1 00:00:01,120 --> 00:00:04,160 Speaker 1: You're listening to the Mind over Murder podcast. 2 00:00:06,000 --> 00:00:09,679 Speaker 2: My name is Bill Thomas. I'm a writer, consulting, producer, 3 00:00:09,720 --> 00:00:12,839 and now podcaster. I am now trying to use my 4 00:00:12,919 --> 00:00:15,800 experience as the brother of a murder victim to help 5 00:00:15,880 --> 00:00:18,600 other victims of violent crime. I'm working on a book 6 00:00:18,679 --> 00:00:21,440 on the unsolved Colonial Parkway murders and I'm the co 7 00:00:21,519 --> 00:00:24,760 administrator of the Colonial Parkway Murders Facebook group together with 8 00:00:24,839 --> 00:00:25,519 Kristin Dilly. 9 00:00:26,079 --> 00:00:27,359 Speaker 3: My name is Kristin Dilly. 10 00:00:27,519 --> 00:00:31,199 Speaker 4: I'm a writer, a researcher, a teacher, and a victim's advocate, 11 00:00:31,359 --> 00:00:34,719 as well as the social media manager and co administrator 12 00:00:34,799 --> 00:00:37,799 for the Colonial Parkway Murders Facebook page with my partner 13 00:00:37,840 --> 00:00:39,079 in crime, Bill Thomas. 14 00:00:43,119 --> 00:00:46,000 Speaker 3: Welcome to Mind of a Murderer. I'm Kristin Dilly. 15 00:00:45,719 --> 00:00:46,840 Speaker 2: And I'm Bill Thomas. 16 00:00:47,560 --> 00:00:49,759 Speaker 3: And he tried to make me laugh right before he 17 00:00:49,799 --> 00:00:52,960 pushed the button. Folks, That's why I love my partnership 18 00:00:53,000 --> 00:00:53,840 with him. 19 00:00:54,240 --> 00:00:58,439 Speaker 2: Now throw me off my game. Now, why in the 20 00:00:58,479 --> 00:01:01,320 world would you ever make such a false claim? 21 00:01:02,159 --> 00:01:07,439 Speaker 3: Oh, why would I ever? 22 00:01:08,599 --> 00:01:11,760 Speaker 2: I just mentioned that I might have Raisins stuck in 23 00:01:11,799 --> 00:01:12,519 my team. 24 00:01:14,480 --> 00:01:17,439 Speaker 3: That's a great one with a great way to say 25 00:01:17,439 --> 00:01:20,480 that and just be like, no, be serious now my crime. 26 00:01:21,239 --> 00:01:25,400 Now go talk about crime, do it now? Yeah? This 27 00:01:25,159 --> 00:01:28,480 is this is behind the scenes that mind over murder. Guys, 28 00:01:28,519 --> 00:01:29,560 this is what you get. 29 00:01:29,920 --> 00:01:35,640 Speaker 2: You handled it well. I thought you together. You rejected 30 00:01:35,760 --> 00:01:42,040 my attempt to throw you off. And here we are, and. 31 00:01:42,000 --> 00:01:45,480 Speaker 3: Here we are. This is exactly what our partnership is. 32 00:01:45,719 --> 00:01:47,799 Speaker 2: Like you generated into. 33 00:01:50,480 --> 00:01:55,319 Speaker 3: We are back, and we are covering the second half 34 00:01:55,480 --> 00:01:59,040 of a wonderful article from the New York Times magazine 35 00:01:59,239 --> 00:02:04,680 July twenty fifth issue from author Mark O'Connell. Mark O'Connell 36 00:02:04,799 --> 00:02:10,240 was writing about the intersection of crime, entertainment and politics 37 00:02:10,520 --> 00:02:14,599 as seen in the figure of John Hinckley Junior assassin 38 00:02:15,120 --> 00:02:19,400 or would be assassin rather on President Ronald Reagan and 39 00:02:19,520 --> 00:02:24,719 three other people back in the early nineteen eighties. We 40 00:02:24,879 --> 00:02:29,000 are going through and offering our incisive and color commentary 41 00:02:29,840 --> 00:02:34,159 on this article as we proceed through it. And we 42 00:02:34,240 --> 00:02:38,120 started this in part one of this episode which aired 43 00:02:38,199 --> 00:02:41,439 last week, and we are continuing today in part two. 44 00:02:42,400 --> 00:02:45,360 So the article is called John Hinckley Junior and the 45 00:02:45,400 --> 00:02:48,120 Madness of American Political violence. 46 00:02:48,560 --> 00:02:48,800 Speaker 2: Bill. 47 00:02:48,840 --> 00:02:51,240 Speaker 3: What would you say? Is like the big takeaway from 48 00:02:51,360 --> 00:02:54,560 last episode for anybody who just for whatever reason doesn't 49 00:02:54,599 --> 00:02:55,719 want to go back and listen to it. 50 00:02:56,080 --> 00:03:00,240 Speaker 2: So far, I'm very struck by how a political some 51 00:03:00,280 --> 00:03:06,039 of these assassins scene. When you read about political assassinations 52 00:03:06,439 --> 00:03:10,800 in real life or in creative work, it often seems 53 00:03:10,919 --> 00:03:15,439 like these assassinations are for a political purpose or to 54 00:03:15,520 --> 00:03:19,680 a political end. What seems to be an emerging theme 55 00:03:19,800 --> 00:03:23,719 so far isn't always that. This almost seems like some 56 00:03:23,759 --> 00:03:28,159 sort of desperate grasp at fame. Even the subhead is 57 00:03:28,280 --> 00:03:31,560 very interesting. Forty three years ago he shot the president 58 00:03:31,719 --> 00:03:35,599 in a delusional bid for attention, One in a long 59 00:03:35,719 --> 00:03:39,240 line of disturbed young men who have bent the arc 60 00:03:39,639 --> 00:03:41,280 of the nation's history. 61 00:03:42,000 --> 00:03:45,039 Speaker 3: Very interesting and evocative. As soon as I read this 62 00:03:45,159 --> 00:03:48,280 piece in the New York Times magazine, I sent this 63 00:03:48,319 --> 00:03:50,439 to you and said, I think we need to cover this. 64 00:03:51,159 --> 00:03:55,240 I really like mister O'Connell's article here because I think 65 00:03:55,280 --> 00:03:58,080 he is able to articulate what I think a lot 66 00:03:58,080 --> 00:04:01,280 of us are curious about when it comes to political 67 00:04:01,319 --> 00:04:05,759 assassination or attempted political assassination. What makes someone do something 68 00:04:05,879 --> 00:04:09,639 like this? Is it necessarily about the politics of the person, 69 00:04:09,719 --> 00:04:12,680 or is there something more to it? As you said, 70 00:04:12,759 --> 00:04:15,759 it's very clear that with Hinckley the object was not 71 00:04:16,079 --> 00:04:18,600 I want to kill Ronald Reagan because I don't agree 72 00:04:18,600 --> 00:04:21,360 with his politics. The object was I am fixated on 73 00:04:21,480 --> 00:04:24,720 Jodie Foster and wished to get her attention, which I think. 74 00:04:24,600 --> 00:04:27,360 Speaker 2: A lot of people forget that. This is all brought 75 00:04:27,399 --> 00:04:31,240 about by his obsession with a young actress who was 76 00:04:31,319 --> 00:04:36,399 then headed off to college, and he actually studied Jimmy 77 00:04:36,480 --> 00:04:41,120 Carter and stalked Jimmy Carter in a very scary example. 78 00:04:41,839 --> 00:04:46,560 After Carter left office and Ronald Reagan took over as president, 79 00:04:46,680 --> 00:04:49,839 he just shifted his focus from a Democrat to a Republican. 80 00:04:49,879 --> 00:04:53,720 So this was never about political parties or position on 81 00:04:53,759 --> 00:04:56,800 the issues. This is more about a highly disturbed twenty 82 00:04:56,839 --> 00:05:01,120 five year old who's obsessed with a pretty amaze performance 83 00:05:01,720 --> 00:05:06,360 by a young actress and his desire to impress her 84 00:05:06,639 --> 00:05:08,079 in his own mentally ill way. 85 00:05:08,399 --> 00:05:10,279 Speaker 3: We'll go ahead and pick up at this article and 86 00:05:10,439 --> 00:05:14,399 we start with the author, Mark O'Connell, actually meeting John 87 00:05:14,439 --> 00:05:17,279 Hinckley in person. So the article begins when I first 88 00:05:17,319 --> 00:05:20,079 met Hinckley in person, I commented to him that Williamsburg 89 00:05:20,240 --> 00:05:22,879 was an interesting place for him to have wound up. 90 00:05:23,199 --> 00:05:25,720 He liked it, he told me, because people basically left 91 00:05:25,800 --> 00:05:28,319 him alone. But its lack of a music scene was 92 00:05:28,360 --> 00:05:31,360 becoming an issue for him, he said, and he'd started 93 00:05:31,360 --> 00:05:35,439 to think of relocating to somewhere closer to the action, Nashville, 94 00:05:35,600 --> 00:05:37,920 Los Angeles, maybe even New York. 95 00:05:38,600 --> 00:05:42,399 Speaker 2: I'm basically a struggling musician, he said, speaking softly and 96 00:05:42,439 --> 00:05:44,920 with a slow text and drol. I've had a lot 97 00:05:44,959 --> 00:05:47,120 of people say to me, John, you're like so many 98 00:05:47,120 --> 00:05:51,360 other struggling musicians, and it's true. I am Hinkley, a 99 00:05:51,399 --> 00:05:55,480 heavy set and balding man whose slightly somnolent airy belies 100 00:05:55,720 --> 00:05:59,040 a clarity of thought and an obvious intelligence, was sitting 101 00:05:59,040 --> 00:06:01,720 at a booth in a sports bar just outside the 102 00:06:01,720 --> 00:06:06,480 colonial center of town, addressing himself with intermittent deal to 103 00:06:06,600 --> 00:06:10,199 a large and succulent hamburger and diet doctor pepper. 