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Speaker 7: You are now listening to True Murder, the most shocking
Speaker 7: killers in true crime history and the authors that have
Speaker 7: written about them. Gaesy, Bundy, Dahmer, The Nightstalker BTK. Every
Speaker 7: week another fascinating author talking about the most shocking and
Speaker 7: infamous killers in true crime history. True Murder with your
Speaker 7: host journalist and author Dan Zufanski.
Speaker 8: Good evening, from historical accounts to modern cases, explore the
Speaker 8: captivating psychology behind these killer women, unraveling their motives and
Speaker 8: unveiling the dark complexities of human behavior. The fair sect.
Speaker 8: We've often heard this cliched expression being used to refer
Speaker 8: to women. Although it has become increasingly outdated, the mindset
Speaker 8: still exists that women are the gentle and nurturing sex.
Speaker 8: When it comes to murder, that notion gets turned on
Speaker 8: its head. And this isn't a recent phenomenon. We can
Speaker 8: find plenty of female killers going back in history. In fact,
Speaker 8: some of the world's most notorious serial killers have been women.
Speaker 8: These female killers give their male counterparts a run for
Speaker 8: their money and deserve to be counted among the most
Speaker 8: famous serial killers on earth. The disturbing histories of notorious women,
Speaker 8: from the chilling accounts of infamous black widow murders to
Speaker 8: the spine tingling narratives of women who shock the world
Speaker 8: with their sinister deeds. This anthology deals deep into the
Speaker 8: minds of these deadly women Spanish eras and continents. These
Speaker 8: tales of true crime offer a chilling exploration of the
Speaker 8: darkest corners of human nature. The book that we're featuring
Speaker 8: this evening is Women Who Murder, an international collection of
Speaker 8: deadly true crime tales, with my special guest author and
Speaker 8: editor Mitzi so Retto. Welcome back to the program and
Speaker 8: thank you very much for this interview. Mitzi so Retto.
Speaker 4: Hi Dan, thanks so much for having me back. I
Speaker 4: really appreciate.
Speaker 8: Thank you so much, and congratulations on the newest book,
Speaker 8: Women Who Murder.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I know it's been a whirlwind since this all
Speaker 4: started with the true crime book.
Speaker 8: Absolutely tell us about the table of contents for this
Speaker 8: one and the authors in this collection.
Speaker 4: Sure, we've got several authors from around the world. The
Speaker 4: first story I'll go in order here down in the
Speaker 4: Ditch Joanna Denihi, Cereal Stabber, which is by Charlotte Platt.
Speaker 4: Next up is Ruth Snyder the original Femme Fatale, which
Speaker 4: is by Kieran Conliffe. Then we have Innocence Taken the
Speaker 4: Murder of Cais a Boudreau which is by Mike Brown.
Speaker 4: Then we have Mahin Monster or Victim, which is by me.
Speaker 4: Then we've got Twisted Firestarter which is by C. L. Raven,
Speaker 4: followed by On the Courthouse Steps The Trial of Susan
Speaker 4: Smith by Kathy Pickens, followed by Angelina Napolitano I Am
Speaker 4: Not a Bad Woman by Ed Butts. Then we have
Speaker 4: the strange case of Kelly Lane by Anthony Ferguson, followed
Speaker 4: by Jolly Joseph, The Kerala Cyanide serial Killer by Shashi Kadappa.
Speaker 4: Then we have Women Fight Back by Tom Larson, Beauty
Speaker 4: and Beast by Eli Goyanas, Annabisessto, Anna Funesto by Alisha
Speaker 4: holland Dead Woman Walking by Joan Renner. And we conclude
Speaker 4: with Mona Fandy, The Malaysian Murderer by Chang Chi Yen so.
Speaker 8: An international collection. Some authors are returning from your previous collections.
Speaker 4: Correct, Yes, yes, and some new people have arrived on
Speaker 4: the scene as well.
Speaker 8: Yes, and these stories surround some extraordinary cases, international stories
Speaker 8: that certainly people have not heard about before. Let's talk
Speaker 8: about your own story, Mahine, Monster or Victim.
Speaker 4: Yes, this was a really interesting one. To write. You know,
Speaker 4: I like to I guess I like to challenge myself
Speaker 4: by finding really obscure stories that are you really have
Speaker 4: to go ferret out information left and right. This is
Speaker 4: actually about Iran's first known female serial killer. It's got
Speaker 4: so many dimensions to it's just you know, I mean,
Speaker 4: we think of serial killers that are women. You know,
Speaker 4: Aileen Warnos is one of the notorious ones that comes
Speaker 4: to mind, But in Mahin's case, there's just so many,
Speaker 4: so many dimensions to her story, which is why I
Speaker 4: subtitled it monster or a Victim, basically leaving it to
Speaker 4: the reader to decide was she a monster or was
Speaker 4: she a victim?
Speaker 8: You're right early on in this story that in the
Speaker 8: early two thousands there were a number of serial killers
Speaker 8: with very very high body counts, including the spider killer.
Speaker 8: Can you tell us about a few of the killers
Speaker 8: that you include before we start talking about Mahine?
Speaker 4: Sure, you know, I was actually quite surprised by this.
Speaker 4: I mean, I guess, you know, we tend to think
Speaker 4: of serial killing as being a popular pastime in the West,
Speaker 4: as it is, you know, there does seem to be
Speaker 4: a lot more serial killers in Western cultures but in
Speaker 4: the twenty first century, just with you know, and we're
Speaker 4: only what twenty four years into that century, there's been
Speaker 4: some pretty heinous serial killers in Iran. As you reference
Speaker 4: the spider killer Sayid Hana, I'm sorry, i'l mangel is
Speaker 4: his last name. Let's just call him the spider spider killer.
Speaker 4: He actually targeted female sex workers in Mashad, saying he
Speaker 4: was cleansing the city of moral corruption. And apparently it
Speaker 4: looks like his known victim tally sixteen. Then there was
Speaker 4: the Tehran Desert vampire whose name is Mohammad Bije. He
Speaker 4: was apparently convicted of raping and murdering at least sixteen
Speaker 4: young boys and we're talking boys ages eight to fifteen,
Speaker 4: and also some adults. And there's actually accounts that say
Speaker 4: he may have killed more than forty people and told yeah,
Speaker 4: and then we have another woman hater by the name
Speaker 4: of well, they call him the cyclist killer, Farid Babulani,
Speaker 4: and it looks like he killed between fifteen women and
Speaker 4: girls and even a boy in a couple of cities there.
Speaker 4: And then there is a serial killer known as the
Speaker 4: Highway killer Omid Barak, who targeted women who cheated or
Speaker 4: at least whom he believed cheated on their partners or spouses.
Speaker 4: And he's thought to have murdered at least ten women
Speaker 4: in the Karage area. So yeah, I mean, I didn't
Speaker 4: even look at what the previous century had because I
Speaker 4: mean the relevance was this story that I wrote about
Speaker 4: is more contemporary story.
Speaker 8: Right. The man is murdered in two thousand and six,
Speaker 8: and you say, between February and May two thousand and nine,
Speaker 8: five women are murdered, and the first murder there's no
Speaker 8: indication obviously that there's any serial killing involved. Take us
Speaker 8: to what happens after that first murder and then obviously
Speaker 8: the second murder, and when there is some indication that
Speaker 8: a serial killing is underway, serial killer is underway.
