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Speaker 7: You are now listening to True Murder the most shocking
Speaker 7: killers in true crime history and the authors that have
Speaker 7: written about them. Gaesy, Bundy, Dahmer, The Nightstalker BTK Every
Speaker 7: week another fascinating author talking about the most shocking and
Speaker 7: infamous killers in true crime history. True Murder with Your
Speaker 7: Host journalist and author Dan Zufanski.
Speaker 4: Good Evening.
Speaker 8: What goes through the mind of a killer when they
Speaker 8: commit murder. Based on the massively successful Netflix documentary series
Speaker 8: of the same name, this book features ten of the
Speaker 8: most compelling cases from the first two series and is
Speaker 8: full of exclusive, never seen before material. The authors Ned
Speaker 8: Parker and Danny Tipping secured exceptional access to high security
Speaker 8: prisons across America. The majority of the killers will die
Speaker 8: in prison, either by serving their sentence of life without
Speaker 8: parole or they are on death row waiting to be executed.
Speaker 8: In each of the cases, the inmates speaks openly about
Speaker 8: themselves and reflects on their life and their crimes. To
Speaker 8: gain a complete picture of the impact of the murders,
Speaker 8: the authors spoke to both the families of both the
Speaker 8: perpetrators and the victims, and those in law enforcement who
Speaker 8: were involved in the case, leaving it up to the
Speaker 8: reader to make up their own mind about the killers
Speaker 8: and their crimes. The book draws on handwritten letters from
Speaker 8: the inmates and full transcripts of the interviews to tell
Speaker 8: each story, and features exclusive material including personal pictures, crime
Speaker 8: scene images, and original police and court documents. This is
Speaker 8: a fascinating and detailed look at some of America's most
Speaker 8: gripping murder cases. The book that we're featuring this evening
Speaker 8: is I Am a Killer. Inside the Mind of Murderers,
Speaker 8: with my special guests, documentary film producers and authors Danny
Speaker 8: Tipping and Ned Parker. Thank you very much for this
Speaker 8: interview and welcome to the program. Danny Tipping and Ned Parker.
Speaker 4: Thank you for having us Ruby to meet you.
Speaker 8: Dan, thank you very much, and congratulations on this book
Speaker 8: I Am a Killer. Let's start off with the genesis
Speaker 8: of this book. Why did you both decide to write
Speaker 8: this book.
Speaker 2: We've been chasing the series I'm a killophone Netflix for
Speaker 2: well since back in twenty nineteen, well twenty seventeen, when
Speaker 2: we started into pick production on the series, and we
Speaker 2: generated lot of stories and that you can see as
Speaker 2: part of that series and now and it's fourth season.
Speaker 2: There were elements of the story that we couldn't always
Speaker 2: get to in a a forty or fifty minute documentary
Speaker 2: that we still wanted to explore and share with people.
Speaker 2: And also because of the success of the series, obviously
Speaker 2: that that gave usn opportunity to do that. So we
Speaker 2: got together with a publisher and sort of started setting
Speaker 2: about selecting stories from the first couple of series that
Speaker 2: we could expand upon for the book.
Speaker 8: Tell us about the criteria that you used to include
Speaker 8: these ten stories.
Speaker 9: We were really interested with with I mckiller, in looking
Speaker 9: at stories which and all the sort of stories necessarily
Speaker 9: normally covered in kind of true crime broadcasting. We were
Speaker 9: looking for stories which had an unknown largely unknown to
Speaker 9: the public, but which touched on kind of bigger themes,
Speaker 9: which told us a little bit more about kind of
Speaker 9: a bigger topic than necessarily just the individual and their murder.
Speaker 9: So we looked for stories which could kind of yeah,
Speaker 9: for example, the James Robertson is the first episode of
Speaker 9: the first series, and he also appears in the book.
Speaker 9: He was somebody who appears of first glance as a
Speaker 9: complete monster, And I think our approach to these was
Speaker 9: we wanted to find stories where you could say, Okay, yes,
Speaker 9: he's done horrific things and awful things, but no matter
Speaker 9: how awful he is, he is still a human being.
Speaker 9: He's not a caricature. He is a human being and
Speaker 9: there is something human within it. And the important thing
Speaker 9: was to try and kind of find that and see
Speaker 9: there's something that you could relate to, not necessarily meaning
Speaker 9: that you've found empathy or sympathy for him, but you
Speaker 9: could certainly relate to the kind of the human motivations
Speaker 9: in his life. So we were setting out to look
Speaker 9: for those stories, and there's some things that we were
Speaker 9: going to go to whether Danny and will Will work.
Speaker 9: Very clear, we weren't going to include any killers who
Speaker 9: were unwilling to admit what they'd done, or at least
Speaker 9: they broad contacts to what they've done. That the point
Speaker 9: was that they had to speak open me and say, yes,
Speaker 9: I took another person's life, because we didn't want to
Speaker 9: get into the kind of who done it or or
Speaker 9: proving them or at the Gotscham moments, it was don't
Speaker 9: know if you can at least start with the fact that, yes,
Speaker 9: you admit he killed somebody's lives, and I think there's
Speaker 9: something we can learn from that.
Speaker 10: Person.
Speaker 9: So that was the first comic criteria, and we wrote
Speaker 9: to thousands of people across the US and everything was
Speaker 9: done by a hand written letter at the time, and
Speaker 9: it took a long time for those responses to go
Speaker 9: back and forth. So somebody who admitted what they've done,
Speaker 9: somebody who hadn't involved in a mass shooting or a
Speaker 9: terrorist thing or anything which could inspire somebody else into
Speaker 9: a kind of a copycat killing. We also don't want
Speaker 9: anyone who was involved with sexual violence, crimes or et cetera,
Speaker 9: or anything involved children and the infantas side, because our
Speaker 9: point was not to troll kind of campaign for these individuals,
Speaker 9: but to allow a viewers to be able to view them,
Speaker 9: as I say, as human and I think there are
Speaker 9: some crimes which are just too difficult for anybody to
Speaker 9: sit and saying right within forty five minutes of the film,
Speaker 9: I can watch this and I can relate to this
Speaker 9: person at all. You know, there are somethings will make
Speaker 9: them thoroughly unrelatable. So that was kind of our criteria,
Speaker 9: and we started on with just for people who receive
Speaker 9: death sentences, were either on death thrown or had been
Speaker 9: on death row, and by season two, we expanded that
Speaker 9: out a little bit. One of the reasons was was
Speaker 9: we also wanted to have female voices because although most murders,
Speaker 9: but by far right away most murders are committed by men,
Speaker 9: there is something very different about the female experience and
Speaker 9: motivations and causes for a woman to take another person's life.
Speaker 9: So we started looking at that, and we included some
Speaker 9: female cases in second series and also all third and
Speaker 9: fourth series as well, So we've had a lot of
Speaker 9: different stories. When we were looking at bringing it to
Speaker 9: a book, we wanted to select those which we thought
Speaker 9: kind of supported each other in showing we're not sure
Speaker 9: a thesis is the right work, but are kind of.
Speaker 10: What we discovered as being.
Speaker 9: The kind of the commonalities, of course, which lead people
Speaker 9: making these sorrific decisions.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I think I think the book with the
Speaker 2: ten stories in the book from you know, from the
Speaker 2: twenty episodes in the first two series, it's a good
Speaker 2: class section. It gives you a kind of a I think,
Speaker 2: a taste or I don't know if you have what
Speaker 2: we've turned in the series, and they're sort of contrasting stories,
Speaker 2: but of course there are lots of commonalities as we've
Speaker 2: said often that you know the extreme poverty, physical, mental,
Speaker 2: and sexual abuse in the home, drug and alcohol abuse.
