Speaker 1: You're listening to the Mind over Murder podcast.
Speaker 2: My name is Bill Thomas. I'm a writer, consulting, producer,
and now podcaster. I am now trying to use my
experience as the brother of a murder victim to help
other victims of violent crime. I'm working on a book
on the unsolved Colonial Parkway murders, and I'm the co
administrator of the Colonial Parkway Murders Facebook group together with
Kristin Dilly.
Speaker 3: My name is Kristin Dilly.
Speaker 4: I'm a writer, a researcher, a teacher, and a victim's advocate,
as well as the social media manager and co administrator
for the Colonial Parkway Murders Facebook page with my partner
in crime, Bill Thomas.
Speaker 5: Welcome to Mind of a Murder. I'm Kristin Dilly and
I'm Bill Thomas, and we are honored to be joined
today by Denise and Aaron Quinn, authors of the book
Victim f and stars of the Netflix series American Nightmare.
Denise and Aaron, thank you for joining us today. We
really appreciate it.
Speaker 3: Thank you for having us so.
Speaker 5: We were so thrilled to get to meet you at
Crime Con. We are just big fans of both of you,
and we are I would say, both of us really
honored to know you. The fact that you're willing to
take the time for us today, we really appreciate it. Yeah,
of course, we know that they are going to be
our listeners who are not familiar with your case, and
rather than have you rehash all of the very complex
and I'm sure quite traumatizing events behind it, we're at
the top of this episode going to direct our listeners
to your book Victim f which was co written with
Nikki Egan, and the Netflix documentary which is based on
that book called American Nightmare. We want to start by
asking you rather than going through the case, we do
want to start by asking talk a little bit about
the experience of writing the book and what was that
like for both of you.
Speaker 6: Yeah, it was really a mix of emotions. We very
early on have more or less the truth of our
story hijacked, first initially by the police saying that it
was all a hoax, and then through the media they
mislabeled me the real life Gone Girl, and even after
my captor and rapist was caught, there was still misinformation
perpetuated by the law enforcement that it was really frustrating
to sit back silently and watch as the world had
conversations and judgments about the worst moments of your life
and you just couldn't say anything, so you didn't want
to negatively impact the court process or him being sentenced. Fully,
even in that time of silence, we wrote I think
just in general, it's really healing to get something like
that down on paper, to process living through it.
Speaker 3: Moment to moment, you're just surviving.
Speaker 6: So it's helpful to be able to revisit in a
safe place and really try to figure out what you
were thinking and feeling in those moments. A lot of
it can be quite validating revisiting and really giving a
space to understand the decisions that you made, and because
there's a lot of self blame and self doubt that
can happen when you go through something like this. Yeah,
and it's of course to go back to those moments
can be re traumatizing. You feel the terror of those
very life or death traumatizing situations. Again, it's it's healing
to be able to revisit and reprocess it and really
get a voice again.
Speaker 7: I think it was important for us to have it
from both our points of view, so that alters or
alternates between chapter from my point of view, and then
Denise says, I think people generally understood what Denise went
through was absolutely horrible, and you can have some imagination
of what that would be like. But what Mayfield didn't
know is what the police were doing to me on
during this exact same time where people understood that they
came out called a hoax, but actually there the whole
time they were telling me I had emerged Denise and
that this was all made up, so they didn't believe
it from the get go, and we wanted to as
best we could put people in our shoes and have
people wonder what would I do if I was in
this situation? And how do you handle the machinery of
law enforcement, the media, social media, all just piling on you.
And that's almost insurmowable task to get through. And that's
in a way was challenging to write therapeutic in some ways.
One I generally felt like if I read part of
my chapter I felt a little sick, then I was
probably on the right track.
Speaker 2: This has to be incredibly difficult, not just the experience,
but I wanted to roll back to when you all
started talking about we should write a book, after all
you'd already been through. Does one person tuned to another
and say we should write a book about our experiences
or how did that kind of bubble up?
Speaker 6: I think having the truth of something this horrifying be
told through other people's mouths, lenses, narratives cut and edited
to whatever version that they want to give. I think
we talked about it early on, like, if we are
ever going to do something, we need to write a
book so we can put the full truth out there,
because if we do anything on film, it's going to
be edited through the lens of And even with the
Netflix series that came out, and we worked really closely
with the team to make sure that the overall bigger
picture themes were addressed and it wasn't just the sensationalism
of the crime itself. But even then it's still edited
in a way with that true crime genre and sensational
because it needs to be entertaining for people to keep
clicking binging through.
Speaker 3: That was our ultimate goal.
Speaker 6: If we're ever going to really share this, then we
want to be able to put it down through our voices,
through our perspective. Because that was another thing that we saw.