Speaker 4: Yeah, exactly. We start out with this man who is
Speaker 4: basically found murdered and there's really nothing to you know,
Speaker 4: suspect there's anything going on. And then when we've got
Speaker 4: some years past, suddenly there's a spate of women being
Speaker 4: murdered and there's a there's a pattern. They're all older women,
Speaker 4: you know. So serial killers do tend to find a type.
Speaker 4: They do like their types, and so obviously that's what
Speaker 4: it looked like when the police start putting it together, like,
Speaker 4: who are all these women, say, ages late fifties through
Speaker 4: their seventies that are being found murdered and they're all
Speaker 4: strangled and their bodies are dumped. You know, there's a
Speaker 4: definite pattern here, So they start realizing that something's going
Speaker 4: on here. Obviously early on it's you know, they don't
Speaker 4: wait till all five murders have and they start investigating
Speaker 4: sooner than that. But yeah, there's there's definitely a pattern.
Speaker 4: There's there's eyewitness accounts that start having pieces put together
Speaker 4: about these women that are you know, for instance, one
Speaker 4: woman was going out of blood at her lab going
Speaker 4: for blood tests and you know, she's founded. We have
Speaker 4: a woman who disappears from a shrine. We have a
Speaker 4: woman found murdered in her in her apartment, and there's
Speaker 4: just these parallels and and one big parallel was the
Speaker 4: fact that their jewelry vanished.
Speaker 8: And also they were yeah there, and also they were
Speaker 8: killed with their own head scarfs.
Speaker 4: Yeah. Yeah, So the murders do get progressively more brutal
Speaker 4: as they go along as well, and then there is
Speaker 4: an indication that these women were possibly drugged so therefore
Speaker 4: knocked out.
Speaker 8: So police are wondering how this person could get to
Speaker 8: these victims, that they must have known them in some way,
Speaker 8: had some connection to them in some way.
Speaker 4: Well, either a connection or as was revealed later, the
Speaker 4: killer clearly got these victims to trust her, you know, so,
Speaker 4: I mean, you know why. Of course, we have to
Speaker 4: realize too that Iran as a slightly different culture than
Speaker 4: the West, and perhaps people are not as suspicious of
Speaker 4: each other, you know, like, for instance, if some say
Speaker 4: you're in one particular instance, the woman one of the
Speaker 4: victims is at a shrine and she's befriended by this
Speaker 4: other woman who comes along and says, oh, you know,
Speaker 4: let's pray together. And you know, and it's a nice
Speaker 4: young woman, and perhaps you look upon this young woman
Speaker 4: as a as a daughter figure, you know, she could
Speaker 4: conceivably be your daughter. And so she says, hey, do
Speaker 4: you want to lift home? You know, chances are you'll
Speaker 4: say sure, why not? You know, you're not going to
Speaker 4: think anything of it. But that's that's how these women
Speaker 4: in becoming victims.
Speaker 8: Now, finally the police learn about all of this much
Speaker 8: much later, but there is finally someone that comes forward,
Speaker 8: the community is frightened, and but there finally is you
Speaker 8: write a credible witness that comes forward and has a
Speaker 8: harrowing tale to tell police.
Speaker 4: Correct, yes, I mean obviously there's all the attention seekers
Speaker 4: who come forward before that, wasting police time and saying, oh, yes,
Speaker 4: you know, I was, you know, almost a victim, et cetera.
Speaker 4: But then they get this one woman who has a
Speaker 4: story to tell, who was actually the same thing happened
Speaker 4: at this same shrine in which one of the victims
Speaker 4: was murdered, taken and murdered. And she describes being befriended
Speaker 4: by this young lady, someone who, as I said, can
Speaker 4: conceivably be her daughter in age, offers her a lift,
Speaker 4: and then she keeps pushing this box of juice on her,
Speaker 4: like does I have to drink this juice? This, you know,
Speaker 4: refresh yourself? Have this juice, and pushing it and pushing
Speaker 4: it and pushing it, and the lady's starting to freak out,
Speaker 4: you know, thinking this something's out right, and she's saying,
Speaker 4: please stop this car. I want to get out. I
Speaker 4: want to get out, And finally, finally she's allowed out
Speaker 4: of the car after she's banging on the car windows
Speaker 4: to get out. And it turns out that, you know,
Speaker 4: that was one of the things with the with the
Speaker 4: juice box being so you know, important in this story
Speaker 4: is the juice box was drugged. It was laced with
Speaker 4: drugs to knock these victims out. So she is actually
Speaker 4: shown and she gives like an e fit rendering, and
Speaker 4: later on, you know, she's able to identify the woman
Speaker 4: because the woman had been known to police before because
Speaker 4: in some previous investigations as a you know, as a
Speaker 4: potential suspect along with other people of course, so she's
Speaker 4: finally identifying who this who this serial killer.
Speaker 8: Is now once they once they do that, you you
Speaker 8: right though, that please don't believe for a second that
Speaker 8: this woman could have done all of this carnage herself,
Speaker 8: all this murderous damage herself. But still they questioned her,
Speaker 8: and you say that she stays mom on this for
Speaker 8: forty eight hours. Tell us what happens when she finally
Speaker 8: admits and starts telling police the details.
Speaker 4: Well, yeah, I mean, obviously, you know, it was just
Speaker 4: so unusual that they would even have a female, a
Speaker 4: female serial killer, especially one that was able to strangle victims,
Speaker 4: dump bodies. I mean, this is, you know, quite a
Speaker 4: physical endeavor, and of course culturally they're not going to
Speaker 4: think a woman is doing what would be a man's job,
Speaker 4: so to speak. Mahine, our serial killer in the story,
Speaker 4: finally does confess because so much evidence is found in
Speaker 4: her apartment. She just cannot explain away, no matter how
Speaker 4: hard she tries to explain it away. And you know,
Speaker 4: of course they also think her husband was involved, and
Speaker 4: he was he was not her partner in crime. So
Speaker 4: she finally does break down and confesses to almost all
Speaker 4: the murders, but she holds back on one of the
Speaker 4: murders for a couple of valid reasons. One of them
Speaker 4: is the fact that the victim was actually related to her.
Speaker 4: It was her aunt in law, namely her mother in
Speaker 4: law's sister, and her mother in law is basically the
Speaker 4: only person who really tried to help her with her
Speaker 4: financial difficulties. Unfortunately, Mahine had a child with cerebral palsy,
Speaker 4: so you can see that there was a lot of
Speaker 4: things going on in the need for money and her
Speaker 4: financial situation. So she held back on confessing to that
Speaker 4: one murder until she knew someone would be there to
Speaker 4: look after her. Sick child, and then she finally spilled
Speaker 4: the beans as it were.
Speaker 8: Well, like I said, then you're right. The police still
Speaker 8: don't believe that she did it all herself, and they
Speaker 8: insist that she go along with them to the crime
Speaker 8: sites and also do a reconstruction of the murders for them.
Speaker 4: Yes, correct, and they were quite you know exactly, and
Speaker 4: they went to the site, they had her go through
Speaker 4: and act through what she did, and it all added
Speaker 4: up one hundred percent. There was just no doubt that
Speaker 4: she did it, and she did it on her own.
