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Speaker 2: You are now listening to True Murder The most shocking
Speaker 2: killers in true crime history and the authors that have
Speaker 2: written about them Gasey Bundy, Dahmer, The Nightstalker bt K.
Speaker 2: Every week another fascinating author talking about the most shocking
Speaker 2: and infamous killers in true crime history. True Murder with
Speaker 2: your host journalist and author Dan Zupanski.
Speaker 3: Good evening from the best selling author of The Vampire
Speaker 3: next Door. The true Story of the Vampire Rapist, John
Speaker 3: Crutchley JT. Hunter tells the story of a friendly, baby
Speaker 3: face Canadian boy next Door. He came from a loving,
Speaker 3: caring and well respected family, blessed with good looks and
Speaker 3: backwoods country charm. He was popular with his peers, and
Speaker 3: although an accident at birth left permanent nerve damage in
Speaker 3: one of his arms, he excelled in sports. A self
Speaker 3: proclaimed diehard Calgary Flames fan, he played competitive junior hockey
Speaker 3: and competed on his school's snowboarding team, and he enjoyed
Speaker 3: the typical simple pleasures of a boy growing up in
Speaker 3: the country, camping, hunting, and fishing with family and friends.
Speaker 3: But he also enjoyed brutally murdering women, and he would
Speaker 3: become one of the youngest serial killers in Canadian history.
Speaker 3: The book they were featuring this evening is The Country
Speaker 3: Boy Killer, with my special guest journalist and author JT. Hunter.
Speaker 3: Welcome back to the program and thank you for agree
Speaker 3: to his interview. JT. Hunter.
Speaker 4: Fight Anne, glad to be here. Thanks for having me
Speaker 4: back on the show again.
Speaker 3: Thank you very much. It's my pleasure in our audience's pleasure.
Speaker 3: I'm sure now this is an incredible crime that I
Speaker 3: had no idea about, even though I'm Canadian. Let's start
Speaker 3: with setting the stage as you very masterfully do in
Speaker 3: this book and introduce these the principal officers that end
Speaker 3: up in this faithful situation where they end up pulling
Speaker 3: over this gentleman, this young man. So let's go back
Speaker 3: to that small town in the RCMP detachment in Fort
Speaker 3: Saint James and the guy named Officer Keller. He's been
Speaker 3: a constable duty constable for over just about a year.
Speaker 3: And this is a little small logging and mining town,
Speaker 3: you say, located on the southeastern shore of Stuart Lake
Speaker 3: at the end of Highway twenty seven. Before we do
Speaker 3: any of that for our international audience in American art,
Speaker 3: this is not familiar with what r CMP mean and
Speaker 3: compared to city police versus rural police. So tell us
Speaker 3: what the RCMP and describe this little place that we're
Speaker 3: talking about where it is geographically, and then we can
Speaker 3: introduce the officers Keller and Sidhu and then Hill.
Speaker 4: Okay, well, the RCMP that just stands for Royal Canadian
Speaker 4: Mounted Police and that's the you know, the equivalent of
Speaker 4: the Canadian Police Force, national police force. And where this
Speaker 4: took place is in a pretty remote area. It's in
Speaker 4: north central British Columbia, a big you know, logging area,
Speaker 4: not big populations in the area. And we had a
Speaker 4: chance encounter is what I called it in the beginning
Speaker 4: of the book as to how the case came to light.
Speaker 3: Now, what brings us to to this Officer Keller has
Speaker 3: been on the force for only about a year. What
Speaker 3: happens on this little road one evening and tell us
Speaker 3: how he came to be a meet up with this
Speaker 3: eventual what we find out to be a very young
Speaker 3: but very prolific serial killer.
Speaker 4: Well, the story really begins, and it was back in
Speaker 4: November of twenty ten, so about five years ago, and
Speaker 4: Officer Keller was driving along and as I said, it
Speaker 4: was a remote area on Highway twenty seven. He was
Speaker 4: actually on his way to return something that had been
Speaker 4: left by someone that had been involved in an accident,
Speaker 4: a car accident. They had left a bag basically, and
Speaker 4: he was driving back to return this bag, and he
Speaker 4: was going to be meeting up with one of his
Speaker 4: solow officers coming in the other direction on I twenty seven,
Speaker 4: and that's the officer Sidhu, who was a more experienced officer.
Speaker 4: He'd been with the force there for about four years.
Speaker 4: And so Keller was driving along this is that night,
Speaker 4: about nine thirty at night, and he ended up cresting
Speaker 4: a hill on the highway and he noticed up ahead
Speaker 4: in the distance what turned out to be two headlights
Speaker 4: kind of bobbing up and down as if someone was
Speaker 4: driving over rougher terrain. And he noticed the headlights were
Speaker 4: approaching the highway that he was on, and as he
Speaker 4: got closer, the headlights turned into a black pickup truck.
Speaker 4: They belonged to a black pickup truck, and the pickup
Speaker 4: truck pulled onto the highway at a high rate of
Speaker 4: speed in front of him, really didn't slow down much
Speaker 4: at all, sped up onto the highway from from a
Speaker 4: side road there and continued pulling away from him. And
Speaker 4: he decided to something wasn't quite right, and he decided
Speaker 4: to follow the truck and see if you know, further
Speaker 4: action needs to be taken. But because of the area
Speaker 4: he was in, it was so remote, and because of
Speaker 4: you know, it was fairly common for people out there
Speaker 4: in the area to be armed, you know, whether a
Speaker 4: gun or a knife or whatever. So he didn't want
Speaker 4: to confront the whoever was in the truck by himself,
Speaker 4: so he decided to wait until he met up with Sidhu,
Speaker 4: who again was coming the other direction on the highway
Speaker 4: there before he tried to initiate any kind of a
Speaker 4: traffic stop. So he just kind of kept pace with
Speaker 4: the pickup truck and you know, clocked the speed and
Speaker 4: you know, noted that the truck was speeding. I think
Speaker 4: he was going about ten or fifteen miles an hour
Speaker 4: over the speed limit. And then eventually he did intersect
Speaker 4: with the city. We saw city coming the other direction,
Speaker 4: and he turned on his lights and pulled the truck over.
Speaker 3: Now, what was the most odd thing and the first
Speaker 3: thing one of the first things he noticed, and also
Speaker 3: quite unusual for the climate at that time that the
Speaker 3: officer noticed the first thing to date noticed.
Speaker 4: Yeah, well, the driver of the truck. It turned out
Speaker 4: to be a young, young, younger man, and he was
Speaker 4: wearing only shorts and a sweater of some kind. But
Speaker 4: the shorts aspect of it was certainly strange, considering it
Speaker 4: was late November at night, so it's certainly not appropriate
Speaker 4: for the for the weather. And that was the first
Speaker 4: odd thing he noticed. And then also when he when
Speaker 4: he looked in, he noticed that the driver had some
Speaker 4: smears of blood. It appeared to be on his face
Speaker 4: and on his legs as well. And then he also
Speaker 4: noticed what looked to be some a wet pool on
Speaker 4: the on the driver's mat by the driver's seat. There
Speaker 4: looked to be, you know, a pool of a little
Speaker 4: pool of blood there right, So that certainly raised more
Speaker 4: red flags, and he asked he eventually, you know, in
Speaker 4: discussion with the driver asked.
