Speaker 1: You are now listening to True Murder, The most shocking
Speaker 1: killers in true crime history and the authors that have
Speaker 1: written about them. Gaesy Bundy Dahmer The Nightstalker VTK. Every
Speaker 1: week another fascinating author talking about the most shocking and
Speaker 1: infamous killers in true crime history. True Murder with your host,
Speaker 1: journalist and author Dan Zupanski.
Speaker 2: Good evening. When Wayne Adam Ford walked into the Humboldt
Speaker 2: County Sheriff's office in November nineteen ninety eight with a
Speaker 2: woman's body part in his jacket pocket, the thirty six
Speaker 2: year old truck driver wasn't a suspect in any crime.
Speaker 2: After a lengthy investigation spanning four California counties and a
Speaker 2: sensational trial, he was convicted of the torture and murder
Speaker 2: of four women. His first victim, whom he dismembered, would
Speaker 2: remain unidentified for twenty five years. While serving honorably in
Speaker 2: the Marine Corps, Ford had learned life saving techniques that
Speaker 2: gave him structure and purpose, but a severe head injury
Speaker 2: worsened pre existing emotional problems, rendering him unable to suppress
Speaker 2: his dark sexual impulses. Knowing he would kill again, he
Speaker 2: enlisted his brother's help to turn himself in. Award winning
Speaker 2: investigative journalist Caitlin Rother drew on previously sealed testimony and
Speaker 2: interviewed key players in the case, including Ford's brother and father,
Speaker 2: to write this intimate and psychologically resonant narrative, extensively updated
Speaker 2: with the inside details of how Ford's first victim, Carrie
Speaker 2: Ann Cummings, was recently identified through DNA testing and forensic genealogy.
Speaker 2: This classic true crime story continues to haunt us. The
Speaker 2: book they were featuring this evening is Body Parts, a
Speaker 2: Serial Killer's Deadly Compulsions, Updated edition, with my special guest,
Speaker 2: journalist and best selling author, Caitlin Rother. Welcome back to
Speaker 2: the program, and thank you very much for this interview.
Speaker 2: Kitlyn Rother, good to be here. Thank you so much,
Speaker 2: and congratulations on this new updated edition of Body Parts.
Speaker 2: Thank you. Now. First off, let's talk about what Body
Speaker 2: Parts is tell us when it was first published and
Speaker 2: why you wanted to write about this case.
Speaker 3: Well, I don't know if I mentioned this last time
Speaker 3: we talked about this book since it's a re release,
Speaker 3: but I actually wanted to call this book killer with
Speaker 3: a Conscience and that's because this this killer weighne adam Ford.
Speaker 3: It was a long haul trucker who is on death
Speaker 3: row for raping, torturing, and killing troubled women, mostly prostitutes,
Speaker 3: drug addicts. He would pick up on the side of
Speaker 3: the road or in you know, at a truck stop,
Speaker 3: places like that. And these were women who were you know,
Speaker 3: not quite right in the head sometimes also, so they
Speaker 3: were vulnerable. They were vulnerable women. Now, so that's not
Speaker 3: that unusual for a serial killer. But what's unusual, and
Speaker 3: the reason we decided to write about this story is
Speaker 3: that he turned himself in. So he killed four women.
Speaker 3: He dismembered two of them. He picked them up and
Speaker 3: he would have sex with them in his truck. And
Speaker 3: you know, even though they're prostitutes, they did not sign
Speaker 3: up for the kind of sex that he proceeded to
Speaker 3: have with them. So I don't want to go too
Speaker 3: much into details because it's pretty gross and it's pretty graphic,
Speaker 3: and it's pretty violent.
Speaker 4: But he would.
Speaker 3: Torture them and he would choke them until they passed out.
Speaker 3: So he would press his fingers against their crotted artery
Speaker 3: and their neck, so cutting off the oxygen to their brain.
Speaker 3: And they would pass out and he would bring them
Speaker 3: back with CPR and he would do this repeatedly. So
Speaker 3: I can't even imagine how horrific that must have been
Speaker 3: for these women. And we know that this is what
Speaker 3: he did because he let one of them go and
Speaker 3: she testified against him at the trial, and she was
Speaker 3: a prostitute. So you know, he's a pretty complicated guy.
Speaker 3: And I you know, he's got mental disorders, a number
Speaker 3: of them. He's just a he's a different kind of
Speaker 3: a different kind of a person that I normally would
Speaker 3: write about.
Speaker 4: And I don't plan to write.
Speaker 3: Another book like this because it was very difficult for me,
Speaker 3: very very dark. But I wrote about him because I
Speaker 3: don't know if any other serial killer who turned himself
Speaker 3: in because he knew he would kill again, and he
Speaker 3: knew it was wrong, and he was even disgusted by
Speaker 3: his own behavior. So that's that's basically why I wrote
Speaker 3: about it. But Body Parts was the title that my
Speaker 3: publisher came up with. I thought it was insensitive to
Speaker 3: the victims' families, but they said, well, this is what
Speaker 3: we're going to call it, and our marketing people know best,
Speaker 3: and they even put on the very front cover years ago,
Speaker 3: and he kept them in his pocket, and I just
Speaker 3: that kind of horrified me.
Speaker 4: So if anybody bought the book way back when and
Speaker 4: they saw that on the cover, that was not my
Speaker 4: idea he did.
Speaker 3: He turned himself in with a woman's breast in his
Speaker 3: jacket pocket. But I I want to make light of that.
Speaker 3: You know, it's very serious, and it's he did that
Speaker 3: because he wanted them to believe him, apparently credibility purposes.
Speaker 2: Now you talked about that he had obvious or diagnosed
Speaker 2: mental illness. Was that an issue at trial? And what
Speaker 2: was that eventual verdict at trial? And what was his
Speaker 2: disposition and status after that verdict?
Speaker 3: Well, can we go back, because I think it's more
Speaker 3: pertinent to talk about what he was like when he
Speaker 3: turned himself in because the trial took something like ten years.
Speaker 3: So by the time he got to trial, he was
Speaker 3: you know, in prison, and he had been treated, you know,
Speaker 3: with medication and stuff. So he when he turned himself in,
Speaker 3: he was a mess. And I have a booking video
Speaker 3: where he's basically just in tears and he's crying, and
Speaker 3: I have the audio interviews of him being interviewed by
Speaker 3: detectives four different counties where he dumped these women's bodies and.
Speaker 4: Bodies of water.
Speaker 3: And he doesn't remember things, he can't focus on details.
Speaker 4: He gets women confused. So he's got a.
Speaker 3: Number of victims, but he's had sex like this, he says,
Speaker 3: with at least fifty women, so he can't even keep
Speaker 3: the details straight. So, and he also did not have
Speaker 3: an attorney present while he was being interviewed, even though
Speaker 3: he asked for one.
Speaker 4: So all of those.
Speaker 3: Issues became issues, which made it take so long to
Speaker 3: get to trial. So I just want to point that out,
Speaker 3: so that by the time it got to trial, it
Speaker 3: had already been litigated. Some of these witness interviews, I'm sorry,
Speaker 3: some of these detective interviews with him had been thrown
Speaker 3: out already because the judge said, well, he asked for
Speaker 3: an attorney, and you didn't. You didn't give him one,
Speaker 3: and that gets an attorney even showed up at the
Speaker 3: jail and they said, oh, you can't go in there
Speaker 3: because he's being interviewed by detectives. I mean, the whole
Speaker 3: thing was kind.
Speaker 4: Of a mess.
Speaker 3: So and it became clear, you know, just for me
Speaker 3: for reading through these interviews, which is really gross.
