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Speaker 5: This is your host Dan Zevaarski for the program True Murder,
Speaker 5: the most shocking killers in true crime history and the
Speaker 5: authors that have written about them. Final Exams features four
Speaker 5: fascinating true crime cases from the files of Cyril H. H. Weckt,
Speaker 5: md JD, one of America's most respected forensic pathologists. Co
Speaker 5: authored by crime writer Donna Kaufman, Final Exams explores both
Speaker 5: the technical and the human side of murder, from the
Speaker 5: heartbreaking case of abductive child Jessica Lunsford, held captive within
Speaker 5: shouting distance of her loved ones, to the peculiar story
Speaker 5: of a murder for hire with a most unlikely victim.
Speaker 5: Final Exams takes the reader behind the scenes. Secrets about
Speaker 5: the private lives of both predators and victims are revealed
Speaker 5: as the authors detail the events that turn rage to tragedy.
Speaker 5: Fans of CSI will appreciate how Weckt and Kaufman share
Speaker 5: the real life process of solving crimes with clues left
Speaker 5: with the victim. The book that we are featuring this
Speaker 5: evening is Final Exams. With my special guest, doctor Cyril
Speaker 5: Weckt and Donna Kaufman. Welcome to the program, Donna Kaufman
Speaker 5: and doctor Weckt. Thank you very much for meet this interview.
Speaker 5: K Now, before we start it, I think it's fascinating
Speaker 5: the background of both of you, people that got together
Speaker 5: three books ago. This is your third collaboration. Tell us
Speaker 5: about your illustrious and very important background, doctor weck and
Speaker 5: then we'll ask for Donna Kauflin's background, and then we'll
Speaker 5: ask how you came to collaborate together. So if you
Speaker 5: could give us some of the important background of yourself,
Speaker 5: doctor Weckt.
Speaker 4: Well, I grew up in the Pittsburgh area and they
Speaker 4: went to college here in medical school. First couple of
Speaker 4: years the University of Buffalo, then finished up at pitt
Speaker 4: Med School, internship, a couple of years residency at the
Speaker 4: University VA Hospital. Then two years of residency, I was
Speaker 4: a captain of the United States Air Force in Montgomery,
Speaker 4: Alabama at Maxwell Air Force Base Hospital. Then when I
Speaker 4: got out, I did my fellowship as a research fellow
Speaker 4: in forends of Pathology and associate pathologist in the Office
Speaker 4: of the Chief Federical Exambitor of Maryland. I had also
Speaker 4: gone to law school at pitt for a couple of
Speaker 4: years while I was in my residency before the Air Force,
Speaker 4: and then I finished my third year when I got
Speaker 4: out of the Air Force at the University of Maryland.
Speaker 4: In the evening while I was doing my fellowship, I
Speaker 4: came back to Pittsburgh. I've met my wife in the
Speaker 4: Air Force and we married that fall and we've been
Speaker 4: here ever since. I have been working as a friends
Speaker 4: of pathologists and as a hospital pathologist. I have a
Speaker 4: private apology laboratory for a while, and I've been doing
Speaker 4: medical legal consultations now for about fifty years for attorneys
Speaker 4: all over the country, several and criminal cases workers compensation, murder,
Speaker 4: medical law, practice wrong for their personal injury, product liability, rape,
Speaker 4: sexual assault, the drug abuse and so on. And I've
Speaker 4: had the opportunity to work on some very interesting cases
Speaker 4: in a few foreign countries around the world, and I've
Speaker 4: testified in some foreign countries too. I have gotten involved
Speaker 4: academically over the years too, and I have adjunct to
Speaker 4: clinical professorships schools at the Duking University, at two schools
Speaker 4: at the University of Pittsburgh and then also distinguished professor
Speaker 4: at Carly University here in Pittsburgh. I have some adjunct
Speaker 4: of clinical professorships at medical schools in Arizona and Georgia
Speaker 4: and Nigeria. I met the Donna some years ago, she'll
Speaker 4: remember more vividly than I let her talk about that,
Speaker 4: and we became as we are now, very good personal
Speaker 4: friends as well as people who like to work with
Speaker 4: each other and spend a lot of time talking, mostly
Speaker 4: by phone because we're such a great distance away, but
Speaker 4: we have developed a great report. So that's the story
Speaker 4: of my background here. I've lived in Pittsburgh, have had
Speaker 4: four wonderful little children, married, and fortunately for my wife
Speaker 4: and me, they are here in the pit Burg area
Speaker 4: with eleven grandchildren. So that's see, that's my background in
Speaker 4: a nutshell. I've done a lot of writing. I've about
Speaker 4: five hundred and seventy published articles, chapters, and books, and
Speaker 4: about I think about forty four or so books of
Speaker 4: which I'm the editor or co editor, author or co
Speaker 4: author of in the professional field, and then eight books
Speaker 4: for the general public. Of the last three as you mentioned,
Speaker 4: with Donna Kaufman as my co author, and five previously
Speaker 4: with some other very fine writers who were my co
Speaker 4: authors too, and we're working on another book to be
Speaker 4: published next year. But right now we're enjoying the talking
Speaker 4: about Final Exams, which is a book that Donna will
Speaker 4: talk more about and tell your listeners on how they
Speaker 4: can gain access to this keybook.
Speaker 5: Thank you very much. In your background, Donna, and how
Speaker 5: you came to collaborate with doctor Wecht, well, let me.
Speaker 6: Just add about him. He makes everyone seem like they're
Speaker 6: standing still. He just accomplishes so much in a day
Speaker 6: it's pathetic for the rest of us. He has performed
Speaker 6: personally performed eighteen thousand autopsies, sometimes two three a day
Speaker 6: sometimes you know, it is just a staggering amount. And
Speaker 6: he's consulted worldwide on another thirty six thousand cases. So
Speaker 6: when it comes to choosing, Oh and by the way,
Speaker 6: he has two buildings named after him in his hometown
Speaker 6: of Pittsburgh, which is pretty amazing. So when it comes
Speaker 6: to choosing cases, I have that job and I can
Speaker 6: choose from the very best, juiciest, most interesting cases from
Speaker 6: a forensical lea medical point of view. I asked my background,
Speaker 6: I'm a comedy writer, which you go, well, what is that,
Speaker 6: but it's actually all research. And I have a lot
Speaker 6: of television credits as a producer and television writer on
Speaker 6: comedy series, variety shows. And at a certain point, I
Speaker 6: just said, I need something more substantial than this silliness
Speaker 6: I'm involved in, and I decided, well, I was going
Speaker 6: to embrace true crime, and you could say I did.
Speaker 6: Since then, I've written thousands of articles, these books, and
Speaker 6: I've worked on every high profile case of our time
Speaker 6: that involves a high profile homicide, kidnapping, child abuse, child
Speaker 6: murder case kind of my specialty. And you know, I
Speaker 6: attend the trials. I get very rap up in the investigations,
Speaker 6: and with doctor Wett, I can fill in a lot
Speaker 6: of the material after he gives me his medical and
Speaker 6: legal opinions on these cases that he has worked on,
Speaker 6: some of which I have also written independently. I fill
Speaker 6: in the backgrounds of who the people are and what
Speaker 6: their families go through, and what their what the essence
Speaker 6: of the trial, and who the individuals are. So I
Speaker 6: think we make a really good combination there.