Speaker 8: You're right that she became very skilled in this killing
Speaker 8: and saw it as a business fleecing these women of
Speaker 8: their jewelry. She thought that she was less guilty by
Speaker 8: killing older women. She also learned things like putting a
Speaker 8: bunch of objects in the front seat, so it necessitated
Speaker 8: these people that she was giving a ride to the
Speaker 8: go in the back, which would mean that less people
Speaker 8: might notice the person in the back. And you also
Speaker 8: talked about the killer wearing something that would make her
Speaker 8: less noticeable to any witness.
Speaker 4: Yeah, she tried to be as anonymous as possible by
Speaker 4: wearing around the chowdor, which is sort of like this
Speaker 4: overgarment that you know, it's I mean, you've no doubt
Speaker 4: seen women who are totally covered with that that you
Speaker 4: can't even see they're under, you know, the clothes they
Speaker 4: have underneath it, so that she's so hard to identify,
Speaker 4: because all you would see would be like this little
Speaker 4: round face showing you know, you can't say, oh, it
Speaker 4: was the lady with the colorful headscarf or whatever. She
Speaker 4: just completely made sure that she blended in with everybody else,
Speaker 4: you know. But the one determining factor in how the
Speaker 4: eyewitness accounts and whatever was her car. It wasn't necessarily
Speaker 4: her physical description. It was the car she drove that
Speaker 4: was a dead giveaway. It was an older model Renault.
Speaker 8: She also gave a full confession and was griping about
Speaker 8: the treatment from these drug dealers that she sought out
Speaker 8: to get sedatives to knock out her victims, and also
Speaker 8: later she wanted to get a gun to speed up
Speaker 8: the whole process. Tell us as you do that, as
Speaker 8: you write her misfortune dealing with people unscrupulous, surprise, surprise.
Speaker 4: I know, yeah, it's almost it's almost comic, really, I mean,
Speaker 4: you know, they no doubt she obviously wanted these drugs
Speaker 4: to get into the boxes of juice. So she heard
Speaker 4: that there was this one street in Tehran, the in
Speaker 4: the capital, the Iran's capital, that you could get anything,
Speaker 4: absolutely anything, and she went down there and she hooked
Speaker 4: up with these drug dealers. They sold her this so
Speaker 4: called foreign drug, this you know, wonderful drug that was
Speaker 4: going to do everything that she needed it to do,
Speaker 4: which it was later revealed it was just stuff that
Speaker 4: she could have got at a pharmacy herself and mixed together.
Speaker 4: I mean, obviously they saw her coming, you know, I mean,
Speaker 4: they probably didn't get a lot of customers like that
Speaker 4: coming over. And then she decided to upper game a bit,
Speaker 4: you know, maybe incorporated to incorporate a gun. So she
Speaker 4: sought these guys out. Again. She also sought them out
Speaker 4: for fake receipts for gold, because she obviously had She
Speaker 4: had to sell the gold that she was stealing. That
Speaker 4: was the whole point. She needed the money, so she
Speaker 4: sold the gold, so they gave her that. Apparently that
Speaker 4: worked okay, But when she wanted the gun, they sold her.
Speaker 4: You know, they sold her this supposed gun in the
Speaker 4: box and she wants to check the box and they
Speaker 4: basically shamed her into like not opening it, you know,
Speaker 4: as you would expect, and she doesn't find out until
Speaker 4: later it's a piece of metal.
Speaker 8: Yeah, and you're right too, that test out the poisons
Speaker 8: or pardon me, the sedative value of these drugs she
Speaker 8: had bought from these dealers. She tested it out on
Speaker 8: her husband.
Speaker 4: Yes, I have. I found that kind of funny because
Speaker 4: he claimed he was like not unconscious for days and
Speaker 4: he called her a devil for doing that. But I mean,
Speaker 4: as one would read the story, there isn't a lot
Speaker 4: of sympathy to be had for Mahine's husband. I mean,
Speaker 4: he contributed to a lot of the problems that she
Speaker 4: had financially.
Speaker 8: This case veers off interestingly and it sounds a little
Speaker 8: bit like Aileen Warnos's claim that she became involved in
Speaker 8: killing men out of self defense. It didn't have much
Speaker 8: credibility as details of the you know, the first murder,
Speaker 8: then the subsequent murders lent no credibility to her claim.
Speaker 8: But you talk about that this woman made the same
Speaker 8: sort of claim about her landlord and that was the
Speaker 8: first murder. Tell us about that.
Speaker 4: Yes, exactly, that was the man that was found dumped.
Speaker 4: But then again, we had this several year gap before
Speaker 4: she started killing women, but apparently he had taken quite
Speaker 4: a fancy to her and essentially was hounding her, you know, like, oh,
Speaker 4: you know, come away with me, you know, let's run
Speaker 4: off to other you know, I'll marry you. I mean
Speaker 4: he was already married, but that doesn't matter. It was
Speaker 4: getting kind of it was just getting bad. There were
Speaker 4: reports one of Mahine's daughters says that she saw him
Speaker 4: fondling Mahin's undergarments that were hanging on the clothesline in
Speaker 4: the courtyard. I mean, getting really pervy here. Apparently there
Speaker 4: was a confrontation that ended up going He lived in
Speaker 4: the same building, he was like upstairs, so it's not
Speaker 4: like she could avoid this man. And she was getting
Speaker 4: panicked because you know, in Iran, if you're accused, or
Speaker 4: supposedly if you are, you know, an adulterer, that's that
Speaker 4: comes with a death penalty. So this is pretty serious
Speaker 4: stuff here. So this landlord was becoming enough of a
Speaker 4: problem and they just it ended up becoming this altercation.
Speaker 4: She killed him. I don't believe from what I understand,
Speaker 4: that it was anything premeditated. It just she just lashed
Speaker 4: out and this is what happened, and it launched her
Speaker 4: into having to get rid of his body, dumping his body,
Speaker 4: et cetera. And you know, I kind of surmised that
Speaker 4: perhaps she just just exploded already with the powerlessness that
Speaker 4: she had, and this perhaps set her on her future career.
Speaker 4: Shall we say?
Speaker 8: Well, I'm not to disagree with you, but she was
Speaker 8: very cool headed, very much like a serial killer in
Speaker 8: the planning and then the post killing. She went very
Speaker 8: calmly after getting rid of a body or putting a
Speaker 8: body in a trunk, and then going picking up her
Speaker 8: kids and acting very very normal.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, exactly. But you know, again with the killings,
Speaker 4: each like each woman that she killed, it did progress.
Speaker 4: I mean there was a lot of apparently her first
Speaker 4: female victim, she was uncertain if she was going to
Speaker 4: kill her, but then she just realized, well, you know,
Speaker 4: I can be identified, and that started it. But there
Speaker 4: was some remorse at the beginning, But as the killings progressed,
Speaker 4: I guess she just sort of, you know, went with
Speaker 4: the flow and became accustomed to it and as you say,
Speaker 4: became increasingly calculated in the killings until she probably in
Speaker 4: a way divorced herself from the humanity of her victims.
Speaker 8: What did she have to say in terms of the
Speaker 8: rationale for the murder of her relative? You say, this
Speaker 8: is the only person. She said, it was the only
Speaker 8: person that ever cared for her, aided her in any way.
Speaker 8: And yet, well, no, it wasn't that.
