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 My Never Murder. I'm Kristin Dilly
and I'm Bill Thomas. We're gonna go ahead and kick off this edition of
True Crime Holiday Gift Guide with the discussion about Christmas music. As mister Thomas
suggested, Bill, have you been listening to Christmas music? I'm easing into
it now. Of course, we find ourselves a week before Christmas. Now
I've been listening. This was recorded a few weeks ago where I transitioned into
Christmas music by playing George Winston's December, which is holiday adjacent, as you
like to say, holiday adjacent. There we go. I've been playing Trans
Siberian Orchestra because that is the only bit of Christmas music that I can stand
after having worked many years in retail throughout many a hallacious Christmas season. So
the only thing I can stand really is Trans Siberian Orchestra's Carol of the Bells
and that sort of thing Christmas. Youve, Sirievo, that I will listen
to in your era of working retail, and I also worked retail, but
it was many decades ago. I was going to say it was a long
time ago. Hah. Now to give you an idea how far back it
goes, I would be working in retail. Source you want to talk about
annoying. There was a Christmas tape. It was one hour long. It
played the same songs in order. Yeah, so there would be these were
a tape cartridge machine. Oh my gosh. So there would be Snoopy's Christmas
followed by a Little Drummer Boy, followed by and these are all the Perry
Como versions. Just things that your mom and dad would have loved and then
there'd be an audible click and then it would play the same song in the
same order. Nope. So you have to think about this from the perspective
of the people that work in the retail store. Now, they are there,
let's say eight maybe ten hours per day, especially during the holidays.
The rest of us who go into the store, this is back when you
used to go into retail stores, might be in and out in less than
an hour. So we hear have a hollow jolly Christmas and all the others.
I say that song, but we're out of there and we're onto the
next store, at the mall or whatever. If you think about it from
the perspective of the people who worked there, they played the same one hour
tape for the entire holiday season. It was insane. You would think that
there actually would be more strangulation murders of retail people, killing store managers who
refused to play anything except the one hour tape sent to them from headquarters.
Oh jeez, No, It's been many years since I worked retail, and
I still have these traumatic flashbacks to Mariah Carey and was she around singing all
I want for Christmas is you? Yes, I grew up in the Mariah
Carey era. She is one of the people that girls my age would go
to see in concert. So yes, Mariah Carey was very visible, and
yes, all I went for Christmas Is You? One hundred percent was on
repeat the whole entire Christmas season. I know this is a true crime podcast,
and I know this might be inappropriate, but it just popped into my
head. Just shoot me now. I was in a retail store recently with
the lovely Pamela. We were at an outlet mall, which I had been
to in quite a while. It was fun, but I knew there was
no way We're going into half a dozen stores with Oliver into By the way,
I knew that I was going to hear All I Want for Christmas Is
You at least twice in an afternoon, and of course there she was.
There's just no escaping her. There is no escaping Mariah Carey, and there
is no escaping Wham's Last Christmas I Gave You My Heart. In fact,
on the internet now they call it Wammageddon. And can you go the whole
entire Christmas season without hearing that song? And if you cannot, the day
that you hear it is the day that you lose Wammageddon. I actually will
admit I'm still rather fond of that song. I am not fond of any
Okay, I will take that back, the one Christmas song that I actually
really do like legitimately, and I'll sing along with it. I like anything
from How the Grinch Stole Christmas. I love your a mean one, mister
Grinch. I think it's hysterical. I can sing it from memory that I
will do over and over. My older brother, Richard is a big fan
of the Grinch, and that's one of his favorite songs, and he always
stands up for some reason and sings your amine when mister Grinch in his best.
Boris Karloff I was explaining to my film students today that Boris Karloff is
the voice of the Grinch, because we had seen Boris Karloff in The Mummy
and Bride of Frankenstein and they were blown away to make that connection. They
loved it. And it's funny not having seen those original Universal horror films in
a while. Boris Karloff doesn't talk that much in some of those roles,
does he not? In Frankenstein or Bride of Frankenstein. He does a little
bit later in the movie when the monster develops his voice. He does talk
in The Mummy, so you can hear him as great voice. Yeah,
but yeah. When I mentioned to the kids, I was like, yeah,
Baris Karloff. They were blown away with that. It's actually really funny
my film kids don't have a good sense of time of when movies came out.