Speaker 5: Now you've picked four stories in this particular book, and
Speaker 5: I asked you this question before in our in our
Speaker 5: previous interview, which just was a mess. So we rescheduleed that.
Speaker 5: But I asked that question again, what was the criteria, Yes, exactly,
Speaker 5: what was the reason, what was the criteria for the
Speaker 5: picking of these four stories, and what did you want
Speaker 5: to demonstrate most with the telling of these four stories.
Speaker 6: Well, doctor wet works on both prosecution cases and defense cases,
Speaker 6: and sometimes the investigations do not go to trial, and
Speaker 6: sometimes they go to civil court, and sometimes there are retrials.
Speaker 6: I mean, there are interesting issues on all of them.
Speaker 6: So when I have to consider which are the stories
Speaker 6: I want to tell, I try to pick those that
Speaker 6: have some prosecution, some defense, some ongoing issues in the
Speaker 6: court of law, and things that just didn't make it
Speaker 6: to a jury that we are upset about or we're
Speaker 6: happy about. You know, his testimony can put somebody on
Speaker 6: death row, which we have here in the States, not
Speaker 6: that we like that, or he can take somebody off
Speaker 6: death row. So the power of what he does on
Speaker 6: a day to day basis is just phenomenal. So these
Speaker 6: four cases, two of them are from Pittsburgh, the Pittsburgh
Speaker 6: area and where he did perform the autopsies, and one
Speaker 6: is from New York City, and one is from Florida.
Speaker 6: So we also try to have different means and motives
Speaker 6: and manners of death and causes of death and sets
Speaker 6: of circumstances. So that's how we pick them. And thank
Speaker 6: you for reading the book.
Speaker 5: Well, thank you for providing the book for me as
Speaker 5: this fascinating read. Now, part of this uniqueness of this
Speaker 5: book is that as much as I am a fan
Speaker 5: of CSI and as much as I've read so many
Speaker 5: true crime books in preparation for this program and to
Speaker 5: interview authors, but I have never read the actual, the
Speaker 5: true account of what a ENSEI pathologist does, a medical
Speaker 5: examiner does. Your role, doctor Weck, you've described in this
Speaker 5: book in great detail, very very fascinating what exactly you
Speaker 5: do in terms of that autopsy and what you can
Speaker 5: provide to authorities later in terms of crucial evidence. So
Speaker 5: if you could briefly just tell us what is it
Speaker 5: that you look for and what can you find during
Speaker 5: an autopsy that you've performed thousands and thousands of tell
Speaker 5: us about the procedure of the actual autopsy for us, please.
Speaker 4: A forensic pathologist is, of course a medical doctor, and
Speaker 4: then following the four or five years of basic pathology training,
Speaker 4: in anatomic and trinically to main divisions working with tissues
Speaker 4: surgically remote specimens in clinical pathology, blood, zerology, transfusions, chemistry, doctorology,
Speaker 4: et cetera. Then Fends of Apology is has been since
Speaker 4: nineteen fifty nine a formerly recognized subspecially requiring additional training
Speaker 4: and then certification by the American Board of Pathology and
Speaker 4: National examination given to women and men who complete that training.
Speaker 4: Forends of Apologists for the most part work in or
Speaker 4: four corner and medical examiner's offices, liked all medical specialties.
Speaker 4: Of course, there's private work consultations which I do, writing
Speaker 4: and teaching and so on. But most people think of
Speaker 4: the fends of Capologists within the context of an official
Speaker 4: governmental medical legal investigative office, that is, a medical examiner
Speaker 4: or corner, And in fact I have been corner of
Speaker 4: Alleghany County, Pittsburgh and Sourronal ammunities for twenty years, two
Speaker 4: separate ten year terms, four years before that as chief
Speaker 4: Forends of Capologists, and even a year and a half
Speaker 4: before that as an assystem oftic attorney, a medical legal
Speaker 4: advisor to the District Attorney of Allegheny County in addition
Speaker 4: to my role as corner of Allegheny County going back
Speaker 4: to the late sixties and continuing to the present time.
Speaker 4: So what's that that's forty five years almost. I have
Speaker 4: been also doing the autopsies for corners and district attorneys
Speaker 4: in several surrounding counties, which I continue to do, the
Speaker 4: last two such autopsies having been performed about five hours
Speaker 4: ago today. Donna mentioned you might have two or three
Speaker 4: last week. I did six one day. Then there's some
Speaker 4: days of course, so you don't have any that varies
Speaker 4: because needless to say, they're not schedule of like patients
Speaker 4: and schedule appointments with doctors. But I'm on I did
Speaker 4: number three hundred and fifty five today I shall reach
Speaker 4: about four hundred, which is a lot more than any
Speaker 4: fronts of caropologists to my knowledge. I shouldn't say any,
Speaker 4: just say almost all. There's always some exceptions do on
Speaker 4: a full time basis who do nothing else but work
Speaker 4: as a full time friends of pathologist in a corner
Speaker 4: of medical Examiner's office. The National Association of Medical Examiners,
Speaker 4: the quasi professional group recognizing and dealing with Emmys and corners.
Speaker 4: Friends of Pathologists and so on. They recommend two hundred
Speaker 4: and fifty maybe three hundred a year. So that just
Speaker 4: gives you an idea of what I do and what
Speaker 4: I'm continuing to do, and so far as how I
Speaker 4: do it, I want to do. Bodies are then brought
Speaker 4: to me. We have a laboratory set up at Carly
Speaker 4: University where I established a teaching program for these young women.
Speaker 4: It's a Catholic, well it's Catholic as co ed, but
Speaker 4: I don't see many men around still, mostly young women.
Speaker 4: And this program has been in existence since twenty oh two.
Speaker 4: These young ladies learning forensic science, they learn how to
Speaker 4: do autopsies. They just love it. Of course, that's not
Speaker 4: the endpoint in our eyes, and we encourage them very
Speaker 4: much to go on to medical school to do graduate
Speaker 4: work in other fields of forensic science, helps related fields,
Speaker 4: et cetera. So the bodies are brought to me, mostly
Speaker 4: cornered district attorney's cases, and then I do private autopsies
Speaker 4: for families and then maybe looking for medical malpractice. They
Speaker 4: may be second autopsies in cases where someone who is
Speaker 4: in charge with homicide or so on. And I have
Speaker 4: bodies that are flown to me not every day or
Speaker 4: every week, but the bodies in the course of a year.
Speaker 4: They might be California, might be Florida. Mostly of course,
Speaker 4: they're driven from different places in Pennsylvania, Ohio, and then
Speaker 4: so on. But the bodies have brought to me some
Speaker 4: maybe about five percent of my total number. The bodies
Speaker 4: are brought in. And then, depending upon the case, you
Speaker 4: do your photography. You collect materials. If it's a suspected
Speaker 4: known and lash murder and you want to collect hair,
Speaker 4: fingernail scrape things, you collect things on the clothing. All
Speaker 4: the time these things are being photographed. I State Police or.
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Speaker 4: Plus county detectives, then clothing is removed, the body is
Speaker 4: further photographed, and other things are collected again, depending upon
Speaker 4: the nature of the case. For example, if it's a
Speaker 4: fire case, you want to do squabs to make sure
Speaker 4: you're not missing anything in a way of chemical accelerants
Speaker 4: and things of that nature. Then when all of that
Speaker 4: has been finished, there are two basic incisions that are performed.
