Speaker 1: You're listening to the Mind Over Murder podcast.
Speaker 2: My name is Bill Thomas. I'm a writer, consulting, producer,
and now podcaster. I am now trying to use my
experience as the brother of a murder victim to help
other victims of violent crime. I'm working on a book
on the unsolved Colonial Parkway murders, and I'm the co
administrator of the Colonial Parkway Murders Facebook group together with
Kristin Dilly.
Speaker 3: My name is Kristin Dilly.
Speaker 4: I'm a writer, a researcher, a teacher, and a victim's advocate,
as well as the social media manager and co administrator
for the Colonial Parkway Murders Facebook page with my partner
in crime, Bill Thomas.
Speaker 3: Welcome to Mind Over Murder.
Speaker 2: I'm Kristin Dilly and I'm Bill Thomas, and.
Speaker 3: We are happy to join you this lovely December day.
And by lovely, we both mean pouring rain in both
of our locations.
Speaker 2: So much for the know in Connecticut, it's all melting away.
Speaker 3: There. I still can't believe you live in a place
where there is snow.
Speaker 2: It's called the northeastern part of the United States. We
do get snow here.
Speaker 3: No snow is beautiful for about five ten minutes, long
enough to take a nice walk in it while it's falling.
And then now we're done.
Speaker 2: We're down to a twenty five percent chance of a
white Christmas here in Connecticut, according to our Hartford and
Boston weather forecasts.
Speaker 3: Oh wow, okay, but you normally do have white Christmases?
Speaker 2: Correct, Yeah, but with climate change not so much.
Speaker 3: I can't remember the last time we had a white
Christmas here, but that could also be because my memory
does not extend that far back. Who knows. Along with
winter weather and the month of December comes holiday shopping.
And with that in mind, it is time for the
Mind Over Murder twenty twenty four True Crime Holiday Gift Guide.
It's a little bit later coming to you this year
than we would normally like, but life happens and we're
here with it now, and that's the main thing.
Speaker 2: This is true and we're very excited about it. And
this was put together courtesy of Kristin Dilly, in between
handling family and medical emergencies, etc. Has jumped right back
into Mind over Murder.
Speaker 3: I always enjoy putting together something like the True Crime
Holiday Gift Guide because it lets me flex my writing muscles.
It's nice to be able to sit down for a
little bit of time and bang out something like.
Speaker 2: This, And it doesn't involve correcting students papers.
Speaker 3: Precisely, it does not involve correcting students papers. In fact,
when I need a break from my essay grating, I'll
usually decide, okay, I can take twenty minutes and work
on something for the podcast. And so maybe that's banging
this out or doing some research or writing interview questions. Yes,
my real job and this job actually intersect quite often
during the day because I use one to take a
break from the other.
Speaker 2: We appreciate it. So let's jump into it. Happy holidays, everybody.
Speaker 3: Happy holidays, and we are here to help you with
all of your Holidays shopping needs, whether it is a
gift for yourself or for the true crime aficionado in
your life. We humbly submit that you cannot go wrong
with these really great gift suggestions.
Speaker 2: So if it's Christmas, Kwanzahkah d Wali, or any other
holiday you may celebrate. Oh and there's also of course
the Solstice and best of Us for the rest of us.
Speaker 3: Best of Us for the rest of us, I knew
you were going to get to it at some point
or another. And we actually do both Christmas and Hanukkah
in our household because my life partner is Jewish, she
does celebrate Hankkah. And this year Hankkah actually starts on
Christmas Night Christmas Day.
Speaker 2: Rather, Oh it's late, it does.
Speaker 3: It does. Actually, Yeah, it was early last year and
late this year. So we're trying to figure out whose
house are we going to be celebrating at. And I
think we're just going to have to split the day
into two and do Christmas in the morning and then
Hanakah in the evening.
Speaker 2: That sounds lovely. I just read an article this afternoon
that I wanted to share with you, which is that
apparently people are getting sick of Mariah Carey's All I
Want for Christmas is you? And I'm thinking to myself,
I've been sick of that song for years. Why did
it take everybody else so long?
Speaker 3: Yeah? Like, why are people just now getting sick of it?
It has been many years since I worked retail and
I was sick of it then.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And it's funny. I also this article I read
said she has crowned herself the Queen of Christmas, and
I don't think I got a vote in that regard.