Speaker 4: It was the aunt in law. So that was her
Speaker 4: mother in law's sister she killed, and it was the
Speaker 4: mother in law that was such a was the only
Speaker 4: person who helped. That's why she was not confessing to
Speaker 4: that particular murder. But I guess she just saw this
Speaker 4: particular murder as being an easier target. She didn't have
Speaker 4: to actually go out and find the victim as she
Speaker 4: did with the other four women. So, you know, she
Speaker 4: went there one morning around breakfast time, when nobody was around,
Speaker 4: and she had her drugged box of juice, and you know,
Speaker 4: apparently I guess she knew that her aunt in law
Speaker 4: had jewelry in the house. You know, gold jewelry is
Speaker 4: just very you know, it's very popular and Iran. You know,
Speaker 4: people love their gold jewelry there, and so you know,
Speaker 4: she knew she'd pash in and she obviously did.
Speaker 8: Now, the husband gets dragged into the first murder. She
Speaker 8: comes to him because, as you had mentioned, that she
Speaker 8: had difficulty actually getting rid of that body. She went
Speaker 8: back a couple of days after she had dumped it
Speaker 8: into the canal and it was still evidence people could
Speaker 8: see the body, so she employed her husband to help.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's the only time apparently that he was actually
Speaker 4: involved in anything. She did finally get his body pushed
Speaker 4: off like an overpass and it fell down below, And
Speaker 4: as you mentioned, she went back to check a couple
Speaker 4: of days later and there was the wrapped up bodies
Speaker 4: still down there and she needed help moving it. She
Speaker 4: wanted to move it underneath the overpass so it couldn't
Speaker 4: be seen from above. And that's where she recruited her husband.
Speaker 4: And I'm actually kind of surprised by that, you know,
Speaker 4: I would be surprised that she would even have asked
Speaker 4: him under the circumstances. But maybe she explained about the
Speaker 4: harassment as she was getting from him and he went
Speaker 4: along with it. But from everything that came after that,
Speaker 4: he was not involved whatsoever in the serial killings of
Speaker 4: the women and apparently didn't know about them.
Speaker 8: Now, let's talk about how she could possibly be a
Speaker 8: victim and how you write that there is any sympathy
Speaker 8: for this killer.
Speaker 4: Well, you know her circumstances. She was quite estranged from
Speaker 4: her family, the financial issues. You know, her husband was
Speaker 4: out of work and he was also a drug addict.
Speaker 4: He did not seem to contribute in any way to
Speaker 4: the household financially or even moral support or taking care
Speaker 4: of the kids. And everything fell on her shoulders. Again,
Speaker 4: she has this child with cerebral palsy who needs treatment.
Speaker 4: This costs money. She had also lost the employment she
Speaker 4: had she was a driving instructor, and the car that
Speaker 4: she used there was an accident, the car needed repairs.
Speaker 4: She didn't have money for the repairs. She didn't even
Speaker 4: have money to keep paying the payments on the car.
Speaker 4: So there was any income gone right there. Husband's not contributing.
Speaker 4: She even said in an interview that he did not
Speaker 4: do his job as a husband or provider or father.
Speaker 4: Her mother, which I mean, there's been references that this
Speaker 4: was she targeted these women as a mother image kind
Speaker 4: of thing, and you know that may be true. Her
Speaker 4: mother seemed to be acting against her it every return
Speaker 4: when creditors came looking for Mahine, and they would be
Speaker 4: like even going to her mother's house. Her mother helpfully
Speaker 4: gave them Mahin's address phone number, so they can go
Speaker 4: and harass her for you know, these debts. She apparently
Speaker 4: there was an inheritance from her father that the mother
Speaker 4: prevented her from getting. So's there's money that could have
Speaker 4: solved a lot of problems, helped her with her child,
Speaker 4: helped her with the household bills that was prevented. So
Speaker 4: her mother doesn't sound like she was a very nice person,
Speaker 4: were very supportive or really cared about her. So you've
Speaker 4: got that going on, got these financial pressures. She got
Speaker 4: into more debt because she took out a supposed loan
Speaker 4: government loan. Found out it was a con there was
Speaker 4: no loan. The guy conned her, So then she had
Speaker 4: more debts. So all of this stuff is just piling
Speaker 4: and piling and piling up on her. And no, it
Speaker 4: doesn't justify going out and murdering women and stealing their gold,
Speaker 4: of course it doesn't. But you know, there's always another side.
Speaker 4: And in a way, she was a victim herself, and
Speaker 4: perhaps it was never going to end well for her.
Speaker 8: Yeah, she read she was only permitted to go to
Speaker 8: grade three. She was married at fourteen, and all this misfortune,
Speaker 8: but also that she hated her mother and decided to
Speaker 8: take revenge.
Speaker 4: Well, can you blame her? Really?
Speaker 8: Yeah?
Speaker 4: Yeah, like I said this her, she certainly didn't seem
Speaker 4: to get much support from her family. I mean, she
Speaker 4: had siblings and everything, and you know, she was very
Speaker 4: Everyone who knew her said she was a lovely lady.
Speaker 4: She was very lovable. I mean even the people who
Speaker 4: had under arrest said that, you know, she just it's yeah,
Speaker 4: you know, there's just sometimes you just don't know what
Speaker 4: we're a person, what a person could be driven to,
Speaker 4: and it's just tragic no matter how we look at it.
Speaker 8: Yeah, she read. She was convicted on six counts of
Speaker 8: robbery and six counts of premeditated murder. For the robbery,
Speaker 8: she received twenty four months, but seventy four lashes of
Speaker 8: the murder.
Speaker 4: Yeah. The death penalty, yeah, yeah, she was hanged.
Speaker 7: Yeah.
Speaker 8: She said some interesting things, not in her own defense,
Speaker 8: regarding whether she should receive the death penalty.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that she should be executed six times or something
Speaker 4: to that effect. She said in an interview. I mean,
Speaker 4: she obviously knew what she did. She wasn't trying to
Speaker 4: excuse it or you know, fluff it off. She knew
Speaker 4: she was guilty, and I mean, obviously, deep down she
Speaker 4: was sickened by the fact that she did these things.
Speaker 4: But you know, as I said, there's just no telling
Speaker 4: what someone's going to do when they're pushed against the
Speaker 4: wall and when they're totally desperate like that.
Speaker 8: You spoke to some filmmakers that did an award winning
Speaker 8: documentary and you talk, got a chance to talk to them.
Speaker 8: Tell us what that conversation into.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I was really that was an extra perk when
Speaker 4: I found out that there was a documentary film made
Speaker 4: in twenty eighteen. I don't know if people are aware
Speaker 4: of it, but I mean, there is a vibrant filmmaking
Speaker 4: culture in Iran. They have film festivals and just like
Speaker 4: other countries do, and the film, which is called Mahine,
Speaker 4: has won several awards at different film festivals in Iran.
Speaker 4: So I spoke with the director and also the actor
Speaker 4: who played Mahine in the film, and I just kind
Speaker 4: of wanted to get their feedback about how they felt.