Speaker 4: You know, It's basically, he would stick pins in his
Speaker 4: wife's breasts.
Speaker 3: He would cut out holes in a sheet while they
Speaker 3: were having sex so that her breasts poked out and
Speaker 3: were exposed. And so you know when he turned himself
Speaker 3: in and he had a breast in his pocket, you know,
Speaker 3: that was just a manifestation of that focus on his victims.
Speaker 3: He also you know, basic stuff like sexual sadism and masochism.
Speaker 3: He enjoyed hurting these women, and he also enjoyed hurting himself.
Speaker 3: So I mean, the guy was really had a lot
Speaker 3: of issues. He also had a serious head injury, which
Speaker 3: we can talk about more in detail, but basically, when
Speaker 3: he was nineteen years old, he was dating this woman
Speaker 3: who later married and she's the one who he stuck
Speaker 3: pins in and you know, had to.
Speaker 4: Do the sheet with the holes in the sheet and stuff.
Speaker 3: Basically, his personality changed and became even more bizarre after that.
Speaker 4: After that head.
Speaker 3: Injury, so you know, and basic depression, alcoholism, you know,
Speaker 3: the basic stuff that a lot of people have. But
Speaker 3: all together, you know, he had a lot going on.
Speaker 3: He also had a genetic predisposition to some of this stuff.
Speaker 3: His mother was apparently bipolar. She tried to kill herself
Speaker 3: several times throughout her life with pills. She cut her
Speaker 3: wrist with a tunicn in front of her in front
Speaker 3: of Ford's brother in the kitchen at the Army barracks
Speaker 3: when they were growing up. And she also told him
Speaker 3: that he was the product of rape. So, I mean
Speaker 3: all of those things combined. You have environmental factors, and
Speaker 3: you have genetic factors, you have this brain injury. I mean,
Speaker 3: he had so much going on that it's almost I'm
Speaker 3: not saying he's not.
Speaker 4: Responsible, but I'm just saying he had a lot to
Speaker 4: deal with. And this is you.
Speaker 3: Know, I wrote this book because I think it's important
Speaker 3: for people to understand, you know, what makes a sexual predator.
Speaker 4: These are the these are the elements.
Speaker 2: Let's get to what is new in this updated edition.
Speaker 2: How you say that it's in back in print as
Speaker 2: a trade paperback.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it came out originally as a mass market paperback.
Speaker 3: In the old days, when these books went directly to
Speaker 3: mass market paperback, there was no hardcover, there was no
Speaker 3: trade paperback. So trade paperback is a bigger format paperback
Speaker 3: that they have these days that costs more. Prints bigger,
Speaker 3: they're heavier, easier to read, nicer to read, nicer paper
Speaker 3: So yeah, it came out originally as a mass market paperback,
Speaker 3: and the first cover was his face, and it came
Speaker 3: from the booking photo the booking video actually, you know,
Speaker 3: where he was crying and just kind of a mess.
Speaker 3: And I was saying to the publisher, you know, I
Speaker 3: really feel like this title is insulting to the you know,
Speaker 3: an offensive to and insensitive, mostly to the victims' families.
Speaker 3: And I also feel like it's probably off putting to
Speaker 3: women who are going to be a big portion of
Speaker 3: the audience here. So I wish we could you do
Speaker 3: something different. So in twenty thirteen they came out with
Speaker 3: a different cover which looked like a romance novel. It
Speaker 3: was just like, Okay, I don't know. I guess it's better,
Speaker 3: but I don't know what that it has to do
Speaker 3: with the book. So all these years later, here we are.
Speaker 3: I got a tip from someone who was the significant other,
Speaker 3: a person I had interviewed for the original edition when
Speaker 3: for its first victim was found. She was this was
Speaker 3: the first victim was dismembered entirely. He cut her up
Speaker 3: in his bathtub, and he told detectives that he described
Speaker 3: it and he even told them where he put her parts,
Speaker 3: and he wanted to help identify her because she had
Speaker 3: never been identified. Her torso was what was found by
Speaker 3: a kayaker. And so this kayaker has since died. In
Speaker 3: his significant other messaged me and said, did you hear
Speaker 3: that they identified that first victim whose torso my boyfriend
Speaker 3: found in the kayak? And so I went on to
Speaker 3: the Humbolt County Sheriff's Department website and found a news release.
Speaker 3: So the news release basically said that they'd identified his
Speaker 3: first victim as Carrie Anne Cummings through genetic genealogy, which
Speaker 3: is the thing now for cold cases. It's happening all
Speaker 3: over the country in these small sheriff's departments and big
Speaker 3: sheriff's departments. Basic, you know, using these consumer websites where
Speaker 3: everybody's sending their DNA and that's how they're identifying missing
Speaker 3: people and you know human remains that you know, in
Speaker 3: this case, they never found her head. They found her
Speaker 3: arm and her torso and that's all they had. But
Speaker 3: they were able to through through genetic genealogy, find a cousin.
Speaker 3: So basically the way this worked is Carrie Ann Cummings.
Speaker 3: She was a twenty five year old young woman. She
Speaker 3: was again troubled, which is basically you know, and was
Speaker 3: using drugs. And when Ford described her, and I don't remember,
Speaker 3: to be honest, if this wasn't a documentary that he
Speaker 3: was interviewed for, or if this was to the detectives,
Speaker 3: but he basically said, her brain wasn't focused, kind of
Speaker 3: like mine. So in other words, two birds of a feather,
Speaker 3: you know. He picked her up and they both, you know,
Speaker 3: their brains were not working properly. So he dug around
Speaker 3: in her backpack, I guess found something he thought was heroin.
Speaker 3: He described that she had a can opener, which he
Speaker 3: didn't think was very useful, and that he didn't think
Speaker 3: she'd been out and about for very long on her
Speaker 3: own on the road, but he had picked her up hitchhiking.
Speaker 3: She said, Hey, I want to go. I want to
Speaker 3: go to the beach. Are you going that way? And
Speaker 3: so he said he would take her, and according to
Speaker 3: her sister, she probably you know, voluntarily agreed to have
Speaker 3: sex with him. And then it took a turn, which
Speaker 3: is apparently just the way he was, you know, he
Speaker 3: would pick up these women, and there are prostitutes, and
Speaker 3: they thought they were just going to go have sex
Speaker 3: and no, instead he would do all these horrible things
Speaker 3: to them. So anyway, so she disappeared, and years later
Speaker 3: Jeff Cummings her cousin, who was you know, much older.
Speaker 3: Obviously by then he and his sisters had been kind
Speaker 3: of experimenting, playing around with this genet genealogy already, and
Speaker 3: so he had already submitted his DNA to one of
Speaker 3: those basic sites. I can't remember which one. It was
Speaker 3: ancestry dot com or twenty three met it was one
Speaker 3: of those, and he then submitted it to ged match,
Speaker 3: which is a specific website that is geared towards helping
Speaker 3: law enforcement solve crimes. So there was a big controversy
Speaker 3: when this first started happening, because, you know, the Golden
Speaker 3: State Killer, this is how they solved this murder. But
Speaker 3: they didn't have permission from people. They were basically these
Speaker 3: detectives were using these consumer websites without telling people that
Speaker 3: they were using in for law enforcement purposes.
Speaker 4: And so to eat a Match.
Speaker 3: Specifically instituted some policies and procedures where users would would
Speaker 3: basically agree to have their DNA used to help solve crimes.