We were watching mister Smith Goes to Washington last week, which is classic
original version, original version, Yes, and the page boy in the Senate
who shows Jefferson Smith where his desk is was a little young actor by the
name of Dickey Jones. And Dicky Jones went on to voice Pinocchio for Walt
Disney, and I asked the kids, I said, listen closely to this
kid's voice. Do you know who that is? And they were like no.
I said, it was from a classic Disney movie. And they're naming
things like Enchanted and Ratchuey and classic Disney movies. Those are fun Disney movies.
Because I'm trying to give them a sense of context, and they just
they don't have a good understanding of how old some of these films are.
Like they didn't know that snow White came out in the nineteen thirties. I'm
like, here, I am just to give you a timeline of all of
this. But it's funny how many classic actors did voices for Disney. And
so I was pointing out in Stagecoach, the guy who drives the stage coach
buck Andy Devine, he was Friar Tuck in Robin Hood. I explain these
to these kids, but a lot of them haven't seen the original cartoons,
so they don't have a really good frame of reference for it. I've been
easing into the Christmas music, and of course now there's no stopping it when
you're ready, once you've gotten yourself mentally there. And I refuse to listen
to Christmas music before Thanksgiving, and certainly I try to hold off until December
first. Once it's actually December, I'm okay with it. But I am
a strong believer that if we're going to have a holiday about once a month
in this time of the year, let's do Halloween first, then Thanksgiving,
then Christmas or Kwanza Orhanika or whatever it is you celebrate. But I don't
like going into Tarja, which is a place I don't go very often,
and seeing Christmas decorations in late August or something like that, I just find
it incredibly annoying. Speaking of the holidays, it's that time of year again,
Yes it is. It is time for the True Crime Holiday Gift Guide,
a project that I started back when we were solely concerned with the Colonial
Parkway Murders facebook page. And then I figured, hey, we've got a
podcast. Why don't we expand this, Why don't we turn this into a
thing that we can provide for all people who love true crime? And now
here we are, and I believe this is the fourth iteration of the True
Crime Holiday Gift Guide. I am still waiting for it to go national or
multinational what does that mean? But I love the idea. I thought it
would be a fantastic idea. If the New York Times decided, Hey,
I think that's a fabulous idea. Let's do a true crime Holiday Gift Guide,
and let's ask Kristin Dilly, renowned podcast host, to write it.
I would love that that doesn't happen. Oh okay, sorry, I wasn't
quite sure what you meant. But in the meantime, we do love providing
the Holiday Gift Guide. And in case you have someone is a great,
big fan of true crime, but you're just not sure what to buy for
them because you yourself have not kept up with it throughout the year, maybe
as much as you would like to. We've done the work for you,
and we are providing you with some of the best books of the year and
some of the best places where you can find interesting merchandise or tickets for crime
con and so on and so forth. The twenty twenty three version of the
True Crime Holiday Gift Guide starts now. You heard it here first, and
we'll go ahead and launch into it, starting with one of the best books
that I think I have ever read. Actually, I think Kim would probably
blush to hear me say this, but I can say it with total and
complete honesty. The best true crime book of this year for me, and
possibly one of the best I've ever read, is In Light of All Darkness
from Kim Cross, and I highly recommend it to anybody within interest in the
poly Class kidnapping case. Kim really offers the book of record on the Polyclass
kidnapping from nineteen ninety three. She takes you through the case itself, the
investigation. She takes you through the aftermath. It is the most thoroughly researched
and well written book on the case. I would venture to say it is
one of the most thoroughly researched and well written books that I've read in recent
memory. It is just so well done, and it really gave me the
opportunity to understand the case, gave me the opportunity to cry a little bit
over the case because it is very moving, and it really got me thinking
about the big changes that have occurred in the policing space since nineteen ninety three,
and we've made a lot of really good and interesting strides. So my
first highest recommendation of the holiday season for a really good book that you or
any trucharm lover in your life would like is In Light of All Darkness by
Kim Cross. And we did interview Kim on episode three hundred and seven of
Mind over Murder and that ran on October ninth, twenty twenty three. So
for more information about Kim and her book, check out that episode. Our
next book is Tangled Vines by John Glatt. As we've talked about several times
on the podcast, this year has seen a lot of twists and turns in
the Murdoch case, as Kristen likes to say, and the Murdock adjacent cases
been a tremendous amount of media coverage. Out of all of the different books
and documentaries and podcasts, the thing we thought was the best in terms of
capturing the essence of this case came from veteran true crime author John Glatt,
and we had interviewed John on August seventh, twenty twenty three, and we
liked the conversation with John so much that we actually re ran that Mind Over
Murder episode as a bonus episode on October nineteenth, and it's our episode number
two eighty nine. It's a really fantastic overview of the Murdoch case, which
is just a tragedy all the way around. And actually Alex has been back
in the news recently because he's been hit very hard and found guilty of stealing
what I think ultimately maybe hundreds of millions of dollars. It's certainly tens of
millions of dollars from his clients in his law practice. The Tangled Vines book
provides an incredible overview of that case, and we really enjoyed talking to John
Glatt about the book. Oh, John is a total sweetheart. Even now,
as recently as last month, there were new books still coming out about
the case. But for my money and I about the most recent book,
and I've watched some of the documentaries, and we try not to listen to
the podcast that other people are putting out just so that it doesn't color our
own reporting. But I do sit down and watch the documentaries when I can.
