Speaker 1: You are now listening to True Murder, The most shocking
Speaker 1: killers in true crime history and the authors that have
Speaker 1: written about them Gaesy, Bundy, Dahmer, The Nightstalker VTK. Every
Speaker 1: week another fascinating author talking about the most shocking and
Speaker 1: infamous killers in true crime history. True Murder with your
Speaker 1: host journalist and author Dan Zupanski ideming from her small
Speaker 1: town Michigan roots to becoming a New York Times bestselling author,
Speaker 1: and Rule's life journey is as fascinating as the cases
Speaker 1: she covered. Discover how she revolutionized crime writing, influenced FBI profiling,
Speaker 1: and Rule's faithful encounter with a murderer at just nine
Speaker 1: years old. Go behind the scenes of Rule's most infamous cases,
Speaker 1: including Ted Bundy, The Stranger Beside Me, Randy Woodfield, the
Speaker 1: I five Killer, and Diane Downs small sacrifices, and explore
Speaker 1: her personal insights into the murderers and Rule and Jagger
Speaker 1: both studied. Featuring never before revealed true crime cases, jaw
Speaker 1: dropping interviews, and the little known story of Rule's time
Speaker 1: as a sex decoy for the Seattle Vice Squad. This
Speaker 1: book also delves into the extraordinary three decade friendship between
Speaker 1: and Rule and Jagger with exclusive letters from notorious killers
Speaker 1: and an inside look at Diane Downe's chilling correspondence with
Speaker 1: Manson murderer Susan Atkins and I five Killer Randy Woodfield,
Speaker 1: author and Jagger and I discuss and Rule's faithful journey
Speaker 1: to become the undisputed queen of true crime, her family's
Speaker 1: law enforcement background that shaped her perceptions of crime and punishment,
Speaker 1: and her transformative rule in true crime writing and true
Speaker 1: crime history. The book that we're featuring this evening is
Speaker 1: The Rule of Crime and Me, an intimate view of
Speaker 1: and Rule shared by her friend of thirty years with
Speaker 1: my special guest journalist and author and Jagger. Welcome to
Speaker 1: the program, and thank you very much for this interview.
Speaker 2: And Jagger, you know and Rule had an extraordinary childhood,
Speaker 2: one that is very hard for us to comprehend. She
Speaker 2: used to spend her summers, all summer and holidays at
Speaker 2: her grandfather's jail in Stanton, Michigan. Now this wasn't your
Speaker 2: usual type of jail. This is an old timey jail
Speaker 2: where the prisoners and the family all reside under one roof.
Speaker 2: It's hard for us to imagine that this could even happen,
Speaker 2: But this is how it was done in the old days,
Speaker 2: and you know, up until oh, probably nineteen fifties or something.
Speaker 2: So she lived there with her grandfather, who she revered.
Speaker 2: He was the sheriff. Her grandmother cooked the meals for
Speaker 2: the prisoners and for her own family, and then Anne
Speaker 2: would serve meals to the mail prisoners downstairs from a
Speaker 2: little tiny slot, oh about the size a little bit
Speaker 2: bigger than a mailbox slot. And they cock their heads
Speaker 2: to one side and say, how are you doing, little missy,
Speaker 2: And she thought they all seemed so nice, like all
Speaker 2: of the rest of her family who was in law enforcement,
Speaker 2: and now one of the prisoners. The females were upstairs,
Speaker 2: and that's where the bedrooms were, and Anne slept in
Speaker 2: one of the bedrooms, but she also liked to sleep
Speaker 2: in the empty cells up there.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 2: But when she was getting dinner for one woman who
Speaker 2: was accused of shooting her husband in cold blood because
Speaker 2: he stepped out in the new Chevy truck, she bought
Speaker 2: him with one of her girlfriends. Anyway, this woman's name
Speaker 2: was Viola, And as she's taking the tray to Viola,
Speaker 2: she gets to meet her, and Viola is crocheting quickly,
Speaker 2: you know, trying to probably put boredom and worry anxiety
Speaker 2: to the side, and she ends up teaching Anne how
Speaker 2: to crochet between bars. Now, first of all, children would
Speaker 2: never be allowed in that situation again, right, But if
Speaker 2: you think about it, a crochet hook is a dangerous,
Speaker 2: dangerous weapon in a cell. If you're somebody who's accused
Speaker 2: of murder, you could hold someone hostage, you could kill
Speaker 2: somebody else. But I think this experience with Viola, when
Speaker 2: it would come out later in her life, really started
Speaker 2: her fascination with personalities, aberrant personalities, and why people commit
Speaker 2: the crimes. I mean, she knew at the time that
Speaker 2: there must have been something very wrong with this crochet teacher,
Speaker 2: but she couldn't quite put her finger on it. So Viola.
Speaker 2: When I went back to Michigan to study Anne's roots
Speaker 2: and her hometowns, I'm made an effort to go to
Speaker 2: the Calm County Sheriff's office, which is now a big
Speaker 2: new building. They don't live under one roof anymore. And
Speaker 2: I went through all of the great, big old books,
Speaker 2: the booking tomes that had all of the nails names
Speaker 2: in it unless they were a lodger, which sometimes they
Speaker 2: would just be described that way because they were from
Speaker 2: outside of the county, But it was all the crimes
Speaker 2: that were committed what happened to their cases. Now, searching
Speaker 2: through all of those great big books, I went through
Speaker 2: probably close to four thousand names, probably three hundred and
Speaker 2: three thousand and six hundred something like that. Looking for Viola.
Speaker 2: I wasn't able to find her, and I suspect that's
Speaker 2: because she was a lodger and not listed by name.
Speaker 2: But I did find another woman. Her case seemed very
Speaker 2: close to Anne's, and I ferreted back into Anne's past
Speaker 2: to figure out how Anne might have crossed past with
Speaker 2: this woman. If she was not Viola, then she would
Speaker 2: have met this woman too.
Speaker 3: What was her grandfather, Chris Hansen's overall philosophy that he
Speaker 3: imparted Dan and influenced Dan in her life.
Speaker 2: He believed that people made mistakes and that they were
Speaker 2: still entitled to being treated with dignity and respect. Now
Speaker 2: that didn't mean that there weren't a lot of rules
Speaker 2: around that. But Anne also was this way, and I
Speaker 2: think she got that from her grandfather, and he was
Speaker 2: an excellent sleuth. He could pick up a cigarette butt,
Speaker 2: a piece of cloth, or a bullet, and he could
Speaker 2: get confessions easily. In fact, he was known far and wide,
Speaker 2: and especially in Michigan for the confessions that he garnered.
Speaker 2: And you know, Anne listened to a lot of confessions
Speaker 2: and a lot of denials.
Speaker 3: She also learned that and had a philosophy that the
Speaker 3: criminals in all cases, the perpetrator would leave evidence behind
Speaker 3: at the scene and also take something with them, right.
Speaker 2: And that's an old adage that she did learn from
Speaker 2: her grandfather, Chris Hansen, and you see evidence of that
Speaker 2: rule in all of her books, because nothing is so
Speaker 2: minute that it can't help solve the case. Now, this
Speaker 2: was back in the late thirties early forties, but they
Speaker 2: were pretty smart back then too, without the advent of
Speaker 2: DNA and surveillance cameras and cell phones.
Speaker 3: You're right that Anne came to this law enforcement or
Speaker 3: this bug honestly with her grandmother being involved with the
Speaker 3: grandfather at the jail, but also her aunt Freda married
Speaker 3: under sheriff Elton Samson later and they had their own
Speaker 3: home jail as well. Uncle Carl was a medical examiner
Speaker 3: and at Millie worked at juvenile court and her cousin
Speaker 3: Bruce was a prosecuting attorney, and she'd kept a copy
Speaker 3: of her grandpa father's nineteen forties forensic science book as
Speaker 3: a lifelong treasure, even though, as we mentioned, some of
Speaker 3: those principles were outdated. She really had a dream job
Speaker 3: in mind. Tell us what she did in pursuit of
Speaker 3: that dream job.
Speaker 2: Well, she was always a fabulous writer, but she never
Speaker 2: wanted to be a writer. She wanted to be a policewoman. Now,
Speaker 2: her father was an athletic coach and an athletic director,
Speaker 2: and there were no females in that profession either. But
Speaker 2: Anne always wanted to be a policewoman, and she became
Speaker 2: one in Seattle. Now, there's a funny, kind of in
Speaker 2: a sad way story about that. When she got on
Speaker 2: with the Seattle Police Department, they once asked her to
Speaker 2: be a sex decoy in Pioneer Square to catch a flasher. Now,
Speaker 2: women back then had to wear three inch heels, they
Speaker 2: had to wear skirts, and it was a cold night.
