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 Over Murder. I'm Kristin Dilly.
I'm Bill Thomas. We're back from crime Con. And it was smashing.
Is that a pretty fair adjective or can we come up with something better?
I like smashing, smashing works. I felt like think it was spectacular.
We're going with S words today. Yeah, it was sensational. Absolutely,
there's another S word. Yes, absolutely. I can't think of a better
crime con. And we have been to you've been to all of them,
but the first one, I believe, so yes, I Mass and Indianapolis,
Nashville on forward. That is Nashville number one. This was our second
visit in Nashville, and I was at all of them except for Indianapolis,
and then I could not make it to Austin during the pandemic. You went
because you were speaking, but I was not able to make that one due
to I believe it was online school that we were doing at that point,
and I couldn't do online school from a hotel. This is I think that
they are raising the bar every single year higher and higher, and they knocked
it out of the park with this one. I am so enthused by the
one wonderful days that we had, but oh my god, I'm so tired
me too, and leave them back for what a week? Yeah, it's
and it was. My journey to crime Gon was a little different than yours.
One was because I ended up having to drive all of our stuff.
I had two days of driving on the front end and then two days of
driving on the back end as well, in addition to the three crime Con
days. It's a long haul from Virginia to Tennessee. And yet I don't
think it would have made sense for you to try to do it all in
one day, how many hours driving altogether? On Wednesday, I left school
and came home, picked up my luggage and all of our stuff, our
banners, our signage, everything else, packed it in the car, and
I went from four pm until nine thirty pm, just like going across the
state of Virginia. I stopped in Bristol, Virginia, which is right on
the border with Tennessee. So that was six hours of driving that first day,
right, And that's after a full day at school and teaching and the
whole thing. So yes, I was already reeling. Unless the two of
us were in the car together and we could spell one another or something like
that, I can't see how you could have gone much further in one day
between work and a six hour drive, Yeah, exactly. And so I
stayed overnight in Bristol, Virginia, a just very welcoming, wonderful Marriott.
I did the remaining five hours the next day, and that's five hours with
a time change too, and so that was a lot of driving. The
Sunday that we left crime Con, I just reversed it and left right after
crime Cons. I saw you off, and then I packed up my stuff,
packed up the car with the help of the very very nice people at
the Gaylord, and then did the same thing, drove until I got to
Bristol. So that was six hours after crime Con on Sunday. And then
the next day I took a little bit longer to go home. I actually
stopped at a national park and or rather a state park, actually got out
in nature because when you're inside the resort you don't get sunshine and fresh air,
and so I hadn't seen the sun for three days, almost four days
actually, since I got there on Thursday, and I was like, I'm
not leaving again until Sunday. So and you scared me a little bit.
When we were departing on Sunday, you were making some noises about maybe trying
to push through all the way to Williamsburg, which I was not in support
of because I was worried about you. We had three exhausting but amazing days,
which we'll get into in a second, but you were talking about,
oh, I may try to just push on through, and I'm like,
please don't do that. No, it would have been a bad idea.
I had originally booked at the gaylord with the thought that, oh, when
crime CON's done on Sunday, I'll just relax the rest of the day and
then I'll do the whole drive all the way straight through on Monday and go
back to school on Tuesday. And I realized by the time I saw you
off, I don't know if you noticed or not, I was so jangled
from not enough to eat, too much to do, so much over stimulation.
My hands were actually shaking by the time I left, and I was
like, Okay, I just need to go ahead and get on the road.
I can't do this all on one day. You're a grown up.
I'm not here to tell you what to do. But that scared me a
little bit. I was glad when you told me that you were going to
break it up, just like you had done on the way down there,
because it's a long haul. It really is, especially with a car load
full of stuff, and it's when you don't have someone else in the car.
You either end up talking to yourself a lot, or I called friends
that I knew could keep me entertained for an hour or two at a stretch.
