WEBVTT 1 00:00:07.639 --> 00:00:11.039 You are now listening to True Murder, The most shocking 2 00:00:11.160 --> 00:00:14.160 killers in true crime history and the authors that have 3 00:00:14.240 --> 00:00:21.839 written about them Gaesy, Bundy, Dahmer, The Nightstalker VTK Every week, 4 00:00:22.000 --> 00:00:25.800 another fascinating author talking about the most shocking and infamous 5 00:00:25.879 --> 00:00:29.879 killers in true crime history. True Murder with your host, 6 00:00:30.280 --> 00:00:33.320 journalist and author Dan Zupanski. 7 00:00:39.759 --> 00:00:44.000 Good Evening. Caroline Fraser grew up in the shadow of 8 00:00:44.039 --> 00:00:48.079 Ted Bundy, the most notorious serial murderer of women in 9 00:00:48.159 --> 00:00:53.079 American history, surrounded by his hunting grounds and mountain body 10 00:00:53.159 --> 00:00:58.359 dumps in the brooding landscape of the Pacific Northwest. But 11 00:00:58.479 --> 00:01:02.119 in the nineteen seventies and eight, Bundy was just one 12 00:01:02.159 --> 00:01:06.760 perpetrator amid an uncanny explosion of serial rape and murder 13 00:01:07.200 --> 00:01:12.239 across the region. Why so many? Why so weirdly and 14 00:01:12.400 --> 00:01:17.439 nightmarishly gruesome? Why the senseless rise and then sudden fall 15 00:01:17.920 --> 00:01:23.879 of an epidemic of serial killing? As Murderland indelibly maps 16 00:01:23.920 --> 00:01:27.400 the lives and careers of Bundy and his infamous peers 17 00:01:27.480 --> 00:01:31.400 in Mayhem, The Green River Killer, the I five Killer, 18 00:01:32.000 --> 00:01:38.400 the Nightstalker, the Hillside Strangler, even Charles Manson. Fraser's Northwestern 19 00:01:38.480 --> 00:01:42.879 death trip begins to uncover a deeper mystery and an 20 00:01:42.920 --> 00:01:48.680 overlapping pattern of environmental destruction. At ground zero in ted 21 00:01:48.760 --> 00:01:53.000 Bundy's Tacoma stood one of the most poisonous lead, copper, 22 00:01:53.040 --> 00:01:57.439 and arsenic smelters in the world, but was hardly unique 23 00:01:57.560 --> 00:02:02.719 in the West. As Fraser's and Vents instigation inexorably proceeds, 24 00:02:03.239 --> 00:02:06.920 evidence mounts that the plumes of these smelters not only 25 00:02:07.040 --> 00:02:12.039 sickened and blighted millions of lives, but also warped young minds, 26 00:02:12.080 --> 00:02:18.199 including some who grew up to become serial killers. Murderland 27 00:02:18.280 --> 00:02:23.800 transcends true crime, voyeurism and noir mythology, taking readers on 28 00:02:23.879 --> 00:02:27.800 a profound quest into the dark heart of the real 29 00:02:28.120 --> 00:02:33.639 American berserk. The book you were featuring this evening is Murderland, 30 00:02:34.400 --> 00:02:38.439 Crime and Bloodlust in the Time of Serial Killers, with 31 00:02:38.599 --> 00:02:45.639 my special guest, Pulitzer Prize winning author Caroline Fraser. Welcome 32 00:02:45.680 --> 00:02:48.439 to the program, and thank you very much for this interview. 33 00:02:48.680 --> 00:02:53.639 Caroline Fraser, thanks for having me, happy to be here. 34 00:02:54.080 --> 00:02:58.080 Thank you so much, and congratulations on murder Land. 35 00:02:59.080 --> 00:03:03.960 Well, thank you. It was a fascinating project to write, 36 00:03:04.000 --> 00:03:07.439 although it took me in some unexpected directions. 37 00:03:07.759 --> 00:03:12.319 So let's talk about the origins before we get into 38 00:03:12.360 --> 00:03:15.879 this incredible story. But just tell us how you came 39 00:03:16.159 --> 00:03:19.360 to be the author of this story, How you came 40 00:03:19.479 --> 00:03:23.199 to be again, the author of Murderland. 41 00:03:24.879 --> 00:03:29.439 Yeah. Well, I grew up in the Pacific Northwest in Seattle, 42 00:03:29.759 --> 00:03:33.199 in a place called Mercer Island, which is a suburb 43 00:03:33.439 --> 00:03:37.919 of Seattle in the middle of Lake Washington. As I 44 00:03:38.000 --> 00:03:40.680 was growing up, some of these things happened. You know. 45 00:03:40.759 --> 00:03:46.159 I was thirteen in nineteen seventy four when Ted Bundy 46 00:03:46.240 --> 00:03:52.280 began committing the crimes that would be attributed to him, 47 00:03:52.360 --> 00:03:55.759 although I think he actually started much earlier than nineteen 48 00:03:55.800 --> 00:04:00.240 seventy four, But in any event, I certainly remember that time. 49 00:04:01.120 --> 