Speaker 2: She had on a coat, and the cops are in
Speaker 2: cars all watching her from outside the park. They've got
Speaker 2: their police radios, they've got their handcuffs, they've got their
Speaker 2: guns and all she has is her purse and she's
Speaker 2: walking along trying to find a flasher. Now, she didn't
Speaker 2: find a flasher that day. They didn't rest anybody. But
Speaker 2: she said to me much later, when she was almost eighty,
Speaker 2: and here I was a virgin, and they send me
Speaker 2: out as a sex decoy, you know, to find this guy.
Speaker 2: So she was relieved it was over. And oh, she
Speaker 2: would laugh hysterically. She had this wonderful way of bobbing
Speaker 2: her shoulders up and down when she thought something was funny.
Speaker 2: And we howled about that. But I was kind of
Speaker 2: gobsmacked at the idea of her being out there and
Speaker 2: doing that. Now a little bit later, of course, she
Speaker 2: had to pass the written test, and that was a cinch,
Speaker 2: but she had to take an eye test. And this
Speaker 2: was an old, antiquated belief system in police shops all
Speaker 2: over the nation that you had to have very good
Speaker 2: eyesight couldn't wear glasses. The belief was that if a
Speaker 2: perpetrator knocked your glasses off, you might not be able
Speaker 2: to defend yourself or perhaps your partner. So Anne actually
Speaker 2: was legally blind, and she wore glasses for the rest
Speaker 2: of her life. But she failed that eye test, and
Speaker 2: it crushed her all her life. This is all she
Speaker 2: had ever wanted to do, and now she wouldn't be
Speaker 2: able to do it. She did meet lots of contacts
Speaker 2: in the sheriff's departments and with all of the police
Speaker 2: departments around Seattle, and they became a lot of her
Speaker 2: sources and inspirations for her book. You know, it didn't
Speaker 2: all go for not It did pay off, but just
Speaker 2: not in the way that she had expected it to.
Speaker 2: And she would always try to avoid the police department
Speaker 2: because she would cry. It was just too painful every
Speaker 2: time she saw it.
Speaker 3: Let's use this as an opportunity to stop to hear
Speaker 3: these messages, now, you write. In fall of nineteen fifty
Speaker 3: and decides to switch schools and move to Seattle, and
Speaker 3: she majored in creative writing and start leaning hard, You
Speaker 3: write into a career in criminal justice. But she was
Speaker 3: also taking criminology courses as well. She minored in criminology, psychology,
Speaker 3: and penealogy, and she eventually earned an Associate of Arts degree,
Speaker 3: And you write it. She loved criminology classes and studying
Speaker 3: the causes of crime, prevention, statistics, and behavior.
Speaker 2: She had such a love for learning, and through those
Speaker 2: classes and going to autopsies and talking to criminologists, she
Speaker 2: was able to be so knowledgeable about all of those facts.
Speaker 2: And of course, with the study of prison reform, she
Speaker 2: witnessed that in her childhood. So I mean the adberant
Speaker 2: psychology classes. I mean, if you just think off the
Speaker 2: top of your head about some of the awful criminals
Speaker 2: that she wrote about, you know they would be on
Speaker 2: the front page of her criminology classes.
Speaker 3: You write that her writing starts, she has a lot
Speaker 3: of rejections, but eventually is writing two articles a week
Speaker 3: for detective magazines that became very, very popular at that time.
Speaker 3: Tell us about some of her early writing practices and
Speaker 3: the circumstances of which she was writing. You say that
Speaker 3: she was raising children while she was writing. Tell us
Speaker 3: how she juggles all of these duties and still ends
Speaker 3: up writing all of this material.
Speaker 2: She was prolific. Now when she wrote for True Detective
Speaker 2: and some of those other magazines, these had to be
Speaker 2: based on had to be true stories. Some of the
Speaker 2: names could be changed and things like that, but they
Speaker 2: had to be true stories. That also attributed to her
Speaker 2: vast knowledge of criminal and victim behavior as she's writing
Speaker 2: for these detective magazines which line the bookshelf in her office.
Speaker 2: She was able to then get a toe hold in
Speaker 2: writing because she was so prolific. These were huge articles,
Speaker 2: sometimes for pages at a time in these magazines. She
Speaker 2: would be able to write with her tremendous powers of concentration.
Speaker 2: She could write with four kids running around and monkeying around.
Speaker 2: She said that as long as they didn't land on
Speaker 2: the typewriter, she was able to write. Now her first
Speaker 2: seven years, I think the first year she might have
Speaker 2: made like one hundred dollars, and by year seven she
Speaker 2: had only made about one thousand dollars. But she was
Speaker 2: on her way. When she and her husband got divorced
Speaker 2: and she was a single mother, she was able to
Speaker 2: keep on writing and ended up writing full time in
Speaker 2: nineteen sixty nine. So she had found her niche in
Speaker 2: that time period.
Speaker 3: You're right that taboo subjects for her at that time were,
Speaker 3: and for her entire career were torture, motorcycle clubs, mob crime, families,
Speaker 3: and drug rings.
Speaker 2: Right. She thought that torture was abhorrent and didn't want
Speaker 2: to have anything to do with it. That's why you
Speaker 2: never see any bloody pictures in her books, as you
Speaker 2: do in some others. She thought the motorcycle clubs were
Speaker 2: too dangerous and too prolific, and I think we all
Speaker 2: know the problems with trying to do stories about the mafia,
Speaker 2: so she chose wisely.
Speaker 3: You're right though, that she was heading into the eighties
Speaker 3: and began cranking out her hits full time author, writing
Speaker 3: about a bevy of murders, among them Lust Killer nineteen
Speaker 3: eighty one about Jerry Brutos, want ad Killer nineteen eighty
Speaker 3: three about Harvey Carigan, and the I five Killer in
Speaker 3: nineteen eighty four about Randy Woodfield.
Speaker 2: Yes, those books were originally written under the name Andy Stack,
Speaker 2: which was her pseudonym for the True True Detect Disease
Speaker 2: that she worked for, and then they were later released
Speaker 2: under her own name. And at the same time she
Speaker 2: was doing this, she was writing Stranger Beside Me about
Speaker 2: Ted Bundy, and then she found out about the Diane
Speaker 2: Downs murder case, and she was at the trial for
Speaker 2: the book Small Sacrifices.
Speaker 3: You write about a personal tragedy in Anne's life that
Speaker 3: led her to volunteer at this Seattle suicide hotline and
Speaker 3: ended up working alongside Ted Bundy. Tell us what happens
Speaker 3: with her brother and the meeting and encounter with Ted
Speaker 3: Bundy working with him.
Speaker 2: Well, her brother Dawn, who she loved so much, was
Speaker 2: going to Stanford and he was a pre med student
Speaker 2: headed to Harvard. Well, apparently life got to be too
Speaker 2: much for him and he committed suicide. Now Anne could
Speaker 2: barely talk about this throughout her whole her whole life.
Speaker 2: She was so devastated by the loss, and she wanted
Speaker 2: to turn that loss into something productive, something positive. So
Speaker 2: she decided to volunteer at the Seattle Suicide Hotline. And
Speaker 2: it's there she met this young man who was a
Speaker 2: work study student named Ted Bundy, and they worked overnight
Speaker 2: together trying to save lives and she would be Anne
Speaker 2: would be talking to them, and he would be trying
Speaker 2: to trace the calls or find out where the people
Speaker 2: who were contemplating suicide were living so that he could
Speaker 2: send ambulances there or police there to demonstrate that you know,
Speaker 2: tomorrow things may get better, Please don't do this now.
Speaker 2: And it was her way of, I think, honoring her brother.
Speaker 2: But little did she know that a man that she
Speaker 2: had a book contract to write about, who was a
Speaker 2: serial killer, going you know, a long eye five and
Speaker 2: leaving the women's bodies in the woods. She had a
Speaker 2: contract to write about this man, but they didn't know
Speaker 2: who he was. It wasn't until she left the suicide
Speaker 2: hotline that she found out information that led her to
Speaker 2: report Ted Bundy twice to the Seattle detectives. And he
Speaker 2: turned out to be not only what had been her friend,
Speaker 2: but he was he was the killer. He's the serial killer.
Speaker 2: Very hard to reconcile those two faces in one person,
Speaker 2: and she detailed it so beautifully and masterfully in The
Speaker 2: Stranger Beside Me.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, you say that she was in correspondence with Ted,
Speaker 3: because it wasn't immediate at all that she was convinced
Speaker 3: that he was the killer. Again, just the demonstration of
Speaker 3: his charm, right.
Speaker 2: She at first, of course, believed in what the detectives
Speaker 2: were telling her. But he was writing her and saying,
Speaker 2: you know, well, we'll get together again sometime, and you know,
Speaker 2: what they're saying isn't true. And she was skeptical for sure,
Speaker 2: even more than skeptical, but until she started hearing details
Speaker 2: about what he had done and he was in Florida,
Speaker 2: he had escaped and there were more murders in Florida.
