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Speaker 2: You are now listening to True Murder The most Shocking
Speaker 2: Killers in true crime history and the authors that have
Speaker 2: written about him. Gasey Bundy, Dahmer, The Nightstalker BTK Every
Speaker 2: week another fascinating author talking about the most shocking and
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Speaker 2: host journalist and author Dan Zupanski, Good Evening.
Speaker 6: John Edward Swindler never learned to read or write, and
Speaker 6: instead became a bona fide criminal at the age of fifteen.
Speaker 6: His crimes quickly advanced from carfaf to arson. At three
Speaker 6: hundred pounds, with long, fuzzy red hair and pimplely's skin,
Speaker 6: his appearance was so frightening that he intimidated fellow inmates
Speaker 6: into performing crimes from their jail cells. He sodomized other
Speaker 6: convicts who dared not refuse him. He was moved in
Speaker 6: and out of solitary confinement in an attempt to break
Speaker 6: him of his violent ways. It failed. Released from prison
Speaker 6: because he was uncontrollable, he began a multi state crime
Speaker 6: spree that culminated in the rape and murder of three
Speaker 6: young people and the shocking assault on a Fort Smith,
Speaker 6: Arkansas policeman named Randy Basnett. In a matter of days,
Speaker 6: Swindler's lust for death grew into an unforgettable killing spree.
Speaker 6: On September twenty fourth, nineteen seventy six, two men, John
Speaker 6: Edward Swindler, a force for evil an officer Randy Basnett,
Speaker 6: laying his life on the line for good, came together.
Speaker 6: The results altered their lives and the lives of many others.
Speaker 6: This is their story. The book that were featuring this
Speaker 6: evening is The Killing Spree, a true story of a
Speaker 6: string of brutal murders, rapes, and the cop who tried
Speaker 6: to stop it. With my special guest, author Anita Paddock.
Speaker 6: Welcome back to the program and thank you for this interview.
Speaker 6: Anita Paddick, Hello, thank you so much for this interview.
Speaker 4: You're very welcome.
Speaker 3: Right away.
Speaker 6: In this book, you take us to September twenty fourth,
Speaker 6: nineteen seventy six, Fort Smith, Arkansas, and you take us
Speaker 6: to a house in Barling, a little town outside of
Speaker 6: Fort Smith, and the home of Fort Smith police officer
Speaker 6: thirty year old Randy Bassinett, his wife, Cindy, and their
Speaker 6: three children. Tell us, as you do in the book,
Speaker 6: about Randy and Cindy and their extended families and their
Speaker 6: lives at that time. In September nineteen seventy.
Speaker 4: Six, Randy Bassnan and his wife Cindy were They were
Speaker 4: a very happy couple. They had a new baby, and
Speaker 4: this new baby was just a gole to Randy. He
Speaker 4: could not believe how much he loved that baby and
Speaker 4: as well as the other children in the family who
Speaker 4: were four and six. Cindy, his wife, was a daughter
Speaker 4: of a policeman, so she very well knew what a
Speaker 4: wife of a policeman needed to do. Because she was
Speaker 4: actually the only child and her mother. She and her
Speaker 4: mother were often left alone while her father was out
Speaker 4: doing his detective work. Anyway, Cindy was a real few
Speaker 4: little girl. Nobody's traded on Cindy. She adored her mother
Speaker 4: and father, and Randy's parents were really kind to her
Speaker 4: and she loved them as well. And on this particular
Speaker 4: day of September twenty fourth, she had taken her children
Speaker 4: and gone out to visit with Randy's parents because they
Speaker 4: had bought an ease swing set or the older children
Speaker 4: and mister Basnett had put it up and so she was.
Speaker 4: Cindy was in the kitchen with Peggy bass Set. They
Speaker 4: were just visiting, having a good time, and then while
Speaker 4: they were in the kitchen visiting on the two way radio,
Speaker 4: they heard that there had been a shooting in the
Speaker 4: north side of town, and so they both kind of
Speaker 4: perked up then because they knew that Randy patrolled that
Speaker 4: part of town. They all, both of them knew what
Speaker 4: the dangers were of being a policeman and what the
Speaker 4: heartache could be are a policeman's family if something would
Speaker 4: go wrong. Now, then I'm going to take you back
Speaker 4: to a week earlier when John Edwards Swindler got off
Speaker 4: the bus at a bus station in Columbia, South Carolina.
Speaker 4: That's where he was from, and he had he had
Speaker 4: been involved with a lot of really petty crimes and
Speaker 4: our son, and he was really a bad guy. He
Speaker 4: had been in he had been in Levin War and
Speaker 4: in Leavenworth. He was such a he was in and
Speaker 4: out in solitary and nothing that the warden or anybody
Speaker 4: else at that prison could do to stop him from intimidating,
Speaker 4: sodomizing other prisoners. So they just let him out and
Speaker 4: sent him home, gave him forty dollars and a bus
Speaker 4: ticket to South Carolina. When he got off the bus,
Speaker 4: he was met by his brother. The brother wanted to
Speaker 4: help him, wanted to get him, find him a job,
Speaker 4: wanted to find him a place to live, but John
Speaker 4: Edreds Swindler was not interested in that. He immediately as
Speaker 4: soon as his brother left, he immediately started walking and
Speaker 4: kidnapped the man who was driving a car. He had
Speaker 4: stopped at a stop lot, and John Edwards Windler just
Speaker 4: jumped in the car before this guy he wanted happened,
Speaker 4: and he stole that car and drove it until it
Speaker 4: ran out of game, and then he left it. Then
Speaker 4: he went to a He walked to this kind of
Speaker 4: Hamburger place, a drive in Hamburger place, and there in
Speaker 4: her father's car sat Dottie and Greg and they were
Speaker 4: sweethearts in high school. They had just graduated from high school,
Speaker 4: and she was driving her daddy's car and they were
Speaker 4: getting a Hamburger, and he just there again opened the door.