So I called my friend Montice and was like, all right, you're
going to have to entertain me for the next two hours. Now she is
going to come to crime con next year? Is she not? Because yes,
she is two crime cons in a row. Now, you've connected with
Josh Mankowitz, who was a friend of hers, Yes, and sent these
lovely notes to her video readings. But I thought to myself, we've got
to get her there because he obviously is close with her. He's always very
excited when you connect with him. But your purpose is to send Montese a
video greeting, which yes, I thought, We've got to get these people
together live and in person. Where do they even know each other from?
He actually followed her on Twitter. She is a published author and he is
a fan of her books. And so when we reconnected after a couple of
years away from each other, we were talking about true crem She's, yeah,
Josh Minkwitz is my butt. I'm like, how the hell do you
know Josh? Mac I know? Really, she said? She said they're
Twitter friends who became real life friends, that he's obviously very fond of her.
Our very first afternoon there on Friday, I was lucky enough to find
Josh in the green room after we were done with our panel and I said,
hey, Manti says Hi and he was like, oh, we got
to do a video. Let's do it. Let's do it. A very
nice guy, super sweet. Oh. Yes, she is going to come
to crime Con next year. We're working on getting a hotel room that we
can share and she's going to come hang out and maybe help us out in
the booth and stuff like that. It's going to be fun. That would
be great. And of course next year has been set for Denver, Yes,
in September twenty twenty five, which is about fifteen months from now.
It was interesting, this was an odd year for crime cons because I did
two crime cons in one school year, which means I ended up taking six
days off total for crime con. I won't have a crime con at all
this next school year. Isn't crime con in early September? Or will you
not be at school at that point? No, you're right, I don't
know. I might be getting this wrong. I don't think I have a
crime con though this coming up school year. Yeah. I think you're right.
Yeah, I think you're right. And then my travel was a little
different from yours because I flew out of Hartford. It worked out really well.
It was flight of Philadelphia, changed planes fly on to Nashville. It
went very smoothly on the way down. On the way back, there were
these massive storms throughout the southeast, especially in Texas, which had a ripple
effect on flights were delayed and there were a lot of planes grounded at various
airports around the country, which meant that connecting flights like hours were not able
to take off on time, so there was a three or four hour delay.
I ended up actually getting home at four am. Oh my gosh.
I snuck in and I was determined not to wake up Pamela, my partner,
or our dog Oliver, and I did manage to do that. I
actually slept down the hall so that I wouldn't wake them up in the middle
of the night, because I knew there would be too much excitement and nobody
would get back to sleep. So I snuck in, but it was literally
for a when I rash. The drive from Bradley Airport, the closest airport
to US as Hartford, is mostly through these little tiny connetics towns and woods,
so I was trying to be really careful not to meet a deer or
we have moose and bear and all kinds of critters. I was about to
say, it is not out of the realm of possibility that there might be
a moose. The thing is, we can hear moose sometimes, especially during
meeting season. They sound like cows, supercharged cows, big cows. We
can hear them. I've still never laid eyes on one, but we know
people that have seen them, and we've certainly had bear in our yard and
deer and all kinds of other animals. I was just trying to get home
without a falling asleep or b meeting a critter in the middle of some country
roads somewhere, And did you blast heavy metal music to keep you awake or
what do you do to keep you awake? I was listening to NPR and
it was the BBC it was on at that point, and I was just
like, this is too sleepy. So then I was down then satellite radio
and was blessed in the tunes trying to keep myself awake. It all worked
out fine, but was a very long return flight. Fly to Charlotte,
run through the Charlotte Airport to make my connection, and then continue on.
As it turned out, they actually held all the connecting planes even though everybody
got back to their destinations very late. I think they realized if they didn't
put the whole schedule back after the delays in the southeastern part of the United
States, then nobody was going to make their connections. So they held all
the planes as far as I can tell, so that we all made it
home, even though we made it only this is coming on top of three
very busy action pack days. And I don't think we can emphasize enough for
anybody who hasn't gone to Crime Con how busy this event actually is. You're
going from the moment that you wake up until the moment that you finally decide
to roll into bed, and for some people that's really late. I stayed
up later than I have for a very long time, especially after the cluelwards.