Speaker 2: Everywhere that Ted went, a body was sure to be murdered,
Speaker 2: so she quit corresponding with him. But it was always
Speaker 2: jarring throughout her life that this same man who only
Speaker 2: showed her kindness had this horrible, horrible mask that he
Speaker 2: wore as a vicious killer. Apparently he couldn't attack somebody
Speaker 2: and kill them if he had more than about a
Speaker 2: five minute conversation with him, because I guess he started
Speaker 2: seeing them as people, And inevitably, in these people's lives
Speaker 2: we always find out they had girlfriends or wives and
Speaker 2: children and they blend in with the rest of us.
Speaker 2: I personally think that that's the mask they wear and
Speaker 2: who they really are is that, you know, soulless killer, Yes,
Speaker 2: that repeatedly kills.
Speaker 3: Absolutely this case, Stranger Beside Me her book Ted Bundy
Speaker 3: and his Murderous Ways and his Escapes really catapulted, and
Speaker 3: along with brilliant writing research and capturing the essence of
Speaker 3: just happened to m know this person? And she was
Speaker 3: working alongside getting the contract and then having to write
Speaker 3: the book about this person she thought was her friend. Stranger,
Speaker 3: The Stranger beside Me catapulted her to incredible international fame,
Speaker 3: didn't it.
Speaker 2: Interestingly enough, Anne always said that it wasn't a best
Speaker 2: seller right away. Well, of course it was in Seattle,
Speaker 2: her hometown, but it had legs, which we say in
Speaker 2: the industry to mean it just kept growing and growing
Speaker 2: and growing until it was an international sensation. And I
Speaker 2: think you're right attributing it to her meticulous research skills,
Speaker 2: the fact that they knew each other and had spent
Speaker 2: so much time together at the suicide hotline, and she
Speaker 2: knew the inner workings of his life, or at least
Speaker 2: she thought she did, and then she revealed a whole new,
Speaker 2: horrific person.
Speaker 3: Let's Jesus as an opportunity to stop to hear these messages.
Speaker 3: Now you write about your intersection with the legendary and Rule.
Speaker 3: You write that you hadn't heard of Van Rule in
Speaker 3: May nineteen eighty three. The Stranger Beside Me was her
Speaker 3: first book that you were aware of. Nobody had heard
Speaker 3: of Elizabeth dan Downs until after the morning and after
Speaker 3: the hillacious crime on May nineteenth. You heard the news
Speaker 3: of the shooting, and right away you had questions. Tell
Speaker 3: us about hearing the news and the questions you instinctively
Speaker 3: and initially.
Speaker 2: The woman, Elizabeth Diane Down's, twenty eight year old mother
Speaker 2: of three, was out on a sightseeing trip in Springfield, Oregon,
Speaker 2: outside Eugene with her three children, and she said a
Speaker 2: man flagged her down in the middle of the road,
Speaker 2: and for some reason, with kids in the car, after dark,
Speaker 2: she stopped and she said, this bushy haired stranger shot
Speaker 2: her children, murdered one and critically wounded and paralyzed another.
Speaker 2: And right away I was thinking, something is wrong. Here
Speaker 2: is this domestic violence? What is the story about this?
Speaker 2: And I was bound and determined to make that story
Speaker 2: my own and to figure out the whys. And Anne
Speaker 2: and I had that in common, she called I did
Speaker 2: a documentary on Elizabeth Diane Downs, and Anne used it,
Speaker 2: she said, in her writing almost every day. She called
Speaker 2: it the seminal personality profile of a murderous mom. So
Speaker 2: that's high praise. But the interview in itself was so startling.
Speaker 3: You're right that the interview was was startling. But let's
Speaker 3: get you. You write about how you met and rule
Speaker 3: in the first place, before this trial, and that's where
Speaker 3: you met and rule, But before that, you decided to
Speaker 3: own this story about Diane Downs. These questions were gnawing
Speaker 3: at your mind. Tell us where you were professionally in
Speaker 3: your own career at that time.
Speaker 2: So I'm headed for a lifetime career in journalism, and
Speaker 2: Diane Downs, you know, is obviously going to be headed
Speaker 2: to the slammer. And I had to do everything I
Speaker 2: could to be able to win that story because it
Speaker 2: was assigned to another reporter, and I just kept on
Speaker 2: pursuing it and found out that Christy, the eldest child
Speaker 2: who was shot in the chest, had had a blood
Speaker 2: transfusion at the hospital to save her life, but unfortunately
Speaker 2: it was the wrong blood type and so she had
Speaker 2: had a stroke and that set her back a long way. Now,
Speaker 2: of course, prosecutors in the crime were hoping that they
Speaker 2: would be able to bring her in as a witness
Speaker 2: to these shootings. Her brother, Danny, was only four years old,
Speaker 2: so they knew that he probably couldn't remember very much.
Speaker 2: So every piece of the puzzle that I found out,
Speaker 2: I handed into the assignment desk and it went over
Speaker 2: to the other reporter, and then finally the other reporter
Speaker 2: bowed out, saying that he wanted to focus on his beat.
Speaker 2: It became mine I also was able to go and
Speaker 2: interview Diane the first time that her parents held a
Speaker 2: media conference at their home in Springfield. She had, you know,
Speaker 2: a cast on her arm because she shot herself in
Speaker 2: her arm. She's right handed and she was shot in
Speaker 2: her left fore arm. And right away, you know, we
Speaker 2: were hearing I was hearing background top talk from the
Speaker 2: police officers and detectives that they weren't believing that a
Speaker 2: shaggy haired stranger flagged her down. I mean, why not
Speaker 2: as a mother, you know, fight like heck to the
Speaker 2: to the death to save your children, or get everybody
Speaker 2: out of the car and let him have your car
Speaker 2: if he wants. So nothing was really adding up, and
Speaker 2: when we went to the media conference, all the cameras
Speaker 2: are turning and people are taking notes, and I asked her,
Speaker 2: you know, Diane, police are doubting your story. You know,
Speaker 2: they think that you're the shooter. She was, you know,
Speaker 2: so vociferously denying it thout doing doth protest too much.
Speaker 2: That was the get of the day. But then I
Speaker 2: asked her because she mentioned that there was a towel
Speaker 2: that was in the trunk, and for some reason, this
Speaker 2: really fascinated me. I'm like, well, why would she be
Speaker 2: going to the trunk. Well, the prosecutors believe that that's
Speaker 2: where the gun was too. And she had folded this towel,
Speaker 2: you know, like a tied die, so that she could
Speaker 2: wrap it around her arm to stop the bleeding. And
Speaker 2: for me, I was thinking, I wouldn't be using that
Speaker 2: on myself. I would be ripping that apart and trying
Speaker 2: to save my children. Turns out, you know, she really
Speaker 2: didn't want to save her children, and she drove very
Speaker 2: slowly to the hospital, and people saw her. They were
Speaker 2: behind her in the car, hoping that they would die
Speaker 2: along the way. Cheryl was already dead. Christy, of course,
Speaker 2: was critically wounded, and Danny has been paralyzed ever since.
Speaker 3: Please explain how, despite your challenging questions at the press
Speaker 3: conference that they call that the family home, how do
Speaker 3: you exactly get her to agree to an interview that
Speaker 3: you are going to film without her attorney. Please tell us, mastervely,
Speaker 3: how you convinced her.
Speaker 2: Well, I forgot one piece of that media press conference,
Speaker 2: and that was when I asked her about the towel.
Speaker 2: Her father got so red in the face and lashed
Speaker 2: out at me and saying, you're all going to have
Speaker 2: to leave. Come on, get your stuff, let's go out.
Speaker 2: And I very quietly turned my head toward him and
Speaker 2: I said, mister Frederickson, that's Diane's maiden name. These are
Speaker 2: all questions that the police are asking and viewers will
Speaker 2: be wanting to know. He calmed down. He was a
Speaker 2: real hothead. He calmed down, and he allowed us to continue.
Speaker 2: After that, I kind of stayed away from her. Other
Speaker 2: stations would be doing more sympathetic or empathetic stories about her,
Speaker 2: because after all, she had lost her children, she hadn't
Speaker 2: been arrested, she had been wounded, she was an alleged
Speaker 2: victim herself. And then I continued to cull information from
Speaker 2: all of my sources, waiting to find out as much
Speaker 2: as I could. Then, months after that press conference, I
Speaker 2: called her up and I said, Hi, you know this
Speaker 2: is and my name was Bradley. Then that's my maiden name.
Speaker 2: I said, this is Anne Bradley, and I met you
Speaker 2: at your father's your family press conference, and I'd like
Speaker 2: to do a sit down interview with you. And I said,
Speaker 2: you can bring your attorney if you'd like, but how
Speaker 2: about if you come in on Saturday or Sunday this weekend,
Speaker 2: and she agreed. Now I was on pins and needles
Speaker 2: for a couple of days, wondering is she going to
Speaker 2: bring her attorney? Is she not going to bring her attorney.
