You're listening to the Mind Over Murder podcast. My name is Bill Thomas.
I'm a writer, consulting, producer, and now podcaster. I am now
trying to use my experience as the brother of a murder victim to help other
victims of violent crime. I'm working on a book on the unsolved Colonial Parkway
murders and I'm the co administrator of the Colonial Parkway Murders Facebook group together with
Kristin Dilly. My name is Kristin Dilly. I'm a writer, a researcher,
a teacher, and a victim's advocate, as well as the social media
manager and co administrator for the Colonial Parkway Murders Facebook page with my partner in
crime, Bill Thomas. Welcome to Mind Ever Murder. I'm Kristin Dilly and
I'm Bill Thomas, and we're joined today by former FBI profiler Jim FitzGeralds fitz
to his friends and doctor Raymond are joining us to talk about their new podcast,
Cold Red Fits and Ray Thank you for joining us. Kirstin glad to
be back, and thank you for having us on. Thanks Kristin, and
you too, will Bill of course, Oh of course, Bill, we
don't want to forget about you. And as I recalled, just before we
started, Ray was bucking to be our favorite profiler and pushing fits out of
the lead spot for our favorite FBI profiler. How did I do? You're
doing great so far? Yeah? Yeah, self praise is better than none,
Ray, That's what my dare. Dad, you should tell me you
keep thinking you're the best. Terrible, Jim, I'm very fragile. Take
it easy on me. I can see that about you, all right,
spoken like longtime partners. I would say, it's pretty clear that the two
of you know each other. But go ahead and formalize it for our audience.
When did you start working together? And would you call this a friendship
or a partnership or what would you call this start? Because you mentioned it
the other night on our show. When I was in Philly as an agent,
I was rolling down the street in my vehicle and I saw this guy
who was homeless, and I'm just all right, all right, I'm just
kidding. I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding. First time I ever met
Fitz, I was sitting on a bank Robbie squad in Philadelphia and a lead
came in from New York. The lead there was a couple additional questions I
had about the lead, and I gave a call up to the asient in
New York, James Fitzgerald, and we started talking and then fits wind up
going down in the unit, and then we talked and formed a friendship and
it's lasted ever since, so it's more than thirty years. He's like family
to me. He's we're very close, and I do appreciate that. Ray.
And yeah, and then you were an NCABC coordinator, National Center for
the Analysis, a violent Crime coordinator, which means he had special training and
behavior profiling, but he was in the field. And back then, in
the early days of the profiling unit, it went by different names. Back
then, I won't bore you listeners and viewers of all that stuff, but
we'll just call it the profiling unit. The profilers are basically assigned geographically,
and I figured, I'm from Philadelphia, let me just keep the home state.
And I basically had New England down I think through Jersey and Delaware,
so any case that happened in that region which would need help from a profiler,
behaviorless whatever. Of course, now I'm doing more forensic linguistic work.
After the unibomb case anywhere in Philly, and that's a big division up to
State College and parts of South Jersey. Ray'd be the one that would give
me a call. And we worked a number of cases early on, and
we solved between Arthur boemar serial killer. Ray we helped solve that and the
Center City rapist. We certainly played a role in that being solved. So
we had some I was gonna say good luck, but we had some good
detectives working with us, and we did our best to fill in the behavioral
missing pieces and both those cases came together, and of course a bunch of
other ones since then. And yes, so professionally we've been together for a
while and personally the same time too, and we'll save some of those stories
where maybe time podcast guys after dark? Yes, after dark? Oh Bell,
that sounds like a pretty great idea, mind of a murder after dark?
I like it. That sounds great, Hey, great idea fits.
I think we're going to steal that if you don't mind go for it.
And then, but your podcast is Cold Red, and so how far along
are you with Cold Red? I'd say we're about seven or eight episodes at
this point. The first few. We just done just Ray and I,
which is not a bad combination. And we had our first guest the other
night. We have an executive producer, the sound producer, and you want
to talk about missing kid and child abductions, things like that, and Ray
and I both work those cases. We both can talk the talk. But
we both collectively figured let's let's bring someone in who really knows what they're talking
about. So Ray, why don't you tell him about our first guest ever?
And I think he really hit a home run. That was a good
friend of mine. And Jim also knows. Name was Kevin McShane and he
was part of the CART team. So you say, KART, what does
that mean? What does that acronym mean? It's the Child Abduction Response Deployment
Team, so it's car DT. But you hear Kart, thinks Art.
And what happens is he was a member, one of the original members of
that team that kind of formed in the early two thousands, and he would
be deployed predominantly. He was a member of a regional team that handled the
northeast from Maine down to Virginia. But there's times when agents are away or
they're involved in caseworks where he would be deployed all over the United States.
Usually they're on scene within the first if there's locally, usually there's an agent
within the first few hours, because time is your enemy in these cases,
especially when you have a missing child. He brought a lot of things to
the table for us. He explained things very well. I think our listeners
were great. They were very fortunate to have someone like that to be able
to discuss that. Whose idea was it for you guys to team up and
have this pod? This is clearly a match made in heaven between the two
of you, considering all the experience that you have in your friendship. Who
stepped forward first and said, hey, let's have a pod. I'm going
to start off ray a few years ago, and we haven't talked about this
in a while, but I think you know where I'm going. I do.
