Speaker 1: It's Nightside with Dan Ray on WBZ, Boston's new radio.
Speaker 2: And welcome back Boy, Do we have a story for
Speaker 2: you here on WBC's Nightside. Killer Lies Chasing a true
Speaker 2: crime con Man from National Geographic and also Hulu. It's
Speaker 2: streaming on Hulu right now. I highly recommend it. It
Speaker 2: is a three part series. It is riveting, it's well told,
Speaker 2: it's well produced, and it's just an unbelievable story. And
Speaker 2: the director of this film joining us right now, Ben Selko. Ben,
Speaker 2: Welcome to Nightside. I've seen a lot of stuff, Ben
Speaker 2: in my life, but this one's a doozy because not
Speaker 2: only do you have serial killers and they're extremely bad people,
Speaker 2: but then you have another dude that is supposedly doing
Speaker 2: something good.
Speaker 3: And he's a liar. I mean, have you have you
Speaker 3: ever seen anything like this before?
Speaker 1: You know?
Speaker 4: I mean yes, I think you can look around in
Speaker 4: the American political sphere in all corners and find this
Speaker 4: profile character pretty readily. But you're right, I mean this,
Speaker 4: You've got, you know, a story, you know, full of
Speaker 4: serial killers, and at the heart of it is someone
Speaker 4: who is a serial liar, right, who trade trades and
Speaker 4: betrayal and you know, in our story that becomes tanam
Speaker 4: out and the most important kind of crime that is,
Speaker 4: you know, expressed over and over again, repeatedly, and you
Speaker 4: know it's something that was really wild and really wild
Speaker 4: to try to untangle.
Speaker 2: You know, I'm sure it was. I mean, you must have.
Speaker 2: We'll get into how you pull this all together, but
Speaker 2: just tell us how, you know, a quick tiase of
Speaker 2: what the series is about, and you know how you
Speaker 2: came about to develop.
Speaker 4: This so kill Lives Chasing a true Trime true crime
Speaker 4: com man is sourced from a twenty twenty two article
Speaker 4: by Lauren Collins in The New Yorker and that entitled
Speaker 4: that article originally was Murdered, he wrote, and it's about
Speaker 4: Stefan bourg Wan, who is a French serial killer expert
Speaker 4: who rose to a huge amount of prominence, built a
Speaker 4: huge following, you know, nationally in France and you know,
Speaker 4: within the true crime world, and you know, for forty
Speaker 4: years was really kind of the man on top, you know,
Speaker 4: as the go to person around talking about serial killers,
Speaker 4: and anytime there's a you know, a national event or
Speaker 4: international event, he would be called by radio, which television
Speaker 4: to appear. Was a prolific writer and you know, raised
Speaker 4: and kept elevating his profile as you know, an expert
Speaker 4: on killers, morphing into a profiler, you know, depending on
Speaker 4: the you know, the the venue, that forum, the introduction
Speaker 4: by the said host that you know, he kind of
Speaker 4: title and statue whood, it would elevate and amplify and
Speaker 4: grow every time. And so you know, he kind of
Speaker 4: was the top king of this kingdom in France for
Speaker 4: a very long time until about twenty nineteen, twenty twenty,
Speaker 4: when some of his true crime fans, some of his
Speaker 4: ardent fans, started tugging on the strings of his story
Speaker 4: a little bit, and you know, the needless to say,
Speaker 4: the sweater started to come undone and our story details
Speaker 4: the story that you know, Lauren Collins wrote The New Yorker,
Speaker 4: but also advances the investigation, goes deeper, goes further, you know,
Speaker 4: it starts all the way back in the seventies and
Speaker 4: brings this story you know, through Lauren's reporting and advances
Speaker 4: the investigation you know, until you know, you know, deep
Speaker 4: into twenty twenty three, in twenty twenty four, so it
Speaker 4: becomes very current and catches up with itself. So it's
Speaker 4: it's not as a retail of that New Yorker article,
Speaker 4: but in advances the investigation as well. Well.
Speaker 2: It's a terrific piece because you bring in personalities and
Speaker 2: of course and at the end and I don't want
Speaker 2: to give too much away because I want people to
Speaker 2: watch it, then you address the man himself. Are going
Speaker 2: in three Uh so there is definitely some conclusion, and
Speaker 2: I can tell you're in the room and you address
Speaker 2: him head on, and uh, it's just I mean, the
Speaker 2: guy has absolutely no shape. So he's talking to these
Speaker 2: serial killers. And of course there are families who their
Speaker 2: lives have been damaged and just destroyed by these serial killers.
Speaker 2: And then this guy starts to profit off it and
Speaker 2: become a celebrity with it. And just how sick is
Speaker 2: he because his whole story was built on lies. How
Speaker 2: he became the serial killer expert, and he was even
Speaker 2: plagiarizing people. I mean, he was stealing information from other people.
Speaker 2: So how sick is this guy?
Speaker 4: You know? I mean I think that's you know, one
Speaker 4: of the things we were trying to navigate is really
Speaker 4: trying to, you know, objectively look at him as you know,
Speaker 4: you know, what is this what is this pre level
Speaker 4: of premeditation, calculation. Is he an evil mastermind or is
Speaker 4: this something compulsive and pathological and involuntari a most and
Speaker 4: so uh that's that becomes part of the investigation also,
Speaker 4: you know, part of the participation of the audience. We're
Speaker 4: asking of them to say, Hey, this got mister McGoo
Speaker 4: who kind of fell into the secret eyes and grew
Speaker 4: them and exploded them and and and caught on that
Speaker 4: it's also being working, you know, or is he you know,
Speaker 4: closer to Hannibal Lecter to borrow you know, a fictional
Speaker 4: character in the zeitgeist again, you know where you know
Speaker 4: someone who is you know, a genius, you know, mad genius, evil, calculated, premeditated,
Speaker 4: you know, person designing uh this this web of lies
Speaker 4: to you know, to create self aggrandizement and build this
Speaker 4: career on. So I you know, that question is really
Speaker 4: at the core of all of this. And you know
Speaker 4: something we asked the audience to help navigate because you know,
Speaker 4: you have a very strong reaction to him, as many
Speaker 4: people do when they watch. And I think that's part
Speaker 4: of you know, the visitation to the audience is that, hey,
Speaker 4: you know you come play investigator as well. You know,
Speaker 4: you could on your you know, your lie, detect your
Speaker 4: test you're put on your antenna and see if you
Speaker 4: can catch this guy in a lie? Or is this
Speaker 4: or is this you know, something bred from a colonel
Speaker 4: of truth. So the series is really smart, it's fun,
Speaker 4: it's fast moving, but it's also participatory. So it asks
Speaker 4: a lot of the viewers to say, hey, you know, like,
Speaker 4: you know, can you kind of can you solve the
Speaker 4: crime yourself? And I think that's you know, that's also
Speaker 4: a hallmark of good crime storytelling is that it's not
Speaker 4: passive watching. It's you know, it's something that's drivening and
Speaker 4: you know, asking the audience to you know, to put
Speaker 4: on their shlock homes hat and play the ball.