00:04:06.800 And in the years after that, people began asking the 50 00:04:06.879 --> 00:04:11.120 question why are there so many serial killers in the 51 00:04:11.120 --> 00:04:15.280 Pacific Northwest? And this was, you know, something that came 52 00:04:15.360 --> 00:04:20.040 up over and over again in the press. The newspapers 53 00:04:20.079 --> 00:04:24.120 would revisit this question every you know, couple of years 54 00:04:24.240 --> 00:04:29.079 and print lists of how many serial killers there were 55 00:04:29.120 --> 00:04:32.560 in the region. And I'd always kind of wondered about that, 56 00:04:32.839 --> 00:04:37.519 like what accounted for this? Was it really a thing 57 00:04:38.360 --> 00:04:41.759 or was it some kind of you know, urban legend. 58 00:04:42.000 --> 00:04:44.639 So that was sort of in my mind for a 59 00:04:44.680 --> 00:04:49.240 long time, and I worked on other projects, very different 60 00:04:49.319 --> 00:04:54.800 kinds of things. But during COVID particularly, I was looking 61 00:04:54.879 --> 00:04:58.560 for something that I could work on from home, and 62 00:04:58.600 --> 00:05:03.040 I began looking at that question again and just trying 63 00:05:03.079 --> 00:05:10.600 to investigate both the number of serial killers and their 64 00:05:10.680 --> 00:05:16.160 individual stories in the Northwest and see where that led. 65 00:05:17.920 --> 00:05:20.759 You. Right early on in this book that you are 66 00:05:20.959 --> 00:05:25.680 an amateur cartographer and you draw lines and make maps. 67 00:05:26.360 --> 00:05:29.720 Tell us about your early map that you did. 68 00:05:31.240 --> 00:05:35.800 Yeah, well, you know, I had seen on various websites. 69 00:05:36.199 --> 00:05:39.959 It's well known where Ted Bundy grew up in the 70 00:05:40.000 --> 00:05:44.399 city of Tacoma. For example. He wasn't originally from there. 71 00:05:44.480 --> 00:05:48.120 He was born in Vermont and spent a couple of 72 00:05:48.199 --> 00:05:51.560 years in Philadelphia, but then ended up about the age 73 00:05:51.560 --> 00:05:55.920 of five in Tacoma. And so I looked at where 74 00:05:56.079 --> 00:05:59.399 he was living in Tacoma. I was struck by the 75 00:05:59.480 --> 00:06:05.480 fact that another very prolific and well known serial killer, 76 00:06:05.920 --> 00:06:11.839 Gary Ridgeway, was also from that area. That he grew 77 00:06:11.920 --> 00:06:16.000 up just a couple miles east of SeaTac the airport 78 00:06:16.480 --> 00:06:20.079 just north of Tacoma. And then another thing that I 79 00:06:20.160 --> 00:06:26.600 learned about more recently was the fact that Charles Manson 80 00:06:26.800 --> 00:06:31.879 had spent a significant amount of time being incarcerated on 81 00:06:31.959 --> 00:06:35.959 McNeil Island, which is just off of Tacoma. So then 82 00:06:36.040 --> 00:06:40.720 I had these three points on the map of where 83 00:06:40.759 --> 00:06:44.759 these three guys were, and it was really quite striking 84 00:06:44.879 --> 00:06:49.759 how close to each other they were. And that was 85 00:06:51.399 --> 00:06:55.279 a map that sort of sent me back to the 86 00:06:55.399 --> 00:06:58.040 drawing board, if you will, to think about the question 87 00:06:58.120 --> 00:07:02.399 of is there anything these guys could have been exposed 88 00:07:02.560 --> 00:07:08.519 to that would have led to where they ended up. 89 00:07:10.160 --> 00:07:13.560 You read about another map, they call it the Owl. 90 00:07:14.480 --> 00:07:18.199 Tell us about this owl and its relation to what 91 00:07:18.319 --> 00:07:20.000 you were just speaking about. 92 00:07:21.199 --> 00:07:25.120 The owl refers to the something that's called the Olympic 93 00:07:25.759 --> 00:07:33.279 Wallawa Lineament, which came into being when a cartographer, a 94 00:07:33.319 --> 00:07:39.079 man who drew maps professionally back in the forties. He 95 00:07:39.439 --> 00:07:44.480 was drawing a map of Washington State and the northwest, 96 00:07:45.399 --> 00:07:48.560 very very detailed and quite beautiful map. You can still 97 00:07:48.600 --> 00:07:54.199 see it online. As he was finishing this map, he 98 00:07:54.720 --> 00:07:59.959 happened to kind of glance across at sideways and saw 99 00:08:00.759 --> 00:08:06.319 a line that goes from the very top of the 100 00:08:06.360 --> 00:08:14.879 northwest tip of Cape Flattery. That's really the north westernmost 101 00:08:15.000 --> 00:08:19.959 point of both Washington State and the United States. And 102 00:08:20.399 --> 00:08:23.800 this this line, this depression in the map that he 103 00:08:23.920 --> 00:08:30.079 noticed kind of cut southeast down across the state of 104 00:08:30.879 --> 00:08:36.000 Washington and kind of carved it in two. And he 105 00:08:36.120 --> 00:08:41.360 was so intrigued by this, which was really just created by, 106 00:08:41.879 --> 00:08:45.600 you know, a kind of depression in the land. He 107 00:08:45.759 --> 00:08:50.000 was so intrigued by this that he called it the Owl, 108 00:08:50.080 --> 00:08:54.720 the Olympic Wallawa lineum and he began theorizing about what 109 00:08:54.840 --> 00:08:58.480 it might be. It probably he thought it was probably 110 00:08:58.639 --> 00:09:03.039 a fault line. I think most people now think he 111 00:09:03.240 --> 00:09:06.919 was probably right about that. There are many, many fault 112 00:09:06.960 --> 00:09:11.440 lines that cut through Washington State, and many of them 113 00:09:11.480 --> 00:09:15.559 have only been discovered recently with the kind of light 114 00:09:15.720 --> 00:09:21.919 art technology that can see beneath the surface. And it 115 00:09:21.960 --> 00:09:26.080 has been discovered and is quite a cause of concern 116 00:09:27.000 --> 00:09:32.320 that there are so many fault lines in Washington, particularly 117 00:09:32.399 --> 00:09:37.360 lying under very heavily populated parts of Seattle, that it 118 00:09:37.480 --> 00:09:43.559 is felt that this could create quite a terrible situation 119 00:09:43.679 --> 00:09:47.000 if there's another really big earthquake, the way there was 120 00:09:47.480 --> 00:09:52.399 about seven hundred years ago. So I used the Owl 121 00:09:52.639 --> 00:09:56.759 as a kind of image of both the perils of 122 00:09:56.799 --> 00:10:03.679 the natural world in that region, which were certainly in 123 00:10:03.759 --> 00:10:07.480 some ways taken advantage of by these serial killers, because 124 00:10:08.000 --> 00:10:12.879 one of the things that both Bundy and Ridgeway, for example, 125 00:10:13.000 --> 00:10:16.919 did was to take their victims out into the woods 126 00:10:16.919 --> 00:10:20.440 and dispose of their bodies in places where they would 127 00:10:20.440 --> 00:10:24.879 not readily be found, and that made it particularly difficult 128 00:10:25.039 --> 00:10:28.960 for any forensic investigation to take place. So the owl 129 00:10:29.080 --> 00:10:32.519 is really kind of a metaphor for the hazards of 130 00:10:32.600 --> 00:10:33.720 this region. 131 00:10:36.000 --> 00:10:39.320 Let's talk about some of the writing you have in 132 00:10:39.480 --> 00:10:42.840 a chapter called the Smelter. First off, tell us for 133 00:10:42.960 --> 00:10:45.960 people that don't know what a smelter is. And you 134 00:10:46.039 --> 00:10:51.480 take us to Philadelphia and you posit that you're not 135 00:10:51.600 --> 00:10:54.879 quite sure if it's Lloyd Marshall or Jack Worthington, the 136 00:10:54.960 --> 00:10:58.519 father of Ted Bundy. But you take us to Philadelphia 137 00:10:59.120 --> 00:11:02.559 and the smelters and the situation there. You say, the 138 00:11:02.600 --> 00:11:06.240 city is full of smelters. Tell us what this is. 139 00:11:06.320 --> 00:11:10.960 You've called it a commercial volcano. Tell us what smelters are, 140 00:11:11.320 --> 00:11:15.480 their purpose? And Philadelphia and Ted Bundy's childhood. 141 00:11:16.639 --> 00:11:21.360 Ted Bundy of course never really knew who his father was, 142 00:11:21.440 --> 00:11:24.080 and I think this was a source of great kind 143 00:11:24.080 --> 00:11:28.559 of anguish and rage for him. He was born in 144 00:11:28.600 --> 00:11:34.200 a foundling home in Vermont. He was the product of 145 00:11:34.679 --> 00:11:38.440 some kind of either illicit relationship that his mother had 146 00:11:39.120 --> 00:11:43.480 or we don't know exactly, but she was sent to 147 00:11:43.600 --> 00:11:48.480 this home where nuns would take care of babies that 148 00:11:48.559 --> 00:11:51.720 were born. Legitimately, she left him there for a couple 149 00:11:51.799 --> 00:11:56.320 of months, then she took him home with her to Philadelphia, 150 00:11:56.720 --> 00:12:00.360 which was called the City of Smelters because it had 151 00:12:00.360 --> 00:12:03.679 more smelters than just about any other place, although I 152 00:12:03.759 --> 00:12:07.240 will say that at the time smelters were just everywhere. 