We were up till almost one in the morning, and I just I
don't do that anymore except during the summer. During the summer, I'll stay
up till one o'clock reading, two o'clock reading. Easy. Yeah, it's
a very busy time. It's fun, it's wonderful. But I was talking
to Jess Bettencore, our friend the other day who we spent a lot of
time with this crime con and we were all all of us texting back and
forth to each other. Did you get home safely? Yes? How are
you feeling today? Everybody that I was talking to, Jess Betton, Corla
Richards, Nikki Egan, we were all like, this is exhausting. We're
so tired, Jess said, re entry is awful, and it's it is
like we're re entering regular society after this adrenaline fueled but still also very emotionally
fraught weekend, and it's it's exhausting. And then I checked my fitbit and
I saw that we had walked twenty two miles over the course of the weekend.
And that's just tip of the iceberg right there. Yeah, my step
counter was just completely off the charts because the hotel, this is the Gaylord
Nashville, is massive. This is our second time being at the hotel,
same deal. By the way, it's only by the third day that I
started to really get my bearings because I think there's something like three thousand rooms.
It's crazy at the hotel, and it just goes on and on.
Like you, I was indoors for three days straight because there are these massive,
beautiful gardens, the whole thing is under a bubble. And so you
go from one area of the hotel to another, and there's gardens and walkways
and a river boat, and this is all indoors. There's something about it
that these beautiful gardens, which are gigantic, they all look similar, so
that if you get turned around, you're like desperately looking for sidage, like
which way do I go next? I got lot at least three or four
times. Oh totally. And even though they have an app that will help
you navigate, if you get far enough into the hotel, the app stops
working. So I was using it one day and it kept telling me turn
left in one hundred and twenty eight feet, and then it just stuck there
and I was like, I turned left already, Besty, what's up?
Now? What happened? Now? What do I do? I turned left
where? Now? It's an absolutely stunning venue. I'm so glad that they
went back to it. It was the best possible space. I think so
too. I think it works out really well. They have so many guests
now. I think there were six five hundred people in attendance. Now,
obviously some of those people are doubling up in their hotel rooms, and then
there are other people that are there for the day or staying at other hotels.
Originally I booked late and I was in the Overflow hotel, which is
perfectly nice and not very far away, and they moved me into the main
hotel, which I was actually glad of. There's so much going on,
and you see so many people that you mostly have an electronic relationship with.
It's mostly people, including people we interview for Mind over Murder, that are
connections that we've made, but we mostly have relationships that are built around phone
calls, zoom calls, texts, email, not as much face to face
contact. So when you actually see these people face to face, it's actually
really fun because you feel like you're solidifying relationships and reconnecting with people, and
it's just so much fun. But you're running, honey, we were going
over the schedule just now to give your printed schedule for Friday, May thirty,
first Saturday, June first, Sunday, June second. I'm looking at
the panels and thinking, oh, I want to go to that, I
want to go to this, and you can't be everywhere. Well, you
didn't end up at any though. That's the thing. It's and that happens.
That's a function of Okay, we're speaking, which was all things onto
itself. I'm to man this booth, which is a whole other thing,
and then do we also have time to go to panels? And the reason
that I ended up being able to go to panels is my good friend Chris,
who is a listener to the podcast. Hi Chris, thank you for
coming to hang out with me at Crime Con. Chris came in for the
day. We went to a bunch of different panels. But I think that's
the only reason I actually got to go to panels is because I told you
I'm not going to be in the booth. I'm hanging out with Chris,
and so we got to see a couple of things. But I don't know
that I would have gone otherwise. What was great though for you and Chris
is that it was Chris's first Crime Con. As far as I could tell,
he wanted to plug into what's this thing that you and Bill go to?
So you wanted to take him around to a bunch of panels and give
him a chance to get a flavor for this massive conference. That meant that
you were going to spin off and you told me that, and so I
was doing my best to cover the booth although I saw so many people that
I wanted to have conversation with that there were a number of times where I'd
be swinging back to the booth, You'd be there, or you and Chris
would be heading off to yet another panel. What an amazing experience. And
for Chris is a first time or anyone, I think Crime Con can be
pretty amazing as an introduction to what's going on in the true crime space.
