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Speaker 9: You are now listening to true Murder, The most shocking
Speaker 9: killers in true crime history and the authors that have
Speaker 9: written about them.
Speaker 10: Gasey Bundy, Dahmer, The Nightstalker BTK.
Speaker 9: Every week, another fascinating author talking about the most shocking
Speaker 9: and infamous killers in true crime history. True Murder with
Speaker 9: your host, journalist and author Dan Zupanski. Mary Thompson was
Speaker 9: your average mother in early nineteen nineties Eugene, Oregon. She
Speaker 9: was a community organizer and upstanding citizen by day. By night,
Speaker 9: she was Gangmum, living the ultimate double life. Thompson ran
Speaker 9: a gang of teenagers, including her own son, who terrorized
Speaker 9: the unsuspecting city with drugs and violence. When a fellow
Speaker 9: gang member named Aaron Atura was suspected of snitching on
Speaker 9: Thoms's son, Bo, she mercilessly put a hit on him.
Speaker 9: Fred Rosen's Gangmum gives an inside look into the true
Speaker 9: story of a mother who would do anything, even murder,
Speaker 9: to protect her son and keep her gang empire alive.
Speaker 9: The book they were featuring this evening is Gangmum, The
Speaker 9: Evil Mother whose gang secretly prayed on a city. With
Speaker 9: my special guest, journalist and author Fred Rosen, Welcome back
Speaker 9: to the program and thank you very much once again
Speaker 9: for appearing on this program. Fred Rosen, Well, Dan the
Speaker 9: man Zupansky, It is always my pleasure to be with you,
Speaker 9: sir Well, I would say respectfully that it's always my pleasure.
Speaker 9: And Againaradi and a lot of Sometimes Fred Rosen has
Speaker 9: been on very many times. You've often been controversial, So
Speaker 9: not with high controversy.
Speaker 6: I won't disappoint Dan.
Speaker 10: Now this yeah, absolutely? Uh Now with this gang, mom,
Speaker 10: let's let's start with the Open Road tell us a
Speaker 10: little bit about this reissue.
Speaker 6: And before we.
Speaker 10: Start anything, let's tell us take us back to how
Speaker 10: you came to be involved with this project. And but
Speaker 10: first tell us about this reissue. This from this Open
Speaker 10: Road publication.
Speaker 6: Sure. Open Road Media is the largest publisher of the
Speaker 6: books in I guess in North America. Uh, And they
Speaker 6: are publishing a lot of my true crime books that
Speaker 6: I did previously for other publishers that quite frankly went
Speaker 6: to out of print. And so this is one of
Speaker 6: those books. And what they do, which is really cool,
Speaker 6: is they repub them. But the e books sell for like,
Speaker 6: I don't know, four ninety nine, five thirty nine, something
Speaker 6: like that, so they're really I think affordable, and then
Speaker 6: if a person wants a hard copy, they can buy
Speaker 6: a trade paperback which sells for twelve ninety nine. And
Speaker 6: it gives me an opportunity to to take a look at,
Speaker 6: you know, what I've done in the past, and at
Speaker 6: the same time to update, and it gives me perspective
Speaker 6: on stuff going forward. And so these guys are just
Speaker 6: tremendous to work with. And as I said, they are
Speaker 6: the largest publisher of e books in North America, and
Speaker 6: they publish a lot of extremely well known authors like
Speaker 6: one of my you know, like Charles Dickens, you know,
Speaker 6: and stuff like that, you know, classic stuff and then
Speaker 6: contemporary stuff like one of my favorite novelists, William Goldman,
Speaker 6: who wrote the screenplay for Brocassidy and The Sundance Kidne
Speaker 6: is a tremendous novelist. And also of course true crime.
Speaker 6: They're one of the few houses that really will publish
Speaker 6: true crime, which since the recession DAN there are very
Speaker 6: few that will. So it becomes very difficult when you're
Speaker 6: a fan to find stuff to read, and they're right
Speaker 6: out there doing it. And so it's you know, I
Speaker 6: don't usually extole the virtues of a publisher but these
Speaker 6: guys have been absolutely terrific. Yeah.
Speaker 10: I gotta agree with you too, and I see the
Speaker 10: entire repackaging of them and also their recognition of it's
Speaker 10: not just numbers, it's a quantity. It's a matter of
Speaker 10: recognizing which of those true crime books really did really
Speaker 10: well back in the day, and it's deservedly need to
Speaker 10: be re released. It's just again, like you say, the
Speaker 10: recession really seemed to do damage. It wasn't the biggest
Speaker 10: genre per se, but it was thriving, but you wouldn't
Speaker 10: known it now. So these people that understand true crime
Speaker 10: a lot more in fact understand it and recognize good
Speaker 10: true crime. These people are reissuing this stuff for the
Speaker 10: true crime reader. So it's good work they.
Speaker 6: Yeah, and they can't you know again, I mean you
Speaker 6: know they care. I mean it's a weird one because
Speaker 6: I have never dealt with a house weird people really
Speaker 6: care as much as these individuals do. At least, you know,
Speaker 6: not to say that other houses don't care. But these
Speaker 6: guys have made a commitment to this genre. I'm not
Speaker 6: the only only a person who writes true crime there.
Speaker 6: You know, there are others obviously that that work for
Speaker 6: them and they're open, you know, I mean, they're open
Speaker 6: to this stuff, hn't you know? But seriously, it they're
Speaker 6: they're they're they're they're really good about it. And uh.
Speaker 6: And I've learned a lot about about the marketing and
Speaker 6: I've learned more about marketing and promotion of books period
Speaker 6: in the year and a half i've worked with them
Speaker 6: than thirty years working with other houses. Because they're open,
Speaker 6: they work with the author, and they're very friendly with
Speaker 6: the author, and they're smart. I don't know what else
Speaker 6: to say. And Jane Friedman, who used to be the
Speaker 6: CEO of of HarperCollins, is their CEO, so she's got
Speaker 6: a big background in this, in this you know, publishing
Speaker 6: and uh. And also the other thing that I really
Speaker 6: enjoy is they employ people from all over you know,
Speaker 6: I don't have to tell you. I mean, like, I'm
Speaker 6: not interested in talking to somebody who just from New York. Daw,
Speaker 6: I'm from New York. You know, I want to talk
Speaker 6: to somebody who's from thunder Bay, you know what I mean.
Speaker 6: I mean, you know that's when you begin to learn.
Speaker 10: Starf Well, I questioned that, but so let's get back
Speaker 10: to let's get back to how you came at this
Speaker 10: time to want to pick this. I mean, you picked
Speaker 10: the most fantastic stories for your books, But tell us
Speaker 10: how you came to be interested in this, how you
Speaker 10: came to write this book? Gang Mom.
Speaker 6: Well, what happened was it was in the late nineteen
Speaker 6: nineties and I saw the story in a newspaper and
Speaker 6: I thought, wow, this is pretty interesting. And I at
Speaker 6: that time, I was writing for the Reader's Digest, and
Speaker 6: I proposed it as a as a true crime story,
Speaker 6: and they went, oh, that's cool, why don't you do it. Well,
Speaker 6: the next thing you know, I'm on a plane to
Speaker 6: use me to Eugenie to do this, to do this book.
Speaker 6: And I'd never been to Oregon, so it was like
Speaker 6: that was interesting to me because I just have this
Speaker 6: thing dan where I want to get to all fifty states.
Speaker 6: So this was another one I could not boss. And
Speaker 6: I went there and I got you know, I got
Speaker 6: really lucky because I set up the interviews in advance
Speaker 6: and I got very friendly with Jim Chad, who is
Speaker 6: the detective on the case, and we just hit it
Speaker 6: off and he was kind enough to open up literally
Speaker 6: his life to me. I mean, you know, we had
Speaker 6: dinner together. He took me to his house. He was just,
Speaker 6: you know, he just showed so much hospitality that I'm
Speaker 6: which I certainly wasn't used to come from New York
Speaker 6: and I'm being honest, and and so he opened up
Speaker 6: to me. And I wrote this book. I mean, I
Speaker 6: wrote this article and then I just said, you know,
Speaker 6: this could be an interesting book, and I basically spun
Speaker 6: it off and I decided to do it as a book,
Speaker 6: and luckily it was bought by a publisher and I
Speaker 6: was able to do it. And that gave me the
Speaker 6: space to really develop all of the the the the
Speaker 6: themes and the characters in the book. And it, you know,
Speaker 6: it's what got me. What got me was the fact
Speaker 6: that I'd never heard of of of uh except for
Speaker 6: West Side Story, which is mentioned in the book. I
Speaker 6: wasn't familiar with gangs of Caucasian middle class kids, you know,
Speaker 6: I just you know, I didn't. I didn't get it.
Speaker 6: And and that's the thing that got me about the
Speaker 6: book was that the I five Carter, the the the
Speaker 6: the UH. You've got people going up and down that
Speaker 6: card on that coast, just like you have people on
Speaker 6: this coast coming up and down, uh what do you
Speaker 6: call it, you know, the interstate over here, And so
Speaker 6: that allowed for the influence of gangs, specifically from Los
Speaker 6: Angeles to come up there more in the sense almost
Speaker 6: the publicity. And then of course when Mary Thompson got involved,
Speaker 6: that was you know, she was able to sort of
Speaker 6: take from here and there and put all this stuff
Speaker 6: together and and she winds up as this, as this
Speaker 6: anti gang activist. And had it not been for this
Speaker 6: detective Jim Mchad, she would have gotten away with it.
Speaker 6: She would have gotten away with murder.
Speaker 10: Let's go back, Fred to a very dramatic scene in Cleveland, Ohio,
Speaker 10: in nineteen seventy six. Mary Thompson, but formerly Mary Fockler,
Speaker 10: is at a biker party. Now, let's talk about that scene.
Speaker 10: But also it really is indicative and tells a much
Speaker 10: bigger story. So tell that story about Mary Fokler. She's
Speaker 10: a pretty wild girl. She's willingly at a biker party
Speaker 10: with her dog and at a clubhouse, takes away friend.