We started paying attention to quote unquote true crime, and
we saw a lot of it being focused on the
perpetrator and kind of glorifying and sensationalizing that what makes
some tick and all of that, and victims were an
afterthought and just throughout our entire experience, even through the
court process, even after the truth was out, the revictimization
that we face. I don't think the public really understands
fully what it's like to be a victim throughout the
whole thing. But doesn't just end when the crime is over.
It's a lifetime that you have to navigate. We talked
about it early on. It's interesting because we even consulted
with some publishers and literary agents and we got a
lot of, oh, you know, what you went through was
pretty bad, but no one's going to want to read
a book about it, and we're like, really, okay, So
we didn't accept that, and we waited and were patient
and kept true to ourselves, and eventually we found the
right publisher and co author to work with.
Speaker 5: Yeah, how did you meet Nicole Egan? That was going
to be our next question. She is a absolutely wonderful,
delightful person. So did you find her or did she
find you? Or was it a little bit of both.
Speaker 6: We had the same literary agent at the time. That's
how we got connected. She had just written her book
Chasing Cosby, because she had followed the Cosby survivors for
gosh over a decade or more, and so she was yeah,
focused on the victims and really focused on wanting to
get the truth. That was the thing for us too.
We wanted to make sure everything was truthful and factual
as possible, and we had a different author we were
initially working with that really wanted to make it into
a psychological thriller and get Muller a voice and a perspective,
and it was like, whoa, nothing, this is not yeah,
this is not what our goals are. We don't want
to feed into that. And so it was really helpful
to work with the nicky. She has put any ego
aside and really just we all agreed that it should
be told from our perspectives. Within the process, we realize
that Aaron and I should write our own parts. And
then she really helped us edit. We're not technical writers.
We absolutely needed her to help guide and shape the book.
Speaker 3: And then she did the third person parts of the book.
Speaker 6: So it was really nice because we got our perspectives,
we're living through our own kind of story, side by side,
and then she interviewed family members and our attorneys, and
then through media reports and court documents, pulled in perspectives
of law enforcement. So you really do get like a
full bird's eye view of everything that happened in our book.
Speaker 2: So you really get three perspectives if you will, Denise
Aaron and then also Nicky's point of view as a
I don't think she'd be offended if I said outsider,
because she is able to step in with a fresh persontive.
Both of us were just making a horrible face when
the when you mentioned this other writer you were considering
working with, and the idea that you're going to give
the offender a voice, that's just grotesque. And you're absolutely right.
As much as both of us love true crime, Kristen
and Bill, and Kristen is an avid reader, the endless
fascination and discussion of offenders, it's beyond eye rolling. That's
not the only compelling narrative in true crime. And yet
people seem to be wanting to talk about offenders, serial killers,
what have you endlessly. How did you feel like you
were able to push back against that?
Speaker 6: A lot of fighting, no argue, I laugh, No, I
mean it was a long journey to get the right people.
And even then there's a lot of hiring and firing
and trial and error of entering a contract, having to
get out of a contract because people tell you what
you want to hear. But then when push comes to
shove and the work is actually being done and you're like,
oh my god, you're doing the thing again. And a
big piece of our case was that that type of viewpoint,
that sensationalism around a real crime, whereas like sometimes quote
unquote true crime isn't really true, it's spun, it's dramatized,
And part of that fed into the whole gone girl
thing and viewing me a certain way, not understanding how
real victims respond in these types of situations, and quite frankly,
it seemed like law enforcement got a lot of their
training quote unquote, from fiction and from these types of
sensationalized stories. So we absolutely didn't want to participate in that.
We didn't want to feed into it. And we did
get some talk with different publishers who were like, what
about giving the detective a point of you and we're like, which,
like Misty, Yeah she's great, but she doesn't come in
till the end.
Speaker 3: A lot of it.
Speaker 6: As victims, you have to self advocate and fight these
battles on your own or with our hired attorneys or
with our family members, and so it was really important
for us to show the realness of all of that.
Speaker 7: And it's important like we're both physical therapists were at
the time when we started writing a book. We're in
our early thirties. We have careers that we could go
back to, and so we're able to in a way
if we couldn't find the right partners to help us,
we could just step away. And that's a big part
of it. That would be disappointing. We knew that either
we do something that means that's important to us, that
will mean look at bigger pictures like how the police
handle cases or how the media handles cases, and not
focus on the perpetrator. Either we do that or we
do nothing. We had to accept that, and that's sometimes
people don't have maybe that avenue and often true crime
victims are younger and maybe they need the money from
one of these projects. Even though it's frankly that doesn't matter.