Speaker 2: You know that obviously, these come up time and time
Speaker 2: again when you're looking at convicted felons and killers, and
Speaker 2: not that any of those hardships excuse or lesson that
Speaker 2: the you know, the horrendous crimes they have committed, but
Speaker 2: it starts giving you a picture of how somebody could
Speaker 2: get the point whether they're able to take another human life.
Speaker 2: And that was something that we hadn't we hadn't looked
Speaker 2: at before, and it hadn't actually until he came on
Speaker 2: to I'm a Killer Done true Crime. I'd done a
Speaker 2: bit of true crime documentary making, and we hadn't spent
Speaker 2: a lot of time, well, we'd spent no time at
Speaker 2: all actually talking to the killers and just.
Speaker 4: Finding their motivations.
Speaker 2: We're much more engaged with like a lot of true crime,
Speaker 2: in the actual mechanics of the murder and the investigation
Speaker 2: that happens afterwards. So I guess the idea for this
Speaker 2: series was to start at the other end, to start
Speaker 2: with the killers, find out how they got the point
Speaker 2: where they could take a life, and at every point
Speaker 2: that the biggest character, I guess, and it shows is
Speaker 2: the victim. That we're absolutely sensitive to the victim and
Speaker 2: their families and the events that have led to them
Speaker 2: losing a loved one. So it's a lot to juggle
Speaker 2: actually in a single story. And I guess that coming
Speaker 2: back to the book, were able to expand a little
Speaker 2: bit on those stories in a book that in a
Speaker 2: way that we have we weren't able to perhaps in
Speaker 2: a in a fortune five fifteen minute documentary. So viewers
Speaker 2: of the series we'll see that we've gone into a
Speaker 2: little bit more detail on each of the cases.
Speaker 4: They might already be familiar with.
Speaker 9: Another thing, which is down which is is different with
Speaker 9: the book to the documentary series itself is but the
Speaker 9: documentaries we kind of established a format in which you
Speaker 9: hear firstly the voice of the killer and then once yeah,
Speaker 9: that's about the first ten to fifteen minutes or so
Speaker 9: of each film, and then you hear in turn the
Speaker 9: voices are of while the people committed to the case,
Speaker 9: they related to the victim, related to the killer, investigators, prosecution, defense,
Speaker 9: whoever they are they might be, but you already hear
Speaker 9: from them one at a time. Now, the reason we
Speaker 9: did that is we kind of based off our experiences
Speaker 9: by having done jury duty in the day. In a
Speaker 9: criminal trial, you'll you'll have our witness will come forward
Speaker 9: and they'll give their testimony and then they're gone, so
Speaker 9: you don't kind of hear from them again. And obviously
Speaker 9: more traditional kind of trin crime documentaries, you'll hear voices
Speaker 9: all kind of cut together and you get little bits.
Speaker 10: Here and there and everywhere else.
Speaker 9: But we thought this idea of taking journeys, viewer has
Speaker 9: to kind of pay attention and listen. So, okay, something
Speaker 9: that you've heard fifteen minutes into the film and not
Speaker 9: have relevance until later on, that you have to kind
Speaker 9: of pay attention to it and you're not going to
Speaker 9: hear from that person again. And we found that structure
Speaker 9: worked really well for the documentaries. That's what we continue
Speaker 9: to do. That's what we think, well, it makes this
Speaker 9: a series of films work well. But of course it
Speaker 9: means that if somebody is talking to you about an
Speaker 9: element of the story and they come in early on,
Speaker 9: it means if they you don't bring them back later on,
Speaker 9: and they might have had something really interesting to say
Speaker 9: about something that we were here later So going through
Speaker 9: all the transcripts of all of these interviews, some of
Speaker 9: them are like two three four hours long, and you know,
Speaker 9: we spend a lot of time with these people who
Speaker 9: realize we had all of this material, and actually, in
Speaker 9: the way that we've constructed the book is that it's
Speaker 9: not it's a freer way of doing it. We can
Speaker 9: jump from person to us, and last think that helps
Speaker 9: when reading the books that if you haven't heard of
Speaker 9: the story before, if you haven't lost the film, you're
Speaker 9: all going to get a very full kind of picture
Speaker 9: of it. But even if you have watched the films
Speaker 9: and need them to start to be able to draw
Speaker 9: lines and comparisons and conclusions that you might not otherwise
Speaker 9: have done. So although they're very differently seen, they're very complimentary.
Speaker 9: You know, they both kind of work well. But it's
Speaker 9: fun for us. So there was a suddenly interesting for
Speaker 9: us to kind of look at telling those stories in
Speaker 9: a different way.
Speaker 8: This idea that you would have this second interview. What
Speaker 8: I think is not so clear for the audience is
Speaker 8: that every story is looked at through other people's eyes
Speaker 8: other than the killer, and from their perspective. So the
Speaker 8: anguish of the victims' families, the insights of the police,
Speaker 8: potentially attorneys and the jurors sometimes and the pain for
Speaker 8: those that care for the inmate as well. But also
Speaker 8: in that that there is often I found you discover
Speaker 8: different information that was then initially the prisoner had conveyed
Speaker 8: in the interview.
Speaker 2: Can you Yeah, that's right, and I think, well, one
Speaker 2: the break between the first and second interviews is quite
Speaker 2: often depending on which state you're filming, in provision of
Speaker 2: the court and our access to the prisoner, so that
Speaker 2: there has to be a break between you know, you
Speaker 2: have three months between media access. So in most but
Speaker 2: not every case, we have to we do our initial
Speaker 2: interview and then we have to wait three months before
Speaker 2: we can we can get access to the prisoner and
Speaker 2: the prison again, which initially we thought might be a problem,
Speaker 2: but as it turned out, I think ned will embrace
Speaker 2: that as part of the format. That says, it gave
Speaker 2: us time to then go, you know, break through that
Speaker 2: first interview and then interview the other contributors to the show.
Speaker 2: That the friends, the relatives, that family members, police investigators.
Speaker 10: It was a happy accident, really wasn't done in a
Speaker 10: weird way.
Speaker 9: Yeah, we established it in Texas was the first place
Speaker 9: we were looking, and there's a minimum ninety days between
Speaker 9: when you interview them, and you can only interview for
Speaker 9: one hour. So we thought, hang On wanted to go
Speaker 9: and hear these stories told by the killers themselves, but
Speaker 9: there's no way that they could cover thing we needed
Speaker 9: in the.
Speaker 10: Space of an hour.
Speaker 9: And that was that was our pot of Okay, well,
Speaker 9: when we just give them their first bite and then
Speaker 9: we'll come back three months later after we've managed to
Speaker 9: talk to everybody else, and will they.
Speaker 10: Have their kind of reaction to that?
Speaker 9: And that kind of inspired then our thoughts about this.
Speaker 9: This this kind of idea of based on the jury
Speaker 9: service idea of having each contribute to cover up one
Speaker 9: in too, And that's really kind of where the format
Speaker 9: came from. But I think, as Danny you was saying
Speaker 9: to you that this it means also they're very different
Speaker 9: in the two interviews. That is kind of that first interview.
Speaker 9: We don't press them, do we know?
Speaker 2: And I think I think it was important as well
Speaker 2: to gain the trusts as well as the inmates, so
Speaker 2: obviously our telling us their story and to allow them
Speaker 2: so effectively. We've always said and I've said this before
Speaker 2: in another interview, is that the first interview is their
Speaker 2: interview and the second interview is our interview. So we
Speaker 2: let them tell the story and the truth as they
Speaker 2: they're prepared to tell it, and then we come back
Speaker 2: then armed with obviously more questions, but also at the
Speaker 2: perspective we think may may or may not have actually happened.