Speaker 4: One is over the top of the head from behind
Speaker 4: one ear to the other. The scalp is reflected. The
Speaker 4: top of the scalp is removed by means of electric sauce,
Speaker 4: and you have access to the brain, the twelve cranial nerves,
Speaker 4: all the arteries and veins, and surrounding structures within the
Speaker 4: cranial vault. The brain is then removed and the examined,
Speaker 4: except in some cases where you fix it and formula
Speaker 4: for two weeks in order for it to develop a
Speaker 4: more firm consistency and permit examination in a more meticulous fashion.
Speaker 4: That's especially true if you have a brain has been traumatized,
Speaker 4: like gunshot wounds or things of that nature. Then the
Speaker 4: second incision is a y shaped incision in the front
Speaker 4: of the body. You start at the enter your crest
Speaker 4: of each shoulder, and you move diagonally downward to the
Speaker 4: bottom of the stern and the breastplate, and then a
Speaker 4: straight line continuing over the abuvent. Then you reflect the
Speaker 4: skin subcontain these fat and muscles. You lay them back,
Speaker 4: and you remove the breastplate, and you have access to
Speaker 4: all the organs and tissues in the Thorassic, the chess
Speaker 4: cavities and the abnominal and pelvic cavities. You look at
Speaker 4: the organs and tissues in place. You take pictures as
Speaker 4: are needed and are relevant, and then you begin to
Speaker 4: remove the organs and tissues. Before you do that, you
Speaker 4: get your specimens for toxicology blood bile, bil from the gallbladder, urine,
Speaker 4: and then sometimes we all also collect pieces of solid organs,
Speaker 4: sometimes fluid from behind the eye vitreous humor, and sometimes
Speaker 4: spinal fluid because those two fluids are kind of sequestered
Speaker 4: and they give more valid chemical results. But then it
Speaker 4: does blood in certain cases. So the organs are taken out,
Speaker 4: they're examined and palpated, weighed, measured, and then serially sectioned
Speaker 4: to see what disease processes, abnormalities are present, et cetera.
Speaker 4: And you know, depending on the case. Last week got
Speaker 4: a double homicide suicide. The two homicide victims were shot
Speaker 4: each as I recall, six times. We had to trace
Speaker 4: each bullet from its entrance to its exit. We had
Speaker 4: to find the bullets, and when they're twenty two caliber,
Speaker 4: they're just small pieces of metal, easily found even with
Speaker 4: X rays, and you know, that's a different kind of
Speaker 4: a ballgame. But you do all those things and then
Speaker 4: you submit the specimens to toxicology laboratory. I'm not a
Speaker 4: toxicologist I interpret the results and correlate them with my findings.
Speaker 4: But the tests are done by a toxicology lab and
Speaker 4: then tissues are submitted for microscopic exam, just like in
Speaker 4: a hospital, as somebody's lung cancer or gallbladder or appendix
Speaker 4: or stomach als are submitted to the pathologists for examination.
Speaker 4: So is that what we do with our cases? And
Speaker 4: then the slides come back to me. I studied the microscopically.
Speaker 4: Toxicology results come back to me. Criminalistics reports may come
Speaker 4: back to me from the state police crime lab with
Speaker 4: such things as ballistic studies on the weapon, the bullets,
Speaker 4: the knife, and other things in DNA, etc. All of
Speaker 4: that is then put together by the forensic apologists and
Speaker 4: in this case me, But this friends of capologies is
Speaker 4: the person to whom everything comes back and is then
Speaker 4: put together in structured fashion so that the cause of
Speaker 4: death and the manner of death and the mechanism of
Speaker 4: death can be officially determined and then ruled upon. So
Speaker 4: that's the way a friends of apologist functions. And then
Speaker 4: of course you follow through as necessary when it's time
Speaker 4: to testify. In the cases in which I do autopsies
Speaker 4: for corners and matter of gammers. I'm going to be called,
Speaker 4: I'm sorry, district attorneys. I'm going to be called as
Speaker 4: a witness for the prosecution cases that I do privately
Speaker 4: and in consultation. I'm a witness for the defense in
Speaker 4: civil cases. It might be plainted, it might be defense,
Speaker 4: and so on. You coal miners autopsies for people looking
Speaker 4: for black lung asbestosis, mesophilioma, people have been exposed to asbestos,
Speaker 4: and so on. That's what a forensic pathologist does. Thank you.
Speaker 5: Now, Donna, let us take a look at these four
Speaker 5: stories and tell us, like you had mentioned, the you
Speaker 5: essentially and instinctively, no, a story has those elements that
Speaker 5: will appeal to a lot of people. Let's start with
Speaker 5: one of those stories, very heart wrenching story, and you
Speaker 5: can tell us basically the outline of the story, and
Speaker 5: then we'll get doctor Weck to tell us his role
Speaker 5: in this particular case. So let's start off with I
Speaker 5: think one of the most heart wrenching stories I've ever read,
Speaker 5: and that being Jessica Marie Lunsford. So tell us the
Speaker 5: outline of this heart wrenching story, Donna.
Speaker 6: Okay, this is one that we both worked on independently.
Speaker 6: In fact, I brought doctor West into the case. We
Speaker 6: call this chapter the Girl in the Pink Hat because
Speaker 6: there are photos that people well remember of nine year
Speaker 6: old Florida girl Jessica Lansford when people were looking for her,
Speaker 6: which showed her wearing this beautiful pink hat that she
Speaker 6: got the previous week at the state fair. Jessica was
Speaker 6: asleep in her bedroom and her dad came home that
Speaker 6: morning and saw that she wasn't in her bed. And
Speaker 6: he lived in a trailer with his parents and Jessica
Speaker 6: and the family dog, and he woke up their parents
Speaker 6: and said, where is she? And they said, wait to
Speaker 6: hear We don't know. You know, the dog didn't bark
Speaker 6: what happened? So they looked around, they couldn't find her,
Speaker 6: and all of a sudden it went on. It went
Speaker 6: on the news, and people began searching for Jessica. The
Speaker 6: Homo sassa police or the sheriff decided to make him
Speaker 6: the chief suspect, which is understand well, because you always
Speaker 6: investigate from the center outward, but they never went outward. Well,
Speaker 6: it turns out that she had been stolen from her bed,
Speaker 6: not by her father or grandfather, but by a predator
Speaker 6: who lived across the street in another trailer, and that
Speaker 6: guy brought her over to his trailer which was filled
Speaker 6: with his drug idled relatives and raper and she died.
Speaker 6: And she died because he buried her alive on the property.