Speaker 3: So he submitted his to that ged match, and when
Speaker 3: Humble County Sheriff's Department decided to open a cold case
Speaker 3: unit with a couple of part time detectives and a
Speaker 3: forensic technician who went and got some training. They picked
Speaker 3: this case because at the time had been very high
Speaker 3: profile because when he turned himself in with a breast
Speaker 3: in his pocket, it made national news. And apparently his
Speaker 3: father was approached by Dan Rather and his producer and
Speaker 3: he turned him down and did not want to be interviewed.
Speaker 4: And so I felt very privileged to.
Speaker 3: Have the Ford's family agree to be interviewed by me
Speaker 3: because it was the first time they talked to any
Speaker 3: media or author or anything. So Jeff Cummins turns in
Speaker 3: his DNA and so when they go in and they
Speaker 3: tried to solve this case, they found the cousin and
Speaker 3: they're like, oh, look, we found somebody who's pretty close.
Speaker 3: So they called him up and they said, hey, do
Speaker 3: you have a missing relative and he said, yes, cousin.
Speaker 3: She went missing, you know, twenty five years ago. And
Speaker 3: so they said, well, does she have any closer relatives?
Speaker 3: You know, a mother, father, sister, you know sibling, and
Speaker 3: he said, yes, Kathy Cummings. So then the detective called
Speaker 3: and left a message on Kathy Cummings voicemail. Now this
Speaker 3: is something I'm really I really found rewarding about this project.
Speaker 3: He left a message on her voicemail basically saying he
Speaker 3: was calling from the Sheriff's department in Eureka. And so
Speaker 3: before she called him back, she started googling, because she said,
Speaker 3: I bet this is about my sister. And so she
Speaker 3: started googling Eureka and missing people and blah blah blah,
Speaker 3: and the next thing, you know, she found my book.
Speaker 3: She found a bunch of news stories and she found
Speaker 3: my book, and she read my book three times before
Speaker 3: she called the detective back, and she said she knew
Speaker 3: by reading my book that that was her sister based
Speaker 3: on just the few details that for had told the detectives.
Speaker 3: So to me, that made me feel good because it
Speaker 3: gave her closure and she knew finally, after all these years,
Speaker 3: what had happened to her sister because she had been
Speaker 3: missing and they tried to report her missing to the police,
Speaker 3: and the police wouldn't allow it because they said, well,
Speaker 3: she was taking drugs and so we consider her to
Speaker 3: be voluntarily missing and she's so she's not really a
Speaker 3: missing person, and unfortunately nobody looked for her, and so
Speaker 3: she wasn't in the database as a missing person. And
Speaker 3: so you know, normally when you report somebody missing, it's
Speaker 3: easier to identify them later when you do find DNA
Speaker 3: or something like that, because it's it's I had to
Speaker 3: have another book where this is how they were identified
Speaker 3: as well, my next book that's coming out of the summer.
Speaker 3: They had their DNA and they had it in a database,
Speaker 3: and so when they found these skeletal remains, they.
Speaker 4: Knew immediately who it was.
Speaker 3: So it's a shame that the police department in Tucson,
Speaker 3: Arizona wouldn't take the missing person's report.
Speaker 4: Because she could have been identified much sooner than this.
Speaker 3: But anyway, so Jeff Cummings, without him purposely submitting his
Speaker 3: DNA hoping that it would result in his missing cousin
Speaker 3: being identified, we wouldn't be here today.
Speaker 2: Let's Jesus as an opportunity to stop to hear these
Speaker 2: messages now in the writing of this book, especially this
Speaker 2: updated edition. Who did you get to speak to that
Speaker 2: was involved with Carrie on Cummings other than Jeff Cummings.
Speaker 3: Well, I interviewed Jeff and then I also interviewed Kathy Cummings,
Speaker 3: who was her sister, and that's who she was closest to.
Speaker 4: So their parents are dead.
Speaker 3: By now, but Kathy had been almost kind of like
Speaker 3: a parent to her.
Speaker 4: Carrie didn't really get along.
Speaker 3: With her parents because they just didn't understand her lifestyle.
Speaker 3: She she left home, she didn't go to college. I'm
Speaker 3: going to go back a little bit. She actually was.
Speaker 3: She was kind of an odd bird, you know, she
Speaker 3: didn't fit in. She had a speech impediment, so she
Speaker 3: had a difficult time in school getting along with other kids.
Speaker 3: They made fun of her, and she just didn't test well.
Speaker 3: She didn't do well in a regular school. So but
Speaker 3: when she was tested for intelligence, she was found to
Speaker 3: be pretty intelligent. It's just that there's some people who
Speaker 3: need a different type of education, you know. I don't
Speaker 3: know if she was dyslexic or something, and maybe she
Speaker 3: wasn't diagnosed properly, but she just had a hard time
Speaker 3: in regular school. So she was an artist and she
Speaker 3: enjoyed and was talented in art and ended up going
Speaker 3: to art school and did well in that, but she
Speaker 3: was just kind of a different person and she wanted
Speaker 3: to go off, you know, and she hooked up with
Speaker 3: the Rainbow Gatherings. I don't know if you know anything
Speaker 3: about the Rainbow Gatherings, but there it's just kind of
Speaker 3: like a hippie group of people that they all live
Speaker 3: in this giant communal kind of situation. And I'm not
Speaker 3: sure how long they go, maybe a week or something,
Speaker 3: but they get naked and they sit around in the
Speaker 3: stream and they do hallucinogenic drugs and they all, you know,
Speaker 3: probably sing and it's all kumbay a, you know. So
Speaker 3: she basically got into psychedelics and recreational drugs, and I
Speaker 3: don't think that helped her brain a whole lot, because
Speaker 3: there was depression. The mom and the sister had experienced,
Speaker 3: you know, depression, and so they were they took drugs
Speaker 3: for that, but pharmaceutical drugs. But Carrie Anne did not
Speaker 3: want to take pharmaceutical drugs only she said she was
Speaker 3: just going to continue taking the street.
Speaker 4: Drugs that she was already taking.
Speaker 3: So she would come, she would go to these gatherings,
Speaker 3: she would come back home and she would stay with
Speaker 3: her sister Kathy for part of the year and then
Speaker 3: she'd pick up and leave again. So basically, she came
Speaker 3: back one year close to the time to when she disappeared,
Speaker 3: and she had her mental state had disintegrated even more
Speaker 3: so it was nineteen ninety five that she had a
Speaker 3: mental breakdown. She shaved her head, she cut herself on
Speaker 3: her forearms. She stuck her hand I guess behind the
Speaker 3: refrigerator or something and cut herself that way as well.
Speaker 3: But she also cut herself like with a razor, and
Speaker 3: she reported hearing voices, and so they, you know, her
Speaker 3: mom and her sister tried to get her to go
Speaker 3: see somebody, and like I said, she just refused to
Speaker 3: take pharmaceutical drugs. So she left again, and you know,
Speaker 3: they were worried about her, but she just wouldn't come home.
Speaker 3: And her parents, you know, a year or two later, said,
Speaker 3: you know, why don't you come travel with us with us?
Speaker 4: Because they sold.
Speaker 3: Their house and they were, you know, traveling around, and
Speaker 3: she just didn't want to be with her parents because
Speaker 3: they didn't understand her lifestyle. So her sister Kathy was
Speaker 3: trying to get her to come back. She talked to
Speaker 3: her on the phone and at one point, you know,
Speaker 3: she was sober, but when she talked to her on the
Speaker 3: phone again, she was clearly on something again. And so
Speaker 3: that was the last time she talked to her. And
Speaker 3: they think she was on her way to state with
Speaker 3: some friends of the family in northern California, and so
Speaker 3: they think that she got into Ford's truck, you know,
Speaker 3: in Eureka, Humboldt County, which is in northern California, on
Speaker 3: her way to go see these people. Anyway, Cathy told
Speaker 3: me about all of that, and so it's all in
Speaker 3: the book.
