Speaker 1: You're listening to the Mind over Murder podcast.
Speaker 2: 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.
Speaker 3: 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.
Speaker 4: Welcome to Mind Ever Murderer. I'm Kristin Dilly.
Speaker 2: And I'm Bill Thomas, and we're.
Speaker 4: Joined today by Renee Williams of the National Center for
Victims of Crime or Renee. Thank you so much for
joining us today. I Mind Never.
Speaker 5: Murderer, absolutely, thank you for having me.
Speaker 4: Can you go ahead and start by telling us a
little bit about your educational and professional background, how you
got into this particular role at NCVC.
Speaker 5: It's been a slightly circuitous route here. I actually started
as a theater major in undergrad and my degree actually
says acting. That was in Pittsburgh. But while I was
in acting school, I realized that was not the way
I wanted to use the talents that I had been
given and spend the rest of my life. So I
went to law school after that and graduated from the
University of Pittsburgh grapesed around for a while in corporate
law and in litigation before becoming a nonprofit executive. And
I started out at an organization called Laurel Legal Services
in Pennsylvania and ended up coming to the National Center
for Victims of Crime. So what I do now is
a little bit of a blend of both my legal
studies but also nonprofit management.
Speaker 4: And for anybody who does not know about the National
Center for Victims of Crime, can you tell us a
little bit about what services it offers and how it
actually got started.
Speaker 5: Sure, So, I think for your podcast listeners, I'll take
the second part of the question first because it'll be
a little more interesting. We actually were founded by one
of the true crime drama in the United States, which
was the Sunny Bombuloh case. Sonny was a very wealthy Eres.
She was also royalty. She had married a prince, and
her second husband, Klaud Bambuloh, attempted to kill her by
injecting her with insulin. He was having multiple affairs. Their
story is actually hold in a movie called A Reversal
of Fortune. Jeremy Irons won his first Academy Award for it.
He played Claud Bambulah and Glenn Cloth played Sonny Bombuloh.
But really the good part of the story is that
Sonny's children were so appalled by how they were treated
throughout the justice system. Because this is really before victim's
rights were a movement. They took all of their inheritance
to found our center. So it was originally the Sunny
Vombulo Victims Center, and it's developed. We've gone under three
name changes, I believe to become the National Center for
Victims of Crime. But we really started as one of
the first advocacy organizations in the United States to make
sure that victims had a voice in the justice system
and that they had rights and that those rights were acknowledged.
So we've developed from that advocacy center to providing victim
services as well. So we still provide some advocacy, but
we also make sure that we have two hotlines for victims,
so we're providing direct victim services, and we also train
anybody who helps a victim in the justice system, so judges,
police officers, anybody who sees a victim or is helping
the victims through that justice process, we're in their training them,
making sure they're trauma informed.
Speaker 2: When we talk about looking for podcasts and other media
outlets to be victim focused and survivor focused, you all
are actually taking this from a much broader perspective, which
is all of the components and participants in the justice
system all need to be thinking about this. Are we
on the right track?
Speaker 5: So our true crime work is only a small piece
of the work we do, and it actually just sprung
up in the past two years. Really one of our
strongest suits is making sure that we are working with
all victim services to make sure that they are not
doing more harm to victims in the long run.
Speaker 2: When you say they RENEE, who's the they you're referencing.
Speaker 5: Judges, prosecutors, police officers. It's interesting because there are a
lot of times and this is not answering your question,
but it's going off on a tangent on my own.
I will keep under control later, but we're going to
talk about this right now. There are a lot of
times that you will hear people say a victim's voice
is involved, and it's not truly. Prosecutors do amazing work.
They work very hard. They're an integral part of the
justice system, but they do not represent victims, either officially
in their formal tasks of being a prosecutor, but also unofficially.
So a lot of times, if you're watching true crime
shows or in policy decisions, folks will say, we talk
to the victims because the prosecutors stepped in. Prosecutors are
not trained to be victims centered, and their job is
not to represent victims. Their job is to ensure that
justice is done, and so that sometimes means not prosecuting
a case. That sometimes means making decisions that are adverse
to what the victims might like. Police officers are the
same way, and sometimes folks see those two elements as
being victims centered, but they're not. And so we do
a lot of the training on how those specific groups
and really anybody within the justice system can work with
victims in a more meaningful way.
Speaker 4: At INCVC, you have a vast array of resources that
are available for anyone who's been a victim of crime,
and that's either directly, like my podcast partner here, a
secondary victim because he had a family member who was victimized.