Speaker 2: Once we've spoken to everybody else involved, we can press
Speaker 2: a little harder in that second interview. And sometimes people
Speaker 2: absolutely sick their stories and that's the truth they're willing
Speaker 2: to share. And other times you'll see, both in the
Speaker 2: book and in the series on Netflix, you'll see the
Speaker 2: series that the stories rather change quite dramatically in some cases.
Speaker 9: Sometimes not always the way you expect them to. Sometimes
Speaker 9: they've not told you something in the first interview and
Speaker 9: you realize they're kind of they're holding it back, or
Speaker 9: they're consciously trying not to share that information. They're trying
Speaker 9: to pain themselves on the best light. But of course
Speaker 9: you go back three or four months later and you say, well,
Speaker 9: you know, you didn't reveal this particular part, but we've
Speaker 9: spoken to everybody else, and you didn't tell us this thing,
Speaker 9: which makes you look far far worse, and they might
Speaker 9: have a reason why. But also sometimes they just don't
Speaker 9: tell you things which you think, we're really key, It
Speaker 9: would be really important to hear things which might give
Speaker 9: some sort of mitigation to their actions or at least
Speaker 9: making you kind of think somewhat better of them. A
Speaker 9: lot of them have still being the victims of abuse, violence, abuse,
Speaker 9: or section abuse of some sort. Some of them surprisingly
Speaker 9: open talking about that, others aren't. And it's only really
Speaker 9: when you hear from other family members and something else.
Speaker 9: You hear something about their background, which makes things a
Speaker 9: lot easier to understand, But they themselves didn't present that,
Speaker 9: so it's interesting. And we also decided that, you know,
Speaker 9: with the permission of the various people we interview, to
Speaker 9: play back to them the words which other people had
Speaker 9: said about them. Sometimes members of the victim's family happy
Speaker 9: for that to happen, or prosecutor or an investigator, and
Speaker 9: getting their reaction to that, I think is really important,
Speaker 9: and I think that gives the viewer a good chance
Speaker 9: to be able to sit and decide whether they yeah
Speaker 9: how they feel about that individual. And again in the book,
Speaker 9: the same thing happens. You know, we played back quite
Speaker 9: a lot of stuff to them when we interview them,
Speaker 9: and we don't necessarily include all of those in the films,
Speaker 9: but when we were writing the book, it gave us
Speaker 9: a chance to kind of give more of their reactions
Speaker 9: to the things they've heard said about them decades after
Speaker 9: the event.
Speaker 8: Let me list the chapters that you do have, and
Speaker 8: then we'll go back right to the beginning and explore
Speaker 8: them a lot a little bit further, and you can
Speaker 8: have some commentary on these extraordinary stories. The first story
Speaker 8: you have is the first chapter you have is Overkill
Speaker 8: David Barnett. The second story is intended Evil Charles Chuck Thompson.
Speaker 8: The third is Trapped Linda Couch. The fourth means to
Speaker 8: an End James Robertson. Of number five is Pyro Joe
Speaker 8: Joey Murphy. Number six killer in the Eyes of the
Speaker 8: Law Kenneth Foster, then a silent Order Brandon Hutchison, then
Speaker 8: a family affair DeAndre Buchanan, then crossing the Line Kavona, Illinois.
Speaker 8: And the last story Owning It Charles Armantrout. Let's go
Speaker 8: to the first story, Overkill with David Barnett. Can you
Speaker 8: just give a description of this story and why you
Speaker 8: chose it.
Speaker 2: I mean, this is one that when it went out
Speaker 2: on Netflix, gotten incredibly strong reaction from the view as No,
Speaker 2: I think that's that's fair to say. As an interviewee,
Speaker 2: I think David comes across as open and likable, one
Speaker 2: of a better word, and.
Speaker 4: His story is tragic and very sad.
Speaker 2: His crime is probably one of the worst we've covered
Speaker 2: in as much as he ends up killing his step
Speaker 2: grandparents or foster grandparents and fetal blacked out and can't remember,
Speaker 2: and he's accused of overkill, which is the title of
Speaker 2: the chapter and the film, because he stabbed them multiple times,
Speaker 2: which is quite a shocking quiet. The background to the
Speaker 2: story is really layered, and it's very sad and tragic
Speaker 2: story that we I think we perhaps didn't until we
Speaker 2: were deep into it and we've done the interview and
Speaker 2: then started interviewing the other contributors probably hadn't fully appreciated,
Speaker 2: and I think that's fair.
Speaker 9: So Yeah, when David was writing to us this episode
Speaker 9: was that the films was to direct by Zowie Hines,
Speaker 9: who produces the series with us, and David had been
Speaker 9: writing about sexual abusety experience for a very young age,
Speaker 9: and we've been passed through and foster care system from
Speaker 9: person to person. He'd had only one experience that kind
Speaker 9: of suitable parenting at all, that was fairly short lived,
Speaker 9: and it was we knew it was very, very sad.
Speaker 9: But then we read a lot of letters from inmates.
Speaker 9: You never know fully to what degree that they're telling
Speaker 9: the truth, to a degree they're embellishing on things, maybe
Speaker 9: to try to get join this sympathy from you. But
Speaker 9: we didn't know as we set out, but as it
Speaker 9: became clearer and clearer talking to other people who were
Speaker 9: close to David and family and friends and others. He
Speaker 9: was a deeply, deeply damaged child and he had a
Speaker 9: very difficult relationship with his adopted father. Was his adopted
Speaker 9: father's parents who ended up killing And regardless of what
Speaker 9: you feel about the level of responsibility as for that
Speaker 9: crime that he committed, I don't think there be anyone
Speaker 9: who wouldn't consider his child and his background and mitigation
Speaker 9: of some sort or at least it helps you to
Speaker 9: understand how we got there. And I think I think
Speaker 9: that's particularly least sorts of stories where there is a
Speaker 9: commonality of abuse. I think one psychiatrists that we promo
Speaker 9: psychologists we interviewed all the time. I think, but if
Speaker 9: very well it is said, you know, these awful backgrounds
Speaker 9: don't make you a killer. They don't mean because you've
Speaker 9: you've been abused or anything else, that you're going to
Speaker 9: end up killing.
Speaker 10: But it just.
Speaker 9: Pushes you closer to the edge. It pushes you into
Speaker 9: a place where you are are more likely to make
Speaker 9: those bad decisions, those tragic decisions, which can lead you
Speaker 9: to this place. And I don't think it's a coincidence
Speaker 9: that you know, you turn to find not many of
Speaker 9: the we've written, with the thousands of thousands that have
Speaker 9: withinmates across the US or serving convictures from lurder, certain
Speaker 9: sentences from lurder, and most of them do not come
Speaker 9: from well adjusted, stable families in middle class suburbs. You know,
Speaker 9: it's not to say that the people who've grown up
Speaker 9: in nice environments can't turn out to be murderers, but
Speaker 9: they're truly just far far less likely to do so.
Speaker 9: Where there is kind of pain and suffering in the childhood,
Speaker 9: it leads people into bad places. And when people are
Speaker 9: in bad places, they end up making bad decisions and
Speaker 9: I think even if this wasn't a conscious decision from David,
Speaker 9: which is certainly what he claims, I think it's the
Speaker 9: stories which gives the kind of the one of the
Speaker 9: best examples of that. We've concluded too these stories of
Speaker 9: the book through people who are ready disturbing childhood abuse.
Speaker 9: I mean thought it was important because a great number
Speaker 9: of the cases we've learned about and we haven't managed
Speaker 9: to produce these documentaries or write up about for one
Speaker 9: reason or another, so many of them have cited childhood
Speaker 9: abuse as being a factor in their lives.