Speaker 3: Him, well, you know, what is this.
Speaker 4: Why do you have blood on you? What is this stuff?
Speaker 4: And the driver, who you know, it turns out, was
Speaker 4: Cody Ljakov. The driver told him that he had been
Speaker 4: out with a friend and they had been poaching and
Speaker 4: they had shot a deer and the deer had run off,
Speaker 4: and they had tracked it down and had put it
Speaker 4: out of its misery by either clubbing it or stabbing
Speaker 4: it with a knife. It was a little unclear what
Speaker 4: his story was exactly, kind of changed it a little bit,
Speaker 4: but and that's the reason for the blood. And he
Speaker 4: made some sort of comment that, even though he knew
Speaker 4: it was illegal to be poaching, that I'm a redneck
Speaker 4: and that's the sort of thing we do for fun,
Speaker 4: basically is what he what he had said. So the officers,
Speaker 4: you know, found the story a little suspicious, and they
Speaker 4: ended up calling out a conservation officer since you know,
Speaker 4: allegedly there was poaching involved with it, and the conservation
Speaker 4: officer came out to the site there and joined them,
Speaker 4: and during the course of the stop, they you know,
Speaker 4: they also had spotted an open container of alcohol in
Speaker 4: the cabin of the truck, which had given them the
Speaker 4: the ability to go ahead and you know, initiate a
Speaker 4: full stop and search of the vehicle.
Speaker 3: They also found a metal Leatherman multi toool with several
Speaker 3: knife blades attached, and when they opened that said that
Speaker 3: it was a red stain looked like blood on that,
Speaker 3: and they asked him about that, and he said something
Speaker 3: about that he'd killed some grouse. And then even Keller,
Speaker 3: the inexperienced cops, said there's no way that there's too
Speaker 3: much blood for that, and then he said, well, I
Speaker 3: used it on a deer before that. So these guys
Speaker 3: were already incredulous before they called the senior guy the Hill,
Speaker 3: the conservation officer didn't, weren't they.
Speaker 4: Yeah, as you mentioned, they did find out that leatherman
Speaker 4: multitool with the red stain on it, and certainly the
Speaker 4: story seemed to be become more and more questionable as
Speaker 4: as it went on, and as they found more things
Speaker 4: in the in the truck.
Speaker 3: There now the conservation officers, he's also an experienced police
Speaker 3: officer or in law enforcement, so he's a very experienced guy.
Speaker 3: And what happens when he comes and what do they
Speaker 3: do in terms of to get his statement?
Speaker 4: Well, the conservation officer Cameron Hill. As you said, he
Speaker 4: was a quite experienced law enforcement officer. He had decades
Speaker 4: on the force, if I recall correctly. And he got
Speaker 4: called out there a little bit later in the night
Speaker 4: and showed up at the site there, and it was
Speaker 4: decided that he would interview Cody and try to get
Speaker 4: the full story from him. And you know, again he
Speaker 4: got the same sort of story that he was out
Speaker 4: in the area because basically his grandfather had told him
Speaker 4: about a road out there that had good hunting on
Speaker 4: it or something, and so he was out looking for
Speaker 4: the road his grandfather had told him about the hunting
Speaker 4: area his grandfather had told him about. And He'll basically said, well,
Speaker 4: you don't even have a rifle or anything. How are
Speaker 4: you gonna hunt, you know, without a gun for it
Speaker 4: or anything. And Cody just said, well, I'm just out
Speaker 4: here just to you know, just to kind of get
Speaker 4: a feel for the area and see if it's a
Speaker 4: good place to hunt at, you know, some other time
Speaker 4: or something. And He'll wasn't you know, He'll didn't buy it,
Speaker 4: you know, he said, you know, all these roads out
Speaker 4: here pretty much the same. You know, it just doesn't
Speaker 4: make sense that you would drive all the way out
Speaker 4: here just to check out this one particular road when
Speaker 4: they're all basically similar. And he, you know, he didn't
Speaker 4: he didn't buy into the story, and he didn't buy
Speaker 4: into the story about how the deer was killed and
Speaker 4: how they clubbed it with a wrench, which, by the way,
Speaker 4: was also found in the truck. There was a wrench,
Speaker 4: the metal wrench that also had red stains on it
Speaker 4: as well, and the you know, the threading part of
Speaker 4: the wrench there. So none of this was making any sense,
Speaker 4: and it was decided that somebody needed to go back
Speaker 4: to the road that Cody had come off of onto
Speaker 4: the highway and see what the heck was going on
Speaker 4: back there, particularly because one other thing they found in
Speaker 4: the truck was a backpack, a monkey backpack, a backpack
Speaker 4: you know, in the form of a monkey shape basically,
Speaker 4: and when they looked inside it there they found an
Speaker 4: ID of a girl's ID identification and it raised the
Speaker 4: red flags even more so they decided they definitely needed
Speaker 4: to check out the road.
Speaker 3: Yes, so the woman was Lauren Dawn Taves, and when
Speaker 3: they did run a check on her, she was a
Speaker 3: missing person. So now they really knew they had something,
Speaker 3: didn't they.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it was certainly looking like there was a lot
Speaker 4: more going on here than just some poaching.
Speaker 3: Now, they decided to go back to this road. So
Speaker 3: tell us about the decision to go back and what
Speaker 3: happens when they do that.
Speaker 4: Well, you know, they kind of talked amongst themselves and
Speaker 4: they figured, well, he would probably be the best one
Speaker 4: to do it because he was most familiar with those
Speaker 4: back roads, and he had a four wheel drive truck,
Speaker 4: and you know, it'd be best for him to do it.
Speaker 2: He was just.
Speaker 4: Had the best equipment and whatnot for it, and and
Speaker 4: knowledge of the area. So so you know, about this
Speaker 4: is about eleven thirty by now. And he went back
Speaker 4: and turned down the old road and it was an
Speaker 4: old bogging road that wasn't really used much anymore. And
Speaker 4: followed the tire tracks basically in this know, back down
Speaker 4: the road there and eventually came to a point where
Speaker 4: the tracks ended, and he, uh, you know, he got
Speaker 4: out and saw some sort of tracks, other tracks in
Speaker 4: the snow there. The snow had been disturbed. There was
Speaker 4: an area there and they kind of the tracks kind
Speaker 4: of led off into you know, the bush, the tree
Speaker 4: line a little bit there, and so he followed it
Speaker 4: along in the snow there and eventually made a gruesome
Speaker 4: discovery which turned out to be Laurence Lauren's body there
Speaker 4: in the snow where Cody had had left her. And
Speaker 4: you know, it turned out when when Keller happened upon
Speaker 4: him on the highway there, he was essentially fleeing the
Speaker 4: scene of the murder site.