I'm good friends with a very popular sports radio sports show host in Philadelphia
named Angelo Cataldi. He actually just retired a few years ago. He wanted
to see the Eagles go to the Super Bowl one more time. They didn't
win, of course, so he retired. But a few years before that
we got friendly and he read my books. He was very encouraging. I
actually thank him in my first book, A Journey to the Center of the
Mind, my memoir series. And we started talking. I said, Angelo,
I think there's room out there for a radio show where we talk true
crime. And I said, you work for a station. You've got some
poll there. What do you think I had this buddy, Ray Carr,
I think the two of us could really we could get out there and we
could start off right away, present cases, past cases, anything like that.
These are Fitzy always called me, FITZI, that's a great idea.
Let me talk to my people. And Ray, I think I called you,
and I think within two weeks or so, we had an interview in
a radio station twelve ten in Philadelphia, in downtown Philly. We met there
one afternoon, around one or two o'clock and we sat down with this I
don't know, probably thirty five forty year old producer, and quite frankly,
we started arguing. We started arguing from the beginning. You argued Fits.
I didn't argue at all. I was a peacemaker. There was good cop,
bad cop, and I guess I was the bad cop that day.
But basically we sat down and we said hey, we're ready to go.
And this guy starts asking us like technical questions about you know, what kind
of equipment you would need, and we were going to come into a studio.
This is before people were working from their homes, and do you know
what it's like to do a talk show? How much work? I said,
yeah, I do, and we're willing to put the work into it.
Ray and I have wred big cases together, twenty four forty eight hours
in a row and in person or on phone whatever. I said, we
can do this. Give us a good producer and once a week, two
hours, three hours, twice a week. We can do this. And
the guys, no, you can't. You don't know how hard it is
to be a radio talk show host. I said, I'm telling you we
can do this. We're FBI retired, and we know how to testify,
we know how to talk to people. I give presentation, and basically the
one guy just wound up slamming his book and said, yeah, don't call
us, we'll call you. And we walked out the door and there are
people going by on their little motor scooters. Remember I forget the guy's name.
That was one of the sports hosts and we walked up the door.
I called my friend Angelo and said, didn't go that well here, Yeah,
don't worry about it. Let me see fit, see what else I
can do. And I said, you know what, all this podcast stuff
is coming on the board now. Maybe maybe Aventure that'll be the direction we'll
go. And quite frankly, I sat back and waited for the right team
to come to us, and basically and Ray was a part of this.
And the day came, I said, hey, guys, you're the talent
quote unquote, and we'll put everything together, the marketing and the admin stop
and of course the technical stuff. And about six weeks ago we was it
Ray the night of the Nashville shootings, or maybe a couple of nights after
that, and that was our first or second episode and we've been going out
it ever since. So Ry and I tried to do this with Terrestrial I
guess radio they call that, and we wound up bargaining with the guy.
We didn't get the job, We failed the audition. But when our podcast
is as the thousands of downloads a week, that guy may be saying,
why didn't I hire them? Back then? That was back in twenty fifteen,
believe it or not, that was you would just retired. I think
the summer of two fifteen. I've retired in fourteen, so the summer of
twenty fifteen when that came in, and Jim is right. He took offense
that Jim believed that this wasn't a big deal. And he says, I've
been doing this for twenty years and I'm telling you by all means this is
a big deal. And I said, I don't think that's what Jim means.
He just means it. But everything already went down to drain by that
point, so we just figured, all right, no worries Jim, let's
look for a different direction. And Jim's right. A lot of things came
and went and finally they came to us and they had a nice proposal and
we agreed, let's see where it goes. Let's see where it goes.
Fits. You had done a fair amount of podcasting with Jim Clemente and others
on Real Crime Profile Ray. Had you also done guest appearances on other Yes,
true crime podcasts. Yes, I was on Jim Clemente's podcast, not
as often as Jim, but I was on there. I was on a
couple other ones. After I wrote a book, the things started to come
to Patrician in reference to that, and that's another case that Jim and I
work, But I was more intimately involved in that book in that case,
and it seemed to be a good story. So I wrote a book and
it drawed a lot of attention, media attention. It still is. I
just tell us the title. It's called thirty Years on the Run, the
Hunt for the most prolific bank robber in American history. Wow, and Ray
caught him. It's a book of a happy ending. It is, it
is. It is a happy ending. He's believe it or not, he's
actually out of prison. Now that's how long this thing. He got seventeen
and a half years. It's happened back in two thousand and two. So
he got out in late twenty seventeen. He's he's out of prison. And
I tried to and maybe one of these days Jim will get a chance to.