Speaker 8: In this story, though, there is another factor that is disturbing,
Speaker 8: and they say that, or someone says in this the
Speaker 8: story that it changed David dramatically. This is the issue
Speaker 8: that comes up in a number of stories in this
Speaker 8: book in that some people go to police for help
Speaker 8: and they don't get the help they're looking for. Can
Speaker 8: you explain in.
Speaker 2: This instance not careful, but David and his friend had
Speaker 2: gone gone to the thoughts and tried to, you know,
Speaker 2: raise their concerns and let them know the abuse that
Speaker 2: was happening in the house, and they didn't get they
Speaker 2: didn't get support.
Speaker 4: They wanted them.
Speaker 2: And this is any it's version events and complated by
Speaker 2: by offends and and of course that that did leave
Speaker 2: him frustrated.
Speaker 4: I guess at that point he felt he.
Speaker 2: Had nowhere, nowhere else to turn and as they said,
Speaker 2: this isn't you know, this had been gone a long time,
Speaker 2: he'd been in and out of care, and he had
Speaker 2: had a really, really rough childhood. And I guess that
Speaker 2: without using clon it was a kind of a straw
Speaker 2: that ba that camel's back. I think it got to
Speaker 2: a point where he had no one to turn to,
Speaker 2: and so it's really sad.
Speaker 9: Yeah, And there's when people do do kind of make
Speaker 9: their claims to us and these backgrounds that they've received,
Speaker 9: you know, it's it's incumbentble last the troll makers to
Speaker 9: kind of cooporate that or make it clear to the
Speaker 9: view of what is known and what was not known.
Speaker 9: And I think yes, David and Enthroned testify that they
Speaker 9: went to it for all the police who were not
Speaker 9: taken seriously, and certainly there where we speak to the
Speaker 9: people the Chornese who were waltered in his appearance, that
Speaker 9: was very much they had established themselves. And actually what
Speaker 9: they had was a very long record of instances or
Speaker 9: abuse that he had suffered which had been known about,
Speaker 9: and that information wasn't presented in his first trial as
Speaker 9: a mitigation. And we've spoken all the jurors in that
Speaker 9: case who I think had he known that at the time,
Speaker 9: would have felt very, very different. And so it's not
Speaker 9: just the police can do it, but there were records
Speaker 9: there to show show was there. And even at the
Speaker 9: point when lives had been lost and his life was
Speaker 9: being judged, those things weren't taken two account in the
Speaker 9: court of law. Now, we're not trying to rewrite the
Speaker 9: legal proceedings. We very much feel that the law has
Speaker 9: had his partner, that's done its part. Then we're not
Speaker 9: here to campaign for anybody. We're not challenging convictions or
Speaker 9: everything else. But we are asking viewers where our viewers
Speaker 9: and ourselves the opportunity to judge these inmates as human beings.
Speaker 10: And I think if you.
Speaker 9: Don't have that information, which is corroborated and supported, if
Speaker 9: you don't have that, then that antp you can make
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Speaker 8: Now the next story you have is Intended Evil featuring
Speaker 8: Charles Chuck Thompson. Can you tell us just outline what
Speaker 8: the story is about and the issues raised?
Speaker 9: If I saw this one, Donnie, and you can because
Speaker 9: I know it's a film. You've taken a lot trub
Speaker 9: Thomston was convicted of double learner of killing his girlfriend
Speaker 9: or ex girlfriend, depending on whose account you listen to,
Speaker 9: I will believe and new boyfriend. Now, the part which
Speaker 9: was kind of interesting in this is that he had
Speaker 9: gone to where she lived it had a fight with
Speaker 9: the other victim, but had returned sometime later broken into
Speaker 9: the house and he said it was a fight.
Speaker 10: Over a gun.
Speaker 9: That he had shot the new boyfriend and then shot
Speaker 9: Denise his partner or former partner, but that had been
Speaker 9: an accident and she survived the shooting. She got shot
Speaker 9: in the jaw, I believe, but she later died in
Speaker 9: the hospital, and there were some accusations that it was
Speaker 9: through well practice at the hospital, but I don't think
Speaker 9: that was it covered. But once there was a second
Speaker 9: death and it was at a capital crime, so he
Speaker 9: moved from being possibly arguing as a manslaughter or accidental
Speaker 9: killing to a double homicide facing the death penalty. And
Speaker 9: I think the part which was for me the strongest
Speaker 9: in this philm was hearing from his victim's son, Wait
Speaker 9: who was only about twelve or thirteen years old at
Speaker 9: the time that his mother was killed. But the way
Speaker 9: that he was able to and willing to speak about
Speaker 9: his experiences and the measured one of that he talked
Speaker 9: about it and his opinions of Chuck Thompson. For me, Daddy,
Speaker 9: that's what I thought was was the really interesting point before.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that interview really brought the whole film
Speaker 2: together and gave it the real core of the film
Speaker 2: I think comes suit through Wade and it's heartwache and
Speaker 2: obviously his mother. There's no real explanation for it, and
Speaker 2: Chuck Thompson doesn't really at any point I think agree
Speaker 2: that takes responsibility.
Speaker 9: Was his line and said that I didn't kill a
Speaker 9: the hospital he did. You know, It's like, yeah, she
Speaker 9: wouldn't be in a hospital if he hadn't shove her
Speaker 9: on the head.
Speaker 2: I mean, I think that's Oh, she died from complications
Speaker 2: due to the bullet that he shot that was lodged
Speaker 2: in her head. I mean, there's absolutely no way that Chompson,
Speaker 2: in my opinion, was not.
Speaker 4: Responsible for that crime.
Speaker 2: And whilst he admitted, which is absolutely part the first
Speaker 2: fire m killer, that he was there and pulled the trigger,
Speaker 2: he wouldn't take responsibility for death. And I think what's
Speaker 2: interesting having made you know a few of those with
Speaker 2: the team and we sit and we watched them, and
Speaker 2: we critique each other's work and we talk about the
Speaker 2: stories and how they've affected us. That quite often we
Speaker 2: all come to some agreement of how sympathetic or empathetic
Speaker 2: we are to the character. And I think Chuck Thompson
Speaker 2: was one that listed quite a strong response from from
Speaker 2: the group involved in making a film.
Speaker 9: Yeah, but the other part Danny and Daniel was saying
Speaker 9: saying earlier about this the second interview, the first interview,
Speaker 9: second interview. I think Chuckster was a particularly interesting one
Speaker 9: on this because he what he chose not to reference
Speaker 9: in the first interview was something which we later then
Speaker 9: found out, which was that he had after the killing,
Speaker 9: he had spoken to a female friend of his and
Speaker 9: told him what occurred, and she became a leading witness
Speaker 9: against him. And whilst he was in prison, he spoke
Speaker 9: to an undercover cop who he didn't know was an
Speaker 9: undercover cop, and that since that that individual to execute
Speaker 9: the witness in his trial, that recording phone recording was
Speaker 9: deemed inadmissive in court, butul have for various legal reasons.
Speaker 9: But it doesn't mean that it's still level to all true.