It's good company for grading. And I have picked up the most recent
book about the case. But for my money, John's got it nailed down.
It is truly excellent, and I really enjoyed Tangled Vines. If you
haven't had a chance to check that out from John, we do definitely recommend
that. And the other case, of course, that has made massive headlines
here starting in July and going all the way up to now, is of
course, the Long Island serial Killer or LISK case. I know we're still
going back and forth and do we call it Lisk, do we call it
Gilgo Beach. I just got stuck on Lisk, So hopefully people don't take
offense to that. That's just where I am right at the moment. But
after I have quite a great deal of time out of the news. It
came roaring back in in July with the arrest of Rex Huerman as the suspected
killer of Marine Brainerd Barnes, Melissa Barthelemy Shannon Gilbert, Megan Waterman, and
Amber Costello, as well as other unidentified victims on nearby Fire Island. As
we were all aware, unless we have been living under rocks, Rex Hereman
is currently in jail awaiting. The best way to catch up on all of
the information that you may have missed about the List case the first time around
is to check out Lost Girls by Bob Colker. We had the real pleasure
and privilege of talking to Bob about this truly excellent book on the September eighteenth
episode of our podcast That is episode three hundred and one, so right over
our big three hundred mark. It was really just absolutely fascinating to talk to
Bob not only about the details of the case, but also about the amount
of research that goes into writing a book like this and the emotional toll that
it takes on you when you have to spend this much time with such dark
subject. One of the things I think that Robert Kolker did better than most
people in the true crime space, and this is a reminder for Kristen and
me and everybody is lost Girls. Focuses on these women, giving the backstory
for these women, many of whom we're set workers, but talks about the
small towns they came from, how they came to be on Long Island or
in New York City. It's very moving when it gets into what their hopes
and dreams and aspirations were. He spent a lot of time with their families,
mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, and friends, just trying to
find out more about what these people were all about as people. And I
think that's one of the most striking things about the book. The book's almost
ten years old now, it came out in twenty fourteen. Still think it's
probably among the best writing I've seen in the true crime space, without question.
So far, it's the best writing I've seen about the Long Island serial
killer Go Go Beach four case. I have no doubt that once rex Hreman
goes to trial, there will be a number of different books that come out
about the case after that. For our money, right now, the definitive
book, The Book of Record, if you Will, is from Robert Kulker,
and that is called Lost Girls, released in twenty fourteen. We also
recently discussed her in Mind Over Murder the intriguing idea that could Rex Heuerman,
suspect in the Long Island cases, also be the Route twenty nine stalker in
Virginia, and we had a really interesting discussion with Sarah Sherman sewell her theories
and ours about whether or not rex Huerman could be the Root twenty nine stalker.