Jim and I actually interviewed him and he did a on tape and so
we have about a two and a half hour tape of him live while he
was incarcerated, and Jim and I used that as a training tape for brother
agencies looking at bank robbers because he was unique. Here's a guy that he
was not your typical bank robber. He began robin banks in nineteen seventy three
and was arrested in two thousand and two. Wow, it's a long period
of time. And the funny thing about it is when we first started looking
at it, we were only under the oppression that he started robbing banks in
nineteen eighty seven. So my first interview with him and said, why don't
you He goes, what do you want? What do you want me to
start? I said, why don't you start at the beginning? He says,
and my first robbery in nineteen seventy three. I went, that was
like my first oh ship moment. Wow, I don't I wasn't ready for
that. And I said, well, why don't we start when you were
a little kid and how you brought up? Just to save myself because I
wasn't prepared. But here's a guy that graduated from Villanova with a degree in
electrical engineering, went into the military special Forces, but he didn't win as
an officer, which he could have. He went is a non com He
came out, went back to the University of Penn got a master's degree in
systems engineering, and then went on to Penn State working on a PhD in
statistics. So he was very accomplished and very intelligent, but he never worked
a day in his life. His job was robbing banks. In that entire
thirty it seems like such a disconnect, though, that this guy with multiple
degrees is clearly highly intelligent. Why the heck would he go down the road
of being a bank robber? I could tell you that, but then you'd
have to buy the book. So we have to buy thirty Years on the
Run in order to everything a story. No, I'd be more than happy
to come back, and I don't want to take up all the time here.
I'd be more than happy to come back and talk about that at another
time with both both you and Kristenville. That's not fascinating. We would love
that. It is a great story, and I was glad I ran some
interference with Ray, but to his credit, it was him and his fellow
agents in the Philly Division that really put the case together. In fact,
you were pretty close Ray, and then nine to eleven happened and you had
to put everything on the hold for was it a year even give or take
eight months? About five months? Five months anyways, Jim so again eventually
the was made whatever and Rey can get more into that. But we worked
out to do a behavioral a post conviction behavioral interview, and we did,
in fact recorded. We brought an FBI Academy videographer with us and the whole
sound thing set up, and I guess what do we bring him over to
Philadelphia Division Ray we don't have a Philly vision YEP on a subpoena of some
sort and out of prison and that we interviewed him for about three or four
hours and a very fascinating guy. And I've done that with a few people
in my life, even in retirement, with the bank robbers and other sexual
assault type people. It's frustrating party you wants to jump over the desk and
strangle them. Not so much Carl though the bank robber, because he was
a polite bank robber. He actually did shoot definitely one person Ray too,
maybe and maybe do we have do we know? Form actually three? But
just with take a step back talk about jumping over the desk. I had
to stop him from that guy at twelve ten, Jim did go over the
desk after that guy and I had a grab just kidding. He didn't do
that. This kid there was, believe it or not, there was.
One was a bank manager in jim Thorpe that was shot at, almost dipped.
Another was a customer bank customer that was coming in from carrying her business
earnings from the day to make a deposit and he shot her and she had
a grays wound in the ear. And then there was another that he did
not admit to, but both Jim and I believe he did, and that
was the shooting of a police officer in nineteen eighty two up in Columbia,
Pennsylvania. And he denies that he did that, but it just seems that
in nineteen eighty two he stopped robbing banks and began back up again in nineteen
eighty seven. So he took a five year hiatus, and Jim and I
both asked him, why did you stop? He says, I just got
talking doing it and I wanted to do something else. So what he did.
What he did is he started stealing books, textbooks from colleges, and
then he would take those books in the back of his van and he would
go up to Columbia University, and he would post something that books for sale,
because they all use the same books for sale, statistics books, math
books, economics, and he would sell those. And I said, geez,
Carl, how much money could you make? And Tony goes, I'd
make thirty thousand dollars. Had how many books he stole? He was amazing,
I said, thirty thousand dollars. That's unbelievable. Most people in the
eighties. You were lucky if you were making seventy eight thousand dollars a year.
Before we move on, though, one thing I wanted to ask was
when you told me that, if I'm doing this for memory, he served
seventeen years or something like that, seventeen and a half. That strikes me
as a light sentence for someone that actually committed acts of violence during the commission
of those bank robberies, because when you first said that, I thought to
myself, this must be one of those gentlemanly bank robbers that doesn't shoot anyone
or injure anyone. And yet he actually did injure at least to people.
Shooting a police officer, as we know, is deadly serious business here.
How did he manage to only serve less than twenty years despite being a violent
criminal. He was arrested in two thousand and two. And although the shootings,
although very egregious as they were, they were outside the statute limitations wow
or many of the bank robberies, So there were really only five robberies that
were within the statute of limitations. So he entered into a seplea. And
what a seplea is in federal court. It allows both the prosecutor and the
defense attorney to agree to a sentence before he's sentenced. Now, just because
they agree to it does not mean that the judge has to abide. But
in many cases it's discussed in open court and the judge gives out take it
under consideration. But usually it works out on the benefit of the offender when
that happens. This is fascinating. We've got to have you come back here
and talk about this case. Ray Sure think sure, Thank Chris, and
I'd love to. What would you say are some of the major goals that
you have for your podcast other than telling an amazing story, which you both
clearly can what are your the major things that you want to accomplish as you
go through If I'll start with you and then kick it over to Ray.