Speaker 6: Yeah. Sure, she's at a biker party. And Mary had
Speaker 6: a thing where she wanted to be very popular, and
Speaker 6: she wanted to be on the Tonight Show with Johnny
Speaker 6: Carson who is doing it in those days, of course,
Speaker 6: and she wound up having sex with a number of
Speaker 6: these bikers. But then she turned around and said that
Speaker 6: she had been essentially gang raped by them. And what
Speaker 6: happens is the authorities then bring charges against these individuals
Speaker 6: and it isn't until the trial that it becomes clear
Speaker 6: that she's actually doing this stuff willingly and she wants
Speaker 6: the attention. And what gets so interesting is that her sister, Judy,
Speaker 6: testifies against her a trial and she says, my sister
Speaker 6: just wants to be She wants to be on the
Speaker 6: Johnny Carson Show, which is what people used to call
Speaker 6: it back in the day, though it was the Tonight
Speaker 6: Show starring Johnny Carson, just like it's the Tonight Show
Speaker 6: starring Jimmy Fallon, etc. Etc. Point being Mary was just
Speaker 6: into the attention, and that is indicative of her personality
Speaker 6: of what she wanted out of life, you know. And
Speaker 6: I guess there are certain people who want to get
Speaker 6: fame in any way, shape or form, and they don't
Speaker 6: care who they're going to step over or whatever. And
Speaker 6: I don't want people to misunderstand what I'm saying here,
Speaker 6: which is this, of course, women are abused by men,
Speaker 6: and there have been many instances of gang rape and
Speaker 6: where the men are not prosecuted or not convicted. This
Speaker 6: is one tenth of one percent of where somebody of
Speaker 6: a woman making it up and she did it for
Speaker 6: her own reasons, but it doesn't come together dan until
Speaker 6: much much later when she winds up out in the
Speaker 6: Pacific Northwest, and then everybody start the cops start putting
Speaker 6: it together and they realize what kind of an individual
Speaker 6: they're dealing with.
Speaker 10: Yes, you include this to show the character of Mary
Speaker 10: Fowkler and also the show that with this, it's an
Speaker 10: amazing story. She's having sex with all these bikers and
Speaker 10: her dog gets in a fight with one of the
Speaker 10: biker dogs in the clubhouse, so she tries to break
Speaker 10: up the fight of the dogs and then ends up
Speaker 10: half naked outside and then when she is cops do
Speaker 10: come and he says, oh, well, I was raped, So
Speaker 10: thirty two guys question five or id'd she's got to
Speaker 10: leave town, So she leaves town. Of course, he's got
Speaker 10: to reinvent herself if she knows what she's gonna say
Speaker 10: about herself, right, But there is quite a report based
Speaker 10: on this allegation, and like you say that they lose
Speaker 10: the case. So there's a good report that later Jim
Speaker 10: Mashad lead reads and is again very indicative of the
Speaker 10: character of the woman. So Jim Mashad read that with
Speaker 10: great interest, much much later. So now, like you say,
Speaker 10: she's ruading up to Eugene, Oregon and reinvented herself. Tell
Speaker 10: us how she becomes this anti gang activist and tell
Speaker 10: us about her son Bo.
Speaker 6: Well, what happens is she winds up in another town
Speaker 6: in Oregon at first, and she winds up in this
Speaker 6: other town where she becomes a snitch, a police informer,
Speaker 6: though she lifts on her resume that she's a police investigator,
Speaker 6: and she wind and then she winds up going from
Speaker 6: that town and she's she's going through different guys, you know,
Speaker 6: And now she's she's got a different guy, and she
Speaker 6: moves to Eugene and she has her son Bo and
Speaker 6: she then what happens is Bo winds up getting interested
Speaker 6: in gangs and Mary at this point Hern is now
Speaker 6: Mary Thompson. She winds up as somebody who starts educating
Speaker 6: herself on gangs, and she then promotes herself to the
Speaker 6: media as an anti gang activist, and the local newspapers
Speaker 6: begin to call her gang Mom because she becomes like
Speaker 6: a mom to these individuals, the kids that are and
Speaker 6: we're talking about white, lower middle class, middle class kids,
Speaker 6: boys and girls who aspire to the gang lifestyle. And
Speaker 6: she winds up doing various interviews and so forth with
Speaker 6: the media and as a result, it mushrooms. And the
Speaker 6: next thing you know, she gets in tight with a
Speaker 6: couple of dudes at the Eugene Police Department and she's
Speaker 6: giving like anti gangs nars in schools and so forth.
Speaker 6: And while this is happening, her son is going in
Speaker 6: and out of trouble. But at the same time, she
Speaker 6: is forming very strong I would say, very strong roots
Speaker 6: within the community, so that nobody would suspect that, you know,
Speaker 6: she's a bad guy or bad girl. Nobody would suspect that.
Speaker 6: But she makes a couple of mistakes along the way
Speaker 6: that come back and haunt her.
Speaker 10: How does she have a husband that's oblivious? I mean
Speaker 10: he's much older, but how can he be that oblivious?
Speaker 10: Does she work around his schedule? How does that work?
Speaker 6: Well? The way that it works is that the husband
Speaker 6: this was a situation where there were there were different
Speaker 6: men involved, and she at that point early on as
Speaker 6: the an anti gang activist, what she is showing to
Speaker 6: the world is her her her credential as somebody who's
Speaker 6: against this sort of thing, and she just pulls the
Speaker 6: wool over her husband's eyes and eventually she splits up
Speaker 6: with the dude. So it isn't like he's there all
Speaker 6: the time, you know what I mean. It's not like
Speaker 6: one of those It's not like, you know, like Beacon
Speaker 6: of Death, where you know, this guy's a serial killer
Speaker 6: and his wife is unaware of it, but it's you know,
Speaker 6: because she's sleeping with him all the time. It's that's
Speaker 6: not the case because when she winds up becoming really
Speaker 6: popular and when she is actually doing some other things
Speaker 6: that we'll get to by that time, she's not involved
Speaker 6: with with any man in particular. So it isn't like
Speaker 6: there was a major tip off her something like that.
Speaker 6: Plus an important aspect here is that she is a
Speaker 6: con woman of the first order. She's the best eye
Speaker 6: he has ever seen, best I've ever seen. And at
Speaker 6: the same time she has a very very close relationship
Speaker 6: with her son. But she doesn't provide the kind of
Speaker 6: role model that you know that we hope parents would.
Speaker 6: It's the other way around. She's not teaching this kid
Speaker 6: proper values. It's it's it's just completely the opposite, and
Speaker 6: this will eventually lead to a lot of grief for
Speaker 6: a lot of people.
Speaker 10: Now you talk about Mary being a consummate con woman,
Speaker 10: and there's evidence of that. She talks about again reinvents herself.
Speaker 10: So she comes up with this background about how she
Speaker 10: was involved in the Crips, which is a black gang,
Speaker 10: and you explain that the seventy four Hoover Crips she forms.
Speaker 10: So tell us about the entire story of the background
Speaker 10: that she's created it that she gives to these unsuspecting kids.
Speaker 6: Okay, what happens is she claims that she has some
Speaker 6: background with this famous gang from Los Angeles. And you know,
Speaker 6: it's funny. As I was reading this again, I was
Speaker 6: reminded that I used to live right near Hoover in
Speaker 6: Los Angeles when I went to USC's film school, and
Speaker 6: it's a very famous gang. And she claims that she
Speaker 6: had a part in the gang and that she knows
Speaker 6: a lot about the gang. And what she's doing is
Speaker 6: she's conning these kids, teenagers into believing that she is
Speaker 6: involved with this African American gang. Duh, you know, I mean,
Speaker 6: you know, if you base these are these are these
Speaker 6: are kids, you could have sold them the Brooklyn Bridge
Speaker 6: for five bucks. They were pretty damned. But also they
Speaker 6: were very ignorant and and they you know, they were
Speaker 6: very sheltered in many ways and is and but but
Speaker 6: every kid wants to belong, every kid wants to be
Speaker 6: a part of something, especially when they've had problems. So
Speaker 6: she was smart enough to prey on kids who've had
Speaker 6: problems and who she could manipulate to do her will.
Speaker 6: And she not only does that with kids that aren't
Speaker 6: related to her, she does it with both Flynn, who's
Speaker 6: who's her son? And so she can this is then
Speaker 6: that's and and what she basically does is she's a
Speaker 6: very good study band. She studies gang culture. She knows
Speaker 6: all about gang colors, the gang initiation and so forth
Speaker 6: and so on, and so she implements this this system
Speaker 6: of acceptance in this community. And she's doing this while
Speaker 6: she you know, at night, while by day. And I
Speaker 6: don't think we're giving anything away here because it says
Speaker 6: it on the cover. Uh, she's she's she's acting as
Speaker 6: a gang activist. So you've got that, You've got two
Speaker 6: things going on. You've got the con woman who is
Speaker 6: telling the public and the cops that she's an anti
Speaker 6: gangy activist, as well as on idea the parents, parents
Speaker 6: of these kids into she you know, into her confidence game.
Speaker 6: And then at night she's got these kids that are
Speaker 6: showing up at her house and you know, they think,
Speaker 6: like she's she's she's it, man, you know, she's you know,
Speaker 6: she's like, you know, I guess I just remembered back
Speaker 6: in the thirties, there was a woman who ran a gang.
Speaker 6: Her name was mob Barker, and she was a very
Speaker 6: famous outlaw. And that's exactly how I would describe Mary Thompson.
Speaker 6: She's an outlaw. She's really an outlook.