She's not Queen of Christmas at my house, not at all.
Speaker 3: I really do not like that song. My only other
Christmas hot take before we jump into our holiday gift
guide is I Will Die on this Hill. My favorite
things from the Sound of Music is not a Christmas carol,
and I keep hearing it on the Christmas station. It
is not a Christmas song. Yes, it mentions sleigh bells
and packages, but it's not a Christmas song. That's my
hot take.
Speaker 2: I'm confused, which song are you talking about.
Speaker 3: These are a few of my favorite things from the
Sound of Music.
Speaker 2: I don't think it's a Christmas song either.
Speaker 3: No, I don't think it is, but it gets played
as one.
Speaker 2: I work for ASKAP, the Songwriters organization, for many years,
and I met a lot of legendary songwriters. A number
of them told me that writing a successful Christmas song
is a little bit like hitting the line, because if
you are lucky enough to write a song that's a hit,
which is a challenge in and of itself, not to
mention a Christmas seasonal favorite. They refer to them as evergreens,
because they are the gift that keep on giving a
number of songwriters have said to me that their successful
Christmas songs earn them more money than any other song
in their catalog, even though they're only typically played about
one month a year.
Speaker 3: Wow, that is a great piece of Triviael Jose Feliciano
told me that Felice Navidad, which he wrote, He said,
I wanted to have a Spanish language Christmas song for
my kids.
Speaker 2: Now, he actually didn't write that many songs. He mostly
did other people's songs, but he said that song has
made him a lot of money. And he said I
wrote it just to give my kids a Christmas present,
and then the record company loved it and it's gotten
played for all these years.
Speaker 3: Wow, that's terrific. I love knowing that. So Tales from
Hollywood with mister Bill Thomas. I think that's going to
be our next podcast venture.
Speaker 2: Okay, let's see I can I can review some good
stories that well known songwriters have and lesser known songwriters
of well known songs have told me. We'll figure that out.
Speaker 3: Yeah, We'll keep pitching that, see how it goes. As
we get into our true crime holiday gift guide. We
would like to make sure that we encourage you this
holiday season to shop locally and support small businesses whenever possible.
Most of the items on this gift guide are going
to be available through your local indie bookstores, and if
they're not on the shelf, please ask them to order
it for you. If you shop local and shop small,
you can help small businesses stay afloat during this holiday
season and you put more money into your local economy,
and that is a win for everyone. Bill, I know
that Pamela shows a lot of her work at small businesses,
so I know that is something that is near and
dear to both of your hearts.
Speaker 2: Correct it is, And as a matter of fact, Pamela
felt like I did not have enough Christmas presents under
the tree, and so she said, Bill, there must be
more things you want. And I said, I really want
the new John Grisham book, the nonfiction book. It's just
out now and we'll hopefully be exploring that more in
the near future. I gave her a list and she
went off and she went to Oblong Books, which is
a really nice indie bookstore not far from us, and
drove over there, and this was Tuesday yesterday, and she
said she kind of had the place to herself and
that people were very excited to see her and had
all kinds of stuff to check off on the bill
Christmas list.
Speaker 3: Here we go to support your local bookstore. To that end,
with small businesses in mind, we also want to encourag
you to buy merch that supports your favorite podcasts, whether
that is ours we humbly submit that we are one
of your favorite podcasts we certainly hope, or whether it
is someone else's. Please know that all of your podcasters
do have merch of some variety, and you can buy
all of ours through tea Public. Go to the website
teapublic dot com and they offer a wide array of shirts, sweatshirts, hoodies, stickers, mugs, notebooks, pens.
You can get our logo put up on a poster
or wal art, whatever you want. If you can put
a logo on it, tea Public probably has it in
some iteration. So if you want branded merchandise with our
logo on it, our beautiful blue thumbprint logo designed by
Bill's partner Pamela, go to tea Public dot com and
then type mind over Murder into the search bar, and
that will give you everything that is available with our logo. Bill,
I know you've got a sweatshirt and a couple of
T shirts.
Speaker 2: Yeah, oh yeah, outs, some mugs and other stuff. And
then plus I like Tea Public so much that I've
ordered all kinds of other stuff from Deep Public, vintage
sports cars and all kinds of stuff like that music stuff.
