively. I
was telling someone today that even though Kristen and I come at this work from
completely different places, we actually very rarely disagree. I think it's healthy that
that option exists. And I'm dealing with someone who is passionate and smart and
nuanced, and so I'm not always anticipating that Kristen's going to see things necessarily
the way I do. But her response to something is going to be so
well thought out and methodical and careful, and then delivered with like this quiet
wit that I can't help but laugh. But she really affects my thinking because
she's coming at this and I'll think, wow, what did I think?
But she did, and that's the important thing. So I can't say enough
wonderful things about Kristen and what a pleasure it is to work with her.
Every single day. I look forward to our conversations and I am inspired by
them. Maybe, oh thank you, See you said it a whole lot
better than I did. I'm the one who's supposed to have the words,
Oh no, you did great. As you know, Julie also asked too,
She said, what do you separately bring to the table, And as
you just pointed it out a couple of minutes ago, like we do come
at this from very different places. Yes, we both lost loved ones too
violent crime, but mine is it is a step back. I have never
experienced the kind of immediate violence that you have with Cathy's loss, but I
am able to come at it also as someone who is a fan. It
sounds awful to say a fan of crime. I guess what I should say
is a fan of like crime shows, am am. I misrepresenting you if
I say that you weren't really a fan of those things before we started working
together. I'm not saying you are now either, but you weren't, like,
you know, there for every CSI episode, right, No, No,
not at all. I would say it's something like Zodiac would come along
every once in a while, the David Fincher film and others that really grabbed
me. But no, I wouldn't say I was a big true crime fan.
I came into it with this idea like I came into the Colonial Parkway
Murders having seen and read about the fictional version through Patricia Cornwell long before I
was really aware of in any major way that I had done a ton of
investigation into, so I would see separately, I really came into it as
being like someone who I like CSI like Criminal minds, all of that.
That is something that I have brought into this relationship. And now I've really
had to temper how I feel about these shows and how much I consume because
it is it is a lot, and it's dark, and what we do,
while we do seem to have fun with it on the podcast, and
we do this is a very dark space to get into. Thank you all
so much for your wonderful question, and we do encourage you to just continue
sending them and we will get to them as we get them. That's gonna
do it for this episode. 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 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. Old