There are some very interesting potential areas of linkage, including the fact that
Jurman's mother lived in Pelmyra, Virginia, which is not far from the Route
twenty nine area where Alicia Showalter Reynolds was murdered and a number of other women
were assaulted. Very intriguing possibility whether or how that plays out. Next on
the list is a book that we are just absolutely delighted to be able to
recommend because it is definitely something that we have both been looking forward to,
and that is a Light in the Dark from Kathy Clinner Ribbon. I think
really the best aspect of Kathy's book is the extraordinary amount of hope that she
brings to a very dark situation, not only her attack by serial killer Ted
Bundy, but also the various other things that she has gone through. She
has gone through enough in one lifetime for six people, right and come out
with an incredibly optimistic attitude. I don't know that I would have this sort
of fortitude in me that Kathy does to just put one foot in front of
the other. But here is a woman who has survived childhood, lupus,
breast cancer, Hurricane Katrina, and then that horrific attack by Bundy as well.
Kathy's story is the one that I think we all need to guide us
in times of trouble and times of strife, because ultimately, what you get
out of a light in the dark is if you can survive one truly terrible
thing or many truly terrible things, you can survive anything at all. I
really love Athy's upbeat, optimistic attitude. She is just an absolute gem of
a person, and we are so thrilled to be able to spend time with
her at our various social engagements when they happen across paths. We've seen her
at crime Con, we've seen her at Savannah Crimexpo, and we're just thrilled
to be able to call her our friend because she is just so amazing,
very inspiring story and totally worth your while. Our next selection is another amazing
story told from the perspective of an investigator and forensics expert, Lindsay Wade and
her book In My DNA. This is a fantastic story that outlines the work
that Lindsay and her team did in seeking two missing young women in Seattle.
Lindsay's career is really notable in that she has done so much amazing work on
these cases. I was reading Lindsay's book and really what I left the book
with was this idea that I think, I think I'd like to grow up
to be Lindsay Wade. There are very few people whose lives I look at
and go, you know what, that's pretty amazing, and Lindsay is one
of them for sure. We had the pleasure to speak to Lindsay about her
career and her cases and her work on episode three point fifteen of Mind Never
Murder that was November sixth. It was just a real pleasure and a privilege
to be able to talk to Lindsay and learn all of this great information about
her life as an investigator and the cases that matter most to her. Lindsay's
book is a very quick read because it's so well written and it's very compelling,
and of course she takes you down quite a dark road in terms of
the work that she did in solving the case of Jennifer Bastian, who was
killed in nineteen eighty six. We actually thought the book was so good we
even said to Lindsay on the air that we think she should write another book
because her story is fantastic and it it's a very uplifting and inspirational story.
She's gone on to have a very interesting career as an investigator, and we
actually hope that she'll continue writing. She did say it's a lot of work,
as we both know, and it took her through quite an emotional journey
to get all this down on paper. But we'd actually love to see her
write a second book. Absolutely, Lindsay, if you're listening, please start
writing another book. You absolutely must keep us entertained. We really appreciated your
first one, but we want more. You had no pressure there. Your
public is asking for it, but no pressure. You're listening to Mind over
Murder. We'll be right back after this word from our sponsors. We're back
here at mindover Murder. The next book on our list is Evidence of Things
Seen by Sarah Winman. She is known for her wonderful newsletter that she writes
as the Crime Lady, where she outlines cases that are of interest, books
that she has found compelling and interesting to read. She was the editor of
a first collection of long form true crime pieces called Unspeakable Acts. And since
I found Unspeakable Acts, I've been waiting and waiting with baited breath for a
follow up because I very much wanted there to be more. Unfortunately, Evidence
of Things Seen came out in March. We were also lucky enough to get
an early edition of the book. That is one of the nice side benefits
of this podcast that makes me so very happy is that sometimes we get to
read stuff before the rest of y'all do. And so Evidence of Things Seen
is an excellent collection of long form true crime reporting. But they do take
a lean towards social justice and the ethics of true crime, which is something
that's very important to both of us. Here we ran our interview with Sarah
on episode two forty nine, which ran March twentieth two some twenty three,
and again that was an episode that we liked so much we ran it as
a bonus episode this past October. Sarah is one of those people that I
definitely want to meet, and so I'm very much hoping that she is able
to free up her schedule enough to come to our next crime con because I
would definitely like to meet her and discuss all things crime with her. She
lives here in the Northeast. If necessary, we could track her down on
one of your next visits to the Great Northeast. A lot of people tend
to live in the I found that a lot of our guests actually live up
in your neck of the woods more so than live in my neck of the
woods. We may have to go on a road trip to grab Sarah and
Greg Overacker and Kate Miles and have a real crime evening. There'd be some
You'd be going through the beautiful New England States, that's for sure, And
actually I have not been any further north than Massachusetts, so hey, I'm
perfectly happy to take us swing up through Vermont and Maine. I love to
make fun of my friends in New Hampshire, including Jane Burrowski and others,
so we could venture forth there. The world doesn't end at the Massachusetts border.