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Speaker 6: But she's a throw back to that kind of a personality,
Speaker 6: and she also doesn't have any sort of conscience about
Speaker 6: what she's doing. Now, you know, we can argue about
Speaker 6: whether she's a sociopath or not, but the most important
Speaker 6: aspect here is it worked. I mean, she had herself
Speaker 6: a gang doing what she wanted and praying on people
Speaker 6: in Eugene, which is a cop which is a liberal
Speaker 6: college town, and it's like the last place you would
Speaker 6: expect stuff like this to happen. But she made the
Speaker 6: mistake of being within within Jim Mashad's turf, the detective,
Speaker 6: and again without Mashad, I don't think we're having this
Speaker 6: conversation quite frankly, because he's the one who finally breaks
Speaker 6: it open. And in true crime, as you know, you
Speaker 6: gotta have you got to have somebody who is the
Speaker 6: effective per se who does break it open and somebody,
Speaker 6: you know, and that's the individual that we as the reader,
Speaker 6: we follow them, our emotions go towards them. And Jim
Speaker 6: was happened to be the guy, and you know, and
Speaker 6: and not you know, but but anyway, so she was
Speaker 6: really able to manipulate these kids. And again, I think
Speaker 6: that if this was a situation where these were individuals
Speaker 6: were in the twenties, for example, I don't think wreck Again,
Speaker 6: I don't think that we're having this conversation. It's the
Speaker 6: fact that they were vulnerable. And these kids, many of
Speaker 6: them were kids who had problems. You know, they came
Speaker 6: from homes with problems, and you know, as you go,
Speaker 6: you know, as you get a little bit more experience,
Speaker 6: you find that there's a lot of these people out there.
Speaker 6: You know. It sort of reminds me as we're talking.
Speaker 6: I mean, Dickens mind this area quite well. And uh
Speaker 6: and and I'll you know, in the play and the
Speaker 6: book it's based on. You know, it's funny. I hadn't
Speaker 6: even thought about that until just now. But she's basically Fagan,
Speaker 6: That's what she is. She's Fagan.
Speaker 10: Now, let's talk about Aaron Atura and his mother. I
Speaker 10: don't know how to pronounce her name? Is it Jane
Speaker 10: c Jenzy?
Speaker 6: Uh?
Speaker 10: Correct me on that one?
Speaker 6: So okay, Jane's Jane. I had the same problem, don't
Speaker 6: you know when people start spelling their names a little differently,
Speaker 6: I go a little nutty. And when I interviewed Janie,
Speaker 6: I said, can you tell me how the same thing? Dan?
Speaker 6: I said, can you tell me how what's pronounced? And
Speaker 6: she was very Jensie to her. As I was reading
Speaker 6: rereading the book tonight to to prep for what we
Speaker 6: were going to talk about, I said, you know, I
Speaker 6: got to call her because we had a really good
Speaker 6: relationship and I really care about her. And what happened
Speaker 6: here was that Aaron i Toura was part Native American
Speaker 6: and one of the tribes from the Pacific Northwest, and
Speaker 6: he was a good kid, and Aaron had gotten into
Speaker 6: a little bit of trouble, but nothing major. And what
Speaker 6: happened was Mary Thompson approached Janice Iitura about getting Aaron
Speaker 6: involved in her anti gang activities, and Aaron was against
Speaker 6: this stuff. He was not he didn't like gang and
Speaker 6: he was a kid with a lot in front of
Speaker 6: him and he was a very good looking boy. He
Speaker 6: was six feet four about two twenty, terrific athletes, smart kid.
Speaker 6: I mean, his kid was gonna he was going to
Speaker 6: set the world on fire. He was going to do
Speaker 6: real well. And what happened was he got involved with
Speaker 6: the anti gang activities, not knowing of course, that he
Speaker 6: had literally gone into the spider's web. With apologies to
Speaker 6: Peter Parker and you got that one, right, yeah, okay, okay,
Speaker 6: And anyway, and what happens is, at one point, Mary
Speaker 6: gets the bright idea that actually it's not bright and
Speaker 6: brilliant using Aaron as Bo's protector because Bo keeps getting
Speaker 6: in trouble. So the idea is to use Aaron as
Speaker 6: his essentially his bodyguard. It's almost like the old film
Speaker 6: My Bodyguard. Uh. And what happens is he winds up
Speaker 6: going well, Aaron goes to a local the place with
Speaker 6: Bo in Eugenie. So whenever Bo is you going to
Speaker 6: get in trouble, Aaron's there to help him avoid it.
Speaker 6: But what what what? What Aaron doesn't realize is that
Speaker 6: what Mary really has him doing is making sure that
Speaker 6: her son doesn't get involved in anything by day because
Speaker 6: he can't control himself by night it's a whole different story.
Speaker 6: By that time, Bo's doing, you know, his thing with
Speaker 6: with with with the gang that Mary has put together
Speaker 6: in Eugene. And at the meanwhile, Aaron is home with
Speaker 6: his with his with his mother and his family and
Speaker 6: his girlfriend and so so that's how he gets But
Speaker 6: he's never part of the gang by any means. He
Speaker 6: doesn't even know about the gang. He just he's just
Speaker 6: a kid who who who thinks he's helping out individuals
Speaker 6: in the community because he has a social conscience and
Speaker 6: being a Native American, he he understands how tough it
Speaker 6: can be for individuals. He really understands how tough it
Speaker 6: can be for individuals who have a couple of strikes
Speaker 6: against them. And so he just stays with Mary, and
Speaker 6: he trusts Mary implicitly as well as Janice the mother.
Speaker 6: The mother really trusts trusts May. Janice trusts Mary implicitly,
Speaker 6: and so again it sort of proves the point about
Speaker 6: how these individuals, these bad guys and bad girls, and
Speaker 6: they're confidence people literally and figuratively.
Speaker 10: Now you mentioned that Janice felt that Mary was a
Speaker 10: friend and had no idea of her real intentions and
Speaker 10: her gang activity, and like you say, they put basically
Speaker 10: err in this big guy basically that's thinking that Bo's
Speaker 10: his friend and marries his friend, and that he should
Speaker 10: watch out from them. So what happens one day in
Speaker 10: broad daylight with Aaron, despite trying to, you know, protect
Speaker 10: him and make sure he doesn't get in trouble, what happens, Well.
Speaker 6: What happens is there is an altercation at a convenience
Speaker 6: store and uh boy, oh boy. And what happens is
Speaker 6: there's an altercation between between Bo, the son of Mary,
Speaker 6: and another boy and there's like an argument, and what
Speaker 6: happens is suddenly Bo pulls a knife and he slashes
Speaker 6: at this other boy and luckily he only quote unquote
Speaker 6: cuts him a little bit, not you know, he slashes
Speaker 6: out at him, cuts through the kid's clothing, slashes his
Speaker 6: h on his belly, but it's not too bad. And
Speaker 6: at that point, the cops are called, and you know,
Speaker 6: somebody calls nine to one to one, and the next
Speaker 6: thing you know, Bo is arrested and he'd already been
Speaker 6: on probation for something else, but now he's arrested for assault.
Speaker 6: And that puts Aaron right in the middle because Mary
Speaker 6: doesn't want him testifying against her son because she knows
Speaker 6: that if Aaron testifies, her son's going to go back
Speaker 6: into the juvenile lock up. Aaron is torn. He doesn't
Speaker 6: Bo's a friend of his. Mary is a friend of his,
Speaker 6: His mother is friends with Mary. What is he going
Speaker 6: to do? And at the same time, the pops are
Speaker 6: looking at Aaron as well being involved in this situation.
Speaker 6: So Aaron has to make a decision about what he's
Speaker 6: going to do and that going to lead to tragedy.
Speaker 10: Now, what's the conversation like with his mother Janice? And
Speaker 10: to see the the person, the real despicable person that
Speaker 10: Mary is compared to Janice, it's night and day. So
Speaker 10: what's the kind of conversation Janie has about this issue.
Speaker 6: Well, the conversation that Janice has with her with her
Speaker 6: son is is you know what you know, You've done
Speaker 6: everything to try and help both Lynn and if if
Speaker 6: you don't do the right thing, which is to tell
Speaker 6: the truth, you're going to be held responsible or partly responsible,
Speaker 6: and you're not and you're not. You're not doing anything wrong.
Speaker 6: What you're doing is you're saying that there's an individual
Speaker 6: out there on the street who almost kills somebody and
Speaker 6: you so so really, she's basically saying, or a son, Well, Aaron,
Speaker 6: if you protect bo, what happens next? What happens if
Speaker 6: if he goes out and tries to kill somebody? How
Speaker 6: are you going to feel? She's trying to teach her
Speaker 6: son values. And and Aaron really listened to his mom
Speaker 6: about it, and he was told he was still torn.
Speaker 6: He didn't know who likes the idea of testifying against
Speaker 6: a friend or somebody you think is a friend. See
Speaker 6: that's the operative word, think is a friend. At this point,
Speaker 6: Janice doesn't understand that Mary isn't and neither of course
Speaker 6: does Aaron. And so it's really a question of it's
Speaker 6: not just a question of Aaron's self survival. It's more
Speaker 6: it's a question of what happens next. It's a question
Speaker 6: of of of of I don't know if the Golden
Speaker 6: rule applies here, Dan, but it's certainly a question of
Speaker 6: are we are we going to allow somebody? Are you
Speaker 6: going to allow somebody Aaron to get to go free
Speaker 6: who tried to kill another human being? Or are you
Speaker 6: going to do the right thing? And it's a it's
Speaker 6: a question that I mean, I've had to answer that
Speaker 6: question in my work, and it's a hard question and
Speaker 6: it's just but it's especially hard for a teenager certainly.
Speaker 6: But Aaron I Turr was a very mature young man
Speaker 6: and so he made the right decision for himself. But
Speaker 6: again he didn't know what he was dealing with.
Speaker 10: Interestingly, you have a term of some learned a little
Speaker 10: bit about gang terminology and kind of ritual in that
Speaker 10: the mixing and jumping in, and so the Afro American
Speaker 10: h crips they would say, if you're jumped in, they
Speaker 10: give you a bunch, everybody gives you a beating, and
Speaker 10: then you're officially and mixing in is basically as you
Speaker 10: described from an expert, there appeared in this story that
Speaker 10: that would be somebody taking the rap for someone else.
Speaker 10: So now with Aaron Nutura not taking the wrap for
Speaker 10: bow and basically you say, it comes down to in
Speaker 10: the end too, he said, listen, I'm not Bo's a scumbag,
Speaker 10: and I ain't going to jail for the scumbag.