Speaker 2: I was so relieved when the producer who went to
Speaker 2: greet her at the front door saw her there all alone. Now,
Speaker 2: this producer, you know, they're not am to having feelings
Speaker 2: and realizing that this could be a cold blooded killer.
Speaker 2: So the producer I had asked her, would you take
Speaker 2: Diane in the newsroom until the photographer and I get
Speaker 2: completely set up, because I just want to go and
Speaker 2: go in there and sit down and do it. And
Speaker 2: I didn't want her asking me any questions about what
Speaker 2: I would be asking her. And the producer said, it
Speaker 2: was like nothing she had ever experienced here, she could
Speaker 2: be sitting in the same room with a baby killer.
Speaker 2: Made her want to run out of the room like
Speaker 2: her hair was on fire. Because there's a real stagnant
Speaker 2: magnetic pull about Diane that you realize once you're in
Speaker 2: her presence. So took her back to the back room,
Speaker 2: the back conference room. We went back to the back
Speaker 2: conference room, and thus started this rangest most compelling, heart wrenching,
Speaker 2: horrible interview that I had done up until that time.
Speaker 2: You know, never had people seen a mother talk so
Speaker 2: openly about the shootings and about all of the blood
Speaker 2: and seeing her children lying there dying. So it was extraordinary.
Speaker 2: And so let me play you this piece of sound
Speaker 2: from that interview that day, as.
Speaker 4: You sure we're lucky, Well, I don't feel very lucky.
Speaker 4: I couldn't tell my damn shoes about two months. It
Speaker 4: is very painfully, still painful. I have a steel plate
Speaker 4: on my arm. I will for a year and a half.
Speaker 4: The star is going to be there forever. I'm going
Speaker 4: to remember that night for the rest of my life,
Speaker 4: whether I want to or not. I don't think I
Speaker 4: was very lucky. I think my kids were lucky. If
Speaker 4: I had been shot the way they were, we all
Speaker 4: would have died.
Speaker 2: Now, who says something like that.
Speaker 3: Right, right, very very strange responses throughout this just the
Speaker 3: way she talks about how, of course professing her innocence.
Speaker 3: Tell us how she professes her innocence in these conversations.
Speaker 2: Well, she talks about this man that she didn't know
Speaker 2: who he was, that he flagged them down, and so
Speaker 2: she would go through that. I also asked her because
Speaker 2: I was hearing that she had changed her story, saying
Speaker 2: it was two men. And then she had a meeting
Speaker 2: with the detective Doug Welch, and she said she knew
Speaker 2: the man and if they weren't going to find him,
Speaker 2: f you and she'd go out and find them herself.
Speaker 2: But being in that interview, and I write about this
Speaker 2: in the book because I hadn't gone back and looked
Speaker 2: at that whole documentary again for forty years, because I
Speaker 2: knew its effect on me. At the time, I looked
Speaker 2: at it more intellectually, more analytically, trying to put the
Speaker 2: bits and pieces together. But now in writing the book,
Speaker 2: I was able to access more of my feelings. And
Speaker 2: it was like being in a river where the top
Speaker 2: of the river is very placid, but underneath there's a
Speaker 2: dark evil undertow. And I would start the video and
Speaker 2: then I would have to stop it, and I'd realize
Speaker 2: that my hand was in front of my mouth, I
Speaker 2: guess trying to protect myself from her words. Again, being
Speaker 2: in this river and having almost like a read, and
Speaker 2: you're breathing through the read so that nobody will know
Speaker 2: or discover you and you won't let on how frightening
Speaker 2: her words are. And so I would come up for air,
Speaker 2: and then i'd go back at it, and as I
Speaker 2: got to different parts, I would have sort of flashbacks.
Speaker 2: I'd see in my head Christy on the stand talking
Speaker 2: about there was no one else on that lonely road
Speaker 2: and it was her mother. And Diane claimed that the
Speaker 2: car her Nissan was actually running, was turned on when
Speaker 2: the kids were shot. Well, prosecutors found out that can't
Speaker 2: be true because the tape deck would not play music
Speaker 2: when the car is off. And she claims to have
Speaker 2: the he's outside her car and feigning throwing them to
Speaker 2: divert this assailant. So i'd see that in my head,
Speaker 2: you know, after seeing the blood evidence. It just all
Speaker 2: would play back in my mind, and I'd find out, oh,
Speaker 2: my gosh, I'm supposed to be writing this book, I'm
Speaker 2: supposed to be looking at this, and I would press
Speaker 2: play again and try to make it a short way
Speaker 2: through all again. I don't know whether I was more
Speaker 2: shocked back forty years ago or when I looked at
Speaker 2: it again. I always thought it was a good piece
Speaker 2: of journalism, but I didn't think it would hold up
Speaker 2: as well as it has forty years later. And here's
Speaker 2: something that she had to say during the interview about
Speaker 2: the blood evidence in the case, which I had discovered,
Speaker 2: that there was blood on the outside of the car,
Speaker 2: blood spatter, you know, high velocity blood spatter.
Speaker 4: The police found blood on the outside of the car,
Speaker 4: but one of.
Speaker 2: The children, perhaps Cheryl, have fallen out of the car
Speaker 2: on the passenger side.
Speaker 4: DA has come up with this idea that somebody was
Speaker 4: shot on the outside of the car on the passenger
Speaker 4: side a new car. I was on the driver's side
Speaker 4: of the car when I was shot, and.
Speaker 2: That's why it was so im going.
Speaker 4: It was planted, and it just seemed I mean, it
Speaker 4: can't be real because they talk about blood spatter, and
Speaker 4: when they say spatter, I think something being shot out
Speaker 4: like the blood spatter in the car. You know, it
Speaker 4: was so uniform, it was so regular samsi s droplet
Speaker 4: spread evenly in a pattern.
Speaker 3: And when they.
Speaker 4: Say spatter, that's what I thought of. And we saw
Speaker 4: pictures of this so called spatter. It's drops. When they
Speaker 4: took the kids, they took christ and share the driver's
Speaker 4: side of the car, and it's blood droplets it's when
Speaker 4: they picked the kids up and carry them over the threshold.
Speaker 4: There is blood dripping down the side of the car.
Speaker 2: Now here's what's wrong with her story. When you cut
Speaker 2: your finger, it drips blood, all right, and that's what
Speaker 2: she's talking about. But on the threshold of the car
Speaker 2: where you get in and end out of the car,
Speaker 2: down on the what they call the rocker panel, and
Speaker 2: on the door jam, there was high velocity blood spatter,
Speaker 2: which travels at an enormous speed and can be only
Speaker 2: the size of a pinprick, but it does tell the
Speaker 2: distance and the location of the shooter. So Diane said
Speaker 2: that everybody the shooter, and she was outside the car
Speaker 2: when the kids were shot. But this proved that she
Speaker 2: had to kneel all the way in. And because Cheryl,
Speaker 2: this poor child, after being shot once, somehow got a
Speaker 2: hold of the door and got it to open, and
Speaker 2: Diane shot her again as she fell out of the car,
Speaker 2: reaching kneeling on the driver's seat and reaching over the
Speaker 2: passenger side to get her. Now, when I was writing,
Speaker 2: I was considering, you know, I'm not sure that Diane
Speaker 2: didn't just go around the car and pick her up
Speaker 2: and throw her on the seat and cover her with
Speaker 2: her postal sweater. She was a still working as a
Speaker 2: mail delivery deliverer, and she didn't want to see Christy anymore.
Speaker 2: But it seemed all the more chilling that she would
Speaker 2: go around, pick the child up, throw her like so
Speaker 2: much trash on the floorboard of the car. But the
Speaker 2: detectives and the prosecutors all say that she had kneel
Speaker 2: she'd been kneeling on the seat and reached over to
Speaker 2: shoot Cheryl, and Cheryl was she was dead. You know,
Speaker 2: there was no saving that child.
Speaker 3: You're right that this incredible documentary Diane Elizabeth Diane Downs
Speaker 3: in her own words, was ready to air but didn't,
Speaker 3: and this caused turmoil, and so your station worried about
Speaker 3: the DA getting his hands on the interview, and also
Speaker 3: the DA thought that maybe the documentary might be sympathetic
Speaker 3: towards Elizabeth Diane Downs. But your station fought for the
Speaker 3: right to protect your sources and this story. So let's
Speaker 3: fast forward to almost a year after this crime, and you,
Speaker 3: as a reporter awaiting this trial. You know that there
Speaker 3: is a prestigious author that contracted to write the story
Speaker 3: that would be eventually Anne Rule's book, Small sacrifices. So
Speaker 3: you thought that Anne Rule was going to be present
Speaker 3: in the courtroom. Tell us about this incredible encounter that
Speaker 3: you have with Anne Rule and Leslie Rule and the
Speaker 3: beginning of the trial underway.