Yeah, we agreed early on that I don't think this is too different from
legitimate and professional podcasts such as yourself, but we want to make a big
part of our podcast about the victims. And Bill, no one knows victimhood
more than you. You've lost a sister, I've lost good friends, police
officers, other friends, and robberies and things like that, so it is
very difficult, and we want to make sure that why we can joke a
little bit as we are now, sometimes in the beginning, sometimes at the
end, but in the middle, we're dead serious about the topics, and
then we try to give every episode at the end we try to give some
kind of hints or suggestions or ideas about how a victim can best protect themselves.
It may be directly related to the topic we just discussed it, maybe
indirect to it, but we could be very basic, it could be more
advanced and complex, and from street crimes to cyber crimes, it is about
the victims. I'll never forget the first crime con in Indianapolis. I was
there with Jim Clemente. I'm not sure if you were at that one,
Christ and I know you came to the Indianapolis one. Now, I think
my first one was Nashville. Nashville I met Indianapolis was the first one,
and that's where we met, I think for the first time. But I
remember Jim was like the MC for the whole thing and on the stage that
make sure we have a moment in there about the victims. He's all fit,
You're right. I think he's a brilliant guy, but he had so
much on his mind that's had maybe ten or so seconds of silence for the
victims before you we kick everything off. He's a good idea, and I
hope crime con we're not as much involved in on as we used to men
in his company, and I have an involvement there too, So yeah,
it's about the victims, but of course try to tell the story in between.
We're not lecturing anybody. We're not saying here's what you got to do.
But I think the way we try to lay out our individual anecdotes or
multiple anecdotes regarding you know, different types of criminals who may be committing the
same types of crimes. Hey, listeners and viewers. At the end,
here's how you can avoid being a victim yourself. Or a loved one,
and if, by God forbid, it does happen, here's what you know
you can do to get through it. Ray you want to jump into Yeah,
I think Jim said it beautifully. Our whole thing is to communicate to
victims that they're not forgotten. No victim is ever forgotten here. So we
do talk about things so that we can help prepare those that were victims so
they won't be revictimized, and those that have never been a victim to make
sure they can avoid things by improving their situational awareness. The situational awareness is
such a big part of what people do every single day, but people are
so oblivious because they have their heads in their phones or their iPads and are
not paying attention to what's going on around them. People need to do that
more and more, especially in today's society. You see some of the violence
that's occurring, and you see some of these things, and you look at
the violence and people are being just jumped on in train stations, in the
street, they're being knocked to the ground. So that situational awareness can help
prevent you from maybe something like that happening to you. If you're paying attention
to your surroundings. One thing I was wondering about. The two of you
are both masterful storytellers. We often talk about cases that you've worked that you've
solved. Are either of you comfortable talking about unsolved cases that you may have
worked in the past. Sure, It's part of who we are. Yeah.
One of the big one. It sticks with me as a nineteen ninety
two eleven year old boy from Drexel, Pennsylvania that was down at the shore
in Cape May Mark Heinbach and he disappeared. Cape May, New Jersey,
by the way, Yeah, Cape Maine, New Jersey. He disappeared and
they've never found him, and they've never arrested anybody for that. And I
remember I was a fairly new agent, maybe five six years on, and
that winds up falling on me and coming to me, and I just I
still think about that young boy. First thing that came to my mind when
you mentioned it, that young child. It's still something that just bothers me.
Where is that young boy? And today that's nineteen nineteen ninety two,
he'd be in his forties, grown man. It's it's one that comes to
mind for you. Yeah, this is it's easy to remember, but very
difficult to discuss. And that is the case of my good friend Joe Welsh,
who was murdered in a street robbery in Philadelphia in the nineteen ninety seven.
And I was out at Unibaum, just finishing up there, and I
got a phone call. Joe's been shot. He's forty two years old.
It was middle of the afternoon in our old neighborhood, in our old only
neighborhood of Philadelphia. And he lived about two weeks and they finally just pulled
the ventilator and he was gone. And street crimes, robberies, Hey,
give me your money. Probably a junkie. This is not what profilers necessarily.
It's not our expertise or a trade craft. Now I was a police
officer, of course I handled crimes such as this, and I helped solve
them. But and it wasn't an FBI jurisdiction either. It was a robbery
homicide on the streets of Philadelphia, so it was a PHILLYPD case. I
worked with the detectives. I brought another profiler up with me. We went
to the neighborhood, We went to the crime scene and interviewed some people.
One guy was arrested, but let go. So I'm doing now my fourth
and final book in my memoir series, and that's one of the chapters in
that book, I recall out that case and I'm still friendly with his I
was actually most friendly with Joe Welsh's older brother, John, who was actually
one of the people shot at the First Move confrontation, Oh nineteen seventy eight.
He was a Philadelphia firefighter and he caught some shotgun rounds to the neck.