104 00:06:10,839 --> 00:06:13,240 Speaker 3: He didn't elaborate on the ways in which he was 105 00:06:13,360 --> 00:06:16,399 like so many other struggling musicians, but perhaps he didn't 106 00:06:16,439 --> 00:06:19,759 need to. Hinkley did not strike me, in any case 107 00:06:19,879 --> 00:06:22,959 as much of an elaborator. He spoke in a plain 108 00:06:23,120 --> 00:06:26,040 and straightforward manner, and it was not his custom to 109 00:06:26,120 --> 00:06:30,480 digress or add unnecessary detail. He conceived of his music 110 00:06:30,560 --> 00:06:34,600 in explicitly redemptive terms. Despite the fact that he was 111 00:06:34,639 --> 00:06:38,439 never convicted of a criminal offense, he spoke frequently of 112 00:06:38,480 --> 00:06:41,560 what he called my crime, by which he meant both 113 00:06:41,600 --> 00:06:45,680 the shots he fired outside the Washington Hilton on March thirtieth, 114 00:06:45,759 --> 00:06:48,519 nineteen eighty one, and the long years of obsession in 115 00:06:48,560 --> 00:06:52,480 stalking that led there. These deeds, as Hinckley now understood them, 116 00:06:52,680 --> 00:06:56,199 unleashed a great deal of pain and darkness into the world. 117 00:06:56,759 --> 00:07:00,000 He terrorized a young woman, and he very nearly succeeded 118 00:07:00,160 --> 00:07:03,560 in killing the American President, in the belief that it 119 00:07:03,600 --> 00:07:06,480 would gain her favor. He put a bullet in the 120 00:07:06,519 --> 00:07:09,279 head of James Brady, who from that day on lived 121 00:07:09,319 --> 00:07:12,879 with cognitive damage and used a wheelchair, and whose death 122 00:07:13,000 --> 00:07:16,720 many years later was deemed a direct result of his injuries. 123 00:07:17,079 --> 00:07:20,040 And I think maybe people don't know that when James 124 00:07:20,079 --> 00:07:23,639 Brady died, it took him a long time to succumb 125 00:07:23,680 --> 00:07:26,839 to the injuries, but it was as a result of that. 126 00:07:27,399 --> 00:07:30,160 Speaker 2: And I believe that Hinckley should have been charged with 127 00:07:30,319 --> 00:07:34,120 murder as well, because his actions led directly to the 128 00:07:34,199 --> 00:07:39,079 death of James Brady agreed Bully. The article continues quote. 129 00:07:39,160 --> 00:07:43,120 People have different definitions of redemption, Hinckley told me, my 130 00:07:43,240 --> 00:07:46,240 definition of redemption is to make amends for all the 131 00:07:46,279 --> 00:07:49,759 negativity that I created in nineteen eighty one. I'm trying 132 00:07:49,800 --> 00:07:52,720 to redeem myself through positive music, through a thing that 133 00:07:52,720 --> 00:07:56,000 people really liked, as opposed to things they really hated 134 00:07:56,040 --> 00:07:58,040 about me in nineteen eighty one. 135 00:07:58,560 --> 00:08:01,680 Speaker 3: On my first exposure to Hinckley's songs, I found them 136 00:08:01,720 --> 00:08:05,240 difficult to listen to, not because they were bad. They're 137 00:08:05,279 --> 00:08:08,079 pretty catchy and have a melancholy charm to them, but 138 00:08:08,160 --> 00:08:10,920 because to listen to them with any degree of attention 139 00:08:11,319 --> 00:08:14,560 is to confront the pain and vulnerability of a man 140 00:08:14,639 --> 00:08:18,600 whose mental illness had caused so much suffering to himself 141 00:08:18,839 --> 00:08:21,439 and many others. You might be able to look at 142 00:08:21,480 --> 00:08:25,199 a painting by Caravaggio without constantly thinking of the fact 143 00:08:25,279 --> 00:08:27,680 that he killed a man in a duel, and you 144 00:08:27,759 --> 00:08:30,519 might be able to listen to the sex pistols without 145 00:08:30,560 --> 00:08:35,320 thinking about Nancy Spungeen's awful death. But Hinckley remains uniquely 146 00:08:35,360 --> 00:08:39,799 impervious to any and all attempts to separate art from artists. 147 00:08:40,200 --> 00:08:42,919 This has partly to do with the sheer extremity and 148 00:08:43,039 --> 00:08:46,159 strangeness of his deeds, and partly to do with the 149 00:08:46,200 --> 00:08:48,720 fact that those deeds were committed in service of a 150 00:08:48,799 --> 00:08:51,240 hunger for fame and notoriety. 151 00:08:52,000 --> 00:08:55,279 Speaker 2: For all that, I found the honesty and directness of 152 00:08:55,320 --> 00:09:01,000 the songs unexpectedly moving and piercingly sad. Found it impossible 153 00:09:01,039 --> 00:09:05,240 to detach the thin, somewhat faltering voice that sang those 154 00:09:05,279 --> 00:09:08,919 songs from that of the much younger man who described 155 00:09:08,960 --> 00:09:13,000 his shooting of Reagan as quote the greatest love offering 156 00:09:13,200 --> 00:09:16,200 in the history of the world. Pardon me while I 157 00:09:16,240 --> 00:09:19,000 throw up in my mouth. And one reason I found 158 00:09:19,039 --> 00:09:22,320 that songs at first difficult and even painful to listen 159 00:09:22,360 --> 00:09:25,080 to is that they seemed haunted by the ghost of 160 00:09:25,159 --> 00:09:28,720 another possible life. To come to know Hinckley, even just 161 00:09:28,759 --> 00:09:31,080 a little, as I did in writing about him, is 162 00:09:31,120 --> 00:09:34,000 to see that the act that now defines his life 163 00:09:34,120 --> 00:09:37,919 was not predestined, but so many things in history entirely 164 00:09:38,039 --> 00:09:43,919 contingent the outcome of complex dynamics of chance and madness. 165 00:09:44,039 --> 00:09:47,679 Speaker 3: Very interesting how far he's taking us down. It's it 166 00:09:47,679 --> 00:09:50,480 feels almost like a rabbit hole that if you want 167 00:09:50,519 --> 00:09:57,360 to explore the intersections of political violence with entertainment and politics. 168 00:09:57,360 --> 00:10:01,919 You really have to dive deep into understand Hinkley himself 169 00:10:02,240 --> 00:10:05,600 and everything that led up to it. This is complex 170 00:10:05,679 --> 00:10:09,480 storytelling here. I was very impressed with this. Hinkley grew 171 00:10:09,519 --> 00:10:13,399 up around Dallas, loving the Beatles, and he idolized John 172 00:10:13,480 --> 00:10:16,759 Lennon in particular. He wanted to be a singer. He 173 00:10:16,799 --> 00:10:19,240 wanted to be a star, but he was a quiet 174 00:10:19,360 --> 00:10:22,519 kid and one who had a hard time finding his way. 175 00:10:23,279 --> 00:10:26,519 His older brother, Scott went into the family oil business. 176 00:10:27,000 --> 00:10:29,799 Their father wanted John to follow suit, and he was 177 00:10:29,799 --> 00:10:34,440 frustrated and unnerved by his younger son's vague artistic ambitions. 178 00:10:34,919 --> 00:10:38,320 John enrolled in various college courses, but nothing really took, 179 00:10:38,440 --> 00:10:42,120 and he kept dropping out of one thing after another. Eventually, 180 00:10:42,159 --> 00:10:45,120 he sold his car, an old red Camaro, and used 181 00:10:45,120 --> 00:10:47,840 the money to get himself to Los Angeles, where he 182 00:10:47,879 --> 00:10:50,919 rented a room a couple of blocks from Sunset Boulevard. 183 00:10:51,600 --> 00:10:53,559 The plan was that he would finally make a go 184 00:10:53,679 --> 00:10:56,799 of his music, but he was too depressed and listless 185 00:10:56,879 --> 00:10:58,879 and lost to make anything happen. 186 00:10:59,480 --> 00:11:01,679 Speaker 2: I would just walk all the time, he told me, 187 00:11:01,960 --> 00:11:05,799 up and down Sunset up and down Hollywood Boulevard. He 188 00:11:05,879 --> 00:11:08,879 was trying to walk himself into the dream of Hollywood, 189 00:11:08,960 --> 00:11:13,240 as though through sheer physical proximity to the symbolic heart 190 00:11:13,279 --> 00:11:17,879 of American entertainment, he might be absorbed directly into its bloodstream. 191 00:11:18,519 --> 00:11:21,360 I was so naive, he said. I sat in my 192 00:11:21,519 --> 00:11:24,360 room and made a tape of my songs. I walked 193 00:11:24,720 --> 00:11:27,240 to the lobby of the Capitol Records building and just 194 00:11:27,320 --> 00:11:29,879 handed it to the receptionist and asked if she could 195 00:11:29,879 --> 00:11:32,320 give it to the A and R guy. Telling me 196 00:11:32,480 --> 00:11:34,879 all this, he laughed and shook his head, and for 197 00:11:34,919 --> 00:11:37,639 some reason, I still didn't make it. He said. 198 00:11:38,240 --> 00:11:40,320 Speaker 3: What's an R, mister entertainment guy. 199 00:11:40,279 --> 00:11:44,159 Speaker 2: Oh An R stands for Artists and repertoire. They are 200 00:11:44,240 --> 00:11:47,919 the people, usually men, but not always, who sign artists 201 00:11:48,000 --> 00:11:52,200 to record deals and work with them on the repertoire. 