Speaker 4: He just walked up to him, opened the door, and
Speaker 4: she was behind the wheel because she had driven him there,
Speaker 4: of course in her daddy's car, And he stuck a
Speaker 4: pistol in Greg's side and told her to drive to
Speaker 4: this nearest. It was like a place you could go
Speaker 4: fit go fishing. It was like a park and she
Speaker 4: knew where it was, and so they had it off
Speaker 4: that park and all the time she was driving, she
Speaker 4: was trying to go fast that police maybe would stop
Speaker 4: her for speeding, but that didn't happen. She was very
Speaker 4: worried about what her father was gonna say, because he
Speaker 4: had told her just to drive this car to work
Speaker 4: and back her parents. When she didn't return home in
Speaker 4: the car, they grew concerned and they called Greg's parents,
Speaker 4: and Greg's parents said, well, he's not home either, so
Speaker 4: they knew something bad had happened, so they called the police.
Speaker 4: The police ended up searching around and they found Greg
Speaker 4: and Dottie's bodies. Greg had was all his clothes had,
Speaker 4: and he was naked, and he was lying on top
Speaker 4: of a falling down the trunk of a tree. She
Speaker 4: was tied up to a tree, and the car was
Speaker 4: stolen and Greg Greg had been shot. He was dead
Speaker 4: and she too had been shot. So two days days
Speaker 4: after he got out of leven Word he had killed
Speaker 4: this really nice young couple, Greg and Dottie.
Speaker 6: Anita tell us what happens. A couple days later, Swindler
Speaker 6: goes to a bar and sees an ex con, and
Speaker 6: that ex con tells him that the cops are looking
Speaker 6: for him for a murder of a young couple. So
Speaker 6: what is his reaction and what does he do as
Speaker 6: a consequence, Well.
Speaker 4: He can't believe that already they're looking for him. He doesn't.
Speaker 4: He's amazed about that, but he realizes he got to
Speaker 4: get out of town, and so he has to look
Speaker 4: for another car in which he can leave. So he
Speaker 4: walks around in this neighborhood until he finds a house
Speaker 4: that appears. He can tell that the house is occupied
Speaker 4: by some elderly people, so he knocks on the door
Speaker 4: and the lady comes to the door, and he pushes
Speaker 4: her in, and then he steals their money. She has
Speaker 4: a husband who comes downstairs, and he seals their money.
Speaker 4: He seals their car, and the man has a gun cabinet,
Speaker 4: and he looks in that gun cabinet and he sees
Speaker 4: a real pretty rifle that has a brand newscape that
Speaker 4: goes with it that's already in a box, and he
Speaker 4: and a couple of shotguns. So he seals those guns
Speaker 4: and puts them in the back of their car, along
Speaker 4: with the money. He sold from them, and off he goes.
Speaker 4: He wants to go to Kansas City because there's some
Speaker 4: people who live in Kansas City who wronged him in
Speaker 4: when he was in Living Word. So off he goes,
Speaker 4: and he is as far as Georgia when he hears
Speaker 4: on the car radio that a Georgia policeman has has
Speaker 4: spotted this car. So he hides behind a filling station
Speaker 4: that has a great, big like a sign that would
Speaker 4: that he could hide the car behind. And he stays
Speaker 4: there trying to decide what to do. You know, he
Speaker 4: continue on west or go back east where he knows
Speaker 4: the area better. He's at a real disadvantage because he
Speaker 4: can't read or write, but he goes into when it
Speaker 4: gets down, he goes into this all night, twenty four
Speaker 4: hour filling station and he robs this guy who works there,
Speaker 4: and then he hides him in. He locks him into
Speaker 4: a closet and tells him not to try to get out,
Speaker 4: but the guy does try to get out, and he
Speaker 4: hears him trying to get out, and so Swindler takes
Speaker 4: the gun and shoots this guy and then leaves him
Speaker 4: in there, leaves him for dead. The fellow, the attendant
Speaker 4: who was shot. Eventually he lives, but he has to
Speaker 4: be in the hospital for many many weeks. He's really
Speaker 4: his back is he's really really damaged by this shotgun anyway,
Speaker 4: and the people there's a couple parked in the car
Speaker 4: in front of the service and they see what's going on.
Speaker 4: It's a mother and her son. And then they see
Speaker 4: the man leave and then they call the police that
Speaker 4: they just tell them about the man shooting somebody in
Speaker 4: the filling station and that he was that he was
Speaker 4: driving a gold Plymouth Gosha. So off he goes, and
Speaker 4: he decides that he will go west, and he picks
Speaker 4: up a hitchhocker. He doesn't try to rob the hitchhicker
Speaker 4: because he knows that he's probably poured or he wouldn't
Speaker 4: be hitchhocking. But he asks the hitchhacker if he has
Speaker 4: a map that he could draw on and tell him
Speaker 4: how to get to how to get to Kansas City.