Speaker 9: And that's all we could include in the film and
Speaker 9: I think shut to me at least, I don't know
Speaker 9: if you feel the save down. He exhibited a kind
Speaker 9: of a level of arrogancy sort because it had been
Speaker 9: deemed in addrestline the court, but therefore it didn't exist
Speaker 9: anymore and we would never find out out about it
Speaker 9: and playing that according to him. In the second interview
Speaker 9: the director, she said that the look on his face,
Speaker 9: he felt totally confident that he had presented himself and
Speaker 9: got everybody inside the po. He's a supermasionly child guy,
Speaker 9: and I think he saw that everyone was kind of
Speaker 9: in his pocket. And then when he heard that, he
Speaker 9: was like, oh, you've got that, you know, And I
Speaker 9: think that was really revealing, kind of low and to
Speaker 9: see his reaction and he kind of go he chose
Speaker 9: to be involved in this production and in this project,
Speaker 9: and he had the opportunity here to speaking from the entruthfully,
Speaker 9: and he chose to withhold information and kind of try
Speaker 9: and present a different version event. And I think that
Speaker 9: was really telling. Like Danny says, thinking, there's a varying
Speaker 9: level of empathy and sympathy that the members of our
Speaker 9: team have for different inmates to wonder or another, but
Speaker 9: Charles Samson is one of those.
Speaker 10: I think he's on the lower end of that.
Speaker 8: You talk about empathy and sympathy. And the next story
Speaker 8: is called Trapped with Linda Couch, So again a female
Speaker 8: represented it here. She's in her mid sixties and you'd
Speaker 8: speak to her at the Ohio Reformatory, and this is
Speaker 8: over the claim of the death of her husband, which
Speaker 8: she claims is an accident. Tell us just a little
Speaker 8: bit about what you found with this story Trapped.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this is slightly different because this actually was a
Speaker 2: case that got a fair amount of news coverage at
Speaker 2: the time, that wasn't it, which is unlike a lot
Speaker 2: of the.
Speaker 4: I' makiller stories.
Speaker 2: Certainly it was picked up on the news and the
Speaker 2: open news stations because it's a woman who has killed
Speaker 2: her husband and an claims it's an accidentally in self defense,
Speaker 2: that the husband's coming home with a gun and they've
Speaker 2: struggled and has been killed. But then she she panics
Speaker 2: and hides the body. And I think that's where what
Speaker 2: really drove the sort of interest in the news story
Speaker 2: that she initially had hidden the body of her husband
Speaker 2: in the basement and then unless the help of her
Speaker 2: children to move the body to the garden, where she
Speaker 2: buries the body wrapped in carpet. But then subsequently the
Speaker 2: police discover the body and she's arrested for murder. And
Speaker 2: obviously the fact that she's disposed of the body doesn't
Speaker 2: help in her defense.
Speaker 4: In her claims that it was an act of self defense, but.
Speaker 2: She tells the story of years of spousal abuse, physical
Speaker 2: and mental abuse are the hands of her husband. The
Speaker 2: abuse often came in violent and it was during one
Speaker 2: of these fights that she her gun went off and her.
Speaker 4: Husband was killed.
Speaker 2: So, on the face of it, relatively straightforward and you know,
Speaker 2: sympathetic elements obviously the tragic murder of her husband, but
Speaker 2: of the victim, Linda, who I think had, you know,
Speaker 2: quite genuinely had been through an extremely tough time in
Speaker 2: a very difficult marriage. But then, you know, as we
Speaker 2: investigate further and partially of what came up in court
Speaker 2: and then we heard later there was elements that suggested
Speaker 2: the murder was premeditative, obviously completely changes the complexion of
Speaker 2: the case. They were the gun wasn't her husband's, It
Speaker 2: was a gun that she'd bought just days prior to
Speaker 2: the murder.
Speaker 4: The kids have been sent to stay with the relatives.
Speaker 9: She'd transfer lead to the house into her name only
Speaker 9: a few weeks before in a forged document.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and made some financial financial altercations to the bank
Speaker 2: out so or you know, in the days leading up
Speaker 2: to the murder. So all of this points to a
Speaker 2: premeditated murder and not all the you know, the struggle
Speaker 2: for a gun in an argument with her husband that
Speaker 2: she suggested in court, and that's it. Ultimately, that's what
Speaker 2: the court decided, and Linda's been in prison for a
Speaker 2: very very long time. But regardless of the premeditation or not,
Speaker 2: I think, you know that it's definitely enough evidence certainly
Speaker 2: that Linda, you know, did suffer in that relationship. She
Speaker 2: was she perhaps was pushed to the brink. But again
Speaker 2: for the audience to decide, well.
Speaker 9: I think I think it's an interest in one daddy.
Speaker 9: I think I think that was It was an interesting case.
Speaker 9: I think one of the parts of the prosecutor in
Speaker 9: that case we interviewed from film and he will quote
Speaker 9: him in the book as well. There was quite a
Speaker 9: lot of social media comments about things that he'd said,
Speaker 9: because he said, you know, she claims to have had
Speaker 9: a history of domestic abuse, and he says, well, why
Speaker 9: didn't she say? And rightly, I think all the people
Speaker 9: jump on lads say well, hang on, you know this
Speaker 9: is people who stuff on domestic abuse often don't say
Speaker 9: we know that to be the case, they will suffer
Speaker 9: in silence. But I think the polish which struck me
Speaker 9: as interesting as that she didn't raise this as a
Speaker 9: defense at the time for a trial. I understand why
Speaker 9: people might not say, out of fear and the control
Speaker 9: lecture of abusive relationships, they might not say until the
Speaker 9: board that they slap or something happens and they end
Speaker 9: up in a situation like she did with her husband dead.
Speaker 10: But she didn't.
Speaker 9: Actually reference these this defense at a trial, and I
Speaker 9: think that was interesting.
Speaker 10: There might be reasons why.
Speaker 9: I think she suggests that she was advised not to
Speaker 9: that wouldn't go down well with the jury or whatever reason.
Speaker 9: But I thought that was an interesting part because this
Speaker 9: is one of the first female cases that we covered,
Speaker 9: and certainly something which means eminently clear, even right from
Speaker 9: the very first female cases we're looking at, but it has
Speaker 9: become a bundantly clear, which it all was.
Speaker 10: We find on is that.
Speaker 9: The commonality in female cases is about domestic abuse, and
Speaker 9: it's very rare that we we've corresponded with a female
Speaker 9: murderer who hasn't stated that that they've been a victim
Speaker 9: of domestic.
Speaker 10: Abuse at someone.
Speaker 9: Of course, you know, they might all be true, but
Speaker 9: they might will be true. And I think that's that
Speaker 9: just that element of doubt there. And although I don't
Speaker 9: think it was a healthy marriage. I certainly my impression
Speaker 9: of it was it was not a happy marriage, for
Speaker 9: a healthy marriage, and and I don't think she was
Speaker 9: in a happy place. You know, it's a not entirely
Speaker 9: sure if it if that is the case that the
Speaker 9: abuse happened the way that she said it did. And
Speaker 9: we interviewed her daughter, who lives in Ghana in Africa,
Speaker 9: which was surprised to us having left Ohio, and it
Speaker 9: was quite a trip for our team to go out
Speaker 9: and film her over there. Yes, she relates very much
Speaker 9: to some of the abuse that happened, but then also
Speaker 9: suggesting that some of the things weren't true. So our
Speaker 9: point is not to say that we know these are
Speaker 9: not the definitive tellings of this story.
Speaker 10: We are not saying that we know the answer. One
Speaker 10: or the other. But I think there are.
Speaker 9: Question marks there and it's up to you the same
Speaker 9: way as as documentarians are that make it up, you know,
Speaker 9: trying to establish our own understanding of the case. We
Speaker 9: think it's important to allow the viewers to present them
Speaker 9: with the information that we have on the testament, we
Speaker 9: have from various connected parties, and allow them to make
Speaker 9: that choice. She's a very old lady, the grandmotherly figure,
Speaker 9: and it's difficult not to feel kind of sympathy for
Speaker 9: her as she spent so long in jail. But yeah,
Speaker 9: the details of her case so complicated.