Speaker 2: So he has, if I remember correctly, he actually has
Speaker 2: been in the room with I think eight.
Speaker 3: Serial killers approximately give or take.
Speaker 2: And then by the end of the story, before you
Speaker 2: guys nail them, he claims to have met with seventy
Speaker 2: seven serial killers.
Speaker 3: Do I have those numbers right in the ballpark?
Speaker 4: That's right, he claims in his career, and they always
Speaker 4: in the you know, we have all this archival footage,
Speaker 4: you know, where the numbers keep morphing and changing but
Speaker 4: I think at the peak, you know, he's he claimed
Speaker 4: to have not just met, but interviewed over seventy seven.
Speaker 4: He claimed to have thousands of hours of interview tape
Speaker 4: with you know this, you know, over with his seventy
Speaker 4: seven or more serial killers. The Fourth Eye, the investigative
Speaker 4: true crime group that started investigating him, they could only
Speaker 4: substantiate eight to nine interviews on camera at best, thirteen,
Speaker 4: you know, eight or nine interviews are on camera thirteen total.
Speaker 4: Maybe he met, but he obviously claimed way way more
Speaker 4: than that, you know, because you know, that's a staggering number.
Speaker 4: Now to put that into perspective. You know, the mind Hunter,
Speaker 4: the you know, the Netflix series is based on you know,
Speaker 4: an FBI forensic profiler named John Douglas, you know, one
Speaker 4: of the one of the most famous profilers in FBI
Speaker 4: history and in the world. He only, you know, in
Speaker 4: his book, only claims, not claims, he can substantiate having
Speaker 4: interviewed thirty six serial killers. So here's the most renowned
Speaker 4: FBI profile ser Mindhunter, with all of the tools, access
Speaker 4: and resources f the FBI, and he tapped out at
Speaker 4: thirty six. And somehow Borglon you know, got to seventy
Speaker 4: seven globally is well you can do the math on that.
Speaker 1: Well.
Speaker 2: What I also found amazing in the story was that
Speaker 2: Baguan was plagiarizing the true mind hunter, right, I mean,
Speaker 2: he was literally taking things out of his books. I
Speaker 2: mean he literally lifted, I mean, and he was all
Speaker 2: and on top of being a liar, he was also
Speaker 2: a platiss too, where he was literally taking things from
Speaker 2: what this guy had written and putting it in his
Speaker 2: own books.
Speaker 4: Well not just what John Douglas had written, but also
Speaker 4: there's a very famous South African profilers, doctor Mick Dourius,
Speaker 4: who he documentary about spent time in South Africa, you know,
Speaker 4: she you know, took him to resolved, solved serial you know,
Speaker 4: killer cases, things that had no longer you know, we're
Speaker 4: not open cases, and they you know, went around with
Speaker 4: other detectives and he profiled each one of these cases.
Speaker 4: Later we then claim to help having solved some of
Speaker 4: them interview or interrogated, which interrogation is really a term
Speaker 4: reserved for someone in law enforcement, not you know, a civilian,
Speaker 4: which Burguan is. And he so he claimed, you know,
Speaker 4: to have you know, help solve these murders and help
Speaker 4: crack these cases and the interrogation interview techniques that the
Speaker 4: detectives on the ground South Africa had not thought of,
Speaker 4: and all of these or borrowed their stories. So he actually,
Speaker 4: you know, it's two things to come out of this
Speaker 4: which are significant. One this fourth I coined this term
Speaker 4: calling volar divi, which means a stealer of lives. This
Speaker 4: is an incredible double entendre when you're talking about serial
Speaker 4: killers obviously still lives and mean like the stealer of
Speaker 4: like your soul, your actual you know, living breath. But
Speaker 4: also when in the context they meant it is the
Speaker 4: stealer of lives, that he would steal the stories of
Speaker 4: other people. And so with John Douglas, he did that.
Speaker 4: With doctor Mickey Pistorius, you know, she wrote her first
Speaker 4: manuscript a biography, autobiography of her own story. Is this,
Speaker 4: you know, groundbreaking forensic uh psychologist and profiler in South
Speaker 4: Africa who have solved innumerable ro color cases in South
Speaker 4: Africa and bringing new science to it. And wrote her
Speaker 4: you know, her kind of rememboir autobiography called Catch Me
Speaker 4: a Killer. And he took that book, asked the manuscript
Speaker 4: before it was printed, you know, went off back to
Speaker 4: France and then wrote her biography in French about her
Speaker 4: essentially in plagiarizing jute passages of her own book, a
Speaker 4: yet unpublished book. So he literally steals her, her words,
Speaker 4: her stories, her life. Uh, you know, projected onto himself
Speaker 4: to a grandize himself. And so yeah, plagiarism, you know,
Speaker 4: at Blush seems like a you know, a pretty minor offense,
Speaker 4: you know, a grade school offense, but in the context
Speaker 4: of how it's deployed to a grandize his career, uh,
Speaker 4: a grandize expertise, take credit for things he never took,
Speaker 4: you know, possibly have participated in. You know, the crime
Speaker 4: gets more and more murky, and the etical crimes get deeper,
Speaker 4: you know, and then of progressed into straight moral crimes.
Speaker 4: And that's really where you know, we find ourselves trying
Speaker 4: to adjudicate borgan Is around his you know, the moral
Speaker 4: crime he has committed over time.