Speaker 4: And so the guy does. He has a map and
Speaker 4: he draws and he tells him you keep on this forty,
Speaker 4: how hey, forty and then when you get to Alma, Arkansas,
Speaker 4: you turn right and go go left, or you turn
Speaker 4: right and go north on Highway seventy one, and that'll
Speaker 4: get you to Kansas City. So he heads that way
Speaker 4: for Alma, and he's driving real fast, and he's drinking
Speaker 4: along the way, and he passes by Alma and heads on,
Speaker 4: heads on west and when he gets when he gets
Speaker 4: to a filling station that's just across after he's crossed
Speaker 4: the Arkansas River, he knows that he's gone too far
Speaker 4: and he stops at the very first filling station that
Speaker 4: he can and that's on Kelly Highway. And Kelly Highway
Speaker 4: is a real busy street. And on Kelly Highway, across
Speaker 4: the street from this filling station and convenience store is
Speaker 4: the Arkansas State Patrol Office, a real big, fancy, nice office.
Speaker 4: And coming to that office is a policeman named Chuck Lambert,
Speaker 4: and he has seen this. He is I've seen swindler
Speaker 4: on the highway and already thinks, ooh, that guy looks weird.
Speaker 4: And he's driving this South Carolina license plate. So he's
Speaker 4: far from home. And when he gets and he's so
Speaker 4: he pulls off and goes into the State Patrol office
Speaker 4: and gets the business that he's supposed to be getting.
Speaker 4: He's an undercovered narcotics inspector. He looks out the window
Speaker 4: and sees it that same car that he noticed on
Speaker 4: the road is parked at that filling station. So he
Speaker 4: keeps goes on about his business, but keeps looking out
Speaker 4: and seeing that that car is still there.
Speaker 6: You set the stage in the book for Randy. Randy
Speaker 6: Basnett liked to stop at this gas station to have
Speaker 6: a coffee and coke with the attendant there, which is
Speaker 6: named Carl Tinder, he also worked at He also worked
Speaker 6: at Edward's funeral at home as well, and they were
Speaker 6: friends for a long time. And at this time that
Speaker 6: Randy often frequent this gas station. In the convenience store
Speaker 6: in walked in this as you said, this big, huge,
Speaker 6: three hundred pounds smelly guy that was looking for directions
Speaker 6: said he couldn't read and had a map and wanted assistance.
Speaker 6: Take us to this scene where Carl and Randy Bestnett
Speaker 6: encounter John Swindler.
Speaker 4: Well, they see johns Swindler and when he tells them
Speaker 4: that he can't read or ride, there say, oh my,
Speaker 4: I'm in sort of a pandary how to explain someone
Speaker 4: who can't read or ride? But they begin showing him
Speaker 4: on that map that he brings in how to get
Speaker 4: to Alma. Well, Randy best Nett is remembering the briefing
Speaker 4: that he had earlier in the day where there was
Speaker 4: an all points bulletin sent out about Swindler. And by
Speaker 4: this time they knew that he thought he was driving
Speaker 4: because the elderly couple had said, he's driving our car
Speaker 4: and it's a gold Plymouth Dodger and the last South
Speaker 4: Carolina license plate, and then describes the man, and the
Speaker 4: man is the man's The description fits the description of
Speaker 4: this guy who's in the asking for directions. And Randy
Speaker 4: bassetent looks out and sees this car that's parked right
Speaker 4: outside the door to the convenience store. So he he says, well, guys,
Speaker 4: I've got to get back to work. And so he
Speaker 4: leaves mister Tinder there in the office with this Swindler
Speaker 4: and he goes Raady Bassett goes to his car, gets
Speaker 4: his notebook, calls in to his office and tells him
Speaker 4: that he's seen this guy and where he is and
Speaker 4: just send back up. And then Randy, I suppose, was
Speaker 4: afraid that maybe this guy was going to get in
Speaker 4: the car and take off, and so he walks over
Speaker 4: to the fellow swindler who's working under the hood of
Speaker 4: his car, and he asks them if he has any identification,
Speaker 4: and the fellow says, let me put Swindler says, let
Speaker 4: me put the trunk the car pud down and I'll
Speaker 4: get it out of my car. So Randy sort of
Speaker 4: stays there fairly close to the car, and the swindler
Speaker 4: gets in. He reaches over as if he were getting
Speaker 4: his wallet to show his driver's slices, but instead he
Speaker 4: reaches in and gets a revolver, and he swings around
Speaker 4: and hits and uses the gun and shoots Randy twice
Speaker 4: in the stomach at close range. And when Randy Bass
Speaker 4: then is falling down after being mortally hit, he is
Speaker 4: able to get his gun out of the holster and
Speaker 4: fire off six shots into that car, and one of
Speaker 4: the shots hits Swindler in the left thigh, and then
Speaker 4: Swindler takes off. He takes off and heads down that
Speaker 4: is a dead end road, and in the meantime, Chuckelambert
Speaker 4: looks out the window and he witnesses all this shooting,
Speaker 4: and he grabs the revolver and he runs outside and
Speaker 4: when Swindler is passing by. He shoots at that car,
Speaker 4: but he doesn't hit the car, but he sees the
Speaker 4: direction in which the car is escaping to. And about
Speaker 4: that time, Bob Ross, who is a policeman and Randy's
Speaker 4: really good friend, he shows up and he sees Lambert,
Speaker 4: and Lambert tells him what has happened, and he's in
Speaker 4: this Bob Ross is getting the car with me, and
Speaker 4: so he does. And then Bob Ross's car shawls and
Speaker 4: he can't get it to start, so they go back
Speaker 4: where Randy Bassett's car is parked. They get in to
Speaker 4: it and it stalls also, and so they're wondering what
Speaker 4: the heck is going on here, But finally finally they
Speaker 4: get the car started. They take off and go down
Speaker 4: this dirt road that leads to the Arkansas River, and
Speaker 4: that is that's the direction in which Swindler was going.