Speaker 2: I think it's another good example of one that did
Speaker 2: divide opinion, you know, with with some members of the
Speaker 2: team obviously feeling really very sorry for women that whose
Speaker 2: story is very believable, you know, and quite often these
Speaker 2: victims of domestic views aren't believed or they or they
Speaker 2: choose to keep quiet because they're ashamed or they're scared
Speaker 2: of the consequen especially when there's children involved in the
Speaker 2: in the relationship.
Speaker 4: And so there was a great deal of sympathy.
Speaker 2: For on that level, and there were others that you know,
Speaker 2: look at the facts, looked at everything, the pointed of
Speaker 2: premeditated murder, which undermines some, not all, of Linda's claims.
Speaker 2: So again, it was and I think it's a really
Speaker 2: good example of one that is not straightforward.
Speaker 4: These stories aren't straightforward.
Speaker 2: We probably ask more questions than the answer, but there's
Speaker 2: a lot for the viewer there to take in and
Speaker 2: you know, we're not we're not coming down on anyone's side,
Speaker 2: and of course we always remain respectful of the victim
Speaker 2: of their families. So it's another one that there is
Speaker 2: open ended.
Speaker 4: But it raises so.
Speaker 2: Many issues and as they said, touching on things spousal,
Speaker 2: lot of domestic views and and the like is another
Speaker 2: thing that you know, another corner that we've gone into
Speaker 2: with I.
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Speaker 8: talk about means to an end in James Robertson you
Speaker 8: had mentioned it briefly as part of the series. James
Speaker 8: Robertson for it's interesting for the heinous crimes of this
Speaker 8: James Robertson, For there to be any reason for you
Speaker 8: guys to cover this story, given that you don't want
Speaker 8: to cover sensationalized as stories and you don't want to
Speaker 8: go into any of the typical true crime analysis of
Speaker 8: his crimes, or his personality or anything. Tell us why
Speaker 8: it means to an end has been included.
Speaker 2: He obviously is an example something that didn't go to prison.
Speaker 2: He's been in prison for his entire adult life, but
Speaker 2: he didn't go to prison for murder. He was an
Speaker 2: adolescent at the time of his original crime, which is
Speaker 2: a breaking entry.
Speaker 4: Is that right?
Speaker 10: Yeah, he tried to still stereo the moon.
Speaker 4: I think it's robbing a check. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Once he got into the criminal system, the criminal justice system,
Speaker 2: and the prison system, was a very young man. He
Speaker 2: was really boardlined Adolessa at the time, whether or not
Speaker 2: he was going to be in juvenile detention or an
Speaker 2: adult incarceration. And he went into the prison system and
Speaker 2: just got worse and worse and worse, and his crimes multiplied,
Speaker 2: and I think he became very much a product of
Speaker 2: his fire, and not that he wasn't. He was already
Speaker 2: he had already fallen into criminality as a boy, as
Speaker 2: a teenager. But I think we were here, we were
Speaker 2: seeing somebody that went down and take the path once
Speaker 2: he got into the prison system where he there was
Speaker 2: no real attempts of rehabilitation, and he became violent and
Speaker 2: molding himself to his environment in a way. And he
Speaker 2: was he was very physically capable of violence, and that
Speaker 2: became his his way life.
Speaker 4: Once he was in the prison system.
Speaker 2: And he eventually ends up killing somebody in prison in
Speaker 2: an attempt to get off the out of the general
Speaker 2: population and onto death row where he thought he could
Speaker 2: live the remainder of his time, his life in prison
Speaker 2: in a more comfortable environment. So he absolutely institutionalized, absolutely,
Speaker 2: you know, a product of the prison system. But you know,
Speaker 2: spent his whole adult life in prison and for a
Speaker 2: large portion of that in solitary confinement or close management.
Speaker 4: So they killed it well.
Speaker 9: I think the best switch twitch. There was a few
Speaker 9: ones about James which grabbed us immediately. I mean, first
Speaker 9: of all, when you see him, when just seeing his
Speaker 9: inmate photos, he is you know, he's straight from Central
Speaker 9: casting in terms of what you would imagine a dangerous
Speaker 9: psychopathic killer would look like. I mean, he does look terrifying.
Speaker 9: And that contrasted thing the letters that we received from him,
Speaker 9: not in what he wrote way he wrote. His hand
Speaker 9: of writing is delicate and a small and reminded me
Speaker 9: of our school friend and I had an Asian school
Speaker 9: friend I had used to draw little hearts own our eyes.
Speaker 9: That it was very odd. But he wrote well, and
Speaker 9: he was extremely open about He says, yeah, I killed
Speaker 9: and I should be sence to death row for that,
Speaker 9: and that just struck us as bizarre. But because he'd
Speaker 9: been in the prison system since the age of seventeen,
Speaker 9: we weren't sure we could find that the other voice
Speaker 9: is to be able to actually make this film to
Speaker 9: cover it.
Speaker 10: The victim didn't have.
Speaker 9: Any survive ful chamily who had taught to us and
Speaker 9: not what was known about him, and he didn't use
Speaker 9: that personal everything specifically that they done, or according to James,
Speaker 9: he'd just chosen somebody that he could kill again on
Speaker 9: death row. But also it's not easy to speak to
Speaker 9: people who are actually still employed by the prison system.
Speaker 9: So we weren't sure, and all that first season we
Speaker 9: had our teams went and we filmed fourteen inmates, and
Speaker 9: then we chose of those the ten that we would
Speaker 9: go aheadward. And I remember seeing all call from the
Speaker 9: directors who who just interviewed James Robertson.
Speaker 10: When we called, we said, I know it's going to be.
Speaker 9: Difficult strewing to tell, but he is the most remarkable figure.
Speaker 9: This is one of the most remarkable interviews I've ever done.
Speaker 9: I mean, he's he's terrifying, but there is something else
Speaker 9: in there which is interesting. And I think that's that's
Speaker 9: kind of you know. When I heard that from Ross
Speaker 9: and I spoke to Danny, I think we just decided, okay,
Speaker 9: let's just have a look atness whilst and we find
Speaker 9: and we felt some really interesting people's attorney and nurse
Speaker 9: who watched the prison there who could testify a bad
Speaker 9: Hill's behavior, and then most specially finding.
Speaker 10: His cousin Darryl Loscher, who who made.
Speaker 9: Contact with him with James James and since James had
Speaker 9: committed the murder, and the two very similar in so
Speaker 9: many ways. The one add alle family in stability, in
Speaker 9: the other one did and I think that's what he
Speaker 9: then started to see a human element about James in
Speaker 9: the way that he communicated with his cousin, with his
Speaker 9: cousin's children and they, you know, Daryl even took his
Speaker 9: children to go and visit their uncle James. There's this
Speaker 9: monstrous looking tribune. And in that film, the second interview
Speaker 9: in tim he was different. He was very different. I mean,
Speaker 9: he's still the same person who has famous history of
Speaker 9: violent line within the prison system, somebody who willingly murdered
Speaker 9: another human being just to try to better his situation.
Speaker 9: You know, they're they're terrible, wowful things. But he wasn't
Speaker 9: the caricature that I think he wanted to portray in
Speaker 9: that first interview. He wanted to be shocking, he wanted
Speaker 9: that kind of reaction from Moths. And once we spoke
Speaker 9: to all again and we knew all about him and
Speaker 9: his wife, he spoke very differently. And I think, as
Speaker 9: I said before, you know, it's just to make us
Speaker 9: as all of us as viewers, to watch these just
Speaker 9: to judge these people as human beings, because he is
Speaker 9: a human being and he's not at once so years
Speaker 9: and he's not necessarily advice human being something, not someone
Speaker 9: who might want to go and go on a camping
Speaker 9: trip with or anything like that. But he's he is
Speaker 9: a human being and there are human elements to him,
Speaker 9: which I think he can start to understand a bit.