Speaker 2: Well, there's some great video in the scene where he
Speaker 2: holds the profile's hand, mister story, pronounce your last.
Speaker 3: Name for me again.
Speaker 4: It's Pistorias history.
Speaker 2: Okay, So Pastoria and he's holding her hand and she's crying.
Speaker 2: She's had a crime scene and she's in tears and
Speaker 2: he holds her hand and he was like, I know,
Speaker 2: and then he drops the bomb, which you set up
Speaker 2: at the beginning. But it kind of reminded me about how,
Speaker 2: you know, his girlfriend was murdered and he's telling her
Speaker 2: I mean, and he's just totally putting himself in her place.
Speaker 3: Just a real scumbag.
Speaker 2: And he's got no soul, he has no conscious whatsoever.
Speaker 2: And what we're going to talk a Ben about next
Speaker 2: is about that girlfriend and about the alleged reason why
Speaker 2: he got into this business in the first place.
Speaker 3: It's a terrific, terrific series.
Speaker 2: It's called kill A Chasing a True crime con Man,
Speaker 2: and it's on Hulu. It's streaming right now and you
Speaker 2: should watch it more with Ben Celko, the director After
Speaker 2: the Sun night Side, It's.
Speaker 1: Night Side with Dan Read. I'm Boston's news radio.
Speaker 3: Attention.
Speaker 5: If you owe money to the IRS, this is an
Speaker 5: urgent message. The IRS is cracking down by sending out
Speaker 5: heart stopping letters, aggressively garnishing paychecks, seizing bank accounts, and
Speaker 5: putting liens on homes and businesses.
Speaker 3: They call it enforced compliance.
Speaker 5: And you better watch out because penalties and interest on
Speaker 5: unpaid taxes compound daily, making it seem impossible to ever
Speaker 5: get out of debt.
Speaker 3: Don't let the tax debt destroy your life.
Speaker 5: You need to call Optima Tax Relief, the number one
Speaker 5: tax resolution firm. They're experts in the Fresh Start Initiative,
Speaker 5: one of the biggest breaks that the IRS has ever offered.
Speaker 5: If you qualify, you could save thousands. Optimas resolved over
Speaker 5: one billion dollars of tax debt for their clients. A
Speaker 5: plus rated with the Better Business Bureau. They'll fight to
Speaker 5: get you the best deal possible. Call op tomnaw for
Speaker 5: a free consult called eight hundred three four three sixty
Speaker 5: four sixty eight hundred three four three sixty four sixty
Speaker 5: eight hundred three four three sixty four sixty.
Speaker 4: Poptim A Task Relief.
Speaker 1: Some restrictions apply.
Speaker 6: For complete details, please I saitt optimatax relief dot com.
Speaker 7: This is Dan Ray. Michael lost forty pounds with awakened
Speaker 7: one eight. He was in the same position I was in.
Speaker 7: You are most likely in confused.
Speaker 8: I spent so much money on personal trainings in the
Speaker 8: last ten years, didn't have a lot of discretion income left,
Speaker 8: so I tried to listen to everybody else, what do
Speaker 8: you eat? You know, everyone said eat healthy, define eating healthy,
Speaker 8: cut out sugar. Tell me what foods don't have sugar.
Speaker 8: So that process to me was an education. That was
Speaker 8: really the eye opening thing to me is I had
Speaker 8: ten choices of food in front of me every day.
Speaker 8: You know, when I was on the run in sales,
Speaker 8: I was making eight bad choices. I wasn't eating the
Speaker 8: two good ones. And I loved the two good ones,
Speaker 8: I just didn't know they were good. So I made
Speaker 8: bad choices every single day in the program. Going to
Speaker 8: Waken one to eighty really changed my mind, opened my
Speaker 8: eyes up to It was a true education on food,
Speaker 8: what to eat, what not to eat, and it's spent intact.
Speaker 7: Knowing what to eat, the ability to navigate nutrition labels,
Speaker 7: a proven clear path for weight loss. Exactly what you
Speaker 7: will receive with Awaken one, Indy, leave confusion at the
Speaker 7: door and do what we did Awaken when aityweightloss dot Com.
Speaker 3: This weekend, It's the Italian Feast of Saint Cosmas and
Speaker 3: Damien and.
Speaker 9: Warren Street than East Cambridge, British Austin.
Speaker 3: And Brenda k Star.
Speaker 10: Saturday, the original cover Girl.
Speaker 4: And Motown Legend Miss Delahouston.
Speaker 1: Sunday on Brooks The Crystal Flame Food Mere amusement rides
Speaker 1: this weekend in East Cambridge.
Speaker 3: Visit Cosmos and Dashtamion dot org. Hey guys, Billy Costa here.
Speaker 9: If somebody told you you might have money you didn't
Speaker 9: know about, you'd be skeptical, but don't be. The Massachusetts
Speaker 9: State Treasurer's Office has a program that returns unclaimed property
Speaker 9: back to you. Every state and the US has a
Speaker 9: program like it, and here the website. The search is
Speaker 9: findmass money dot gov. Both times I looked, I found money.
Speaker 9: I had a refund from a car overpayment and another
Speaker 9: refund from a previous car lease bill. So if you
Speaker 9: checked before, check again. Go to findmass money dot gov.
Speaker 10: Everyone knows that warrendale applies at Waldam is New England's
Speaker 10: number one home appliance leader, and if you're a contractor,
Speaker 10: developer or property manager handling one to one thousand units,
Speaker 10: we absolutely guarantee to be any price from any competitor anywhere.
Speaker 10: So for refrigerators, stoves, ranges, washers, dryers, dishwashers, grills.
Speaker 5: And more.
Speaker 10: When it comes to saving on appliance is everyone singing
Speaker 10: the same to say the wardell applies one's seventy High
Speaker 10: Street Walltham.
Speaker 3: No two people are the same.
Speaker 6: Each may have the same cancer, yet each may need
Speaker 6: a different treatment. At Dana Farber Brigham Cancer Center, we
Speaker 6: are specialists. All we do is cancer. Our personal line
Speaker 6: approach gives us a deeper understanding of your.
Speaker 3: Needs and how to get you well.
Speaker 6: For an appointment in Boston, Foxborough, Milford or south Shore,
Speaker 6: contact Dana Farber Brigham dot org. We specialize in cancer
Speaker 6: and you.