153 00:12:07.320 --> 00:12:12.240 They were in every major American city, and what they 154 00:12:12.279 --> 00:12:18.840 were doing was producing metal. A smelter is designed to 155 00:12:18.919 --> 00:12:25.039 take in these rocks or ores from mines, the kinds 156 00:12:25.080 --> 00:12:29.320 of ores that have metals within them, and then they 157 00:12:29.399 --> 00:12:33.600 melt them down and this produces all kinds of different 158 00:12:33.840 --> 00:12:38.799 metals because the ores contain all these sort of associated 159 00:12:39.399 --> 00:12:46.240 chemicals and metal, So they contained stuff like lead, copper, arsenic, cadmium, 160 00:12:46.879 --> 00:12:52.360 and many many other metals, and they're burning them in 161 00:12:52.480 --> 00:12:56.639 order to separate the metals so that they can separate out. 162 00:12:56.679 --> 00:13:03.840 For example, silver evaluable metal. Gold, lead copper was very 163 00:13:03.919 --> 00:13:07.960 valuable so a lot of these these smelters specialized in 164 00:13:08.519 --> 00:13:13.519 one or the other metals, but produced all kinds of stuff, 165 00:13:13.919 --> 00:13:17.559 a lot of which was going up the smokestack, and 166 00:13:17.759 --> 00:13:23.279 Philadelphia's had because after the war it was producing so 167 00:13:23.440 --> 00:13:26.799 much from it smelters that had a great deal of 168 00:13:27.519 --> 00:13:33.039 lead pollution in Philadelphia, where where Ted spent a couple 169 00:13:33.080 --> 00:13:37.840 of formative years. And then when Ted and his mother 170 00:13:37.960 --> 00:13:46.480 went and moved to Tacoma, where her cousin lived, they 171 00:13:46.519 --> 00:13:49.840 were moving to another place that had an very very 172 00:13:49.840 --> 00:13:54.360 prominent smelter that belonged to the American Smelting and Refining 173 00:13:54.440 --> 00:13:58.639 Company or a SARCO. And that smelter was right in 174 00:13:58.679 --> 00:14:03.000 the middle of a very popular area, and Ted lived 175 00:14:03.600 --> 00:14:07.519 always within just a few miles of that smelter. And 176 00:14:07.559 --> 00:14:11.320 the thing that you have to know about lead is 177 00:14:11.360 --> 00:14:16.960 that it is associated and this has been proven by 178 00:14:17.000 --> 00:14:23.039 a number of scientific studies with aggression and violence in 179 00:14:23.279 --> 00:14:27.960 the people who were exposed to it, especially children. It's 180 00:14:28.200 --> 00:14:32.759 very dangerous for children to be exposed to lead because 181 00:14:33.200 --> 00:14:38.000 it really changes the development of their brain and their 182 00:14:38.000 --> 00:14:42.759 frontal cortex, and it causes you know, there's kind of 183 00:14:42.759 --> 00:14:45.919 a time lag of about twenty years. But if a 184 00:14:46.039 --> 00:14:50.759 child is exposed to lead at a young age and 185 00:14:50.919 --> 00:14:55.080 has that as part of their makeup, then by the 186 00:14:55.200 --> 00:14:59.840 time they're a teenager or a young adult, they may 187 00:14:59.840 --> 00:15:04.440 be showing some of the neurological signs of light exposure, 188 00:15:04.519 --> 00:15:10.960 which include violence, impulsivity, sort of an inability to control 189 00:15:11.120 --> 00:15:11.919 their behavior. 190 00:15:14.279 --> 00:15:18.840 You read about Charles Manson and his stay at McNeil 191 00:15:18.879 --> 00:15:25.120 Island prison, what is its proximity Tacoma to Tacoma and 192 00:15:25.240 --> 00:15:30.559 also how was Charles Manson and other prisoners exposed to 193 00:15:30.919 --> 00:15:34.639 lead and other chemicals from the smelters. 194 00:15:35.080 --> 00:15:40.200 Mcdeil Island is about. It was, for instance, about seven 195 00:15:40.279 --> 00:15:43.240 miles I think from where Ted Bundy was living. There 196 00:15:43.320 --> 00:15:47.720 was another maybe five miles to the smelter, so it 197 00:15:47.799 --> 00:15:52.919 was within about a ten or twelve mile radius of 198 00:15:53.240 --> 00:15:58.120 the smelter and its smokestack. So it was getting some 199 00:15:58.200 --> 00:16:02.120 degree of the fallout from that smoke stack. And the 200 00:16:02.200 --> 00:16:07.440 thing that was unique about McNeil Island is that the 201 00:16:07.480 --> 00:16:12.799 prisoners on the island were working in agriculture. They had 202 