So what are some of the things that you, as
a nonprofit can offer to crime victims when they reach
out to ENDCBC.
Speaker 5: Again, we do have the two hotlines, one is DC
based and one is national, and we have not a
dozen victim assistant specialists who are trained to walk somebody through.
We can do safety planning, we can point them to resources,
we can explain the laws and regulations in their state
to them, and we can also do warm handoffs two
more local resources. We also have an attorney referral service
that is available where we do try to connect victims
to civil attorneys if they'd like to pursue a lawsuit.
And then and again, a large part of what we
do is training other folks who interact with victims to
make sure that there is a consistent victim experience.
Speaker 4: One of the things that a lot of crime victims
in their families may not realize that they have is
a set of rights accorded to them through the Crime
Victims' Rights Act. Can you discuss what are some of
those rights that all crime victims are afforded and what
can NCVC do to help someone who feels that maybe
those rights have been violated or not upheld to the
greatest standard that they could be.
Speaker 5: So the rights that are codified are really, unfortunately only
applicable within the justice system if there is a prosecution.
By and large, those surround the right to be notified
and the right to be present. You have to remember
before the eighties, a lot of times victims and their
families were only viewed as witnesses. Drag somebody in and
let them do a testify, and then they trapes them out.
They didn't necessarily have the right to be present at
all hearings. We still see quite a bit of trapesing
over crime victims' rights when it involves the notification of
a release. So if your perpetrator is being released, you
do have a right to be notified. That often doesn't happen,
And where it came up very publicly recently is in
the anansied case. So that case was overturned. It wasn't
overturned on anything other than the victim's family was never
notified that the court was taking this action. That is
an absolute core tenant. They have a right to be
heard and they have a right to be present. Now,
what NCBC can do if individuals feel like these rights
are being violated is if they call, we can try
to point them in the direction of where they can go.
We can try to give them language surrounding what they
need to say to trigger those rights. Unfortunately, our justice
system still isn't set up for victims. So even with
all of these rights, that doesn't mean that they're going
to be enforced, and there's no overarching oversight bodies. So
I get a lot of emails with people saying this
is happening to me and you should punish them. I
don't have that mechanism, and unfortunately very few things do.
There are appeals courts where you can try to enforce rights,
and in certain cases they're ethics panels, but otherwise it's
still tough to make sure they're enforced if they're being violated.
Speaker 2: How the heck do stuff like this happened Renee? Why
are victims and survivors family members completely forgotten in this process?
Speaker 5: I think there are two answers. First, is we have
a constitution that is based in defendance rights. And I
don't disagree that's correct, but I think that we've let
the pendulum fly way too far onto that side. And
there's a wonderful meme out right now. It's talking about
women rights, but it actually applies to victim's rights too,
And when it says women's rights, it shows the pie
chart and it says, just because somebody else has rights,
doesn't mean you have rights taken away. This is not
a pie. There's not less rights for you. And I
think it's the same thing with victims rights. But people
don't quite understand that rights in the justice system aren't
a pie. Making sure that victim's rights are enforced doesn't
mean you take defendants rights away. But a lot of
people don't see it like that, and so there's been
a real focus on defendants rights. And I will say
the other issue we're seeing and it is where I
can really jork out, So stop me, give me the signal.
Speaker 4: And you want to set That's been a lot.
Speaker 5: Of this topic for ten years, and I'm passionate about it.
We have this thing called the justice gap in the
United States, and it's when are you poor enough to
get a lawyer? And when are you rich enough to
get a lawyer? And when you're very poor, when does
the lawyer attached? All criminal defendants get a lawyer. Not
going to sit here and argue about how great they are.
I know, I've heard it all. I've seen bad public
defe I've seen great public defenders. Doesn't matter. If you've
committed a crime, you get a public defender. Victims don't
ever get an attorney, first of all, but also we
don't get any attorney in the civil justice system, So
victims of domestic violence don't necessarily.
Speaker 4: Get an attorney.
Speaker 5: And it matters on how poor you are. And so
until that justice gap is addressed, until victims get representation
in court, their rights are still going to be at
play and possibly ignored.
Speaker 4: If you were queen of the justice system running the world,
whatever you want to call it, and you could add
some rights that all victims are guaranteed. What are some
of the things that you would want to add that
every victim is guaranteed no matter what.
Speaker 5: The funny thing is, I think those rights are already
there and they're codified. They're just not followed. Okay, that
is the right to have notice of any proceedings. That is,
the right to be present at all hearings and to
at least know what is happening. The only thing I
would add would be the right to have a voice
in all proceedings. I don't know how we would make
that happen, because a prosecutor, again does not represent the victim.