Speaker 1: Now back to Dan Ray live from the Window World
Speaker 1: Nightside Studios on WBZ News Radio.
Speaker 3: Hey, welcome back Gary Tangley for Dan Ray.
Speaker 2: Tonight You're on w BZY Killer Lies Chasing a true
Speaker 2: crime con man with director Ben Salcoe Stefan Agoin who
Speaker 2: he is something else, supposedly an expert on serial killers
Speaker 2: and telling many lies himself saying that he met with
Speaker 2: up to seventy seven serial killers but actually only really
Speaker 2: met with eight. He ended up consulting with law enforcement,
Speaker 2: was involved teaching law enforcement and this is a terrific
Speaker 2: series on Hulu, three part series that you should watch. So, Ben,
Speaker 2: where do we at the beginning? First of all, I
Speaker 2: thought it was structured. You did a great job putting
Speaker 2: this project together. Other at the beginning, he's on the
Speaker 2: typewriter and he's talking about his girlfriend that was killed
Speaker 2: in the seventies, and then you read it's re introduced
Speaker 2: to us again when he's in South Africa. So fill
Speaker 2: us in on that angle of his life.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so you know, you know, in you know, in
Speaker 4: the latter part, you know, I would say, you know,
Speaker 4: after he'd got in his career going into public life. Like,
Speaker 4: I think his story has many beginning points, but one
Speaker 4: that's important for the series and one that's important in
Speaker 4: in the meta conversation. The story you know, tangled with
Speaker 4: is you know, starts start with nineteen ninety one. Nineteen
Speaker 4: ninety one was a year that you know, Silence of
Speaker 4: the Lambs comes out, and that becomes an international hit,
Speaker 4: and it becomes this you know, ficialization of you know,
Speaker 4: profilers and the FBI serial killers, and it kind of
Speaker 4: elevates with you know, Anthony Hopkins performance the serial killer
Speaker 4: into this kind of mastermind, genius, charismatic specter that you
Speaker 4: know kind of just transcends entertainment and becomes really part
Speaker 4: of the cultural zitgeist. I think, you know, true crime
Speaker 4: has existed as a genre. Crime fiction has existed as
Speaker 4: a genre, you know, for decades before, but this nineteen
Speaker 4: ninety one becomes a really important moment and the kind
Speaker 4: of cultural consciousness that's globally, that's not just in the US.
Speaker 4: Bourguan starts. You know, had been working in a crime
Speaker 4: fiction bookstore in Paris that he worked at for years
Speaker 4: and years and had a notion through a friend to
Speaker 4: make a documentary around serial killers in France who cannot
Speaker 4: get access to the prisons in the United States in
Speaker 4: the early nineties they would let you in with cameras
Speaker 4: to interview all manner of people, and they had the
Speaker 4: temerity to get it together. They petitioned a bunch of
Speaker 4: prisons in the States and came to the States and
Speaker 4: started making a documentary for French television around serial killers,
Speaker 4: and he interviewed you know, you know, three of a
Speaker 4: very high profile serial killers had temper uh otus tool
Speaker 4: injure our shaper. And these are people who had you know,
Speaker 4: a lot of notoriety in the criminal justice world, in
Speaker 4: the crime fiction world, true true crime world, bursioning true
Speaker 4: crime world. Uh and then a pretty exceptional documentary that
Speaker 4: about some play in France. But he started to parlay
Speaker 4: that into uh, some media attention. He wrote a book
Speaker 4: from that, you know, started grabbing more attention, and you know,
Speaker 4: true crime starts to take off in a kind of
Speaker 4: global phenomenon as a as an interesting genre as television expands,
Speaker 4: cable television answers the picture later the Internet, and he's
Speaker 4: writing this kind of this true crime wave of expansion
Speaker 4: into our kind of you know, audiences fascination, and he's
Speaker 4: you know, taking that journey. Now when he's starting to
Speaker 4: make these television appearances, you know, he's starting to get
Speaker 4: interview questions around the peculiarities of his fixation on serial killers.
Speaker 4: And I think this we suspect that it was because
Speaker 4: he was starting to you know, put people off or
Speaker 4: put people off balance, that he all of a sudden
Speaker 4: volunteers that he too is a victim in fact, and
Speaker 4: all of a sudden, you know, the hosts of these
Speaker 4: shows started straightening him, giving him a different kind of respect.
Speaker 4: And the look that he's.
Speaker 3: Found sympathy was that, and sympathy.
Speaker 4: Sympathy exactly so. And you know in the story that
Speaker 4: he puts forth is in the seventies while living in
Speaker 4: the United States. He had taken a girlfriend or wife
Speaker 4: or lover and the you know, the term keeps changing,
Speaker 4: not just beyond translation. And he came home one day
Speaker 4: and found her decapitated, mutilated, raped, eviscerated. Uh, you know,
Speaker 4: just came home with this horrific scene in his home
Speaker 4: in California. And that's where his you know, his lover
Speaker 4: girlfriend wife was killed. And so in fact, he you know,
Speaker 4: was a you know, a survivor, not of a serial
Speaker 4: killer attack, but of you know, of a victims you know,
Speaker 4: a victim survivor. So he uses that story, which you know,
Speaker 4: turns into a thing where he becomes kind of unassailable,
Speaker 4: you know, where posts are no longer asking him his
Speaker 4: origin story, right, they tell him. They let him do it,
Speaker 4: but they don't critique it. They don't research it because
Speaker 4: hale cous to me to you know, to press on
Speaker 4: someone's pain or trauma or history, you know. And this
Speaker 4: is in the mid nineties, and so you know, they
Speaker 4: don't have the same tools or research. They're in France.