Speaker 9: So I thought that was a really important story for
Speaker 9: us to a couple.
Speaker 2: And I think it's it's a little bit of an
Speaker 2: old dad clich but James basically says in himself that
Speaker 2: you know, in prison you either get better where you
Speaker 2: get worse. And he chose a path like quite quite purposefully,
Speaker 2: you know, chows not not to be dominated and not
Speaker 2: to succumb to it, and he almost embraced that lifestyle
Speaker 2: in prison to the point where it was almost inevitable
Speaker 2: that he was going to commit further crimes. And his
Speaker 2: prison's sense is just escalat, escalat until he ended up
Speaker 2: on death vat, which is at that point where he
Speaker 2: wanted to be.
Speaker 9: But if he behaved himself, and he does, he could
Speaker 9: have been out maybe after six years or eight years,
Speaker 9: I think it was, you know, that was a possibility.
Speaker 4: I think it might have been, but less than that
Speaker 4: for his initial crime.
Speaker 9: Instead his forty years and then ends up on death row.
Speaker 9: And I think he is one hundred and eleven years
Speaker 9: of additional sentence they now on top of that.
Speaker 4: So yeah, yeah, I will never say the outside of
Speaker 4: a pusiness sell.
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Speaker 8: What I think one of the themes in some of
Speaker 8: these stories, just to go off on a little tangent,
Speaker 8: was this often misdirected anger and violence. There's a few
Speaker 8: stories with this where the wrong people are targeted from
Speaker 8: the abuse that they experienced.
Speaker 2: Well rarely of the victims directly connected with the FA,
Speaker 2: so all mess ups the killers have experienced in early life.
Speaker 2: Obviously Linda cash is so it's different that that she
Speaker 2: at least her version is that she she killed her ABUSERR.
Speaker 2: But yeah, that's not often certainly not always the case.
Speaker 2: And you're right, it's that sort of the violence is
Speaker 2: directed not not necessarily to the source of the of
Speaker 2: the pain of the trouble.
Speaker 4: But again, and I do have.
Speaker 2: To keep we training, although we're something that we all
Speaker 2: feel very strongly about raising these issues, that there's no
Speaker 2: way that these terrible conditions which these people grew up in,
Speaker 2: you know, are often her endous abuse, and they've suffered
Speaker 2: excuses taking.
Speaker 4: Another person's life.
Speaker 2: And you know, these people, all of them or everybody's fature,
Speaker 2: I have made very very bad decisions.
Speaker 4: Clearly they have had tragic outcomes.
Speaker 2: So I think we just need to you know, we
Speaker 2: do need to keep as passionate as we are about
Speaker 2: making these circumstances known and the conditions and raising the issues.
Speaker 2: I think we do have to remind ourselves of that,
Speaker 2: you know, there's a victim in all of these crimes.
Speaker 12: There is, and I think though that what it does show,
Speaker 12: like you say down that the victims of being the
Speaker 12: misdirected rage is that the assumption will be add that
Speaker 12: people commit murderer either horrific psychopathic beasts or or really
Speaker 12: calculated iniqulitive characters.
Speaker 9: I think what it shows you these ones, these these
Speaker 9: are not The vast majority of the murders that we
Speaker 9: cover out are not taught through crimes. These are not
Speaker 9: criminal master warns.
Speaker 10: These are They are.
Speaker 9: Often not planned at all, often the result of just
Speaker 9: a moment's kind of actions. Were more interested in what
Speaker 9: has led to that that kind of slapping moment, that
Speaker 9: that moment wire some kind of does this thing. Yeah,
Speaker 9: James Robertson, he had planned and intended to kill his
Speaker 9: cell meet for his own benefit. But large numbers of
Speaker 9: the others know there's these These haven't been trying to
Speaker 9: pre plan and fall through these ould maaster warnings. Most
Speaker 9: murderers are not the kind of the fictional ones. Depiction
Speaker 9: of murderers is certainly from the cases that we've been
Speaker 9: reading over these many years, that kind of characterization of
Speaker 9: the criminal master wind doesn't seem to appear in the
Speaker 9: vast majority of cases.
Speaker 8: Let's talk about Charles Bill Arma Trout speaking of fascinating
Speaker 8: cases and misdirected rage. You talk about that at eighteen
Speaker 8: years old, he shot his father six times but narrowly
Speaker 8: avoiding killing him. But ten years later he beat his
Speaker 8: eighty one year old grandma to death. The interesting thing
Speaker 8: was that for fifteen years in prison, he claimed he
Speaker 8: was innocent and named another man as the killer. Can
Speaker 8: you tell us a little bit about this story of
Speaker 8: Billy Armatrout.
Speaker 9: I think this is a story that both Daddy and
Speaker 9: I were determined would be in the book. We have
Speaker 9: it as the final chapter for very specific reason, because
Speaker 9: the contrast is that the crimes that Billy arm Trout
Speaker 9: committed possibly the most horrific we'd come across.
Speaker 10: You know, he has got.
Speaker 9: His father, but his father had survived. He was a methodict.
Speaker 9: He was thoroughly self absorbed, self obsessed, dangerous and the mature.
Speaker 9: And he beats his grandmother to death with the baseball
Speaker 9: bats in order to still want it for trumps and
Speaker 9: you just cannot and then blamed it on this track
Speaker 9: and you can't really think of the thing watch worse
Speaker 9: than that. But I think for me suddenly is the interview.
Speaker 9: And Charles Armtrout was remarkable because he knows he's not
Speaker 9: going anywhere. He knows there's there's no effort to go.
Speaker 9: So when he's he's never getting out of prison. And
Speaker 9: the sense that I had, and I think Danny feels
Speaker 9: the same, is that what he's telling us what he
Speaker 9: did which he didn't do, she didn't admit to for
Speaker 9: such a very long type. He's not doing it with
Speaker 9: there is no other motivation upon from owning it, which
Speaker 9: is the name of the title of that chapter and
Speaker 9: the title of the film that it was based from.
Speaker 9: He owns what he did, and for me or suddenly
Speaker 9: I believe he does, and that for me makes him
Speaker 9: one of the most interesting murders that we've spoken to.
Speaker 10: He's done it.
Speaker 9: I know you feel very bassionate about this area.
Speaker 4: Yeah, No, I mean that absolutely.
Speaker 2: I mean it was one we actually he ends up
Speaker 2: being an episode into series two, although he was one
Speaker 2: of the first people we contacted right at the start
Speaker 2: of the process and took a year in Pindush the
Speaker 2: first year with the letter writing and getting access the
Speaker 2: vast prisons and the institutions. But so he was one
Speaker 2: of the people I'm talking to the very longest time,
Speaker 2: but timing didn't work out for the first season when
Speaker 2: we got to interview for the second, you know, so
Speaker 2: we really interested to do this one because that that
Speaker 2: she picked up on down that for fifteen years.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, absolutely adamant.
Speaker 2: His friend, the guy that he was hired with at
Speaker 2: the time, was the murderer in this instance, in the
Speaker 2: murder of his grandmother, and fifteen years into his prison censers,
Speaker 2: with nothing to get, he changed the tune and told
Speaker 2: the truth. And I think partly he was, you know,
Speaker 2: he was deeply addicted to various drugs and it was
Speaker 2: a methodic at the time of his grandmother. I think
Speaker 2: there was a lot of genuinely a lot of confusion.