202 00:11:52,279 --> 00:11:55,799 That is what they will record these days. In the 203 00:11:55,879 --> 00:12:01,879 rock era, pop, hip hop, etc. Many people write there music. Originally, 204 00:12:01,960 --> 00:12:05,519 when the artist and Repertoire title was created, that was 205 00:12:05,519 --> 00:12:09,759 at in time when more people did it completely outside songs, 206 00:12:10,399 --> 00:12:13,039 you were brought on board as a recording artist, as 207 00:12:13,039 --> 00:12:15,879 a singer. They went out and found the songs for 208 00:12:15,960 --> 00:12:18,960 you artists and repertoire gets shortened an R. 209 00:12:19,440 --> 00:12:21,799 Speaker 3: And it's my guess that you do not take your 210 00:12:21,919 --> 00:12:24,480 tape to the Capitol Records building and hand it off, 211 00:12:24,480 --> 00:12:27,240 and you'll immediately get discovered. I assume that's not how 212 00:12:27,240 --> 00:12:28,000 you do it, correct. 213 00:12:28,200 --> 00:12:30,919 Speaker 2: I can't say that it's never happened, but it's a 214 00:12:30,919 --> 00:12:34,879 real long shot way of going about things. Because the 215 00:12:35,000 --> 00:12:39,440 labels received thousands of submissions per year, and unless they 216 00:12:39,480 --> 00:12:43,480 are given a compelling reason to listen to a demo tape, 217 00:12:43,559 --> 00:12:45,639 it's mostly going to end up in a box, and 218 00:12:45,720 --> 00:12:47,919 then that box is going to end up in a dumpster. 219 00:12:48,480 --> 00:12:50,759 Speaker 3: Keep in mind, for anybody who is new to mind 220 00:12:50,759 --> 00:12:52,559 have a murdered that Bill has actually worked in the 221 00:12:52,639 --> 00:12:56,120 music industry for quite a while. That was nineteen seventy six, 222 00:12:56,200 --> 00:12:58,240 the year he turned twenty one. He spent the day 223 00:12:58,279 --> 00:13:01,080 of his birthday walking up and down set alone and 224 00:13:01,120 --> 00:13:05,039 immersed in his own increasingly tormented reveries. It was also 225 00:13:05,120 --> 00:13:07,879 the year The Taxi Driver came out. He saw it 226 00:13:07,919 --> 00:13:10,399 for the first time that summer at Grammin's Egyptian Theater 227 00:13:10,519 --> 00:13:13,559 on Hollywood Boulevard. Then he went back to see it again. 228 00:13:13,759 --> 00:13:17,120 He watched it, by his reckoning, fifteen times. Something about 229 00:13:17,120 --> 00:13:18,639 it had spoke to him in a way he couldn't 230 00:13:18,639 --> 00:13:22,039 account for. He connected at a deep limbic level with 231 00:13:22,120 --> 00:13:27,440 its violent poetry of male rage, loneliness, and inarticulate longing. 232 00:13:27,840 --> 00:13:29,639 Speaker 2: By that point, he had run out of the money 233 00:13:29,679 --> 00:13:32,000 he took with him to Los Angeles and was no 234 00:13:32,120 --> 00:13:34,759 longer able to afford rent. He'd been out of touch 235 00:13:34,799 --> 00:13:37,879 with his parents for weeks. He'd lost his room and 236 00:13:37,879 --> 00:13:41,440 wound up homeless. He spent his days walking the streets, 237 00:13:41,600 --> 00:13:43,919 his nights in a sleeping bag on the flat roof 238 00:13:44,000 --> 00:13:46,799 of a building off sunset. The longer he spent on 239 00:13:46,840 --> 00:13:51,120 the streets, the deeper his identification with Travis Bickle became. 240 00:13:51,360 --> 00:13:54,240 Speaker 3: And it was out of that identification that his obsession 241 00:13:54,240 --> 00:13:57,240 with Jody Foster arose. He seemed to have wanted to 242 00:13:57,360 --> 00:14:01,080 be the protagonist of Taxi Driver, and so perhaps the 243 00:14:01,120 --> 00:14:03,960 logic of his illness, with its blurring of the boundary 244 00:14:04,000 --> 00:14:07,879 between real and imagined worlds, dictated that he would desire 245 00:14:07,960 --> 00:14:11,639 a person, a character who was close to that protagonist. 246 00:14:12,080 --> 00:14:14,639 In the same way he bought himself a military jacket 247 00:14:14,679 --> 00:14:17,279 and a pair of boots just like Nickles, and started 248 00:14:17,360 --> 00:14:20,559 drinking the same peach brandy. He came to believe himself 249 00:14:20,600 --> 00:14:22,279 to be in love with Jody Foster. 250 00:14:23,159 --> 00:14:26,360 Speaker 2: This was only one strand in a garish fabric of 251 00:14:26,480 --> 00:14:30,679 deranged mimasas he wove around himself in the years that followed. 252 00:14:31,159 --> 00:14:34,120 Like so many lonely and frustrated white American men before 253 00:14:34,159 --> 00:14:37,679 and after him, he began to fixate on racial minorities 254 00:14:37,799 --> 00:14:40,840 as the source of his personal failures and those of 255 00:14:40,840 --> 00:14:45,519 his country. He made desultory and feudal efforts to find 256 00:14:45,559 --> 00:14:48,879 work in Los Angeles. Quote it's a miracle I still 257 00:14:48,879 --> 00:14:52,000 have my sanity, he wrote to his parents after putting 258 00:14:52,080 --> 00:14:57,399 up with screaming kids and endless lines of Blacks, Mexican, Chinese, 259 00:14:57,799 --> 00:15:00,960 and god knows what else. He apparently wrote the letter 260 00:15:01,039 --> 00:15:04,960 before seeing Taxi Driver, which is striking because it now 261 00:15:05,039 --> 00:15:09,480 reads almost as a pastiche of Bickle's voiceover, as though 262 00:15:09,559 --> 00:15:13,480 Hinckley were anticipating in a letter to his own mother 263 00:15:13,559 --> 00:15:19,360 and father some version of Travis Bickle's revolutionary nihilism quote, 264 00:15:19,399 --> 00:15:25,759 all the animals come out at night, whores, skunk pussies, buggers, queens, fairies, 265 00:15:25,840 --> 00:15:28,600 Doper's Junkies Sick Venal. 266 00:15:30,759 --> 00:15:33,639 Speaker 3: After he returned to Texas, he became briefly involved in 267 00:15:33,679 --> 00:15:36,919 the American Nazi Party in Dallas. The following year, he 268 00:15:36,960 --> 00:15:41,120 founded something called the American Front, a right wing extremist 269 00:15:41,200 --> 00:15:44,919 faction of which, according to Lincoln Kaplan's nineteen eighty four 270 00:15:45,000 --> 00:15:48,159 trial report in The New Yorker, he was director, sole 271 00:15:48,279 --> 00:15:53,519 newsletter contributor, and indeed sole member. Hinkley now thoroughly disavows 272 00:15:53,679 --> 00:15:57,399 this turn toward white supremacism, as thoroughly as he disavows 273 00:15:57,480 --> 00:16:00,480 everything else he did in those years of madness in 274 00:16:00,559 --> 00:16:05,120 coate rage and desire. But it remains noteworthy because it 275 00:16:05,159 --> 00:16:07,320 was as though he had read between the lines of 276 00:16:07,320 --> 00:16:11,679 Bickle's fury and contempt and decoded without sensitivity to the 277 00:16:11,720 --> 00:16:15,919 film's complexities, the racial animosity that lay within it. In 278 00:16:16,000 --> 00:16:19,840 Paul Schrader's original screenplay, Iris's Pimp was in fact a 279 00:16:19,879 --> 00:16:22,519 black man, and the man Travis kills in the end 280 00:16:22,600 --> 00:16:25,759 were all black, And perhaps in reading between the lines 281 00:16:25,759 --> 00:16:28,840 of Taxi Driver, Hinckley was in fact reading between the 282 00:16:28,879 --> 00:16:31,960 lines of his country, its history, and its present. 283 00:16:32,759 --> 00:16:35,799 Speaker 2: He was receiving signals from many sources and they were 284 00:16:35,840 --> 00:16:39,799 all pointing in one direction. At Rocky's pawn Shop in 285 00:16:39,879 --> 00:16:43,440 Dallas in September nineteen eighty, he bought a Rome RG 286 00:16:43,679 --> 00:16:47,480 fourteen twenty two caliber revolver, the weapon he would use 287 00:16:47,519 --> 00:16:50,720 to finally make something of himself. By that point, he 288 00:16:50,799 --> 00:16:53,720 was spending a lot of time on the firing range. 289 00:16:53,840 --> 00:16:56,159 The year before, he went to see a doctor about 290 00:16:56,159 --> 00:17:01,919 dizzy spells, fatigue, and heart palpitations. The doctor, noting Hinckley's 291 00:17:02,080 --> 00:17:06,640 flat effect, described him an antidepressant, which didn't do much 292 00:17:06,799 --> 00:17:09,880 other than make him drowsy. In a letter to his sister, 293 00:17:10,000 --> 00:17:13,599 he wrote, quote, my nervous system is about shot. By 294 00:17:13,640 --> 00:17:15,920 the end of the summer, I should be a bonafide 295 00:17:16,000 --> 00:17:19,119 basket case. Another visit to the doctor scored him a 296 00:17:19,200 --> 00:17:23,039 valium prescription. Later, his parents sent him to see a 297 00:17:23,079 --> 00:17:26,240 psychiatrist who had done some work with Jack's oil company. 298 00:17:26,720 --> 00:17:29,559 The psychiatrist didn't seem much wrong with him that wouldn't 299 00:17:29,599 --> 00:17:32,119 be set to rights by a little tough love. What 300 00:17:32,400 --> 00:17:34,799 was needed here, he said, was for this twenty five 301 00:17:34,880 --> 00:17:36,960 year old to be given a push to stand on 302 00:17:37,039 --> 00:17:38,039 his own two feet. 303 00:17:38,599 --> 00:17:41,240 Speaker 3: Hinkley told his parents about a creative writing class he 304 00:17:41,319 --> 00:17:44,079 wanted to attend at Yale University, and they gave him 305 00:17:44,119 --> 00:17:46,240 some money and sent him on his way to new Haven. 