Speaker 4: And overall the impression was that, for instance, the media
Speaker 4: coverage this case got that it was very very one sided,
Speaker 4: In fact, the actor she said that the media made
Speaker 4: things up to just kind of pad their journalism about
Speaker 4: the case. One thing that they both stressed was what
Speaker 4: appealed to them the most about being involved in this
Speaker 4: film was that the social issues need to be looked
Speaker 4: at and not Yes, you know, you could just be
Speaker 4: going along in your life, your everyday life, but then
Speaker 4: circumstances get on top of you and there's and if
Speaker 4: you don't have any kind of support or help, things
Speaker 4: could go very, very bad, as they did for Mahine.
Speaker 4: So the social issues thing was very big with both
Speaker 4: the director and the actor.
Speaker 8: They made a fascinating statement. They said Mahine was condemned
Speaker 8: more because she was a woman rather than a man.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean I think that's probably not too surprising,
Speaker 4: and especially for Iran, that's even less surprising.
Speaker 8: Yeah, exactly, and not just Iran, I would say, though.
Speaker 4: No, no, that's true, that's true. But I think also
Speaker 4: you know the fact that I think being so powerless
Speaker 4: in that kind of environment would have is even worse.
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Speaker 8: Now, another one of the stories that's in this collection
Speaker 8: is Ruth Schneider, the original femme fatale, and you take
Speaker 8: us to January thirteenth, nineteen twenty eight, front page News,
Speaker 8: New York Daily News, and the headline in big letters
Speaker 8: and explanation mark dead.
Speaker 4: Yes, this famous Ruth Snyder case. This was a woman
Speaker 4: who was very vilified by the media and the press.
Speaker 4: And we're, you know, we're at the beginning of the
Speaker 4: twentieth century. I guess I suppose that's no surprise. You
Speaker 4: know what, actually how this story jumped out at me
Speaker 4: was the fact that this case is what inspired the
Speaker 4: film Double Indemnity. And I'm a film noir fan and
Speaker 4: that is my absolute favorite film noir. And when I
Speaker 4: saw this story come in from the writer, I was like, yes,
Speaker 4: this is definitely going in the book. And the whole
Speaker 4: thing does end up becoming an insurance scam. But essentially,
Speaker 4: you know Ruth Snyder, you know, she was a young
Speaker 4: lady stenographer whatever she was, and she meets this man
Speaker 4: accidentally and ends up marrying him, and you know, he's
Speaker 4: well established, and she figures it's a good match. It
Speaker 4: seemed like it was a good match. Then as the
Speaker 4: marriage progresses, there's a lot of he kind of just
Speaker 4: doesn't care anymore. You know, they used to have this
Speaker 4: more of a glittering lifestyle and whining and dining and
Speaker 4: going out on the town, and then it's like the
Speaker 4: minute they got married, it was like, I'll just stay home.
Speaker 4: I don't care. And you know, Ruth's a young lady.
Speaker 4: She wants to go out, she wants to have fun.
Speaker 4: You know, same thing happened when they had a child
Speaker 4: that he just wasn't that bothered. And so, I mean,
Speaker 4: I suppose it's only natural that her eyes straight and
Speaker 4: she met a gentleman and began an affair with him,
Speaker 4: and things spiraled from there.
Speaker 8: You say that this husband, Albert, he was furious when
Speaker 8: she told him she was pregnant, and even more furious
Speaker 8: when he told her when she told him that she
Speaker 8: was having a daughter.
Speaker 4: Yeah. Yeah, again, doesn't sound like a very nice.
Speaker 8: Guy, doesn't And he became a big drinker and not
Speaker 8: a nice guy when he drank either.
Speaker 4: Correct. So obviously we've got Ruth is becoming increasingly involved
Speaker 4: with his jud Gray, who she met and she's you know,
Speaker 4: her husband, so she says threatened to kill her on
Speaker 4: more than one occasion as well, again with as you mentioned,
Speaker 4: the alcohol and all of that. He was not a
Speaker 4: nice drunk and so you know, she tells this stuff
Speaker 4: to her lover and they kind of decide, well, you know,
Speaker 4: we better do some thing about this before you know,
Speaker 4: he hucks first and kills you. So they hatch a
Speaker 4: plan and it involves insurance fraud, which is basically, you know,
Speaker 4: the double indemnity I referenced earlier, which is a major
Speaker 4: part of the story. Is you know that you'll get
Speaker 4: double the insurance if someone is either through suicide or
Speaker 4: murder or whatever. And so that was the plan, was
Speaker 4: to get this nice chunk of money and get rid
Speaker 4: of elopers. But you know, she ruth tried to kill
Speaker 4: her husband several times before. It's almost comical that it's
Speaker 4: as if no matter what she did, it didn't work.
Speaker 4: I think she tried to get him in the garage
Speaker 4: with the car with the exhaust fumes. That didn't work.
Speaker 4: She tried all kinds of things and in the sky
Speaker 4: just wouldn't go. I guess they figured, well, Okay, we
Speaker 4: need to come up with a plan, and they did
Speaker 4: come up with a so called burglary gone wrong plan.
Speaker 8: You say, though, that she just came to be. An
Speaker 8: insurance man came to the door, and he was very
Speaker 8: very ambitious because she wanted to take out fifty thousand
Speaker 8: dollars on her husband in this double indemnity, and she
Speaker 8: obviously needed her husband's approval and permission and signature. So,
Speaker 8: as you're write, this insurance man was so eager to
Speaker 8: do business that he allowed her to set the details
Speaker 8: on how that would happen, and she said she would
Speaker 8: get a blank state signature on a blank piece of
Speaker 8: paper and use that.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Essentially, out of all the insurance that was taken out
Speaker 4: on him, only one I believe was legitimate, and it's
Speaker 4: the only one that got paid off at the end,
Speaker 4: and it was very paltry. But yes, so the insurance
Speaker 4: guy was also up on fraud and forgery charges, so
Speaker 4: he was not innocent in this either, although I don't
Speaker 4: think he suspected where this was going to go. But yeah,
Speaker 4: so it was basically yes to cash in on this insurance.
Speaker 4: As whenever you have, like for instance, partners in crime,
Speaker 4: I think we've seen it time and time again that
Speaker 4: when they're both finally caught, then the finger pointing starts
Speaker 4: and it's like no, no, no, he did it, she
Speaker 4: did it. And that is basically how this all what
Speaker 4: ends up happening here is each one accuses the other
Speaker 4: and that they're the ringmaster, they're the ones who thought
Speaker 4: of it, they're the ones who did the actual killing.
Speaker 4: So it became one great, big mess. But basically they
Speaker 4: both ended up falling down for it.
Speaker 8: It's an incredible plan that they cook up to be
Speaker 8: able to kill the husband.
Speaker 4: Well, yeah, very very slick actually, because they set it
Speaker 4: up first. Where As I said, it was staged as
Speaker 4: a burglary gone wrong, but they actually got very clever
Speaker 4: where they set it up beforehand where jud Ruth's lover,
Speaker 4: there was supposed prowler who was spotted maybe a few
Speaker 4: days or a week or so before, so there was
Speaker 4: already port of this supposed prowler who was seen around
Speaker 4: the house, so that set it up beautifully for the
Speaker 4: actual burglary, whereas the prowler obviously gained entry sometime in
Speaker 4: the middle of the night, Ruth and her husband Albert
Speaker 4: had come home from a party, which a very unfortunate
Speaker 4: party because Albert had been drinking and he was being
Speaker 4: nasty and there was this fight, and so they just
Speaker 4: left and they came home. The daughter was staying somewhere
Speaker 4: else because you know, obviously she had to be looked
Speaker 4: after while her parents were out, and so Ruth cleverly
Speaker 4: she left the door unlocked so jud could come in.
