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Speaker 4: You are now listening to True Murder, the most shocking
Speaker 4: killers in true crime history and the authors that have
Speaker 4: written about them, Gasey, Bundy, Dahmer, The Nightstalker BTK. Every week,
Speaker 4: another fascinating author talking about the most shocking and infamous
Speaker 4: killers in true crime history True Murder, with your host,
Speaker 4: journalist and author Dan Zupansky.
Speaker 6: Good evening, This is your host Dan Zupanski for the
Speaker 6: program True Murder, the most shocking killers in true crime
Speaker 6: history and the authors that have written about them. On
Speaker 6: November eighth, nineteen eighty five, eighteen year old Tom Odle
Speaker 6: brutally murdered his parents and three siblings in the small
Speaker 6: southern Illinois town of Mount Vernon, sending shockwaves throughout the nation.
Speaker 6: It remains one of the most terrific mass murders in
Speaker 6: US history. Odell was sentenced to death, and, after seventeen
Speaker 6: years on death row, expected a lethal injection to end
Speaker 6: his life. However, Illinois Governor George Ryan's moratorium on the
Speaker 6: death penalty in two thousand and later commutation of all
Speaker 6: death sentences in two thousand and three, changed odal sentence
Speaker 6: to life. Prior to the commutation, Odele lived in denial,
Speaker 6: repressing any feelings about his family and his horrible crime.
Speaker 6: Following the commutation and the removal of the weight of
Speaker 6: eventual execution, he was confronted with an unfamiliar reality. A future.
Speaker 6: As a result, he realized that he needed to understand
Speaker 6: why he murdered his family. He reached out to doctor
Speaker 6: Robert Hanlon, a neuropsychologist who had examined him in the past.
Speaker 6: Doctor Hanlon engaged Odel in the therapeutic process, which became
Speaker 6: the basis of their collaboration on this book. Hanlan tells
Speaker 6: the gripping story of Odell's life, the life experiences that
Speaker 6: formed his personality, and his tragic homicidal escalation to mass murder.
Speaker 6: The book that we're featuring this evening is Survived by
Speaker 6: One with my special guest, professor and author, doctor Robert Hanlin.
Speaker 6: Welcome to the program and thank you for agreeing this interview,
Speaker 6: doctor Robert Hanlin.
Speaker 5: Yes, thanks, thanks for having me. It'd glad to be here.
Speaker 6: Very interesting book, congratulations, very unique and let's get right
Speaker 6: into this. How did you come I alluded to it
Speaker 6: in the introduction, but tell us a little bit more
Speaker 6: about how you came to this project, why you felt
Speaker 6: compelled to collaborate with this tom Otle, and why you
Speaker 6: felt it was important. Obviously, it's a big endeavor to
Speaker 6: write a book, So tell us how you got to
Speaker 6: this situation where you Felco health books survived by one certainly.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I had. I first met tom Odal when he
Speaker 5: was on death row in the Illinois prison system. He
Speaker 5: was at the uh he'd been on death row for
Speaker 5: at that point, about sixteen years, and he was coming
Speaker 5: to the end of the appeals process and he's facing
Speaker 5: his final execution date. And I was retained by his
Speaker 5: attorneys at that time to conduct a neuropsychological evaluation of
Speaker 5: him and as a last stitch effort to determine if
Speaker 5: there was really anything that was mitigating, you know, any
Speaker 5: psychological neuropsychological factors that would be mitigating that his attorneys
Speaker 5: could you try to use in their appeals. And it
Speaker 5: turned out I really didn't ide them with anything that
Speaker 5: was uh, you know, significant or uh meaningful with regard
Speaker 5: to uh, you know, to that uh that strategy. He
Speaker 5: was actually highly intelligent and really showed no evidence of
Speaker 5: any kind of cognitive impairments. And what he did demonstrate
Speaker 5: from the personality testing that I did with him at
Speaker 5: that time was that, you know, he showed he continued
Speaker 5: to show uh some anti social personality traits and features.