306 00:17:46,880 --> 00:17:50,200 There was, in fact no creative writing class, and Hinckley 307 00:17:50,240 --> 00:17:52,400 had no reason to be in new Haven other than 308 00:17:52,400 --> 00:17:54,960 that he read in a magazine that Jodie Foster had 309 00:17:55,079 --> 00:17:57,759 enrolled at Yale. He got the phone number of the 310 00:17:57,759 --> 00:17:59,880 house where she was living on campus and called a 311 00:18:00,000 --> 00:18:03,839 couple of times. She was polite and noncommittally pleasant, in 312 00:18:03,839 --> 00:18:06,440 the manner of a famous young woman who had presumably 313 00:18:06,480 --> 00:18:10,240 become very used to unwanted male attention. In the written 314 00:18:10,279 --> 00:18:13,519 notes he left for her, he was more intense, less shy. 315 00:18:14,079 --> 00:18:17,000 I love you six trillion times. Don't you maybe like 316 00:18:17,079 --> 00:18:19,920 me just a little bit? You must admit I am different. 317 00:18:20,400 --> 00:18:23,799 Speaker 2: This is all caps, by the way, he's behaving like 318 00:18:23,839 --> 00:18:28,480 a stalker at this point. He's followed Jody Foster at 319 00:18:28,480 --> 00:18:31,559 this point as an eighteen year old Yale freshman under 320 00:18:31,599 --> 00:18:34,400 false pretenses. He's lied to his parents. He said he's 321 00:18:34,440 --> 00:18:37,200 going to take a creative writing class at Yale. They 322 00:18:37,240 --> 00:18:40,240 give him money. Here he is in new Haven and 323 00:18:40,319 --> 00:18:44,519 he's literally stalking her. The whole thing is very disturbing. 324 00:18:45,039 --> 00:18:48,599 It's not a surprise that, even without the attempt on 325 00:18:48,680 --> 00:18:51,680 Reagan's life, that he ended up in a mental institution. 326 00:18:52,599 --> 00:18:55,319 As the weeks went on, he became more and more frustrated, 327 00:18:55,480 --> 00:18:58,519 more and more deranged in his attempts to gain her attention. 328 00:18:59,119 --> 00:19:01,319 He wrote in an one mus letter to the FBI 329 00:19:01,559 --> 00:19:04,920 informing them of a plot to abduct the actress Jody 330 00:19:05,039 --> 00:19:11,640 Foster quote all caps for romantic reasons unquote. So he's 331 00:19:11,680 --> 00:19:14,720 going to kidnap her, but it's for romance. And he 332 00:19:14,759 --> 00:19:17,720 began to think about shooting the president to force Foster 333 00:19:17,799 --> 00:19:21,400 to pay attention. This was nineteen eighty and Jimmy Carter 334 00:19:21,519 --> 00:19:24,279 was still in the White House. Hinkley followed him for 335 00:19:24,359 --> 00:19:27,119 a time on the campaign trail and at a rally 336 00:19:27,200 --> 00:19:31,440 in Dayton, Ohio. This part was very chilling. Let me 337 00:19:31,440 --> 00:19:36,279 start again. This was nineteen eighty and Jimmy Carter was 338 00:19:36,319 --> 00:19:39,000 still in the White House. Hinkley followed him for a 339 00:19:39,039 --> 00:19:42,880 time on the campaign trail and at a rally in Dayton, Ohio. 340 00:19:43,039 --> 00:19:46,640 In a strange restaging of the scene in Taxi Driver 341 00:19:46,839 --> 00:19:50,400 in which Travis comes close to assassinating a senator, got 342 00:19:50,440 --> 00:19:53,720 within arm's reach of him, close enough to get a 343 00:19:53,720 --> 00:19:57,759 clear shot. In footage taken at the Dayton rally, amid 344 00:19:57,799 --> 00:20:01,519 a scrum of happy supporters surround founding Carter, a pale 345 00:20:01,640 --> 00:20:05,119 and fair haired young man can be seen staring with 346 00:20:05,359 --> 00:20:12,960 unsmiling intensity at the president. It is unquestionably inklely mis chilling. Yeah, 347 00:20:13,000 --> 00:20:16,119 it really is chilling, and I had never heard that before. 348 00:20:16,640 --> 00:20:19,079 Speaker 3: A lot of this is new to me, and I'm 349 00:20:19,119 --> 00:20:22,519 wondering how new this is to some of our readers 350 00:20:22,559 --> 00:20:26,519 as well. Growing up in Williamsburg and knowing the notoriety 351 00:20:26,559 --> 00:20:29,440 of Hinckley, you don't always get the nuances of the story, 352 00:20:29,559 --> 00:20:33,200 so some of this is very new material for me. Hinckley, however, 353 00:20:33,319 --> 00:20:35,640 was unarmed, having left his bag with his guns in 354 00:20:35,680 --> 00:20:38,200 a locker at the bus station. He was treating this 355 00:20:38,319 --> 00:20:40,720 rally as a dry run to prove to himself that 356 00:20:40,799 --> 00:20:44,319 he was capable of doing this thing. Carter lost the election, 357 00:20:44,519 --> 00:20:46,640 and in the new year of nineteen eighty one there 358 00:20:46,680 --> 00:20:50,319 was a new president, a Republican. It didn't matter either way. 359 00:20:50,359 --> 00:20:53,039 To Hinckley, one president was as good as another. 360 00:20:54,039 --> 00:20:57,480 Speaker 2: That in and of itself says something very powerful. He 361 00:20:57,480 --> 00:21:01,039 didn't care about politics. He didn't care about Arders a Democrat, 362 00:21:01,240 --> 00:21:04,400 Reagan's a Republican. It didn't matter in the least. 363 00:21:04,839 --> 00:21:08,160 Speaker 3: It was all about the notoriety for him. Angley wrote 364 00:21:08,160 --> 00:21:10,960 strange and acrid poetry which he showed to no one 365 00:21:11,000 --> 00:21:15,400 and did nothing with. One called guns are Fun contained 366 00:21:15,400 --> 00:21:19,599 these lines, This gun gives me pornographic power. If I wish, 367 00:21:19,640 --> 00:21:21,880 the president will fall and the world will look at 368 00:21:21,880 --> 00:21:25,400 me in disbelief, all because I own an inexpensive gun. 369 00:21:26,160 --> 00:21:28,839 In early March nineteen eighty one, he spent another short 370 00:21:28,839 --> 00:21:32,160 and aimless period in Hollywood. He was severely depressed and 371 00:21:32,200 --> 00:21:35,839 had for some time been contemplating suicide, then drifting on 372 00:21:35,880 --> 00:21:39,559 a listless tide towards some act of as yet undefined violence. 373 00:21:39,640 --> 00:21:42,079 He got in a cross country bus to Washington, and 374 00:21:42,119 --> 00:21:44,359 he checked into a hotel close to the White House. 375 00:21:44,839 --> 00:21:47,920 He barely slept that night. On the morning of March thirtieth, 376 00:21:47,960 --> 00:21:50,200 he glanced at a local paper and saw the new 377 00:21:50,240 --> 00:21:53,519 president's itinerary for the day, Reagan was given a speech 378 00:21:53,559 --> 00:21:56,440 at the Washington Hilton. He knew then what his great 379 00:21:56,480 --> 00:21:59,039 gesture would be in his stalking of Foster and his 380 00:21:59,119 --> 00:22:01,720 targeting of the most powerful man on the planet. He 381 00:22:01,759 --> 00:22:05,480 was imposing a coherence on his loneliness and confusion, arranging 382 00:22:05,519 --> 00:22:08,200 it all into a system of which he himself was 383 00:22:08,200 --> 00:22:08,839 at the center. 384 00:22:09,519 --> 00:22:13,119 Speaker 2: He wrote a final letter to Foster, quote Jody, I 385 00:22:13,119 --> 00:22:15,960 would abandon this idea of getting Reagan in a second 386 00:22:16,000 --> 00:22:18,079 if I could only win your heart and live out 387 00:22:18,079 --> 00:22:20,079 the rest of my life with you, whether it be 388 00:22:20,119 --> 00:22:23,200 in total obscurity or whatever. He put the letter in 389 00:22:23,240 --> 00:22:26,039 an envelope and left it in his hotel room, hocketed 390 00:22:26,079 --> 00:22:29,240 his revolver and got a taxi to the Hilton. He 391 00:22:29,359 --> 00:22:31,759 waited there in a large crowd for the President to 392 00:22:31,799 --> 00:22:34,960 come through a side entrance at the hotel. At two 393 00:22:35,000 --> 00:22:38,680 twenty seven that afternoon, Reagan emerged, surrounded by a cluster 394 00:22:38,720 --> 00:22:43,160 of Secret Service agents, handlers, and police officers. Hinkley pulled 395 00:22:43,200 --> 00:22:46,640 out his roam and fired off all six bullets. The 396 00:22:46,680 --> 00:22:50,480 first hit Reagan's press secretary, entered his forehead right over 397 00:22:50,519 --> 00:22:54,400 his left eye. The second hit Della Hunty, the police officer. 398 00:22:54,680 --> 00:22:58,599 The third shot went directly over Reagan's head. The fourth 399 00:22:58,640 --> 00:23:02,079 hit McCarthy, thecret Service agent, who was by that point 400 00:23:02,160 --> 00:23:07,039 shielding the president. The fifth and sixth bullets ricocheted off 401 00:23:07,079 --> 00:23:10,680 the limo's armored surface, one came to rest, and the 402 00:23:10,680 --> 00:23:14,599 President's right lung perilously close to his heart less than 403 00:23:14,640 --> 00:23:17,559 an inch in fact. From rewriting the plot of history, 404 00:23:18,079 --> 00:23:20,680 this is the part where it's just amazing, and this 405 00:23:20,759 --> 00:23:25,440 is another secret Service laps that they allowed someone armed 406 00:23:25,480 --> 00:23:29,160 with a handgun to get that close to President Reagan. 