No, absolutely it was. And the lineup this year was phenomenal. So
I want to make sure that we shout out Kevin and his team because the
guests that they put together, and I think we can humbly include ourselves among
those guests, those speakers. It was a phenomenal lineup. I never in
a million years thought I would be able to actually see John Douglas or John
Walsh in person, and yet I got to go to both. I got
to meet John Douglas, which is believe me, it's a lifelong bucket list
item. So many items on the bucket list, like I said, got
checked off this weekend and it was wonderful. It was just phenomenal. The
fact that we got to hang out in the Platinum Lounge because we were speakers
allowed me to meet some of the people that I didn't get a chance to
go to their panels. I did not get a chance to listen to Anthony
Zeicher talk about CSI right because we were getting ready to go to John Douglas's
cocktail Hour. But I did get to meet him, and so that was
really cool. That was an opportunity that I don't think I would have had
otherwise. There are definitely perks to being speakers, and I really enjoyed those
perks. Yeah, but even that first day, listen to this lineup.
You've got the three of us. This is you, Me and Cheryl Mack
McCollum, who did an incredible job as our MC, presenting on developments in
the Colonial Parkway Murders to five hundred plus people in one of the main ballrooms.
We actually got moved to a larger room. Because people indicate in advance
what they're interested in attending. That you check a box on an app that
tells you, Okay, here's what's going on. What do you think you're
going to be attending, And that allows the person to have a schedule that
they can print out if they want. That first day John Douglas fireside chat
with Chris Hansen, which they put into the biggest ballroom they could fit,
probably held two thousand people. The Colonial Parkway Murders is next door The Future
of Forensics with David and Kristen Middleman are friends from Athram Finding a Voice Victim
impact Statement readings, which is from a lot of people who have been involved
in very well known cases Golden State Killer and others. And then at the
same time there was an Aphrodite Jones meet and Greek going on a law and
crime sidebar meet, and Greek and Scamanda meet and greet, all going on
at the same time. And that's just one one hour period and it just
goes on from there. So we felt really good. I think about our
presentation, how it went over. The questions from the audience were phenomenal.
So we spoke for about forty five minutes. Kristin, you did a fantastic
job. You structured the presentation, put together the slides, and then gave
Mac the questions that she was to ask us, and we alternated answers with
the Colonial Parkway Murders. I have a tendency to go a little bit deeper,
but I've got the family connection to the case. The questions from the
audience were outstanding. Oh yeah, there's actually a couple of things that we
could spin off and do a whole separate episodes on those. And then a
lot of people came by our booth at what they're now calling Creators Row,
which they used to call Podcast Row because there's podcasters and lots of other creative
people who are displaying at tables in this also very large room packed with people.
But a lot of people stopped by afterwards over the next two days and
told us how much they'd enjoyed the presentation. They learned more about the Colonial
Parkway murders, they learned more about the three of us, and they were
in listening to Mind over Murder if they weren't already listening to it. So
I felt like it was very successful all the way around. Yeah, no,
I agree, And as anybody who listens to the pod knows, I
am not the biggest fan in the world of public speaking. I was petrified
before we did our live shows, but ultimately I feel like those went well,
and I was very nervous about doing this panel in front of a large
audience. I knew it needed to be done, and I knew what it
needed to be done well, so I just I had that one moment of
terror where they actually miked me up with a mic pack, and then I
hear that intro come out booming across the ballroom. Please welcome to the Crime
Con stage, Bill Thomas and Kristin Dilly of the Mind Over Murder podcast and
Cheryl McCollum. I wrote the intro. I know how it went. I
heard it and my mind just froze and was like, oh my god,
I'm about to go talk in front of a large group of people. But
it went really well. And honestly, if you'd asked me thirty seconds after
we were done, would you go do it again? I would have said
yes then, and I still say yes now. I would love to go
back and do that again. And it was great and everybody was so wonderful
in response. I worked with a lot of musicians, actors, broadcasters and
other presenters have told me sometimes they get butterflies or stage fright just before they
go on. You told me just before we went on, how nervous you
were, but sitting next to you on stage. I could hear the nervousness
in your voice, but it only lasted for a few seconds. Then you
hit your stride and you started answering the question. I don't remember what the
question was. The nervousness went away, and you just kicked it in and
started talking because you have a lot to share with this room. And the
truth is, even though there's five hundred people in the room, with the
very very bright lights in your eyes, you can't really see beyond the first
couple of rows. Yeah, you're right, you can only see the first
couple of rows clearly. But I could tell when I actually it was about
five minutes in and I dared to actually turn my head away from you and
Mac and go look and see what else was out there, because I honestly
figured we weren't going to get very many people, though there were a ton
of people there. Yeah, it was when I turned my head and noticed,
oh god, there's a lot of people in this room and it's still
It didn't actually make me nervous, because I'd been talking for about five minutes
at that point, but it did just make me go, oh whoa,
Like I really didn't think we were going to be getting that many people.