It's not that much, but they might need it. We
could go to our careers and our families and walk
away from it if we needed to. So I was
put us in a unique position to find the right people,
and it took a lot, yeah, a lot of trial
and error.
Speaker 2: So the idea of we can we don't need this
and we can walk it sounds like that might have
increased your leverage from time to time when you needed it.
Speaker 6: Probably maybe more so for ourselves, like emotionally, So I
think sometimes we did take a step back in the
same vein we started working with a different production company
it and as things were moving it wasn't right, and
we fought to get out of that contract. And then
we're really being courted by Raw, the production company that
did American Nightmare for a year and a half. We like,
they kept checking in and we made them right out,
full outlines of what their goals were, and we were
very cautious and very making sure that they're on the
same page. So I think that, yeah, I think for
our emotional stamina really to deal with entering in these
types of projects, that helped. Knowing okay, we have each other,
We've got our jobs, we have our family. If we
don't do this, if it doesn't work out, then that's fine.
If we're going to do it, it has to be right
and hould true to our values.
Speaker 3: Since it's the long road.
Speaker 5: Bill and I have been on the other end of
the documentary making process as well, and we know that
it is exhausting. It's frustrating. It can be like banging
your head on the wall just trying to get across
the point of view that you want to have conveyed.
How was making the documentary for you when you found
the right production company. Was it another sort of aspect
of getting your voice back and owning your story or
did it become something that was like, it's so re
traumatizing because I have to tell it again and again.
Speaker 6: Be a little bit of both. Yeah, definitely, do you
want to start.
Speaker 7: When you're doing the interviews, it's quite challenging because one,
you're doing reviews all day, so you're in front of
cameras with lights and stuff that we're not used to,
and that's we're doing multiple days of out like eight
hours on camera going through everything, and so that just
the logistics of that is challenging, and then also you
have to be able to tell it in the moment
with as much emotion as you're experiencing at the time.
And that's understandable because you want people to try and
feel what you're going through. That's not generally how you
how we deal with it in a day day you don't.
I can revisit, but we have to relive it. After
doing the first my first round of interviews like it.
Probably it probably messed me up for a couple of
weeks to where I felt like restabilized from it because
it was like the worst time in my life. So
there is that point. But also the reception from the series,
and when we saw the final edit, we know that
they hit the major points that we're hoping they would
get and they did stay very victim sectric and molders
basically after a thought, which is we appreciate it and
the amount of people have reached out to us from
across literally across the world, and I had this touch them,
and that makes it worth it, because people don't. People's
minds are changed through their hearts and not necessarily through statistics.
And so hopefully if even we've had law enforcement reach
out and say like how they were frustrated by how
the FBI and Valao handled it, or officers who are
hopefully remember the story so that if they run across
quote unquote bizarre case, that they maybe pause and say, hey,
I should step back and not run with emotion and
not bury the victims or bury the person in front
of me just because they are in front of me.
And that makes that's why we did it. So yeah,
there's a good and bad of both.
Speaker 5: I was rewatching it the other night and getting ready
to interview the two of you, and it is it
looks so emotionally devastating. Sometimes it is I can't watch
it without crying. I can't imagine what it must have
been like for the two of you on the day.
So when I say that you're incredibly brave to be
willing to go through it, I mean it from the
bottom of my heart.
Speaker 6: It's I was for the first round of interviews.
Speaker 3: So it's a second episode, and I'm talking about captivity.
Speaker 6: I was seven months pregnant with our second and there
were some parts I'm was retelling and the directors, really,
you're a little detached as you say it, and I'm like,
I was detached at this point.
Speaker 3: That's how I got through captivity.
Speaker 6: I get that, but as a viewer, if you're detached,
they'll turn the channel and okay, And I wanted to
be as real as possible, and so I really did
try to pull myself back into that place because I
want to share all the aspects of being in that situation.
But I just remember at one point taking a break
and thinking, what the fuck am I doing? I'm seven
months pregnant. Am I traumatizing my baby? Like why am
I even doing this? It's just so so I don't
is this even safe? All the things, And then I
remember going into the back and this one woman who
worked on the set, she just was like, I just
want to.
Speaker 3: Thank you.
Speaker 6: For sharing and for all that you're doing, and she
shared her experience of assault with me, and right there
it was like, no, I'm doing this for a reason
and it's important and I'm going to be fine, my
baby's going to be fine, Like it's all it's worth it,
because there is a bigger message and this is again
like our experience of the kidnapping and the details of it. Yes,
they're extreme and they're sensational, and all these crazy things
but the true heart of being a victim of a
violent crime, the human being going through trauma. Anyone can
connect with different aspects of it, and so that's why
it was just really important to us. As physical therapists,
we deal with people overcoming trauma on a daily basis,
and so we wanted to be able to use our
experience in a way that maybe can touch people, connect
with people, and hopefully, in the bigger picture, lead to
some changes that need to happen.