Speaker 6: So everyone knows that I'm not giving away anything that
Speaker 6: people don't know. But what they're not going to know
Speaker 6: because of our unique perspective on this case, is what
Speaker 6: happened inside that investigation. And it will just it will
Speaker 6: anger people to see what happened. It'll baffle them about
Speaker 6: why this wasn't investigated better. And I could see from
Speaker 6: my forensic background, I could see that there were mistakes
Speaker 6: made in this case. So I brought doctor Wett in
Speaker 6: and contacted an attorney and said, do you need some
Speaker 6: help on this to file a civil case? And he
Speaker 6: said yes, And I said, I think I know the
Speaker 6: person who can help you. Doctor West had just written
Speaker 6: a book with doctor Henry Lee, famous criminalist, on proper
Speaker 6: police procedure, and they got involved, and there were plenty
Speaker 6: of places to go with that lawsuit. But the community
Speaker 6: turned against Mark Lunsford, the father, and you know, he's
Speaker 6: kind of one of these characters that didn't ask to
Speaker 6: be thrust into this world, but once he did, he
Speaker 6: embraced it in many good ways, and he's been helpful
Speaker 6: to a lot of other missing children families. But he's
Speaker 6: also an angel with a tilted halo, which we get
Speaker 6: into which I don't think a lot of people understand
Speaker 6: or have the info, so that it's a very interesting
Speaker 6: case with a lot of implications. The killer ended up
Speaker 6: dying before he could be executed on Florida's death row,
Speaker 6: and the whole thing about that trial, which was just
Speaker 6: nerve wracking, is also in the book. So there are
Speaker 6: just things that you won't know about if even if
Speaker 6: you watch that trial, and it just gripped America like
Speaker 6: nothing I can remember in a missing child case, well
Speaker 6: maybe Kasey Anthony, Kaylee Anthony, which we wrote about in
Speaker 6: a previous book, but it was a really heartfelt case
Speaker 6: and boy, very emotional, Donna.
Speaker 4: Don't you said that the child have been taken and
Speaker 4: raped then and died, Donna. They want to get a
Speaker 4: little bit more information about the time period that he
Speaker 4: lapsed because you mentioned about the fact that the investigation
Speaker 4: was never extended. Amazingly, incredibly ironically, just to even nearby neighbors.
Speaker 4: But still people understand that this little girl could have
Speaker 4: been saved and should have been saved, and would have
Speaker 4: been saved if they had done even a basic investigation
Speaker 4: that you'd expect from a couple of the freshman cops.
Speaker 6: Absolutely, she went missing in February two thousand and five,
Speaker 6: was not found for three weeks. Her body was not
Speaker 6: recovered for three weeks. During those early days, when he
Speaker 6: was raping her in his room, he left her with
Speaker 6: the television on and she could see the news cameras
Speaker 6: outside their location with her dad saying be strong, Jesse,
Speaker 6: hang on. She was watching that. She knew they were
Speaker 6: looking for her, but she was so scared and so
Speaker 6: mind warped by this monster that she didn't think to
Speaker 6: leave and go outside and say here I am dad.
Speaker 6: But had the cops brought in a properly investigated with
Speaker 6: right you know, the dogs and everything else. Had they
Speaker 6: knocked on that door because they knew that this guy
Speaker 6: was a predator on the sex offender list, had they
Speaker 6: really investigated, had they gone inside, they would have found
Speaker 6: her in hiding in the closet and they knocked on
Speaker 6: the door and said is Jessica here, No, okay, that
Speaker 6: went on to the next So it was it was
Speaker 6: just pathetic. It was pathetic they how they investigated this case.
Speaker 4: Yeah, we're not talking about Dan the fact that some
Speaker 4: brilliant detective work wasn't performed and could have been accomplished
Speaker 4: by Sherlock Holmes or my dear friend, colleague Henry Lee.
Speaker 4: We're just talking about a basic, basic investigation. As Donna said, Sure,
Speaker 4: start with the family always, and then you work your
Speaker 4: way out, and how about the neighbors, like right next
Speaker 4: door and right across the street and so on. It
Speaker 4: reminds me a little bit. It's not exactly the same.
Speaker 4: I don't want to digress, but I think of the
Speaker 4: Cleveland case with the three young women that were kept
Speaker 4: there for years and so on, these young girls, and
Speaker 4: of course Jessica was just a child, you know. It's
Speaker 4: a kind of a Stockholm syndrome. They become and then
Speaker 4: are scared to death. And so people say, how come
Speaker 4: she didn't do this, how come she didn't do that?
Speaker 4: But she would have been so easily and readily found.
Speaker 4: It's a tragedy. And then of course, the great tragedy
Speaker 4: from a medical pathological standpoint talk about emotional pain and suffering.
Speaker 4: This little girl was buried alive. She was not dead
Speaker 4: when she was buried, and there were clear indications on
Speaker 4: the the the receptacle so to speak, i'll call it
Speaker 4: that in which he was placed to indicate that she
Speaker 4: was alive. And so this was all part of the
Speaker 4: picture that played off. And this would have been a
Speaker 4: very big feature in the civil case where you deal
Speaker 4: with what you know Dan of course, so well as
Speaker 4: to any conscious pain and suffering that becomes a major
Speaker 4: major feature there. There would have been no question about
Speaker 4: who caused the girl's death, and no question about the
Speaker 4: cause of death and the manner and mechanism of death,
Speaker 4: but the conscious pain and suffering and and that would
Speaker 4: have you transposed on over to the family. It's it's
Speaker 4: a shame it wouldn't have time or maybe need to
Speaker 4: go into it any further that the civil lawsuit did
Speaker 4: not proceed and and be consummated ultimately as it should
Speaker 4: have been informal legal fashion, and why it.
Speaker 6: Didn't is a major part of this the story that
Speaker 6: nobody knows about. So you know, it's it's going to
Speaker 6: be good reading if you know, if you if you
Speaker 6: like that kind of case that will frustrate you and
Speaker 6: keep you up all night turning the page.
Speaker 5: Yeh yeah, absolutely, and and a lot of a lot
Speaker 5: of us do.
Speaker 4: It's just.
Speaker 5: I don't know why, but we want to know the truth.
Speaker 5: So that's definitely a harsh truth that we get out
Speaker 5: of that story. No, no happy ending, what'ssoever. Another fascinating
Speaker 5: story is the Jeffrey b Locker, a very successful and
Speaker 5: motivational speaker specializing in speaking and lecturing to insurance professionals.
Speaker 5: Tell us about Jeffrey b Locker and Kenneth Miner.
Speaker 4: This is a fascinating case.
Speaker 6: Well, it's kind of in the book. It's called the
Speaker 6: Willing Victim and his Net. The nickname of the defendant
Speaker 6: is the Harlem Kavorki. And this happened in two thousand
Speaker 6: and nine. There was a CBS forty eight hours program
Speaker 6: done on it with which featured doctor West. He testified
Speaker 6: in that case. But we again go behind the scenes
Speaker 6: and give you a lot more than anyone knows about
Speaker 6: this case. And this is a fifty two year old
Speaker 6: white self help guru, as you say, drove from his
Speaker 6: tony house in the suburbs to Harlem found a stranger
Speaker 6: off the street who was a drug addicted black eye
Speaker 6: and said, hey, I'll give you all my money, but
Speaker 6: I need you to help kill me. Now, I have
Speaker 6: never heard a case like this. Doctor Wess, of his
Speaker 6: million and a gazillion cases, he's never had a case
Speaker 6: like this. The detectives who worked at the reporters who
Speaker 6: talked about it, no one has ever seen a case
Speaker 6: like this. That's so unusual. And this guy is talked
Speaker 6: into it because he's sitting in the car of a
Speaker 6: guy who makes his millions by being motivational speaker. And
Speaker 6: why does he do it well? Because this is going
Speaker 6: to get done one way or the other. And he
Speaker 6: asks the guy to help him commit suicide so that
Speaker 6: his family can collect insurance money.