We were competing with John Douglas and David and Kristen Middleman. After all,
it was a big sea of people out there. It was I was pleased.
I don't generally think about how many people are in the room or any
of that stuff. I just mostly focus on what it is that we want
to say. And of course you're listening to Max's questions and then trying to
respond to them in a meaningful way. I had to turn my head back
and forth between you and Mac. I want to engage with the audience.
I don't find myself getting lost in the fact that Jesus five hundred people staring
at You've done that far more often, and it's something that I enjoy.
I think it's the difference between being an introvert and an extrovert. You're more
introverted, which you often point out, and I'm more extroverted. We've talked
about this before at Crime Con, where you have said at the end of
the afternoon, I just need to go be quiet for a little while,
and I'm like, let's go to the bar, get a diet coke and
talk to more people. It's funny, I didn't actually need that much downtime
this time, because I've really come to enjoy Crime Con I always have,
but we were able to spend time with such a marvelous group of people this
time. We were able to spend really good quality time with Jess Betton,
Core Lindsay Wade, Laura Richards, Nikki Egan Denis, and Aaron Quinn.
I didn't at any point feel I'm sick of talking to these people. I'm
overloaded, I'm done. We had great company, and so I don't really
feel It wasn't until I actually left on Sunday and was in the car that
I realized, oh good, it's quiet, and actually I needed it to
be quiet for a little bit. I really did need it. I think
by the time Sunday rolled around and I noticed that I was starting to get
shaky, it was like I've burned out everything that I can possibly burn,
like I have nothing left to give. I'm pretty good now. So I
had no problem being quiet for the remainder of that drive to Bristol, Virginia.
That was it was hard. You're listening to mindover Murder. We'll be
right back after this word from our sponsors. We're back here at mindover Murder.
Before we get back to the podcast, just wanted to remind you that
we have a go fundme effort going on right now. This campaign is designed
to help us raise funds to help promote Mind over Murder and specifically to push
the Colonial Parkway murders investigation forward. We'd love it if you could support us
in any way that you can. Any donation from five dollars to whatever you
can afford is very much appreciated and will be incredibly helpful. The link is
in the show notes and in our social media pages. As always, thanks
for your support. Now back to mind over Murder. I totally get where
you're coming from. At the same time, you were working it like I've
never seen you do before, partly because you didn't fly to this one and
you drove. You brought this amazing stack of books, and regular listeners know
that you are a rabbid reader or should I say avid Maybe not rabbit work,
all right, we'll go with avid reader. You brought so many true
crime books with you, and you wanted to ask the various authors to sign
them, which they're always happy to do because I think there's nothing more flattering
I would guess if you're an author, than to have somebody come up with
a book that you wrote and they're thanking you for writing it and they're asking
you to autograph it's that's actually a pretty meaningful moment. I would think for
most writers. You were lining up all these people and we won't announce names
yet until we get them all scheduled. You were talking to people that we'd
like to have on mind over murder in the future and getting great response.