Speaker 6: So well, so I think that was me saying that
Speaker 6: person and I didn't okay, that's okay, No, No, I
Speaker 6: think I said scumbucket. I was using a term that
Speaker 6: I remembered from Hillstreet Blues. I'm sorry.
Speaker 10: But now, well, now Mary has all of these young people,
Speaker 10: these teens around her home. Again, we know that this
Speaker 10: there really actually is this gang. And so they're they're
Speaker 10: in together doing some things, some burglaries, some crimes, definitely
Speaker 10: in the name of this four Hoover crips. Now there's
Speaker 10: some mutual friends of Aaron. I guess they go to school.
Speaker 10: It's a smaller place. So there's Lisa Fentris, there's Larry Martin,
Speaker 10: There's Wade Hudson. There is Angel Elstad and Jim Elstead
Speaker 10: and Crazy Joe Brown. So tell us about this little
Speaker 10: group of teenagers that hang around and what is the
Speaker 10: talk when Mary Thompson realizes that it looks like Aaron Atura,
Speaker 10: despite being friends with everybody, is going to spill the
Speaker 10: beans and testify and bo will go back to prison.
Speaker 10: What is she actually saying to these people? What's the
Speaker 10: tone of the conversation.
Speaker 6: The tone of the conversation is very simple. It's actually
Speaker 6: it's funny because as I was thinking about it today,
Speaker 6: one of the individuals is called Crazy Joe Brown, and
Speaker 6: I I was thinking to myself, did he dead. And
Speaker 6: of course I remember Crazy Joe Gallo, the famous Bobster,
Speaker 6: and that's where he gets this nickname. So that just
Speaker 6: gives you a little bit of an idea of the
Speaker 6: kind of an individual we're talking about. And what Mary
Speaker 6: does is she tells these people, these kids, that that
Speaker 6: if Aaron is not taken care of, then he's going
Speaker 6: to testify against both and both's going to go back
Speaker 6: to jail. Now this gets back to this woman's charismatic personality,
Speaker 6: how she can manipulate them to do murder. I mean,
Speaker 6: you know, I mean, you know, I'm sitting here and
Speaker 6: I'm I'm like, I'm shaking my head because the only
Speaker 6: way that you can do that with anybody is if
Speaker 6: the individuals involved have not been taught the right way
Speaker 6: at home. That's my personal opinion, and they feel in
Speaker 6: some way, and you know, sure there's environmental influences and
Speaker 6: so somebody, you know, you want to be part of
Speaker 6: something bigger than yourself. For most of us, that means
Speaker 6: our country. For these kids, it means their gang. Their
Speaker 6: gang was their country. And I can I tell you
Speaker 6: one thing, Dan, as you know, I realized Larry Martin, Well,
Speaker 6: we talk about crazy Crazy Joe, and there's Jim El'stad
Speaker 6: and Lisa Fentest and Larry Martin is assumonym. And you know,
Speaker 6: when you're writing, I know how it is when you
Speaker 6: do it. But you know, I'm writing books and I'm
Speaker 6: going to use a pseudonym because I want to keep somebody,
Speaker 6: you know, keep their anonymity if they if they haven't
Speaker 6: you know, certainly if they haven't been charged and not
Speaker 6: around the periphery. And I really I just remembered, you know,
Speaker 6: you know why I used Larry Martin. Why, oh boy,
Speaker 6: when I uh, there was a uh maybe some people
Speaker 6: remember a serial called that was on television. H Commando Cody,
Speaker 6: Commando Cody Sky Marshall of the Universe. Well when they
Speaker 6: did the second serial, they changed his name from Commando
Speaker 6: Cody to Larry Martin. So I just said, oh man,
Speaker 6: I'll use Larry Martin, you know, I because I can't, Hey, Dan,
Speaker 6: I can't use superhero names anymore because they're making movies
Speaker 6: out of them. You know, I can't. What am I
Speaker 6: goay do to say Tony Stark. That's not gonna work.
Speaker 6: But seriously, so I'll just get back to this and
Speaker 6: you know which is that she Mary Thompson uses her
Speaker 6: force of personality to convince these kids to go out
Speaker 6: and to commit murder. And she says, hey, if you
Speaker 6: don't take care of this, both's going to jail. And
Speaker 6: she makes it clear that she wants this kid dead,
Speaker 6: she wants Aaron dead, and that they will be in
Speaker 6: in in her highest esteem, in her highest esteem. And
Speaker 6: again it goes back, you know, and that's it. I
Speaker 6: think that's a good point in that we're dealing with
Speaker 6: individuals will obviously don't have a lot of self esteem.
Speaker 6: He Aaron did. Aaron had a lot of self esteem.
Speaker 6: I mean he he was you know, I have no
Speaker 6: doubt as I've been looking through this again, he really
Speaker 6: would have been a leader of his people, maybe even
Speaker 6: a leader of this country. But unfortunately he got con
Speaker 6: just like everybody else. So Mary conn's these individuals into
Speaker 6: committee a murder.
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Speaker 10: three bucks off any new monthly subscription. When we last
Speaker 10: left off, we were talking about the character of Mary Thompson,
Speaker 10: but also, you know, just to throw in all the
Speaker 10: the sort of the gang mentality. She also said, well,
Speaker 10: just for the heck of it, I think maybe he
Speaker 10: poisoned my dog Lars, and I think maybe he's having
Speaker 10: sex with kids. So she just tried to throw everything
Speaker 10: in that she possibly could to convince these people. And
Speaker 10: she had I guess, somebody that she was interested in,
Speaker 10: and they didn't seem to come through. So she finally
Speaker 10: found somebody else. And so tell us what happens? What
Speaker 10: is Aaron doing? What are is everybody else doing? How
Speaker 10: who knows what? And so set that scene for us.
Speaker 6: Fred, Well, oh boy, I'm still thinking about Luke Crate.
Speaker 6: You know, I'm actually you know, I was, you know what,
Speaker 6: I kind of I'll to say this very quickly, which
Speaker 6: is you know, if you get stuff like that from
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Speaker 6: do you call it, dolls or whatever you call him.
Speaker 6: That stuff is gonna be worth a lot of money
Speaker 6: doing a lot man, that'll be worth a lot of money.
Speaker 6: But anyway, what's happening here is that is that Aaron
Speaker 6: is living in a small house with his brothers and
Speaker 6: sisters and his mom, and they like in many places,
Speaker 6: you know, wherever you go. You know, they they took
Speaker 6: the garage and they made it into a bedroom. You know.
Speaker 6: I mean, everybody's seen that, I think, you know, I
Speaker 6: mean you know, I mean you know I've seen it. Uh,
Speaker 6: you know. And I don't mean to imply that everybody
Speaker 6: is living in a house. Okay, I don't mean that,
Speaker 6: but I'm saying that we've we've seen that if you
Speaker 6: get a little experience. So anyway, Aaron is in bed
Speaker 6: one night with his girlfriend and he's sleeping, and he's sleeping.
Speaker 6: He's not thinking about anything, you know, he's just sleeping.
Speaker 6: And meanwhile, what's happening is outside. The two individuals that
Speaker 6: decide to do this hit to make Mary Thompson happy,
Speaker 6: Elstad and Brown. They go over to the house a
Speaker 6: little bit earlier in the evening and they see lights
Speaker 6: are on and they say, well, this is not a
Speaker 6: good time to do it. And then they come over
Speaker 6: later on and it's like, oh, I don't know, around
Speaker 6: midnight and the house is in such it's not facing
Speaker 6: the street, it's like between other houses. So they come
Speaker 6: and what they do is they steal in. They open
Speaker 6: the door, they get into the garage and they see
Speaker 6: the kid in bed, and they have their weapon with them,
Speaker 6: and Jim Elstad fires one shot and Aaronis is on
Speaker 6: his side, you know, sleeping, and the bullet goes in
Speaker 6: and comes out in the front and at that point,
Speaker 6: at that point, shortly thereafter, the girlfriend awakens and is
Speaker 6: It's actually very similar to what happens to Abraham Lincoln Lucky.
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Speaker 4: Slash aware terms apply.
Speaker 6: Because I just wrote that scene for my book coming
Speaker 6: out in September, which is that when Lincoln was shot,
Speaker 6: they didn't realize at first. The doctor who first shows
Speaker 6: up to help him, doctor Leal, he didn't realize he's
Speaker 6: been shot because it's in the back of the head
Speaker 6: and it's you know, it's covered with hair and so forth. Well,
Speaker 6: basically the same thing happens here the girlfriend and when
Speaker 6: later janis the mother is not aware that he's been
Speaker 6: shocked because they see something. They think he's been hit
Speaker 6: from the front of his head. The bullet goes all
Speaker 6: the way through and comes out, and that it's shocking.
Speaker 6: I don't you know, it's just a shocking scene. And
Speaker 6: at that point it's you know, amazingly, it's amazing. It's
Speaker 6: very similar to Lincoln. You know, Lincoln survived for about
Speaker 6: it was about twelve hours because he had a strong constitution.
Speaker 6: Aaron was the same way he survives. But what happens
Speaker 6: is his mom wants to go to the hospital with him,
Speaker 6: and she still doesn't know it's a bullet wound. She
Speaker 6: still thinks, you know, he's hit in the head. And
Speaker 6: the cops did their job. They did a very good
Speaker 6: job because anytime somebody who is killed, or i'm sorry,
Speaker 6: anytime somebody is assaulted and it's in somebody's house, the
Speaker 6: first thing you do is look at the family. And
Speaker 6: they needed to do a paraffin test to make sure
Speaker 6: that she didn't have any gunpower residue with her and
Speaker 6: her kids. So that's the first thing that they do
Speaker 6: until and then she's finally allowed to go to the hospital.