Speaker 4: And the whole plan was basically to kill Albert in
Speaker 4: his bed, and then Ruth would stage it so that
Speaker 4: she supposedly was also almost killed, you know, like whacked
Speaker 4: over the head and was found unconscious. But you know,
Speaker 4: it all unraveled because all these things she said that
Speaker 4: was done, and being unconscious for hours and hours and hours,
Speaker 4: there was no actual evidence that, well, there's nothing wrong
Speaker 4: with your head. There's no evidence that somebody whacked you
Speaker 4: on the head that would render you unconscious for several hours. So,
Speaker 4: I mean, her whole story and all this stuff she
Speaker 4: was telling the police, they started to say, hmm, this
Speaker 4: is not adding up.
Speaker 8: Yeah, it's interesting too that the husband is found with
Speaker 8: a picture wire tightly wrapped around his neck. And then
Speaker 8: you talk about all of this evidence, blatant evidence against
Speaker 8: her found and yet both of these people start pointing
Speaker 8: the finger, and both of them come up and especially her,
Speaker 8: with some incredible stories to try to explain.
Speaker 4: Oh. Absolutely, yeah. I mean, well, Judd himself set the stage,
Speaker 4: you know as well. He was supposedly out of town,
Speaker 4: and he set it up where he was like, you know,
Speaker 4: seeing at the front you know, at the front desk,
Speaker 4: or he was checking his messages, or he took a bath.
Speaker 4: There was you know, water in the bathtub in the morning.
Speaker 4: So it's like, well, no, he's out of town. How
Speaker 4: could he possibly be you know, in New York or
Speaker 4: wherever doing this when he was not you know, nowhere
Speaker 4: near there. He was at this hotel in another city.
Speaker 4: So I mean, he quite cleverly set it up. But
Speaker 4: his story fell through because of a very cunchyentious hotel maid,
Speaker 4: which I guess they never expected that to happen, who
Speaker 4: kept something that ended up proving that out that jud
Speaker 4: story was also fabricated. But you know what's interesting is
Speaker 4: is Ruth also kind of played herself up as this
Speaker 4: victim coming in, you know, to the trial with her
Speaker 4: rosary beads and the whole thing.
Speaker 8: Yes, but they found some damning evidence, like a chloroform
Speaker 8: rag under his head, the husband's head. Her daughter awoke
Speaker 8: because the mother was making a lot of noise, but
Speaker 8: her feet were tied but her hands weren't tied. So
Speaker 8: and later she said, well, she just got bored waiting
Speaker 8: for somebody to discover. So all that planning was for
Speaker 8: naught because the post murder cover up was very, very sloppy.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, you know, she just I guess she was
Speaker 4: a self defeating thing, you know that she's she's bored
Speaker 4: waiting around for somebody to discover her being tied up,
Speaker 4: and then she goes and gets herself into the hallway,
Speaker 4: and that obviously starts throwing up some questions somewhere. Perhaps
Speaker 4: they would have gotten away with it if she would
Speaker 4: have stuck to the plan, but she she didn't.
Speaker 8: Yeah, and you just mentioned about that person that cleaned
Speaker 8: up the room but also took that wastebasket out of
Speaker 8: the room once she knew what had happened and then
Speaker 8: called police after with that. Without that, there might not
Speaker 8: have been the verdict or the result for police exactly.
Speaker 4: Yeah. I believe it was a train ticket that was
Speaker 4: found in the waste paper basket. And how could you
Speaker 4: you know, if you weren't in that if you weren't
Speaker 4: on the train, if you hadn't been in that city,
Speaker 4: then how would there be a train ticket there? So
Speaker 4: that unraveled it. And you know, jud enlisted a friend
Speaker 4: of his as well to kind of, you know, help
Speaker 4: him cover his tracks, although that friend had no idea
Speaker 4: what it involved. He thought it was some kind of
Speaker 4: verbal romantic twist.
Speaker 8: It's very interesting, just like the last story, when we
Speaker 8: said that the documentary journalist had remarked that this, the
Speaker 8: woman involved, was much more persecuted than any man would
Speaker 8: have in this particular case. You say that Ruth had
Speaker 8: already had been convicted in the court of public opinion,
Speaker 8: and yet and yet the husband had sympathetic treatment in
Speaker 8: the press.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 4: I Ruth was really vilified by this. I mean, you
Speaker 4: know that she became this this hated person, this this horrible,
Speaker 4: horrible monster for doing what she did. You know, no
Speaker 4: one talked about the abuse she got from her husband, Albert,
Speaker 4: or even the fact that you know, he apparently threatened
Speaker 4: to kill her, which you know, I can easily believe
Speaker 4: that that was true going by his behavior toward her.
Speaker 4: But yeah, I mean, the press hated her. Politicians hated her.
Speaker 4: Everybody hated her. She had, you know, disparaging nicknames in
Speaker 4: the press, which is I think we've seen that with
Speaker 4: many cases though that's not unusual. But yeah, I mean
Speaker 4: when she was finally executed, it was like a celebration
Speaker 4: that had happened, almost like you know, when Ted Bundy
Speaker 4: was executed. That that was like people did celebrate that.
Speaker 4: But I don't know if you can compare Ruth Snyder
Speaker 4: to Ted Bundy. I mean, you know what I mean,
Speaker 4: I just don't think there's any comparison.
Speaker 8: No, And the apparently the defense you write was very
Speaker 8: simple for her husband was that he was dominated by
Speaker 8: a serpent like person with extraordinary powers and he was helpless.
Speaker 4: Yeah, her lover, Yeah good, Yeah, Yeah, I mean it's
Speaker 4: laughable the way that it was described in the Pressed.
Speaker 4: You know, she was that hence the name of the story,
Speaker 4: the original femme fatale. I mean, that's I suppose that's
Speaker 4: a valid point. You know, she she, you know, roped
Speaker 4: in this poor innocent young man into this horrible plot.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 8: Now, there's a part of the story that I mentioned
Speaker 8: when I spoke to you earlier that our audience has
Speaker 8: heard about and this is this famous photo of an
Speaker 8: electric chair, someone being executed in an electric chair and
Speaker 8: secretly a photo being taken. Tell us about that.
Speaker 4: Yes, well, I mean, you weren't supposed to take photos
Speaker 4: in the execution chamber of a photojournalist did get in there,
Speaker 4: and he strapped a camera to his to his leg,
Speaker 4: to his calf, I believe, and I guess obviously he
Speaker 4: had to tug up his trouser cuff a bit so
Speaker 4: that the camera would be there, and so he snapped
Speaker 4: the photo right at the time of execution. But it
Speaker 4: was it was it was a bit shaky, and so
Speaker 4: as a result, I mean, he had this million dollar
Speaker 4: photo and they had to kind of work on it
Speaker 4: and touch it up, and it almost looks like a painting.
Speaker 4: But yeah, that's the actual photo that was taken at
Speaker 4: the moment of execution and the moment that people, you know, celebrated.
Speaker 4: But because of all the hot water he was in
Speaker 4: taking this photo when he should not have, it seems
Speaker 4: like he left the country for a while just to
Speaker 4: kind of wait for things to cool down.