Man, you just never let up. I was determined that really, literally,
the only person I didn't get that I really wanted to I did not
get a chance to talk to John Walsh, and I wanted to so badly,
but everybody else because he was the man at crime Con Obviously, the
two John's, especially John Douglas and John Walsh, I think were the biggest
tickets if at Crime Con this year. Yeah, they're They're not just Crime
con Royalty, they're crime. There's something above crime con Royalty. Crime con
Royalty is Josh Manka WIT's and Nancy Grace and Mac too. Mac is obviously
Crime con Royalty. I've never seen so many people at her booth before.
It was insane and I'm so glad we got to be next to her,
but she was working it too for all she was worth. But yeah,
John, somebody online called it the John trifecta. It was John Douglas,
John Walsh, and John Ramsay. And yeah, the only person I was
not able to actually nail down was John Walsh. But everyone else I got
to meet, including finally Paul Holes. We need to spend a few minutes
on the pall Hole story. Now, a wedge had been driven between Kristin
Dilly and Bill Thomas, and it was a sad It was a sad moment.
Kristin had taken great offense at the fact that she had never met Paul
Holes, and legendary investigator often credited with helping to break the Golden State killer
case, major star at crime Con, and somehow at the last couple of
crime cons, I've run into Paul several times and ended up chatting with him.
He always asks me about what's going on with the Colonial Parkway murders,
what's going on with your sister's case, how are you that kind of thing.
And Paul keeps a low profile because the last couple of years at crime
Con have been the Paul Holes as sex symbol in true crime space thing that's
been He is like all of the Beatles and Elvis Presley rolled into one,
if you'l excuse the dated I guess for the younger folks, it's like he's
Harry Styles. And remember, folks, kN is largely a female audience.
True crime is two thirds women, so a lot more men there this year,
I think, But yes, there were still just as many women.
I did too, although I was getting the vibe that there were a fair
number of husband's boyfriends, et cetera that looked like they were being dragged along
eye. I don't know who else to put that. I think they were
having a good time, but man, their partners, wives, girlfriends,
whatever, were clearly driving the bus and super excited about being a crime con.
Yes, but this wedge that I refer to, Kristen began to take
umbrage with the fact that I kept running into Paul at crime Con but never
introducing her to Paul Holes because I was always seeing Paul elsewhere. And I
know this may be hard to believe, but we're not actually attached at the
hip at crime Con. So Kristen's going her way and I'm going mine.
Sometimes we're together, but a lot of times we're not. And I kept
running into Paul and chatting with him, and then I'd come back and at
some point I'd say, oh, yeah, I saw Paul, and she'd
be like the sour face. I like, you could have texted is pretty
much what I always said. You could have texted. Just send me a
text me, I'm hanging out with Paul Holes. I'm backstage at such and
such and you're going to have to haul yourself over here. Oh, I
would have sprinted. So Kristen made it very clear that this enough was enough,
and that I needed to make my business to introduce Kristin Dilly to Paul
Holes and vice versa. I also charged several other people with this task,
because there are many of our friends who know Paul Holes, in addition to
Bill Thomas, and I made sure that the folks at authoram knew that I
needed to meet Paul Holes. And I let Mac know, and I let
Jane Carson Sandler know, and I told a bunch of people. I was
like, this will be the year I meet Paul Holes. It must be,
it must be, And it was. I had also enlisted many of
our friends in this mission of introducing Kristen to Paul. So we were working
together as a team to make absolutely certain this happen, and the author and
people took it out all the way. Paul is now a consultant to Authram
and is working with them in their DNA labs and as a spokesperson, outreach
person, et cetera for Athram. Even they said to Paul via text that
he needed to meet you, and so Paul was making it his business to
meet kristin Bilbey. So tell the story about how it finally happened. Okay,
we had left the John Douglas Cocktail Hour and the John Douglas evening with
the mind Hunter panel, which was beyond amazing. That's a whole separate thing
all into itself, and we decided that we were going to go back toward
the Falls Bar, which is in the main lobby of the Gaylord, because
we know that's where a lot of podcasters tend to hang out, and that's
also where the authorom folks and Paul tend to hang out. So we're walking
over. I got my eagle eye looking for looking for who all is at
the bar, and I spotted Paul hanging out with the auth room folks,
and for once, for I don't know, thirty seconds, he didn't have
a crowd of women around him. So I went over. I held out
my hand, and keep in mind, Paul is used to people fangirling,
and I figured the best thing I can do is not so whenever I held
out my hand, I said, I had been trying to meet you for
four years. I'm Kristin and Bill Thomas's podcast partner, Mind Over Murder,
introduced myself. I said, I loved your book. I'd really like to
talk about your writing process. We're having a good conversation and I am not,
in any way, shape or form gushing, which most people do when
they see Paul. So we're talking, We're trying to have a conversation,
and the bar is getting more and more crowded, like by the nanosecond because
people are noticing, oh, here's where the podcasters are. But people were
also catching a glimpse of Paul. So I'm trying to talk to Paul.