Of course, you know, if you need a Steely Dan
T shirt in addition to your mind over Murder sweatshirt,
they have all that stuff too.
Speaker 3: And I don't know about the men's shirts, but with
the women's shirts, they run actually quite small. So if
you aren't planning on buying a shirt for the woman
in your life, or if you are a woman and
planted by a shirt for yourself, buy a size or
two bigger than what you normally wear, because they do
run small, and that is entirely possible that they shrink.
I normally wear a medium, and I buy my shirts
and extra large, and there's still a little They're a
little fitted, nicely fitted, but still so. Yeah, if you're
buying from Tea Public, just keep in mind that the
women's shirts run small. Do the guys' shirts run true
to size there, mister Thomas.
Speaker 2: I tend to buy things big two because I liked
a loose fitting, so I usually go with an XL,
even though I probably would wear a large in some
other people's stuff. So okay, I think the guys stuff does.
I don't know about run small, but I almost always
go up one size.
Speaker 3: I think it's a safe way to go if you're
ordering online, but we do encourage you please go to
tea public take a look at our mind over a
murder merch. We have plenty of it and it does
help support us this holiday season. We also work in
partnership here in Virginia with a company called The Glittered Squirrel.
It is a local company in the Tidewater area run
by a friend of mine, and they create beautiful custom
tumblers and glasses. They have a true crime collection. They
launched their true Crime collection of snazzy, snarky glassware right
around the time we were at Crime Con Nashville. They
have a lot of wonderful, funny glasses and tumblers. They
can put our logo on a tumbler of your choice.
They can customize it with your name. There are various
types of toppers that you can get as well. So
if you would like a really unique and interesting gift
that is not necessarily a T shirt but does have
something to do with our logo, go to the Glittered
Squirrel look up their true crime collection. That is home
to our glassware merchandise as well, So if you want
a beautiful, affordable custom tumbler as a holiday gift, that
is a great option as well.
Speaker 2: Not only do I like supporting local, I like supporting
a business that has a whacky name like the Glittered Squirrel.
It's just a great name.
Speaker 3: Yeah, my friend Michelle runs the business and she always
makes the joke that the Glittered Squirrel is not a
strip club.
Speaker 2: That hadn't even occurred to me and I have a
dirty mind. So shall we get into some of our
choices for the True Crime Holiday Gift guide book selection.
Speaker 3: Yes, we've already pitched you on shirts and on glasswar,
so we'll go ahead and pitch you guys now on
our best choices for true crime holiday gifts the book division.
I should point out that we have covered most of
these books at some point during our past year, so
we do encourage you to support those really hard working
authors by buying their books. After you have listened to
our episode or we listen to our episode, as the
case maybe. And we also encourage you if you do
love what you have read, please leave them a review
on Amazon, good Reads, their own personal web page, and
we of course would like to know what you thought
as well, So if you buy any of these based
on our recommendation, let us know how you liked it.
We love hearing from our listeners, and especially we love
it if we can steer you in a good direction.
All right, way we go. Let's talk about ten of
our favorite our favorite true crime books from across the year,
and I wanted to start with the Book of Murder
from Matt Murphy. We were so thrilled to have Matt
on the podcast because the book is an absolute joy
to read. His writing style is so approachable, it's very inviting.
It assures the reader they can understand any concept that
he puts in front of them, even if it's a
very like obscure bit of legal ease. I am not
an expert in any way in the justice system, but
being able to read from Matt's point of view made
me feel like I could actually understand it a little
bit better.
Speaker 2: Yeah, especially for someone like Matt Murphy who's a prosecutor,
and that the subtitle is a Prosecutor's Journey through Love
and Death. He explains things and how the court system works,
how propcuts utans move forward in a way that you
can really understand. So not only is it compelling, it's
also understandable. You don't have to have a lot of degree,
which neither one of us have to understand what Matt
is walking you through. In terms of the process.
Speaker 3: Matt happened to choose cases that are particularly harrowing, maybe
a little bit more so than your general Drew Chrime book.
The cases are upsetting, but I really appreciate the fact
that Matt tells his stories with very real sympathy and
compassion for the victims, and he makes it clear, like
from page number one, that Matt's fight is for justice
and he will continue that fight even at some great
personal costs, which he does outline throughout the course of
the book. So we highly recommend this to anyone who
wants to know more about the prosecutor's role in the courtroom.