Speaker 4: He didn't know where he was going, he just took off.
Speaker 4: Ross and Lambert they go looking for him, but they're
Speaker 4: sort of afraid that there might be an ambush, but
Speaker 4: Swindler calls out, I give up. I don't want to
Speaker 4: be killed, and so they separate. By this time more
Speaker 4: policemen show up, so they all separated and sneak over
Speaker 4: to where the voice is coming from Swindler, arrest him
Speaker 4: and find all the guns that he has, and those
Speaker 4: policemen are really really angry at this Swindler for killing
Speaker 4: one of their own. Sure they take him. They take
Speaker 4: Swindler to the hospital because he's been shot by he's
Speaker 4: got this bullet his thigh, and he's all dirty and
Speaker 4: awful looking because he's been on the run, and so
Speaker 4: they take him. They take him to the same hospital
Speaker 4: where Randy Basnett was taken, and Randy died on the way.
Speaker 4: Mister Tinder went out and stayed with Randy while he
Speaker 4: was lying on the concrete street. He stayed with him.
Speaker 4: Mister Tinder says that he had worked at Edward's funeral
Speaker 4: home for a long time and he knew something about
Speaker 4: dead bodies, and by the way Randy's eyes looked, he
Speaker 4: was sure that he was already dead, but he stayed
Speaker 4: with him tele the ambulance got there and they took
Speaker 4: him to Sparks Hospital, where they also took Swindler. And
Speaker 4: the police were none too gentle with Swindler.
Speaker 6: As you can imagine, no Meanwhile, you write that, Meanwhile,
Speaker 6: Peggy Basnett, as you were talking about earlier, was with
Speaker 6: Cindy and baby Amanda and had that police scanner on.
Speaker 6: When they did hear that there were shots fired in
Speaker 6: the area that Randy was working in. Peggy told her
Speaker 6: to call the police station and find out what was
Speaker 6: going on. Of course they couldn't. They said they couldn't
Speaker 6: say anything, but they would notify her. So they've been notified.
Speaker 6: Cindy has been notified, the family has been notified. But
Speaker 6: what you do, right, is that the grandfather sees it
Speaker 6: on television unfortunately, that his grandson has been mortally wounded
Speaker 6: in this altercation with John Swindler. So tell us what
Speaker 6: happens next. You talk about the funeral, You talk about
Speaker 6: so many things that happened as a result of this.
Speaker 6: Tell us what happens in regards to the investigation into
Speaker 6: other crimes by John Swindler.
Speaker 4: All right, they notify the Fort Smiths Palaete Department, notifies
Speaker 4: the Palaze department in South Carolina and that they've caught
Speaker 4: this guy and that he's killed a policeman. And and
Speaker 4: then they started in on looking at this guy's record
Speaker 4: and they know that he's a bad guy and he's
Speaker 4: been Oh he's just he's just a horrible guy. They
Speaker 4: put him. Somebody has to work, a doctor has to
Speaker 4: work on him, and that the doctors actually make it.
Speaker 4: They was rumored and I think true that when the
Speaker 4: doctors were working on Swindler, they did not give him
Speaker 4: and he didn't use any kind of painkiller because nobody.
Speaker 4: Nobody likes somebody who kills a policeman. And Randy bas
Speaker 4: Sent was he was a He was a very likable guy.
Speaker 4: He was a native of Fort Smith and so Sidney's
Speaker 4: Sidey's father, Odell Davis, and Randy bas Sent were very
Speaker 4: very good friends. They fished together and her daddy had
Speaker 4: been a policeman, so so they had that in common.
Speaker 4: And he really took over and helped Cindy out more
Speaker 4: than anybody could. He went to the police station with her,
Speaker 4: he talked to the doctors who were willing to give
Speaker 4: her a senatuvee because it was her local doctor heard
Speaker 4: about it and he called and said, I want you
Speaker 4: to take Cindy to the hospital, and I want to
Speaker 4: the emergency room. I've already called and they're going to
Speaker 4: give her a senatude because they knew that she had
Speaker 4: to be just, you know, really inconsolable. So she stays
Speaker 4: at her mother and daddy's house and while she's there,
Speaker 4: the police chaplain rings the doorbell and he comes, and
Speaker 4: he's the one who really delivers the message that Brandy
Speaker 4: Best said has been killed. And she she beats him
Speaker 4: on the chest and says, don't don't don't tell me that.
Speaker 4: Don't tell me that it's got to be a mistake,
Speaker 4: and her father soothes her and says, no, this is
Speaker 4: the truth. And so eventually Cindy and this police chaplain
Speaker 4: become very very good friends. He delivered the true message
Speaker 4: to her that her husband had been killed, and for
Speaker 4: some reason she latched on to him because he had
Speaker 4: given her the truth. And so if she's there, she's
Speaker 4: there and her daddy is with her, her mother is
Speaker 4: taking care of the children, and mister Cindy's father says,
Speaker 4: we want you to go lie down and try to rest.