Speaker 2: Oh, without question, it's an amazing story and there does
I know you've heard this, but it's important, I think
for us to say this. It really does take a
significant amount of bravery on both your parts to just
say we're going to do this and we're going to
tell this story. Talk to us about the book, Your
collaborative process. How did it come about where each person
was writing their own sections. Did that just develop organically?
Speaker 3: Yes and no.
Speaker 6: And there was like things that I remember writing just
right after the kidnapping, especially of the home invasion and
the first couple of days of our day. Yeah, during captivity,
mainly because when we were preparing to be prosecuted, So
I was just trying to get as much of everything
down on paper as possible, So we already had those
types of things. We had our own notes preparing for court,
and then the naro fantasy of one day if we
get to share our full story, maybe this is how
we'd lay it out. And we were like sitting at
a brewery and writing on a napkin of this is
how we'd organize it, not even knowing if it'd really
go anywhere. But again, in the way, it's just like
us organizing the chaos of this whole traumatic event. And
then as we were working with Nikki, we were trying
to figure that out. So she'd interview us and try
to write what we interviewed, but it was challenging. She's
not just trying to rewrite one person's perspective, but a
male and females separate perspectives and give us our own voices,
and so we just covered that. I think it just
was easiest if we wrote it out and then she
could ask us questions, which is really helpful. Okay, that's
we don't need as much detail on this, but can
you pull in more of what you were feeling here?
So we got our flow and it became a fluid
thing where we were both or all of us were
doing our own thing, but then we'd come together and
it really was collaborative.
Speaker 7: To Nikki her passion to help victims, and I know
she still has relationships with some of the cause of
these survivors, and she recognized that it was important for
us to write sections, and then she has helped amplify
and edit and used to say ask the next question
or to follow up question using her background as a journalist,
and so then we can get into deeper levels of it.
And that was a major help and really just shows
to her character what she's passionate about, what she cares about,
which I think only made the book better.
Speaker 5: It sounds like you almost got to have a masterclass
in writing by working with Niki, because she is such
an excellent journalist and such a wonderful writer, and as
you said, are in a really strong advocate for victims.
That had to have been amazing. And so you appeared
with Nikki at crime Con this past year. Crime CON's
been experience all on its own, but adding to it
the fact that you guys are authors and you had
this documentary come out and you're also again dealing with
this you are victims of crime? What was crime con
like for you?
Speaker 6: So that was this year was our second crime con
our first one we did right after the book was
released in twenty twenty one, and Niki had done one
I think the year before for Chasing Cosby with the
Cosby Survivors, and when she proposed us, Hey, do you
want to do this thing? And I was like, excuse me,
what crime con?
Speaker 3: What is it?
Speaker 6: They really got a con for everything, don't they. Okay,
that's sure, let's try this out. And in twenty twenty
one it was still pandemic ish, so it wasn't as big,
but still we spoke in front of I think like
five hundred people and that was like, that was huge
for us. That was scary and we're not public speakers,
so it was yeah, very intimidating. And then this year
we spoke in a ballroom that held thirty five hundred people.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was massive.
Speaker 6: It was crazy, and so it was a whole different ballgame.
An entire resort was crime con fan. It was just
so we were walking through to get to our room
and we have people like hey, and you're like, oh, wow,
people know who we are. This is strange, and yeah,
it's it was all a lot to process, but very overall,
very positive. Everyone was so gracious, so respectful, and yeah,
speaking in a room of that many people, you feel
everyone's connection and energy, and so it was really nice
to make jokes and show our personality a little bit
more and have people respond and laugh and gasp and
when in real time. So that was really it was unique.
It was really cool.
Speaker 2: So you felt well treated by the audience. You felt
like they were supportive. Yes, of the two of you
as survivors, Yeah.
Speaker 3: We did. Ye.
Speaker 7: Yeah, there was American Nightmare obviously did quite well on Netflix.
I think it was number one after its first day.
In our hometown, people recognize us and sometimes people will
come up. But at Crime Con, you know that Robbably
everyone watched it. If they're going to crime they probably
watched the through crime documentary of the year. At the point,
it's a little overwhelming. But then most people, if they
came up, they're just really nice and supportive. And but
it's strange, just like walk through a lobby and take
it took half an hour to get to our day
because people were like but everyone was really nice and play.
It was just you're like, oh, yeah, this show is big.
Like that was hard to wrap your head around when
you see whoever millions of views or something, but you're like,
oh yo, this is a that show struck a chord
with the audience.
Speaker 6: And also being able to meet other survivors and people
who we look up to and to meet them in
person and hear that they look up to us.