Speaker 2: I had been at the jury selection and there were
Speaker 2: two rows that were saved by the judge for the
Speaker 2: media up front because the courtroom was always packed, so
Speaker 2: he wanted to make sure that we would have places
Speaker 2: to sit on the day of opening arguments. I rushed
Speaker 2: in after checking my sources on some other story, and
Speaker 2: there were no places to sit in those front two rows,
Speaker 2: which was very unusual. Well, I saw Anne and I
Speaker 2: recognized her, but I didn't recognize the young woman sitting
Speaker 2: next to her, who was about my age. So I
Speaker 2: said to Anne, Hi, Anne, I recognize you. I'm Anne
Speaker 2: Bradley and I'm a reporter here in town. But I
Speaker 2: don't know who she is. I don't know who you are,
Speaker 2: and these roads are saved for the media, and God forbid,
Speaker 2: I said, you'll have to move.
Speaker 3: Wow.
Speaker 2: Tried to figure out a nice way to say it,
Speaker 2: but it didn't come out quite right. How embarrassing, right?
Speaker 3: Right?
Speaker 2: Well, I come to find out that that's Enn's daughter,
Speaker 2: Leslie Rule, who takes pictures for her mom at trials
Speaker 2: and also jots down witness testimony and the reactions of
Speaker 2: the jurors and the gallery during the trial. So she
Speaker 2: introduces Leslie, and I am scarlet faced, thinking, oh my goodness, now,
Speaker 2: mind you, I'm still standing up in the aisleway and
Speaker 2: this trial is about to get going, and this is
Speaker 2: the big opening arguments. And Anne could have left me
Speaker 2: out there hanging, and you know, I could see people swirling,
Speaker 2: craning their heads to hear. What did Anne Jagger just say?
Speaker 2: Because I had been a long time anchor and reporter
Speaker 2: there in the market, so some people knew me. But Anne,
Speaker 2: bless her heart, she said, oh, let's just scoop together
Speaker 2: and we'll make room. So I scooted together, I sat down,
Speaker 2: and I shut up. And that was my first meeting
Speaker 2: with Anne Rule, which somehow you can see, I guess
Speaker 2: throughout the rest of the book how that foment turns
Speaker 2: to friendship because of her charm and willingness to find solutions,
Speaker 2: and she and I became great friends at that trial.
Speaker 3: Let's use this as an opportunity to stop to hear
Speaker 3: these messages now you talk of offering to show oh
Speaker 3: the documentary to and Rule and Rule accepting. Tell us
Speaker 3: about this viewing of your documentary and what Ann Rule
Speaker 3: has to say about it.
Speaker 2: She met me at the television station in the same
Speaker 2: conference room that I had interviewed Diane the year before,
Speaker 2: and for most of it she never said a word.
Speaker 2: She took notes, you could tell what especially drew her in.
Speaker 2: And my eyes, of course are on her wondering what
Speaker 2: is this meteoric author going to think about my work
Speaker 2: in this documentary? I mean, is it going to be
Speaker 2: up to snuff? Right? And she had tremendous powers of concentration.
Speaker 2: I guess it's because of those kids that she had
Speaker 2: at home and writing for years, and she never took
Speaker 2: her eyes off the screen. And that's when and she
Speaker 2: started promoting my work as this seminal personality profile of
Speaker 2: Diane Downs, and that really linked us together because we
Speaker 2: were always obsessed interested with the why how of crime.
Speaker 3: You also include this glowing, incredible recommendation that she writes
Speaker 3: for you. Just tell us briefly what necessitated did she
Speaker 3: write this recommendation and why did she want and feel
Speaker 3: it necessary to write this recommendation for you. What had happened?
Speaker 2: Well, Eugene is a smaller market, and you can't make
Speaker 2: a good living there, you know, even really enough to
Speaker 2: support yourself. So I had hoped that I would be
Speaker 2: able to move on to a larger market. Of course,
Speaker 2: I had only really wanted to go to Seattle or
Speaker 2: to Portland, and Portland is where I ended up. So
Speaker 2: I asked her to write a recommendation letter for me.
Speaker 2: I was so shocked when this two page letter comes
Speaker 2: in the mail and is so detailed, and how much
Speaker 2: she had watched me and seen me. I'd drug an
Speaker 2: old typewriter into the lobby of the courtroom during the
Speaker 2: Downs trial and I would sit there before airtime, typing
Speaker 2: out a story and then presenting it live on TV
Speaker 2: for the five o'clock news. So she had watched me
Speaker 2: do all those things, and there were some other, you know,
Speaker 2: very personal, nice things that I felt like I had
Speaker 2: been seen and recognized.
Speaker 3: You write the book eventually is small Sacrifices for Manrul
Speaker 3: And you organized a release party for her at that time,
Speaker 3: and you write that small sacrifices along with Stranger. The
Speaker 3: stranger beside me were her two top million selling books.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Stranger Beside Me and Small Sackcrifices really set her
Speaker 2: into the stratosphere internationally as an author. Imagine having Stranger
Speaker 2: Beside Me and then coming up with another murder case
Speaker 2: that was as chilling and horrifying as the Diane Downs case. Now,
Speaker 2: she took no pleasure in writing about the murder of children,
Speaker 2: but Diane was such a psychopath and sociopath and narcissist
Speaker 2: that the story had a lot of twists and turns.
Speaker 2: Diane was very manipulative, and all of those factors went
Speaker 2: into her wanting to do that book, and it did
Speaker 2: catapult her into the stratosphere. I mean, you know, those
Speaker 2: are two of her best selling books. To this day,
Speaker 2: she has thirty five books still in print, many many
Speaker 2: of them were made into TV movies.
Speaker 3: You right, that, very much like The Stranger Beside Me,
Speaker 3: grew to become a cult favorite and a national and
Speaker 3: international bestseller. That also that the Diane Downs interview that
Speaker 3: you did, and the story itself. You kept following any
Speaker 3: new developments, but also twenty twenty took this story a
Speaker 3: couple more times and raised its profile via television.
Speaker 2: Right two thousand, oh, I think it was sixteen or No.
Speaker 2: Twenty eleven, So twenty twenty came out and interviewed me
Speaker 2: in twenty eleven about the Diane Down's case, and boy
Speaker 2: Anne and I both thought, you know, this case is
Speaker 2: old and it's been put to rest. And they were
Speaker 2: fascinated by the interview the documentary that I had done
Speaker 2: and used it extensively. Then they came back in twenty
Speaker 2: and nineteen, and as Elizabeth Vargas says, you know, the
Speaker 2: An Jagger interview really helped Diane dig her own grave.
Speaker 2: So in both of these instances, it brought the crime
Speaker 2: back into the forefront. And because it had happened so
Speaker 2: long before, it was shocking to people that there could
Speaker 2: be a woman like that out there. They replay it often.
Speaker 3: You're right that Small Sacrifices you join and on the
Speaker 3: set and she's sitting in a director's chair in Edmonton,
Speaker 3: Canada in nineteen eighty nine and tell us about the
Speaker 3: role you play and the role and plays in this
Speaker 3: TV version of Small Sacrifices.
Speaker 2: Well, Small Sacrifices was the first movie that was made
Speaker 2: from one of Van's books, and it was being filmed
Speaker 2: in Edmonton. My cousin lives in Edmonton, and so I
Speaker 2: was staying with her, and I was also working my
Speaker 2: day job, which was actually nights at the television station
Speaker 2: here in Portland. But I would fly up there and
Speaker 2: play myself an actress, which I found was a lot
Speaker 2: harder than it looks because here, you know, as a reporter,
Speaker 2: you're hoping to get it right on the first take.
Speaker 2: Well they do many many takes, and I would find
Speaker 2: myself getting so bored. I just couldn't muster up the
Speaker 2: same feeling the authenticity that is required to be a
Speaker 2: good actress. I loved seeing Ann in a big director's
Speaker 2: chair with her name on it, and Diane was played
Speaker 2: by Farah Fawcett, and I noticed that Farah was in
Speaker 2: all of Anne, and I think she was really wondering
Speaker 2: and stayed out of the way. Mind you, she was
Speaker 2: near the director in the camera, she stayed out of
Speaker 2: the way, and so I think Farah was really curious,
Speaker 2: you know, am I hitting the mark? Does she like
Speaker 2: my portrayal of Diane's How am I doing? One time
Speaker 2: when I was there, Farah asked me to come to
Speaker 2: her trailer, and she asked me in that meeting, so
Speaker 2: what did Diane do during the court testimony, and I
Speaker 2: told her what Diane did, and she used those same
Speaker 2: behaviors in her portrayal of Diane. And then she asked
Speaker 2: me about this strange interaction when the prosecutor said the
Speaker 2: music was playing and the kids were being shot, so
Speaker 2: it was hungry like a wolf. I still can't listen
Speaker 2: to that song. So Diane, we all know in the
Speaker 2: courtroom that her children were shot while this music is playing,
Speaker 2: and Diane is bobbing her head and she's got her
Speaker 2: legs crossed and she's bobbing her leg up and down
Speaker 2: throughout the whole song. You should have seen the jurors reaction.