Speaker 8: He wrote. In nineteen thirty six, James Kaine, a reporter
Speaker 8: who had covered the story, wrote a serialized story for
Speaker 8: a magazine which led to a novel, which you say
Speaker 8: led to inevitably the film production of Double Indemnity.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, that was It was the story first and
Speaker 4: then the novel and then Yeah, Raymond Chandler and Billy Wilder,
Speaker 4: those names should be familiar to people who are film books.
Speaker 4: They adapted it into a screenplay with Barbara Stanwick. Fred McMurray,
Speaker 4: I love best film. I totally love that film. Of course,
Speaker 4: it was definitely more fictionalized and the killing is different.
Speaker 4: And in this case, in the film version, obviously we
Speaker 4: have the insurance man who becomes embroiled in this plot
Speaker 4: to kill the husband, so it's quite different from the
Speaker 4: actual Ruth Snyder.
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Speaker 8: Now we have time to talk about one more incredible
Speaker 8: story in this incredible collection, and this is Innocence taken
Speaker 8: Mike Brown. And the setting is in Bridgewater, Nova Scotia, Canada,
Speaker 8: population eighty eight hundred, a sixty minute drive from the
Speaker 8: province's capital, which is Halifax. You say, where murder was
Speaker 8: exceedingly rare. And the author, Mike Brown, worked at a
Speaker 8: coffee shop and a convenience store called the Candy Center.
Speaker 8: And one of the customers there was a person named
Speaker 8: Joseph John Laurendaal, a talented musician. So you take us
Speaker 8: to Halloween nineteen ninety two, or in this story, Halloween
Speaker 8: nineteen ninety two, where John was stabbed in his car
Speaker 8: at a poorly lit trailer park. What happens to John
Speaker 8: after that?
Speaker 4: Well, this was this is one of the things that
Speaker 4: shook up the whole town, is a fact that there
Speaker 4: was this this murder. And you know, the author, Mike
Speaker 4: sets this up is that's the only murder that he
Speaker 4: can actually remember happening, and I'm trying to think of
Speaker 4: what it was happened to this actual guy, but it
Speaker 4: was a manslaughter case. Apparently this guy was supposedly inex
Speaker 4: car smoking a joint and John made a supposed homosexual
Speaker 4: advance and he was murdered because of that. And there
Speaker 4: was a connection with the fire department when the author
Speaker 4: who had actually was a member of the junior fire
Speaker 4: department and he knew several of these people who were
Speaker 4: also involved in that. So that's how he knew Charles,
Speaker 4: Charles Wicker, who was the killer of the gentleman of John.
Speaker 4: And so the details just were something that, you know,
Speaker 4: it was just one of these things that everybody just
Speaker 4: talked about and they just it was I guess they're
Speaker 4: one big killing that reverberated in the town. But that
Speaker 4: was quickly replaced in two thousand and eight when Carrissa
Speaker 4: Boudreaux disappeared, a twelve year old girl, which is the
Speaker 4: subject of this story Innocence Taken, where it turns out
Speaker 4: because people thought it was a kidnapping or maybe somehow
Speaker 4: she ran away from home because there was a lot
Speaker 4: of things going on in the household. She was upset,
Speaker 4: she was frustrated. You know, there was you know, a
Speaker 4: lot of things going on with her mother, with the
Speaker 4: husband or and the partner in and out different households,
Speaker 4: living with this, with her mother here, living with the father,
Speaker 4: living with the stepfather. So I mean she was kind
Speaker 4: of a textbook case of someone of a little girl
Speaker 4: who might run away from home. But that's not quite
Speaker 4: what happened, because eventually her body is discovered, and it's
Speaker 4: very surprising who is the person who killed her.
Speaker 8: You're read about January twenty seven, two thousand and eight,
Speaker 8: and Carissa is a typical days in her room playing
Speaker 8: video games. And you say that at that time she
Speaker 8: felt very very isolated with this situation with her mother
Speaker 8: and her boyfriend and being away from her father, and
Speaker 8: so she felt isolated, and you right that her mother
Speaker 8: felt irritated by Chris's behavior and suggested a car ride
Speaker 8: for a private conversation around four pm. She dressed in
Speaker 8: yes and deans and just a T shirt and a
Speaker 8: black hoodie and a winter vest and crocs for shoes,
Speaker 8: which will not be appropriate for that kind of weather.
Speaker 8: But they were going for a ride, and so tell
Speaker 8: us what Penny says when she reports her daughter missing.
Speaker 8: What does she tell police happened?
Speaker 4: Well, she is, they're at a supermarket parking lot, and
Speaker 4: so she supposedly left her daughter in the car. Her
Speaker 4: daughter was quite angry apparently, and then she comes back
Speaker 4: fifteen minutes later and there's Chris is not in the car,
Speaker 4: so supposedly, you know, her mother saying she's searching the
Speaker 4: parking lot, driving all over the neighborhood, looking around for hours,
Speaker 4: and then she finally calls the police. So, I mean,
Speaker 4: you know, it clearly seems like, you know, it's a
Speaker 4: kid who's just run off. Mind you, as you mentioned,
Speaker 4: her attire was certainly not suitable for winter in Nova Scotia,
Speaker 4: so you have to wonder, well, she couldn't have gone
Speaker 4: very far. This whole thing just snowballed and snowballed. The
Speaker 4: whole town is starting to panic. You know what happened
Speaker 4: to this little girl?
Speaker 8: This?
Speaker 4: You know something people are searching, everybody's out looking. Nothing
Speaker 4: was actually thought that there's anything suspicious that you know,
Speaker 4: perhaps a family member was involved. That's not even something
Speaker 4: that anyone considered at that time.
Speaker 8: Yes, when you talk about Penny doing these emotional press conferences,
Speaker 8: crying and asking for her daughter to return, and in fact,
Speaker 8: there was two press conferences and she made these emotional pleas.
Speaker 4: Yeah. Yeah, I think we've probably seen that in cases
Speaker 4: before where where a parent was involved in the killing
Speaker 4: of a child, of their own child. But yeah, exactly so,
Speaker 4: I mean, you know it was it was just everybody
Speaker 4: was on the father, and you know, the father did
Speaker 4: not have anything to do with this, so let's clarify that.
Speaker 4: But yeah, so, I mean it was quite a convincing
Speaker 4: performance for the cameras.
Speaker 8: You say too that the police are again not helped
Speaker 8: by the public with these several unconfirmed sightings, and so
Speaker 8: there was no reason to doubt Penny's account. There was,
Speaker 8: you right, though, online speculation at that time. But the
Speaker 8: LA have read le Haye River was searched by divers
Speaker 8: from the RC and PISO. There was helicopters, there was
Speaker 8: in an extensive search for this young girl.