People or piling it and piling in, and we're trying to have a good
conversation about writing, and this woman walks up to us. She's got two
drinks in her hand, and you thought she was a waitress maybe, Yeah,
And she was delivering the drinks from the way. She was walking over
with one in each hand. Yeah, And she just walks over and right
in the middle of my conversation with Paul Holes, she just walks right up
and she looks at him. She goes, will you marry me? And
Paul's given me a WTF look? Yeah, And I'm sure this is not
near to him. No, but I thought she was joking at first.
Yeah, And I look at her and I'm like, I'm trying to have
a conversation with Paul Holes. And what did he say when she said will
you marry me? He said, so, she said it a second I
said, I'm trying to have a conversation. She said it a second time,
but will you marry me? He goes married already, which everybody seems
to forget that Paul married. And at that point, because she had come
over, I think a bunch of other people took it upon themselves to be
like, oh, it's totally fine, now I can come over too.
So I was getting shoved further and further away from Balls. I just extended
my hand and said it was great to meet you. I'd love to talk
to you again soon, and he was like, yeah, likewise, and
I jerked my thumb at the couple of people who were like pushing their way
to him, and I said, I'm sorry, this must be really awkward
for you. He goes, yeah, I hate this, and that's got
to be rough to be. This has been an issue for Paul Holes.
Paul Holes helped solve the Golden State killer case. He ended up getting a
tremendous amount of media attention, more than he wanted. When I first met
him, which was at my first Crime con in Nashville, I was at
a dinner with x G Productions. The first time I met him. We
were chatting and I said, so, Paul, I assume you've heard about
this hashtag hot for Holes was all over social media that year. He didn't
know what I was talking about, and I said, apparently you're not aware
of this, but people are hashtaging hot for holes all over social media.
Keeping in mind True Crime is a female driven fan base, if you will,
well, what's happened over the last several years is this has gotten increasingly
difficult for him because he is an active participant in the true crime space.
He's written his own book, He's appeared on a number of television shows.
He's now a consultant for Authram. He's very serious about working on cases,
consulting on cases, and promoting cases that he feels need more publicity. This
is all against a backdrop where people are going gaga for the guy like a
rock star. So I liken this to it would be like you would go
to the bar and you'd be hanging out with like you said, Harry Styles
or name your favorite pop star here. Yeah, it reached the point.
Paul told us this. He doesn't stay at the host hotel. He stays
elsewhere, and he mostly keeps a super low profile because so many people want
autographs, so they want to take selfies with him, and he's actually trying
to get some work done as well. It's not that he isn't friendly.
He's actually very nice and he is willing to engage. But it actually gets
overwhelming because there's such a crush. As you were saying a moment ago,
Kristin, You're in the bar and people are spotting him in the crowd,
and then they just start moving towards him because so many people want to meet
him and say hello, have a photograph taken or whatever, But it's almost
too much. There's like a crush of people, yeah, that want to
get a piece of and it's got to be a little strange because I think
he's actually a little bit shy when it gets down to his core. Sure
prevents him from having easy access and mobility in a place like crime Con because
there's so many people who are true crime fans us included, who want a
moment of his time, and I think that can be a little difficult.