There's more. I feel like maybe a mind of a murder road trip
is in order. Not during the winter, though, not during the winter.
Y'all are freezing cold, and I absolutely cannot stand it. Okay,
you didn't want to come up here for Christmas? Hmm, no, thank
you? All right, no, thank you. It was sixty degrees here
the other day, and I bet it hasn't gotten out of the thirties for
you guys. It's been chilly, yeah, down in the twenties. Some
snow, yeah, I'll stick right here with the South. You guys can
keep your snow in your freezing temperatures perfectly fine. Okay. Speaking of people
we'd like to have on a true crime road trip, I definitely think that
doctor Michael Boden is someone that we would love to have on our true crime
road trip. And we were just honored and thrilled to be able to interview
the iconic doctor Michael Bodden. If you were to ask most true crime fans
to name a forensic expert, you'd have people who named doctor Henry Lee,
doctor Cyril Weckt, But probably the name that would come up more than any
other would be doctor Michael Bodden. His amazing book American Autopsy, focuses on
his career. He also takes a look at the very real and very complex
issues of racism in policing, as well as just the most challenging cases that
he has spent time on throughout the years. Really gripping stuff, and for
that reason, I would also put doctor Boden's book up there with some of
the best true crime that I've read this year. It's truly, truly fascinating
to read. He got into some really interesting discussion points with us. We
interviewed him on episode two eighty two, which ran in July twenty twenty three
this year. We weren't certain he was necessarily going to open all of these
avenues, but he chose to answer our question very directly. Talked about the
balance that forensic pathologists and medical examiners have to strike between their obligation to their
patients even though these people are deceased, and the law enforcement partners they work
with. I think both Kristin and I were very surprised when he talked about
how much pressure law enforcement will put on medical examiners and pathologists looking for certain
outcomes that might make law enforcement look better rather than worse. But as he
was explaining to us, it's not always that easy. Really fascinating conversation.
So happy to have been able to meet him at Crime con He had quite
the circle of followers and admirers around him. It was a pleasure to be
able to actually shake his hand in person. Super great guy and very funny
too, And that was one of those situations where as we've talked about before
here, a lot of our relationships, if you want to call them that,
with true crime experts and investigators, authors, all sorts of people,
they're electronic relationships. We make connections with people as a result of their work,
but a lot of times then we're setting up interviews via text or email,
usually conducting the interviews via zoom and Kristen, of course, is in
Virginia. I'm here in Connecticut, and our third person when we have interviews
can be anywhere, so the technology affords us this opportunity. Many of these
examples, we've never met these people in person. So I know when we
were at Crime Gon you were bound and determined to meet doctor Boden. When
we saw him at the Clue Awards, you were like, that's it.
I'm going, Oh, I got to weigh my way through this crowd of
admirers surrounding doctor Boden and introduce myself. I know he was very pleasantly surprised
to meet you and then me, because he obviously wants to make that personal
connection as well, and he's an incredibly charming guy. Yes, tickled to
say, oh, you're the people from Mind over Murder. I so enjoyed
our conversation, and yet it was that one additional step where you were finally
able to thank him in person. And I also said I wanted to sell
for you with the handsomest guy in the room. I think that probably helped
too. That line works better for you than for me. Yeah, that
is true. Moving on to I would say probably the most recent addition to
my reading list, and that would be The Hunt for Brianna Maitland from Greg
Overacker, one of our very good friends who is just a real delight to
be able to talk to. I absolutely adore Greg. Coming home one evening
to find his book on my doorstep in a mailing envelope was one of those
happy surprises that you get. Bill's holding up his copy right there. One
of the most confounding cases to come out of Vermont over the last two decads
has to be the disappearance of Brianna Maitland. Our friend Greg o'backer, who
is the private investigator for this family, has written the definitive book on the
Brianna Maitland case, using his own investigation into Branna's disappearance in Probable Murder as
a stepping stone for how he tells the story. It was great to be
able to read absolutely everything about Brianna Maitland all in one place, and it
was even better. I know Greg doesn't think this is the best part of
the book, but I think it's the best part of the book. It
was even better to get Greg Overacker as bounty hunter stories as Welllyn. As
we said to Greg, and again easy for us to say, hard for
our guests to do. This was Greg's first book. We loved the Brianna
Maitland story, and of course it's a frustrating tale because ultimately we're still left
with a lot of questions for Bruce and Kelly Maitland and their friends and family
in terms of what happened to Brionna. And it's a case that means a
lot to both of us the bounty Hunter story that Greg opens with. We
said, you've got to have more stories like that, and he said,
oh yeah, I've got a ton. And I said, we'd love it
if you would do a book just on those bounty Hunter stories because they were
fantastic. Again, easy for us to assign Greg with yet another task.