00:16:13.759 --> 00:16:17.840 heard of cattle, They had crops that they were raising, 203 00:16:17.879 --> 00:16:20.799 so they were raising all the food that they were 204 00:16:20.840 --> 00:16:25.200 consuming on the Islands, and the water that they were 205 00:16:25.600 --> 00:16:30.799 drinking was also from sources on the island, so they 206 00:16:31.039 --> 00:16:35.279 had to have been exposed to some degree to the 207 00:16:35.360 --> 00:16:39.519 fallout from that smoke stack. It's probably worth noting that 208 00:16:40.039 --> 00:16:43.919 Charles Manson, by the time he ended up on McNeil Island, 209 00:16:44.039 --> 00:16:48.440 was already an incredibly troubled individual. I'm not trying to 210 00:16:48.519 --> 00:16:54.120 say that what he did was entirely down to lead. 211 00:16:54.440 --> 00:17:00.799 He had a terrible experience as a kid and his mother, 212 00:17:01.639 --> 00:17:05.400 his teenage mother, ended up in jail when he was 213 00:17:06.359 --> 00:17:08.759 just three or four years old. He had been in 214 00:17:08.839 --> 00:17:13.480 and out of institutions all his life, born in a 215 00:17:13.519 --> 00:17:18.839 really poor coal mining town in the east, so he 216 00:17:18.880 --> 00:17:22.720 obviously had many many strikes against him. But I don't 217 00:17:22.759 --> 00:17:24.599 think the lead probably helped. 218 00:17:26.200 --> 00:17:29.640 You talk about some of the early effects that were 219 00:17:29.680 --> 00:17:34.559 seen by people that were working in the industry producing 220 00:17:34.599 --> 00:17:39.160 these chemicals, and just people their families and people in 221 00:17:39.240 --> 00:17:43.400 proximity to these factories as well. You say Ted Bundy's 222 00:17:43.440 --> 00:17:46.400 family in Philadelphia was only about four miles or less 223 00:17:46.440 --> 00:17:49.599 than four miles away from one of these plants. So 224 00:17:49.720 --> 00:17:53.240 what was some of the first things in the nineteenth 225 00:17:53.359 --> 00:17:57.839 or the twentieth century that people noted and what was 226 00:17:57.880 --> 00:18:02.319 the result of this sort of indication that there is 227 00:18:02.359 --> 00:18:05.240 some side effects to this industry. 228 00:18:06.640 --> 00:18:12.400 One of the principal products that was contributing led to 229 00:18:12.440 --> 00:18:18.119 the atmosphere early on was leaded gas. Leaded gas was 230 00:18:18.279 --> 00:18:24.039 developed in the nineteen twenties, although it wasn't under as 231 00:18:24.200 --> 00:18:28.039 heavy use then as it would be later. But immediately 232 00:18:28.480 --> 00:18:33.200 when the Company's Standard Oil and DuPont and so forth 233 00:18:33.279 --> 00:18:37.160 that we're developing leaded gas, when they started producing it 234 00:18:37.279 --> 00:18:43.319 in large quantities, they made some mistakes really in they 235 00:18:43.319 --> 00:18:49.200 didn't realize how grievously it was going to affect the 236 00:18:49.240 --> 00:18:53.000 guys who worked in these plants. Two or three occasions, 237 00:18:53.519 --> 00:18:59.200 they caused such severe lead poisoning in their workers that 238 00:18:59.440 --> 00:19:06.440 people they started having hallucinations, became quite violent and rapidly died. 239 00:19:06.599 --> 00:19:10.240 There were a number of people who died in several 240 00:19:10.279 --> 00:19:14.880 incidents in these plants, and some people, some of these 241 00:19:14.920 --> 00:19:20.039 workers who were so terribly affected didn't die, but were 242 00:19:20.599 --> 00:19:25.559 affected really for the rest of their lives. They saw hallucinations. 243 00:19:26.000 --> 00:19:29.640 Sometimes they called them the you know, the butterfly men, 244 00:19:29.759 --> 00:19:34.680 because they were constantly sort of seeing hallucinations of things 245 00:19:34.720 --> 00:19:38.160 flying around and would wave their hands at them. And 246 00:19:38.759 --> 00:19:41.960 they continued, some of these guys to work at the plants, 247 00:19:42.480 --> 00:19:49.640 but they were essentially really damaged emotionally and mentally by 248 00:19:49.640 --> 00:19:50.599 what they'd been through. 