Speaker 4: Yeah. Yeah, it's it's strange that, I mean, they did
Speaker 4: not find anything. But then it was again it's sort
Speaker 4: of an accidental thing where one I think it was
Speaker 4: a truck driver or somebody who was driving on this
Speaker 4: highway saw something at the side of the road. It
Speaker 4: was a pink croc you know, the shoe. And then
Speaker 4: some time later again something totally random, with his family
Speaker 4: passing through town. They stopped there was a little boy
Speaker 4: he wanted to, you know, have a little leave at
Speaker 4: the side of the road, and that's when he saw
Speaker 4: what appeared to be a body down in like a
Speaker 4: ravine or whatever it was. And that's when they finally
Speaker 4: discovered that it was Penny. I'm sorry, Chrisa. It was
Speaker 4: all very cleverly staged as well, because it looked, for
Speaker 4: all intents and purposes, like she'd been a victim of
Speaker 4: a sexual assault, you know, with a clotheser all, you know,
Speaker 4: with pants down, braw you know, a skew or whatever.
Speaker 4: So I mean it looked like definitely that's what would
Speaker 4: have happened, and you know, that would be the first
Speaker 4: thing people would assume. Anyways, you know, a young girl's missing,
Speaker 4: that's generally sadly their fate in many cases, very very
Speaker 4: cleverly staged, so once again you would not suspect it
Speaker 4: was like, you know, her own mother.
Speaker 8: It's interesting too that there are red marks consistent with
Speaker 8: ligature marks at her neck and growing specifically, and they
Speaker 8: police determined that somebody had placed the body this was
Speaker 8: not the crime scene, so that they placed the body
Speaker 8: at the scene shortly after death, and a lot of
Speaker 8: evidence was held back by police obviously, of course, but
Speaker 8: when Penny and Vernon were notified about the discovery, they
Speaker 8: react as strangely. Police said, yeah, it.
Speaker 4: Was just not really any emotion. Vernon was Penny's current
Speaker 4: boyfriend with whom she was living and this again created
Speaker 4: problems in the household with Carrisa because she just didn't
Speaker 4: like having Vernon living with them, you know, she just
Speaker 4: didn't want them there. It's not that he did anything,
Speaker 4: but in Vernon's case, you know, he didn't actually he
Speaker 4: did not actually have any involvement with what happened at Carrisa.
Speaker 4: But but it seems that he suspected his girlfriend was
Speaker 4: involved and he was concerned, I suppose, really watching his
Speaker 4: own back, not wanting to say too much because he
Speaker 4: didn't want to be implicated in this.
Speaker 8: It's very interesting that police are suspicious, so they put
Speaker 8: the couple under surveillance.
Speaker 4: Yeah, they planned the whole Little mister big operation is
Speaker 4: known in Canadian law enforcement. I'm not actually sure. I
Speaker 4: imagine it must be elsewhere as well. But how it
Speaker 4: was set up was this is how they actually got them.
Speaker 4: For people who don't know what a mister Big operation is.
Speaker 4: They all law enforcements sort of set up this, especially
Speaker 4: in a cold case when they don't have anything and
Speaker 4: they need to try to prompt some kind of thing
Speaker 4: to happen, they set it up, whereas they kind of
Speaker 4: suck you in. For instance, in this case, we've got
Speaker 4: Penny and Vernon. They're kind of persona non grata. They've
Speaker 4: actually left town because it was just so unpleasant. Already.
Speaker 4: Vernon had been in jail for something or other I
Speaker 4: can't quite recall, but he meets someone in jail who
Speaker 4: befriends him, and they keep running into these the same guy.
Speaker 4: Apparently there's supposedly money to be made. They get more
Speaker 4: involved with this guy, and he's going to introduce you
Speaker 4: to this one and then this one and eventually the
Speaker 4: mister big person who's running the show. So they get
Speaker 4: you to do little tasks, small ones at first, they
Speaker 4: get bigger and bigger and bigger, generally involving something illegal,
Speaker 4: but also to prove that you know you're you're going
Speaker 4: to be you know, into this and you're not going
Speaker 4: to you know, run off her or perhaps rat on them.
Speaker 4: They want you to disclose something, something about yourself, something
Speaker 4: that in a way they can hold back as you know,
Speaker 4: as a guarantee. And that's how it ends up being
Speaker 4: where Penny tells them exactly what happened, that she killed
Speaker 4: her daughter, Carissa, and she describes in detail exactly what
Speaker 4: she did, and that's when the noose comes down.
Speaker 8: Yes, it's interesting she says that her daughter said, as
Speaker 8: she strangled her, mommy don't.
Speaker 4: Yeah. That really that was something that upset everybody, even
Speaker 4: the judge, even the judge in the trial was just
Speaker 4: so sickened by that. I mean, it's just almost mind
Speaker 4: boggling that she kept going to that level that she
Speaker 4: did to totally kill her daughter, with her daughter pleading
Speaker 4: with her, but I don't know. She definitely wanted rid
Speaker 4: of her.
Speaker 8: And that was that as a result of this extraordinary
Speaker 8: mister Big operation, which now I believe is outlawed in Canada.
Speaker 8: But she was arrested in June fourteenth and sentenced in
Speaker 8: two thousand and nine. Again, the judge was disgusted, but
Speaker 8: he gave her twenty years to parole eligibility life sentence
Speaker 8: being the twenty five years to life. But shockingly, I'm
Speaker 8: doing some math here, the parole board is got this
Speaker 8: woman beginning to have day passes, and maybe you could
Speaker 8: I don't know if you could tell us about day passes,
Speaker 8: but they have day passes in advance of a potential
Speaker 8: first parole hearing, and so since twenty eighteen, she's had
Speaker 8: day passes outside of that prison.
Speaker 4: Yeah. Well, actually, you know, they gave her a lesser
Speaker 4: sentence for the reason that they felt that so much
Speaker 4: pain had already been caused and they just wanted to
Speaker 4: put paid to it. So hence that opened the door
Speaker 4: for this whole parole thing. So yeah, she was being
Speaker 4: granted these day passes to do like personal things. So
Speaker 4: there were like supposed visits for church services and things
Speaker 4: along those those things, and each she would get more
Speaker 4: and more and more of these passes. And of course,
Speaker 4: obviously nobody is happy about this, and there was protests
Speaker 4: lodged about it, but you know, there are some of
Speaker 4: these things are just she's just getting more and more
Speaker 4: of these, even escorted visits to friends as I get again,
Speaker 4: like the church, personal development activities, even so I don't know.
Speaker 4: It almost seems like maybe they should have held out
Speaker 4: for a stricter sentence, or.
Speaker 8: Are you going to do your crimes come to Canada.
Speaker 8: I want to thank you very much, Mitzi so Retto
Speaker 8: for coming on and talking about your latest collection, Women
Speaker 8: Who Murder. For those that might want to take another
Speaker 8: look or a further look, I should say, could you
Speaker 8: tell us about your website and any social media you do?
Speaker 4: Sure? Well, I have my main website, which is Mitzisoretto
Speaker 4: dot com, and I'm on pretty much every social media
Speaker 4: site there is, from the former Twitter to everything you know,
Speaker 4: blue Sky, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok. So I have all my
Speaker 4: social media links on my website and all my books
Speaker 4: the books up there as well. And it's got some
Speaker 4: stores that you can find it if you want to
Speaker 4: just click on those and basically that's it. So, you know,
Speaker 4: I hope everyone will find the book to be a
Speaker 4: good book to read. I hope so we've all felt
Speaker 4: that it is. We've worked very hard.
Speaker 8: So absolutely, thank you so much for this interview, Mitzi
Speaker 8: Soretto Women Who Murder. Thank you so much for this interview,
Speaker 8: and you have a great evening and good night,