Yeah, seriously, But I like Greg because he is very humble and unassuming,
and he was like, I don't get why people would want to read
about that, because you're fascinating. He's on that na very very down to
earth about it. We would encourage you to order Greg's book if you're interested
in the Brandon Maitland case, but you do need to go through Greg's publisher.
It is not commercially available in stores at the moment, so please do
look for the information about that. We will include that in our show notes
as well. That availability issue with Greg's book, The Hunt for Breonna Maitland
may change, though, because seems to be getting more and more inquiries from
bookstores, particularly in Vermont, that would like to carry the book. And
I'd love to see The Hunt for Brianna Maitland be available on Amazon and all
the mail order houses as well as bookstores throughout the country because it's a fantastic
read. Yeah, I agree with you one hundred percent. We don't often
offer nods to fiction because we are a true crime podcast emphasis on the true.
However, I could not let my true crime Holiday if guide list go
by without including the fantastic, very interesting Nutcracker series from our very good friend,
doctor Katherine Ramsland. So this is the second installment of her Annie Hunter
series, and I don't think it's making too much of a stretch there to
say that Annie Hunter is modeled on the good doctor herself. Yes, it
seems like any Hunter might be Catherine Ramslin's alter ego. Certainly seems like it
to me. This installment sees any Hunter and knee deep in a mysterious crime
on the outer banks of North Carolina, one of my favorite places to go,
one of Catherines as well, and she is, in addition to solving
a crime, also in for some nasty weather. So the book in the
Damage Path is the answer to the question how is a serial killer like a
violent storm? The answer is very interesting and highly entertaining. I definitely recommend
the Nutcracker series. It's a lot of fun. If you are not a
fan of fiction, you can enjoy all seventy of doctor Catherine Ramslin's other books.
My personal favorites are her tie ends to CSI in Criminal Minds for Obvious
Reasons in The Damage Path. The second book in the Annie Hunter series is
out now, and is she promising us more in the future. I'm hoping
she does. I haven't talked to her about it, but I am.
I am blurbing her next nonfiction book even as we speak. Explain what blurbing
means for civilians. I am reading it and providing a glowing review for publication.
So you're one of those experts they put on the back that says this
book is the greatest thing since sliced bread. Yeah, it's cool. See
it's very flattering to be asked to blurb as they say. It's been very
cool. This is the second time I've been asked to do it, and
I still can't get over it. I'm grinning like an idiot in case you
can't hear it in my voice. I'm very excited. So I'm having a
wonderful time reading doctor Ramslin's newest and I cannot wait to craft the perfect couple
of sentence blurb to let her know how much I'm enjoying her book. Absolutely,
We've enjoyed having Catherine on our podcast several times. The most recent time,
if you're going back to listen to one of those episodes, was July
twenty fourth, and it was our episode number two eighty five with doctor Catherine
Ramslin. And of course we're going to try to have her on again as
soon as possible to talk about all of the many things on which she is
an expert. And the number of things that she's an expert on kind of
makes my head spin in that in writing seventy books, it's an impressive track
record. She is a powerhouse for sure. And then to finish up,
this is a little bit of a it's a little bit of a cheat because
you can't get your hands on this book yet, and I'll explain that in
a second, but you will be able to pre order this, and I
highly recommend that you do pre order this because it is an amazing book from
Casey Sherman, author of Helltown and A Rose for Mary. It is called
a Murder in Hollywood. This is coming out in February twenty twenty four.