I heard this on the radio live and I actually left I was working
that day and drove down to Philly. He was okay, along with a
few other firefighters. But here twenty some years later, his younger brother gets
a murdered in a street robbery. And again it wasn't an FBI case.
I didn't have my name on the case file, per se. But I
said to the PD I want to help you guys solve this. I said
to the family, I want to help you guys solve this. And to
this day it hasn't been solved. And I don't want to get too ahead
of myself here, but there'll be a special announcement at the time of the
publication of my fourth book in which I include this chapter about Joe Welsh that
it's solved or I have a suspect, but let's just say something I'm willing
to do to help maybe refresh the memories of some people out there. So
hope, let's hope that works and finally, after all this time, we
can get some resolution to this one case that sticks in my craw was Joe
Welsh in law enforcement at the time he was killed, or he was a
civilian? Nope, he was a civilian. Three o'clock in the afternoon,
he had some work for the Philadelphia Department of License and Inspection, walking home
from a training seminar to his car in his old neighborhood and someone just confronted
them on the streets. And we have a witness looking out the window,
and I saw everything go down. It was very tough to hear all that,
but I do stand up. I still plan on solving this case with
help of the PHILLYPD. And we can talk about the boy in the box
in a bit. But it took sixty five years to solve that case or
at least identify the young boy. Maybe we can find the person who killed
Joe Welsh and let the justice come for that person as it should be.
Neeted. I remember that case, Jimmy, I remember you giving a call
up that I remember running down so leads for you with that up in Philadelphia.
I remember that was. I'm sorry I never forgot about Joe either.
I know that affects you. I'm really sorry that that's that's something. I
appreciate that and we will get it solved. And I'm opening this chapter in
my book and get some more headlines out of it. We can, we
can bring some closure to it. You get me if you need anything.
Thank you. Right 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.
As podcasters, we all sort of work within the same true crime space,
and there's always the same sorts of major issues that we talk about in the
crime and justice space. Unsolved cases and how to solve them, best uses
for DNA, forensic genetic genealogy, that sort of thing. What are some
of the big issues in the crime and justice space the two of you want
to discuss on the pod I would have to say violence in general, it's
off the charts. It's like a war zone, violence against the elderly,
violence against women, There's an addiction epidemic out there, there is huge mental
health issues out there. There's a big lack of trust between police officers and
citizens. There's a lot of issues that are facing police agencies this year.
Think about and one of the things I'm on the Police Administration Committee for the
IACP, and the IACP is the International Association of Chiefs of Police and this
year's media is in San Diego and I go to the yearly meetings. But
one of the biggest problems with police forces across the country is recruitment and retention.
That's just a big thing. And look at the media coverage. When's
the last time you heard something pleasant about what the police do. Unless you're
watch it on a YouTube or a TikTok someone sends you a TikTok thing,
nobody ever talks about that. Police are so under the gun that no matter
what they do, they're under the risk of prosecution. How do you work
under that? What does that do for morale? What does that do for
their wellness? Police officers want to be part of the solution, but I
don't think the media and the public are giving them the opportunity to do.
What I'll add to that is both directly and indirectly. Yeah, I support
the police, I'll say one hundred percent. But having said that, I've
been involved in the arrest of police officers and FBI agents. If they're dirty,
they should go down, of course due process. Of course they've every
right that everyone else does. But yeah, we do have to give the
law enforcement more support today than ever because they are being decimated in the social
media and regular media for that matter. I was interested in learning just a
few months ago at v DOC of a new term that a prosecutor laid on
me, and I was familiar with the term. So let's take it to
the next level us what's happening in the streets, the subways in many of
our large cities, the crime rates and other places. And so let's say
there is an arrest made and now the person goes to trial, and there's
a jury. And for years we've heard the term CSI jury, and that
is and Chris and you mentioned some of these forensic capabilities early on when you
asked this question, and it's like nowadays or then, the CSI jury,
if there wasn't DNA, if there wasn't clear full color surveillance video, and
of course throw in fingerprints. They were reluctant to convict someone based on watching
the TV show CSI, in which every forty two minute episode with commercials,
of course wound up it being closed because one of these three factors kicked in.
You don't necessarily need DNA, fingerprints or surveillance cameras. There's plenty of
direct and indirect evidence. There's plenty of circumstantial evidence that in fact can lead
to a conviction. Well, I learned just a few months ago from someone
at the v Doc Society. She was a guest. She's a prime p
secutor in northern New Jersey. Now, the term that prosecutors use besides a
CSI jury is a Netflix jury. And I said, boy, I think
I know where you're going with that, But tell me, and she said,
yeah, it's like people now watch Netflix and all these documentaries are about
either someone was falsely accused and falsely convicted, or they raise serious questions about
the legitimacy of an arrest and a conviction. And I know what with the
I guess the granddaddy of all podcasts, certainly in true crime, was Serial
about dod' not I forget his last name. Yeah, And I listened to
that and very interesting. But I said, after listen to that, I
said, we could pick there's a there's criminal investigation that was broken down into
every single element and torn apart every witness identification. And just because something's called
a documentary, it does not mean it's one hundred percent objective or even true.