Speaker 3: Well, let's let's we've got to give him and I
Speaker 3: not that we give credibility or reads to his story,
Speaker 3: but of course all along the way he is lying, conniving,
Speaker 3: thinking he might be able to outsmart police at some
Speaker 3: point because he has as we'll find out. But tell
Speaker 3: us what the injuries were, the extent of the injuries.
Speaker 3: What exactly did they find in terms of her injuries?
Speaker 3: The young woman's injuries.
Speaker 4: Well, Lauren was very savagely beaten bludgeoned her. It turned
Speaker 4: out her her face was so badly damaged that they
Speaker 4: had difficulty being able to identify her. And you know
Speaker 4: that turned out they had to to really identify her,
Speaker 4: that they had to find a tattoo elsewhere on her
Speaker 4: body because her face was just so you know, just
Speaker 4: just just just pulverized. She was not a big girl,
Speaker 4: and Cody was a pretty big guy, and he had
Speaker 4: beat her pretty bad, you know, with the wrench that
Speaker 4: they'd found, the piperrinch that they'd found, and it had
Speaker 4: done a lot of damage.
Speaker 3: So obviously they have this crime scene, and now this
Speaker 3: crime has turned into something completely different, obviously just through
Speaker 3: some dogged police work here and a psychopathic killer that
Speaker 3: was maybe oblivious to how close he could be to
Speaker 3: being arrested. Let's go back with Cody Alan Ledjabakoff and
Speaker 3: talk about his life. We alluded to it or spoke
Speaker 3: mentioned it in the introduction that he came from a
Speaker 3: well respected family. How well respected and why so respected
Speaker 3: and how normal was his family? Really tell us about
Speaker 3: the family and his upbringing. As far as you nicle
Speaker 3: in the book, well.
Speaker 4: As best as I was able to determine, he came
Speaker 4: from a very seemingly normal family. They were highly regarded
Speaker 4: in the community. He was, you know, raised in the
Speaker 4: Fort Saint James area, and his his family had been
Speaker 4: there for quite a while. They had a lumber mill
Speaker 4: there that they operated for years and years and eventually sold.
Speaker 4: But they were they were a well known family and
Speaker 4: they were, you know, they were thought of highly and
Speaker 4: Cody was very popular. He was he had a lot
Speaker 4: of friends in school. He played a lot of sports,
Speaker 4: you know, he excelled in in ice hockey, played that
Speaker 4: for years and years and years, and really had friends
Speaker 4: both both of both sexes. You know, he had male
Speaker 4: friends and female friends as well, and it was just
Speaker 4: a really popular, well thought of guy. Everybody already seemed
Speaker 4: to like him.
Speaker 3: Any contact with police or any psychiatric background whatsoever, not.
Speaker 4: That I came across. But he didn't have any kind
Speaker 4: of police record or encounters with law enforcement, no sort
Speaker 4: of psychiatric counseling that that was a parent.
Speaker 3: And from interviews from friends, I know he was young.
Speaker 3: So it's not to say that you couldn't be duped
Speaker 3: from a relationship that was fairly wasn't that wasn't that long.
Speaker 3: But what was all indications about his character? Was there
Speaker 3: any hint at violence or anything untowards whatsoever.
Speaker 4: No, there really wasn't. And that's you know, one of
Speaker 4: the things that made it such a shock to his
Speaker 4: you know, not just his his family members, but his
Speaker 4: friends and the people in the community there in Fort
Speaker 4: Say James as well. It was just you know, there
Speaker 4: was nothing really to indicate that he had any sort
Speaker 4: of violent tendencies. You know, some some some one of
Speaker 4: his friends had mentioned that, you know, he had he'd
Speaker 4: had chances to be violent at times and never had.
Speaker 4: So it was just a complete shock that wasn't any
Speaker 4: indication of this, you know, he had. And in fact,
Speaker 4: he had been living with three female roommates, three friends
Speaker 4: of his, and you know, had they'd been getting along fine,
Speaker 4: there had been any kind of inkling, There had been
Speaker 4: no inkling whatsoever for any of these folks that he'd
Speaker 4: come into contact with that he would be capable of
Speaker 4: brutally murdering a young young girl, you know, young fifteen
Speaker 4: year old girl, which you Lauren was.
Speaker 3: Now to attest to this normalcy. He has a girlfriend
Speaker 3: named Amy Vole Boyle, and tell us where what he's doing.
Speaker 3: Is he in school, is he working? What does he
Speaker 3: do as an occupation or what is his ambition? And
Speaker 3: tell us a little bit about Amy Voyl She's very
Speaker 3: important in this story as well, So tell us a
Speaker 3: little bit about that relationship and basically what was he
Speaker 3: doing at that time, at that age, at nineteen.
Speaker 4: Well, yeah, he was working in Prince George at a
Speaker 4: Ford dealership. He was in working in the parts department there.
Speaker 4: His a family friend was the owner or the manager
Speaker 4: of the Ford Dealership, and so he had you know,
Speaker 4: gotten into contact with him and ended up planning a
Speaker 4: job there. And so he was he was working there
Speaker 4: at the Ford Dealership, and that's where he met Amy
Speaker 4: who you mentioned, and she, you know, she hit it
Speaker 4: off with them and they started dating very seriously, and
Speaker 4: essentially where you know, one was spending the night at
Speaker 4: the others pretty much every night pretty soon after they
Speaker 4: started going out and and at the time was the
Speaker 4: rest he'd he'd been going out with her for several
Speaker 4: months very seriously, and they you know, they had you know,
Speaker 4: been been far enough along in the relationship and serious
Speaker 4: enough about her that they were talking about each other's
Speaker 4: sharing the future together and future plans, and they were
Speaker 4: going to move in together, and uh, you know, he
Speaker 4: was going to work his way up at the Ford
Speaker 4: Dealership and she was going to school. She was going
Speaker 4: into to local college there and wanted to eventually be
Speaker 4: a teacher, and they were they were planning a life
Speaker 4: together at the time. They were playing a future together
Speaker 4: and you know, of course, she had no idea of
Speaker 4: this other side to him, just like all the other folks.
Speaker 4: So it was there was a big shock to her
Speaker 4: as well when he was arrested and the information came
Speaker 4: out about his prior victims.
Speaker 3: Was there any you know, I mean, you're nineteen and
Speaker 3: a lot of stuffs forgivable and probably and very very understandable.
Speaker 3: I can relate as well in terms of alcohol and
Speaker 3: drug use and occasional drug use and very serious drug use.
Speaker 3: There's there's a big difference. Then there's variations. So what
Speaker 3: was really the truth and what may he might have
Speaker 3: been had a different side? Did he showed amy even well,
Speaker 3: but for the people that really were candid, what was
Speaker 3: the extent of his drug use?
Speaker 4: Well, he somewhere along the way he got involved with cocaine,
Speaker 4: and you know, he was a he was a pretty
Speaker 4: big drinker, but he did he did end up getting
Speaker 4: involved with cocaine. You know, he had experimented a little
Speaker 4: bit with some things in high school and stuff as well,
Speaker 4: but eventually started doing cocaine. And was I was using
Speaker 4: uh prostitutes essentially to procure the cocaine. Forum He's using
Speaker 4: them to you know, buy the buy the drugs forum
Speaker 4: and you know Amy obviously Amy did not know of
Speaker 4: this habit that he had.