407 00:23:30,160 --> 00:23:33,400 You're listening to mindover Murder. We'll be right back after 408 00:23:33,440 --> 00:23:42,720 this word from our sponsors. We're back here at mindover Murder. 409 00:23:43,599 --> 00:23:45,920 Before we get back to the podcast, just wanted to 410 00:23:46,000 --> 00:23:48,839 remind you that we have a go fundme effort going 411 00:23:48,880 --> 00:23:52,160 on right now. This campaign is designed to help us 412 00:23:52,279 --> 00:23:56,720 raise funds to help promote Mind over Murder and specifically 413 00:23:56,920 --> 00:24:01,720 to push the Colonial Parkway murders investigation forward. We'd love 414 00:24:01,759 --> 00:24:03,680 it if you could support us in any way that 415 00:24:03,720 --> 00:24:07,880 you can. Any donation from five dollars to whatever you 416 00:24:07,920 --> 00:24:11,519 can afford is very much appreciated and will be incredibly helpful. 417 00:24:11,880 --> 00:24:13,920 The link is in the show notes and in our 418 00:24:13,960 --> 00:24:19,119 social media pages. As always, thanks for your support. Now 419 00:24:19,160 --> 00:24:20,720 back to mind Over Murder. 420 00:24:21,519 --> 00:24:24,160 Speaker 3: After he was arrested, Hinckley was held at the Federal 421 00:24:24,160 --> 00:24:27,880 Correctional Institution in Butner, North Carolina. There he bassed in 422 00:24:27,920 --> 00:24:30,640 the glow of his new celebrity, which made him, if 423 00:24:30,680 --> 00:24:34,319 not the equal of Jodie Foster, certainly likewise a person 424 00:24:34,400 --> 00:24:36,920 of note. At Butner, he wrote every day in a 425 00:24:37,000 --> 00:24:39,680 journal that he labeled the Diary of a person we 426 00:24:39,759 --> 00:24:42,839 all know, a strangely inspired title. You have to admit, 427 00:24:43,279 --> 00:24:46,440 a man who shoots the American President successfully or otherwise 428 00:24:46,759 --> 00:24:49,519 is a person we all have no choice but to know. 429 00:24:50,519 --> 00:24:53,680 Speaker 2: The terms in which Hinckley viewed himself and his deed 430 00:24:53,920 --> 00:24:58,319 were self consciously mythic, and this conflation of fiction and 431 00:24:58,359 --> 00:25:01,480 reality is among them the most haunting aspects of his 432 00:25:01,680 --> 00:25:04,920 years of madness. Hinckley was inspired by a movie to 433 00:25:04,960 --> 00:25:10,200 shoot the president. Paul Schrader had based Taxi Driver partly 434 00:25:10,240 --> 00:25:13,839 on the diaries of Arthur Bremer, who shot George Wallace, 435 00:25:13,880 --> 00:25:17,440 the Alabama governor, when he campaigned for president in nineteen 436 00:25:17,480 --> 00:25:21,279 seventy two, and in those diaries, Bremer wrote that he 437 00:25:21,400 --> 00:25:25,920 was inspired to assassinate George Wallace while watching Stanley Kubrick's 438 00:25:26,000 --> 00:25:30,240 A Clockwork Orange, one of the great cinematic explorations of 439 00:25:30,279 --> 00:25:34,039 brutality and of violent media and its effects on the mind. 440 00:25:34,640 --> 00:25:38,680 A film inspires an attempted political assassination, which in turn 441 00:25:38,799 --> 00:25:42,720 inspires a film, which in turn inspires an attempted assassination. 442 00:25:43,359 --> 00:25:47,279 A feedback loop of real and imagined violence. 443 00:25:48,200 --> 00:25:51,480 Speaker 3: This is the part where as a film teacher, I 444 00:25:51,559 --> 00:25:55,519 find this massively intriguing. Obviously it's nothing I could cover 445 00:25:55,599 --> 00:25:59,039 with my students, but I find it very intriguing. And 446 00:25:59,119 --> 00:26:02,640 as someone who has an interest in true crime, in history, 447 00:26:03,039 --> 00:26:05,680 in all of this stuff, this is checking all of 448 00:26:05,720 --> 00:26:09,079 these really interesting boxes that are lighting up for me. 449 00:26:09,680 --> 00:26:11,759 I know this was the part that was really interesting 450 00:26:11,799 --> 00:26:12,440 to you as well. 451 00:26:12,680 --> 00:26:15,400 Speaker 2: Yeah, as you said that, Chris, and I was thinking. 452 00:26:15,599 --> 00:26:17,519 And then the last thing you'd want to do is 453 00:26:17,599 --> 00:26:23,279 extend that feedback loop one more time. Yeah, your film class, 454 00:26:23,359 --> 00:26:27,799 perhaps exploring these themes would inspire a young person to 455 00:26:27,880 --> 00:26:30,920 have to commit an act of violence. Now we're going around 456 00:26:30,960 --> 00:26:36,240 and round again. This is amazing the way reality is 457 00:26:36,319 --> 00:26:41,200 inspired by in this case, film followed by reality inspired 458 00:26:41,240 --> 00:26:45,240 by film, it just goes round and round. For those 459 00:26:45,440 --> 00:26:49,200 of us that don't have the capability to sort fact 460 00:26:49,240 --> 00:26:53,920 from fiction, truth from reality and descend into madness like 461 00:26:54,079 --> 00:26:57,039 Hickley did, this is where we end up This is 462 00:26:57,079 --> 00:27:01,160 where I'm not sorry that Thomas Matthew Crook was killed 463 00:27:01,240 --> 00:27:06,480 by a sniper when he attempted to attack former President Trump, 464 00:27:06,680 --> 00:27:09,920 But man, I would love to be able to question 465 00:27:10,200 --> 00:27:12,799 him and find out what his real motivations were. 466 00:27:13,400 --> 00:27:16,599 Speaker 3: There is, in other words, something vertiginously postmodern about what 467 00:27:16,680 --> 00:27:20,200 Hinckley called his historical deed and the madness in which 468 00:27:20,200 --> 00:27:23,720 it was cultivated. He was channeling at John Wilkes, Booth, Lee, 469 00:27:23,799 --> 00:27:27,960 Harvey Oswald, Mark David Chapman, Travis Bickle, the great loser 470 00:27:28,039 --> 00:27:32,839 antagonists of American history in cinema, and his target, however, incidentally, 471 00:27:33,240 --> 00:27:36,920 was himself an actor who learned his trade in westerns 472 00:27:36,960 --> 00:27:39,920 before going on to distinguish himself in the role of 473 00:27:40,000 --> 00:27:43,480 a folksy, reassuringly paternalistic politician. 474 00:27:44,160 --> 00:27:48,000 Speaker 2: And if Hinckley's intended victim was the Hollywood president, then 475 00:27:48,119 --> 00:27:52,599 Crook's intended victim was the reality television and Twitter president, 476 00:27:53,039 --> 00:27:57,279 a man who mastered two of our most sophisticated contemporary 477 00:27:57,319 --> 00:28:01,400 mediums of self creation. Brooks was born in two thousand 478 00:28:01,440 --> 00:28:04,480 and three. He was just four months old when Facebook 479 00:28:04,480 --> 00:28:08,000 first went online and thirteen years old when Trump became president. 480 00:28:08,440 --> 00:28:12,279 The advanced dissolution of the boundaries of which Trump is 481 00:28:12,279 --> 00:28:16,200 such a potent symbol between politics and entertainment and between 482 00:28:16,240 --> 00:28:19,880 personal and political identity, and to which so many of 483 00:28:19,960 --> 00:28:23,160 us are still struggling to accommodate ourselves. Was the only 484 00:28:23,240 --> 00:28:25,359 reality Crooks ever knew. 485 00:28:25,920 --> 00:28:28,359 Speaker 3: It is really interesting that he brought that up, because 486 00:28:28,640 --> 00:28:32,480 for people like you and me, we had associations of 487 00:28:32,559 --> 00:28:36,000 Donald Trump with things other than politics long before his 488 00:28:36,039 --> 00:28:39,759 political career. I remembered him from I'm really going to 489 00:28:39,839 --> 00:28:43,480 date myself on this one. I'm so sorry. But anyone 490 00:28:43,480 --> 00:28:45,720 else who's my age, we'll probably remember this too. I 491 00:28:45,880 --> 00:28:49,480 largely was first exposed to Donald Trump when he had 492 00:28:49,519 --> 00:28:53,640 a cameo role in Home Alone Two. Kevin is in 493 00:28:53,680 --> 00:28:56,319 the middle of the Plaza hotel and he passes Donald 494 00:28:56,359 --> 00:28:59,960 Trump and asked Trump where something is in Trump points 495 00:29:00,079 --> 00:29:02,200 him in the direction of it. It's just a very 496 00:29:02,240 --> 00:29:05,599 brief cameo, but that is how I was introduced to 497 00:29:05,680 --> 00:29:08,759 Donald Trump. Of course, I learned many years later real 498 00:29:08,839 --> 00:29:11,839 estate mogul, businessman or of the deal. That sort of 499 00:29:11,880 --> 00:29:16,039 thing for me growing up when I did I never 500 00:29:16,079 --> 00:29:18,400 thought of Trump as a politician. I always thought of 501 00:29:18,440 --> 00:29:21,799 him as an entertainment figure. Crooks only ever knew him 502 00:29:21,880 --> 00:29:25,799 as this combination