They represent the state, and in a criminal case, that's
going to be tough. But it's that a lot of
the actual laws are already there. It's just enacting them
and making sure that they are observed.
Speaker 4: Just as a quick follow up to that, I know
Bill wants to turn here in a second. Do you
feel like victim's impact statements in the courtroom? Is that
enough of a voice or does there need to be
more opportunities for victims to have voices?
Speaker 5: There need to be way more opportunities. Victim impact statements
are great. They certainly allow the victim a way to
heal and tell their story, and we've seen a lot
of the victim impact statements do good. However, keep in
mind and that's at the end of a trial. So
I think victims need to have a right to have
a voice at the very beginning of a trial. Is
this plea bargain? Good? Do I agree with it? And
that's where they're kept out.
Speaker 2: I'm going to speak for myself here. We haven't had
a single arrest yet in the Colonial Parkway murders. But
even in discussing theoreticals which make me crazy to start
with the pushback from the FBI against family participation or input,
or even my sharing my thoughts, it feels like such
a brick wall that the idea that, for instance, if
charges are ever brought in our case, it's likely that
there could be federal charges because at least two of
the double homicides happened inside a national park and therefore
would be federal charges. And then two of the double
homicides in the Colonial Parkway happened outside a national park
and therefore would likely be state or local charges. When
I've even mentioned the possibility of speaking to the federal
prosecutor about this, I get so much pushback it's they're
not even subtle. I already anticipate that someday, note the
optimism when arrests are made in our case, I'm fully
expecting I'm going to meet that brick wall personally, because
that's just the way it feels, and we're only part
way through. Dare I say the pursuit of justice a
word I'm not completely comfortable with. Wow, the attitude. Even
when I've said I'd like to speak to the federal prosecutor,
they're having none of it.
Speaker 5: What are the reasons they give? Ask the podcaster thank
you for the podcast.
Speaker 2: Well, basically the implication, and they're clever in their phrasing,
but the implication is that I have no role, that
my family would have no role whatsoever in discussing how
a prosecution might proceed.
Speaker 5: It's interesting because victims are the moral core of the
justice system, but we've managed to cut them out completely
almost And there's this idea of because they wouldn't know
what they're doing and they don't know the technicalities. All true.
Possibly the problems is that we've excluded individuals, but it's
not making it better for anybody. The justice system is
not working for anyone. The justice system does not work
for those accused of crimes either. It really doesn't, and
so we've created this hap hazard system and we have
excuses everywhere. I believe in the justice system. I believe
in the promises of the Constitution. I don't think it's
working the way it was meant to right now. And
I think that's because we like band aid approaches in
the UNI United States, and we don't like to dig
into the wound, and so we have this kind of
health of sticks made up, and we're afraid to knock
the health of sticks over, so we just patch it
up where we can. One of the things that I
genuinely believe is that if we paid more attention to
victims and dumped one fifth of the money that we
dump into incarcerating people, if we dumped that money into
victim services, the minute of crime is committed and we're
able to get victims help, you would start to see
crime rates go down.
Speaker 2: Why in your opinion, would crime rates go down.
Speaker 5: So what we know about incarceration is about ninety percent
of the individuals who are incarcerated have been victims of
crime themselves. Most of the time they have not received services.
A lot of it is domestic violence and childhood trauma
and their very high aces adverse childhood experience scores. Once
you start to survey incarcerated individuals, those individuals have not
been given and the tools do not re enter a cycle.
Speaker 2: Of violence, and that certainly even from when you read
about Obviously, Kristin and I are following a lot of cases,
not just the Colonial Parkray murders, but dozens of other
cases around the country, and people approach us constantly and
ask us would we be willing to cover a particular
case or discuss a particular case. But even in the
consumer online reporting newspaper level, you often see that the
offenders have a history of violence, and that doesn't come
from nowhere. That comes from as you're saying, households full
of abuse, whether it's sexual or physical or mental. These
are damage to individuals in many examples who are lashing out.
I don't want to make it sound like I'm completely
absolving offenders of their crimes. I'm not saying that at all.
But you can see how someone that's been through what
they've been through ends up lashing out and hurting people
in some way.
Speaker 5: And it's a very delicate conversation to have. There are
a lot of individuals in the victim services world that
get very unhappy when you say things like hurt people.
So we try to avoid saying.
Speaker 2: That I'm speaking as the brother of a murder victim.
I don't know what other term you want me to use.