Speaker 4: There's the barrier of language, since it's all happened in America,
Speaker 4: and this is all you know, we suspect it very intentional, right,
Speaker 4: where he uses his bilingual abilities in English and French
Speaker 4: to keep you know, the French, the prying eyes of
Speaker 4: the French at bay, because at that point in the
Speaker 4: early nineties, you know, the diplomatic language of France, of
Speaker 4: Europe is French. That France is not particularly bilingual. Now
Speaker 4: you go to France and the whole generation, everyone's speak
Speaker 4: perfect English, especially in Paris and all these places. But
Speaker 4: you know, for decades it was not this case. And
Speaker 4: so if you spoke English, that was a real rarity
Speaker 4: in France. And he traded upon that over and over again,
Speaker 4: where he was borrowing things in English, taking of as
Speaker 4: his own in French because he knew that there'd be
Speaker 4: no kind of critique or trail. And there's time went
Speaker 4: forward that that started to come apart. But anyway, he
Speaker 4: uses the story of his you know, slain lover as
Speaker 4: a way to create sympathy too, to make his story
Speaker 4: kind of unassailable. And then later in the two thousands
Speaker 4: that we see in you know, in our series Kill Lives,
Speaker 4: he starts to insinuate himself into survivors groups, family members
Speaker 4: who lost someone who was killed by a serial Killer
Speaker 4: and gains their trusts. You know, is going attends their
Speaker 4: trials as this. You know, there's a group that is
Speaker 4: formed to advocate. He's on the board of it, and
Speaker 4: he becomes a you know, a kind of face and
Speaker 4: a figure of these you know, survivors and you know,
Speaker 4: and so when we talk about moral injury at moral crime,
Speaker 4: it's really at that. That's the heart of that, where
Speaker 4: you know, the betrayal of trust is so egregious and
Speaker 4: on such kind of repentant terms that you know, that's
Speaker 4: where if you had any tympathy for him in his story,
Speaker 4: which we are packing in the third episode to truly
Speaker 4: give him, the writer of response a sympathetic lens, as
Speaker 4: we give every every person in the sporty, when you
Speaker 4: come back to that moral center and his crimes in
Speaker 4: that space, it's it's hard to walk that back.
Speaker 2: This guy was he was delusional. I mean, he was
Speaker 2: really delusional. Because when when when I saw I heard
Speaker 2: the name and I saw the video of Charlie Manson
Speaker 2: come into your piece, I said, oh boy, I go
Speaker 2: this guy has really lost it. And we're going to
Speaker 2: talk about that next with Ben Selko here on WBZ.
Speaker 2: Killer Lies Chasing a True crime con man Stefan ba
Speaker 2: going on WBZ It's.
Speaker 1: Night Side on Boston's news radio.
Speaker 2: Welcome Back Killerlies Chasing a True crime con Man Ben
Speaker 2: Selko the director of this terrific series on Hulu streaming
Speaker 2: right now.
Speaker 3: You could check it out.
Speaker 2: It's about French serial killer experts savan by Going, who
Speaker 2: turned out to be well, quite frankly a fraud, so
Speaker 2: made up a lot of this stuff. He met with
Speaker 2: eight serial killers, that he met with seventy seven if
Speaker 2: an expert became a consultant to police authorities, and then
Speaker 2: and then I also want to get to the fact
Speaker 2: that he also started to say that he was solving murders.
Speaker 2: But when the Charles Manson thing hit, Ben, this is
Speaker 2: not a funny topic, but I just insanely laughed out loud. So,
Speaker 2: you know, he claims to have met Charles Manson, but
Speaker 2: when you nailed him, he told a different story.
Speaker 4: Yeah, So his story about Charles Manson is you know,
Speaker 4: you know both you know what it makes you sit
Speaker 4: up because it's one of the most notorious kind of
Speaker 4: cult figures and you know, in American history. But the
Speaker 4: short he tells is about how he tried to dominate,
Speaker 4: you know, where Charles Manson sat on the back of
Speaker 4: his chair to try to dominate, right right, right, right, yeah,
Speaker 4: which also the story that John Douglas tells, because John
Speaker 4: Douglas actually interviewed Charles Manson, John Douglas, the mind hunter,
Speaker 4: the profiler from the FBI, who is you know, a
Speaker 4: storied profiler, you know, someone who actually interviewed, you know,
Speaker 4: over thirty six the Serokillers is his own right, actually
Speaker 4: interviewed Charles Manson. Then the story he tells me is,
Speaker 4: you know, his biography is our biography is about how
Speaker 4: Manson tried to intimidate if by sitting on the back
Speaker 4: of his chair. Because Manson is a pretty slight fellow,
Speaker 4: so for Juan would tell that story as that. And
Speaker 4: then as you pressed them, he's like, well, I didn't
Speaker 4: actually interview him. Act well, I know, I saw him
Speaker 4: on the yard of a prison. I was at well,
Speaker 4: you know, like you know, the story starts to deteriorate
Speaker 4: as you press him on the details, and you know,
Speaker 4: this lack of substantiation exists, but that that tells you
Speaker 4: the audacity of the live which goes to you know,
Speaker 4: some of these adages about in frauds and cons and
Speaker 4: scams is like, you know, go big on your lie. Right,
Speaker 4: the bigger you go, the more less, the less likely
Speaker 4: the audiences to you know, quesh it right. You know
Speaker 4: he'll be timid with your live And so he really
Speaker 4: embraced that spirit and Manson story is you know, a
Speaker 4: complete encapsulation of that.
Speaker 2: But what did he do or can you give us
Speaker 2: some examples of where he started to take credit I
Speaker 2: believe right for solving murders or becoming involved investigations.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so he certainly was invited by the Gendarmes, which
Speaker 4: is a kind of you know, police group in France
Speaker 4: and would you know, use his expertise, and usually he
Speaker 4: would just reshow his film from nineteen ninety one about
Speaker 4: you know, with the American zerial killers and give his
Speaker 4: you know, his speech on the profile of you know,
Speaker 4: proclivities of serial killers and you know child trauma and
Speaker 4: their sexual deviance and fixate on that and that would
Speaker 4: be his like teaching and lessons. But where he very
Speaker 4: specifically in one radio show you know, detailed you know,
Speaker 4: helping solve or elicitly a confession from you know, Stuart
Speaker 4: Wilkin who is a serial killer in South Africa. And
Speaker 4: the story he told was that he knew that the
Speaker 4: victims is to an we're we're children. He solicited the
Speaker 4: foot you know, so we're wan claims to have taking
Speaker 4: you know, asked the detective on the scenes for photos
Speaker 4: of his children, you know, put them all over the
Speaker 4: wall of the interview with interrogation room. Uh. And from that,
Speaker 4: you know, solicited, you know, triggered this the serial killer
Speaker 4: in South Africa and solicted his confession. Now that's you know,
Speaker 4: not true because that case had already by the time
Speaker 4: he went to South Africa. There was time that case
Speaker 4: had already gone to trial till Wilkin was in prison.