Speaker 6: And meanwhile, the two bad guys, they don't they don't
Speaker 6: run very far that one of them lives, like across
Speaker 6: the street. You know, they just run across the street,
Speaker 6: and nobody knows what the heck is going down. I mean,
Speaker 6: it's just like boom, boom, that's it. You know, one shot,
Speaker 6: that's it, and and they go across the street, and
Speaker 6: then you know, other things will happen, of course, but
Speaker 6: the police certainly don't know what's going on at this point.
Speaker 10: How do police proceed with this? Of course, they've they've
Speaker 10: done the necessary procedures in terms of securing the crime scene,
Speaker 10: making sure that they can eliminate all of the family
Speaker 10: as any kind of potential witnesses. I'm sure they do
Speaker 10: all those did all those things by the book. But
Speaker 10: what do they do to be able to look for suspects.
Speaker 10: What's the process for them?
Speaker 6: Well, the process is is they begin to feel like
Speaker 6: there's something gang related, and so once they think it's
Speaker 6: gang related, they go to the expert on their in
Speaker 6: their police department, who is who's you know, their gang
Speaker 6: task force dude. And at that point they say, hey, listen,
Speaker 6: can you find out what's going on? And we said, well,
Speaker 6: you know, I'll see what I can do. I'll call
Speaker 6: gang mom. So so here we have a situation where
Speaker 6: Mary Thompson is putting the hit out on this kid.
Speaker 6: And then she's like the first one that they're going
Speaker 6: to contact to say, Oh, do you know anything about this?
Speaker 6: Can you tell us? You know what's going on here?
Speaker 6: I mean, you can't come up with a better cover
Speaker 6: than this. I mean it's brilliant. Yeah, it's brilliant. And
Speaker 6: so they start looking at at you know, they start
Speaker 6: questioning her and and you know, and and then you
Speaker 6: know and that you know, and then they go from
Speaker 6: point A to point be and so forth and so on.
Speaker 6: But what what what? What nobody knows is that the
Speaker 6: detective that becomes the primary on the case, Jim Machad,
Speaker 6: he knows her from another incident previous to this, and
Speaker 6: that essentially is what destroys her con because Jim Machad
Speaker 6: had dealt with her previously and on something else, So
Speaker 6: he immediately when he sees that she's involved his intent
Speaker 6: to go up and he starts thinking, wait a second,
Speaker 6: what's going on here? And then it becomes a question
Speaker 6: of dog and police pursuit and and and and and
Speaker 6: you know, and bringing these you know, taking a closer
Speaker 6: look at the individuals involved in the gang activity in Egype,
Speaker 6: which of course is going to lead back to her.
Speaker 10: It's very interesting. You introduce the character Rick Rayner, and
Speaker 10: he's the guy that's totally convinced that Mary Thompson is
Speaker 10: the gang mom, and she's real effective and Jim Mashad,
Speaker 10: like you say, I'll just kind of encapsulate on it.
Speaker 10: She was working at a sign company and there was
Speaker 10: some money missing, so Jim Shad was called for help.
Speaker 10: Now he was. He came to this and interviewed Mary
Speaker 10: Thompson and she had put on her and he was
Speaker 10: looking at resumes and that's how they kind of narrowed
Speaker 10: it down. He's looking at resumes and then he was
Speaker 10: looking wait a minute, field investigator for the Josephine County
Speaker 10: Police Department. Okay, and then he just and Mary, just
Speaker 10: for the record, is like five foot eight, one hundred
Speaker 10: and sixty pounds, kind of stocky woman. He says, listen,
Speaker 10: and you were a drug informant, not a field investigator,
Speaker 10: and heavily in the drug trade there. And he said
Speaker 10: he's lying. And he said, well, how about this. Can't
Speaker 10: state it, can't state it called, can't state you weren't
Speaker 10: over there. Their line can't states lying, So kent state
Speaker 10: sign So Jim that basically had a really good idea
Speaker 10: of the kind of character even in the face of
Speaker 10: factual information, she would still try to lie her way
Speaker 10: out of it, deny her way out of it. But
Speaker 10: yet he knew the character of this woman. So you
Speaker 10: also described tell us the scene where they meet each
Speaker 10: other again, and that just and you do capture that
Speaker 10: that it must have been a very very satisfying scene
Speaker 10: and an event for Jim. Shot.
Speaker 6: Well, what happens is he initially doesn't want her to
Speaker 6: know it's him, because she knows that if she knows,
Speaker 6: she's going to clear him up. So he keeps he
Speaker 6: keeps his idea entity secret for an appreciable portion of
Speaker 6: the even though he's the primary on the case. He
Speaker 6: keeps his identity secret for a certain period of time
Speaker 6: until he feels that it's time to come out from
Speaker 6: the shadows. And when he does, he says, Hey, Mary,
Speaker 6: how you're doing. He's introduced by I think it's Rainer
Speaker 6: that introduces them, and she doesn't blank. Really, I mean,
Speaker 6: she is a cold blooded killer, and so he and
Speaker 6: he of course is he's getting a kick out of this,
Speaker 6: there's no question, because you know, he knows he's after
Speaker 6: the right person. And so it's so when it finally
Speaker 6: comes about, he's hoping that when she realizes that he
Speaker 6: knows her and that he knows is that she's she's
Speaker 6: a liar in the past. He's hoping, like the other
Speaker 6: cops do, that she's going to make some mistakes and
Speaker 6: say this and that and so forth and so on
Speaker 6: that will implicate her. But she's she's as stone She
Speaker 6: is as stone cold a murderer as any that I
Speaker 6: have ever written about. She is stone cold. She is
Speaker 6: as bad as any serial killer. And uh, and so
Speaker 6: so while he gets a certain amount of pleasure, and
Speaker 6: I don't blame her, you know, cat and mouse game,
Speaker 6: Jim really understands what he's up against. He really understands
Speaker 6: he's against He's going up against the real pro especially
Speaker 6: from their previous interaction where she said she went to
Speaker 6: Kent State University, and and then she she claims she
Speaker 6: went to a community college afterwards to take some course
Speaker 6: on bookkeeping. And then, like you point out, she just
Speaker 6: said they were all lying. You know that, you know
Speaker 6: when she checks all these these references and they don't
Speaker 6: check out, and so he's hoping that she's going to
Speaker 6: fold in some way. But it doesn't happen. It doesn't happen.
Speaker 6: I mean, she is just stone cold and stone cold.
Speaker 10: Now the information that the police are getting about this,
Speaker 10: about the culprits potentially again she used to be again
Speaker 10: an informant. When you can see that she's a natural
Speaker 10: informant and that she's will turn in anybody, it doesn't
Speaker 10: seem to see it loyalty to maybe her son possibly,
Speaker 10: but in the end I don't even think that. But
Speaker 10: what did the police find out just from the mouth
Speaker 10: of Mary Thompson regarding potential culprits.
Speaker 6: Oh well, she claims that the bad guy, the guys
Speaker 6: that committed she just decides to turn in the the
Speaker 6: the the bad guys, the uh Joe Brown and Jim Elstad.
Speaker 6: Elstad is the trigger man. Brown is the guy that
Speaker 6: accompanies them to kill Aaron and she just basically turns
Speaker 6: him in. She just not will not turns him in.
Speaker 6: She she says that they came to her house and
Speaker 6: that night after the murder, and they said that they've
Speaker 6: tapped Aaron gang speak for killed. And so she she
Speaker 6: doesn't have any compunction about about informing on these these members.
Speaker 6: They are members of her of her secret gang, and
Speaker 6: they're the ones who who commit this crime. And the idea,
Speaker 6: of course, is that if she informs on them, then
Speaker 6: she figures that hey, you know, they'll get them and
Speaker 6: the cop be satisfied, free, my son is free, and
Speaker 6: she can continue to do what she's doing. That's that's
Speaker 6: the uh, that's what she that's her rationale. And again
Speaker 6: she has no conscience whatsoever about doing any of this.
Speaker 6: Why should she have any conscience, you know, she doesn't
Speaker 6: have any conscience. So she just says, hey, man, I'm
Speaker 6: just gonna you know, she just makes a decision, you know,
Speaker 6: uh self preservation, I'm going to inform on them. She
Speaker 6: doesn't have any values. And that's what she does. She
Speaker 6: just informs and says they've done it. And then on
Speaker 6: the basis of that and the other evidence they put together,
Speaker 6: they could take these dudes into custody.
Speaker 10: Now with Jim Michaud, and again he's quite the character
Speaker 10: in terms of his resolve right away with this information.
Speaker 10: And why would you know, why would she put out
Speaker 10: this information Because she knows that somebody like Jim Machad
Speaker 10: is on to her, so she's kind of anticipating that
Speaker 10: something might lead to her. So she's talking like that
Speaker 10: to her to these officers. She thinks she's very clever.
Speaker 10: But what happens is that Macheaud puts her in a
Speaker 10: in a situation where she has to get her phone
Speaker 10: wired and for potential conversations. And what I was thinking
Speaker 10: too is before that, when she talks about the deflection
Speaker 10: about these two guys doing it, what happens when these
Speaker 10: two guys are arrested? And again true true to her plan,
Speaker 10: what do these two guys say when they are arrested?
Speaker 6: Well, these guys they what do you mean? What do
Speaker 6: they say to the cops?
Speaker 10: Basically that's true to form. She's they're taking the fall
Speaker 10: for this crime. They're pretty happy about this. And as
Speaker 10: we'll get you talk about in the book later, there's
Speaker 10: a lot of evidence about how much they uh really
Speaker 10: enjoyed their work.