Speaker 4: And while she's lying down and resting, the doorbell rings
Speaker 4: and mister Davis, her daddy, goes to the door and
Speaker 4: it's two FBI men who want to talk with Cindy.
Speaker 4: So he goes and mister Davis goes and wakes up
Speaker 4: his daughter and tells her that there's two FBI fellas
Speaker 4: who want to talk to her. So she comes into
Speaker 4: the living room. The FBI guys are extremely gentlemen and
Speaker 4: they stand up when she enters the room and they
Speaker 4: tell her that they're very sorry for what had happened.
Speaker 4: And then they tell her that the reason John Swindler
Speaker 4: was even out was because the warden at Levenworth could
Speaker 4: not control him. And she freaks out over here and that,
Speaker 4: and she said, well, I hope that that warden is fired,
Speaker 4: and the guys say, we think that should happen too,
Speaker 4: and eventually she does find out that that warden was fired,
Speaker 4: and that's how she found out from FBI guy, which
Speaker 4: I thought was very nice and kind of them to
Speaker 4: come to her house or daddy's house and tell her
Speaker 4: what had happened.
Speaker 6: You described this very emotional scene that you recreate in
Speaker 6: the book. The funeral was so important and there was
Speaker 6: so many people that wanted to attend that they had
Speaker 6: to use the civic center, and so you described this
Speaker 6: event and how emotional she was talking to her husband,
Speaker 6: and the viewing tell us a little bit about the
Speaker 6: funeral and Cindy's reaction.
Speaker 4: All right, Cindy, Cindy picked out a casket along with
Speaker 4: the Randy's parents were with her and her daddy was
Speaker 4: with her, and they went to Edward's funeral home and
Speaker 4: they picked it out there, and his body was there
Speaker 4: at Edward's funeral home and it was being guarded by policemen,
Speaker 4: and he had been there had been an autopsy done
Speaker 4: in Fort Smith on Randy's body, and once that autopsy
Speaker 4: was completed, then he was dressed in his police uniform
Speaker 4: uniform and was lay there in Edward's funeral home for
Speaker 4: a few days. And then they had to decide what
Speaker 4: to do about the funeral, and her daddy said, Sindy,
Speaker 4: everyone tells me that there's going to be some manyople
Speaker 4: at this funeral that we want to We'll want to
Speaker 4: have it at a great, big place that can accommodate
Speaker 4: the people. And they think the Civic Center has better.
Speaker 4: And she said, no, hell no, I don't want it
Speaker 4: to be like an event like That's where they had
Speaker 4: plays and symphonies. But her daddy said, Cynthia, and she
Speaker 4: told me that when he called her Cynthia, that she
Speaker 4: knew that she did it straightened up. So she agreed
Speaker 4: and it was a great, big funeral attended by many,
Speaker 4: many people. And when the funeral was over, she left
Speaker 4: with her parents in the funeral car and they got
Speaker 4: about a mile away and then she said stop the car,
Speaker 4: and she wanted to go back to the civic center
Speaker 4: and she wanted to be alone with Randy in the casket.
Speaker 4: And so her daddy went with her and stood there
Speaker 4: while she talked to her daddy. To her husband, she
Speaker 4: was kneeling at the casket, and she talked to him
Speaker 4: and told him that she loved him and she was
Speaker 4: going to get through this and honor him and the
Speaker 4: way that she did it. And so they did Lodu's
Speaker 4: casket in the car funeral car, and he was buried,
Speaker 4: and there was a picture in the paper of her
Speaker 4: leaning at his on his coffin at the grave site.
Speaker 4: This is a little side of side to tell you.
Speaker 4: On Sunday, I was at a book signing and a
Speaker 4: man came up to me and he had bought a
Speaker 4: book and he wanted it signed. And he said, he said,
Speaker 4: I want to tell you it was my honor to
Speaker 4: sing Randy Bassnet's funeral, and he got all emotional when
Speaker 4: he told me that, and so did I. But the funeral,
Speaker 4: the funeral was lovely, and the guest book was signed.
Speaker 4: One person who signed the guest book was Randy's fourth
Speaker 4: grade teacher, mister Witt. After that, they all had to,
Speaker 4: you know, try to get along and try to try
Speaker 4: to move on, and Cindy did and everybody did, but
Speaker 4: it was very, very difficult for her. By the time
Speaker 4: September turned into November and October and then the December
Speaker 4: and January. We had a real bad winter that year,
Speaker 4: and Cindy say, didn't barling at their home, and people
Speaker 4: would show up to help her get to the grocery
Speaker 4: store or get diapers or get baby food. And she
Speaker 4: was touched by all of that because had such a heart.
Speaker 4: Winner that the car that it was difficult to drive,
Speaker 4: that was a remember that was a winner that everybody
Speaker 4: can remember. It was bad.
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Speaker 6: Now the funeral is finished, but while awaiting this capital
Speaker 6: felony murder trial, John Swindler was doing something and terrorizing
Speaker 6: Cindy from behind.