249 00:19:52.319 --> 00:19:54.759 Let's use this as an opportunity to stop to hear 250 00:19:54.920 --> 00:20:00.680 these messages. Now. It's very interesting you spoke about this 251 00:20:01.039 --> 00:20:06.599 incredible effect of working with these chemicals and that being hallucinations, 252 00:20:06.599 --> 00:20:09.279 and I think that's very important for the case that 253 00:20:09.359 --> 00:20:12.880 you make in this book. And it's very interesting too 254 00:20:12.920 --> 00:20:18.599 that one of the principal criminals psychopathic killers that you 255 00:20:18.640 --> 00:20:22.319 focus on in this book is Gary Ridgeway and his 256 00:20:22.759 --> 00:20:27.759 proximity to Ted Bundy and McNeil Island and Charles Manson. 257 00:20:28.519 --> 00:20:32.279 But tell us also, as you write Gary Ridgeway was 258 00:20:32.359 --> 00:20:36.440 experiencing hallucinations as well. So tell us a little bit 259 00:20:36.480 --> 00:20:41.680 about Gary Ridgeway, where he lived near Seattle and the 260 00:20:41.720 --> 00:20:43.599 hallucinations that he experienced. 261 00:20:45.200 --> 00:20:49.559 Yeah, Ridgeway grew up just a couple miles east of 262 00:20:49.680 --> 00:20:55.519 SeaTac at a time when aircraft jet aircraft were flying 263 00:20:55.559 --> 00:21:00.240 with leaded gas. He also lived in close proximity to 264 00:21:00.359 --> 00:21:05.279 a couple of major highways, including I five, and as 265 00:21:05.319 --> 00:21:12.000 an adult he began working at the Kenworth truck plant 266 00:21:12.440 --> 00:21:17.839 as a painter. He was somebody who sprayed the cabs 267 00:21:17.960 --> 00:21:23.759 of big trucks and painted them at a time when 268 00:21:23.839 --> 00:21:30.440 those paint formulations probably included lead, because lead had been 269 00:21:31.079 --> 00:21:34.839 removed from house paint by that point, by you know, 270 00:21:34.880 --> 00:21:38.160 the nineteen seventies, but there was an exemption that was 271 00:21:38.200 --> 00:21:43.400 carved out for commercial paint applications which would have included 272 00:21:43.440 --> 00:21:46.720 what he was doing. So he was he was exposed 273 00:21:46.759 --> 00:21:51.599 to lead in you know, at least two or three ways. 274 00:21:52.000 --> 00:21:58.039 And I'm not sure about the hallucinations, but he certainly 275 00:21:58.119 --> 00:22:05.119 did begin behave in a profoundly kind of robotic way, 276 00:22:05.319 --> 00:22:09.160 almost by doing the same things over and over and 277 00:22:09.240 --> 00:22:14.880 over again, capturing women who he'd picked up sex workers, 278 00:22:15.559 --> 00:22:20.359 runaway girls, enacting on them sort of the same behavior 279 00:22:20.400 --> 00:22:25.960 again and again. He did like to have sex with 280 00:22:26.160 --> 00:22:29.920 women outside, so he would often take these women out 281 00:22:29.920 --> 00:22:33.279 in the woods to have sex with them. When he 282 00:22:33.519 --> 00:22:36.119 was not able to do that when he had to 283 00:22:36.160 --> 00:22:38.960 take them to his house. He had one wall of 284 00:22:39.000 --> 00:22:43.920 his bedroom covered in a sort of silk screen photographic 285 00:22:44.000 --> 00:22:47.519 image of the woods, so that he could feel like 286 00:22:47.599 --> 00:22:51.279 he was having sex in the woods. In his House. Yeah, 287 00:22:51.359 --> 00:22:57.640 he was an incredibly sort of robotic individual who captures 288 00:22:57.680 --> 00:22:59.640 that sense. I think the a lot of these serial 289 00:22:59.759 --> 00:23:03.839 kills had of just being trapped in this kind of 290 00:23:03.960 --> 00:23:05.920 cycle of violence. 291 00:23:08.599 --> 00:23:14.599 Did you single out these examples of especially aberrant crimes 292 00:23:14.640 --> 00:23:18.559 and criminals such as Ted Bundi, Charles Manson, Gary Ridgeway, 293 00:23:18.599 --> 00:23:22.839 and then later on you write about Jerry Brutos and 294 00:23:22.920 --> 00:23:27.880 also Israel Keys. But did you single out these people 295 00:23:27.960 --> 00:23:35.559 to demonstrate something specifically related to these chemicals? In other words, 296 00:23:35.599 --> 00:23:42.400 are there extreme crimes related to what you consider extreme poisoning? 297 00:23:44.440 --> 00:23:47.720 Yes, I think to some extent. I was looking first 298 00:23:47.759 --> 00:23:51.960 of all at a lot of the serial killers who 299 00:23:52.000 --> 00:23:55.799 came from the Northwest, and looking at their proximity to 300 00:23:57.039 --> 00:24:02.799 either letted gat sources of gas with highways, or smelters. 