Speaker 5: Well, And that's the thing is, so a lot of
folks will kick back and say, Bill, you're a great example. Yes,
I was hurt, but I didn't go do harm, and
so it's not an excuse. That is correct. But we
also know how trauma works, and if you don't address
a pain immediately and you allow things to fester, you
can't predict which way somebody is going to go. We
get asked a lot. I get asked a lot when
we're speaking because we do a lot of prison reform.
What my views are on mandatory minimums, what my views
are on mandatory maximums, and I'm against mandatory anythings. I
don't believe that either works because I think you have
to look at the person, and that's what you have
a judge there for, is to look at each person.
But I will say that a lot of people tried
to say there's absolute evil in this world. I don't
quite believe that, and I think that you can't make
snap decisions on anybody. But I do think that if
we addressed victimization and trauma at its genesis, when it
first happens, you would start to see the level of
at least violent crime go down, and it would take decades.
It would not be away. This would not be oh, look,
Renee was right, or we watched the crime rates drop
this year. It would take decades. I think that there's
it's so cyclical when you're talking about violence, crime and victimization.
Speaker 2: But what would you have me say different when I
say her? Is there another word that's somehow more?
Speaker 5: It would not even be no, And it wouldn't be
that I would have I'm trying to think of how
to say this. It wouldn't even be the word. It's
not how to say it. It's that there are many
victim advocates who would say, but I was and I
did not. That's the sensitive point for a lot of individuals.
Speaker 4: Renee. I want to take a second and talk about
the last place where we saw you, which was at
Crime Con in Orlando, which it feels much longer ago
than it actually was. It's only a couple of weeks,
and you moderated a wonderful panel at crime Con with
my podcast partner Bill Thomas. So I want to talk
about the panel, but I also am just curious who
reached out first. Did Crime Con reach out to you.
Did you reach out to them? Like, how did this
partnership come into being?
Speaker 5: I think it was mutual. Maybe Kim Goldman and Jim Clement,
who are very involved in Crime Conn, are both on
our board of directors, and so last year, when we
were trying to think of ways to get the NCBC
name out in a board meeting, crime Con came up
as an idea. And so I believe Kim reached out
to the Crime Con folks and said, you asked me
to speak this year, but you have to have Renee too,
and they very graciously accepted, And so I got to
moderate two panels last year and we got invited back
this year.
Speaker 2: Kristin and I had both seen him speak at Crime
Kind a couple of years ago. I want to say
that was in Nashville, but I remember it was a
packed ballroom, and she's an amazing speaker. Of course, she
spoke about losing her brother Ron to a violent crime,
and she's a tremendous advocate. I didn't get a chance
to just say hello to her, but I just walked
away completely blown away by how passionate and incredibly well
spoken she was. So I want to be Kim Goldman
when I grow up.
Speaker 5: He too, and her hair is perfect. I had this
discussion with her what because it was seven am. We
were at a conference and she walked in and her
hair was perfect, and she gave me your tips. None
of them have worked for me, but yes, I also
would like to be Kim Goldman when I go.
Speaker 2: I'm not going to worry about the hair thing. It's
too far gone.
Speaker 4: So the panel that you moderated, which Bill also attended,
was eight Rules for being an Ethical True Crime Fan.
And as soon as I heard that topic, Bill called
me and said, Hey, guess what I'm getting to do
a panel. I get to do it with Kathy Kleiner,
I get to do it with Brian, and I get
to do it with Renee Williams. So excited, I said,
what's it about? He said, eight rules for being an
ethical true crime fan? And I said that is great.
I can get behind that. Can you ay tell us
how did that come about? In BA? Can you do
the rules please?
Speaker 5: So how it came about was last year when we
went to Crime Con. We were so embraced by the
true crime community, but there was a lot of confusion
and people were asking questions about how can I be
good true crime consumers? And so I started to dig
into what was happening in the true crime world, and
I found a lot of really good things, and I
found a lot of really appalling things. Everybody, and not
to knock this podcast, I think the world of you both,
but there are a few others, and Phila and I
have had this conversation, so I feel safe saying this.
There are a few others that you give somebody a
mic and a Wikipedia page and they think they're a
true crime expert, and ye too, it's terrifying to me.
But to be fair, my first thought was why can't
they follow the rules? And then I thought, because there
are no rules out there, and so you can't get
mad at people for not following the rules of the
road if you don't give them the rules of the road.