Speaker 2: You talk about Wayne at that same time meeting this
Speaker 2: woman and him having his own mental problems, right, and
Speaker 2: you talk about that these problems were not just diagnosed
Speaker 2: by doctors, that he had a history of being restrained
Speaker 2: in a hospital while he was in the military and
Speaker 2: then discharge greatly because of that mental illness, didn't he Yeah.
Speaker 3: He Okay, So let's go back. So when he was
Speaker 3: he was nineteen years old, he was in the Marines
Speaker 3: in Orange County, California. So I live in San Diego County,
Speaker 3: so that's one county to the north on the way
Speaker 3: to LA For those of you who don't live in California,
Speaker 3: and who think that La and San diego all next
Speaker 3: to each other.
Speaker 4: They're not.
Speaker 3: So anyway, he's in Orange County. He's dating this woman
Speaker 3: named Kelly, who eventually married, and they're on a date
Speaker 3: and he sees a car crash at the side of
Speaker 3: the road, and he has been taking first aid classes
Speaker 3: in the military, so he says, I want to go
Speaker 3: over there and see if I can help.
Speaker 4: So he goes over there and he basically tries to
Speaker 4: save this person's life.
Speaker 3: Is bleeding at the neck and he puts his hand
Speaker 3: to stop the bleeding on the artery in the guy's
Speaker 3: neck that's bleeding. And while he's doing at a drink
Speaker 3: driver hits them and knocks for forty feet down an embankment.
Speaker 3: And so that's how he got that head injury. And
Speaker 3: he was in the ICU for nine days.
Speaker 4: Apparently.
Speaker 3: You know, he was bizarre, a little bizarre before that,
Speaker 3: but after that his personality changed and he was having
Speaker 3: serious problems. And again I don't know if this was
Speaker 3: related to the head injury or if it was just
Speaker 3: you know, predispositive predisposed. He was just predisposed to it
Speaker 3: because his mom had issues. But he would just act
Speaker 3: out and get really violent, and they had to give
Speaker 3: him heald all and restrain him, and they would keep
Speaker 3: him in the hospital in the military for you know,
Speaker 3: days or week at a time, and he just he
Speaker 3: just reacted really strongly to things and and was you know,
Speaker 3: really jealous and possessive. And he drove that poor woman
Speaker 3: away and you know, to some other guy, and then
Speaker 3: he'd get upset that she was with the other guy
Speaker 3: and would stalk them and anyway, so that all happened,
Speaker 3: and it continued, you know, So he got out of
Speaker 3: a military I know, he drove a school bus while
Speaker 3: he was in Orange County. He also would sing karaoke
Speaker 3: apparently had a really good voice and apparently still sings
Speaker 3: to this day. But his family never knew that he
Speaker 3: had all these problems.
Speaker 4: I just thought he was a.
Speaker 3: Handsome, polite young man and had no idea that he
Speaker 3: was so sexually kinkyar so bizarre.
Speaker 4: But he didn't start getting.
Speaker 3: Really violent with people and with women in particular, you know,
Speaker 3: until later. He was you know, he was volatile, I think,
Speaker 3: but I don't remember him, you know, being arrested. I
Speaker 3: might be wrong, but it's been a while, but he
Speaker 3: killed a dog. He got really upset with one of
Speaker 3: his neighbor's dogs. I remember that, but I don't think
Speaker 3: he actually hurt people until later.
Speaker 2: Kelly's information, though, talks about those paraphilias that you mentioned,
Speaker 2: and also this is insatiable, deviant sexual desires that couldn't
Speaker 2: be satisfied.
Speaker 3: I don't, to be honest, The thing that I remember
Speaker 3: the most about Kelly is this thing with the breasts.
Speaker 3: So yeah, I mean there were a lot of things
Speaker 3: that he wanted her to do that she didn't want
Speaker 3: to do.
Speaker 4: I remember that.
Speaker 3: Like I said, it's I'm thinking more about what came
Speaker 3: out at the trial, which was a lifelong situation because Kelly,
Speaker 3: you know, he was nineteen and that was a long
Speaker 3: time before he was finally put into prison and arrested
Speaker 3: and then put into prison. So yeah, I mean, he
Speaker 3: had exhibitionism, voyeurism, and he was doing this erotic asphyxia,
Speaker 3: which is basically when you choke someone and cut off
Speaker 3: the oxygen to their brain, so supposedly they have a
Speaker 3: more intense orgasm. And he was trying to say that
Speaker 3: this was for their ben and I think, no, I
Speaker 3: don't think this was for beaar benefit. I don't think
Speaker 3: they wanted to be choked four times until they passed
Speaker 3: out and brought back for CPR. I don't think they
Speaker 3: enjoyed that, but he did apparently.
Speaker 2: Left Jesus as an opportunity to stop to hear these messages.
Speaker 2: Now you got to talk to Wayne's father and Wayne's brother, Rodney,
Speaker 2: And Rodney is a very very important character in this
Speaker 2: because that's the person that Wayne confided in and did
Speaker 2: a confession of sorts to him, and Rodney was compelled
Speaker 2: to bring him to that sheriff's office to turn him in.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so this is kind of interesting.
Speaker 3: So when I interviewed Rodney many years ago, this book
Speaker 3: originally came out in two thousand and nine, he told
Speaker 3: me that his brother didn't tell him anything specific, that
Speaker 3: he just said he'd hurt some people and that, you want,
Speaker 3: he needed to turn himself in, and he called his
Speaker 3: brother because he kind of knew that he was going
Speaker 3: to probably not be able to do it on his own,
Speaker 3: which is true because he you know, tried to get
Speaker 3: out of it after calling his brother, and his brother
Speaker 3: had had a really long day and ended up, you know,
Speaker 3: losing his job that same day and gets a call
Speaker 3: from his brother, I need you to come up here
Speaker 3: to this motel room way up in you know, Eureka.
Speaker 3: So he had to drive I can't remember how many
Speaker 3: hours all the way up there. And he gets there
Speaker 3: and he's in this this motel room in the middle
Speaker 3: of the redwood forest, which is pretty beautiful but kind
Speaker 3: of creepy, weird little motel. But when I was talking
Speaker 3: to Rodney recently, when I was doing the update, he
Speaker 3: told me that he didn't tell me the truth, that
Speaker 3: in fact, his brother did tell him some details that night.
Speaker 3: So it's funny you asked me that, because he did
Speaker 3: not tell me originally that he had confessed anything, but
Speaker 3: then eventually he told me that he did confess things.
Speaker 3: So he wanted to to make sure that his brother
Speaker 3: turned himself in because he didn't want to be held
Speaker 3: accountable because he or be you know, considered complicit in
Speaker 3: any of this stuff, because he didn't know anything about
Speaker 3: it until his brother told him. And even though he
Speaker 3: pretended that he didn't know these things, he was worried
Speaker 3: that somehow he'd get hauled in, you know, become part
Speaker 3: of this whole mess.
Speaker 2: So are you writing this book too? That he had
Speaker 2: a constant failure in relationships, which led to him being
Speaker 2: married various times. And one of the events seemed to precipitate,
Speaker 2: or at least some people thought that it precipitated these
Speaker 2: murders or some of his murders, in that he had
Speaker 2: a son with a woman named Elizabeth, and again rejection
Speaker 2: and failure in that relationship.
Speaker 3: Yeah. So the thing about this relationship, you know, he's
Speaker 3: a difficult person, and he.