Speaker 2: The Book of Murder was covered in an hour Mindover
Murder episode number four fifteen four one five and originally
was aired on October twenty first, twenty twenty four.
Speaker 3: How do we have this many episodes? Bill? This is crazy?
Speaker 2: Yeah, this week we just let's see, we put up
episodes four, twenty nine and four hundred and thirty launches tomorrow. Now. Remember,
for the benefit of anyone that's new to Mindover Murder,
we run a new episode every Monday morning. We run
a bonus episode every Thursday morning. The bonus episodes because
we have so many episodes in the catalog now, we'll
go back and pick episodes that are favorites of ours
that we think deserve some additional exposure. So if you
only want to hear new stuff, it's typically Monday morning
and then we do. It's a repeat. As they used
to say when I was a kid watching TV. A
lot of times people have said to us they get
a lot out of things, either this is the first
time they've heard it, or even if it's the second
time they've heard it, they find they get more out
of it. That's part of the idea of running episodes
on Mondays and Thursdays.
Speaker 3: We are about to turn five years old in January.
We were just saying that to each other off air,
and it certainly feels in that five years that we
have put out a lot of content. So we look
forward to producing more of it throughout the year the
coming up year, and we hope that you guys are
enjoying what we have put out so far, and don't
mind those bonus reruns on Thursday. We think that they're worthwhile.
We want to next follow up with our one of
our very favorite local authors and recommend the new book
In the Wind, The Disappearance of Janis Star by Ron
Peterson Junior, who is a longtime guest and longtime friend
of the podcast. In the Wind is Ron's fourth book,
fourth hit book, I should say, because he has had
enormous success with all of his books. For my money,
I think that it is the most compelling one that
he's written, and from a writer of his caliber, that's
really saying something. I don't know about you, Bill, but
every new book from Ron seems to get better than
the last. Would you agree with that assessment?
Speaker 2: I would, And I also thought that this story of
Janis Starr's disappearance was so compelling and the lead detective
k Schucker was such an interesting and compelling character. I
thought it was interesting that a male author was so
sympathetic and provided such a nuanced viewpoint of the challenges
that detective Shucker faced being an up and coming investigator
at a time when they were very few female investigators,
and the amount of institution and personal resistance she had
to overcome to get the job done is actually really amazing.
Speaker 3: It truly is. So. When you look at the story
of Kay Shucker, who I would say is a true
pioneer for women in law enforcement, and you parent with
this truth is Stranger than fiction story of Jani Star,
missing ODU student, you really just get some truly fantastic
true crime work. So we highly encourage you to check
In the Wind the Disappearance of Janis Star from Ron
Peterson Junior, and we also encourage you to check out
Ron's other book projects, all of which are very noteworthy
and definitely worth your time and attention.
Speaker 2: Our interview with Ron Peterson most recently discussing in the
Wind was our episode number three ninety one and it
ran July twenty ninth, twenty twenty four.
Speaker 3: Another one of my favorite books from this year is
quite a small volume, but it packs an enormous emotional
punch and that is Dark Tide growing up with Ted
Bundy from Edna Cowell Martin. We've tended to shy away
from the sort of big ticket cases like Bundy, John Benny,
ramsay O J. Simpson, Charles Manson because there are so
many people who have covered that ground already. We absolutely
wanted to cover Dark Tide because Edna Cowell Martin's relationship
with Ted Bundy is so unique that it sheds an
entirely new viewpoint on Bundy and the side of him
that people think they know. If you think that you
know the whole entire story on Ted Bundy, you really
truly don't. You will only learn it once you read
Edna's absolutely compelling books.
Speaker 2: It's a fantastic read, and Edna is a lovely, thoughtful person.
When she begins telling you the story and you realize
that she is Ted Bundy's younger cousin and someone that
really looked up to him and had a relationship with
him that extended back from the time when they were kids.
Even she began to see as he grew older the
incredibly dark side of Bundy. She wasn't a witness to
the horrible things he was doing, but she began to
see more and more of that darkness that had enveloped him.
It's a really fascinating book.