So we thought, how do we do this and how
do we start to make the change in this community
in ways that are meaningful and non judgmental and are
actually achievable. And so we have two other media guides
coming out. One is for victims how to navigate the media,
and one is for all content creators. Now we had
media guides for a long time, but they were for
journalists who abound by their own rules, And so we thought,
what if there are people that just want to do
a good job that they've not had to an ethics course,
So we are trying to give them a crash course,
not in ethics, but in how can I speak to victims?
And if I got into true crime to do good,
to tell somebody's stories, how can I do that in
a way that does not either do harm to the
investigation or for their traumatized folks. Part of that was
also coming up with rules for the public of how
they can be true crime consumers. And again that was
because we had such a good experience last year and
people so fully embraced it that we thought, if we
could get some folks attention around this, I bet we
can start to make some changes.
Speaker 4: And I love that concept, because you're right, it is
a wonderful, warm, loving community for the most part of
people who really want to try to do good. There
are a couple of people out there who are like
determined to be chaos and cause trouble, but I would
say any community has those. It is so nice to
know that there is this set of rules out there,
and I'm hoping that at some point or another we
can all kind of embrace that so that it just
becomes like these are the standard norms by which we operate.
Speaker 2: 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.
Speaker 4: Can you go over those eight rules real quick and
then we can get into more of them in more detail.
Speaker 5: Sure, So these are the rules for the general public
when consuming, not necessarily podcasters, because we're hoping the general
public will take it and say, hey, we are not
going to listen to this anymore if you are not
being at the goal. So the first is there is
no such thing as victim lifts true crime.
Speaker 2: We're both giving that a big thumbs up. Yep.
Speaker 5: The second is there is no timeline for trauma. The
third is investigate, investigate, investigate. The fourth is require the
presence of victim's voices.
Speaker 2: I can get behind that one too.
Speaker 4: Yeah, very much.
Speaker 5: The fifth is due no harm. The sixth is respect boundaries,
the seventh is don't fall victim yourself to true crime,
and the eighth is turn your interest into impact.
Speaker 2: No.
Speaker 5: I flew through those, but You guys know that there
are long explanations to each So where do we want
to start unpacking?
Speaker 4: Yes, the main touchstone out of this is the very
very first one, so let's start there. There is no
victim less true crime. So why is it that there
are victims who get written out of their own stories.
We were talking about this with Kathy Kleiner the other
day when she's talking about the fact that Ted Bundy
is of vastly more interest than his victims are, Like, why,
he was a loser. He was not charismatic, he was
not handsome, he was not charming, he was not smart,
all right, and yet here we have so many people
interested in him, and even those types of people who
show up at crime con who are interested in him.
Why aren't we focusing more on the victims? Talk to
us a little bit more about the fact that there
really is no victimless true crime.
Speaker 5: We're not watching true crime stories about pyramid schemes. Netflix
and its progeny will release one every so often, but
I don't even think they get higher reviews.
Speaker 4: They're boring.
Speaker 5: Let's be honest. They are the crimes that are intriguing
individuals and have intrigued distance the beginning of time are
those with victims of violent crimes almost always and exclusively.
But I think our psyche especially now allows us to
turn that into a story and a form of entertainment.
So you can then take a victim and make them
a character. Yeah, Ted Bundy himself is not Ted Bundy
the person. He is Ted Bundy the character. And that's
what intrigues people. Nobody actually likes Ted Bundy, that knew him.
We've allowed this storyline to arc around and move to
where he's sexy and romantic and misunderstood, none of.
Speaker 2: Which is true and smart and oh so clever, Yeah.
Speaker 5: And handsome and charming, and he was a wonderful stepfather.
Ted Bundy was an amazing human except for that inconvenient
fact that none of those things were true, and he
was a killer. But with the amount of media that's
out there, and the stories and the books and everything
that's allowed to encapsulate him, he gets this weird halo
glow and we're not looking at him as a person,
and so that's why he become so much more intriguing
for his victims. If we can turn a victim into
a character, they become maybe slightly more interesting, but there's
something very real about victims, and there's something very deep
that they're harder to turn into just characters, and that
starts to feel a little bit less comfortable, and it's
a little bit less fun to hear about. I want
to hear about people in the hospital and what they
had to overcome and talk about their therapy.