Speaker 5: At the time.
Speaker 3: Now, let's talk about the arrest and and before we
Speaker 3: talk about Amy well, and then that confrontation at the
Speaker 3: police station, which is just profound, or that confrontation anyway
Speaker 3: where we get to see Amy and the police play well,
Speaker 3: it's a very well I'll let you explain, and the
Speaker 3: theatrical and dramatic thing that you capture in a book
Speaker 3: with the girlfriend and and and led Javakov and the
Speaker 3: police officer. So first let's talk about what happens when
Speaker 3: he's initially arrested and the initial interview. How much does
Speaker 3: he say, does the lawyer up? What happens?
Speaker 4: Well, when he was first placed under arrest out there
Speaker 4: on the highway, he you know, he denied have anything
Speaker 4: to do with the murderer of Lauren, and you know
Speaker 4: he was he was giving read his rights and including
Speaker 4: the right to an attorney, and sid who actually did
Speaker 4: the uress, you know, kept asking him, well you have
Speaker 4: a lawyer. Do you have a lawyer? Do you have
Speaker 4: a lawyer? And he kept saying no, I just want
Speaker 4: to talk to my dad, which it really kind of
Speaker 4: reinforced to me how young he was. You know, he's
Speaker 4: periods in the situation, and he just wants his dad,
Speaker 4: and you know, so he gets mean, he's wanted to
Speaker 4: speak to his dad. And eventually he was brought to
Speaker 4: you know, the local uh r CMP post there and
Speaker 4: put in an interview room and wasn't wasn't doing much
Speaker 4: talking at the beginning. He was he was pretty quiet.
Speaker 4: They had a couple a couple of guys from the
Speaker 4: r CMP interview team started talking with him and they,
Speaker 4: you know, they essentially did sort of a you know,
Speaker 4: the kind of a good cop, bad cop sort of
Speaker 4: routine and got him to open up. Eventually, he got
Speaker 4: him to start talking a little bit, and so, you know,
Speaker 4: his story changed as they as they spoke to him.
Speaker 4: It went from he didn't have anything to do with
Speaker 4: their with her being murdered. He just kind of stumbled
Speaker 4: on her there, found her there too, you know. Eventually,
Speaker 4: well we were right along and she just suddenly went
Speaker 4: crazy in the truck and started screaming and hitting herself
Speaker 4: and then grabbed the pipe wrench from the floor of
Speaker 4: the truck and started hitting herself in the face with it,
Speaker 4: and as a result of her injuries and everything, he
Speaker 4: just ended up, you know, putting her out of her
Speaker 4: misery using the leatherman tool. He had the knife part
Speaker 4: of that to finish her off, so to speak, because
Speaker 4: you know, I guess the explanation being that it was
Speaker 4: just such a bizarre thing to happen. He you know,
Speaker 4: he didn't really know what to do and just kind
Speaker 4: of just reacted that way and so ended up finishing
Speaker 4: her off that way. But she had been the one
Speaker 4: that had caused all her massive injuries to begin with,
Speaker 4: So his story changed the more he talked with him,
Speaker 4: He started kind of admitting a little bit more and
Speaker 4: a little bit more, and you know, they eventually had
Speaker 4: enough there to start seriously taking a look at him
Speaker 4: for some other unsolved murders in the area there, and
Speaker 4: they eventually were able to tie him to to to
Speaker 4: three other murders three other women in the area Prince
Speaker 4: George area there, primarily through DNA evidence. He apparently didn't
Speaker 4: do a very good job of clean up after some
Speaker 4: of these murders, and there was DNA evidence left all
Speaker 4: over the apartments that he was living in, on on
Speaker 4: his clothing and also on some of the weapons the
Speaker 4: instruments he had used to kill these there were still
Speaker 4: you know, bud residue DNA evidence on there as well,
Speaker 4: if they were able to tie him to the three
Speaker 4: other murders.
Speaker 3: Let's go back, because I wanted to get you to
Speaker 3: recount what you do with his girlfriend, Amy Boyle, like
Speaker 3: I said, and Cody Ledjabokov in terms of reputing or
Speaker 3: refuting what he had said and using that you know,
Speaker 3: it was very much like a fictional law and order
Speaker 3: episode where they were psychologically using the one to manipulate
Speaker 3: the situation, to be to have an advantage over the other,
Speaker 3: and to elicit as much information as they could from
Speaker 3: the situation. So tell us, as again masterfully as you
Speaker 3: do in the book, tell us about the situation and
Speaker 3: what the police did get as a result of this
Speaker 3: altercation that they set up.
Speaker 4: Well, after after several hours of interviewing him, using the
Speaker 4: two policemen to interview him, they did eventually bring Amy
Speaker 4: in there to the station, and she was going to
Speaker 4: help them, you know, talk to him and try to
Speaker 4: get him to to open up more and be more
Speaker 4: honest about what had happened.
Speaker 2: And so.
Speaker 4: She they they brought her in eventually and there was
Speaker 4: a you know, a tender embrace between her and Cody,
Speaker 4: and you know, there was a lot of a lot
Speaker 4: of emotion going on there for both of them, and she,
Speaker 4: you know, basically just asked them, well, you know, tell
Speaker 4: me what happened. And you know, he kept denying that
Speaker 4: he had killed the killed Bourn and said he you know,
Speaker 4: he would he would never do such a thing. And
Speaker 4: you know, you know, you know what kind of person
Speaker 4: I am. I'm not capable of killing somebody, and you
Speaker 4: know I would never do something like that, and the
Speaker 4: U So he had that emotional poll going on there
Speaker 4: with Amy, and then you know that they would have
Speaker 4: a policeman in there as well at the time the
Speaker 4: same time, and you know, he would be prodding Cody
Speaker 4: as well, you know, saying things like, well, you know,
Speaker 4: Amy came here to find out, you know, what the
Speaker 4: truth is and what happened, and you know, you need
Speaker 4: to tell her. She deserves to know the truth. And
Speaker 4: so they were working on him that way as well,
Speaker 4: playing on his emotions there, and eventually he you know,
Speaker 4: he ended up admitting that he had how he had
Speaker 4: met Lauren, that he hadn't just stumbled on her. That
Speaker 4: he had met her on a social site online Canadian
Speaker 4: site called nxopia, and that he had met Lauren on there,
Speaker 4: and you know, they had kind of exchanged messages back
Speaker 4: and forth, and eventually he set up a time to
Speaker 4: meet and he had picked her up and they had
Speaker 4: had sex in his truck and had decided to drive
Speaker 4: out to the abandoned logging road where she was killed.
Speaker 4: He'd said they decided they wanted to go four wheeling
Speaker 4: or something along those lines, and so that's why they
Speaker 4: were out there. And but then he did he did
Speaker 4: have the story about, well, she kind of went crazy
Speaker 4: out there and started hurting herself and all that. And
Speaker 4: you know, with this continued back and forth with with Amy,
Speaker 4: you know, pleading with him to tell the truth, and
Speaker 4: you know, because if he loves her, he needs to
Speaker 4: tell her the truth, and the sort of the sort
Speaker 4: of pleaing. He eventually started divulging a little bit more,
Speaker 4: and you know when a policemen kind of challenged him
Speaker 4: and said, you know, the story you're telling here is
Speaker 4: just a bunch of bologney. You know, this is ridiculous.