Speaker 3: It is, for my money, the most compelling book on Bundy,
because it really does give you glimpses of the madness
that existed underneath this terribly charismatic man, and it allows
you to see up close the pain and the trauma
that family members of serial killers go through, even decades
after the fact. I think that when we consider the
victims of serial killers, oftentimes we forget the family members
that are left behind, who are just as traumatized and
just as upset by what their family members have done.
I really enjoyed getting Edna's point of view on the
whole entire thing, and I would recommend this book to
anybody who was interested in Bundy or thinks they know
the whole story on Bundy, because trust me, you don't
know the half of it, not till you've read Edna's book.
Speaker 2: We covered Dark Tide on our Mind Over Murder episode
number four oh nine, which originally ran on September thirtieth,
twenty twenty four. You're listening to Mind over Murder. We'll
be right back after this word from our sponsors. We're
back here at mindover Murder.
Speaker 3: Next we have The Serial Killers of Prentice, the true
story of how Houston's deadliest murderer turned a kid into
a killing machine, written by friend of the podcast doctor
Catherine Ramsland and co author Tracy Ullman. I would venture
to say that you will never go wrong with any
book of Catherine Ramsland's that you pick up, and as
we know from talking to the good doctor, she has
written a vast multitude of them, and at this point
she's also branching into fiction, so do check out her
fiction work too.
Speaker 2: She's written over seventy books at this point, which is
pretty amazing.
Speaker 3: I don't know where she finds the time, quite frankly,
Like I have joked with her before, does she have
a time turner from Harry Potter? Like? How is she
getting more out of her days than most of us
are able to handy?
Speaker 2: Wouldn't it? Actually? If? Oh, gee, writing seventy books.
Speaker 3: I would love a time turner just to be able
to get done the errands that I need to do,
much less being able to sit and crank out seventy books.
Catherine is prolific and she's wonderful, and when you add
in the sharp research and reporting from Tracy Ullman, you've
got a book that practically sears on the page. I
really loved it, and it is one of those books.
It sounds like a cliche, but I truly could not
put it down. It was so compelling. As always will
do a trigger warning on here, the content is very
dark and extremely upsetting because it is talking about the
sexual abuse of underage boys. It is a very interesting
story about control, coercion and manipulation that turned an impressionable
but mainly good young man into a ca killer of
other children. As someone who works with teenagers and works
with kids, the tips that they offer at the back
of the book about keeping children safe from predators is
some of the most important tips that any parent could
read about keeping their kids safe in a world that
is increasingly not necessarily so we highly encourage you to
check out The Serial Killer's Apprentice and also everything else
that Catherine Ramslin has written.
Speaker 2: On a lighter note, the Tracy Ullman, who is a
co writer on The Serial Killers Apprentice, is not the
wonderful British comedian and pop star from the nineteen eighties
whose name is also Tracy Ullman.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Someone had actually asked me about that, just someone
who only glancingly is familiar with my podcast. They had asked.
They said, wait, you were talking about this book in
the one episode I listened to, and you said Tracy Allman.
They were like, do you mean the comedian And I'm like, no, no,
They're like, but she has the same name, and I'm like,
it's that it's not the same person. Please trust me.
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, absolutely not.
Speaker 3: I don't even think that we asked her about how
often she gets mistaken for that, Chris, Did we even
ask that.
Speaker 2: I don't know that we did.
Speaker 3: Now.
Speaker 2: As soon as we met Tracy electronically and started talking
to her. She's not British, she is not a petite
woman with dark hair, and she looked completely different. It
was definitely not the same Tracy Almen.
Speaker 3: I just wonder how often she gets people asking.
Speaker 2: It has to happen from time to time. I would
imagine we covered the Serial Killer's Apprentice on Mind Over
Murder episode three sixty one, which ran April fifteenth.
Speaker 3: These dates are all kind of blurring together. I could
have sworn that we talked to Catherine and Tracy way
Le later in the year, I'm realizing that my time
differential here is not exactly what I had thought it was.
Speaker 2: What's the name of that Harry Potter machine? You need again?
Speaker 3: The time turner?
Speaker 2: The time turner, we need two of those. I think
we need.