Speaker 4: Can act like a child, and he can act.
Speaker 3: Very petulant and spoiled and way too emotional, and.
Speaker 4: So basically he saw himself as a victim.
Speaker 3: And that seems pretty common with murders that I've written about.
Speaker 3: They you know, they they somehow see their lives as
Speaker 3: you know, it's not their fault and this happened to them.
Speaker 3: And you know, so he's basically blaming his ex wife
Speaker 3: for keeping him from his son, which was not exactly
Speaker 3: the case. I mean, there was you know, he moved away.
Speaker 3: I mean I don't think I don't think there was
Speaker 3: ever going to be anything like you know, fifty to
Speaker 3: fifty custody because of his mental you know, short falls
Speaker 3: to put it mildly, But it's not like she wouldn't
Speaker 3: let him see the kid.
Speaker 4: But in for it's mind, it became that way.
Speaker 3: And so when he was talking to people, you know
Speaker 3: in his life, you know, some women at the bar
Speaker 3: or his relatives or whatever, he would just complain about
Speaker 3: how this woman was keeping him from his son and
Speaker 3: you know, woe is me, and I'm such a victim,
Speaker 3: And that really wasn't the situation. You know, he could
Speaker 3: have tried harder to see his son. He really didn't
Speaker 3: see him that often because he didn't go visit him.
Speaker 3: And you know, they lived, he moved away. He was
Speaker 3: living in a different state because his wife was in
Speaker 3: Las Vegas. So you know, that was a whole messed
Speaker 3: up perspective thing. But that's that's how he claimed it,
Speaker 3: and that's and he did it in the detective interviews
Speaker 3: as well. He was blaming you know, his ex wife
Speaker 3: and how he didn't get to see his son and
Speaker 3: was crying about it.
Speaker 4: And like I said, the guy, the guy was a mess.
Speaker 2: You got to talk to people that were responsible for
Speaker 2: this DNA testing. This wasn't an easy endeavor to get
Speaker 2: this DNA testing to find out the remains of care
Speaker 2: and Cummings, and so you introduce a character that you
Speaker 2: spoke to Sheriff Billy Hansel, I'll tell us about this
Speaker 2: initiative to get this testing done.
Speaker 3: Okay, So the sheriff basically came into office, and Humboldt
Speaker 3: County in twenty eighteen, that's about around when he came
Speaker 3: into office, had more than sixty five unsolved homicides and
Speaker 3: missing persons cases and nearly twenty unidentified remains cases, including
Speaker 3: this one, dating back to nineteen fifty. So when he
Speaker 3: was elected, he launched this cold case unit to investigate them.
Speaker 3: It only had two part time detectives though, so these
Speaker 3: were not detectives that were full time or even you know,
Speaker 3: normally employed by this department, but they were, you know,
Speaker 3: I think one of them was retired. One of them
Speaker 3: I think may have worked for another agency, but you know,
Speaker 3: so they worked part time.
Speaker 4: And so it had been the case previously.
Speaker 3: This is a small department that all the working detectives
Speaker 3: also had to deal with cold cases, which of course
Speaker 3: they didn't have time to do because they were constantly dealing.
Speaker 4: With new cases.
Speaker 3: So he decided that he wanted to make a special
Speaker 3: initiative to try to solve these cold cases because there
Speaker 3: were so many of them. And what's interesting about this
Speaker 3: area is this is known as the the Green I
Speaker 3: think it's called the Green Triangle, their Emerald Triangle because
Speaker 3: parly were all the pot had grown in California. So
Speaker 3: and it's you know, and there's a lot of there's
Speaker 3: a lot of crime up there, and you know, get
Speaker 3: people showing up who are involved in this whole underworld
Speaker 3: of selling pot, you know, and so you know, recreational
Speaker 3: pot is a relatively new.
Speaker 4: Thing, you know.
Speaker 3: So up in humbold County there was always this tradition
Speaker 3: of people who grew pot illegally in the forests and
Speaker 3: in you know, sometimes on their own land. And so
Speaker 3: a lot of these you know, people just like ended
Speaker 3: up going missing and they'd find these bodies, you know,
Speaker 3: in bodies of water or in the forest. And so,
Speaker 3: you know, this woman, they didn't know who she was,
Speaker 3: and they didn't they did this one in particular because
Speaker 3: it was a woman, I think, and because it was
Speaker 3: a young woman, and they knew that because her pelvic
Speaker 3: area was still part of the torso and they could
Speaker 3: tell that she'd actually had had a baby before as well.
Speaker 3: I don't know how they did that but they could
Speaker 3: tell that from what was left of her remains, which
Speaker 3: was a surprise to her sister because she never knew
Speaker 3: that her sister had been pregnant, and she thought, oh god,
Speaker 3: what happened to that baby? I wonder the same thing.
Speaker 3: Did she have the baby, did she lose the baby?
Speaker 3: Is that person alive today? I mean, I'm still wondering that,
Speaker 3: and there's no way to know.
Speaker 4: So basically, the.
Speaker 3: Sheriff put together this cold case unit, and then the
Speaker 3: forensic technician I think was already working for the sheriff's department,
Speaker 3: so he went.
Speaker 4: And got the train name.
Speaker 3: His name is Andy Campbell, and so he's the guy
Speaker 3: that does most of the work. So you have to
Speaker 3: go in and build a family tree essentially and try
Speaker 3: to figure out, you know, who might be related to who.
Speaker 3: So they use public databases they use. They didn't know
Speaker 3: who she was. So what all they could do at
Speaker 3: the time was take tissue samples from the body parts
Speaker 3: that they had and they sent them to the FBI.
Speaker 3: The FBI sent them back and so they had those frozen,
Speaker 3: those little tissue samples. So now after all these years,
Speaker 3: you know, and the technology had advanced, they were able to,
Speaker 3: you know, try to do a match. So they submitted
Speaker 3: that DNA to ged match, and that's how they matched
Speaker 3: up with a cousin.
Speaker 2: You chronicle the contact of the family members to give
Speaker 2: them this very very interesting news. They talked to Jeff,
Speaker 2: but then they talked to Kathy as well.
Speaker 3: Right like I said, they left a message on her
Speaker 3: voicemail saying that they were calling from Eureka, And so
Speaker 3: in the meantime, she read my book three times figured
Speaker 3: out it was her sister, and so by the time
Speaker 3: she called them back, she's.
Speaker 4: Basically like, you know, I think I know why you're calling.
Speaker 3: So then they had to get her DNA and do
Speaker 3: a real match because she's you know, they need to
Speaker 3: get closer than a cousin to make sure they have
Speaker 3: the right person.
Speaker 4: So they did that, and then they knew it was her.
Speaker 2: That Jesus has an opportunity to stop to hear these messages.
Speaker 2: Who did you talk to for the updated edition that
Speaker 2: you didn't speak to in two thousand and nine, and
Speaker 2: again somewhat of the surprise of the information that you
Speaker 2: did receive.
Speaker 3: Well, I interviewed her cousin and the sister and the
Speaker 3: sheriff and the detective that was working on the case,
Speaker 3: and Andy Campbell, the genealogist. I talked also with a
Speaker 3: guy who had worked on the original case, and they
Speaker 3: had one of the staff members in the medical examiners
Speaker 3: or coroner's office or whatever.
Speaker 4: Had done something.
Speaker 3: He buried these remains when he wasn't supposed to, and
Speaker 3: oh it was a mess. So I feel bad for
Speaker 3: Kathy because these parts were you know, they were buried
Speaker 3: part some of them were buried in a pauper's grave.