Speaker 6: Oh yeah, they they're they're they're proud of the fact
Speaker 6: that that they have been arrested for this. They're extremely
Speaker 6: proud of the fact that they've been arrested for this
Speaker 6: because you know, they've been arrested for committing murder and
Speaker 6: this is a big deal within their gang culture, and
Speaker 6: they figure that hey, you know, you know, uh, this
Speaker 6: makes them even more popular, even they're not. It's not
Speaker 6: so much at this point that they're accepted. It's more
Speaker 6: like their celebrities, their celebrities within their their their limited world,
Speaker 6: and they you know, they're they're they're more than happy to, uh,
Speaker 6: could take the fall, because again it's it's it's you know,
Speaker 6: this is you know, they think like, you know, they're
Speaker 6: they're they're hot shots. They think that they're you know,
Speaker 6: they think that they're major gangsters, and so they're they're
Speaker 6: more than happy to take the fall. And I think
Speaker 6: they also know that as juveniles, there's only so far
Speaker 6: that the state can go in charging them. You know,
Speaker 6: you're not dealing with a situation where you've got capital
Speaker 6: punishment and it wouldn't make any any difference anyway. Well, actually,
Speaker 6: I was just gonna say it wouldn't make a difference
Speaker 6: because capital punishment for juveniles was not ruled down in
Speaker 6: the United States until a millennium. But they're not dealing
Speaker 6: with that in this particular state. You know, the best
Speaker 6: you know that they could could have gotten supposedly, you know,
Speaker 6: they could have gotten life, but that's not certainly that's
Speaker 6: they're not thinking about that. All they're thinking about is, Hey,
Speaker 6: you know, I'm popular. Uh, you know, I'm real popular.
Speaker 6: In fact, I'm sort of thinking about it right now,
Speaker 6: and I'm thinking to myself, Man, these kids were a
Speaker 6: little bit more educated, they might have tried selling their story.
Speaker 6: I've seen this plenty of times. Bad guys are you know,
Speaker 6: captured and they want to sell their story to the movies,
Speaker 6: you know. But as far as they're concerned, hey man,
Speaker 6: we're popular, you know, and these are boys, so they
Speaker 6: figured that it'll make them real popular with the girls.
Speaker 6: You know. They're not thinking about bill, I'm going to
Speaker 6: go to you know, I'm going to go to prison.
Speaker 6: I'm going to be some dude's bitch. They're not thinking
Speaker 6: about it that way. They're thinking about it, well, you
Speaker 6: know what, maybe I said for a couple of years
Speaker 6: and I get out and now I'm even more popular
Speaker 6: than ever before. Again, no conscience, no conscience. Mary was
Speaker 6: very smart in picking people close to be part of
Speaker 6: the gang that really don't have a conscience. And in
Speaker 6: these two individuals she picked down Well.
Speaker 10: No, she, like I said, she planned on having that
Speaker 10: kind of reaction from these two guys that they would
Speaker 10: when questioned that Mary put you up to this as
Speaker 10: this part of Mary, it has any involvement? Is no,
Speaker 10: Mary don't have any involvement. You know he called her mom, right,
Speaker 10: so both of my mom so yeah, so. And the
Speaker 10: thing is is that she also told the police some
Speaker 10: things that again in her mind, cleverly kept her out
Speaker 10: of being prosecuted for anything. Yet would explain some things
Speaker 10: like you can explain about the gun and the story
Speaker 10: she told police and the idea that they came. They
Speaker 10: came to her and told her, but somehow she didn't
Speaker 10: believe it. So tell us about this the pimple tale.
Speaker 6: Well, you know what, that's an interesting one. Yeah, they
Speaker 6: came to her, they told her about the gun that
Speaker 6: they used, and then what happens is she talks to
Speaker 6: them about getting rid of the evidence, and so they
Speaker 6: drive down the idea is to get rid of the
Speaker 6: gun and the bullets. That is, the bullets left in
Speaker 6: the gun. Remember, there's only one bullet that's fired. It's
Speaker 6: one shot. And by the way, it's not like this kid,
Speaker 6: Elstad was a great shot it It was almost point
Speaker 6: blank range, like six feet. And I actually went down
Speaker 6: to the river where this occurred. And as I and
Speaker 6: I was thinking about it. For some reason, it's it's
Speaker 6: stayed in my mind. Dan, you know, it's like I went.
Speaker 6: I they do it at night. I did it during
Speaker 6: the day obviously. But she takes this truck and she
Speaker 6: drives down this you know, obscure road to this river
Speaker 6: and there's rapids, you know, and she and what happens
Speaker 6: is she stops the car and Elstad gets out of
Speaker 6: the car and he takes the bullets out of the
Speaker 6: gun and he goes over to the banks of the
Speaker 6: river and he throws the bullets in and he throws
Speaker 6: the gun in. But this is a kid that is
Speaker 6: not going to be drafted by any major league team.
Speaker 6: He has allows the arm. So what happens is the
Speaker 6: bullets don't go very far. Neither does the gun. I mean,
Speaker 6: this part is really amazing. When you think about it,
Speaker 6: that they could even recover this stuff, and they will
Speaker 6: eventually refer the gun in a certain way that I
Speaker 6: describe in the book, and at least one of the bullets,
Speaker 6: which of course helps with the forensics. But I remember
Speaker 6: when I was standing by the banks of that river
Speaker 6: and I was looking up and down the river, you
Speaker 6: know what I mean, and looking and seeing, and it's
Speaker 6: a very isolated place. And you know, Mary knew what
Speaker 6: she was doing. Man, she really knew what she was doing,
Speaker 6: because this was it's not like it's you know, New York,
Speaker 6: you know, like where I come from, the Hudson River,
Speaker 6: you know, where there's people all over the joint. It's isolated.
Speaker 6: You know, we're out in the country someplace. But they
Speaker 6: don't count on the fact that that they're not counting
Speaker 6: on the current, what the current is when the bullets
Speaker 6: are thrown in, and when the gun is thrown in,
Speaker 6: they just figure it's going to sink to the bottom
Speaker 6: and melt you know, melt in and so forth. Doesn't
Speaker 6: quite work out that way, you know. But I got
Speaker 6: to tell you when I was standing there, you know,
Speaker 6: and looking out, you know, it's amazing what you'll think
Speaker 6: about you know, what you think about you years later
Speaker 6: when you're working on a case. And it was it
Speaker 6: was very isolated, but I got a vibe from the place.
Speaker 6: You know. It was one of those places that you know,
Speaker 6: you wouldn't want. It was isolated. You wouldn't go there
Speaker 6: at night unless you were an idiot, you wouldn't go there.
Speaker 6: So they she picked very very well a place to
Speaker 6: get rid of the weapons of the weapon rather and
Speaker 6: the and the bullets, and you know, and she she thought,
Speaker 6: and the dead guys thought that it was going to
Speaker 6: work out in their favor. What they didn't understand was
Speaker 6: how currents work. And they didn't understand that, you know,
Speaker 6: the possibility that there could be chance that they could
Speaker 6: recover any of these material. And the most important thing
Speaker 6: is they didn't understand that they that they were up
Speaker 6: against a cop that wasn't going to give up.
Speaker 10: Now this is he's the guy that won't give up
Speaker 10: because you have a situation we'll talk about in a
Speaker 10: second about the DA offers her in ninety five a
Speaker 10: deal just for hindering prosecution, way way off from any
Speaker 10: kind of murder or anything else. But let's talk about
Speaker 10: again some really dramatic scenes is the funeral and again
Speaker 10: Aaron Yutia married. Janice had called Mary ten fifteen times
Speaker 10: that day, couldn't get a hold of her. Thought it
Speaker 10: was odd after the murder. Then third, well I'll see
Speaker 10: her at the funeral. What happens at the funeral?
Speaker 6: She does show up, bet her good buddy. Mary does
Speaker 6: not show up. She's not there. She doesn't show up
Speaker 6: until some time later where she shows up at her
Speaker 6: house and Janice is really upset by this, and there
Speaker 6: is a conversation that occurs, and well, just that track,
Speaker 6: and this is really a scene right out of the
Speaker 6: movies where Jim Ashad is hanging out at the funeral
Speaker 6: looking at everybody, you know, the cop is looking to
Speaker 6: see if he's going to find any clues, you know,
Speaker 6: And Mary doesn't show up. But a short time later
Speaker 6: she does show up at Janice's house and she makes
Speaker 6: a big mistake and that will come back and haunt her.
Speaker 6: But at this point, what's happening is that Mary makes
Speaker 6: all kinds of excuses for not showing up to Janice
Speaker 6: and she says, oh, you know, I'm your friend, and
Speaker 6: blah blah blah blah blah, blah, but it. Janice is
Speaker 6: not having any of it. And the thing is, if
Speaker 6: I'm a ad, which is Janice's daughter, Maya feels, oh
Speaker 6: my god, tremendous guilt because what happens is Lisa Centris,
Speaker 6: who is the one of the members of the gang.
Speaker 6: She is the button woman, a phrase that I got
Speaker 6: from Actually the phrase would be button man. I think
Speaker 6: the only place I've ever seen it was The Godfather.
Speaker 6: But basically, she confirms that Aaron's home the night that
Speaker 6: they go to get him. But Maya takes the phone
Speaker 6: call where she asks for Aaron, and Maya says, well,
Speaker 6: he's in the next room or something like that, you
Speaker 6: can't get him. And she feels a tremendous amount of guilt.
Speaker 6: And this poor girl, the sister, has a suicide attempt
Speaker 6: because she feels this tremendous guilt. And I think, you know,
Speaker 6: that's one the thing that came across to me Dan,
Speaker 6: which was that the damage that these killers can do
Speaker 6: to families is not just obviously the individual they kill
Speaker 6: or the parents, but it's also the siblings and other
Speaker 6: relatives who are around that individual, and the fallout is
Speaker 6: just tremendous, you know, I always say that murder ripples
Speaker 6: through generations. Murder ripples through generations. We see this time
Speaker 6: and time again, and so the damage that Mary Thompson
Speaker 6: caused and her son bo will ripple through the Itura
Speaker 6: family in years to come. That's unfortunately the way it is.
Speaker 6: Can it be mediated in some way through therapy, medication, Yes,
Speaker 6: but there's still damage. There's still damage. And if there's
Speaker 6: one thing that's come across to me Dan in writing
Speaker 6: true crime, that's what's come across to me. You know
Speaker 6: what I mean? How you know people who are involved,
Speaker 6: the relatives to friends and and I'm all I can
Speaker 6: also talk about this personally. I've had four people close
Speaker 6: to me who've been murdered. Four, Okay, and it's terrible, terrible,
Speaker 6: but you know, the only thing that any of us
Speaker 6: can do, and I'm sure there are some individuals that
Speaker 6: are listening to our show tonight who have been in
Speaker 6: this situation. The only thing that we can do is
Speaker 6: to continue on and certainly try to get justice for
Speaker 6: the individual who's killed, but also live our lives in
Speaker 6: such a way that we honor the individuals that have died.