Speaker 4: Can you explain John Swindler, He was able to just
Speaker 4: intimidate everybody who was in that Sebastian County cell. He
Speaker 4: threatened up. He could get him to do anything because
Speaker 4: he was so big, he was so intimidating, and that's
Speaker 4: the way he had lived his life. And so there
Speaker 4: was a man there who was a prisoner who's had
Speaker 4: a girlfriend who worked the switchboard at the Sebastian County jail,
Speaker 4: and they had her not in this recording to Cindy's
Speaker 4: phone periodically late at night that said stay tuned for
Speaker 4: an important message. So she would be staying tuned for
Speaker 4: an important message, of course, scared and so scared that
Speaker 4: something had happened to her mother and daddy. And so
Speaker 4: that went on. And then also Cindy would be driving
Speaker 4: and she would look behind her and she would see
Speaker 4: these menacing looking people in a car are following her
Speaker 4: very closely, so she knew she knew that it was
Speaker 4: Swindler who was doing that. Then Swindler's cronies started calling
Speaker 4: mister Tender at his house. And mister Tender, if you remember,
Speaker 4: was the man who worked at the filling station and
Speaker 4: was visiting with Randy when all this happened. And so
Speaker 4: mister Tender started getting these phone calls that said, you're
Speaker 4: a dead man if you testify, and so he told
Speaker 4: the police about it, and they those calls continued, and
Speaker 4: so the police decided that they would send somebody out
Speaker 4: to stay at the Tender's home to protect them, and
Speaker 4: so they would spend the night there. Mister and miss Tender,
Speaker 4: her name was Ruth, and Ruth Ruth and mister Tender
Speaker 4: would go to their bedroom and she would make a
Speaker 4: big pot of coffee for the men and go to
Speaker 4: von Houghton's Bake, which was a delicious bakery in Fort
Speaker 4: Smith and get all these wonderful pastries for them to
Speaker 4: eat with their coffee. And that went on for two
Speaker 4: or three weeks, and then one night Tenders were in
Speaker 4: bed sound asleep, and the detectives. They detected that somebody
Speaker 4: was out in the backyard who shouldn't have been there.
Speaker 4: At one o'clock in the morning, they went into the
Speaker 4: bedroom of the Tenders and they went in and they said,
Speaker 4: wake up, somebody is in the backyard. Don't turn on
Speaker 4: the light. Well, imagine how frightening that would be. Well,
Speaker 4: they got up, mister Mss Tender got up, and they
Speaker 4: brought them into the living room to sit with them.
Speaker 4: And the next day the police and the prosecutors, everybody
Speaker 4: decided that they needed to put the Tenders in a
Speaker 4: safe place, and so they chose this hotel that was
Speaker 4: on tenth and B and they put the in the
Speaker 4: safe place. Meanwhile, living next door to the Tenders was
Speaker 4: Major Rivaldo with the Fort Smith Police Department and his
Speaker 4: three children and wife, and they too received threatening phone calls,
Speaker 4: and so missus Rivaldo took the three children to stay
Speaker 4: with a family friend of theirs, and police moved into
Speaker 4: the Rivaldo's house and they looked out the window and
Speaker 4: were watching the Rivoldo house as well as the Tender house.
Speaker 4: It was a frightening time for those people, the Revoldos,
Speaker 4: and certainly for the Tenders, and so the tenders. Then
Speaker 4: missus Tender, who worked at this company in Fort Smith,
Speaker 4: she started getting phone calls. She worked in the office,
Speaker 4: and she started getting phone calls, and the phone calls
Speaker 4: would say, your husband's a dead man, you're going to
Speaker 4: be dead, to just frightening things. And so she called
Speaker 4: Major Rovaldo, who lived next door to her, before she
Speaker 4: even called her husband. And so mister Rivaldo went to
Speaker 4: her place of work and took her back to the hotel.
Speaker 4: And from then on they took her to work and
Speaker 4: brought her home from work. It was a horrible thing
Speaker 4: for the tenders to have to do. Miss Tender really
Speaker 4: never spoke about it to anybody for years afterwards.
Speaker 6: You take us to February twenty fifth, nineteen seventy seven,
Speaker 6: finally the felony murdered death penalty trial. You said that
Speaker 6: John Swindler's cleaned up his appearance and takes the witness
Speaker 6: stand in his own defense. What does he have to
Speaker 6: say in terms of his defense and how does he
Speaker 6: try to explain this claim of self defense?
Speaker 4: He explains that Randy Bastnet that he heard Randy Basnet
Speaker 4: click on his pistol, and that when he heard that
Speaker 4: pistol click that he knew that he was fixing to
Speaker 4: be shot, and so in order to not be shot,
Speaker 4: he got his revolver and shot Randy Battnet twice in
Speaker 4: the summit. And he so he claimed self defense, which
Speaker 4: of course was ridiculous. It was and it was proven
Speaker 4: that it was not when Chuck Lambert testified that he
Speaker 4: had been watching across the street and he heard first
Speaker 4: two shots and then after two shots were fired, he
Speaker 4: heard six more fired, and so that meant even though
Speaker 4: Chuck Lambert didn't say it, didn't testify, but he let
Speaker 4: the judge and the jury draw their conclusion that he
Speaker 4: didn't know who fired the two shots, but he knew
Speaker 4: that Randy was hit with two shots and that Randy
Speaker 4: had fired back at the car with six shots, and
Speaker 4: so that blew away his defense. When he told that defense,
Speaker 4: he claimed that he had been drinking, and he claimed
Speaker 4: that the police always were after him and guns had
Speaker 4: been a part of his lives, just like wearing a
Speaker 4: piece of clothes, and he claimed that He claimed that
Speaker 4: his mother had Sunday school and that she had led
Speaker 4: the choir and he sometimes sang in the choir. Also,
Speaker 4: he just told a whole bunch of lies to his
Speaker 4: attorney who was questioning him and trying to make him
Speaker 4: look like he was a real good guy, which he
Speaker 4: was not.