301 00:24:03.640 --> 00:24:06.519 And then I began sort of opening it up and 302 00:24:06.559 --> 00:24:10.319 looking at some other places, like, for example, because I 303 00:24:10.359 --> 00:24:14.799 had spent a certain amount of time explaining the history 304 00:24:15.079 --> 00:24:20.000 of Asarco, the smelting company which was owned by the 305 00:24:20.039 --> 00:24:24.799 Guggenheim family, I looked at another smelter that they had 306 00:24:24.839 --> 00:24:28.640 in El Paso and asked myself, well, were there any 307 00:24:29.960 --> 00:24:34.920 infamous serial killers associated with El Paso, because I didn't 308 00:24:34.960 --> 00:24:38.359 know of any. As soon as I got into the 309 00:24:38.400 --> 00:24:43.559 research on that, immediately it turned out that Richard Ramirez, 310 00:24:44.319 --> 00:24:47.640 the so called Nightstalker, that he had grown up in 311 00:24:47.720 --> 00:24:52.960 El Paso, again only a few miles from the Asarco smelter, 312 00:24:53.240 --> 00:24:58.160 which was a huge landmark in that town and ultimately 313 00:24:58.240 --> 00:25:02.359 polluted quite a bit of El Paso and of the 314 00:25:03.160 --> 00:25:05.920 CEO DoD Warrez on the other side of the border. 315 00:25:06.960 --> 00:25:10.119 So that to me was very fascinating. So yes, I 316 00:25:10.200 --> 00:25:14.200 did tend to focus on individuals who I could tie 317 00:25:14.880 --> 00:25:21.599 to this chemical exposure. There are certainly other serial killers 318 00:25:22.000 --> 00:25:27.440 whose exposure I can't figure out, or you know, you know, 319 00:25:27.559 --> 00:25:30.799 maybe is a mystery, somebody like Son of Sam and 320 00:25:30.960 --> 00:25:34.519 those figures. You know, it's it's harder to tie them 321 00:25:34.880 --> 00:25:37.920 to this. But I think you also have to realize 322 00:25:37.920 --> 00:25:42.519 that during this period you were born, between the say, 323 00:25:42.599 --> 00:25:48.720 the nineteen forties and the nineteen eighties, everybody, no matter 324 00:25:49.119 --> 00:25:53.440 who you are or where you lived, everybody was exposed 325 00:25:53.839 --> 00:25:54.920 to letted gas. 326 00:25:56.559 --> 00:26:01.480 You talk about that Richard Ramirez's family just to lend 327 00:26:01.559 --> 00:26:06.119 some credibility to this exposure. You said the entire family 328 00:26:07.720 --> 00:26:12.279 had behavioral problems, at school and also physical ailments, but 329 00:26:12.440 --> 00:26:16.480 especially had all of them had behavioral problems cited at school. 330 00:26:18.000 --> 00:26:22.240 Yeah, it's sort of a tragic tale because there were 331 00:26:22.720 --> 00:26:27.480 I think five kids in that family, and all of 332 00:26:27.519 --> 00:26:35.400 them showed some kind of pretty severe physical and emotional illness. 333 00:26:35.880 --> 00:26:41.000 Their mother was exposed to a lot of really damaging 334 00:26:41.880 --> 00:26:46.559 chemicals from working in a boot factory in El Paso 335 00:26:46.799 --> 00:26:52.599 when she was pregnant with Richard, and the father was 336 00:26:53.200 --> 00:26:59.160 somebody who was quite violent himself and visited a lot 337 00:26:59.160 --> 00:27:04.319 of of violence on the kids. Again, this brings up 338 00:27:04.359 --> 00:27:07.519 the question of how much of this might have been led, 339 00:27:07.680 --> 00:27:11.920 how much of it might have been other other exposures 340 00:27:11.960 --> 00:27:16.559 and other events, Because the FBI, for example, in doing 341 00:27:16.640 --> 00:27:21.440 their work on profiling, has often pointed out how many 342 00:27:21.680 --> 00:27:27.359 serial killers have had either physical or sexual abuse or both, 343 00:27:27.559 --> 00:27:34.960 maybe head trauma from beatings or other accidents or other 344 00:27:35.119 --> 00:27:40.400 sources that can cause neurological damage as well. So there's 345 00:27:40.440 --> 00:27:43.880 a whole host of things that may go into creating 346 00:27:43.960 --> 00:27:48.200 these patterns of behavior, and we it's very very difficult 347 00:27:48.279 --> 00:27:49.279 to tease them apart. 348 00:27:51.400 --> 00:27:55.839 You do state this case, though, that this predominance of 349 00:27:55.960 --> 00:28:02.880 West Coast serial killers and also the correlation between the 350 00:28:02.920 --> 00:28:09.359 proliferation of industries that spew this lead, arsenic, copper, all 351 00:28:09.400 --> 00:28:13.839 of these toxic chemicals. Yes, you write that also to 352 00:28:14.640 --> 00:28:19.799 sort of muddle the entire statistics, I imagine is lead gasoline. 