Producers, directors, they have their agendas too. Some of them is
to sell the the documentary. I know that was PBA, I think at
or NPR, whatever it was. But I remember telling people said, it's
interesting. They do raise some good questions. You can have the best brain
surgeon in the world that performs a perfect operation, very complicated, very technical,
and then you have a team that comes in afterwards and looks at everything
she did and said, you know what, now, this could have been
done better here now, now I have a problem with cutting this part of
the the left side of the brain as and I'm just using this, of
course as an example. So that's where it's also problematic with Jury's this Netflix
and they watch these shows that according to these documentaries, many of these people
are innocent and shouldn't be in jail. And the last thing does not to
do with TV. But I teach. I know Ray teaches in academia.
I teach at Pennwest University. I'm familiar with people teaching at Georgetown University.
And there's something very popular in academia right now called the innocence problem. And
boy, it sounds great and it's I'm all for it. I've even helped
on a few cases. But you have some of these professors, usually lawyers
at them, is coming in and they're convincing entire auditoriums of college students that
virtually everyone in prison is innocent, and I think that is unhealthy. It's
not the case. Are there some people in prison that shouldn't be there,
possibly, but we're talking less than point zero zero zero one percent, and
yeah, let's fight for those people. But I think we're getting school of
thought put out there now that prosecutions are bad, convictions are bad, and
in jail is good. And I know some academics in my field of forensic
linguistics, they refuse to work with law enforcement, they refuse to work with
prosecution. They'll only work for the defense. I remember twenty years ago talking
to some folks I would never work a capital case for the prosecution. Okay,
I respect that you don't believe in the death penalty. I respect that,
But now they've reached the point they won't work with law enforcement or prosecutor's
offices at all. I said, shouldn't the evidence supersede that you look at
the evidence in the case. Wouldn't that just you could look at that objectively
and say, hey, this guy, if it's all was the case,
he did write this threatening letter whatever. And they said no, I just
I don't believe in the system anymore. And of course they're teaching students,
and I just think it could be very problematic that way. Every case has
to be looked at individually, and there's no problem doing that. But I
think a lot of these students are being convinced and a lot of our public
is being convinced that the criminal justice system is flawed and it's putting too many
people in jail that don't belong there. It's the best system there's ever been,
and that's just a falsehood that's being that's permeating throughout our society that I
hope can be corrected. You mentioned the VIDOC society a moment ago and we
know you're both members of VIDOC. For the benefit of our listeners, can
you explain what the VIDOC society is and how it functions, right, Jim
Doc v I d O c Q. It was the name of a French
criminal, Jacques or Jean, I forget his personal Francis probably Francois French.
Anyway, you remember the name. I didn't, but been a member for
fifteen years. Anyway, he was a criminal in Paris and they locked him
up and he realized the wrongs of his ways and he came out and the
police at first hired him just to help out solving crimes, and next thing
you know, he became a police officer, and next thing you know,
he became the chief of police of the Paris Police Department. And he's considered
the first true detective. Sherlock Holmes, of course, was fictional, but
Francois v Doc was real and he lived to eighty two years of age.
So that's why v DOC only has eighty two full members privileged to be one
of those full members, but there are hundreds of associate members and they were
founded really started with the boy in the Box case. That case goes back
to the late fifties, but they were reinvestigating this matter. In the late
nineteen eighties, a few people got together and said, why don't we start
this little group the society. We have these lawyers, we know, we
have these retired investigators. Let's meet for lunch once a month or so in
the fancy Union League building in downtown Philadelphia in South broad Street. And it
grew from there. Now it's several hundred people strong, and we do meet
the third Thursday of every month and a new case comes in. We're a
nonprofit, of course, we actually pay to go to these lunches, and
that's fine because we're contributing to the cause. We fly in the departments.
Usually you won't get like NYPD or LAPD coming in, and not because one
set of detectives is better than the other, but they have the funding and
they have the personnel that they can handle a lot of their cases. We'll
usually get smaller to mid size departments who come in and the case is at
least five years old. We've had cases there ray probably fifty years old besides
even Boy in the Box, and we'll sit and listen to the investigators.
Rarely are the investigators in the front of the room, the ones who initially
work the case. So we're getting like second or third generation investigators because now
there's a cold case squad formed in their department and they're now involved in it,
and they're saying, all right, here's everything they did back then.
Here's everything we have in front of us. Can you guys help put these
things together? And we have DNA experts, we have profilers, forensic linguist.