Speaker 2: But I think also he's like he's been lying to
Speaker 2: himself for so long and telling the same story in
Speaker 2: court and in the vast prison therapy sessions and the workshops,
Speaker 2: and he'd been telling the story, the same story again
Speaker 2: and again again. I think he genuinely believed it. I
Speaker 2: think he could he you know, at any point in
Speaker 2: those first fifty years of his prison sentences, he's asked him,
Speaker 2: he got exactly the same answer, you know, and he
Speaker 2: you believe that he wasn't responsible, He couldn't he couldn't
Speaker 2: come to terms with what he'd done. And his grandmother
Speaker 2: was one of the people, one of the only people
Speaker 2: in his life.
Speaker 10: I think i'd really well, she took him in, didn't
Speaker 10: she when when no one else.
Speaker 4: Would, Yeah, cared for him.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, absolutely, And you know, and I think he
Speaker 2: couldn't come to terms with it, and then he did.
Speaker 2: It was almost not in a religious sense, but an
Speaker 2: epiphany of sorts, and he decided to take responsibility for
Speaker 2: his actions. And that's how he's chosen to live out
Speaker 2: the rest of his time in prison, you know, with
Speaker 2: the full burden of his crimes.
Speaker 4: And he's quite you know, he's an old man now.
Speaker 2: He went in as a relatively relative young young man,
Speaker 2: and he is an old guy, you know, boarding old
Speaker 2: guy with a gray mustache and glasses telling his story,
Speaker 2: you know, and there's a there's so much his face.
Speaker 2: I mean, it's no less tragic or on his crime,
Speaker 2: no less hard fine, but you know, it's a whole
Speaker 2: life he lost the day he took his grandmother's life.
Speaker 9: We interviewed him for about the totalizing over three hours,
Speaker 9: so there's a lot that he spoke about, and I
Speaker 9: think that was a big part that we wanted to include.
Speaker 9: At extra parts what he talked about in the book,
Speaker 9: because I mean I could set and listen to his
Speaker 9: whole interview the way through. It's, as Daddy says, is
Speaker 9: this this old guy, something slightly kind of mold like
Speaker 9: about him. Is kind of quiet and straightforward person. But
Speaker 9: knowing that he has nothing to gain from telling people
Speaker 9: and telling us what he did, telling us that he's
Speaker 9: truly remorseful for it, I think really really strikes to
Speaker 9: call it, doesn't you know. One of the phrases that
Speaker 9: we hear so very very often corresponding with in mass
Speaker 9: they say, you know, I'm not that person I am
Speaker 9: now is not the person who I was then, right,
Speaker 9: And of course you'd expect that you'd expect them to say, no,
Speaker 9: I committed the crime, but I'm different now, better now
Speaker 9: let me out.
Speaker 10: But the it's very hard.
Speaker 9: You know. We have we have footage that we found
Speaker 9: of Charles being interviewed by police shortly after the murder,
Speaker 9: and he was still the high out cracking. You look
Speaker 9: at the images of that and the images of the
Speaker 9: man that we interview, and it's difficult to believe this
Speaker 9: is the same man and he's not arguing for to
Speaker 9: be released. He's not being for his case being reconsidered.
Speaker 9: He's not doing any of those things. He's just as
Speaker 9: he says, he's owning it. Once the battle rings, that
Speaker 9: can't be untrolled. This is what I've done, and I
Speaker 9: think none of us would want to be judged from
Speaker 9: the single worst action we've ever taken around our lives.
Speaker 10: And we were more than that.
Speaker 9: But there's something about Charles who he accepts that that
Speaker 9: is that's to find his life where he is, and
Speaker 9: I think that that's the part that he I think
Speaker 9: he still struggles with. I mean, we tried ry Danny
Speaker 9: to be impartial as filmmakers and to put through our
Speaker 9: feelings too much about that the individuals will just allowed
Speaker 9: the viewers to make their own mind. Well, I think
Speaker 9: both of you and I were very keen on this
Speaker 9: story because I think we just both kind of believe
Speaker 9: that this is a guy who is being honest. And
Speaker 9: what a welcome thing to hear something you all this
Speaker 9: recollections from somebody who committed crime, So water, how do
Speaker 9: you look with yourself? And I think that's a really
Speaker 9: form lesson for us to learn.
Speaker 8: You righte that he changes his life and it was
Speaker 8: because of this confession it was a powerful turnaround in
Speaker 8: his life. Tell us who Wendy and Mary are and
Speaker 8: its impact on them.
Speaker 9: Well, Charles had a pretty divided it up family. His
Speaker 9: father doesn't sound like he was an easy asked him
Speaker 9: to be the son of and his father had had remarried,
Speaker 9: and so Charles had a stepmother and a stepsister by
Speaker 9: appeared in his life, and he then robbed from them
Speaker 9: and was intimidating to them as well, and he had
Speaker 9: sav any kind of communication with them, and he didn't
Speaker 9: have any communication and then the rest of his family.
Speaker 9: But as a result of us waking this film, you
Speaker 9: obviously it's common on us to try and approach and
Speaker 9: to speak to everybody who we can who's connected to
Speaker 9: the individual, And Wendy and Mary were really interested in
Speaker 9: aspiring individuals assist his former stepmother and stepsister. They took
Speaker 9: it upon themselves that they wanted to reconnect with with
Speaker 9: Charles and let's shore as a result when he went
Speaker 9: to visit him in prison speak to him, and they
Speaker 9: believe they've remained in communication since. So we often get
Speaker 9: asked you, why do you give these people a platform?
Speaker 10: And do you pay them?
Speaker 9: They get money for this, but I friendly know, not
Speaker 9: intending to give people a platform. We're just trying to
Speaker 9: learn from trough of the things I have to say,
Speaker 9: and nobody would ever get paid and we wouldn't give
Speaker 9: anyone of any kind of compensation about crimes they committed.
Speaker 9: But I think it'd be fair to say that Charles
Speaker 9: from this will who has perceived a benefit from it,
Speaker 9: and let's be disease, these managed to reconnect with it
Speaker 9: with somebody who they knew him as a young boy,
Speaker 9: They knew him before he became the person who committed
Speaker 9: those terrible crimes, and now they know him mister who
Speaker 9: has changed once again.
Speaker 1: So yeah, it's a very moving story, I think absolutely.
Speaker 8: I want to thank you both, Bennie Tipping and Ned
Speaker 8: Parker for coming on and talking about I Am a Killer,
Speaker 8: What makes a Murderer? Their shocking stories in their own words.
Speaker 8: For those that might want to take further look, tell
Speaker 8: us about your Netflix series you say it's in the
Speaker 8: fourth season now, and tell us how they might find
Speaker 8: out more information about this book and any social media
Speaker 8: that you both are taking.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, there's four seasons available right now on Netflix internationally.
Speaker 9: Just search on Killer and there's also the company series
Speaker 9: I'm a Stalker.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so that's that was it's been a face similar
Speaker 2: to I'm mckillner as much as we take. We interviewed
Speaker 2: convicted stalkers who you talk about their clients, but of
Speaker 2: course in this instance we get to to meet their
Speaker 2: victims as well. And that's a real life because I
Speaker 2: think stalking was a crime that we we knew, we
Speaker 2: found we knew even less about than murder. So there's
Speaker 2: arm a killer. There's episodes of Armored Stalker and a
Speaker 2: book which is out in September in the US, which
Speaker 2: will be available from all your favorite bookstores and online retailers.
Speaker 8: That's great. Thank you so much, Danny Tipping and Ed Parker.
Speaker 10: Thank you Dan being a real pleasure.
Speaker 8: Yeah, thanks, thank you so much, and you have a
Speaker 8: great evening and good night.
Speaker 4: Yeah, thanks for having us doan thank you, Bye bye
Speaker 4: bye