Speaker 10: I agree, and let's talk about let's talk about the
Speaker 10: natural consequence of Aaron natura if you think about it,
Speaker 10: is that Bow is now released from prison because now
Speaker 10: there's no witness to this crime. There's not going to
Speaker 10: be nobody to testify. So he's out. So Mary's quite happy.
Speaker 10: Their son bull Flynn is out. Yes, so tell us
Speaker 10: about the circumstances where she doesn't want to go for
Speaker 10: this police He says, no, I'm not guilty of anything.
Speaker 10: How do they get to the point where machad Rick
Speaker 10: Rayner leaves the guy that was real sympathetic and thought
Speaker 10: she was great, he's gone somehow. But how does michad
Speaker 10: get her into a situation in a position that she
Speaker 10: is forced to put a wire on her phone? Before
Speaker 10: we get into the almost fantastic, almost somewhat comical, almost
Speaker 10: some of it, the conversations that were recorded by this
Speaker 10: wire warrant, Well.
Speaker 6: What happens with initially, Initially there's a situation where the
Speaker 6: wire is put on her phone to just get some
Speaker 6: of the individuals involved in the in Aaron's death. In
Speaker 6: other words, she's cooperating. But after the fact, what happens
Speaker 6: is Mary is under the impression that there's no more
Speaker 6: wire and what And Jimmy Shott has this feeling. He
Speaker 6: has this feeling that a lot of the uptick in
Speaker 6: crime in Eugene is a result of the seventy four
Speaker 6: Hoover Cripts led by Mary Thompson. And he's and the
Speaker 6: only way and the only way to find this out
Speaker 6: is to put a secret wire on them. And I'll
Speaker 6: tell you this is like textbook stuff. I mean, it's
Speaker 6: like what they did was they established a listening post
Speaker 6: someplace in downtown Eugene. They didn't do it at the
Speaker 6: police department because they were concerned that not Rick Rayner,
Speaker 6: it could have been you know, and I don't We
Speaker 6: don't need to imply in any way that Rick Rayner
Speaker 6: said anything to her or anything. That's that's not the point.
Speaker 6: The point is, it's just that you're going after a
Speaker 6: murderer and you need you need privacy in order to
Speaker 6: establish the wire and you know, set the wire up
Speaker 6: and at the same time have a listening post. And
Speaker 6: so what they do is that's exactly what they do.
Speaker 6: They set up a listening post in downtown Eugene or
Speaker 6: upcount whatever you want to call it. And at the
Speaker 6: same time, at the same time they they have Mary's
Speaker 6: phone wire and that and and that leads to really
Speaker 6: some unbelievable stuff because what what Michad is trying to
Speaker 6: do is not only get evidence to get her for
Speaker 6: the murder of Aaron, but also to try to bust
Speaker 6: what they suspect is a gang that she's running secretly
Speaker 6: at night. So they they were able to get the wire,
Speaker 6: and that was what what was quite interesting, by the way,
Speaker 6: which was for me anyway, which was it's not so
Speaker 6: easy to get wired. You know, you got to go
Speaker 6: through a court order, you know. And I'm sure it's
Speaker 6: the same where you know, wherever you go, you know,
Speaker 6: be it Australia, England, Canada, France, whoever it might be.
Speaker 6: Obviously in Russia they'll do anything they want to do.
Speaker 6: Uh now I'm gonna get putin coming coming up to me,
Speaker 6: right and but but but seriously, it's very interesting because
Speaker 6: they Jim has to Jim and Shott has to go
Speaker 6: before the judge give them this warrant, said, this is
Speaker 6: why I want to do this, and so forth and
Speaker 6: so on. Judge has to say yes, because obviously people's
Speaker 6: civil liberties are at stake, and so they get the
Speaker 6: warrant they place the wire and Mary does at this
Speaker 6: point doesn't know the wire is on. And they established
Speaker 6: a listening post and they start listening and they hear
Speaker 6: Quie a bit.
Speaker 10: Now eventually, Yeah, they incredible conversations from all of the players,
Speaker 10: Lisa and all kinds and Larry and so she is
Speaker 10: playing them. They don't know that she's a rat. She's
Speaker 10: the snitch, the king of the snitches here, the queen
Speaker 10: of the snitches. They're not really, they're not aware of that.
Speaker 10: But at trial, we'll have to skip to a head
Speaker 10: for the trial in that finally there's enough, you know,
Speaker 10: there's enough evidence so that Jim Shod makes the rest
Speaker 10: or they make the arrest, and now it's time for
Speaker 10: court and she's psychopathic and she's against the wall. Tell
Speaker 10: us a little bit about the trial dynamic, but tell
Speaker 10: us about how the I guess the scene where jimhad
Speaker 10: they have enough information, enough evidence so that they make
Speaker 10: the arrest on Mary Thompson.
Speaker 6: Well, there's a big scene in the book where what's
Speaker 6: happening is that right prior to this bow the son
Speaker 6: who's who's free, Uh, he decides that he's going to
Speaker 6: get some guns, and I guess he's going to sell
Speaker 6: them or something like that, and the cops have to
Speaker 6: make a decision and they make that. It's very interesting
Speaker 6: because you know, it's the kind of stuff you never
Speaker 6: you know, I've never seen any of this, you know,
Speaker 6: like a TV or anything, like when do you compromise
Speaker 6: the wire? And they make a decision that if a
Speaker 6: human life is at stake, they they'll compromise the wire.
Speaker 6: So when this kid Flarn gets these guns, I think
Speaker 6: they're from Lisa, you know, he's going to sell them
Speaker 6: someplace or use these He's gonna use them, He's going
Speaker 6: to use them for like hold ups and so forth.
Speaker 6: At that point, the cops close in and Bow leaves
Speaker 6: them on a merry chase across of the city. And
Speaker 6: as it happens, they have the wire tap going and
Speaker 6: Mary is listening in rather an individual, another individual who's
Speaker 6: part of the gang, calls her up and says, oh,
Speaker 6: I'm listening to the police scanner and they're going after boat.
Speaker 6: So here we got a situation where the cops are
Speaker 6: listening to Mary, who's talking to a guy who's listening
Speaker 6: to a police scanner, telling her that they're going after
Speaker 6: her son, and all she wants is for him to
Speaker 6: come home. That's all she wants, and so that he
Speaker 6: both leads them on a marry chase across the city
Speaker 6: and it isn't until they actually get him, and it
Speaker 6: takes quite some time to do that, that they finally
Speaker 6: close in on Mary and she is arrested for uh,
Speaker 6: for plotting, or rather actually she's she's essentially arrested for
Speaker 6: plotting Aaron's murder, though that's not technically what she's charged with.
Speaker 6: That's what's interesting to me, because they don't charge it
Speaker 6: with first degree murder, I think is she's actually charged
Speaker 6: with third degree. But they throw the book at her aggravated, aggravated, Yeah,
Speaker 6: and yeah, and they throw the book at her. And
Speaker 6: then Mahad, you know, he's doing the best that he can,
Speaker 6: working with the prosecutor Steve Skelton. And by the way,
Speaker 6: the hardest thing I'm writing this thing, and I'm going
Speaker 6: to prosecutor Steve Skelton. All I kept thinking is Red Skelton,
Speaker 6: you know, the famous commun meeting. And so Machad is
Speaker 6: in a situation where now after you know, sure, he
Speaker 6: gets a lot a pleasure out of arrest, and Mary,
Speaker 6: you know, she done it. But it's now up to
Speaker 6: the prosecutor to put her away. And again, this is
Speaker 6: not the most serious crime. The idea is, you know,
Speaker 6: and of course Mary is going to say, well, I
Speaker 6: didn't do anything, or the other guy done it, you know,
Speaker 6: and that's basically you know, she uses the other guy defense.
Speaker 6: And you know, Michad is there all the time at
Speaker 6: the trial because he's really invested. That's that's the thing
Speaker 6: I found out about him. He's he's it's quite interesting
Speaker 6: because he's invested emotionally. You know, he's invested emotionally. I
Speaker 6: don't see that too often, you know, I'm about you know,
Speaker 6: anybody else. You know, he does this work, but this
Speaker 6: was a guy you know who and who you know,
Speaker 6: he really was invested emotionally in this and and bringing
Speaker 6: this woman down. I mean, he got it. You know,
Speaker 6: he understood what was going down here. So you know,
Speaker 6: there's a trial and it's it's it's a dramatic trial
Speaker 6: because she's claiming, you know, she didn't have any knowledge
Speaker 6: or about what was going on, and her attorney did
Speaker 6: the best that he could to show that she was innocent.
Speaker 6: And certainly and you know, as you read it, Lea
Speaker 6: spy read it. You realize the system works sometimes, you know,
Speaker 6: I always say this, Dain, I always say the system
Speaker 6: works if you work it. This is this is that
Speaker 6: kind of a situation. The system worked because they worked it.
Speaker 6: They did it by the numbers. And what impresses me
Speaker 6: is the fact that not only were they diligent about it,
Speaker 6: but they didn't violate anybody's civil rights. I mean, that's
Speaker 6: all you hear about today, you know, it's all you
Speaker 6: hear about. But this is not that kind of situation.
Speaker 6: These people, the police, the prosecutors, they worked within the
Speaker 6: law because they were doing the right thing, and I
Speaker 6: think that's the reason why they got the result that
Speaker 6: they did.