Speaker 4: You know, we've had someone look at Moren's injuries and
Speaker 4: there's no way she could have done those to herself.
Speaker 4: It's just physically impossible for her to have, you know,
Speaker 4: hurt herself and inflicted these injuries to her, you know,
Speaker 4: by herself. And so he, you know, he had all
Speaker 4: that coming at him, and eventually it warmed down, and
Speaker 4: you know, he said, Okay, well maybe I maybe I
Speaker 4: hit her with a wrench, you know, and they said, well,
Speaker 4: you know how many times? And you said, you know,
Speaker 4: I mean not more than not more than a couple
Speaker 4: of times. I didn't hear her more than a couple
Speaker 4: of times with it. But they did eventually get him
Speaker 4: to admit that that he had he actually struck her
Speaker 4: with the with the wrench, and you know, he he
Speaker 4: still tried to say, well, I didn't kill her though,
Speaker 4: you know, she was already going to be dying. You know,
Speaker 4: I just didn't know what to do when I saw
Speaker 4: the injury she had done herself. You know, she'd stabbed
Speaker 4: herself with a leatherman tool, and so I just kind
Speaker 4: of I just kind of freaked out basically and hit
Speaker 4: her in the head, just you know, just because I
Speaker 4: didn't know what to do basically.
Speaker 3: So, yeah, we will talk. We have a pausitive just
Speaker 3: for a second to talk about direct TV. But we'll
Speaker 3: talk when we we about the signature, the state of
Speaker 3: the body that has the similarities for the police to
Speaker 3: further investigation. Once they know what they have in their hands,
Speaker 3: they're going to question him further in those other areas.
Speaker 3: So we'll be just going to pause for a second
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Speaker 3: That's direct TV one eight five five nine eight zero
Speaker 3: three eight one two OKJT. When we last spoke, we
Speaker 3: last left off, we were talking about that signature that
Speaker 3: police first would have noticed and would have compared to
Speaker 3: other similar crimes, unsolved murders that shared that signature and
Speaker 3: those and the in this and he would have been
Speaker 3: a candidate for So tell us about what how that
Speaker 3: investigation moves forward in that direction.
Speaker 4: Well, when they found when they found the Wren's body,
Speaker 4: you know, out there in the in the snow and
Speaker 4: in the remote area there, she had been left in
Speaker 4: a really you know, kind of a sexually degrading way.
Speaker 4: Her pants had were pulled down around her ankles, and
Speaker 4: she'd also been as I said, she'd been savagely beaten.
Speaker 4: And that that condition of the body and the way
Speaker 4: it was left was similar to some of these other
Speaker 4: missing women in the area. So that's really what got
Speaker 4: them looking seriously at there be perhaps being a connection
Speaker 4: between Orn's murder and the murder of these other women.
Speaker 3: Now we have the other victims are Jill Stachenko, Natasha Montgomery,
Speaker 3: Cythia Moz and again we mentioned Lauren Leslie. So let's
Speaker 3: talk about which was the next victim that they discovered
Speaker 3: evidence of and how they proceeded with that investigation.
Speaker 4: Well, yeah, the other three, Jill, Cynthia, and Natasha, they
Speaker 4: were a little bit different from from Lauren in that
Speaker 4: they had some common characteristics. They were they were all
Speaker 4: three known to be drug users, and they were also
Speaker 4: known to be prostitutes as well, So they had this
Speaker 4: this commonality amongst them that that Lauren didn't didn't share
Speaker 4: with them. She was a little bit a little bit different,
Speaker 4: a little bit different situation there. But so the these
Speaker 4: three had god missing in the the year or so
Speaker 4: prior to Cody's arrest. I think Jill Sachenko was the
Speaker 4: first one that went missing. She disappeared in October the
Speaker 4: year before two thousand and nine, and then her body
Speaker 4: was found several days later around George. There and Cynthia
Speaker 4: was last seen about a year later in twenty ten,
Speaker 4: a few months before Cody was arrested, and then her
Speaker 4: body was found in Prince George about a month later.
Speaker 4: And Natasha was also last seen around the same time. Period,
Speaker 4: and I think it's around September twenty ten, but her
Speaker 4: body was not found. It's still still has not been
Speaker 4: found to this day as far as I know. But
Speaker 4: they were able to tie her murder to Cody as
Speaker 4: as I mentioned before, through DNA from samples taken in
Speaker 4: his apartment.
Speaker 3: It was interesting to you talk about the DNA and
Speaker 3: the two was a Natasha to Montgomery. The hair of
Speaker 3: DNA was everywhere I was in the living room, the bathroom,
Speaker 3: the bed, the comforter, the jack hooded jacket, the dining room,
Speaker 3: and the floors, plus all kinds of points in the
Speaker 3: closet as well. So they did find incredible amount of,
Speaker 3: as you had mentioned, DNA evidence at all the locations
Speaker 3: where he was. He wasn't a very tidy guy in
Speaker 3: this regard, was he.
Speaker 4: Yeah. It's really remarkable in a sense that the the
Speaker 4: the lack of effort almost I guess would be the
Speaker 4: way to say that he took in trying to conceal
Speaker 4: these murders. I mean, he didn't. I don't know if
Speaker 4: it's he he wasn't quite sure how to go about it,
Speaker 4: or he didn't really care or what it was. Maybe
Speaker 4: it's you can chalk it up to partly to his youth,
Speaker 4: you know, because it is pretty unusual to have a
Speaker 4: serial killer operating at the young age that he was at.
Speaker 4: I mean, he was nineteen when he started. So whatever
Speaker 4: the reason, though, Yeah, it was very strange to me
Speaker 4: that he had left so much evidence there to be found.
Speaker 4: And you know, thank goodness, because otherwise they might not
Speaker 4: have been able to the time to these other ones
Speaker 4: at least give some closure to the families of these
Speaker 4: these other women. But it was certainly a something that
Speaker 4: struck me is the fact that, as you said, there
Speaker 4: was just so much of this just all over the place.
Speaker 3: You also talk about that the weapons he used to use,
Speaker 3: a variety of weapons, and I got to stress again
Speaker 3: because I don't think we have stressed this, that there
Speaker 3: is overkill and there's anger, but we never see where
Speaker 3: this anger really comes from. There is no evidence of
Speaker 3: his philosophy being like some serial killers, you know, in
Speaker 3: their mentality in terms of the classification that they want
Speaker 3: to rid the world of, you know, the undesirable prostitute.
Speaker 3: So we don't really see any of that, any real
Speaker 3: strong evidence of that. And again he's only nineteen years old.