of those two things, right. I do 503 00:29:25,920 --> 00:29:29,920 sometimes have to remind myself the reality I mentioned last 504 00:29:30,000 --> 00:29:32,799 episode that I was in Exennial, I think is how 505 00:29:32,839 --> 00:29:35,839 we say at gen X or Millennial, I cross both. 506 00:29:36,279 --> 00:29:39,759 I have to remind myself that I've experienced multiple types 507 00:29:39,799 --> 00:29:43,160 of realities in my day. I remember a time. It 508 00:29:43,200 --> 00:29:45,200 always blows my kid's minds when I tell them this. 509 00:29:45,640 --> 00:29:48,720 I remember a time when you could actually walk someone 510 00:29:48,720 --> 00:29:50,960 to the gate in the airport. You didn't have to 511 00:29:51,000 --> 00:29:53,279 go through security, you didn't have to take off shoes 512 00:29:53,319 --> 00:29:56,000 and belt. And it blows my kid's mind whenever I 513 00:29:56,039 --> 00:29:58,279 tell them there was actually a time before you had 514 00:29:58,279 --> 00:30:02,079 to do all of that with TA. Their reality, though, 515 00:30:02,240 --> 00:30:05,519 is only tsa security lines and everything else. I think 516 00:30:05,559 --> 00:30:09,480 we forget sometimes that with younger kids, younger people, they 517 00:30:09,519 --> 00:30:14,160 have not experienced whole cataclysmic shifts like we have. 518 00:30:14,960 --> 00:30:18,000 Speaker 2: It's the only reality they've known, and Crooks is a 519 00:30:18,039 --> 00:30:19,079 good example of that. 520 00:30:20,039 --> 00:30:22,519 Speaker 3: Then again, we don't know much else about Crook's world. 521 00:30:22,680 --> 00:30:24,519 We know he played video games and that he had 522 00:30:24,559 --> 00:30:28,160 an account on Discord, a social platform popular with gamers. 523 00:30:28,759 --> 00:30:30,680 That leaves a little doubt that he was familiar with 524 00:30:30,720 --> 00:30:34,559 the concept of NPCs, or non player characters, the figures 525 00:30:34,599 --> 00:30:36,920 in video games who are programmed into the background of 526 00:30:36,960 --> 00:30:40,000 the virtual world, controlled by no one but their code. 527 00:30:40,359 --> 00:30:43,160 It has become a popular insult online in recent years, 528 00:30:43,160 --> 00:30:47,480 and an unsettling and humanizing one, revealing a dangerously solipsistic 529 00:30:47,519 --> 00:30:51,440 worldview in which everyone around you is essentially fake and 530 00:30:51,559 --> 00:30:55,000 only you are fully real. It's hard not to see 531 00:30:55,000 --> 00:30:57,799 it as a direct byproduct of social media, where this 532 00:30:58,000 --> 00:31:01,559 is literally true from any ENDIVI viual user's point of view, 533 00:31:02,119 --> 00:31:04,480 and as with so many insults and accusations, it's a 534 00:31:04,559 --> 00:31:07,839 kind of projection. The people who use it most vociferously 535 00:31:08,200 --> 00:31:11,599 do so out of a fear that they themselves are NPCs. 536 00:31:12,200 --> 00:31:15,599 In a nation underpinned by the ideology of individualism, there 537 00:31:15,680 --> 00:31:18,240 is no fate worse. In a culture so driven by 538 00:31:18,240 --> 00:31:22,359 the dynamics of consumer capitalism, there is nothing easier to become. 539 00:31:23,240 --> 00:31:26,759 Speaker 2: There's a meme that is sometimes used online to illustrate 540 00:31:26,839 --> 00:31:31,759 the NPC, A simplistic cartoon of a gray and expressionless face, 541 00:31:32,200 --> 00:31:36,400 entirely devoid of character and in Krook's placid features, I 542 00:31:36,440 --> 00:31:40,720 could not help see its crude lineaments, and perhaps we 543 00:31:40,799 --> 00:31:45,000 might interpret his last act as an abject bid for agency, 544 00:31:45,400 --> 00:31:49,359 an effort to become the main character by grabbing a 545 00:31:49,400 --> 00:31:53,000 semi automatic rifle and defeating the final boss, the very 546 00:31:53,039 --> 00:31:57,599 personification of fame and power for his entire adolescence. Was 547 00:31:57,640 --> 00:32:02,519 this seemingly political act in fact entirely nihilistic and self interested. 548 00:32:02,960 --> 00:32:05,759 If so, he had at least this much in common 549 00:32:06,000 --> 00:32:06,640 with Hinkley. 550 00:32:07,319 --> 00:32:09,880 Speaker 3: This is where I really want one of our profiling 551 00:32:09,960 --> 00:32:12,200 friends to weigh in on this and go, what do 552 00:32:12,240 --> 00:32:15,319 you think? I think this is when it's explained like this, 553 00:32:15,400 --> 00:32:17,079 and this is nothing that would have occurred to me, 554 00:32:17,319 --> 00:32:20,519 especially because I was not familiar with the concept of NPCs. 555 00:32:20,640 --> 00:32:22,440 I am not that cool. I am not that familiar 556 00:32:22,440 --> 00:32:26,720 with things like that. Listening to mister O'Connell explain this 557 00:32:26,960 --> 00:32:30,359 in this really interesting and compelling way, and it makes 558 00:32:30,519 --> 00:32:33,240 a huge amount of sense to me. I am curious, though, 559 00:32:33,319 --> 00:32:36,000 if our profiling in psychology friends would look at this 560 00:32:36,039 --> 00:32:37,039 and go, yeah, man, right on. 561 00:32:37,759 --> 00:32:40,039 Speaker 2: I think it'd be an interesting conversation for us to 562 00:32:40,079 --> 00:32:42,200 set up. When the opportunity presents. 563 00:32:41,839 --> 00:32:46,119 Speaker 3: Itself, absolutely Hankley finds it difficult now to identify with 564 00:32:46,160 --> 00:32:48,519 the person he was in nineteen eighty one. He was 565 00:32:48,559 --> 00:32:51,759 out of his mind, driven by strange delusions toward increasingly 566 00:32:51,839 --> 00:32:54,960 extreme ends. He remembers it clearly, all of it, but 567 00:32:55,000 --> 00:32:56,839 in the way that a person might remember a vivid 568 00:32:56,839 --> 00:32:59,119 and violent dream. He can tell you what he did, 569 00:32:59,119 --> 00:33:01,279 but not why he did it. But I had no judgment, 570 00:33:01,359 --> 00:33:02,680 as he put it to me, at one point, I 571 00:33:02,720 --> 00:33:06,400 was so sick over dinner in my last evening in Williamsburg. 572 00:33:06,559 --> 00:33:09,119 I asked him what he remembered about his brief encounters 573 00:33:09,160 --> 00:33:12,279 with Jodie Foster. He was silent for a long moment. 574 00:33:12,759 --> 00:33:15,039 I did meet her once, he said. I spoke to her, 575 00:33:15,240 --> 00:33:16,079 just very briefly. 576 00:33:16,920 --> 00:33:19,640 Speaker 2: He found out that her real name was Alicia and 577 00:33:19,720 --> 00:33:22,480 figured she would be registered under that name. So he 578 00:33:22,599 --> 00:33:25,599 called the accommodation office at Yale and said he was 579 00:33:25,640 --> 00:33:28,599 looking to visit his friend Alicia Foster, and they gave 580 00:33:28,680 --> 00:33:31,759 him her address. I don't think this would happen, by 581 00:33:31,799 --> 00:33:33,119 the way, in twenty. 582 00:33:32,759 --> 00:33:34,319 Speaker 3: Twenty four, oh my gosh. No. 583 00:33:34,839 --> 00:33:37,759 Speaker 2: But apparently in nineteen eighty one they were much more relaxed. 584 00:33:38,359 --> 00:33:40,599 It was a Sunday morning when he saw her She 585 00:33:40,720 --> 00:33:44,559 was in front of her dormitory building, exercising and doing stretches. 586 00:33:45,200 --> 00:33:47,759 I walked up to her. He said, I didn't really 587 00:33:47,799 --> 00:33:50,200 know what to say. I said, do you know where 588 00:33:50,200 --> 00:33:52,920 the library is? And she pointed me towards it and 589 00:33:53,000 --> 00:33:57,079 I left parenthesis. Jodi Foster did not respond to a 590 00:33:57,160 --> 00:33:58,160 request for comment. 