Speaker 2: I also think that some of the crossover between the
world of fiction and nonfiction it gets very blended. Keeping
in mind that if, for instance, if you're going to
tell a story about a serial killer or a repeat
offender of some sort, the victim is introduced, however briefly,
and then he or she quite often it's she, is,
then something terrible happens to them, and then they're actually
eliminated basically from their own story because there's very little
reference made to them after that. And then in a
typical serial killer type story, whether it's nonfiction or fiction,
then there's another victim introduced, but they almost become like
dominoes or something. They're just being stacked up, knocked over
next next, and there's a diminishment of their humanity because
they're just briefly introduced, killed off, and then we're onto
the next victim. You're absolutely right. We've been doing this
for hundreds, if not thousands of years, since all the
way back to the penny press, where people wanted to
read about Jack the Ripper or whomever. The protagonist. The
offender becomes the through line and not hero necessarily, but
they're definitely pushing the story forward. I think what happens
in true crime now is that we're picking up a
lot of those tropes from fictional stories or stories that
have been around for so many hundreds of years that
people forget that Jack the Ripper actually was a real
life serial killer.
Speaker 5: It's interesting. So my favorite actor in the world is
Patrick Page, the very famous Broadway actor, and he's doing
a show right now called All the Devils Are Here.
It's soft Broadway.
Speaker 4: Oh I've heard about this, Oh my god.
Speaker 5: So I went to see it in before it opened
because I'm obsessed with him. But he talks about Shakespeare's
invention of the villain and what the villain was before
Shakespeare came along was very caricature and dramatic and weird.
Where Shakespeare took the villain and villain didn't mean evil.
I can't remember what it meant, but it meant something else,
but he took the villain and made it psychological. And
actually several of Shakespeare's villains are sociopaths, but he talks
about it in That's part of why Shakespeare became so
popular because in his villains we found such complex characters
that we psychologically feel the need to understand. And I
think that's what we see with serial killers that we
are now idolizing, is we view them as these psychologically
complex humans and we're trying to understand them. And part
of it's that we think we could never do that,
and part of it's trying to understand what they are doing.
And then part of it's I think a desperate belief
that nobody could ever just be that evil without some
underlying tragedy or story or backstory. And so that's why
the killers are so interesting. Meanwhile, victims are everyday people,
and we're not trying to sort them out.
Speaker 4: No, exactly. I am curious before we go back into
the rules, I'm really curious, out of the panelists that
you had available to you for this panel at Crime Con,
did you get to choose who your panelists were or
were you told these are your panelists? Please? Work with them.
Speaker 5: Oh, No, Crime con was very lovely. They let me
put together. I asked them if I could have a
one hour topic the topic of my choosing and the
method and madness of my choosing, and they told me
to basically do what I wanted, and so I got
to pick the individuals. Okay, the topic everything.
Speaker 4: I'm just going to put Bill on the spot here
for a second. Why was Bill a really good choice
for your panel?
Speaker 5: Bill was a very good choice because he both knows
the world professionally and what it takes to get into
it and the pitfalls, but also how it feels on
the other end, and it was very important to me.
And that's also why Brian and Kathy were included. Kathy's
story and her way of telling it is beautiful and amazing,
but it is one sided and it had to be
one sided, right Like it's not her job to know
what the media does. Brian Etton is the same way.
He is going to be one sided and say this
is what I do. So I needed both of them,
and then Bill bridged them both love that and that
was very important because I think when you're doing a
panel like this, if you actually want people to hear
what you're saying. You can't just come at it from
one side, because you give people the opportunity to write
off what you've said if there's any gap.
Speaker 4: So if it was just.
Speaker 5: Victims on that stage with me, the audience could say,
that's fine that victims feel this way, but what are
people supposed to do? Then you have somebody sitting there
that this is what you're supposed to do. And by
the way, we know how to do it because we
do it every day.
Speaker 2: On a personal note, I'd just like to say, I'm
really disappointed that I wasn't brought in because I'm the
personification of evil, which is really my goal.
Speaker 5: You have the voice for it.
Speaker 4: Oh, I love that.
Speaker 2: Yes, Halloween is coming up within days at the time
of this taping, and a number of times.
Speaker 4: That he gets people are like, oh, your voice is
like silk, it's like satin, it's like olive oil's. But
I've never heard someone say his voice is voice of evil.
And I love it. I love it every single I'm
going to use that every single time someone talks about
how smooth and cherman and lovely his voice is made
for radio. I'm going to come back with yes, but
he also sounds like the personification of evil. I love it.
Speaker 2: Look, we all have goals and aspirations, and until I
get that booking as the personification of evil, my work
here will not be done.
Speaker 4: You got to play what you got to play an
evil else in Santa Maybe right, you're getting it on.