Speaker 4: He spent time with the detective who put that serial
Speaker 4: killer in prison, Uh, who deployed that technique himself. And
Speaker 4: so he you know, he appropriates the story of legitimate
Speaker 4: law enforcement, you know, claims it as his own as
Speaker 4: this kind of mysterious uh. You know, international man of
Speaker 4: interrogation and you know Prime Stopper and you know in Bregue,
Speaker 4: you know, I pressed them on this. Well, I mean
Speaker 4: that's outrageous. Why would you do that? He said, Well,
Speaker 4: you know, I can't help myself. I get in front
Speaker 4: of an audience and you know, I feel the need
Speaker 4: to tell these stories, and you know, it just floods
Speaker 4: my mind, you know, comes out of my mouth. It floods,
Speaker 4: you know, just floods. I can't It's almost involuntary. I
Speaker 4: can't stop myself. And in the third episode, you know,
Speaker 4: we try to he tries to explain why as you
Speaker 4: go deep into his kind of psychology, his childhood, his parents,
Speaker 4: you know, the stories like wow, hotly cal and that's
Speaker 4: a remarkable finding in his backstory that you know, helps
Speaker 4: him rationalize why he did this. And again never with apology,
Speaker 4: never with contrition, just kind of continued rationalization. But the
Speaker 4: third episode is a great uh you know, windy backstory
Speaker 4: that that tries to poke it origin stories in general,
Speaker 4: and poke at his and let him, uh, let the
Speaker 4: audience contend with you know, the facts of his background.
Speaker 2: What did you think of him when you met with him?
Speaker 4: Well, it's funny, you know. I give Lauren Collins, the
Speaker 4: New Yorker writer, a lot of credit because when she
Speaker 4: in twenty twenty two and she did the reporting, she
Speaker 4: reached out to him initially, Uh, he didn't get back
Speaker 4: to her.
Speaker 9: Uh.
Speaker 4: And then eventually she did what she normally never does.
Speaker 4: This is kind of the midst of COVID. You know,
Speaker 4: she just she took a train and a bus to
Speaker 4: his town and just kind of pulled up to town
Speaker 4: and called him. She says, I think I'm standing outside
Speaker 4: of your house. Uh it was the wrong house. And
Speaker 4: he said, well, he's gonna be here in fifteen minutes.
Speaker 4: I'll see you. And so she went there, you know,
Speaker 4: with her research assistant, you know, a young woman from
Speaker 4: you know, living in Paris. So it's just two two two,
Speaker 4: you know women, you know, going into like you know,
Speaker 4: this kind of theater of horrors. As she describes his home,
Speaker 4: that was, you know, really impressive. You know. I went
Speaker 4: there with you know, you know, a crew of eight
Speaker 4: of people, and you know, I'm not a small dude.
Speaker 3: And like, yeah, he's not going to do anything to you.
Speaker 4: No, but you know, but despite that, with the full crew,
Speaker 4: I you see you play basketball. You've heard the report, Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 4: So but I went into the house. I was completely
Speaker 4: on edge when I was in his house. His house
Speaker 4: is full of of true crime and crime fiction ephemera,
Speaker 4: you know, bloody books, and you know, a huge collection
Speaker 4: anytime you see someone of the giant Hordish collection of
Speaker 4: any Chandre and he had a horror crime fiction like
Speaker 4: you know, you see an obsessimist quality there. I was
Speaker 4: on edge. You were in the middle of you know,
Speaker 4: like you know, western France and some small town and
Speaker 4: I was like, you know, he's you know, he took
Speaker 4: us around his home. He's you know, he was generous
Speaker 4: in that spirit, I guess in his home, but like
Speaker 4: he took us into the far reaches of his attic
Speaker 4: to show us different collections. And I was on the
Speaker 4: edge of the entire time. You know, with time I relaxed,
Speaker 4: but you know I found him. I didn't know what
Speaker 4: to expect that I wanted to be prepared for anything.
Speaker 4: And you know, I don't think there was a material
Speaker 4: physical threat, but I was very on edge with spending
Speaker 4: time with him.
Speaker 3: Well, Ben, it is.
Speaker 2: It is a terrific piece of work, and I know
Speaker 2: that you've put in a lot of work in this career.
Speaker 3: So I want people to watch it. Go check it
Speaker 3: out on Hulu.
Speaker 2: Produced by National Geographic Game by Hulu, directed by Ben Selke.
Speaker 2: Know Killer Lies Chasing a true crime con man. But
Speaker 2: before I let you go. I do have to ask
Speaker 2: you that I did notice you are a production assistant.
Speaker 2: I believe was it on Meet the Parents?
Speaker 4: I was a production assistant I Meet the Parents?
Speaker 3: Okay, So here's my question.
Speaker 2: In Twenty eight Days, which I'd loved, by the way,
Speaker 2: with Vigo Mortensen and Sandra Bullock, why did you leave
Speaker 2: that type of entertainment to go into what you're doing now?
Speaker 2: Because I know what you do now takes a lot
Speaker 2: of work and it's big. I mean, you know, being
Speaker 2: a documentarian right now is really a good place to
Speaker 2: be in this business and it's booming quite frankly. People
Speaker 2: love documentaries, they love the true crime. But what led
Speaker 2: you to go from scripted into this world?
Speaker 4: It's funny, you know. I went to college and studied,
Speaker 4: you know, film, and thought I was going to be
Speaker 4: a screenwriter, you know, got out of college and realized
Speaker 4: they don't give you the keys of the studio, you know,
Speaker 4: just as a college with a college degree, right you know,
Speaker 4: started teaching, you know, and you know, having time thinking
Speaker 4: I was having time to write. I happened to have
Speaker 4: Harrison Ford's daughter in my class, and his wife was
Speaker 4: a screenwriter. She wrote the team Melissa Mathesons, and so
Speaker 4: Be befriended them somehow, and by the grace of the
Speaker 4: cinema gods, invited me to work on his film in
Speaker 4: nineteen ninety nine called a Random Park. So that was
Speaker 4: my entree to the film business as a production assistant.