Speaker 3: It was just like what you wait, well, so it was.
Speaker 6: It was really yeah, a very unique and empowering situation
because you really did feel like you're coming together for
a common goal and that was special.
Speaker 2: You're listening to mind over Murder. We'll be right back
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mindover Murder. Before we get back to the podcast, just
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We'd love it if you could support us in any
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Speaker 5: You do get a whole mutual admiration society at crime Con.
And I had told Bill as soon as I arrived,
I said, I have to meet Denise and Aaron. This
is non negotiable. I have to find them at some
point or another. And luckily Nikki texted me and was like, okay,
I have them, come find them. But it was definitely
one of our highlights was being able to spend time
with you both and get to talk to you about
these sorts of the kind of sticky issues that come
up with crime. True crime is it's as much entertainment
as anything else, and I think that's a little hard
to deal with when you're a victim of crime.
Speaker 7: Yeah, I think there's always to do true crime that
I would say is more ethical or more valuable. And
then there's the ways where it's a little yeah, and
taking advantage of people suffering. And at least our experience
at crime Con that most people were interested in the
human aspect and about the victims and about the suffering
not only just you know, not just us, but like
our families and there's a whole ripple effect, and that's
that should never be taken lightly or ignored.
Speaker 2: I think both Victim f and American Nightmare are ultimately
a survivor's story, the two of you getting through this experience,
and we've talked about it in Mind over Murder before,
the idea that life goes on and that you are
able to move your life forward and focus on the
many positive things in our lives. This ethics and true
crime topic has actually been very prevalent in the last
couple of years at Crime con and other conferences we've attended.
Speaker 7: Thing it should be there. I feel like maybe I
felt like maybe five seven years ago, they're almost all
the true crime stuff as we allude to us about
to perpetrators or like the there's still is app but
there was like the Ted Bundy tapes, there was like
there was a show Damer There's still going to be
a fascination with people who act so outside the norm
of society. The reality is most of the victims are
true crime, just typical people and going through extraordinary things.
And the idea that we all understand what makes the
perpetrator's tick is probably not possible because it's are too complex,
and so spending time there just to me, isn't that appealing.
I rather hear about people overcoming diversity and moving forward.
Speaker 5: One of the things that you alluded to earlier, Denise,
is the fact that victims of crime are not just
victimized one time when the thing actually happens. It happens
again as you make a trip through the legal system
and through the court system, and every time thereafter that
you have to speak about it. As Aaron had said earlier,
you were both victims in this case, both of Mueller
and also of the detectives at VALOPD who did not
take your case seriously. How have you dealt with the
trauma that comes with those two events, and what tips
do you have for people who also are dealing with
trauma from the legal system and from law enforcement.
Speaker 6: I think the biggest thing is just number one, to
always believe in yourself. And that's hard to do, especially
when you're being gas lit over and over again by
people who are in a position of power authority and
who are supposedly supposed to be the trained professionals. As
we experienced in our case, they's nothing professional about most
of what they did. Yeah, So it's hard because again,
when you go through a crime, you can't help but
overanalyze what you did, what you could have done, and
everything we did and how we acted as victims was
used against us. So yeah, it's hard. It can become
a really dark place. And that's where like having our
support system was really helpful. We were lucky to have
each other and stay by each other's sides. We never
blamed one another for any of anything, and we were
able to really either like one of us would be
the strong one picking the other one up, or we
both were like, okay, we're just like we've got to
call it a night and we're just gonna sit on
the couch and do nothing. But then once we get
the energy, okay, then let's keep fighting. Let's moving forward.
Hearing other survivors speak out was a really powerful thing
for us too, just saying, Okay, it is possible, we
can do it. They're doing it. How much it's helping
us to do it. Maybe we can help other people
if we speak out. So really trying to like stay
to the truth of what your lived experiences, and then
all the little things in life, like finding gratitude and
going to therapy.
Speaker 3: You need help, and it's okay to ask for help.
Speaker 6: That's really a big thing in any capacity, whether it's
just can you make me dinner tonight? Just I mean,
those are just a few things off the top of
my head. Yeah.
Speaker 7: And with law enforcement, number one thing is get a lawyer.
Regardless of what happened. You just need to turn any
arrest in the room and they will manipulate and they
know the rules and you don't, and you're, yeah, I
made a mistake of having the innocence mindset, like they
will follow the facts. And law enforcement is human and
they have biases, they have confirmation biased tunnel vision. It's
not just in our case when it's just ballet hose
the FBI, it's the countless supervisors who looked at this
case and didn't take a step back. So you need
attorney there too, so that you have at least someone
in your corner who will actually let you know what
the rules are, because even like the Marianda rights have
been dwindled down through the courts over the years. You
think there's court protections, there's not protections. So you need attorney.