Speaker 2: One of our friends, Jason Usfree, asked me to play
part in his wonderful Christmas production of Santa Maybe, And
originally I was going to be an elf, which I
was real happy to be an elf, and so I
was working on my whole thing and then he said, oh,
We've got this guy who's like a real sort of
Hollywood sleees kind of guy. And I said, oh, I
can do that.
Speaker 5: That's me.
Speaker 2: I can do that.
Speaker 5: My horse's name is Vincent Price that I've been looking
for a voiceover for him.
Speaker 4: Oh.
Speaker 2: I love Vincent like whenever I.
Speaker 5: Want to post him on Instagram because I feel like
he has a voice and he's just waiting to use it.
So I can offer you that role.
Speaker 4: There we go. I love that. No, and I love
the fact I think you did choose the best set
of panelists possible for your eight Rules panelist. And I
know I'm a little biased because he's my partner and
all that, but I really think you made some excellent
choices there, and it was it was a hit. It
was a really excellent panel, and I honestly think that
more people could have benefited from seeing and hearing it
like a larger stage.
Speaker 5: The great news is it's still available, and actually NCBC
has posted it on our website The Wire.
Speaker 2: Oh, I didn't know that, Thank you. That's wonderful.
Speaker 5: We got permission from crime Con to use it, so
we have the video and the video is up. So
if any of your listeners would like to watch Bill
in live, not live.
Speaker 2: But on a video, you want to hear from Kathy
Kleiner Rubin and Brian Anon too. They're both amazing and
each of them brings their own incredible background to the table.
Speaker 4: So after your time at crime Con, did you have
any feedback from participants or discussion with people there that
really struck a chord with you, Renee, or anything that
you took away that you're still mulling over even all
this many weeks later.
Speaker 5: I know a lot of individuals said that it really
changed the way they viewed true crime. We had I
was approached in the hallway and asked because one of
the topics that we discussed and went on a little
bit of a bandwagon about was the sharing on social
media and don't share? Why are you sharing? Think before
you comment, think before you post. And somebody approached me
and actually asked, aren't we being helpful if we share?
And I had to walk her through the ways that
sharing was not always helpful. But I think to some
extent it just affirmed that people are doing this to
be helpful. Just because they're not helpful in the way
that we want them to be helpful. That can't take
away their intention. It just maybe needs to be redirected.
I will tell you I have been contacted by a
victim whose story was told Her mother was killed, and
her story was told on Oxygen, and she was not contacted,
had no idea what was going out. A friend of
the family saw the previews and saw some pretty gruesome photos,
so she contacted me for help. And it's I think
this bleeds into the there's no timeline for trauma. I
think it had happened in the nineteen eighties, so the
producers thought it was not a big deal, and for
her it was very traumatic, and I think hearing from
her after we did this was further affirmation, because when
you put things like this out, you're not sure if
you're exactly right on. You do all of the work
you can, as far as round tables, but you're not
sure you've encompassed everything. Or in my mind, sometimes I
think I'm being overly dramatic about something and I'm too
focused on one thing and not focused enough. So I
think her reaching out really just confirmed the prevalence of
we've got to protect these individuals, because I will tell
you she had nowhere to turn. I frankly did not
know that I'd be able to help her at all.
I got lucky on helping her, but when she first
emailed me, I thought, she, I don't know what to do.
I don't know how to help you. And if I
don't know how to help you, we're in a world
of trouble because that means there's no one who can,
but you clearly need the help. Her reaching out affirmed
a lot of this and also made me realize there's
a lot more work to be done, because if I'm
going to put myself on a stage and put out
a video instad on podcasts about the wonderful work we're doing.
I better be able to help somebody in that position
in two and her email sent me for a loop.
Speaker 4: What words do you have for anyone who has been
a victim of crime and who needs support and if
they don't know where to go? We're not going to
say everybody should just email Renee because you are very busy.
What would you say to anybody who just I don't
know where to go, but I know that I need
some help? Where would you point them?
Speaker 5: I would honestly start by calling our Victim Services Hotline. Okay,
there are so many different paths for victims, so there
are places where you cannot get a victim advocate unless
you're cooperating with law enforcement, and maybe you don't want
to cooperate with law enforcement for a multitude of reasons.
There are a lot of victims that rely on their
friends and family, which is wonderful for emotional support, but
does not provide a level of expertise or enclosure that
some individuals needs. Start with our Victim Services Hotline, but
also know that there's not one right path and that
a lot of people have a lot of differentions about
what you should and shouldn't do, and none of those
are right if they're not right for you.