Speaker 4: I went in as what they call silver spoon, someone
Speaker 4: who with the nepotism right. So I got into set
Speaker 4: and all these hard working production assistants and grinding trying
Speaker 4: to get their DGA days, and you know, they and
Speaker 4: here I am with a brand new like rebook, you know,
Speaker 4: iris and choose and you know, great attitude. I had
Speaker 4: screen ground down yet and they were but useless. But
Speaker 4: they took me under the wing and I eventually, you know,
Speaker 4: I learned the craft and the trade of being a
Speaker 4: production assistant and working for assistant directors. But that path
Speaker 4: is a really long long path, and I, you know,
Speaker 4: ultimately wanted to be a director, a creative And after
Speaker 4: about two years of working in documentary, I mean in
Speaker 4: scripted films, you know, working with the very best decision directors,
Speaker 4: learning a ton about how to run a set, you know,
Speaker 4: I bought a camera and started making the first documentary
Speaker 4: because I wanted to be literally close to the camera.
Speaker 4: I felt like the proximity to the camera was where
Speaker 4: the creative decisions were happening, and as a production system
Speaker 4: I had access to be near it, but not making decisions,
Speaker 4: but by in the documentary I felt like, well, I
Speaker 4: can you know, activate my own agency creatively. I didn't
Speaker 4: know it would be such a hard, long life of
Speaker 4: you know, putting in many, many, many years, but you know,
Speaker 4: very you know, have a lot of gratitude for all
Speaker 4: the people along the way who you know, helped pull
Speaker 4: me along and collaborated to make projects like this one.
Speaker 4: But you know, ultimately it was about having kind of
Speaker 4: you know, immediacy, uh and being in the center of
Speaker 4: the creative process. And that was the part of documentary filmmaking,
Speaker 4: storytellings I love, and documentaries you know, in way I
Speaker 4: can two thousands felt like the way to be at
Speaker 4: that center that you know, where that was the heat
Speaker 4: was burning, you know, most intensely, and that's where I
Speaker 4: wanted to be.
Speaker 2: Why do you think it's so popular now? And I'll
Speaker 2: throw podcasting there as well. I mean my wife who
Speaker 2: you know, well, Randy, I mean, she loves true crime podcasts.
Speaker 2: We get in the car and I'm like, what are
Speaker 2: we listening to? You know, can I just you know,
Speaker 2: what are we doing here? And the craziest, creepiest stuff.
Speaker 2: People love true crime, but people also love documentaries now,
Speaker 2: and I think one of the reasons, I think is
Speaker 2: because there's a lot of footage available. Right there's a
Speaker 2: lot of there's a lot of great stories, whether it
Speaker 2: be from music or from entertainment or from politics. There's
Speaker 2: a lot of stories. There's a lot of film footage available,
Speaker 2: and a lot of people you can talk to where
Speaker 2: you can create a documentary like you have.
Speaker 3: That brings the same drama of a feature film.
Speaker 4: Oh Like they say truth is stranger than friction, you
Speaker 4: know fiction, and you know, and you know you ultimately
Speaker 4: we're most interested in the unknown. We're interested in the
Speaker 4: kind of boundaries and depths of human behavior and getting
Speaker 4: us close to that kind of flip of the switch
Speaker 4: when things, you know, go the other way, when civility
Speaker 4: is left and horror and violence, when people want to
Speaker 4: know where that edge is. And so true crime nonfiction
Speaker 4: allows that safe exploration through you know, human behavior, and
Speaker 4: it's like, you know, it's like why we rubber neck
Speaker 4: it's why we can't look away. It's because it's a
Speaker 4: opportunity to touch death, the ends of finality, to touch
Speaker 4: the unknown, to touch what we might be capable of,
Speaker 4: or how we might react when when encountering something you know,
Speaker 4: so so extreme. And I think that's all of those things.
Speaker 4: There's different reasons why people watch through crime while they
Speaker 4: watch documentaries, but those those are some in the true
Speaker 4: crime space that seem you know, really applicable, really human,
Speaker 4: really accessible, and it's fact that you know, it's not
Speaker 4: something exotic far away, it's something in our backyards, our neighbors,
Speaker 4: our family members, like it's around us, and so understanding
Speaker 4: it better baby gives us some feeling of agency and
Speaker 4: power that we might be able to sniff it out
Speaker 4: or participate or detect it or save ourselves or are
Speaker 4: curious about, you know, what our own limits are. How
Speaker 4: would we deeled it if we were in the it
Speaker 4: was in our face, And so I think that's why
Speaker 4: people want to do it. And then people are smart.
Speaker 4: They want to outwit the police, they want out with
Speaker 4: the investigators, they want to they don't want to be
Speaker 4: a mark. And so you know, somehow true crime becomes
Speaker 4: like a training ground to to not be a mark
Speaker 4: and to to to gain skill and investigation. And you know,
Speaker 4: and as a filmmaker, you know, audiences are really smart
Speaker 4: right now, and.
Speaker 2: So they are that's exactly right. They are very smart.
Speaker 2: You just nailed it. The audience who has become better
Speaker 2: educated over time, but.
Speaker 4: Not just not just in you know, crime is you
Speaker 4: know as a field of forensics, but also in filmmaking.
Speaker 4: And so you can't trick an audience, you'll betray it.
Speaker 4: You know, you can't participate the way Bourguan it did
Speaker 4: and betraying people. As a filmmaker, you can't misdirect them
Speaker 4: and and you know you can't, like there's no there's
Speaker 4: no cheeko, there's no lazy filmmaking.
Speaker 1: Now.
Speaker 4: The audiences are too smart and so you have to
Speaker 4: respect the hell out of them, and you know and
Speaker 4: make work that you know expects a lot of them,
Speaker 4: because you know they're educated or smart with both the
Speaker 4: craft of filmmaking and and TV as well as you
Speaker 4: know around true crime. And so you know you can't
Speaker 4: play with them. You have to you have to be
Speaker 4: you know, both artful, intelligent and try to stay a
Speaker 4: step ahead. But it's very difficult and your audiences are
Speaker 4: maximum respect right now. And so the challenge is a.