Speaker 3: But with Cynthia Moss, she had a pic arron. There
Speaker 3: was an axe used either before and after for disposal
Speaker 3: or for a weapon itself. And knives and so a
Speaker 3: variety of weapons. And like I say, if you could
Speaker 3: agree that this is even unusual for these guys that
Speaker 3: are trying to meet out some kind of punishment on someone.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it really is striking the extent to which he,
Speaker 4: you know, you damaged these women that just as you said,
Speaker 4: there was some almost as if there was some just
Speaker 4: rage coming from within. I mean, just the brutal attacks
Speaker 4: on them. You know, you mentioned you mentioned Cynthia's murder,
Speaker 4: and you know he had used this pickroon and you
Speaker 4: know she had she had stab wounds all over, she
Speaker 4: had you know, blunt trauma, She had fractured ribs, she
Speaker 4: had broken neck bones, cheekbones, broken fingers, you know, defensive
Speaker 4: damage trying to protect herself, and you know some of
Speaker 4: her some of the vertebrae in her neck were so
Speaker 4: were broken so bad that it was almost as if
Speaker 4: someone had stomped on her neck. You know, when they
Speaker 4: examined it, it was just so so horrifically inflicted, so extensive,
Speaker 4: and and yeah, there wasn't.
Speaker 5: Really.
Speaker 4: It's it's really hard to explain where this came from.
Speaker 4: You know, it's talking hearing what all his friends had
Speaker 4: to say, and his family members, you know, including his grandfather,
Speaker 4: who apparently spent a lot of time with especially you know,
Speaker 4: in the summers they hunted out together and fish together
Speaker 4: and on all that kind of good stuff. And you know,
Speaker 4: he's always been described as very easygoing, calm, you know,
Speaker 4: essentially a harmless kid, and there's just nothing there to
Speaker 4: really clue anybody into this other side of him, this
Speaker 4: this inner, darker, violent, brutal side that he had, and
Speaker 4: you know, the one. He did make one comment during
Speaker 4: the course of the trial where he was talking about
Speaker 4: Amy and said that, you know, they to be that
Speaker 4: she was, you know, a good girl, and the kind
Speaker 4: of the implication there being that that his victims were
Speaker 4: not good girls, they were something less than that. So,
Speaker 4: you know, perhaps he just regarded these these other women
Speaker 4: as something less than you know, human or or whatnot.
Speaker 4: You know, it's hard to explain, but it definitely seemed
Speaker 4: like he viewed them differently. They weren't he didn't value
Speaker 4: their life like he you know, valued Amy.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think that's the only that's the only real
Speaker 3: evidence that there might have been something amiss. But at
Speaker 3: the same time, like when you look at uh, you know,
Speaker 3: Otis Tool, or you look at even Colonel Williams, or
Speaker 3: you look at Robert Picton, you might see that rejection
Speaker 3: and even the prisitude ripping them off in some kind
Speaker 3: of drug deal or using them, or them at least
Speaker 3: realizing them that they are a misfit. This guy isn't
Speaker 3: old enough, doesn't have any of those type of experiences.
Speaker 3: He isn't a loner, loser, unsuccessful, isolated guy. It seems
Speaker 3: very very odd that he just does not fit in
Speaker 3: that profile at all in terms of why he would
Speaker 3: go to those lengths in a short period of time,
Speaker 3: at at such a young age, without any indication of anything,
Speaker 3: you know, I just it seems the would be the
Speaker 3: cruise of other older like I say, Robert Picton type
Speaker 3: serial killers in terms of motivation. Anyway, let's talk about
Speaker 3: the you know, the grandfather. The family of Lejabakoff was incredulous.
Speaker 3: They couldn't believe that their grandson, that their family member,
Speaker 3: would do something like this, and they hired a really
Speaker 3: good lawyer. But despite that he was charged, I was
Speaker 3: surprised with first degree murder and four counts of first
Speaker 3: degree murder. So tell us a little bit about how
Speaker 3: that how they interpreted this first degree murder, because we
Speaker 3: have a difference in Canada and the US in terms
Speaker 3: of that sort of definition of determination premeditation, I should say, so,
Speaker 3: tell us a little bit about how they were successful
Speaker 3: in being able to charge him at least with first
Speaker 3: degree murder. On what grounds did they figure that they
Speaker 3: could were able to successfully be able to do that?
Speaker 4: Well, I think the key was that the murders were
Speaker 4: committed in the course of or in connection with sexual
Speaker 4: assault is one of the keys that really allowed them
Speaker 4: to do that. And you know, during the course of
Speaker 4: the trial, he really tried to distance himself from that
Speaker 4: aspect of it, and actually, you know he did. He
Speaker 4: tried to plead to a second degree murder and that
Speaker 4: was not accepted. And you know, we did go to trial,
Speaker 4: he said on the on the first degree murder counts
Speaker 4: on all four of them.
Speaker 3: And they did have a possibility of manslaughter, but that
Speaker 3: would he would have to prove that his he was
Speaker 3: intoxicated to the point that he there was he had
Speaker 3: no intention of killing, and of course he.
Speaker 4: Had the the cocaine use as part of the case,
Speaker 4: and as part of the defense, they did raise that
Speaker 4: his cocaine use as well. And but uh, you know,
Speaker 4: obviously the.
Speaker 3: It uh.
Speaker 4: It wasn't there wasn't enough there too.
Speaker 3: To allow him to.
Speaker 4: Get the the manslaughter charge were conviction.
Speaker 3: Now did he speak at trial, and if he did,
Speaker 3: what was his demeanor and what did he say?
Speaker 4: Yeah, he took the He took the stand at trial,
Speaker 4: and he had a very interesting explanation as to where
Speaker 4: he had why he had been around when these murders
Speaker 4: had taken place. He came up with a story about
Speaker 4: some unnamed individuals, three individuals he would not specifically identify.
Speaker 4: He called them X Y and Z, and he his
Speaker 4: story was that X Y and Z were the ones
Speaker 4: that had actually killed these three women, not not him.
Speaker 4: He had just been there for each of the murders,
Speaker 4: and as it turned out, the murder is always also
Speaker 4: coincidentally also happened at his apartment each time. And basically
Speaker 4: what he said was that he has gotten to know
Speaker 4: X Y and Z because they were drug dealers, cocaine suppliers,
Speaker 4: and he had come into contact with them that way,
Speaker 4: and they had said, hey, can we come over to
Speaker 4: your place later on, and he had said, okay, yeah, sure,
Speaker 4: that's fine. And so they showed up at his place
Speaker 4: later on that night and had a bunch of people
Speaker 4: with him, and you know, on each of these occasions
Speaker 4: they had one of the one of the victims there.
Speaker 4: They had you know, Cynthia and Tasha and Jill with them,
Speaker 4: and you know, during the course of partying they're all together,
Speaker 4: you know, one of them x or whoever would basically say, hey,
Speaker 4: you know, Cynthia has to has to be killed, or
Speaker 4: words to that effect, and then one of one of
Speaker 4: those other guys would end up killing her, and he
Speaker 4: just kind of was there, and you know, sometimes he
Speaker 4: would help him. You know, they would ask for, you know,
Speaker 4: an axe or something, and so he would give him
Speaker 4: whatever he had that was close to what they wanted,
Speaker 4: and that would be about the extent of his involvement
Speaker 4: in the actual murders. And then afterwards he would help them,
Speaker 4: you know, either clean up or dispose of the body.