Speaker 5: And so as a result of that, really my my
Speaker 5: findings were were not of much use to his defense
Speaker 5: attorneys at that time. As it turned out, then the
Speaker 5: the Governor of Illinois, due to the fact that there
Speaker 5: had been a kind of a very distressing and con
Speaker 5: concernful series of exonerations of death row inmates in Illinois
Speaker 5: over a period of about ten years, he self compelled
Speaker 5: at that time to establish a moratorium on execution, so
Speaker 5: that basically saved tom Odele's life. And then over the
Speaker 5: next three years I had no contact with him. I had,
Speaker 5: you know, I'd basically done my job. I'd conducted my evaluation,
Speaker 5: and then the governor, in a blanket commutation, commuted all
Speaker 5: of the death sentences of one and sixty seven death
Speaker 5: inmates in Illinois at that time, and he was one
Speaker 5: of them. And it was shortly thereafter then that he,
Speaker 5: out of the blue to me anyway, I received a
Speaker 5: letter from him asking me to provide him with some
Speaker 5: information if I would be willing to do that, regarding
Speaker 5: anti social personality disorder and some quote since he had
Speaker 5: regarding uh, why he had committed this crime and what
Speaker 5: I thought might be some of the factors that led
Speaker 5: to this, you know him, why he became who he
Speaker 5: who he was, and uh I learned subsequently that that
Speaker 5: he had kind of arrived at that this kind of
Speaker 5: psychological state because of the commutation of his his death
Speaker 5: sentence and then suddenly being faced with the fact that
Speaker 5: you know, he's going to you know, he was going
Speaker 5: to live, and he was going to potentially live a
Speaker 5: long life in in brisaon which he had never anticipated
Speaker 5: or or confronted before. And so I found that to
Speaker 5: be a rather kind of interesting development, uh for individual
Speaker 5: like him who had lived for many years on death
Speaker 5: row and and kind of uh basically lived in a
Speaker 5: state of denial and repression because.
Speaker 7: He was anticipating that he was going to be executed.
Speaker 5: And then in his view, you know, why why uh
Speaker 5: why delve into these kinds of serious and painful issues
Speaker 5: if they're you know, if they're gonna kill me anyway,
Speaker 5: Uh right, And uh so you know, he he he
Speaker 5: contacted me and and uh with some questions, and you
Speaker 5: know I responded, and uh that evolved then into uh
Speaker 5: kind of a series of uh correspondents by letter and uh,
Speaker 5: you know, as you mentioned in the in the intro,
Speaker 5: then uh he he was uh you know, very interested
Speaker 5: in in in exploring and trying to understand you know,
Speaker 5: his his development and his particularly the aspect of his personality.
Speaker 5: It'll let him to commit this, uh, you know, incredibly
Speaker 5: horrific crime.
Speaker 6: Right now, before we get to that crime, I want
Speaker 6: to ask, did you or how much experience and how
Speaker 6: much research had you done? How familiar were you with
Speaker 6: mass murder itself or family mass murder or familiar side
Speaker 6: or whatever, if it's a proper term. Tell us what
Speaker 6: your your previous experience and research was regarding this type
Speaker 6: of mass murder. I know you're a neuropsychologist, but but
Speaker 6: tell us what your experience was specifically.
Speaker 5: I had evaluated many murderers before before him. At that point,
Speaker 5: we really didn't have a an ongoing criminal forensic research
Speaker 5: agenda in my in my lab at Northwestern University Medical School,
Speaker 5: we were more focused on issues of other types of
Speaker 5: brain disorders and brain damage, particularly traumatic braintry. And uh,
Speaker 5: but you know, I had been conducting evaluations of murderers
Speaker 5: for for several years. And uh, but he was actually
Speaker 5: the first family mass murderer that I had I had evaluated.
Speaker 5: I had evaluated a couple of other mass murderers at
Speaker 5: that time, but they were not. You know, they're not family,
Speaker 5: as you probably know and if you're listeners probably know,
Speaker 5: they're you know, two fundamental types of mass murder, you know,
Speaker 5: at least in terms of the classifications had come from
Speaker 5: the UH the FBI type of classification system. There are
Speaker 5: there are family mass murders, and then there are what
Speaker 5: are what are called, for lack of a better term,
Speaker 5: classic UH mass murders, which which are the kind of
Speaker 5: mass murders that we all too frequently hear about on
Speaker 5: the you know, through the media, and mass murders that
Speaker 5: occur in in schools and shopping centers and UH workplaces
Speaker 5: and theaters and UH places like that, where an individual
Speaker 5: just to some degree randomly murders multiple people that he
Speaker 5: has no basically had no relationship too. So you know,
Speaker 5: I had had some experience with individuals of that type.
Speaker 5: But but these are, you know, these are very very different,
Speaker 5: even though they both fall within the realm of mass murder.