Speaker 4: That he has thirteen million, yeah.
Speaker 6: Eighteen actually eighteen million of insurance. And the guy says, well,
Speaker 6: there's a bridge right there. Once you go jump off it.
Speaker 6: He no, it has to look like murder. That's why
Speaker 6: I came to you. And it's a long story about
Speaker 6: how we get there. But there is a trial. The
Speaker 6: guy dies, there's a trial, and doctor Wett is not
Speaker 6: allowed to show the jury what he showed the TV
Speaker 6: audience on forty eight hours, which was a demonstration of
Speaker 6: why this really was not a homicide. The guys was
Speaker 6: convicted of homicide and given a life sentence essentially, and
Speaker 6: just two weeks ago it was overturned unanimously by a
Speaker 6: New York appellate judge excused the channel, and they are
Speaker 6: going to possibly give him a new trial. He does
Speaker 6: not belong in jail for the rest of his life.
Speaker 6: He does belong in jail, and he knows it for
Speaker 6: some time, but not for the rest of his life.
Speaker 6: So doctor Weck, maybe you can explain what the medical
Speaker 6: information is on that.
Speaker 4: Yeah, just a little bit more background. And this gentleman
Speaker 4: Locker had run into financial difficulties and he was married
Speaker 4: with three children, and he made a decision that you know,
Speaker 4: he could not deal with it emotionally, psychologically, I don't know,
Speaker 4: and he took out and I thought it was thirteen
Speaker 4: donears is eighteen million dollars worth of insurance. And of course, Dan,
Speaker 4: as you know, as someone commits suicide, certainly within the
Speaker 4: first year or so, then the policies will not be honored.
Speaker 4: And by the way, let me say that the policies,
Speaker 4: most of them were not paid of those that were paid,
Speaker 4: I think to my knowledge that money has been recovered
Speaker 4: by the insurance companies. So anyway, a locker goes in
Speaker 4: to Harlem. He's conned first by another guy out of
Speaker 4: quite a bit of money I think maybe close to
Speaker 4: ten thousand dollars. And the other guy winds up then
Speaker 4: not showing up on the scheduled appointment, and a minor
Speaker 4: then is the next guy who is talking into it,
Speaker 4: and you know, he really doesn't want to kill this guy.
Speaker 4: He's supposed to get a gun and he doesn't even
Speaker 4: get a gun. And my locker says, well, there's a
Speaker 4: knife in the glove compartment, and he has Minor hold
Speaker 4: the knife the hilt down against the steering wheel and
Speaker 4: the blade pointed straight out from the steering wheel toward
Speaker 4: the chest of the driver. He Minor, they soon to be.
Speaker 4: I'm sorry, locker, Locker, they soon to be. A victim
Speaker 4: has Minor tie his highnds behind his back. I think, well,
Speaker 4: for two reasons, one to make it appear definitely like
Speaker 4: a homicide, and two I believe I'll never know this
Speaker 4: for sure, but I think it's reasonable conjecture so that
Speaker 4: he can't and when the pain occurs with the knife
Speaker 4: going into his chest that he willing to reach out
Speaker 4: with it with his hands. In any event, he and
Speaker 4: minor holds the nyknife and Locker then plunges his body
Speaker 4: into the knife a few times and the blade going in.
Speaker 4: And what is very interesting and very very significant then
Speaker 4: to me as a princithropologist in reconstructing this, just think,
Speaker 4: if it is truly a homicide and you are being stabbed,
Speaker 4: you're going to be moving around. Your body's going to
Speaker 4: be twisting and turning, and the stab wounds will be
Speaker 4: coming in from different directions, not necessarily and widely dis
Speaker 4: first topographical parts of your anatomy, but certainly not in
Speaker 4: a small tight cluster. In this case, all the wounds
Speaker 4: were in a very tight cluster, clearly indicating that there
Speaker 4: is no attempt by mister Locker to prevent himself from
Speaker 4: being stabbed, but rather a continuing movement, a repetitive movement
Speaker 4: into the knife and thereby sustaining these wounds. Now, there
Speaker 4: is no state in America that allows someone to kill
Speaker 4: somebody to help them in a suicide, no matter how
Speaker 4: whatever the motivation may be is. You could be married
Speaker 4: to somebody for sixty years and that somebody is dying
Speaker 4: in in extreme pain and begging you, begging you to
Speaker 4: help them kill themselves. They don't have their strength to
Speaker 4: do it, and you do it because of this, this
Speaker 4: love for the person that you've lived with for sixty years.
Speaker 4: But that's still going to be manslaughter. And have there
Speaker 4: been a manslaughter charge, and then a miner's attorney, a
Speaker 4: good attorney, a very good attorney, would have accepted that,
Speaker 4: and that would have been the end of it, because,
Speaker 4: by the way, we haven't mentioned this. Don and I
Speaker 4: the detective initially, you can imagine and when they were
Speaker 4: told this story, they see, sure, tell me another cocamane.
Speaker 4: They came to realize, I want to make a career
Speaker 4: tot that there is no dispute, no dispute as to
Speaker 4: the validity of the story, none at all. It all
Speaker 4: comes down then to the legality, the technicality. But the
Speaker 4: prosecutors for reasons that I don't fully understand, except that
Speaker 4: I guess that's the prosecutorial bent of people who become prosecutors,
Speaker 4: that it's not good enough for them to say, Okay,
Speaker 4: we understand what she did, we don't accept it. However,
Speaker 4: it wasn't the right thing to do, and you're going
Speaker 4: to go to jail on a manslaught of charge that
Speaker 4: they proceed to convict them on second degree murder. And
Speaker 4: I think the sentence, I don't know, forty to sixty years, which,
Speaker 4: as Donna says, whereas an essence for a middle aged person,
Speaker 4: a lifetime sentence. So he does have the new trial
Speaker 4: that has been ordered by the public court in New
Speaker 4: York City. It has not yet been scheduled to my knowledge,
Speaker 4: it will be. And I have a feeling, in fact,
Speaker 4: I'm going to make a prediction. I could be wrong.
Speaker 4: I hope I will be right, not just to be right,
Speaker 4: but I hope that they will make a bargain and
Speaker 4: they'll let him plead guilty to manslaughter, and for the
Speaker 4: time already served and which will have been served by
Speaker 4: the time and this is all over, that it won't
Speaker 4: be too many years before he's out of prison. You know,
Speaker 4: he's really not a bad guy. And to hear him speak,
Speaker 4: which you can do on that TV program, you see
Speaker 4: that this is a man who speaks really for someone
Speaker 4: who has not had formal education, quite lucidly, quite logically.
Speaker 4: He doesn't try to make excuses for himself, and he
Speaker 4: just tells it like it is and talks about what happened. Well,
Speaker 4: by the way, you know this case, going back to
Speaker 4: the initial investigation, when the detectives who were thinking this
Speaker 4: was a lot of cock and bull, when they went
Speaker 4: to the home to tell the now widow and her
Speaker 4: three teenage kids that her husband and their father died,
Speaker 4: they got about as much reaction someone that tells you
Speaker 4: on your way home tonight, gee, I think you may
Speaker 4: have run over a squirrel. That's the kind of reaction
Speaker 4: they got from me from the family.