Ray has all of backgrounds with evidence and hostage negotiation as a profiling coordinator
and certainly an investigator. And we have other people that are lawyers and computer
people, blood spatter people, and we're all together in one room. There's
usually fifty or sixty of us. They do the PowerPoint presentation always by dessert
times when the autopsy pictures go up, which is strange. People like Ray
and I are used to that. That's why I dessert, Jim, Okay,
deserve even today. I don't need dessert, Jim. There's a reason
for it. Okay, somebody's going to bring out some pictures dead bodies,
don't you desert time, you and the sixth sense kid. But it's not
even planned that way. It's just there's always a few autopsy pictures in there,
and then we have a Q and A afterwards. We've started about two
or three years ago. We don't just end it on that day, say
thank you detectives, let us know if anything happens. We now have working
teams that we'll assign to each of these cases, maybe a dozen members each
with varied backgrounds, and we'll do our best to do follow ups with these
detectives for months, if not years down the line. They are very appreciative
of their day or two in Philadelphia and that they know they're getting the top
quality people who can talk to talk but also have walked the walk. To
use that expression again in terms of what we can offer them back. And
not every case gets solved because they only bring us the toughest cases. Five
ten could be thirty six years old someday, Bill, But there's actually advantages
to working cases that are old that you don't have in the beginning. And
I know our time is running out of here, but allegiances that were very
strong back when a murder was committed, they somehow fade away. When the
big tough guy back then who maybe was the murder, he's now a little
fat, bald guy that doesn't quite have the power base that he used to
and his cohorts, his ex girlfriend, next wife, whatever. He doesn't
instill the fear in them that he used to. So that's a big factor.
And what we say, try to go back and interview this person again.
Reinterview people, maybe have them wear a wire all legally, of course,
check their phone records, things that most investigators will have done already.
But we try to take them to the next level. And sometimes they'll come
in with one or two suspects. Sometimes it's five suspects or more. Sometimes
no suspects at all, and that's when we'll try to paint the profile for
them when there's no suspect, but if they have four or five, we'll
do our best to prioritize them. Usually we can rule out two or three.
Say I would say it's this number one guy here, I would do
everything in your power to eliminate him, and if you do, then go
to number two. But boy, everything you've told us this seems to be
of the culprit here and the investigators from all over the country. We've had
them come in from Canada already. They really appreciate the help we can give
and we definitely have sobs some cases, including that one that's sixty five years
old. The one thing that Jim says, I'm also a full member with
the society, But the one thing that Jim talks about is the disciplines.
You have to understand that any discipline that you could think of, from toxicology
to blood spatter to fingerprinting, tolig no matter what it is, there's somebody
within this society that has an expertise. It's a subject matter expert in that
area that they bring to the table. So we have that the ability that
nobody else in this country has is to have every discipline covered, looking at
it, even genealogy. We have everything covered, which makes us so unique.
One thing I'll mention because I know our listeners are going to bring it
up after listening to this fascinating part of the conversation. I want to make
it clear the Colonial Parkway murders families did request that the FBI Norfolk and Newport
News offices take the Colonial Parkway murders to the Vadoc Society, and BI turned
us down. This was in twenty ten. I believe I was involved in
the formal request and they turned us down, and you get the usual bureaucratic
answer, it's an open case. We don't feel like we want to bring
in outside experts. I'm not saying I wouldn't be willing to revisit that.
I know people have said to us who follow the podcast, have you ever
considered the v doc society? And I know that this conversation will steer people
back in that direction. I'd certainly be willing to revisit it, but I
do want our listeners to know that we did ask and we were turned down
before. I still think it would be a great case for the doc.
Although it's a very complicated case. We've had complicated cases and we can handle
them, and every case has to go by its own merits. I'll be
careful here, Bill, but I really wish perhaps a new team of FBI
agents. And I forgot it was as long as thirty six years. What
the hell do they have to lose at this point in a closed society of
experts. We're not saying do a documentary and yet, although that may be
down the line, something to do too. I know there have been some
media shows on that, but they get really into the depth of this investigation.
What the hell do they have to lose after all this time? So
I disagree with their logic there, I agree with you, but maybe they
go and I don't know. But do we know if this case was ever
sent down to BAU, yes, or look at it's actually been looked at
by BAU more than once. That's still not a problem. There's been cases
that have been looked at by VAU that have still come to the Vduck Society.
We've been able to help because you get a fresh set of eyes on
it, which is exactly what you need. You need these fresh set of
eyes to give you some insight that you may not be able to see because
your judgment is clouded or because it's so old. But some of the guys
in the Vduck Society are pretty old too, not us, not me and
you Jim. But there's some guys there and ladies that are pretty old that
have been around the block a few times, so they know what to look
for. So yeah, I hope that. I hope we get a chance
to take a look at that Bill, I really do. Yeah, And
unfortunately we can't reach out. Rock doesn't call these local or state police departments
or FBI. Hey, we'd really like you to be It has to be
the initiation of even the family. They can request all they want to us,
they really have to go to the investigative agency itself. So there's a
number of cases of which I am familiar. I would love to just run
it ourselves at the DOC, but of course we can't do that. We
need the inside investigators that can really bring us the information that can help solve
the case. It's an intriguing possibility, without question. So I know both
of you are authors. We've referenced Ray's book already, and Jim has referencedes,
of course. But let's get it on the record for anybody who wants
to embark on a literary journey through your books. So Ray, give us
the details about yours and where people can find it, and then Fits give
us yours. The name of the book is thirty Years on the Run,
the Hunt for the most prolific bank robber and American in history. It's about
an individual that was involved in robbing banks for thirty years before he was caught.