Speaker 4: And he you know, he claimed that he when asked
Speaker 4: why he was helping him do that. You know, he's
Speaker 4: basically said that I was afraid if I didn't that,
Speaker 4: you know, I might be killed. They might kill me.
Speaker 4: So he said, you know, he felt like he didn't
Speaker 4: really have much choice in the matter, that he had
Speaker 4: to kind of go along with it.
Speaker 3: What was he like in the cross examination because he
Speaker 3: could try out his story but then under cross examination
Speaker 3: and again for the listener, if they don't know, this
Speaker 3: is really like a latch dis ditch effort. No, no,
Speaker 3: real a lawyer would not advise it. A criminal might
Speaker 3: want to do it, and they would have the right
Speaker 3: to do it. But it is sort of you have
Speaker 3: nothing to lose because you have no defense, really, isn't it.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, I mean I think part of this X
Speaker 4: Y and Z story was to again try to distance
Speaker 4: himself from this sexual assault aspect of it, and he
Speaker 4: was he was he was concerned about what would happen
Speaker 4: to him in in a federal prison, you know, as
Speaker 4: a as a sexual offender. You know, the these type
Speaker 4: of folks don't get they're not looked upon very well
Speaker 4: by the by the other inmates there, and so he
Speaker 4: didn't want to have that label on him going in there. So,
Speaker 4: you know, he had time to think about a story,
Speaker 4: and he came up with one X, Y and Z
Speaker 4: story and.
Speaker 3: You know it.
Speaker 4: It wasn't it wasn't very believable to put him mildly,
Speaker 4: but it certainly was an interesting attempt to try to
Speaker 4: get out of it a little bit there. And you know,
Speaker 4: he talked to trial, to you a little bit about
Speaker 4: his background and upbringing and stuff, and you know, he
Speaker 4: himself said that he had a very normal childhood growing up,
Speaker 4: and he had normal parents and got along with his
Speaker 4: parents fine, and you know, the whole family got got
Speaker 4: along well. And his mom, you know, made him breakfast
Speaker 4: every morning, had it ready on the table, and you know,
Speaker 4: it really just kind of made it sound like he
Speaker 4: had a you know, kind of a happy childhood and
Speaker 4: happy family life. So, you know, just kind of getting
Speaker 4: back to what we were talking about earlier there about
Speaker 4: you know, any indications of how he could do what
Speaker 4: he did and everything, and it's just it's just really
Speaker 4: it's a really hard one to blame.
Speaker 3: Now. The thing is we've got to explain too, is
Speaker 3: that at the time of this trial, there was no
Speaker 3: law or consecutive sentencing for multiple murder. So even though
Speaker 3: it'd be convicted of these murders, it would be concurrent sentencing,
Speaker 3: meaning one life sentence maximum twenty five years or at least,
Speaker 3: pardon me, at least twenty five years. In this case,
Speaker 3: he was eligible for parole after fifteen years. So just
Speaker 3: to explain that that this serial killer could be potentially
Speaker 3: be walking around again. As you put in your book, what.
Speaker 4: Age, Well, yeah, as he said, so he was twenty
Speaker 4: four when he was convicted on these four first three
Speaker 4: murder accounts, with the twenty five year sentences for each
Speaker 4: one of them, but as you said, running concurrently at
Speaker 4: the same time. So yeah, So under the Canadian law,
Speaker 4: this is what's known as the Saint Hope clause, he
Speaker 4: could apply for parole in twenty twenty nine after fifteen
Speaker 4: years in prison, and which would mean, you know, if
Speaker 4: he was able to get out, then you know, he
Speaker 4: would be before he turns forty, he'd be able to
Speaker 4: get out on parole. He'd be he could be out
Speaker 4: again thirty nine years old, which is just you know,
Speaker 4: mind boddeling when you think about it, the brutality of
Speaker 4: these murders that he committed. He could be technically he
Speaker 4: could conceivably be out walking around again, you know, a
Speaker 4: free man when he's thirty nine, still still relatively young man.
Speaker 4: And you know this after the presiding judge had, after
Speaker 4: weighing all the evidence and hearing everything that he did
Speaker 4: and seeing how he conducted himself on the stand, showing
Speaker 4: no remorse, you know, showing no empathy for his victims,
Speaker 4: really just being kind of cold blooded up there really,
Speaker 4: and his mannerisms and responses and everything. So the judge,
Speaker 4: after seen all this in his in his findings, you know,
Speaker 4: made a finding including that. You know, he said that
Speaker 4: he doesn't think Cody should ever be allowed to walk
Speaker 4: among us again. And yet here he is under the
Speaker 4: law of petitionally being.
Speaker 3: Able to do that. I got to say too for
Speaker 3: the for our audience as well. As of twenty and twelve,
Speaker 3: the Conservative government enacted consecutive sentencing for multiple murder rape
Speaker 3: or child rape, I guess. And so now the maximum
Speaker 3: that someone could get and this Cody would have been
Speaker 3: eligible for seventy five years before eligibility of parole, which
Speaker 3: which would have made him a much older man.
Speaker 4: Yeah, he he just kind of got in just just
Speaker 4: before then. You know, his his the murders he did
Speaker 4: were in two thousand and intends though he was able
Speaker 4: to avoid that that new enactment or that repeal of
Speaker 4: the old law.
Speaker 3: Did you make any advances towards being able to interview him,
Speaker 3: and what was his response? Tell us about any of
Speaker 3: that correspondence or potential correspondence.
Speaker 4: You know, I never really tried to get in touch
Speaker 4: with him. I got a lot of my information through
Speaker 4: the trial proceedings, through the police records and speaking to
Speaker 4: one of the one of the victims father. I got
Speaker 4: a lot of my information that way. And I never
Speaker 4: actually tried to contact Cody himself, largely because he filed
Speaker 4: an appeal earlier this year. And I just you know
Speaker 4: that with a with an active appeal, there's just not
Speaker 4: much chance of someone talking about their their case when
Speaker 4: they have an appeal pending. So sure that really wasn't
Speaker 4: It wasn't something I pursued.
Speaker 3: The victims families were very active at trial and in
Speaker 3: this case, and and also you spoke to them as well,
Speaker 3: So tell us a little bit about some of the
Speaker 3: families and their response and their interaction at this trial.