Speaker 6: Well, yeah, there was about it discovered this that it's
Speaker 6: covered in the trial. We talked about it in the
Speaker 6: book that the family had advanced knowledge that this was
Speaker 6: going to happen and was putting their you know, sumbs
Speaker 6: up on it. So this, this victim at the best,
Speaker 6: was a insurance fraud. This was whole a scam to
Speaker 6: rip off insurance companies. And so you know, where's the
Speaker 6: morality of that When what kind of family when you say, hey,
Speaker 6: we're hitting the kids, we're out of money, wouldn't say
Speaker 6: that's okay, dad, I'll get a job. We'll help you know,
Speaker 6: we'll dig in and get through this. No, okay, see it,
Speaker 6: see it, pops. We don't want to lose our lifestyle.
Speaker 5: I have I have a question in terms of this
Speaker 5: new trial. Do you believe that your testimony and the
Speaker 5: evidence that you provided that you weren't able to provide
Speaker 5: to the jury at the original trial. Do you believe
Speaker 5: that this was part of the success in appeal for
Speaker 5: this retrial.
Speaker 4: You know, it's a good question, and I'm not sure
Speaker 4: because they haven't had the benefit of reading the trial
Speaker 4: courts of the public courts of ruling. I would like
Speaker 4: to think so, not egotistically, but I would like to
Speaker 4: think that that may have been a part. On the
Speaker 4: other hand, Dan, as you know, a lot of most people,
Speaker 4: including some attorneys that don't do the trial work, don't
Speaker 4: appreciate either that when in the public court reviews the case,
Speaker 4: if they find on a particular point that there is
Speaker 4: a basis to reverse, most often that's where they stopped.
Speaker 4: And I mean, you know, just go on and give
Speaker 4: you a full analysis. And if they so, there was
Speaker 4: a there was some some very strong legal arguments, and
Speaker 4: I think those were the principal reason why the case
Speaker 4: is overruled. But I think that the judge judge who
Speaker 4: was admonished, and it was her ruling, by the way,
Speaker 4: her language, her instructions to the jury, that resulted in
Speaker 4: the public court overturning the case. And I think that
Speaker 4: there's good reason to believe that her ruling in not
Speaker 4: allowing me to demonstrate how these wounds could have been inflicted,
Speaker 4: would have been an important part of it. And I
Speaker 4: think that the the misist Attorney's office is likely to
Speaker 4: consider that. I don't mean they're going to be afraid
Speaker 4: of my testimony, but they're going to think about all
Speaker 4: the different elements that will come into play, perhaps in
Speaker 4: a second trial.
Speaker 5: Right now, Donna, we have two more stories, and one
Speaker 5: of the fascinating stories and involves a Canadian connection and
Speaker 5: doctor Turner. So could you tell us about that case
Speaker 5: and later, after you've described the case, the outline the case,
Speaker 5: and we could talk about doctor Weck's contribution or his
Speaker 5: role in that case itself.
Speaker 6: Yes, this is the case of the twenty eight year
Speaker 6: old doctor who was shot to death in a park
Speaker 6: outside of Pittsburgh. Doctor Weck did the autopsy and figured, well,
Speaker 6: I'll be testifying on this one. It became clear, really
Speaker 6: early on who did this. He had a girlfriend who
Speaker 6: was also a medical doctor and older than him, and
Speaker 6: she was a Canadian and American citizen. She fled to Canada,
Speaker 6: and while she was in Canada awaiting trio, waiting extraditions,
Speaker 6: your country put up some real blocks about getting her back.
Speaker 6: And even after we said, hey, no death penalty, Okay, no,
Speaker 6: we'll take that off the table, you still kind of
Speaker 6: protected her and not you personally, but doctor Bagbie, who
Speaker 6: was his parents, actually moved to Canada to try to
Speaker 6: help with the help get the case moving. And while
Speaker 6: she was in court, she said, oh, I'm pregnant, and
Speaker 6: turned out that she was pregnant with the grandparents only child,
Speaker 6: only grandchild. The murdered doctor was their only child. Now
Speaker 6: she gives birth to their only grandchild, who looks exactly
Speaker 6: like his daddy did when he was at age. And
Speaker 6: these grandparents know that the only way they can have
Speaker 6: access to this baby is to make nice with this
Speaker 6: woman who killed their son and at least in the
Speaker 6: hopes of getting the child. The baby when she went
Speaker 6: to jail. Well, I won't give away the ending on this,
Speaker 6: but it is something that your readers just won't believe,
Speaker 6: and doctor Whet obviously never had a chance to testify
Speaker 6: in this case and would have liked to because it
Speaker 6: was really one of those emotional cases. There's a documentary
Speaker 6: that was made about it called Dear Zachary, which will
Speaker 6: just rip your heart out. And that's how I found
Speaker 6: the case. And I saw that doctor. We did the autopsy,
Speaker 6: and I said, wow, we should work on this case.
Speaker 6: So I became friends with the grandparents, and so the
Speaker 6: insight that we have on this case is is a
Speaker 6: lot more than one would read in the local press
Speaker 6: or here in the television. In either Newfoundland or Pittsburgh,
Speaker 6: where the centers of the case were based, it changed
Speaker 6: some laws and it made a difference. Again, what interests
Speaker 6: me are these parents, a grandparents, sisters, brothers of victims
Speaker 6: who had nothing to do with a criminal world before,
Speaker 6: and then they become victims themselves because their loved one
Speaker 6: is taken away, and then they become advocates for justice
Speaker 6: and they find a voice and help other people. I'm
Speaker 6: just so intrigued by that. And all of our cases
Speaker 6: have somebody there who's tilting at windmills to get justice.
Speaker 4: Yeah, hell has to know fury like a woman wrong.
Speaker 4: And now this case has another fascinating a bit of
Speaker 4: forensic science of a different kind. She drove all the way,
Speaker 4: was at Iowa Donna where we're mid western states.
Speaker 5: Yes, Iowa, I drove.
Speaker 7: She drove all the way in the nighttime and back again,
Speaker 7: and and she was probably gotten away with it fast
Speaker 7: round trip. But I think they traced her through her
Speaker 7: or through her cell phone Donna, or through the right.
Speaker 6: Right. They're great forensic and you had a competent police
Speaker 6: operation going on there too where they were, and the
Speaker 6: attorneys were just top flight all the way and also
Speaker 6: just on many many levels. It's a very interesting case.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I remember telling the state police and a corner
Speaker 4: and the at that time, I said, based upon the location,
Speaker 4: the multiple wounds and so on, not that this is
Speaker 4: hard science, but you come to learn some things, as
Speaker 4: they from theologists over a period of years. You can
Speaker 4: kind of get a feel for the category, the generic
Speaker 4: nature of a case. And I said that, you know,
Speaker 4: I'm not particularly profound, but I said, I'd looked at
Speaker 4: somebody that knows this, gentleman, Well, this is a not
Speaker 4: a murder of an opportunistic nature, robbery, burglary, sex or something.