Speaker 3: A couple of them for sure. We also wanted to
highlight a really excellent book from earlier in this year
called Trail of the Lost, The Relentless Search to bring
Home the Missing Hikers of the Pacific Cress Trail from
Andrea Lankford. I particularly enjoyed talking to Andy and reading
this really excellent book because being so close to the AT,
we often hear stories about hikers on the AT, hikers
in peril, or even just people who are really working
on records for fastest known hiking time or something like that.
You don't actually hear all that often stories about the
Pacific Cresstrail on the West Coast. I enjoyed this book
because it gave me some perspective on what the PCT
is like, and it sounds horrifying, actually far more dangerous
than the AT. And I liked getting into the search
and rescue component of this story because that's not something
I had ever spent a lot of time thinking about.
Speaker 2: No, and I've made a decision that the next time
I go for a walk in the woods, I'm going
to ask Andrea Langford to go with me, because she's
amazing and clearly knows what she's doing out in the
middle of the Boonies, whether there are good people or
bad people along the trail of Andrea is the person
I want to go hiking with.
Speaker 3: Oh one hundred percent, and her established career as an
NPS ranger gives her just enormous credibility, and it makes
the science of search and rescue, as she lays it
out in the book, absolutely fascinating. It was a real
joy to read, and I was a little worried that
maybe I was going to get bored by it. I've
never seen the PCT. I wasn't sure I was going
to be able to picture it. But no, this was
absolutely fascinating. I loved it. It was a wonderful book,
and I highly encourage anyone who hikes, whether it's just
your walk in the woods or long distance, to check
out Trail of the Lost. It is very interesting and
very moving as well.
Speaker 2: And if you liked Trailed by our friend Catherine Miles
which covered the Appalachian Trail and the Shenandoah National Park
and the murder of Julie Williams and Lolly Winans. This
is the West Coast partner to that with Yes, a
series of missing hikers on the Pacific Crest Trail, an
area of the country that I was less familiar with.
Andrea's writing is so beautiful and so compelling, you really
feel like you've been there.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I think you could definitely do work than buying
someone both Trailed and Trail of the Lost and bookinging
them together for a Christmas gift. I think that would
be great. And I would also throw in there's something
that's not on this year's list, but was on the
list two years ago. It's called The Cold Vanish by
John Billman, and that is about people who disappear all
across the country every year on hiking trails, residential trails,
and so on and so forth. If you're looking for
three really good books about search and rescue that may
make you think twice before you go out for a
walk in the woods, check out those three Trail of
the Lost Trailed in the Cold Vanish.
Speaker 2: We covered Trail of the Lost on our episode three
thirty eight here on Mind over Murder, and that ran
January twenty fifth, twenty twenty four. That surprised me when
I looked that up today, because it felt like it
wasn't that long ago. If you'd asked me, I would
have said, oh, last summer maybe, but it was actually
almost a year ago.
Speaker 3: This it kind of messes with your mind how long
ago we actually do these things. But again, as we've
already established for listeners, we do new episodes literally every week.
That's a lot of people that we interview over the
course of the year, and a lot of books to
read and a lot of series to watch. So it
all gets distorted in my mind, when did we actually
cover this? Another book that I found particularly moving this year,
and it's a case that probably most everyone of a
certain age has heard of, is The Polyclass Kidnapping. The
book In Light of All Darkness Inside the Polyclass Kidnapping
and the Search for America's Child by Kim Cross is,
for my money, the hands down best true crime book
I read all year long, there is no question in
my mind, and Kim has received enormous accolades or In
Light of All Darkness she was an Edgar Award finalist.
She's a very big deal. She received the Truman Capodia Award.
She deserves every single accolade that she has received for
this book because it is profoundly, deeply moving, as in,
I cried when I was reading it, and I don't
cry reading drue crime. I'm a hardened, seasoned professional at
this point. I don't cry reading true crime. And I
cried my way through this book.
Speaker 2: I always thought of you as having a marshmallow center,
but maybe it's me.
Speaker 3: I probably have that too, But it's actually been a
while since the book has made me cry, and this
one did it quite solidly and profoundly. She really digs
into all the aspects of the poly Class case start
to finish, the abduction and the murder, the reaction of
the Class family both to the crime and then covering
their advocacy in the years afterward. It talks about the
toll that the investigation took on all the members of
the law enforcement community. It talks about the impact it
had on the local community in Petaluma. You really get
a sense that this was a crime that shaped a
whole entire community and left them with an indelible sense
that the world was never going to be the same again.