Speaker 3: You chronicle that she has a couple of escape attempts.
Speaker 3: But one of the more dramatic things that she agrees
Speaker 3: to is appearing on Oprah Winfrey with Anne Rule and
Speaker 3: Oprah Winfrey and Diane Down's incredible And.
Speaker 2: That was an incredible interview, and Oprah had done her
Speaker 2: homework as she usually does, but Diane was aggressive and
Speaker 2: was ridiculing Anne, and I probably her hatred of her
Speaker 2: and trying to throw her off. Course, Anne hardly got
Speaker 2: a word in edgewise because Diane was her typical, voiciferous
Speaker 2: self and just dominated the room. And Oprah asks her,
Speaker 2: how could you not be hysterical when your children were
Speaker 2: being shot? And she said, well, it wasn't like going
Speaker 2: to the state fair and having hot dogs. Then you
Speaker 2: saw the looks on the audience faces. They'd been giving
Speaker 2: her the side eye, but now all of the eyebrows
Speaker 2: were raised and she lost them.
Speaker 3: Then tell us about just a few of the things
Speaker 3: that Diane Downs continues to do, and you continue to
Speaker 3: follow before we talk about what's next for and rule.
Speaker 2: Well, yes, I've wanted to make sure that Diane stays
Speaker 2: in prison, and I've listened in or attended all of
Speaker 2: her parole hearings, which are quite eye opening. One of
Speaker 2: my favorite quotes from the last one was people don't
Speaker 2: hate me because I'm a baby killer. They hate me
Speaker 2: because I'm famous. You know, so goes her self professed
Speaker 2: innocence Project. Right, They they don't hate me because I'm
Speaker 2: a baby killer. So she admits in that she has
Speaker 2: another parole hear in coming up this year, and that
Speaker 2: will be later in the year, but right now they're
Speaker 2: trying to figure out whether she should get a new
Speaker 2: trial for attempted murder and assault of her two other
Speaker 2: children that survived. And this is because the Supreme Court
Speaker 2: has decided that Juri's who did not vote unanimously meaning
Speaker 2: twelve zero to convict on those charges, need to go
Speaker 2: back and either a provide a new trial, be offer
Speaker 2: a plea bargain, which I know Diane will never accept,
Speaker 2: or they can let it go. Now. I know for
Speaker 2: a fact that you know Diane would love to get
Speaker 2: out of the prison in chow Chill and come up
Speaker 2: here and have a free ride to Oregon, and thank goodness,
Speaker 2: she wouldn't be staying in the Oregon Women's Correctional Institute
Speaker 2: in Salem where she escaped in nineteen eighty nine. So
Speaker 2: if she does have to come back, then you know
Speaker 2: we'll have to go through it again. Now, there's no
Speaker 2: evidence left from the case that was all destroyed eons
Speaker 2: ago after all of her appeals were exhausted. But they
Speaker 2: still have the trial transcripts with all the truth inside.
Speaker 2: But there's also the possibility, if you think of this
Speaker 2: of revictimizing her victims. Would her daughter have to come back,
Speaker 2: She's now a fifty year old woman. Would she have
Speaker 2: to come back and relive that day again to see
Speaker 2: her mother get what she deserves. So these are all
Speaker 2: aspects of her high jinks, and she always finds a
Speaker 2: way to turn the knife.
Speaker 3: He read about Anne's relationship good friends with Pierce Brooks,
Speaker 3: and they both had a drive to understand the psychopathic mind,
Speaker 3: and Brooks had a reputation as a criminal profiler before
Speaker 3: he and Anne met. In the seventies, he tracked the
Speaker 3: movements and behaviors of serial killers across the country with
Speaker 3: only newspaper periodicals at the library to compare crimes. But
Speaker 3: by the time he had met Anne, he was using
Speaker 3: the term serial killer instead of the typical lust spree
Speaker 3: or thrill killer. Tell us about this initiative that they
Speaker 3: both endeavor to do, which ends up being called VISCAP.
Speaker 2: Anne is the only author through crime author that I
Speaker 2: know of or that I've ever found, that not only
Speaker 2: wrote about serial killers, she did something to try to
Speaker 2: stop them. She and Pierce Brook's bi She spoke twice
Speaker 2: to the Senate Judiciary Committee on serial killers, and together
Speaker 2: they ushered in They got the funding for this program.
Speaker 2: It's called ViCAP Violent Criminal Apprehension Program, and it's still
Speaker 2: in use to this day, so her work in trying
Speaker 2: to track and hunt these people has really diminished their success.
Speaker 3: Yes, you're right that. She was a regular keynote speaker
Speaker 3: at annual Law Enforcement Association meetings and taught a four
Speaker 3: hour seminar on serial killers for the FBI.
Speaker 2: She spoke all across the country. Yeah, and I think,
Speaker 2: you know, having been a detective or you know, always
Speaker 2: wanting to have been a detective and then becoming one.
Speaker 2: In her writing, she wanted to help them get the
Speaker 2: tools that she had realized about these killers. She was
Speaker 2: one of the first to figure out that serial killings
Speaker 2: happen in waves. Before it just seemed so random and senseless. Well, yeah,
Speaker 2: it is those things. But psychologically, this need for blood
Speaker 2: and to hunt somebody down and control them and take
Speaker 2: their life, to have the ultimate control over them by
Speaker 2: ending their lives ran in waves, and it might be
Speaker 2: satiated by one killing, or maybe it was two a day,
Speaker 2: and then that feeling would be taken care of for
Speaker 2: a little while, and then who knows, due too some
Speaker 2: abnormalities in the brain or because of life's circumstances, this
Speaker 2: quest to kill would build and build and build over again,
Speaker 2: and we can see that more clearly now when it's
Speaker 2: explained that way.
Speaker 3: You speak about serial killer mentality and behavior. But you
Speaker 3: also have a chapter in this book called killer Coincidences,
Speaker 3: and you talk about that an encountered a killer named
Speaker 3: Viola in her grandfather's prison, and at that time she
Speaker 3: might not have known what she was listening to, but
Speaker 3: she remarked later that she was astounded at the woman's
Speaker 3: lack of remorse despite the crime itself and her motivation.
Speaker 3: But you also had a very interesting, to say the
Speaker 3: least encounter with a serial killer yourself. Please tell us
Speaker 3: briefly about this encounter with your family and Charles Manson.
Speaker 2: I heard Charles Manson sing his song Ceased to Exist
Speaker 2: at a campfire in California when I was about ten
Speaker 2: years old. That song ended up being beach Boys song
Speaker 2: called Never Learn Not to Love. But when we met him,
Speaker 2: he was just Charlie. My parents had a travel trailer
Speaker 2: and we were going through the California Coastal Highway and
Speaker 2: camping at places these RV parks. Well, there was no
Speaker 2: room at any of the local parks as it was
Speaker 2: getting dark, so we ended up camping on this isolated beach.
Speaker 2: I think It was outside Santa Barbara, and there was
Speaker 2: another Pippi bus down there, and there were no camping
Speaker 2: signs posted, but there we were. And the door to
Speaker 2: the bus open up, and all of these girls come
Speaker 2: falling out of the of the bus, and after them
Speaker 2: comes one guy. He launches himself off the top step
Speaker 2: and his legs together, his arms out wide, you know,
Speaker 2: almost christ like, and joins the women. And he and
Speaker 2: my dad were friendly at these campfires, and I would
Speaker 2: come and go. I was afraid of hippies. I really
Speaker 2: thought he was very strange, with his excitable eyes and
Speaker 2: how animated and angry he would get. And he kept
Speaker 2: on asking my dad, do you think I can sell
Speaker 2: this song? Do you think I can sell these songs?
Speaker 2: And my dad was a journalist also, not a record producer,
Speaker 2: but he said, you know, you should keep on trying.
Speaker 2: He had played the trombone during the war, so I
Speaker 2: mean he did know about music. So the next day
Speaker 2: Dad is setting up something with the trailer and one
Speaker 2: of the women comes towards the trailer door and I'm outside.
Speaker 2: Dad's now back behind the trailer, and my mom is
Speaker 2: in the kitchen doing something, and I go to run
Speaker 2: to the door to tell my mom, Mom, one of
Speaker 2: those girls is coming over here. And when I turned
Speaker 2: to point, I almost got her in the chest, which
Speaker 2: you know, quite embarrassing for my mother. I'm sure. The
Speaker 2: woman asks if she can take me for a walk,
Speaker 2: and I'm standing kind of behind the young woman, you know,
Speaker 2: shaking my head no, like a frightened rabbit, because I
Speaker 2: really didn't want to go, but my mother was sure,
Speaker 2: I think Anne would like to go for a walk.