Speaker 10: I found it in that they used all the players
Speaker 10: that were culpable. You see a lot of examples in America,
Speaker 10: and this is what you don't see in a lot
Speaker 10: of jurisdictions is the culpability for everybody involved, even if
Speaker 10: they weren't at the crime scene itself, where you wouldn't
Speaker 10: have that catada at all, you know, and aren't harder
Speaker 10: to prove in the UK, just with a podcast I
Speaker 10: did last week to create that, Oh yes, to create
Speaker 10: the culpability of all five people two people were in
Speaker 10: that case. But in this which was interesting is that
Speaker 10: they used those people with the wire taps and use
Speaker 10: that psychology against them, but also realized that these people
Speaker 10: were there were kids that were They certainly were not innocent,
Speaker 10: but there weren't criminal charges. They didn't drag these guys
Speaker 10: through the courts and say, listen, give you a deal
Speaker 10: and give you thirty years if you you know, you
Speaker 10: rat out on your friends. So they really stuck to
Speaker 10: the people that were the gunman and his associate. But
Speaker 10: Michead wanted Mary, and Mary had to take the stand
Speaker 10: because so much evidence against her and so many witnesses,
Speaker 10: good witnesses like Cameron Slave came forward and said, yeah,
Speaker 10: I knew they were going to do it. The gun
Speaker 10: was passed around. She said, this gun is going to
Speaker 10: solve our problem, you know. So there was a lot
Speaker 10: of stuff. There was a lot of stuff on the wiretap.
Speaker 10: She slipped up other people. She didn't realize that a
Speaker 10: couple of the statements were incriminating, so they didn't have
Speaker 10: to resort to that plea agreement, which would have give
Speaker 10: her a slap on the wrist. And like you say,
Speaker 10: you described the trial, was it eight hours later or something,
Speaker 10: they came back. What was the what did they give
Speaker 10: her as a sentence?
Speaker 6: Well, that's the part, you know, as I was reading it.
Speaker 6: It surprised me at the time I wrote it, and
Speaker 6: it surprised me now. I can't believe what they gave her.
Speaker 6: They gave her life. I have and I haven't no parole,
Speaker 6: I haven't, you know, And the same that you know,
Speaker 6: as you're talking about it, you know what's coming across
Speaker 6: to me, because you've got tremendous perspectives, is that everything
Speaker 6: was above board. Like you said, they weren't trying to
Speaker 6: turn the you know, twist the arms of the witnesses
Speaker 6: who had evidence they did it the right way. They
Speaker 6: actually appealed to their consciences. And I think as as
Speaker 6: as we're talking about it right now, I think that's
Speaker 6: why there was a conviction. Because the defense could not
Speaker 6: come back and say, well, you made a deal with
Speaker 6: Cameron Slade, you made a deal with least oftentious, so
Speaker 6: whatever it might be, you know, you may deal with
Speaker 6: angel El said. They couldn't come back and say that
Speaker 6: they were doing every you know, everything above board. And
Speaker 6: I think it has a lot to do with this
Speaker 6: particular state, Oregon, you know, again, and there are some
Speaker 6: states that I feel do things more above board quite
Speaker 6: frankly than others. And in the Pacific Northwest, those people
Speaker 6: in Washington State in Oregon, they you know, the record
Speaker 6: shows that that the that they do things above board
Speaker 6: doesn't mean, you know, you're not going to have situations where,
Speaker 6: you know, with the cops do something wrong. But I
Speaker 6: would say the preponderance of cases, and certainly in this one,
Speaker 6: that they do the right thing. And as a result
Speaker 6: of getting of having these individuals testify and contradict Mary's
Speaker 6: testimony that she knew exactly what was going on, she
Speaker 6: set the whole thing up. That's why the jury came
Speaker 6: back with a guilty verdict, and that's why the judge
Speaker 6: pronounced her guilty. And I'm sorry the judge pronounced sentences life.
Speaker 6: He didn't have to do that. You know, he had
Speaker 6: a discretion, but he didn't, you know, he went with
Speaker 6: what the jury said because that was the preponderance of evidence,
Speaker 6: certainly beyond a reasonable doubt.
Speaker 10: It's great that her psychopathic character or sociopathic nature prevented
Speaker 10: her from taking a deal earlier on so lucky unlucky
Speaker 10: in that regard, and also just the you really do
Speaker 10: capture the character of Jim Ashod and how much this
Speaker 10: case really meant to him, and just how much he
Speaker 10: wanted to defeat this woman to make sure she was
Speaker 10: brought to justice, not just these two kids that he
Speaker 10: thought were certainly responsible, but he knew who was the
Speaker 10: bigger culprit out of this deal, this two faced person
Speaker 10: that had turned into this you know, media or pardon me,
Speaker 10: anti gang activist within truth is just the.
Speaker 6: Oh no, media, media is anti gang active is promoted
Speaker 6: by the media, absolutely. And you know what, you're also
Speaker 6: pointing out something else which I hadn't thought of until
Speaker 6: this moment, because you you have tremendous perspective, and which
Speaker 6: is that Jim Mchad was obviously raised the right way.
Speaker 6: Think about it. You know, when you think about it,
Speaker 6: you know, he didn't try any tricks, he didn't violate
Speaker 6: any civil rights. You know, he's the direct antithesis of
Speaker 6: the kind of of of cops that you see so
Speaker 6: much in the news today who seemed to violate individuals
Speaker 6: civil rights, at least in the United States, which you
Speaker 6: see a lot of. This is a different kind of guy.
Speaker 6: This is a guy who who who was raised with
Speaker 6: a strong sense of right and wrong, but was not
Speaker 6: going to violate anybody's civil rights. He was going to
Speaker 6: do this fair and square. And as I get more experience,
Speaker 6: I find that not to be necessarily the norm, you
Speaker 6: know what I mean. And it's you know, it's not
Speaker 6: necessarily the norm to have a detective that will be
Speaker 6: so into doing the right thing. I want to believe
Speaker 6: all detectives will do this, but I don't. But realistically
Speaker 6: that's not the case. There are too many instances where
Speaker 6: laws of civil rights have violated, too many instances where
Speaker 6: cops abuse individuals in order to get confessions. This is
Speaker 6: not the case. We're talking about a guy who upheld
Speaker 6: the law, and I might add had a sense of humor.
Speaker 6: And I will also say he mixes a mean martini. Yeah,
Speaker 6: go ahead, I'm sorry, No, go ahead. No, he was
Speaker 6: just kind enough. You know, you made dinner, and you
Speaker 6: know he mixed the martini. And I'm not a Marchini guy,
Speaker 6: you know, but he was kind enough to do this.
Speaker 6: And again, you don't find people, you know what I mean,
Speaker 6: like they opened themselves up and you know, especially to
Speaker 6: a reporter, I mean, you don't see too much of
Speaker 6: this stuff today, Dan, you know.
Speaker 10: You know it's nice too, is that one of the
Speaker 10: last scenes is basically, of course Mary getting hers, you know,
Speaker 10: but these other people sort of rebuilding their lives a
Speaker 10: little bit from this ashes of this nonsensical make believe
Speaker 10: gang anyway nonsense. But but also that the hero of
Speaker 10: the book, Jim Maschad, basically, like you say, has a
Speaker 10: I almost wanted to have him a martini after I
Speaker 10: heard how he was doing it. So it was a martini,
Speaker 10: and he had just married his girlfriend and so he
Speaker 10: for once it wasn't you know, the police officer that
Speaker 10: was totally consumed by the job in a very very
Speaker 10: negative way. It's I'm sure it's I'm sure it's had
Speaker 10: its effect. But in this book anyway, in this scene
Speaker 10: that you describe it, it's Jim with his girlfriend enjoying
Speaker 10: life with a martini. So very very fitting and dramatic
Speaker 10: scene at the end of the book to a very
Speaker 10: very again not really a happy ending, but again just
Speaker 10: you really portray Jim a shot as this kind of
Speaker 10: very very interesting character, a little bit sarcastic and so
Speaker 10: great Yeah, great writing, Fred and capturing this and thank
Speaker 10: you very much for coming on and talking about it.
Speaker 10: We're going to have you back on August thirty. First,
Speaker 10: I believe talking about your next book, So just tell
Speaker 10: us a quick plug for that and how people might
Speaker 10: want to get a hold of you Facebook, and just
Speaker 10: tell us of the Open Road contact as well.
Speaker 6: Just before I okay, there you go as far as okay,
Speaker 6: as far as open road you can just go to
Speaker 6: you know, openrooad dot I think it's openroad dot com,
Speaker 6: but all the books are available at Amazon dot com.
Speaker 6: Just type in my name Fred Rosen and I'm also
Speaker 6: anybody wants to contact me, you can send me an
Speaker 6: email at my end. I have a book coming out
Speaker 6: on September one. It's and I've worked on this book
Speaker 6: for fourteen years, and it's called Murdering the President Alexander
Speaker 6: Graham Bell and the Race to say James Garfield. And
Speaker 6: I prove in this book that James Garfield was not
Speaker 6: killed by Charles Gattau, as history says that it was
Speaker 6: somebody else that killed them. And the books has the
Speaker 6: forward is written by President's great great grandson Ank Garfield.
Speaker 6: And we can talk about it. But Hunk is available
Speaker 6: also to come on and talk about it, and it
Speaker 6: was quite It was quite an investigation, I have to
Speaker 6: tell you, to go back over one hundred years and
Speaker 6: having to write three different presidential assassination scenes and there's
Speaker 6: a reason for it. It was really quite something and
Speaker 6: it is quite Frankly, I think it's the best thing
Speaker 6: I've ever written, and I never said anything like that,
Speaker 6: but you know, I felt the responsibility as I always do,
Speaker 6: to the victim's family, and in this case it was
Speaker 6: Hank and I did the best that I could, and
Speaker 6: I hope people like the book.
Speaker 10: Well, it'd be fascinating talking to you about it, and
Speaker 10: I look forward to reading it, of course, and I'm
Speaker 10: you know, anxious to have you back on and discussing
Speaker 10: that in the near future. So thank you very much,
Speaker 10: Fred for coming on in another great interview talking about
Speaker 10: Gang Mom. You have yourself a great night, Fred, thank
Speaker 10: you very much, and good night again.
Speaker 6: And it's always a pleasure to take care of your
Speaker 6: Saul Sert.
Speaker 3: Mm hmmm
Speaker 6: Mm hm.