Speaker 2: Yeah. One of the things I've learned over time, even
with the Eight Families and the Colonial Park murders and
talking to victims and survivors of other crimes, is that
everyone's different and the impact of these terrible events will
be different and may even be different over time. Our
case stretches back thirty seven years now, so we're seeing
even generationally things shift in terms of the impact of
this series of violent crime. One of the things I
say to Kristen is your mileage may vary, It may
sound a little flip, but what I mean is that
everyone is going to deal with this trauma in their
own way, and even over the course of their lives.
This will stay with them forever. It isn't the situation
is resolved, a suspect has identified, tried, convicted, and everything
in your life just goes on perfectly because nothing's ever
going to change what's happened, and.
Speaker 5: Our justice system is woefully unable to help victims all
of the time. Sometimes you have to accept that resolution,
enclosure is not going to come through the justice system,
just not. You have to find another form of justice
or find some closure that is going to work for you.
We see that a lot in frankly, victims of child
sex abuse. They know who did it. It was in
the nineteen eighties, it was a family member, and they
come to us with paperwork and their hat in their hands,
begging for help. And the answer is just this isn't
something that the justice system can address. With a lot
of victims Kate with domestic violence, with multiple victims cases,
it's just something that the justice system is not set
up to address. Through nobody's fault. You have to have
multiple pathways if you want closure, because it's not always
going to come from one path.
Speaker 2: And almost everyone I know that's been through this, whether
they have had suspects identified or not, whether they've been
through a trial or not. Everyone I've met so far,
which is probably in the hundreds now, every single person
I've talked to, makes some sort of analogy about the
fact that they feel like they've been through a meat
grinder and there's a process, but at the end of it,
something awful us gets spat out at the other end.
No one I've met yet has expressed anything more than
a smidgeon of satisfaction. Or feeling like whatever we call
this thing, that they somehow achieved justice. That's twice now
I've used that word, which is a word I'm not
crazy about, because I'm not seeing any and even the
people I know whose cases have been adjudicated and seen
all the way through, no one has ever said to
me yet I felt like I achieved some level of
satisfaction or dare I say justice again? It just doesn't
seem to be part of the process.
Speaker 5: And there are times when the justice system can make
things worse when you are parading out every intimate detail
in public in a courtroom, whether it's about a family
member who has died, or if you're a victim of
a violent crime and the defense has the right to
ask you the wise and they can get ugly.
Speaker 4: What would you like to see change in the true
crime space in the next couple of years to help
us reach a point where we are more friendly and
aware of victims and what we need to be doing
to help them.
Speaker 5: I think we start with consumers who care, who are
holding the content creators accountable. And I think that consumers
in the true crime field don't realize how powerful they are,
and they think that just one view on the Netflix
or one listen to a bad podcast doesn't really mean anything.
It does, and if people start reaching out and saying,
I don't want to hear this unless you're doing this,
things will start to change. But again, it's getting the
awareness out there. At crime Con, I will tell you
I did talk to one podcast team who literally told
me they did not care about having the victim's voice.
They're just doing it for fun. I'm not gonna say, Wow,
we're just here to have a good time. We don't
want to get into that. And I said to them,
you literally just told me you don't care about having
the victim's voice or discussing anything with accuracy. No, we don't.
We're just here to have fun. It's just fun. We're
just trying to have fun with it. We're not trying
to get into the serious part of it. And I
was like, you're doing a podcast about murder. You're getting
into the serious part of it. So I would love
to see folks like that run out of town. And
I do think that consumers have the ability to do it.
And I think that's where we start with people viewing
every single thing they watch that's in this space, not
as a story that they're being told, but as something
that actually happened, and the victims as individuals who need
some sort of help or that something awful happen to them,
but viewing them as real people.
Speaker 4: Can think of a better note to end on than
that one. Reneve Welliams, thank you so very much for
joining us today. We really appreciate it.
Speaker 5: Thank you for having me.
Speaker 4: That's going to do it for this episode of mind
Ever Murder. Thank you so much for listening. We'll see
you next time.
Speaker 1: Mind Over Murder is a production of Absolute Zero and
Another Dog Productions.
Speaker 2: Our executive producers are Bill Thomas and Kristin Dilley.
Speaker 1: Our logo art is by Pamela Arnois.
Speaker 2: Our theme music is by Kevin McLoud.
Speaker 1: Mind Over Murder is distributed in partnership with crawl Space Media.
Speaker 2: You can follow us on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram.
Speaker 1: You can also follow our page on the Colonial Parkway
Murders on Facebook.
Speaker 2: And finally, you can follow Bill Thomas on Twitter at
Bill Thomas five six.
Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to mind Over Murder.