Speaker 3: They didn't know she was, so they had to dig
Speaker 3: those up and send them to her. Plus these tissue samples,
Speaker 3: I mean, there were just pieces of her. You know.
Speaker 4: It's so sad.
Speaker 3: But she got I think she got everything that they
Speaker 3: could get to her.
Speaker 4: And so she said, she told me she was.
Speaker 3: Going to bury them on her land where she's living now,
Speaker 3: so she'll be close to her. Other than that, I
Speaker 3: think that I talked to Rodney again, and.
Speaker 4: I think that was about it.
Speaker 2: You tried to speak to Wayne tell us about this
Speaker 2: attempt to get him to add her some questions.
Speaker 3: So what's funny is, after all these years, you know,
Speaker 3: I had tried to speak with him for the first edition,
Speaker 3: and he didn't want to. He never answered me, and
Speaker 3: that I attributed to There was this woman, This is
Speaker 3: very ironic. She was a breast enhancement herbal supplement spokes model,
Speaker 3: a mouthful.
Speaker 4: He was this blonde english woman.
Speaker 3: She was young, she was pretty. She was in the
Speaker 3: courtroom for the sentencing and she kind of latched onto
Speaker 3: me and she had basically started visiting him in jail
Speaker 3: and decided she woke up one day and she said,
Speaker 3: I'm going to do a documentary on a serial killer.
Speaker 3: It's just like, okay, you're just a journalist overnight. Okay, great. Anyways,
Speaker 3: she was not a journalist. She was turned out to
Speaker 3: be this huge faker. And there's a whole backstory which
Speaker 3: I can't get into for legal reasons, but she was
Speaker 3: a conn woman essentially, and she pretended to be something
Speaker 3: that she wasn't to numerous people. But she latched on
Speaker 3: him and she did in fact work with a producer
Speaker 3: and they did in fact produce a documentary.
Speaker 4: So she was interviewing him in.
Speaker 3: Jail and the defense found out about it and they
Speaker 3: got really upset because she was you know, they were
Speaker 3: worried that she was getting information out of him. And
Speaker 3: they could really script the trial, so they put a
Speaker 3: stop to that. But then she continued to call him,
Speaker 3: or he would call her collect or whatever. They were
Speaker 3: still speaking, and she was sending him pictures of herself,
Speaker 3: you know, washing the car and these little tiny shorts
Speaker 3: and you know, just kind of gross. He decided to
Speaker 3: make her his media liaison, which go figure, you know,
Speaker 3: And so of course she doesn't want to let me
Speaker 3: speak to him because she wants him all to herself
Speaker 3: for her silly documentary.
Speaker 2: How was she depicted in all of this?
Speaker 1: Later?
Speaker 4: Like I said, she was a calm woman.
Speaker 3: She Rodnie never trusted her, you know, he had a
Speaker 3: lot of choice things to say about her. She showed
Speaker 3: up at the dad's house at one point trying to
Speaker 3: get money. I mean, she's just I don't want to
Speaker 3: say anything more, just because I don't want to get
Speaker 3: in trouble. But she's not in the picture anymore. From
Speaker 3: what I can tell. There was a whole bunch of
Speaker 3: other stuff that happened with her that had nothing to
Speaker 3: do with Ford that I found out that she was,
Speaker 3: you know, using other people to get what she wanted,
Speaker 3: and it was just not good. So I never let
Speaker 3: her use me because I could tell she was She
Speaker 3: was just not so I was like, I don't want
Speaker 3: to get thrown out of the courtroom. She was like
Speaker 3: trying to take pictures so when she wasn't supposed to.
Speaker 3: You know, you're not allowed to take pictures at certain
Speaker 3: times during the court proceedings. And she was sitting next
Speaker 3: to me, and I was just like, I'll sit next
Speaker 3: to me, and I don't want to get thrown out
Speaker 3: or some kind of lunatic.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 4: I didn't say that, I'm.
Speaker 2: Kidding, but and she was reprimanded for deceptive practices in
Speaker 2: trying to visit Wayne and also just not using her
Speaker 2: her actual name.
Speaker 3: Yeah, she was, like I said, she was a connwoman.
Speaker 3: She would like ride in her car next to the
Speaker 3: bus when he was being transported, and I'm just all
Speaker 3: kinds of stuff. She was just really out there. But
Speaker 3: he liked her, you know, he likes blondes.
Speaker 2: When you spoke to Rodney, the person closest to his
Speaker 2: brother Wayne and who professes love for him, even though
Speaker 2: they didn't he and Jean didn't visit him in San Quentin,
Speaker 2: what did he What was his only conclusion as to
Speaker 2: the reason why Wayne became what he became.
Speaker 4: I don't really know the answer to that.
Speaker 3: I do know that he blamed the time when he
Speaker 3: got hit by the drunk driver. Know that he said
Speaker 3: that he really his personality really did change after that.
Speaker 3: But other than that, I mean, they're not on good
Speaker 3: terms anymore, if they don't really speak anymore, because you know,
Speaker 3: this really affected Rodney in a pretty dramatic way as well.
Speaker 3: I mean, he was constantly getting hounded. He's like, I
Speaker 3: can't go to a family you know, get together without
Speaker 3: somebody bringing it up. And no, he just felt like
Speaker 3: he was being hounded and he just you know, he
Speaker 3: didn't approve of anything that his brother did and didn't
Speaker 3: like it, and it didn't like how it affected you
Speaker 3: know him, and like reporters hounding him, and he just
Speaker 3: wanted it. He just didn't want any part of it.
Speaker 3: And to this day he just seems pretty bitter about
Speaker 3: the whole thing. He really blamed his mother a lot too,
Speaker 3: because his mother was just not a good influence and
Speaker 3: she always wanted something from them.
Speaker 4: You know, years later she would you know, she would've
Speaker 4: off to India. This happened.
Speaker 3: I got in the middle of this somehow, this doesn't
Speaker 3: have anything to do with the case. But because of
Speaker 3: my book, and because I quoted the mother in the book,
Speaker 3: even though I didn't actually interview her, I had access
Speaker 3: to the defense investigator's an eight hour interview with her.
Speaker 3: I had excerpts of that, so I used it, and
Speaker 3: I used that to also interview the father, because she
Speaker 3: was accusing the father of all kinds of things, and Jane,
Speaker 3: the father was like, that didn't happen. So I actually
Speaker 3: had to write the book. There are parts of the
Speaker 3: book where I have he said, she said in completely
Speaker 3: different sections. Because their recollections and their versions of what
Speaker 3: happened were so different, I can't say which is true,
Speaker 3: you know, because I wasn't there. But Rodney really, I think,
Speaker 3: cided more with the father and really really did not
Speaker 3: like the mother. And so I got this email from
Speaker 3: somebody who was taking care of the mom and I
Speaker 3: think she she got COVID and she had some other issues.
Speaker 3: And I got put in the middle of this, and
Speaker 3: they said, well, can you please contact Rodney. She really
Speaker 3: needs help. She's trying to, you know, reach out to him,
Speaker 3: and either he was ignoring her or she didn't know
Speaker 3: where he was. And so I, you know, passed on
Speaker 3: the messages. So your mom's really sick. She's trying to
Speaker 3: get a hold of you. So it's just, you know,
Speaker 3: this case has gone on for a really long time,
Speaker 3: and I kind of got in the middle of that,
Speaker 3: and in ways, you know, they had nothing to do
Speaker 3: with the case, but you know, to deal with this
Speaker 3: blonde woman and then again now that later with the
Speaker 3: mom being sick, and so it's funny how these cases
Speaker 3: end up, you know, going on and on and evolving
Speaker 3: in ways that you never imagined.