Speaker 2: So we walked up back toward the highway the freeway,
Speaker 2: and there were huge boulders there, and the higher and
Speaker 2: higher we got, the farther away my parents and that
Speaker 2: travel trailer got and the woman had this teaky mug
Speaker 2: in her hand. It was an odd color of green
Speaker 2: and it had a her She's candy bar a hole
Speaker 2: her She's candy bar inside and she said here, you know,
Speaker 2: would you like this? And you know, I said, well,
Speaker 2: I guess yeah, But I didn't take it right away.
Speaker 2: I was still very reticent and hesitant. And the woman said, well,
Speaker 2: I brought it for you, and so of course that
Speaker 2: was enough for me. I made it through in about
Speaker 2: two bites. But in that encounter, the woman starts asking me,
Speaker 2: what do your parents do for a living? How much
Speaker 2: money do they have? Do you have any other things
Speaker 2: in the trailer that you know, like jewelry or you know?
Speaker 2: Why are you here? And I said, well, right now,
Speaker 2: my dad doesn't have a job and we're just picking
Speaker 2: up produce by the side of the road. He would
Speaker 2: slow down when we're behind a produce truck and I
Speaker 2: would run out and get ears of corn or potatoes
Speaker 2: or whatever and put them in the back seat and
Speaker 2: then run for the next one. So I kind of
Speaker 2: was telling her about that too, and then I started
Speaker 2: wondering about her. I said, well, you know, you're you're
Speaker 2: so nice to do this. Thank you, And she said, well,
Speaker 2: you remind me of my sister. And so I said,
Speaker 2: well where is your sister and she said, oh, well
Speaker 2: she's at home. And I said, well, you know, if
Speaker 2: you miss her, can you see her? And she said no,
Speaker 2: that she could never go home again. And I could
Speaker 2: not figure out why a girl who was obviously a
Speaker 2: teenage couldn't go home. I later figured out that I
Speaker 2: think it was Leslie Van Houghton. My mom thought it
Speaker 2: was Squeaky from but after the amp fire that night,
Speaker 2: my dad came back in and I was sleeping near
Speaker 2: the door, and he moved me to the bunk above
Speaker 2: their double bed, and I could hear them down there
Speaker 2: talking excitedly, and of course I had told my mother,
Speaker 2: you know, every detail of what had happened. And the
Speaker 2: next thing I know, I wake up and I'm in
Speaker 2: the backseat of the car. My dad is putting the
Speaker 2: blanket around me, putting me in the back seat and
Speaker 2: trying to tell me he was annoyed, but trying to
Speaker 2: keep me as quiet as possible and not you know,
Speaker 2: groaning and moaning. So we left and we never I
Speaker 2: never heard so much as a a squeak of the
Speaker 2: sand underneath the six wheels of the car and the trailer.
Speaker 2: And we went all the way home, and we didn't
Speaker 2: think much about it, really, and it became kind of
Speaker 2: a secret in my family. Maybe it was just too
Speaker 2: horrifying to realize what could have happened. Fast forward a
Speaker 2: year and a half later, my mom comes running down
Speaker 2: the hallway, slipping on the nicely waxed floor, saying, Charlie's
Speaker 2: in the paper. Charlie's in the newspaper for all those
Speaker 2: killings in California. The date LaBianca and Folger murders, and
Speaker 2: that's when we learned that Charlie's name was Charlie Manson.
Speaker 2: And fast forward from there. Years later, about twenty sixteen,
Speaker 2: before my dad died, I scrolled up the courage to
Speaker 2: ask him, you know, Dad, what happened back then? Why
Speaker 2: did we leave in the middle of the night. What
Speaker 2: was that about. He said that Charlie had asked him
Speaker 2: at the campfire, saying that they wanted to use our bathroom. Well,
Speaker 2: he informed him, which is true, even we didn't use
Speaker 2: our own bathroom. So he said no, and Charlie said,
Speaker 2: I only hurt people who are afraid of me, and
Speaker 2: my dad just stared him down, you know, kind of
Speaker 2: toe to toe mano amano, and said, I'm not afraid
Speaker 2: of you. I'm not scared of you, which at the time,
Speaker 2: knowing my dad he probably wasn't. That brought back to
Speaker 2: me all of these memories of being locked in an
Speaker 2: aluminum box right next to this heinous killer and his
Speaker 2: so called family, his entourage, and I started looking into
Speaker 2: it when Charles Manson died, trying to figure out, now,
Speaker 2: you know, what would they have wanted. Well, obviously, you
Speaker 2: know they were interested in the money, and they were
Speaker 2: interested in what we had. But Charlie had just gotten
Speaker 2: out of prison not too long ago for trafficking underage
Speaker 2: girls over the state lines. One of the girls was
Speaker 2: Diane Snaky Lake right. She was only twelve years old
Speaker 2: at the time that he met her, and by fourteen
Speaker 2: she had already had his baby. Well, she was only
Speaker 2: a few years older than I was. So would they
Speaker 2: have killed us all and just taken what they could
Speaker 2: glean from our trailer? Or would I have ended up,
Speaker 2: you know, being a hostage. I really don't know the
Speaker 2: answer to that, but I think given his track record,
Speaker 2: it's sure a possibility.
Speaker 3: Yes, let's use this as an opportunity to stop to
Speaker 3: hear these messages. Now let's get to again A very
Speaker 3: hard part to read, I guess, and a very hard
Speaker 3: part to write, the story of You move from Eugene
Speaker 3: to Portland, Oregon for your new job at KGW, and
Speaker 3: it just so happened that Leslie Rule lived one block away,
Speaker 3: so that would necessitate that there would be many visits
Speaker 3: between you, Leslie and Ann tell us. She as at
Speaker 3: that point, has over thirty best selling true crime books.
Speaker 3: She is considered the Queen of True Crime. Many of
Speaker 3: her books have been adapted into film TV miniseries, and
Speaker 3: she has been consulting on those films, writing co writing scripts,
Speaker 3: being involved in all aspects of taking these books to
Speaker 3: the big screen. Tell us what happens in terms of
Speaker 3: your friendship and what happens regarding and health.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Anne and I got together as often as we
Speaker 2: could because Leslie, of course just lived down the street.
Speaker 2: But Anne and I had a separate friendship from Leslie.
Speaker 2: Leslie was my age, but Anne and I had a
Speaker 2: real connection. We bonded over laughter and crimes and you know,
Speaker 2: covering the same killers. But toward the end of her life,
Speaker 2: she became injured when she went to a book signing
Speaker 2: on Whidby Island. She fell and broke her hip. And
Speaker 2: you know, the experts say that the elderly only live
Speaker 2: about three years. Yes, after that, and she was so vibrant,
Speaker 2: I thought, how could this be universal? Because Anne is
Speaker 2: doing great well. She recovered from that. She had also
Speaker 2: recovered from this strange spinal effect that she had that
Speaker 2: they were never really sure what it was, but meningitis,
Speaker 2: according to Leslie, was ruled out. She had to be
Speaker 2: tied to a bed to restrain her because of her
Speaker 2: it gave her kind of kind of like seizures, you know,
Speaker 2: muscle spasms. Imagine seeing your mom in a hospital bed
Speaker 2: and not knowing whether she's going to live or die.
Speaker 2: So those were two things that her spirit just kept
Speaker 2: her up and running. After she broke her hip, she
Speaker 2: did have to be in a wheelchair. That's when I
Speaker 2: would go up to her house. And that's when I
Speaker 2: would go up to her house and plant her garden
Speaker 2: and you know, just give her laughter as the best
Speaker 2: best medicine. That was a couple of years before she passed.
Speaker 2: But even when she was in the hospital and it
Speaker 2: appeared that she wasn't going to make it because she
Speaker 2: was in such critical condition, everybody thought of her as
Speaker 2: the energizer bunny, you know, takes a ticking or a
Speaker 2: licking and keeps on ticking. So nobody really thought that
Speaker 2: at first that she would pass. But I was there
Speaker 2: in the hospital room with her. Leslie was there. I
Speaker 2: was able to, you know, make a list with Anne
Speaker 2: about who she wanted to see. And you know, I
Speaker 2: know how hard you're trying, Anne, and I want you
Speaker 2: to be able to see everybody that you want to
Speaker 2: connect with and so I'd call them and they'd come in.
Speaker 2: It was a it was a really sad time. She
Speaker 2: had had a stroke and wasn't really able to speak,
Speaker 2: but I helped her learn how to say I love you,
Speaker 2: so everybody knew that they were loved no matter what
Speaker 2: they were going through.