353 00:28:19.799 --> 00:28:25.000 But you do state the case of the increasing industries 354 00:28:25.200 --> 00:28:29.400 and the chemicals that are spewed from their smokestacks, but 355 00:28:29.559 --> 00:28:34.680 also the fight for and recognition of these chemicals as 356 00:28:34.720 --> 00:28:37.599 toxins and the fight to have them removed. You talk 357 00:28:37.640 --> 00:28:42.119 about the formation of the EPA and before that, initiatives 358 00:28:42.160 --> 00:28:46.559 to try to clean up this industry that people recognize 359 00:28:46.599 --> 00:28:48.440 as absolutely dangerous. 360 00:28:50.160 --> 00:28:54.279 Yeah. I mean one of the really disturbing elements of 361 00:28:54.319 --> 00:28:58.359 the story is that from the very beginning, even in 362 00:28:58.440 --> 00:29:04.759 the nineteen twenty, there were physicians who were telling industry 363 00:29:05.200 --> 00:29:12.000 representatives and government officials that they should never, never, never 364 00:29:12.200 --> 00:29:15.920 allow let it casts to be sold, and that they 365 00:29:15.960 --> 00:29:20.599 should do everything that they can to lower the amount 366 00:29:21.200 --> 00:29:24.880 of lead in the environment, not increase it. Because it 367 00:29:24.920 --> 00:29:29.400 was well known that lead is a you know, led 368 00:29:29.519 --> 00:29:32.640 is one of the chief poisons that we have known 369 00:29:32.680 --> 00:29:37.240 about for centuries, for millennium. I mean, the Greeks and 370 00:29:37.279 --> 00:29:41.200 the Romans knew that it was very bad and arsenic. 371 00:29:41.440 --> 00:29:45.880 I mean, everybody knows that arsenic is a poison. And 372 00:29:46.319 --> 00:29:49.160 one of the things that happened during this period is 373 00:29:49.200 --> 00:29:54.720 that industry really developed all the techniques that we would 374 00:29:54.759 --> 00:29:58.880 be familiar with from our own time in terms of, 375 00:29:58.880 --> 00:30:03.240 for example, the bacco industry. You know, the ways in 376 00:30:03.319 --> 00:30:10.279 which industry tried to make these chemicals seem benign, like 377 00:30:10.359 --> 00:30:13.960 they weren't really a problem, like they existed naturally in 378 00:30:14.000 --> 00:30:18.920 the environment was one of the claims, which that's not 379 00:30:19.119 --> 00:30:24.799 really true, and it's not true because we haven't. You know, 380 00:30:24.839 --> 00:30:27.160 it took human beings to bring them out of the 381 00:30:27.279 --> 00:30:30.799 environment and to make them much more potent in their 382 00:30:31.799 --> 00:30:36.039 you know, inorganic arsenic, for examples, different than the arsenic 383 00:30:36.079 --> 00:30:40.359 that you find in dirt or sometimes in water or 384 00:30:40.400 --> 00:30:46.039 in shellfish. Inorganic arsenic is a product of industry and 385 00:30:46.200 --> 00:30:51.440 is much much more poisonous than organic arsenic. And so 386 00:30:52.000 --> 00:30:55.799 all the kind of misinformation that was being put out 387 00:30:56.640 --> 00:31:02.400 bond liberately by these corporations that stood to gain from 388 00:31:02.960 --> 00:31:08.039 smelters and leaded gas really did, as you say, muddy 389 00:31:08.079 --> 00:31:16.000 the water for decades and provided an excuse for what 390 00:31:16.039 --> 00:31:19.640 they were doing, which was really you know, a wholesale 391 00:31:20.720 --> 00:31:26.279 medical disaster, because things like lead and arsenic do not 392 00:31:26.880 --> 00:31:30.400 just cause the kind of behavior that I'm talking about. 393 00:31:31.160 --> 00:31:36.000 Lead causes all kinds of other diseases, causes heart disease, 394 00:31:36.279 --> 00:31:41.960 it's associated with als, it is something that you know 395 00:31:42.079 --> 00:31:47.839 can cause all kinds of respiratory problems, and likewise with arsenic. 396 00:31:47.960 --> 00:31:52.759 Arsenic is associated with lung cancer. So there are really 397 00:31:52.960 --> 00:31:57.799 serious health effects across the board from all these chemicals, 398 00:31:58.400 --> 00:32:03.240 and basically they were being foisted on the American public 399 00:32:03.920 --> 00:32:11.160 and around the world under basically the corporations were just 400 00:32:11.319 --> 00:32:16.559 lying about their effects and trying to convince people that 401 00:32:16.599 --> 00:32:20.079