He's unique. I gave you some insight into that. If you're interested
in purchasing this book, you can do so on Amazon, or you can
go to my website Raymondjcarr dot com and you can order right off my webs
if you'd like to do it there as well. And Jay car dot com
and Fitz go ahead and talk about your books, please, Ray. When
people buy your books from you, do you give them free signed posters with
cool statements on them? Because I do? Now. I knew you were
going to say it. Not you and your bvds or anything, is it,
Jim? Oh geez no, Ray, go there's your fantasy life aside
for a minute, right, just for a minute. Anyway. My book
series is a Journey to the Center of the Mind. All three books have
the same title, and I'm now doing the fourth one. It'll be out
in the fall, and by popular demand, I put the third book.
I. I hired a professional voiceover guy to do the third book. He
did a great job. In fact, it was nominated for an award the
Audio Book, and I didn't win, but it was still being nominated was
pretty cool. People said, Hey, this guy was great, Jim,
this guy was great, But I want to hear your voice. I said,
I put off writing my I wrote three books in five years, and
I needed a little bit of a break. And so now just back in
February or so, I started doing my fourth book. I'll be the final
book in my memoir series, also a Journey to the Center of the Mind,
and it will be me narrating the second half of my FBI career and
the exciting stuff that happened in retirement in the fifteen years since I've retired,
but still a very busy profiler and forensic linguist. But I want to add
in there two Separate from those that book series, I also did an audio
book called The Fits Files Manhunt Unibomber, and just a few years after the
mini series came out it was so popular. Of course Manhunt Unibomber. It's
Sam Worthington portrayed me in that series. It's eighth part was on Discovery Channel,
then on Netflix. Now I think it's only on Amazon and the Discovery
Channel website. But I did a companion piece, if you will, in
which it's eight chapters in this audiobook, and I each chapter relates to one
of the episodes in Manhunt Unibomber, and I break down for the listeners what
actually happened, what didn't happen, why the writers and directors made it this
way, and I also interviewed Jim Clemente because he was one of the co
creators of it. The director. I interviews Greggory Antennas, Andrew Serdrowski,
the head writer, and a couple of the prop guys. Are are really
cool too in the stories they tell in terms of how they make a series
from twenty or twenty five years back, and how they get old fax machines
and old computers and that's just part of it, and even guns and how
that stuff works. So a journey to this center. Mine is a series
Amazon, and through my website you get a free coool poster. Go through
me directly and also Amazon and audio dot com where the Fitz files Manhunt,
unibommer. What's the poster to pick? I was actually going to reach for
mine so I can show it to you. I don't have Jim has a
copy. Give Jim a second's wow, it's a pretty good look. I
can't wait to see this. Pray you're you think they're funny here, don't
you? No? Not at all. Jook for ideas to help market thirty
years on the run his book. He wants to be as successful as you
are fit. Why can't I find them? I don't want to say.
We're seeing the best out of it right now, Jim, don't worry.
God, do you know I have my relatively close by there. It is,
oh my god. But if I leave it up there, someone will
print it out and copy. Hey, let me tell you what's happening real
quick to me. People are contacting me by mailing online and ray, this
is going to happen to you. And there's pictures of Ted Kaczinski and mugshots
and they want me to sign them. They say it's for their kids,
and their kids are in wheelchairs and hospital beds. And one of them sent
them to my actual address and how did they find that out? And I
waited a while, which it's a former address. Now it really is all
right. Your kid's in a wheelchair, right, you're sick, you're elderly.
I signed them. It's a three or four of them up, so
it's Ted Kazinski, it's me at the cabin. They're online. They print
them out nice stock paper. I signed them. You can guess where this
is going. They're on eBay seventy five, one hundred dollars. There's a
guy now wants my business card because he wants to teach his son how to
be surprised. Just sign the business card so we can put it up in
his little glass case. And I haven't responded yet, and I'm thinking of
saying, if you put it on eBay, I want fifty whatever you're running
here? So did you get my letter? Jim? I asked for money,
Yeah, but you sent me your picture, which automatically negated the deal.
I can see you whenever I want. I know. That's terrible,
isn't it. We're gonna have to continue this. We're gonna have to continue
this. This has been an amazing conversation. We're gonna invite you on to
our show. How about that? Absolutely? We would love that. Okay,
we would love that so much. That is going to wrap for this
episode of Mind Over Murder with Jim Fitzgerald and Ray Card. Their podcast is
Cold Red. Where can we find the podcast, gentlemen, It's on Apple,
It's on iHeart, on YouTube. There's clips there. If you just
google it cold Red, it'll pop up and you'd be good to go.
Fantastic. The podcast is called Red. Jim, Ray, thank you so
much for joining us. As always it is a pleasure to have you here.
Thank you, Thank you for having us. We appreciate it. That's
going to do it for this episode of mind Ever 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 Arnoi. Our theme music is by Kevin McLoud. Mind Over
Murder is distributed in partnership with cral 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 a Murder.