Speaker 3: Yes, you were there at the end with Anne, with
Speaker 3: family and with friends. And you say that she was
Speaker 3: still working on her last book, Practice to Deceive Leslie
Speaker 3: was contracted to finish the manuscript, and she had completed
Speaker 3: The Still in the Night and previous to that, so
Speaker 3: thirty five books under her journalistic belt. You had spent
Speaker 3: three days in Seattle with Anne and with the family
Speaker 3: and friends, and then you got back and you write
Speaker 3: of a strange I guess coincidence or a tug from
Speaker 3: Anne from beyond. So please tell us about that.
Speaker 2: Well, when the last family member got to the hospital,
Speaker 2: I thought, okay, and your work here is done. You
Speaker 2: can go home now. She's in good hands. And they
Speaker 2: moved her into a hospice room of the glare and
Speaker 2: the beeping cacophony of the ICU. So I went and
Speaker 2: visited her to her for one last time, It was
Speaker 2: probably ten o'clock at night, and you know, I ran
Speaker 2: my hand, almost touching her, but I didn't want to
Speaker 2: wake her because I knew it was going to be
Speaker 2: the last time I'd see her. So I went home.
Speaker 2: I really couldn't sleep. Next day passes. I hear that
Speaker 2: Anna is doing okay. She's watching her favorite TV game shows,
Speaker 2: The Price is Right. She had loved Bob Barker and
Speaker 2: Animal devote, so I knew things were going as she
Speaker 2: was comfortable. Things were going as good as could be expected.
Speaker 2: So I wasn't even doing any thing. I couldn't do anything.
Speaker 2: The clock would hardly move. Finally, just after ten thirty
Speaker 2: that night, outside my bedroom window where I was, I
Speaker 2: heard gun shots and I heard howls, and I thought,
Speaker 2: what the heck is going on? Over there? Across the
Speaker 2: street There had been a coyote who had been prowling
Speaker 2: the neighborhood, and I knew by the howls the cries
Speaker 2: from that wounded animal that somebody had shot at with
Speaker 2: a small gauged gun and had done a really crappy
Speaker 2: job of it. Then there was one or two more shots,
Speaker 2: and there were no more sounds. I got a call
Speaker 2: just after that that Anne had passed. And I really
Speaker 2: don't know how to reconcile the feelings within me, but
Speaker 2: it did seem that Anne was letting me know, not
Speaker 2: in pain, but in passing that she was gone, because
Speaker 2: it happened around the same time that she was gone,
Speaker 2: and she was going to.
Speaker 3: Be okay, You right that in the end, Anne never
Speaker 3: expected all of the incredible success that she earned, but
Speaker 3: she always retained that she had to know the why.
Speaker 3: And you say, the most lovable and admirable aspect of
Speaker 3: Anne rule was her humanity, an understanding, and a kindness
Speaker 3: towards people. Foremost, Anne became a legend by reinventing the
Speaker 3: true crime genre for new generations.
Speaker 2: You know, I don't think many people realize this today,
Speaker 2: but Anne was a trailblazer in this way too, not
Speaker 2: only through her efforts to catch serial killers, but also
Speaker 2: reestablishing true crime genre. Let's face it, all the books
Speaker 2: back then when she started were written by men. A
Speaker 2: lot of people editors didn't believe that a woman could
Speaker 2: know that much about forensics and criminology. They soon found
Speaker 2: out something very different, but the men were writing about
Speaker 2: it in a very visceral brutal, kind of gory way.
Speaker 2: And I remember talking to her about the book In
Speaker 2: Cold Blood by Truman Capoti and saying how mesmerized I
Speaker 2: had been by that book. She didn't like it, and
Speaker 2: I was really surprised because it was really good storytelling, right,
Speaker 2: And she didn't like it because it glamorized the killers,
Speaker 2: and that's what the other men in true crime were doing.
Speaker 2: And came along and rewrote the book on true crime
Speaker 2: by including the victims, what were their hopes, what were
Speaker 2: their dreams, what were they like? You know, she was
Speaker 2: a mother. She knew that mothers wouldn't want their daughters
Speaker 2: to only be remembered as you know, some fodder for
Speaker 2: a serial killer and the horrible ways she died, or
Speaker 2: that their pictures were up on a police blotter or
Speaker 2: corkboard in the cop shop, trying to find out who
Speaker 2: killed them. So and extensively and always was an advocate
Speaker 2: for victims' rights, and she brought women into the stories
Speaker 2: and that brought in millions of female readers. Now, the
Speaker 2: old guard they didn't like this very much, you know,
Speaker 2: as Catherine Casey, another friend of Anne Rules and also
Speaker 2: a megastar true crime author tried to describe it saying,
Speaker 2: you know, what is the word that they might have
Speaker 2: been saying? Is it soppy? They thought that this type
Speaker 2: of writing had no place in true crime. Well, Anne
Speaker 2: proved them all wrong. And as the true crime as
Speaker 2: we know it today is all because of Anne. She
Speaker 2: was the one who started it.
Speaker 3: Yes, absolutely, she transformed the trend to be concentrating on
Speaker 3: the victims stories rather than the at that point, the
Speaker 3: more fascinating, supposedly story of the killer and the reasons
Speaker 3: why he became a killer, and had all the reasons
Speaker 3: why the killer may have become a killer, but also
Speaker 3: the incredible stories of the victims and the families, and
Speaker 3: just the overall sheer terror and impact that the murders
Speaker 3: had on the families.
Speaker 2: You know a lot of families asked her to write
Speaker 2: books about their children. One of her books, I think
Speaker 2: it was If You Really Loved Me. Sheila Blush told
Speaker 2: her sister before she was murdered by her ex husband
Speaker 2: that if anything ever happens to me, I want you
Speaker 2: to contact Anne Rule and I want you to get
Speaker 2: her to write about it. And so Sheila's sister did that,
Speaker 2: and that's where that book came from and in the
Speaker 2: dedication and writes to the effect of, you know, for
Speaker 2: Sheila Belush who never had her own who lost her
Speaker 2: voice and wanted to bring her voice back. And there
Speaker 2: was also oh, there were many many times in the
Speaker 2: still of the night that was because a family member
Speaker 2: wanted it to be done. And then the murder from
Speaker 2: it was in a crime files, which was a whole
Speaker 2: another thing that Anne did. It was a compilation of stories.
Speaker 2: It was Susan Powell's parents who asked and to write
Speaker 2: about their daughter after Susan's husband killed her in another state,
Speaker 2: then brought the children to Seattle and then shot them
Speaker 2: and burned the house down with them in it. So
Speaker 2: she cried with parents. She tried to help them, she
Speaker 2: lobbied for their causes. She was such a good listener,
Speaker 2: and it was that humanity that she had. She was
Speaker 2: always so humble. You know, she could have been a
Speaker 2: hoity toity author, sure, because she had certainly earned it.
Speaker 2: But note she was that Midwest girl from Lowell, Michigan,
Speaker 2: who worked every single day at writing but became a
Speaker 2: megastar in the industry.
Speaker 3: Yes, you're right, that Ann Rule was the small town
Speaker 3: girl who wanted it to be a detective, but grew
Speaker 3: up to write the most arresting stories. I want to
Speaker 3: thank you so much a Jagger for coming on and
Speaker 3: talking about your incredible The Rule of Crime and Me,
Speaker 3: an intimate view of and rule shared by her friend
Speaker 3: of thirty years for those people that might want to
Speaker 3: check out your other work and also more about this book,
Speaker 3: The Rule of Crime and Me. Can you tell us
Speaker 3: about any social media or website that you have and
Speaker 3: you do?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Well, Dan, this has really made me miss her
Speaker 2: all over again, but I'm happy for the thoughts again.
Speaker 2: You can pick up the book on Amazon. It's been
Speaker 2: a number one new release and it's got five star reviews,
Speaker 2: so please pick it up. It's only available on Amazon.
Speaker 2: I have a small website, The Rule Offcrime dot com.
Speaker 2: If you forget the name and you can't find it
Speaker 2: on Amazon, you can go there. That'll lead you to
Speaker 2: where you can buy the book because it's not in
Speaker 2: bookstores it's self published. And then also on Facebook, I
Speaker 2: have a page in my own name, and then I
Speaker 2: have another page called True Crime LLLC where at the
Speaker 2: present time I'm posting a lot about Anne and the
Speaker 2: criminals that we both shared between us and some of
Speaker 2: the things that some of the escapades we had along
Speaker 2: the way. And you'll see interviews that I did for
Speaker 2: the book. And I really hope that as many people
Speaker 2: who love and Rule they will discover her all over
Speaker 2: again and understand what she was like as a friend,
Speaker 2: as a mentor and as a trailblazer.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, thank you so much the Rule of Crime and
Speaker 3: me and Jagger, thank you so much for this interview.
Speaker 3: And you have a great evening and good night. Thank you.