And the other thing is with law enforcements, ask questions,
don't accept their like if they say this is how
things done, ask why. If they can't explain, then you
ask again, and you ask again, because they should be
able to explain it, and unfortunately it's it's not like
any other profession. You need a plumber to come your house,
you can shop around and find the best plumber. You're
going to be stuck with this law enforcement. They get
assigned to you. You can't get rid of them, even
when they have conflicts of interest. So then you need
to actually ask questions and document what they're answering and
treat it as if you could fire them if you're
able to, because we got often we got told this
is how things are done, and then you find out no,
this is one. If this is how things are done,
then you need to upgrade. Or two. Two they're going like,
this is not how things are done, and that's probably
the one and best things dude. So you just can't
inherently trust them because people make mistakes, even if they're
law enforcement officers are trying to do their best, which
most of them are trying to do their best, they
make mistakes and you just can't accept their version otherwise
you'll get railroad.
Speaker 6: And one of the biggest advantages we had was to
be able to consult with Aaron's brother who's an FBI agent,
Like how many people have a family member who is
in the FBI and we talk to him endlessly about
certain things and you know it shouldn't have been done
this way, or this is how some investigators are trained
to interrogate. And so we learned a lot through him
and learn what questions to ask, because it's a really
convoluted and tricky system to go up against.
Speaker 5: What message do you have for anyone in law enforcement
who is inclined to look at crime victims with skepticism
and hostility other than the obvious string of obscenities that
I would shout if it were.
Speaker 7: Me, I think they need to educate themselves on how
interrogations have been historically done in America and they should
read about that through and not ignore scholars on this.
Sometimes it seems that law enforcement all those are the academics.
We don't really need to listen to them because they're
not doing the job day in, day out.
Speaker 6: Or the psychologist, Oh, that's a psychologist's job, Like if
you're dealing with human beings on a daily basis, especially
going through extreme extraordinary traumatic events.
Speaker 3: Then you should have a little understanding baseline of psychology
and how people going through trauma act and behave and feel.
Speaker 7: It's a complex problem. It's really hard to solve crimes,
and they deal with people going through the worst times
of their lives. They deal with people lying to them.
So there's ways to be skewed and have their perspectives
shifted because of the job they do. I don't envy
that job. It's very difficult. Like every profession, if they're
going to move forward, they should learn from other professions.
So I just we work in the medical field like
I want people. I want to listen to researchers. I
want to listen to psychologists because they can give insight
and help me do my job better. You can't be
everything at once. And understanding that confirmation bias is a thing,
understand that tunnel vision is a thing. We have our
own implicit biases, Like how do you set the system
to reduce the impact of those which there are systems
out there. That's what I would want to to do
is just learn and not try to silo themselves off.
But I think it's like us versus them and number
and probably the biggest thing is that they're part of
the community. They are paid by the public, they are
public servants, and so they should kind of try view
themselves more as guardians than warriors. And unfortunately, again there's
very dangerous situations they're in, but most of the time
they need to act more as guardians. And we fortunately
since American Nightmare, I have been able to speak to
different groups of law enforcement. There are playing officers out
there who know that there's better ways to do this,
and not only just are more effective ways of questioning,
there's more effective ways to get to solve problems. And
so it's not even just about like traditional training, it's
actually just improving how you do your job.
Speaker 2: How would you contrast the work done in your case
in terms of the Vallejo, California Police Department and the
FBI in terms of what's your takeaway now with it?
Several years have gone by and life has moved on,
but you've probably had a chance and so to think
about this a bit. What's your take on the agencies
that were involved?
Speaker 7: They have, particularly Vallejo as a culture that does not
care about accountability for their officers and I don't say
that lightly. They do not care as a whole to
hold their officers to account. This is a department that
group of their officers bend the tips or badges to
celebrate killings in the line of duty, and then of
those officers have been punished. Detective Mustard on our case,
lied on sworn statements in our civil case, has withheld
evidence in other cases, destroyed evidence in other cases. That
these are the things we know about. He's going to
retire with full benefits. He was promoted. They actually lowered
the standards to promote him. So it's a culture that
cares about protecting themselves over protecting society or republic. With
the FBI, we're fortunate. I know my brother, I know
a lot of colleagues. I know the f B. I
can do amazing work, and in this case they decide
to I really blamed the supervisors, not only just agent Sesma,
but the supervisors who knew that Agent Sesma had the
conflict of interest and kept him on the case. And
we have found out he's been promoted as well. And
so it's hard to answer our question because they didn't
show accountability, they didn't make changes, they didn't do anything.