Speaker 6: Well, you take us to February twenty fifth, nineteen seventy seven.
Speaker 6: Finally the felony murdered death penalty case of John Swindler occurs,
Speaker 6: and he's cleaned up his appearance and he takes the
Speaker 6: witness stnd in his own defense. What did he have
Speaker 6: to say in terms of his claim of this self
Speaker 6: defense and how does Charles Lambert and his testament he
Speaker 6: refuted that claim that was.
Speaker 4: His defense of self defense, which you know did not
Speaker 4: add up the Jerry Hard Chuck Lambert's testimony, and they
Speaker 4: believed him. They did not believe Swindler. And so Swindler
Speaker 4: was found guilty and his sentence was he was found
Speaker 4: guilty and he was given the death sentence, and so
Speaker 4: he left the Sebastian County Jail and was issued down
Speaker 4: to Cummins Prison in Grady, Arkansas, to await his sentence
Speaker 4: to be carried out. In the meantime, this was during
Speaker 4: the time when there was a whole lot of discussion
Speaker 4: all over the place, in all over the United States
Speaker 4: about capital punishment, and so it was ruled that it
Speaker 4: was the Supreme Court rule that it was against the
Speaker 4: Constitution to have capital punishment, and so that was nobody
Speaker 4: in those days received the capital punishment. And so he
Speaker 4: was sent back to Fort Smith and he was told
Speaker 4: that he would have another trial in a town that
Speaker 4: he had not been tried in before, Waldron, Arkansas, which
Speaker 4: was just a little farming community not far from Fort Smith.
Speaker 4: And he had another trial there, and that jury found
Speaker 4: him guilty and found him that he should get the
Speaker 4: death penalty. By that time, by that time, he had
Speaker 4: the death penalty had been settled that you could have
Speaker 4: the death penalty. I'm not using the exact wording as
Speaker 4: the courts would have said, but that was the charge
Speaker 4: of the story. So he was once again, once again
Speaker 4: found guilty and they wanted him to be executed. In
Speaker 4: the meantime, while he was waiting for that trial to happen,
Speaker 4: he also was held in He was held in the
Speaker 4: Sebastian County jail, and he discovered that there was a
Speaker 4: man who worked there who was originally from Florida, and
Speaker 4: he asked this guy if he could possibly find a
Speaker 4: newspaper from Florida down in the keys Is where this
Speaker 4: guy lived and where he wanted the newspaper to be from.
Speaker 4: And this guy, that mister Acosta. The jailer said, well,
Speaker 4: why do you want that, and he said, well, Twindler said, well,
Speaker 4: I killed somebody down there, and I left a body there,
Speaker 4: and I'd like to read about it. So of course
Speaker 4: mister Acosta told the sheriff about his conversation, and so
Speaker 4: the sheriff notif I had all the sheriffs down in
Speaker 4: Florida about what had happened, And they sent Twindler's fingerprints
Speaker 4: down to them, and they matched those fingerprints to some
Speaker 4: fingerprints that were found on a cereal box that was
Speaker 4: under the bed where Jeff McNerney lay dad with his
Speaker 4: head smashed in by a sledgehammer.
Speaker 6: Yes, he gave graphic details of tying them up to
Speaker 6: the metal bed frame and then torturing and reaping the
Speaker 6: boy for days.
Speaker 4: Days on. And yes, they when they found when they
Speaker 4: found this boy, he was already his body was already decomposing.
Speaker 4: But they found him with his both arms and one
Speaker 4: leg tied against this metal framed beds. And then of
Speaker 4: course he was naked, they could tell that he had
Speaker 4: been sodomized many times, and then they found that he
Speaker 4: had been hid in the head with a sledgehammer.
Speaker 6: What's more horrifying than all of that is that John
Speaker 6: Swindler was at a halfway house set for parole. It
Speaker 6: snuck away from this halfway house, committed this incredible murder
Speaker 6: and torture and rape of this person for days, made
Speaker 6: up some excuse, you said, got away from anyone connecting
Speaker 6: him whatsoever while he was on parole to this murder.
Speaker 6: And so for the parents, they were hearing this for
Speaker 6: the very first time, the details of what had happened
Speaker 6: to their son. Jeff McNary, let's talk about Meanwhile, John
Speaker 6: Swindler is awaiting execution, and so he gains comfort. You
Speaker 6: write from a monsignor O'Donnell, which Swintle had met thirteen
Speaker 6: years earlier, when you write that he had worshiped Satan
Speaker 6: rather than Jesus. Now he wanted forgiveness, and these priests
Speaker 6: and other Catholics campaigned that his life be be saved.
Speaker 4: He became Swindler's champion. Swindler learned how to read and write,
Speaker 4: and he taught prisoners how to read and write, he
Speaker 4: lost wade, he cut his hair, he spruced up. But
Speaker 4: the governor of Arkansas, Bill Clinton, then he was not
Speaker 4: in favor of commuting his sentence, and so he was executed.
Speaker 4: He was executed in a brand new electric chair that
Speaker 4: Arkansas had built. And they surmised that he wanted that
Speaker 4: he thought that would be really newsworthy that he was
Speaker 4: executed in the first first one in this new electric chair.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 6: You write that a journalist named Linda Suboult witness Swindler's execution,
Speaker 6: and you write that Cindy had planned to go by
Speaker 6: at the last minute, changed her mind, but she had
Speaker 6: communicated with Cindy this supe bolt and I guess conveyed
Speaker 6: what had happened. And you write that it had affected
Speaker 6: this journalist quite a bit to see this execution as well.