Speaker 4: This is a murder by someone that he knew and
Speaker 4: someone that had reason to dislike himmensely at that moment,
Speaker 4: and a bud. But they did a nice job in
Speaker 4: locating and get her. And as Donna said, and this one,
Speaker 4: we really cannot tell you. But it's just to say
Speaker 4: that the ending of this is something that you would
Speaker 4: find hard to believe in a work of fiction to
Speaker 4: learn what ultimately happened with this woman and the new
Speaker 4: one child.
Speaker 6: Yeah. The other thing is in a case where you
Speaker 6: find a body that's full of bullet holes, you don't
Speaker 6: always get to assume what the scenario is. But in
Speaker 6: this one, doctor Red could make a pretty good idea
Speaker 6: of which wound happened first because of the distance of
Speaker 6: the wounds, because of gravel that was on part of
Speaker 6: his body, So you kind of get a sense of
Speaker 6: what this anger was where she, you know, shot him
Speaker 6: in the one part of his body. He fell down,
Speaker 6: hit his knees, and then she went over shot him
Speaker 6: to the back of the head and then kicked him.
Speaker 6: This this anger of this woman who was rejected by him.
Speaker 4: That's nice, a perfect springboarder, a perfect segue into the
Speaker 4: other cases. Then talking about how you reconstruct things and
Speaker 4: how you get a feel for the the identity not
Speaker 4: in a specific fashion, but the identity categorically of what
Speaker 4: kind of a person who would have committed this kind
Speaker 4: of crime. And tell then about the fourth case, then
Speaker 4: that's just fascinating.
Speaker 6: Yes, this one also has a family member who is
Speaker 6: not going to give up, and thanks to her, they
Speaker 6: put someone behind bars. This is called is. This happened
Speaker 6: in Blairsville, Pennsylvania in two thousand and six and Trilburgh,
Speaker 6: right a small town that never has any kind of
Speaker 6: crime like this, but they knew how to investigate it
Speaker 6: and how to ask for help. And the victim was
Speaker 6: a dentist that everybody loved in the community, thirty nine
Speaker 6: year old John Yellinek. And he was married to this
Speaker 6: His first marriage was to this woman who was just
Speaker 6: you know, a knockout, a bombshell, a Jessica Rabbit type
Speaker 6: of woman that you could almost hear the Dunt Dunk
Speaker 6: the Dumb theme song when she walks in the room.
Speaker 6: I mean, she was just much more than he could handle.
Speaker 6: And turns out she had a secret pass that she
Speaker 6: wasn't telling them about. And this case really is like
Speaker 6: that film, the one with Kathleen Turner body heat and
Speaker 6: William hurt where he ends up in jail and she
Speaker 6: goes off to her next sucker. But anyway, the victim
Speaker 6: was so horribly killed, and doctor Weck can talk about
Speaker 6: the nature of that crime. And then it took a
Speaker 6: long time to get the justice in this case, and
Speaker 6: it took a whole new way of looking at DNA
Speaker 6: evidence and just phenomenal. But doctor we talked about what
Speaker 6: was done to this victim, Well, what.
Speaker 4: Was done to the victim was indeed the brutal again,
Speaker 4: a savage killing that immediately tells you, when you're an
Speaker 4: experienced friends of apologist, that you're not talking about something
Speaker 4: of a chance nature and stabbed and beaten. And then
Speaker 4: and when I went to the scene and reconstructed it
Speaker 4: with the criminalist and state police, he could see where
Speaker 4: he was attempting to flee from his attacker in the
Speaker 4: living room area where he was just comfortably ensconced for
Speaker 4: the evening, reading a paper and heading for the front door.
Speaker 4: And this is the kind of a front door that
Speaker 4: has a glass on each side of the little glass
Speaker 4: panels and so on, and you could see where the
Speaker 4: attacker then brutally pushes doctor Yelnick's head through the glass
Speaker 4: panels without exaggeration, almost decapitating him. And the neck structures,
Speaker 4: the blood vessels, the trache, up the larynx, they were
Speaker 4: all severed right down to livert will callumn just a brutal,
Speaker 4: brutal killing. And that then leads into a point that
Speaker 4: Donna said, it took a long time. It sure did
Speaker 4: take a long time, not because they didn't have it
Speaker 4: done good idea of who was involved. But let me
Speaker 4: let me give you the setting. This doctor Yelnik was
Speaker 4: getting a divorced from his wife. As a matter of fact,
Speaker 4: it was going to be finalized in twenty less than
Speaker 4: twenty four hours the next day, and the next day
Speaker 4: was it was going to be officially finalized. His wife
Speaker 4: in the meantime had been his a strange wife and
Speaker 4: have been living with her new boyfriend who happened to
Speaker 4: be a state trooper. I can I can tell you
Speaker 4: who that the stage trooper is involved in this case.
Speaker 4: Within within twenty four hours or less, they had a
Speaker 4: damn good idea who probably was responsible for doctor Yelmick's death.
Speaker 4: The ones who are who are around their station and
Speaker 4: in those barracks involved in this investigation. But in an event,
Speaker 4: finally they got around to the charging him, and I
Speaker 4: testified and went through all of the brutal injuries, and
Speaker 4: there was marvelous DNA testimony given by doctor Mark Perlin,
Speaker 4: who is a colleague of mind here. He's an MD,
Speaker 4: PhD and an outstanding DNA specialist, and he did some
Speaker 4: very very sophisticated DNA studies that were extremely important in
Speaker 4: the case. And so all of this went in. The
Speaker 4: trial was handled quite well by a Deputy Attorney General.
Speaker 4: I was called in because of the you know, the
Speaker 4: affiliations of the different people that I've already alluded to.
Speaker 4: And the jury found him guilty of first degree murder.
Speaker 4: And by the way, and I'm sure Donna you know this,
Speaker 4: that the case was appealed and the Pennsylvania Pelic Court
Speaker 4: sustained the verdict and denied him a new trial, finding
Speaker 4: no basis for a new trial. So, you know, spend
Speaker 4: the rest of his life in prison for this brutal,
Speaker 4: brutal murder, and you know it, it just leads you
Speaker 4: into a very sad puzzle. The feeling that I'm sure
Speaker 4: all of us as decent human beings think of, not
Speaker 4: that any kind of a crime is to be condoned,
Speaker 4: and not that anger and the seeding nature is to
Speaker 4: be ignored. But you know, you can't help ask yourself,
Speaker 4: how how do people of sane mind and how, you know,
Speaker 4: how do they come to a point that they can't
Speaker 4: vent their anger, they can't deal with legal matters, they
Speaker 4: can take care of problems and so on in such
Speaker 4: a way as to not kill somebody yelling. And this
Speaker 4: cannot be overstated. As Donna mentioned, really was that you
Speaker 4: you could not find a person to say one bad word,
Speaker 4: just a hell of a nice guy, A hell of
Speaker 4: a nice guy.
Speaker 6: And this is all agreed, wife, And that was the
Speaker 6: problem crazy.
Speaker 4: And the thing, I'll tell you this, the thing that
Speaker 4: bothers me about the case. Uh. And I've discussed this
Speaker 4: with Donna. That wife, in my opinion, definitely should have
Speaker 4: been charged with accessory before the fact, the accessory after
Speaker 4: the fact. She had nothing to do with the murder
Speaker 4: right there at the scene. But I and that she
Speaker 4: knew nothing about it going in. She's sure as hell
Speaker 4: knew everything about it coming out. You can bet your
Speaker 4: life on that. Why he was not charged remains a
Speaker 4: great puzzle to which I do not have an answer.