It is the glitzy, gritty look at the Murder of hollyod would Starlett Lynnett
Turner's abusive boyfriend named Johnny Stumpinado. Very interesting subject matter, first rate storytelling
as we come to expect from Casey. Absolutely fantastic. I highly recommend it.
So good, And this is a true crime story. Johnny Stompinado was
a real guy, and he really was Lana Turner's boyfriend, and he really
was murdered. This is one of those truth is stranger than fiction sort of
things. Because as soon as Casey had mentioned this is what he was writing
about, I was like, wait, is this actually true? Did this
really happen? And of course this is right up my alley because I teach
film class. I am movie buff. I'm very interested in all things related
to Golden Age Hollywood. And I went and look this up and I realized,
Oh, this is a story I've never heard before. How very interesting,
how very cool, And this is another book where you will be featured
on the back cover with a pithy quote. Am I correct? Yes,
Casey asked me to blurb it. He was the first person to ask.
And I hit the ceiling. I who was so excited, so yes,
I was very pleased and honored to be asked to blurb this for Casey.
When A Murder in Hollywood comes out in February, if all goes well,
my blurb will be on the back cover. I am going to show that
off to everybody that I know. Boy, this podcast has used the word
blurb more than you ever read before. Yeah, it is. It totally
has. So we're sorry to tease you with a Murder in Hollywood before you're
able to actually get it. But it is available for pre order, believe
it or not. I follow Casey on social media and he's already working on
his next book. Yeah. He is a hard worker and a prolific writer.
Unbelievable. I wish that I had the amount of writing shots in stamina
as Casey and Catherine. I don't know how they do it. I can
barely string two sentences together sometimes, as I'm getting ready for this podcast,
I don't know how they're able to do what they do. Props to them,
it's very impressive. One quick note, by the way, a few
of our listeners have teased us that we're blowing their budget with all of these
book recommendations. I do want to remind you that you don't necessarily have to
buy every one of these books. First of all, you could put this
on your holiday list and someone might buy it for you. The second thing
is in our small town library, if I go to them and ask them
to consider buying a book, they will often add it to their list.
And that way, if they want to provide interesting books that people in the
community are interested in reading, they will actually listen to our recommendations, that
is, the local townspeople. So for example, if you say, would
you consider buying such and such a book, We're going to give you a
little bit of ammunition here because in Kristen's write up about these upcoming books and
books that are out now, you've got a nice little paragraph there that describes
the book and talks about why we thought it was particularly compelling. So don't
feel like you have to buy every single one of these books. You can
also recommend them to your local library or put them on your holiday list,
and you never know, they may end up in your stocking one way or
the other. Absolutely, the last thing that we do want to mention it's
just a reminder because I think sometimes people forget we do have merchandise for our
podcast, y'all. It's a really wonderful, high quality company that does our
merch for us. The company that we work with is called Tea Public and
they do an amazing job custom making the kind of shirts, mugs, and
hats and phone cases and various other things that you may want with our logo
on them, and they do it for a very reasonable price. So if
you love Minded a Murder, and we hope that you do, and you
like to have a beach towel, or a phone case, or a journal
or some variety of t shirt, sweatshirt, hoodie, you name it with
our logo on it, we do encourage you to go to Tea Public and
just type in mind over Murder in the search bar and you will find a
wide variety of styles and colors of everything that you could possibly want that has
our logo on it. If you are in need of an interesting gift for
someone who loves the podcast or a gift for yourself, we do recommend going
to Tea Public. And this time of year, we also want to just
take a minute to thank all of you for your support. We appreciate your
kind remarks and thoughtful analysis on our social media pages. We appreciate the fact
that you have taken the time to give us five star reviews on Facebook,
Twitter, Instagram and of course now I'm on threads, which is another so
so media. Please how do you keep track of all of this? I
have no idea. The key thing is always now, where did that person
write to us? On what platform it was? But we really appreciate your
kind remarks and your five star reviews. They mean the world to us.
The feedback is incredibly helpful. We really appreciate all of the support that you've
shown us over the past several years, and we wish all of you a
very happy holiday season. Thank you all so much for listening. We hope
you have a very happy holiday and look for more from us in the coming
weeks. Thank you so much for listening to this episode. 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 Arnoit. 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.