Speaker 2: You spoke to Kathy about the last phone call she
Speaker 2: had with her sister.
Speaker 3: As I was mentioning before, she was sounding like she
Speaker 3: was on drugs and she hadn't. She had been sober
Speaker 3: the last time that she'd seen her, and so she
Speaker 3: could tell that she wasn't doing well, and she kind
Speaker 3: of begged her to come back. She said, I'll send
Speaker 3: you a plane, I'll send you a bus ticket, and
Speaker 3: she just didn't want to come back. So that's why
Speaker 3: she thought that maybe she was on her way to
Speaker 3: go see these family friends in northern California.
Speaker 2: In this updated addition and taking into consideration the first edition,
Speaker 2: what is your conclusion as to this formation of this
Speaker 2: Wayne adam Ford, what can you attribute it to? What
Speaker 2: do you attribute his murderous behavior to?
Speaker 3: Basically, I think what happened to him is his brain
Speaker 3: started deteriorating. I think they actually did a brain scan
Speaker 3: and showed that part of his brain had atrophied, which
Speaker 3: is something that happens to people who are alcoholics. So
Speaker 3: that's one thing that happened. The brain injury that he
Speaker 3: had from being knocked down, the clip down, the embankment.
Speaker 4: He was in the ICU for nine days.
Speaker 3: They got in touch with his mother to come and
Speaker 3: see him, and she came briefly and then just said, oh,
Speaker 3: you know, I'm going to leave. Your girlfriend can take
Speaker 3: care of you.
Speaker 4: So she is a real piece of work too, so
Speaker 4: you know, neglected by the mom.
Speaker 3: The father was very intimidating and aggressive and kind of
Speaker 3: a gruff guy. There's a story that he would you know,
Speaker 3: the mom told that he grabbed her breast at the
Speaker 3: dinner table, which of course he denies. She claims that
Speaker 3: he raped her, which he denies, but you know, whether
Speaker 3: it's true or not. He was definitely a force that
Speaker 3: board was scared of that he was going to get punished.
Speaker 4: So he had this whole thing.
Speaker 3: When he was young about being scared that he was
Speaker 3: going to be get in trouble for things, and sometimes
Speaker 3: he would confess things.
Speaker 4: So I don't know how much of this evolved and
Speaker 4: how much was just in his makeup.
Speaker 3: But over time, you know, he was picking up these
Speaker 3: women and maybe he just figured he was getting away
Speaker 3: with it and he just kept doing it. I don't know,
Speaker 3: but I mean, I think it started getting worse when
Speaker 3: he started, you know, the behavior started escalating. And you know,
Speaker 3: his first victim carry in Cummings, he dismembered entirely. And
Speaker 3: what's weird to me is that did not escalate, Like
Speaker 3: he didn't do that again. That was the first time
Speaker 3: he did it, and he didn't do it again. The
Speaker 3: woman whose breast he cut off when he turned himself in,
Speaker 3: he had it in his pocket. He claims that he
Speaker 3: cut that off only because he was having trouble getting
Speaker 3: her into the aqueduct or something, and like the way
Speaker 3: that he had the rope and the tarp or whatever,
Speaker 3: the breast was in the way, so he cut it off,
Speaker 3: you know, if that's true. But I don't really know,
Speaker 3: to be honest, what happened to him other than you know,
Speaker 3: he just knew he couldn't stop doing it. But he
Speaker 3: said he did it to fifty women, and if there
Speaker 3: were just four that he killed, he says, oll, what
Speaker 3: was an accident? I gave them CPR and these ones
Speaker 3: just didn't make it back. And I say, well, okay,
Speaker 3: maybe that's an excuse for the first time, maybe for
Speaker 3: the second time. But if you know that you do
Speaker 3: that kind of behavior and these women are dying, you
Speaker 3: stop doing it, right, I mean, you know that's you know,
Speaker 3: what you're doing is going to cause that That's not
Speaker 3: an excuse. So apparently he admitted all that, and then
Speaker 3: years later, now according to his brother, he's starting to
Speaker 3: kind of backtrack and claim that he's innocent and that
Speaker 3: he's going to get out of prison.
Speaker 4: And I don't know what's going on with him.
Speaker 3: I mean, the guy's got a lot, a lot of
Speaker 3: mental issues, so you know, take it with a grain
Speaker 3: of salt. But I think you asked me, you know,
Speaker 3: I try to get in touch with him, So yes,
Speaker 3: I did try to get in touch with him. What's
Speaker 3: funny these days is you can actually talk to inmates.
Speaker 3: Now there's no longer a death row. They have dismantled
Speaker 3: it and they've moved these prisoners now into other regular prisons.
Speaker 3: I have two people in following or three people in
Speaker 3: following still because we're talking about doing TV and movie
Speaker 3: deals here and there. I'll lett you know if they
Speaker 3: ever come through, but I got to keep track of
Speaker 3: where these people are. So Board is now in San
Speaker 3: Luis Obispo in another prison. And the guy that I'm
Speaker 3: following for my next book that's coming out in June,
Speaker 3: Charles Chase Merritt, he is now down San Diego County
Speaker 3: at the prison here. But you can talk to them
Speaker 3: by phone if you want, and you can email them
Speaker 3: and they can email you back, which they've given these
Speaker 3: prisoners somehow access which they never used to. So I emailed.
Speaker 3: It's through some kind of third party provider, but so
Speaker 3: it's like blind. They don't have your actual email or
Speaker 3: phone number unless you give it to them.
Speaker 4: And I ended up.
Speaker 3: Getting a burner phone a burner app which I could
Speaker 3: forward to my cell phone, but it costs money and
Speaker 3: I didn't want to keep doing it, so I emailed
Speaker 3: forward and I just said, Hey, I'm doing an update.
Speaker 4: I'd really like.
Speaker 3: To talk to you, you know, and he basically wrote
Speaker 3: back he didn't see any point and he said he
Speaker 3: never read the first book, and he didn't plan on it,
Speaker 3: and he just didn't see any point in talking to me.
Speaker 3: So I don't know what that's about or why, but
Speaker 3: we've never never talked.
Speaker 4: But then he sent me.
Speaker 3: Until forrest he's wished me a happy Fourth of July
Speaker 3: with a bunch of exclamation points.
Speaker 4: I just thought that was really bizarre. That very so,
Speaker 4: and that's the last I heard of him.
Speaker 2: That's incredible. It's very interesting too that the brother talks
Speaker 2: just a little bit about his Wayne's attitude towards what
Speaker 2: he said, wanting women or slots or prostitutes. So he
Speaker 2: had said that the only kind of conclusion he might
Speaker 2: come to is that he had this real bad attitude
Speaker 2: towards women in the first place.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that does seem to be true.
Speaker 3: I mean, he never really seemed to respect them all
Speaker 3: that much. I mean when you hear him talk about them,
Speaker 3: you know, in the way he treated them, even before
Speaker 3: he was killing women, he didn't treat them.
Speaker 4: He never really treated him very well.
Speaker 2: But then again, this brain injury that's well documented, that
Speaker 2: seems definitely attributable to the murders that he committed and
Speaker 2: the kinds of murders he committed. You just chronicle. I
Speaker 2: don't want to get into too many details, but twenty
Speaker 2: seven stab wounds that were post murder.
Speaker 3: Well, he dismembered her, and I think he also had
Speaker 3: sex with the body after she was dead. I mean,
Speaker 3: you know, like I said, the guy's out there and
Speaker 3: I can't understand that you asked me how to get
Speaker 3: like that. I have no idea, you know, but he's
Speaker 3: he's definitely got some problems in his brain. He's definitely
Speaker 3: got some problem and more than a lot of killers,
Speaker 3: you know, very complicated guy.