591 00:33:58,920 --> 00:34:01,039 Speaker 3: He left a little and shook his head. That's something 592 00:34:01,079 --> 00:34:03,720 I totally regret, he said. I asked him why, and 593 00:34:03,759 --> 00:34:05,599 he said that it was just a stupid thing to say. 594 00:34:05,920 --> 00:34:08,400 Given everything he went on to do, it seems strange 595 00:34:08,400 --> 00:34:10,840 to me that this encounter would embarrass him to think 596 00:34:10,880 --> 00:34:14,480 of even now. It was possible that this signaled an 597 00:34:14,559 --> 00:34:17,800 unsettling continuity with the person he was back then, But 598 00:34:17,880 --> 00:34:20,239 it was equally possible that it indicated the extent to 599 00:34:20,239 --> 00:34:23,280 which he'd been cured of his mania and obsession. Who 600 00:34:23,320 --> 00:34:25,760 among us, after all, is not haunted by some random 601 00:34:25,800 --> 00:34:27,920 stupid things said many years ago. 602 00:34:28,440 --> 00:34:31,960 Speaker 2: Despite the shame he feels about his past actions, Hinckley's 603 00:34:31,960 --> 00:34:36,719 strange status as a failed presidential assassin means perversely that 604 00:34:36,760 --> 00:34:39,239 he has little choice but to live in the public eye. 605 00:34:39,880 --> 00:34:42,960 It wouldn't quite be true to say he's capitalizing on 606 00:34:43,039 --> 00:34:45,400 his infamy, but he's not exactly going out of his 607 00:34:45,440 --> 00:34:48,400 way to avoid it either. This part I disagree with 608 00:34:48,440 --> 00:34:52,840 the author on the attention his music gets is unquestionably 609 00:34:52,920 --> 00:34:54,960 on a different level than it would be if he 610 00:34:55,000 --> 00:34:58,760 had not shot Reagan. He sells paintings of his orange 611 00:34:58,760 --> 00:35:02,000 tabby THEO on E I don't know how many, but 612 00:35:02,039 --> 00:35:03,800 it's surely more than he would have sold if he 613 00:35:03,880 --> 00:35:07,519 was just some guy. His small run of John Hinckley 614 00:35:07,519 --> 00:35:10,960 for President T shirts and bumper stickers sold out, and 615 00:35:11,039 --> 00:35:13,519 I suspect it wasn't just because some people thought the 616 00:35:13,559 --> 00:35:14,800 typeface was cool. 617 00:35:15,440 --> 00:35:17,880 Speaker 3: I do find that very interesting, and I think he 618 00:35:18,039 --> 00:35:21,239 is right. Nobody would be walking around with John Hickley 619 00:35:21,280 --> 00:35:24,119 for President bumper stickers if it weren't for the fact 620 00:35:24,119 --> 00:35:26,000 that John Hinckley shot a president. 621 00:35:26,440 --> 00:35:29,079 Speaker 2: And we've talked about this before on Mind over Murder. 622 00:35:29,199 --> 00:35:35,679 I find the glorification of individuals like this really reprehensible, 623 00:35:35,960 --> 00:35:38,360 and much in the same way I object to people 624 00:35:38,400 --> 00:35:43,000 wearing serial killers on their T shirts and other articles 625 00:35:43,039 --> 00:35:46,800 of clothing, which is a way of more than endorsing 626 00:35:46,960 --> 00:35:49,599 someone as hip and cool, so cool that I'm going 627 00:35:49,679 --> 00:35:52,440 to wear it on a T shirt. Yeah, I feel 628 00:35:52,440 --> 00:35:55,320 the same way about the John Hinckley for President T. 629 00:35:55,360 --> 00:35:58,360 Speaker 3: Shirts, which, interestingly, I've never seen any of those around 630 00:35:58,360 --> 00:36:00,679 town either. But I know, maybe I don't, maybe I 631 00:36:00,679 --> 00:36:01,360 don't get out much. 632 00:36:01,400 --> 00:36:02,719 Speaker 2: I don't know, and I don't think you have to 633 00:36:02,800 --> 00:36:05,760 be a Reagan fan to find a John Hinckley for 634 00:36:05,880 --> 00:36:06,840 President T shirt. 635 00:36:07,000 --> 00:36:09,840 Speaker 3: Kind of gross, and those T shirts and stickers are 636 00:36:09,840 --> 00:36:12,400 an indication of the liminal register of his current fame. 637 00:36:13,079 --> 00:36:16,599 Quite a lot of his fans, unsurprisingly, are hardline Internet ironists, 638 00:36:16,880 --> 00:36:19,440 whose engagement with his music in his various social media 639 00:36:19,480 --> 00:36:23,400 posts mostly amount of compliments and encouragements of dubious sincerity. 640 00:36:23,920 --> 00:36:27,320 Presidents hate this man, reads one fairly typical YouTube comment. 641 00:36:27,679 --> 00:36:30,519 Thank you for literally everything you've ever done, reads another. 642 00:36:31,039 --> 00:36:33,119 But many of his new fans seem to be entirely 643 00:36:33,159 --> 00:36:35,599 in good faith. They seem, that is, to admire his 644 00:36:35,679 --> 00:36:39,000 songwriting talent, his resilience, and his desire in the face 645 00:36:39,000 --> 00:36:41,559 of his traumatic past and his current infamy, to write 646 00:36:41,559 --> 00:36:44,039 his songs and sing them for the world. They see 647 00:36:44,039 --> 00:36:46,599 in him and in his post release career such as 648 00:36:46,639 --> 00:36:49,920 it is the potential for a redemptive narrative arc. Even 649 00:36:49,960 --> 00:36:52,760 the most damaged and dangerous of people can, given time 650 00:36:52,800 --> 00:36:55,000 and the right kind of care, change the stories of 651 00:36:55,039 --> 00:36:57,519 their lives and strive for some kind of ending that is, 652 00:36:57,599 --> 00:37:00,519 if not quite happy, then not exactly terrible either. 653 00:37:01,880 --> 00:37:04,920 Speaker 2: Such an outcome was never anything close to a given 654 00:37:05,000 --> 00:37:08,639 for Hinckley. His trial remains among the most famous uses 655 00:37:08,679 --> 00:37:14,079 of the insanity defense in legal history. The psychiatrist William T. Carpenter, 656 00:37:14,199 --> 00:37:19,000 who examined Hinckley, testified that the defendant's unstable use of 657 00:37:19,039 --> 00:37:22,239 his own reality led him to construct an identity from 658 00:37:22,280 --> 00:37:26,599 fictional characters. He was incapable of understanding the moral weight 659 00:37:26,679 --> 00:37:30,920 of his actions. The jury's decision not guilty by reason 660 00:37:30,960 --> 00:37:34,239 of insanity for each of the thirteen charges against him, 661 00:37:34,400 --> 00:37:36,920 and the judge's ruling that Hinckley should be sent to 662 00:37:37,119 --> 00:37:42,679 a psychiatric facility were extremely controversial. In an ABC News 663 00:37:42,760 --> 00:37:46,440 poll conducted after the verdict, eighty three percent of respondents 664 00:37:46,480 --> 00:37:50,760 said they felt justice was not done. The public outcry 665 00:37:50,840 --> 00:37:53,599 led to restrictions put in place by Congress and by 666 00:37:53,639 --> 00:37:56,880 most states on the use of the insanity defense. 667 00:37:57,840 --> 00:38:00,639 Speaker 3: It's very interesting too, there is a pick sure right 668 00:38:00,760 --> 00:38:08,119 underneath this of Senators Edward Ted Kennedy strom Thurmond, Joseph Biden, 669 00:38:08,440 --> 00:38:12,400 and Paul Lexalt after approval of a sweeping crime bill, 670 00:38:12,440 --> 00:38:15,079 but among other changes, made it more difficult for defendants 671 00:38:15,119 --> 00:38:18,840 to use the insanity defense. You get a very intense 672 00:38:18,920 --> 00:38:21,440 looking Ted Kennedy. I don't think I've ever seen that 673 00:38:21,519 --> 00:38:24,440 picture of Kennedy before. That was very interesting when strom 674 00:38:24,519 --> 00:38:26,639 Thurman looked about a thousand years old even then. 675 00:38:28,360 --> 00:38:31,800 Speaker 2: But clearly a bill with bi borrows support. As you see, 676 00:38:31,840 --> 00:38:36,280 prominent Republicans and Democrats were pushing this crime bill forward. 677 00:38:36,840 --> 00:38:40,159 I understand, and I remember how upset people were when 678 00:38:40,199 --> 00:38:43,960 the Hinckley defense came down as not guilty by reason 679 00:38:44,000 --> 00:38:47,320 of insanity. I still find this reprehensible. 680 00:38:47,920 --> 00:38:50,400 Speaker 3: Hinckley seems to me to have been treated with uncommon 681 00:38:50,440 --> 00:38:54,320 benevolence by the American criminal justice system. It helped, no 682 00:38:54,400 --> 00:38:56,800 doubt that his parents were well off and were able 683 00:38:56,840 --> 00:39:00,480 to pay for capable lawyers. He received effective and humane 684 00:39:00,480 --> 00:39:03,559 treatment in his time at Saint Elizabeth. Music and music 685 00:39:03,639 --> 00:39:06,639 therapy were a small but significant part of this. When 686 00:39:06,639 --> 00:39:08,679 I was in the hospital, he told me the one 687 00:39:08,719 --> 00:39:10,480 thing they let me have all the way through was 688 00:39:10,519 --> 00:39:13,000 my guitar. I don't know that it could ever make 689 00:39:13,039 --> 00:39:15,840 sense to describe a person who's been so seriously ill 690 00:39:15,920 --> 00:39:19,639 as cured. But Hinckley was manifestly no longer dangerous or 691 00:39:19,719 --> 00:39:21,599 sick in the way that he had once been. 692 00:39:22,480 --> 00:39:25,920 Speaker 2: Only on one occasion did I glimpse a brief flickering 693 00:39:26,119 --> 00:39:30,599 of what might be considered the old self reverential narcissism. 694 00:39:31,199 --> 00:39:33,760 It was the morning of my last day in Williamsburg. 695 00:39:34,119 --> 00:39:37,320 We had been talking at the small windowless office he 696 00:39:37,400 --> 00:39:39,960 rents about a fifteen minute drive from the town for 697 00:39:40,039 --> 00:39:43,920 the purpose of managing his somewhat incidental seeming business affairs, 698 00:39:44,159 --> 00:39:47,519 selling vinyl records and first edition books, along with various 699 00:39:47,559 --> 00:39:50,679 administrative chores around getting his music and his paintings and 700 00:39:50,719 --> 00:39:54,039 his merch out into the world. When we finished our conversation, 701 00:39:54,280 --> 00:39:56,599 he asked me how I was getting back to my hotel, 702 00:39:56,800 --> 00:39:59,039 and I told him I would gladly accept a lift 703 00:39:59,039 --> 00:40:01,519 from him if he was going that way. He said 704 00:40:01,559 --> 00:40:03,760 he wasn't, but he would run me out there anyway. 