They just said it was a crazy case, no one
could solve it, so therefore it's okay what happened, when
the reality is this case was actually should have been
solved in the first day if they just callowed basic evidence.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 5: As survivors of a very high profile crime, you clearly
have had to develop some survival strategies to get through
the last ten years or so. You've talked to us
some about your best practices for dealing with LUE enforcement.
Talk a little bit about what are your survival strategies
for dealing with the news media and social media, especially
because social media is just so invasive.
Speaker 6: Really, we really stayed away from social media for most
of this time. I just only got an Instagram account
in twenty twenty one when we released the book, and
even then I wasn't really active on it. Of course,
with the Netflix series and people across the world watching,
there's a lot more exposure. I did battle with before
the show coming out.
Speaker 3: What do I do? Do I become private? Do I
how do I navigate this? Do I want to hide?
Speaker 6: Considering how bad it was in the past with people
reaching out on social media? But ultimately our goal is
to continue this conversation. It's to speak in front of
law enforcement. It's to advocate and meet other survivors or
influential people that could help us possibly make change. So
ultimately decided, Okay, I'm going to be public and I'm
just gonna try to not.
Speaker 3: Let some of the comments get to me.
Speaker 6: Thankfully, overwhelmingly it was very positive, and there's still people
who are just awful. Again, that's where therapy comes in.
I've been in and out, there's points of stability. I've
tried a number of different types of therapy. After American
Nightmare coming out, I just for the first time did EMDR.
Speaker 3: Okay, what's that?
Speaker 2: I don't know what that is.
Speaker 6: It's eye movement, Desensitization and reprocessing EMDR. So you in short,
the therapist can guide the patient through bilateral alternating movements,
either by lateral eye movements or by bilateral tapping. It's
supposed to simulate the rem cycle of sleep, which is
where they believe that the deep memories are being processed.
And with a traumatic memory, it's like an injury to
the brain. It doesn't get processed properly. So they're trying
to allow you to go back to that. Really traumatic
memory and process it in a safer place. And for me,
at first, it was difficult moments because I've built up
so many barriers around those memories. So I actually did
it assisted with ketamine that really allows you to go
deeper into the brain and open up some of the
confinements of reality. And yeah, it strips away some of
those barriers and allows you to really process it in
a deep way.
Speaker 5: And I.
Speaker 6: Haven't felt so good since this whole thing has happened.
I really do feel like some of those memories are
fully processed. And the biggest things that I've found as
my physical self, I'm not as sick and anxious and
just really like in a trauma state, So that's been
really helpful. But also other things were super helpful too,
regular talk therapy.
Speaker 3: At first, just having.
Speaker 6: A space to be able to say what happened and
have someone listen, and then just by talking can help you.
Speaker 3: Process through it.
Speaker 6: I tried narrow feedback training, which is trying to retrain
the wavelengths in the brain in certain areas of the brain,
trying to get you into a calmer state because you've
basically trained yourself to be hypervigilant and just always on
all the time, and that's not sustainable long term. And
exhaustion was a big symptom of mine, just feeling exhausted
all the time. So it's nice to finally feel like
I've got my energy back that allows me to feel
like I have the capability to keep fighting, keep moving forward.
Speaker 3: So again it's like a trial and error. Does this work, Okay, this.
Speaker 6: Isn't working, or this did work for this period of time,
but now maybe I could try something new and something different.
And continuing to talk and be vulnerable and open up
with people, you learn what their strategies are and it
helps you learn and grow.
Speaker 7: As far as like the media, if able in the
media says you need to tell this now or no
one's going to listen, and they try to put you
on some sort of arbitrary deadline, just ignore them and
never work with that person. We got that a lot
early on. If you don't tell now, no one's going
to listen to it. If you don't tell now, no
one's going to listen to it. Then years later we
still got we had people saying, if you don't tell
now and no one's going to listen, I'm like, huh,
this is strange. It's been seven years and you're still
saying the exact same thing. I think people are don't
listen to it. It doesn't matter because you don't want
to be in that pressured situation. If someone's doing that,
you know that they're looking to try to capture a
deadline for their job, not necessarily worrying about your healing
or how you feel in that moment. So the journalists
and podcasters who care will go on your schedule, we'll
figure it out like you two did, where we've been
trying to do this interview for nine months or something,
so you're very patient, Yeah, and that's the people who
care will go. They understand that life happens or that
you need more time processing. They're not trying to push
you into So if you feel if you're a victim
and you feel pushed by someone in media, then that's
what they're exactly what they're trying to do, and that's
not going to be healthy for you. Anytime that we've
even gone down that road, that's when we've had to
reverse and try to dig our way out, and that's
that's really hard to do. So it's just better never
to go that route.
Speaker 3: Yeah, really listen to your gut.