Speaker 2: Kim has a wonderful way of getting inside the story,
and she also had a level of access that most
journalists would never have because her father was the case
agent for the FBI in the Polyclass kidnapping, and that
offered a lot of inside information, but also some really
beautifully poignant and sensitive insight into what happened, what the
class family, the investigators, and everyone involved in the case.
Speaker 3: I think it's hard to understand sometimes how profoundly a
case can affect the members of law enforcement that are
working on it, especially when it's a child abduction and
a child murder, and Kim does a really wonderful job
articulating that for the readers. I love this book. It
is beautifully written, it's beautifully articulated, and I would wholeheartedly
recommend this to anyone who either is interested in the
case or who remembers it and lived through it. Bill.
Were you in California by the time this kidnapping had happened,
or were you still in New York.
Speaker 2: I was still on the East Coast at that point.
I remember reading about it quite a bit. We covered
in light of all darkness on our mind of a
Murder episode number three oh seven, which actually ran October ninth,
twenty twenty three.
Speaker 3: This next book is something that I was very interested
in reading, but I wasn't sure how precisely I was
going to deal with the subject matter. The book in
question is by an author who we try raise my
will never be able to get on this podcast. We
are quite excellent in gaining access to true crime authors,
but I do not believe we will be getting this
person on our podcast ever. The book is Knife Meditations
after an attempted murder by Solomon Rushd For anyone who
does not remember. In August of twenty twenty two, at
the Chautauqua Institution in New York, author Salmon Rushdi was
on stage giving a presentation when a lone knife wielding
attacker rushed the stage and stabbed him multiple times, gravely
wounding him in the process. He survived the attack after
fifteen stab wounds to the abdomen, the chest, the neck,
the thigh, and the face, and in the aftermath of it,
mister Rushdy did lose the use of one eye that
he was sta and one hand. I remember being absolutely
shocked by this. Do you remember when this happened Bill, I.
Speaker 2: Do Rushti had been so careful after the Satanic verses,
and he had received so many death threats and had
really stopped appearing in public. And I remember being pleased
when I read that he was going to be speaking
again in a public way. This just seems so tragic
that after being so careful and really living a non
public life for a number of years, no sooner is
he back out braving the world again, that he's attacked
in this way. I remember being so struck by how
sad this was.
Speaker 3: Two years later, in twenty twenty four, he released this
book Knife Meditations After an Attempted Murder, and it is
a really searing memoir about what happens to your life
after you have been deep and gravely traumatized in this way.
He pulls no punches in describing what happened to him.
It is very graphic and it is upsetting, but puts
it all in context. He talks about his life after
the attack. He talks about his healing process, and he
reiterates for the reader again and again it is a
process that he is still going through to this day.
He acknowledges the attacker, but acknowledges that the attack and
the attacker himself are things that he is actively trying
to put into context in his life, and he is
not allowing them to frighten him or control the narrative
of his life, which I think is a wonderful way
to approach it. It is very emotionally difficult to read.
There were tears also when I was reading this one.
Maybe I've just been a teary mood when I read
these things, but boy did it speak to me as
someone who also tries to live day to day through
complex trauma as well. He reminds his readers that there
is triumph in the face of adversity, even immense adversity,
like an author losing the use of a hand, for
example when typing is your life's work, and losing your
eye when you're used to seeing the world through two
good ones. I really love the fact that sort of
at the end of it, the whole entire underpinning for
this is that the most difficult task after trauma is
learning to forgive. He says that it is possible to
learn it, but it takes a little bit to get there.
Speaker 2: Very understandable now, Knife mediations after an Attempted Murder is
not a book we have covered on Mind Over Murder,
but we might someday. I think we'll let Kristen make
that call.
Speaker 3: I would say that although this is something that I
highly recommend, it could be quite triggering for people who
have been victims of trauma, especially anyone who has ever
undergone stabbing or a physical attack of that variety. So
if that is something that has happened to you or
to someone that would love, maybe you want to sit
this one out. But it really is quite moving and
very well done. And if I thought there was any
hope of getting Solomon Rushti to come on the podcast
and talk to us, I would reach out to his agent.