705 00:40:04,000 --> 00:40:07,760 As he was pulling out his old, shapeless, sand colored 706 00:40:07,760 --> 00:40:10,320 Toyota minivan out of the parking lot, he turned to 707 00:40:10,360 --> 00:40:13,519 me with a humorous glint in his eye. I'll bet 708 00:40:13,519 --> 00:40:15,880 you never thought you'd find yourself getting a ride back 709 00:40:15,880 --> 00:40:18,559 to your hotel from John Hinckley Junior. He said. 710 00:40:19,599 --> 00:40:21,400 Speaker 3: I laughed at the time because it was a funny 711 00:40:21,400 --> 00:40:23,679 thing to say. I still think it was a funny 712 00:40:23,719 --> 00:40:26,519 thing to say. In one sense, it seemed obviously a 713 00:40:26,559 --> 00:40:30,159 little grandiose and arguably in poor taste. If you squinted 714 00:40:30,159 --> 00:40:32,119 at it hard enough, you could probably see it as 715 00:40:32,159 --> 00:40:34,840 evidence that he was still indulging some of the same 716 00:40:34,880 --> 00:40:37,320 tendencies that led to him shooting a president. But I 717 00:40:37,320 --> 00:40:39,039 do think you would have to squint a little too 718 00:40:39,079 --> 00:40:41,719 hard for comfort. For all his strangeness and all the 719 00:40:41,800 --> 00:40:44,400 terrible darkness of his past, I could not help liking him. 720 00:40:44,880 --> 00:40:47,679 As odd as it might sound to say, John Hinckley 721 00:40:47,760 --> 00:40:49,840 Junior seemed to be not a bad man, but a 722 00:40:49,880 --> 00:40:52,559 man who was once very sick and now was not. 723 00:40:53,519 --> 00:40:56,400 Speaker 2: Later that day, after he dropped me to my hotel, 724 00:40:56,480 --> 00:40:59,000 we met again, and I noted that he had invoked 725 00:40:59,000 --> 00:41:02,639 God frequently in our conversations. I asked him about his 726 00:41:02,719 --> 00:41:06,199 religious faith. He was raised Episcopalian. He told me this 727 00:41:06,440 --> 00:41:08,920 was the church his parents had belonged to, and although 728 00:41:08,960 --> 00:41:11,440 he had not attended his service in many years, he 729 00:41:11,559 --> 00:41:14,800 still considered himself a Christian. He had prayed to God 730 00:41:14,840 --> 00:41:17,320 every day in the hospital and continued to do so 731 00:41:17,519 --> 00:41:18,440 now that he was out. 732 00:41:19,519 --> 00:41:21,639 Speaker 3: I asked him then whether he believed in heaven, and 733 00:41:21,639 --> 00:41:24,039 he seemed politely taken aback, as though I had asked 734 00:41:24,079 --> 00:41:27,079 him whether he believed in the existence of Delaware. Sure 735 00:41:27,119 --> 00:41:29,199 I do, he said, I hope I can get there. 736 00:41:29,280 --> 00:41:30,920 I'm going to have to do a lot of explaining 737 00:41:30,920 --> 00:41:32,679 at the gate, but I hope I can sneak in. 738 00:41:33,199 --> 00:41:35,440 I'll say, Saint Peter, I got a story for you. 739 00:41:35,639 --> 00:41:37,679 Just give me a little time to tell it. End 740 00:41:37,679 --> 00:41:38,199 of article. 741 00:41:39,079 --> 00:41:41,440 Speaker 2: Good luck with that entrance into the gates of Heaven. 742 00:41:41,719 --> 00:41:43,039 Somehow I'm not seeing it. 743 00:41:43,760 --> 00:41:47,400 Speaker 3: There's a roller coaster ride here of an article. I 744 00:41:47,400 --> 00:41:50,440 could easily see this becoming a book. I could see 745 00:41:50,440 --> 00:41:54,400 this becoming let's talk about the intersections of crime and 746 00:41:54,480 --> 00:41:59,000 politics and entertainment and assassination and violence. Say, I could 747 00:41:59,000 --> 00:42:02,320 see this becoming a much bigger thing than it already is. Boy, 748 00:42:02,480 --> 00:42:05,280 was this interesting. And that was as soon as I 749 00:42:05,360 --> 00:42:07,519 read it. Actually, the day that it came out, it 750 00:42:07,559 --> 00:42:09,480 was Sunday New York Times magazine. I laid there in 751 00:42:09,559 --> 00:42:12,000 bed for forty five minutes reading it, and immediately I 752 00:42:12,079 --> 00:42:13,519 sent this off to you when I was done, and 753 00:42:13,559 --> 00:42:15,280 I was like, we got to cover this. It is 754 00:42:15,360 --> 00:42:19,400 really very interesting. I'm still not holding the opinion that 755 00:42:19,480 --> 00:42:22,840 Hankley should be out of Saint Elizabeth. I am also 756 00:42:22,960 --> 00:42:26,679 not a psychologist, a psychiatrist, I'm not a therapist. I 757 00:42:26,719 --> 00:42:29,559 am not an expert in any of these things, so 758 00:42:30,079 --> 00:42:32,880 I don't have the capacity to judge that. But I 759 00:42:32,920 --> 00:42:37,559 do think it's interesting and noteworthy that an author took 760 00:42:37,639 --> 00:42:39,760 the time to really spend the time with this guy 761 00:42:39,800 --> 00:42:42,480 and try to figure out in good faith what happened here, 762 00:42:42,960 --> 00:42:45,960 what happened to you, and why are there so many 763 00:42:46,000 --> 00:42:50,760 similarities between you and other loser loaner mail assassins who've 764 00:42:50,760 --> 00:42:53,320 tried to leave their mark on history. I applaud what 765 00:42:53,360 --> 00:42:55,039 he was doing with this article, I really do. 766 00:42:55,639 --> 00:42:58,360 Speaker 2: I found it fascinating. At the same time, at the 767 00:42:58,440 --> 00:43:01,400 end of the article, I can't help thinks, gee, now 768 00:43:01,440 --> 00:43:04,480 that you're saying you should go back in and serve 769 00:43:04,599 --> 00:43:08,039 a life without parole or the murder of James Brady, 770 00:43:08,280 --> 00:43:13,039 which you're directly responsible for, and the idea that he 771 00:43:13,119 --> 00:43:17,119 would be able to serve forty plus years in a 772 00:43:17,239 --> 00:43:21,039 mental institution and then be free just doesn't sit well 773 00:43:21,079 --> 00:43:23,159 with me at all. 774 00:43:23,400 --> 00:43:26,039 Speaker 3: No, it never has with me. It definitely did not 775 00:43:26,159 --> 00:43:28,360 with our friend Mark Olshaker, who we had on to 776 00:43:28,480 --> 00:43:31,599 talk about this. After Hinckley was released with no restrictions 777 00:43:32,119 --> 00:43:36,079 in the interests of justice being served. It does not 778 00:43:36,320 --> 00:43:39,880 feel that it was served, especially for James. 779 00:43:39,559 --> 00:43:44,840 Speaker 2: Brady, without question. The article is John Hinckley Junior and 780 00:43:44,880 --> 00:43:48,119 the Madness of American Political Violence in the New York 781 00:43:48,159 --> 00:43:53,760 Times magazine. It debuted on July twenty fifth, twenty twenty four, 782 00:43:53,800 --> 00:43:55,960 and will of course link it in our show notes. 783 00:43:56,960 --> 00:43:59,320 Speaker 3: That is going to do it for this episode of 784 00:43:59,440 --> 00:44:02,639 Mind Never. Thank you so much for listening. If you 785 00:44:02,760 --> 00:44:04,480 like what we're doing, please make sure you leave a 786 00:44:04,519 --> 00:44:07,880 five star rating and review on any of our podcast platforms. 787 00:44:08,400 --> 00:44:10,360 Do make sure that you buy some of our merch 788 00:44:10,400 --> 00:44:14,119 over at to Public and look for upcoming social events 789 00:44:14,119 --> 00:44:16,079 and live events where you can come see us in 790 00:44:16,159 --> 00:44:19,519 various places, both here in Williamsburg and maybe even up 791 00:44:19,559 --> 00:44:21,639 in Connecticut. Maybe I'll come up and visit you and 792 00:44:21,639 --> 00:44:23,480 we'll do a little something up there. How would that be, 793 00:44:23,559 --> 00:44:26,480 mister Thomas sounds great. That's going to do it for 794 00:44:26,519 --> 00:44:28,800 this episode of mind Over Murder. Thank you so much 795 00:44:28,840 --> 00:44:30,760 for listening. We'll see you next time. 796 00:44:40,079 --> 00:44:43,599 Speaker 1: Mind Over Murder is a production of Absolute Zero and 797 00:44:43,679 --> 00:44:45,119 Another Dog Productions. 798 00:44:45,679 --> 00:44:49,000 Speaker 2: Our executive producers are Bill Thomas and Kristin Dilley. 799 00:44:49,320 --> 00:44:51,800 Speaker 1: Our logo art is by Pamela Arnois. 800 00:44:52,400 --> 00:44:54,480 Speaker 2: Our theme music is by Kevin McLoud. 801 00:44:55,000 --> 00:44:59,320 Speaker 1: Mind Over Murder is distributed in partnership with Coral Space Media. 802 00:45:00,079 --> 00:45:02,840 Speaker 2: Follow us on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram. 803 00:45:03,039 --> 00:45:05,639 Speaker 1: You can also follow our page on the Colonial Parkway 804 00:45:05,719 --> 00:45:07,519 Murders on Facebook. 805 00:45:07,320 --> 00:45:10,360 Speaker 2: And finally, you can follow Bill Thomas on Twitter at 806 00:45:10,360 --> 00:45:12,000 Bill Thomas five six. 807 00:45:12,480 --> 00:45:15,400 Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to mind Over Murder.