Speaker 4: Well, the families had a hard time during the trial,
Speaker 4: you know, they they felt like the the whole the way,
Speaker 4: the whole system is set up. They just felt like
Speaker 4: it offers a lot of protections for the criminal or
Speaker 4: the accused, and not a lot of protection for the
Speaker 4: for the victims. So they had a they had a
Speaker 4: hard time. They struggled. You know, a lot of them
Speaker 4: sat through the trial every single day, including Baron Leslie's father,
Speaker 4: Doug Leslie, who I talked to you quite a bit,
Speaker 4: and it really wore on them and they had a
Speaker 4: difficult time with it, and they were obviously, you know,
Speaker 4: relieved probably the best word I guess to say that
Speaker 4: that he was convicted ultimately. And you know, it was
Speaker 4: important to them that their loved ones not just be
Speaker 4: thought of as prostitutes or you know, drug users, that
Speaker 4: instead they should be thought of as mothers and daughters
Speaker 4: and sisters and you know, people that who were loved
Speaker 4: and who were missed when they were gone, and people
Speaker 4: who had, you know, their own special talents and you know,
Speaker 4: offered their own individuals, old personalities to the world, and
Speaker 4: you know, people that should be thought of as as
Speaker 4: real people, not just these these kind of these nameless,
Speaker 4: faithless sort of victims. So that was that was important
Speaker 4: to them as well. So you know, they they spoke
Speaker 4: after the trial and had the opportunity to address the
Speaker 4: media and really bring out and emphasize a lot of
Speaker 4: these aspects of their family members.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's a it's a real occurring theme that we
Speaker 3: just have to we have to humanize a victim. Well,
Speaker 3: we certainly are gung hole humanizing a killer. We do
Speaker 3: it in fiction, we do it in non fiction. We
Speaker 3: we we we romanticize basically their lives to a certain
Speaker 3: degree as well, you know, and and yet the victim
Speaker 3: is still called the hooker, reduced to you know, sex acts.
Speaker 3: And I don't know how professional some of these people
Speaker 3: are if they just have a drug problem anyway. So
Speaker 3: I mean, I can't I have said it before. I
Speaker 3: just have an issue with the media always playing up
Speaker 3: on that that's somehow they had it almost coming to them.
Speaker 3: And it's almost a cautionary tale that you know, well,
Speaker 3: if you go there and you do this, and you
Speaker 3: do this and you lose like this in life, this
Speaker 3: will be your fate. And yet at the same time,
Speaker 3: as we know, lots of times they're looking for reasons
Speaker 3: why an upstanding person from a good background might want
Speaker 3: to do something, looking for rationalization or excuses. Luckily, in
Speaker 3: this story. I didn't seem to be anyway any sympathy
Speaker 3: for this, Cody Ledjebakov, was there, No, I mean I.
Speaker 4: Really, As you said, it's important to make sure that
Speaker 4: the victims are are personalized, that you know, they have
Speaker 4: some sort of voice in the story, and you know,
Speaker 4: I attempted to do that and to do that in
Speaker 4: every time I write, I try to do that, and.
Speaker 3: You know it.
Speaker 4: The ability to do that really depends largely on the
Speaker 4: amount of participation often that you know, you get from
Speaker 4: from family members. And you know, the more the more
Speaker 4: the family members are willing to talk to you and participate,
Speaker 4: the better as a writer you're able to to do that,
Speaker 4: to to bring the victims alive on the pages and
Speaker 4: let the readers see, you know, who they were as
Speaker 4: as people as individuals.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, it's an incredibly sad story too, with this
Speaker 3: these young women, their lives ended in such a horrible
Speaker 3: way and then having the victims family have to relive
Speaker 3: the details in court, and right from the very beginning
Speaker 3: this this guy plays like a real psychopath, at least
Speaker 3: from my experience into how he was so cool and
Speaker 3: calm and yawning as you describe in the interview, he
Speaker 3: was initially yawning with the police, even though his life
Speaker 3: could be you know, at this super cross road, he
Speaker 3: was still yawning. And he's a very good actor, wasn't he.
Speaker 4: Yeah, he, as you said, he certainly seems to have
Speaker 4: this psychopathic personality, and you know that being the it's
Speaker 4: just lack of utter lack of remorse, this lack of empathy,
Speaker 4: and just this this coldness and this you know, almost
Speaker 4: robotic sort of reaction or lack of reaction, I guess
Speaker 4: you said, say, and in mannerisms and.
Speaker 1: Just not really.
Speaker 4: Faising, you know. And in fact, his defense counsel made
Speaker 4: multiple attempts during the course of the trial to try
Speaker 4: to humanize him, to try to humanize Cody and try
Speaker 4: to show that, you know, he's not this like cruel monster,
Speaker 4: and he became very the defense counsel became very exasperated
Speaker 4: in trying to do this because every time he tried it,
Speaker 4: it didn't work. You know, Cody either didn't understand what
Speaker 4: was trying to be done or just didn't care because
Speaker 4: he kept coming across the same way, and it certainly
Speaker 4: didn't help his his case to be seen that way.
Speaker 4: But he didn't seem to care or or he couldn't
Speaker 4: he couldn't change, couldn't change his mannerisms.
Speaker 3: How big a story was this in the media, Well,
Speaker 3: it was.
Speaker 4: It was covered nationally. I mean, it got a lot
Speaker 4: of attention, you know, not just in Canada, but outside
Speaker 4: of Canada as well. And you know because you know,
Speaker 4: partly I think because of Cody's age, how young he was,
Speaker 4: and partly because of the area that this happened. It's
Speaker 4: in an area that has had a large number of
Speaker 4: murders or a large number of missing women. Women have
Speaker 4: gone missing in that area in recent years. So it
Speaker 4: did get a lot of media coverage and attention.
Speaker 3: Well, I want to thank you for coming on and
Speaker 3: talking about the country boy killer JT. For those people
Speaker 3: that might want to contact you and look at the
Speaker 3: other work that you have, like the true story of
Speaker 3: the vampire rapist, tell us tell our audience how they
Speaker 3: might be able to contact you, or if you have
Speaker 3: a Facebook page or how you promote yourself. So I'll
Speaker 3: give us that information if you could, please.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I do have I have a Facebook page. I mean,
Speaker 4: you know, it's just a type in JT Hunter and
Speaker 4: I'll come up on there. I have a page for
Speaker 4: my prior novel on there, The Vampire next Door, a
Speaker 4: few story The Vampire Rapist has a Facebook page as
Speaker 4: well if you were to type that in on Facebook.
Speaker 4: And I have an author page on Amazon, and the
Speaker 4: publisher of these books, R J. Parker r J. Parker
Speaker 4: Publishing has a web page and links to me on
Speaker 4: there as well, and I can also be reached by email.
Speaker 4: I always I'm always happy to hear from folks, you know,
Speaker 4: whether they have questions about something I've written about, or
Speaker 4: whether they have their own story to share, or a
Speaker 4: suggestion about something that might be something I could be
Speaker 4: interested in and finding more about or writing about. And
Speaker 4: I'm always interested in ideas and things like that as well,
Speaker 4: so they can always reach me my email as well.
Speaker 4: In my email address is just JT. Hunter eight one
Speaker 4: four at gmail dot com.
Speaker 3: Great again, I want to thank you very much JAT
Speaker 3: for coming on and talking about the Country Board Killer.
Speaker 3: It's been a pleasure. Thank you very much and you
Speaker 3: have a great evening, all right.
Speaker 4: Dan, Well, thanks again, and hopefully I will be talking
Speaker 4: to you again soon about another work as well.
Speaker 3: Absolutely look forward to it. Ok. Thanks Dan Tak here YouTube,
Speaker 3: good night, good night,