Speaker 4: Linda Sebould was a She wrote for the newspaper in
Speaker 4: Fort Smith, and she was she was a newspaper writer
Speaker 4: that everybody wanted to read anything she wrote. She was
Speaker 4: a she was a really asset to our community. And
Speaker 4: she had interviewed Cindy many times and so consequently she
Speaker 4: and Cindy had become good friends and Cindy did plan
Speaker 4: to come to the execution and then and then she
Speaker 4: just decided that she wasn't going to, which is probably
Speaker 4: smart because Linda Sebould attended that execution and she wrote
Speaker 4: about it in the newspaper and it was in my book.
Speaker 4: I've got that in there, what it happened and how
Speaker 4: it came down, and it was a horrible thing. I'm
Speaker 4: glad Cindy didn't go and see it. Linda was very
Speaker 4: sorry that she had gone to see it, but she
Speaker 4: did and she called after it was over. She called Cindy,
Speaker 4: who was staying at her uncle's house in Little Rock
Speaker 4: because she and the uncle had planned to go to
Speaker 4: the execution. So she was still at the in her
Speaker 4: uncle's house, and she invited to Cindy and her photographer
Speaker 4: to spend the night there with them, and then drove
Speaker 4: on back to Fort Smith, which is about three hours away,
Speaker 4: and so she did, and she and Cindy talked and
Speaker 4: Cindy really married her soul to Linda about various things,
Speaker 4: and Linda wrote ended up writing a really nice article
Speaker 4: about the marriage of these marriage to Randy Basnett and
Speaker 4: how he was eulogized by many groups in Fort Smith
Speaker 4: after his death, and it was a lovely tribute that
Speaker 4: she wrote.
Speaker 6: You write that we didn't talk about it, but Cindy's
Speaker 6: idea and her parents wanted to move to this place.
Speaker 6: There was a sort of a touristy place, this can
Speaker 6: Killer Lake, about sixty miles from Fort Smith. Cindy without Randy,
Speaker 6: of course, and the children moved with her parents. And
Speaker 6: you described this as a paradise, and I'm sure it
Speaker 6: contributed to some sort of healing to a certain extent
Speaker 6: in this atmosphere. But you write that once Cindy's father
Speaker 6: died that her and her mother moved back to Fort Smith.
Speaker 4: Yes, and they rented in an apartment in Fort Smith.
Speaker 4: And Cindy still lives in that apartment. Well, it's a duplex,
Speaker 4: real key duplex. I've been over there several times. Way
Speaker 4: she lives, still lives in that same duplex. She never
Speaker 4: remarried her daughter, Amanda, Amanda who is just the baby
Speaker 4: when her daddy died. Amanda, when Amanda was thirty years old,
Speaker 4: she developed some very bad heart condition and she died.
Speaker 4: And Cindy always consoled herself that she was up in
Speaker 4: heaven fishing with her daddy, and I suppose her granddaddy
Speaker 4: like Tin Killer. The grandfather loved to fish. Ten Killer
Speaker 4: was a beautiful spot was made by damming up the
Speaker 4: Illinois River. It's in Oklahoma. It's a beautiful spot. There's
Speaker 4: all sorts of camping sites there. People from Fort Smith
Speaker 4: go fishing, and it's Waterskian there and also from Oklahoma.
Speaker 4: It's a lovely place. And Cindy told me that she
Speaker 4: could imagine hearing Randy when a storm would come up.
Speaker 4: She said she could imagine here and Randy say all right,
Speaker 4: everybody inside. And she said it became sort of a
Speaker 4: comfort to her to look out and see men fishing
Speaker 4: on the lake, and to look out and see couples
Speaker 4: walking walking down by de Lay. It just she felt
Speaker 4: close to Randy. And and so that's the way she
Speaker 4: ended up. Her children all went to Tallaquah, that was
Speaker 4: the nearest town and graduate. Her two older children graduated
Speaker 4: from Tallaquah. The youngest girl graduated from for Smith High School,
Speaker 4: Southside High School. It was a very sad story for
Speaker 4: me to write because that family of Sindy's were so
Speaker 4: they're a wonderful family and every in every way. And
Speaker 4: then they were torn up completely by this John Edwards Swindler.
Speaker 4: Everybody's family of the victims were grieved for their children.
Speaker 4: I'm sure never ever got over it. And Swindler was
Speaker 4: just he was just an evil, evil guy.
Speaker 6: Absolutely.
Speaker 4: When I was writing the book, often I was crying
Speaker 4: while I was doing it, and that's my sound kind
Speaker 4: of I don't know, but it's true I did.
Speaker 6: Anita. I want to thank you so much for coming
Speaker 6: on and talking about your extraordinary book, The Killing Spree.
Speaker 6: A true story of a string of brutal murders, rapes,
Speaker 6: and the cop who tried to stop it. Thank you
Speaker 6: so much, Anita Paddock.
Speaker 4: The Killing Spree, Oh, thank you, thank you.
Speaker 6: A true story of a string of brutal murders, rapes
Speaker 6: and the cop who tried to stop it. Thank you
Speaker 6: so much, Anita Paddock, for this interview.
Speaker 4: And you have a great evening, all right, Thank you, Dan,
Speaker 4: good night,