Speaker 2: Filmmaker, Well you did a great job killer lies chasing
Speaker 2: a true crime con man and stefan by going he
Speaker 2: is this dude is a serial killer expert, but he
Speaker 2: was really a fraud and made a lot of it
Speaker 2: up and turned out to be quite a sick man.
Speaker 2: And you should watch it on Hulu. Produced by National
Speaker 2: Geographic and Hulu and it's streaming right now. Three part series.
Speaker 2: Well produced, well done, well directed. Ben, Thanks for coming on.
Speaker 2: I wish you the best of luck.
Speaker 4: Thanks so masche for having me on. And yeah, look
Speaker 4: forward to hearing the audience's responses.
Speaker 2: All right, Bet, I'll talk to you soon, buddy, take care.
Speaker 2: All right, there's Ben Stelko joining us here. It's a
Speaker 2: crazy story, it really is. It's kind of you know,
Speaker 2: as I'm watching this someway, where's this going? Okay, we're
Speaker 2: talking about serial killers and he's talking to some real
Speaker 2: creepy people. But the serial killer expert turned out to
Speaker 2: be pretty creeping himself. No, he didn't go as far
Speaker 2: as the people he was covering, the serial killers, but
Speaker 2: he turned into a serial liar, serial plagiarist, played with
Speaker 2: a lot of people's emotions, passed himself off as an expert,
Speaker 2: became involved in criminal investigations. And the thing that's really
Speaker 2: amazing about this, when things happen like this, nobody questioned them, Yeah, okay,
Speaker 2: must be true.
Speaker 3: Yeah, they all bought in good stuff.
Speaker 2: Check it out Killer Lies Chasing a True crime con
Speaker 2: Man and it is streaming on Hulu. Coming up eleven
Speaker 2: o'clock tonight, we're gonna talk a little football. Nicole Yang
Speaker 2: joins us from the Boston Globe as we get ready
Speaker 2: for that Patriot. Somebody asked me today how many games
Speaker 2: are the Patriots gonna win? I go, doesn't matter.
Speaker 3: Five at the most, at the most. And you need
Speaker 3: to be okay with that, people, you need to be
Speaker 3: okay with that.
Speaker 2: Coming up at ten o'clock, I will talk to author
Speaker 2: Christy Cashman about her book The Truth About Horses, terrific
Speaker 2: story about a fourteen year old girl rhis Tucker. That's
Speaker 2: all a ten and I have some news to talk
Speaker 2: to you about coming up next, involving that school shooting
Speaker 2: in Georgia. On wbz's Night Side.
Speaker 1: Now back to Dan Ray Live from the Window World
Speaker 1: Night Side Studios on WBZ News Radio.
Speaker 2: Welcome back, Gary Tangway for Dan ray tonight, so an
Speaker 2: updated on the Georgia shooting as the father of the
Speaker 2: Georgia school suspect has been arrested in charge with second
Speaker 2: degree murder amongst the charges. Well, that's one of the chargers,
Speaker 2: the father of fourteen year old the fourteen year old
Speaker 2: boy called Gray. His father has been arrested and faces
Speaker 2: charges including second degree murder and involuntary manslaughter for allowing
Speaker 2: his son to possess a weapon. It's the latest example
Speaker 2: of prosecutors holding and I'm reading from the Boston Globe,
Speaker 2: so just to give them credit, the latest, say, the
Speaker 2: example of prosecutors holding parents responsible for their children's actions
Speaker 2: in school shootings. We all remember what Michigan right with
Speaker 2: the Crumpleys. They were convicted. That was crazy and they
Speaker 2: got ten years in prison.
Speaker 3: That was crazy. The mom and dad were like, yeah,
Speaker 3: I mean they brought him to school with the Crumblings
Speaker 3: and mission. They brought him to school that morning and
Speaker 3: said listen, we're worried about your son. They just blew
Speaker 3: it off. They just absolutely just blew it up off.
Speaker 3: So Colin Gray fifty four years old.
Speaker 2: The father of Colt Gray was charged with four counts
Speaker 2: of involuntary manslaughter, two counts of second degree murder, eight
Speaker 2: counts of cruelty to children. These charges stem from mister
Speaker 2: Gray knowingly allowing his son cult to possess a weapon.
Speaker 2: Charges are directly connected to the actions of his son
Speaker 2: and allowing him to possess weapon. Now, from what I understand,
Speaker 2: there were warning signs with his son Clt before this.
Speaker 3: Boy. It's a tough one because.
Speaker 2: Look, I have hunters in my family, and when you're
Speaker 2: fourteen fifteen years old, that's when you start to go
Speaker 2: hunting with your father, your mother, and your uncles and
Speaker 2: your brothers and sisters.
Speaker 3: And it's a thing.
Speaker 2: And I'm fine, you know personally, Like I said, I
Speaker 2: have relatives that have guns in the house and they
Speaker 2: separate the ammunition from the guns, and they have locked
Speaker 2: gun racks and very responsible gun owner.
Speaker 3: There's no problem with that. But there's a history with
Speaker 3: the young man. You gotta lock up the guns, you
Speaker 3: gotta lock up the guns. I mean, something has to happen.
Speaker 2: Because when it comes to America in school shootings and
Speaker 2: public shootings, I mean, it is just rampant It is
Speaker 2: just scary. Is my numbing that this is happening and
Speaker 2: we're numb? I mean, I say my numbing, we're numb
Speaker 2: to it? Or another school shooting. Oh okay, we are
Speaker 2: absolutely numb to this, which is scary as hell. Maybe
Speaker 2: the only way to stop it or prevent it from
Speaker 2: happening again is to hold the parents accountable, lock up
Speaker 2: the weapons. It's a tough one, but we're in a
Speaker 2: desperate time with this, a very desperate time with this,
Speaker 2: because this is coming. This has become the norm much
Speaker 2: too often. Sure, we'll have more on that coming up
Speaker 2: to the News at ten o'clock. Still to come. On
Speaker 2: wbz's Night Side, we'll talk about the Patriots upcoming season.
Speaker 2: That's at eleven o'clock when Nicole Yang and Christy Cashwo's
Speaker 2: going to join me next and Christie does just about everything,
Speaker 2: including on a castle. I believe that it's next on WBZ.