Speaker 2: Yes, you mentioned that you have a project this summer,
Speaker 2: another book project. Can you tell us about that book
Speaker 2: project and just a little bit about it?
Speaker 4: Sure?
Speaker 3: Okay, So it's called Down to the Bone, A Missing
Speaker 3: Famili's Murder and the Elusive Quest for Justice. So hopefully
Speaker 3: you'll have me to have me on to talk about
Speaker 3: this in full. But it comes out on June twenty fourth,
Speaker 3: so you can pre order it now, would.
Speaker 4: Love it if you did, because it.
Speaker 3: Has been delayed three times. Really kind of mess with
Speaker 3: my momentum and sales and promoting this book and talking
Speaker 3: about this book, because every time I'd start talking about
Speaker 3: it again, my publisher would delay the publication date. So
Speaker 3: this is a tricky book, and this is partly the reason.
Speaker 3: But there were other reasons that I can't really go
Speaker 3: into that had nothing to do with me. But it's
Speaker 3: about the mcday family. So this is a family of four.
Speaker 3: Joseph and Summer McStay where the parents and then there
Speaker 3: were two little boys, ages three and four, Jeohnny and
Speaker 3: Joey Junior. And they lived in San New York County
Speaker 3: here where I live, in Fallbrook, which is way north
Speaker 3: and east of me, and they had just moved into
Speaker 3: this house and they were renovating it. They had previously
Speaker 3: lived on the coast because Joseph was a surfer and
Speaker 3: he and Summer loved being at the beach. But they
Speaker 3: wanted to buy house and they just couldn't afford coastal
Speaker 3: property because it is really expensive here. So they bought
Speaker 3: this place that was in foreclosure, so that's how they
Speaker 3: got a good deal on it. And they basically were
Speaker 3: redoing it and so they were, you know, painting the kitchen,
Speaker 3: they were putting a new flooring, they're putting a new countertop,
Speaker 3: so the house was kind of a mess and hadn't
Speaker 3: really moved in, so there was you know, it was
Speaker 3: it was difficult for the for the police when they
Speaker 3: got the sheriff's department, when they got involved, to kind
Speaker 3: of tell what was going on. But basically, there's one
Speaker 3: day they just kind of disappeared and the last person
Speaker 3: who they knew they had seen was a business associate.
Speaker 3: So he'd spent most of his time working with two
Speaker 3: business associates. And basically the gist of the book is
Speaker 3: that they arrested one business associate when the other one
Speaker 3: had just the same motive and in fact, much more
Speaker 3: of the same behavior wasn't even considered as a suspect,
Speaker 3: and yet the other one is now on death row
Speaker 3: because the defense claims, you know, confirmation bias that the
Speaker 3: sheriff's department basically you know, mishandled. The first shriff's department
Speaker 3: in the San Diego Sheriff's department investigated this as a
Speaker 3: missing person's case when clearly there were red flags all
Speaker 3: over that something bad had happened to these people, But
Speaker 3: the detective, in his wisdom, had determined long before you know,
Speaker 3: the end of this case, when he gave up basically
Speaker 3: that they had gone voluntarily to Mexico. That's what he decided,
Speaker 3: when in fact, eight months after he dropped the case
Speaker 3: and said I'm going to hand this over to the FBI,
Speaker 3: which he actually never did because they never got a
Speaker 3: single file. I don't know what that means. Maybe maybe
Speaker 3: it was in process that All I know is they
Speaker 3: never got anything. Their skeletal remains were found one hundred
Speaker 3: miles away from the house in the high desert in
Speaker 3: San Bernardino County. And coincidentally, the same judge from Wayne
Speaker 3: adam Ford's trial is the same judge that handled the
Speaker 3: mix Stay case, which I thought.
Speaker 4: Was really interesting, yes many years later too.
Speaker 3: So basically, they found these bodies in two shallow graves
Speaker 3: in the middle of the desert. A micro motorcyclist found
Speaker 3: a bone and it was it turned out to be
Speaker 3: a piece of one of the little boy's skull skulls,
Speaker 3: And so when they dug they found this two areas
Speaker 3: where they were shallow graves where there was one adult
Speaker 3: and one child buried in this one area. So they
Speaker 3: uncovered all that, took all the bones out and they
Speaker 3: basically found that they were all hit in the back
Speaker 3: of the head with a blunt instrument. So it's sad,
Speaker 3: you know, they did not go to Mexico. They were
Speaker 3: brutally bludgeoned and left in the desert. The defense said,
Speaker 3: confirmation bias. You never even looked at anybody else. You
Speaker 3: just decided it was this guy, and then no matter
Speaker 3: what you found or didn't find to support it, this
Speaker 3: is your guy. And so a lot of the trial
Speaker 3: was basically them trying to blame the other business associate.
Speaker 3: So so the book basically goes into, you know, the
Speaker 3: flaws in both investigations and the holes in the prosecution's case,
Speaker 3: and goes into the background of you know, who this
Speaker 3: family was and what they were doing at the time
Speaker 3: they disappeared, and what are you know. There was a
Speaker 3: lot of pretty unanswered questions too. So the prosecution never
Speaker 3: was able to prove where they were killed. They kept
Speaker 3: saying it was in the house, but they never found
Speaker 3: a single drop of blood.
Speaker 4: In the house.
Speaker 3: And if you're bludgeoned in the back of the head
Speaker 3: like that, there's a lot of blood in the head
Speaker 3: when you hit somebody and it splatters, it would go everywhere,
Speaker 3: and they didn't find a single drop of blood in
Speaker 3: the house, and they didn't were not able to link
Speaker 3: the guy who's on death.
Speaker 4: Row by blood or by DNA to the house at
Speaker 4: all or to the gravesite.
Speaker 3: And in fact, the defense claims that there's some untested
Speaker 3: DNA that they found that did not belong to the
Speaker 3: guy who's in prison or to the family that they say,
Speaker 3: if you could just test this, maybe you'd find the
Speaker 3: people who really kill these people. So that's kind of
Speaker 3: a snapshot.
Speaker 2: Well, you made me very anxious to read this book
Speaker 2: and to obviously interview you about that book when it
Speaker 2: is published in the summer. Thank you so much. That
Speaker 2: will be Down to the Bone and coming out this
Speaker 2: summer twenty twenty five. I want to thank you very
Speaker 2: much for coming on and talking about the new updated
Speaker 2: edition of Body Parts, Serial Killer's Deadly Compulsions. For those
Speaker 2: people that might want to look at this case further.
Speaker 2: Can you tell us about your website or any social
Speaker 2: media you do.
Speaker 3: Sure, it's Kaitlin Roth dot com. I am on every
Speaker 3: social media platform I think there is pretty much. I'm
Speaker 3: on Facebook and blue Sky and threads and even Twitter,
Speaker 3: even though it's like yelling into a forest and people
Speaker 3: if they want to email me or buy a book
Speaker 3: sign they're.
Speaker 4: Welcome to contact me.
Speaker 3: But this Body Parts comes out on Tuesday February twenty fifth,
Speaker 3: and Down to the Bone comes out on Tuesday, June
Speaker 3: twenty fourth.
Speaker 2: Sounds fantastic. Thank you so much, Caitlin Rother. Body Parts,
Speaker 2: The Serial Killers, Deadly Compulsion the newest, latest edition, updated.
Speaker 3: Thanks for having me back, Dan, I appreciate it.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much, and you have a great evening,
Speaker 2: and good night, good night.