And so one of the reasons why I was seeing him at these previous crime
cons was if I was backstage for one of the events you and I were
working on, or presentations or whatever, that's where I would see him.
Would be in mostly in green rooms and places like that that are quieter and
a bit more limited access. That's where I would run into him, like
you found with Josh Mankowitz and others, when they're making their way across the
floor at Creator's Row or going from one ballroom to another, there's just a
ton of stuff going on. They keep getting stopped, so it makes it
difficult just to move from point A to point b Yeah, you don't see
Josh Mankowitz at on creator's row because he would get jumped by dateline fans.
We were talking to a friend and they said, I'm sure Paul Holes can
take care of himself. Yeah, undoubtedly Paul Hols can take care of himself,
as can Josh Mankowitz. But I still don't think that we necessarily need
to be objectifying him and treating him in this Elvis Beatles, Harry Styles,
take your pick sort of manner. The reason because I know people are going
to be like, yeah, but you said you've been wanting to meet him
for four years. I really admire Paul for the work that he's done.
Is he cute? Yeah, totally. But I really wanted to thank him
for the work that he's done, the dedication that he shows, the fact
that he's a kick ass writer. He did an amazing job on his book,
and he was very quick to credit his co author with doing the bulk
of that. I wanted to tell Paul because I think he's amazing. He
is hecute and does that help? Sure, But that's not the primary reason.
I was not the person going up to Paul Holes and spontaneously proposing marriage,
and that's got to just be I would not have believed it if I
hadn't seen it with my own eyes. Honestly, it was the most random
thing that I think I've ever seen, just somebody. It feels like people
walking up to Frank Sinatra at the height of Sinatra Mania and something like that.
It was weird. It was very off putting. But I am glad
that I finally got to meet him. I no longer have to hold a
grudge against you because you saw him more often than I did. I'm perfectly
happy. If there is honestly anything that I would change a little bit about
crime Con, it would just be, like, I get that people are
excited and happy to be there, but at least just be a little bit
more respectful of the speakers who were there to do a job and don't necessarily
treat them like a product. And the weird thing is, like I said,
I thought this woman was joking at first, and then I realized,
oh my gosh, she's not joking. Now. I've chatted with Paul about
this before, all the way back to the first crime con I attended in
Nashville. He told me then he was married. He's always been married during
the crime con era. Like you said, I admire him, and I
admire the work that he does, and he's also a super nice guy.
Some of this has just gotten a little beyond the beyond. Though I'm not
beating up this woman. I honestly thought somebody had put her up to it,
and then I realized, no, she's serious, and she was interrupting
your conversation. I was standing a few feet away chatting with some other people.
I was certainly aware of what was going on and the fact that you
two were engaged in book talk and writer talk. Yeah, honestly, that's
the part I was madest about. It was, like, I am just
I was able to talk to him for two minutes, maybe three, and
then she came over and interrupted, and after that it was just open season.
Yeah. Total, I need at least another couple of minutes just to
talk to him about the work that he did Unmasked. But no, I
hope that, I hope that we will have the opportunity to talk to him
a little bit more at some point or another, either on the air or
off the air, because he does seem like a legitimately good guy and who's
done amazing work and I was at Athram. We're very pleased that they were
able to help facilitate this introduction because they knew this was an important thing for
you, and a marriage proposal was not part of the mix. No,
not at all, Not at all, I would say. Another thing that
was probably a highlight for both of us was being able to meet John Douglas,
who we met before we went out on stage for our own panel,
but also to go to his session. So next episode we have a little
bit more in terms of great Crime Con stories. We're going to talk a
little bit about meeting John Douglas, about the amazing work that John Walsh has
done, about some of the many wonderful friends and fans that we got to
meet, and also about the fact that we at a crime committed against us
at Crime Con if you can believe that there is a whole entire story there
as well. For now, that is going to do it for this episode
of Mind Over Murder. Thank you so much for listening. We'll see you
next time. Mindover 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 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.