Speaker 6: We've had situations where we're like, oh, I don't know
if this feels right, and then we enter it like yeah, no,
it's not right, and we just got to a point
that you go through enough. Okay, whoops, we shouldn't have
done that to go you know what, trust in yourself.
If it doesn't feel right, if it doesn't align with
your goals and your values, then you don't need it.
Speaker 3: You don't need any of it.
Speaker 6: But everyone's in that profession to sell themselves. I'm the
person that you need to talk to. I'm the person
that's going to get you there. And it's not about you,
it's about them.
Speaker 3: It's hard road to navigate.
Speaker 2: When you go out and speak to law enforcement agencies.
Are they open to this? Obviously? The book and the
series and your public comments including today are often extremely
critical because you're highlighting all of or at least some
of the problems that you encountered as initially crime victims
and then trying to move your life forward and put
it all back together. How does it go over with
our friends in law enforcement when you're talking about your experiences.
Speaker 6: Say jokingly, I don't think we're critical. I think we're
being honest.
Speaker 3: Okay, I agree with it.
Speaker 6: I know the groups of law enforcement that we've spoken
in front of, they're already on the right side in
a way that they're asking us to come speak. They
already want to hear and have the intention of learning
and growing. There might be some people in the audience.
I don't know if they're like forced to go by
their superiors and if they're but most of the time,
it seems overall the feeling in the room is people
really do genuinely care and they want to learn. We
did our first one we did back in March. Misty,
the detective who linked the cases, she was there with us,
and she spoke a little bit, and at the end
of it she had said that one of the officers.
Speaker 3: Came up to her and had admitted to her.
Speaker 6: You know what, I was a mustard And then I
saw that show and I realized, oh my god, I
need to change.
Speaker 3: And Misty was like, oh my god, I can't believe
you admitted to me. But that's huge.
Speaker 6: Even if they're there willingly and are coming from a
critical standpoint as far as not really trusting us, they're
going to listen and either they change. They don't change,
they're open to it. Really, we want people who need
to change to hear us out, and also to the
organizers of these events.
Speaker 3: Obviously they care. So we feel protected.
Speaker 6: We don't feel like we're going to be attacked, and
even if someone did, I feel like we would be supported. Again,
it's overall been very positive and it's been encouraging to
connect with people in a position of power who are
really cruciading to make change.
Speaker 7: Yeah, where it's going to really change is at the
grassroots level. He is Mustard's example, but you Mustard was
trained a certain way, he was mentored in a certain way. Unfortunately,
he's probably mentored people in a particular way. So if
we can get supervisors and people to say, hey, there's
another choice here, there's more options here, we understand it's
a really hard job. No one's expecting place being infallible.
We don't either. In the medical world, we used to
do lobotomies. We don't do those anymore because they don't work.
So part of growing as a profession is to hear
from victims, and often law enforcement has interaction with someone,
never hears from that person again because of the nature
of how legal system works, so to hear from us,
and knowing that my lot of them maybe only watch
American Nightmare, don't know that my brother's an FBI special Agent.
He's also a lieutenant colonel in the Army. So it's
not that we're anti law enforcement. It's not us versus them.
It's just about trying to help and upgrade. And that's
why we go and speak, is that we're there to
provide our perspective and what we have learned over the
years and hopefully that can help them in future cases.
Speaker 6: Yeah, we want to work with law enforcement, not against
law enforcement. And yeah, being in the medical field, like
we have that experience. We are doing what we were
trained to do based on our education, and sometimes we
make the wrong choices. In any profession, really, you need
to take account ability and understand what mistakes you made
and then go, Okay, how do we learn from this?
Because again we're dealing with human beings here. I think
that should be a big priority is okay, how can
I improve?
Speaker 3: I think that is an excellent note to end on.
Speaker 5: The book is Victim f The documentary is American Nightmare,
and you two are some of the bravest people I've
ever met. It is an hour to have you with
us today. Thank you so much.
Speaker 6: We thank you so great talking to you guys. That
is going to do it for this episode of mind
Over Murder. Thank you so much for listening. We'll see
you next time.
Speaker 1: Mind Over Murder is a production of Absolute Zero and
Another Dog Productions.
Speaker 2: Our executive producers are Bill Thomas and Kristin Dilley.
Speaker 1: Our logo art is by Pamela Arnois.
Speaker 2: Our theme music is by Kevin McLeod.
Speaker 1: Mind Over Murder is distributed in partnership with crawl Space Media.
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Speaker 1: You can also follow our page on the Colonial Parkway
Murders on Facebook.
Speaker 2: And finally, you can follow Bill Thomas on Twitter at
Bill Thomas five six.
Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to mind Over Murder.