I don't think there's much hope of that, though.
Speaker 2: All I can say is, mister Rushdie, the invitation stands.
We'd love to have you on Mind over Murder.
Speaker 3: You mentioned one in the new John Grisham book. I
do want to put it on the record that we
have asked mister Grisham's agent if we could get him
to come on the podcast. So far we have received
a form letter that says mister Grisham receives so many
requests we cannot possibly answer at this time it was basically,
this will be answered in the order it was received.
And I assume there are many other people ahead of
us in line. For John Grisham.
Speaker 2: We do have some friends in commons, so hope Springs Eternal.
We actually have kind of a running list, which we're
not going to go through now, of people that we'd
very much like to have on Mind Over Murder as
future guests. John Grisham is definitely on that.
Speaker 3: Short list, oh for sure. And we are going to
end actually with a book that is also a documentary series,
and we are going to be speaking to the people
who are responsible for both the book and the series
in an upcoming episode. So the book is called mcmillions,
The Absolutely True Story of how an unlikely pair of
FBI agents brought down the most supersized fraud in fast
food history, by James Lee Hernandez and Brian Lazarte. Boy,
that's a long title.
Speaker 2: It is. It's a terrific book. And I just watched
a sixth part Netflix true crime documentary which James and
Brian wrote and directed, which is fantastic, and I wasn't
sure that it would hold up for six episodes because
a lot of true crime stuff, including the Lover's Lane
murders on the Colonial Parkway. Murders are typically three or
four episodes to tell a story. This actually is a
six part series and it is so entertaining. They managed
to incorporate some elements of humor in the television series
and the book that kind of lift the tone in spots.
It's a really fantastic read and it's a lot of fun.
So if you're looking for a terrific Netflix doc or
a great book to put on your Christmas list, mcmillions
is definitely recommended, and we're really looking forward talking to
James and Brian in the very near future.
Speaker 3: It is wonderful. It is. I found it to be
imminently readable. It's very funny, and I actually use the
phrase rollicking to describe it because it really does move
ahead at a galloping pace. It's truly funny, and I
would say if you're like Bill and you've watched the documentary,
you one hundred percent want to read the book. The
documentary came out first, it came out in twenty twenty,
and the book only came out a few months ago.
There is a bit of lag time there, so if
you watch the documentary. Do you get the book? And
if you're going to get the book, please do you
watch the documentary. We are so looking forward to talking
to James and Brian coming up here fairly soon. I
think we're going to have a heck of a time
really exploring this case.
Speaker 2: I've read about some of the other work that they've
done in documentary films and TV series, and there's a
whole bunch of other stuff they've done that I can't
wait to jump into because I just think the two
of them are I'm willing to bet this is going
to be a really fun interview with the two of them.
Speaker 3: Yeah, very much looking forward to it. That is going
to do it for our True Crime holiday gift guide
for this year, So we encourage you to take a
look at these books, look for podcast merch for us
and all of your other favorite podcasts. Please do check
out the Glittered Squirrel for interesting, customizable, snazzy and snarky glassware.
And please make sure that you are shopping and supporting
local small businesses because Amazon doesn't need any more of
your money, although I do tend to shop there maybe
a little more than I should. Any funnel words of
wisdom or holiday inspiration, mister Thomas before we sign.
Speaker 2: Off, no, just happy holidays, Mark Christmas to everyone. We
hope that twenty twenty five is a fantastic year. We
look forward to many future conversations with all of you.
Speaker 3: From the mind Over Murder family to you, successful shopping,
happy holidays, and have a fabulous new year. We will
look forward to talking to you soon. Thank you so
much for listening. We'll see you next time.
Speaker 1: Mind Over Murder is a production of Absolute Zero and
Another Dog Productions.
Speaker 2: Our executive producers are Bill Thomas and Kristin Dilley.
Speaker 1: Our logo art is by Pamela Arnois.
Speaker 2: Our theme music is by Kevin McLeod.
Speaker 1: Mind Over Murder is distributed in partnership with crawl Space Media.
Speaker 2: You can follow us on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram.
Speaker 1: You can also follow our page on the Colonial Parkway
Murders on Facebook.
Speaker 2: And finally, you can follow Bill Thomas on Twitter at
Bill Thomas five six.
Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to mind Over Murder.