Speaker 6: Well, but you know, a lot of these people, as
Speaker 6: you know, Dan, they think they're smarter than authorities. And
Speaker 6: this guy, this guy who went to jail was a forensic.
Speaker 6: He was an investigator for the state police. So he figured, well,
Speaker 6: I'll just clean my trucks. My friends are supposed to
Speaker 6: be here. I was investigating it. That's partly why it
Speaker 6: took so long. But you know, again and again we
Speaker 6: see people who are heroic family members and criminals who
Speaker 6: think they're smarter than the system. They're going to gain
Speaker 6: the system, and it's usually greed or lust that you know,
Speaker 6: makes them do what they do.
Speaker 5: It's there's stillness, there's still that, no accounting for the
Speaker 5: you see, the savagery of all of these crimes. Really, yes,
Speaker 5: and and and it's hard for me to comprehend. And
Speaker 5: as I spoke to another author, you said that the
Speaker 5: energy needed to kill like this. Again, it buggles my
Speaker 5: mind how angry someone can be to be able to
Speaker 5: do this.
Speaker 4: You're you're you're right, You're actually right, You're absolutely right. Yeah, yep, yep. Well, uh, Donna,
Speaker 4: you want to mention how people this is a different
Speaker 4: kind of a book because it's an e book maybe,
Speaker 4: and then yeah, permit just mention that please. In closing
Speaker 4: here this is we have published this book.
Speaker 6: Through Planet and Rule, which everyone who's involved in true
Speaker 6: crime knows. She is the Queen of true crime with
Speaker 6: thirty three best selling books, and she recently began with
Speaker 6: her family members a Planet and Rule dot Com, which
Speaker 6: is her ebook publishing house, and we are so happy
Speaker 6: to be a part of that. They are the brainiacs
Speaker 6: of the publishing community. They're all into true crime. They
Speaker 6: do the artwork, the translation to ebook. So you can
Speaker 6: go to Planet and Rule and download the book. But
Speaker 6: first you need a reader, so you either do it
Speaker 6: on your laptop or your computer or on a reader,
Speaker 6: and you can go. You can Google free Kindle k
Speaker 6: I n d L E download if you don't already
Speaker 6: have a Kindle or a book, which is the Barnes
Speaker 6: and Noble Kindlebean the Amazon download that for free. First
Speaker 6: I like to download it into my laptop so I
Speaker 6: can read the books on a bigger screen than you
Speaker 6: get from the handheld device. But whatever, pat your vote
Speaker 6: and then you download the book Planet and Rule dot Com.
Speaker 6: It goes right into that reader and there you have it.
Speaker 6: And it's a tremendous mud and way to read books
Speaker 6: and take them with you. So if you're on a
Speaker 6: plane or you're at the beach, you can take your
Speaker 6: book with you and not have to worry about it
Speaker 6: getting wet, and it's a really brilliant way to read it.
Speaker 6: So we're so happy to be part of Planet and Rule,
Speaker 6: and we thank Leslie and Debbie and Jake and Glenn,
Speaker 6: they're all geniuses. And Anne Rule, who wrote the forward
Speaker 6: for our book. I can't tell you how impressive of
Speaker 6: that is to us. We're just really happy to be
Speaker 6: a part of that world.
Speaker 5: Yes, it's very impressive to have and Rules endorsement, like
Speaker 5: you say, the Queen, the Undisputed Queen of true Crime,
Speaker 5: and a very very heartfelt and strong endorsement for both
Speaker 5: you and doctor Weck. Tell us just the titles of
Speaker 5: the other books that you have collaborated on together. The
Speaker 5: other two titles, please, okay.
Speaker 6: Our first one was a Question of Murder, which was
Speaker 6: about Anna Nicole Smith and her son's deaths, as well
Speaker 6: as two cases in San Diego, both wildly different and
Speaker 6: crazy legal issues, and a doctor in New Orleans during Katrina,
Speaker 6: who intentionally euthanized flew of patients and got away with it.
Speaker 6: So that's the first book, and doctor Weck's work on
Speaker 6: that is just phenomenal. And the second book is From
Speaker 6: Crime Scene to Courtroom and it covers seven cases Keithy Anthony,
Speaker 6: Michael Jackson, Drew Peterson, and Brian Jones of the Rolling
Speaker 6: Stones finally answering whether he was murdered or if it
Speaker 6: was just an accidental death. And three other cases that
Speaker 6: you may not recognize from the names, but they are,
Speaker 6: as we always say, twisty mysteries. But these things you'd
Speaker 6: have a hard time creating these kinds of scenarios if
Speaker 6: you were a fiction writer. But you know, we're lucky.
Speaker 6: We have so many different cases to choose from, and
Speaker 6: so we go with the ones that will really make
Speaker 6: an audience like to turn the pages.
Speaker 5: Yes, absolutely, it's been fantastic. And again, for those listening,
Speaker 5: we've been talking about the book final Exams with doctor
Speaker 5: Cyril Weckt and Donna Kaufman. I want to thank you
Speaker 5: both for coming on in the program and discussing this.
Speaker 5: What is in the future, what's your next project for
Speaker 5: our audience to look forward to hearing about in the
Speaker 5: near future.
Speaker 6: Oh, we got a good one. Doctor Weck is one
Speaker 6: of the world's famous experts on the JFK assassination. This
Speaker 6: being the fiftieth year since it happened, and we're writing
Speaker 6: a book called thirty excuse me, fifty Years of Wise,
Speaker 6: which kind of tells you what we think of the
Speaker 6: Warren Commission and best mitigation. And we are going to
Speaker 6: come out with this book in the near future and
Speaker 6: it will include everything that you're seeing. We're going to
Speaker 6: comment on everything that you're seeing up to date because
Speaker 6: there's a lot of in the media now. Doctor Wect
Speaker 6: isn't on television shows all the time, so we'll be
Speaker 6: bringing it up to the minute and basically cleaning up
Speaker 6: all the lies that have happened over fifty years on
Speaker 6: this case. And you know, it's compelling. He has worked
Speaker 6: this case since shortly, you know, after it happened.
Speaker 5: Yes, one of the most important cases in world history
Speaker 5: and certainly American history. And we look forward to reading
Speaker 5: that and then of course getting it back on both
Speaker 5: and discussing this very, very important and fantastic case. So
Speaker 5: I really look forward to that, and I want to
Speaker 5: thank you very much doctor Weck and Donna Kaufman for
Speaker 5: an incredible interview and for final exams, and I want
Speaker 5: to thank you, wish you all the best of them,
Speaker 5: wish you the best of luck, and hope to hear
Speaker 5: from you again soon.
Speaker 4: And the pleasure being with you. Thank you very much.
Speaker 6: We really enjoy your website and I would tell people
Speaker 6: to go to your website and look at the archived
Speaker 6: materials and all your other interviews which are just wonderful.
Speaker 6: So thank you for taking it seriously and knowing the
Speaker 6: knowing the territory.
Speaker 5: Well, thank you very much. It's in my great pleasure.
Speaker 4: Have a good evening. Thank you, thank you again, thank you,
Speaker 4: good night,