Speaker 5: And I guess fundamentally that is because of a number
Speaker 5: of victims that are involved. That are that are you know,
Speaker 5: murdered at a single UH location, at a single at
Speaker 5: a you know, single point in time. But clearly the
Speaker 5: motives and the agendas of the fender, of the individual
Speaker 5: of the murderer are are very different.
Speaker 6: What I'm referring to is that I might as well
Speaker 6: ask how rare is this familicide? This this murder of
Speaker 6: an entire family, even if we if there's a difference
Speaker 6: between at the end there's a suicide, but obviously you've
Speaker 6: researched that and you've included it. How rare is what
Speaker 6: tom Odle did.
Speaker 5: Family mass murderers and familicide as such are are not
Speaker 5: They're not extremely uncommon, and clearly the most common type
Speaker 5: of family mass murderer are are the types of mass
Speaker 5: murders that are typically committed by the father and husband
Speaker 5: and for various reasons. The father and husband murders his
Speaker 5: wife or his partner and then subsequent to murders the
Speaker 5: children and then usually commit suicide.
Speaker 6: Uh.
Speaker 5: That is the That is the typical scenario for family
Speaker 5: mass murders. What is much much more rare are cases
Speaker 5: like this where one of the children murders both parents
Speaker 5: and all of the other and all of his or
Speaker 5: her siblings. These crimes are most commonly about ninety percent
Speaker 5: of these crimes. Where which are which are technically referred
Speaker 5: to as paracidal familicide, and which which involves the murder
Speaker 5: of parents and the rest of the family. They are
Speaker 5: most most commonly, as in this case, committed by the
Speaker 5: eldest male child. Uh So they are these cases of
Speaker 5: paracidal familicide are are relatively rare, even among family mass murders,
Speaker 5: because probably between eighty to ninety percent of family mass
Speaker 5: murders are committed by the husband or father in the
Speaker 5: manner that I described a moment ago.
Speaker 6: Now, as you begin with your book, you and it's
Speaker 6: I think it's essential obviously to really understand. I mean,
Speaker 6: most books will go back into the background of someone,
Speaker 6: but you have this incredible access to the killer himself.
Speaker 6: And like you say, it's very articulated. He's quite intelligent,
Speaker 6: and he is going through this process that you develop
Speaker 6: where there's introspection and as a result, he has to
Speaker 6: be straightforward and very candid, and that's what he's done.
Speaker 6: So let's go back to the beginning of tom Old's
Speaker 6: old Odele's life. And because it's this is the huge
Speaker 6: part of this book is the why and why on Earth?
Speaker 6: And and so you've provided every single conceivable detail. Also
Speaker 6: take us back to the very strange family of Tom Odle.
Speaker 5: Well, yes, he did have a uh an unusual family. Unfortunately,
Speaker 5: it's probably not as rare as we as we might
Speaker 5: like to uh we might like to think.
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 5: He he grew up in an abusive household in his
Speaker 5: in this case, his mother was the abuser, and she
Speaker 5: was uh really sadistic, and she's very selective in her abuse.
Speaker 5: She chose to abuse two out of four of her children,
Speaker 5: Tom being the the first born and the and then
Speaker 5: of course the the eldest child. He was born when
Speaker 5: she was she was, you know, a very young woman.
Speaker 5: This is the first child, and she had been also
Speaker 5: raised in a very oppressive and very strictive type of
Speaker 5: house hold by by her parents picking her father, and
Speaker 5: was restricted from uh a great deal of social activities
Speaker 5: and and so she had very limited exposure to uh
Speaker 5: to uh parenting styles and techniques, and so you know,
Speaker 5: she was really kind of you know to create shooting
Speaker 5: in the dark. And with regard to you know, how
Speaker 5: she was, you know, how she was going to raise
Speaker 5: her child, and what she did then was basically kind
Speaker 5: of followed the similar pattern that her parents did. But
Speaker 5: she then took it to uh a unfortunately a very
Speaker 5: devastating extreme uh in which she was. She would uh
Speaker 5: force uh social isolation on him, uh forced him to
Speaker 5: uh stay in this room, would not allow him to
Speaker 5: socialize with other children, would not allow the children to
Speaker 5: come to their house, would not allow him to go
Speaker 5: to other children's houses, and particularly before he started the school,
Speaker 5: he really had minimal exposure to other children his age.
Speaker 5: At the same time, she was also uh also physically
Speaker 5: abusing him to uh beatings uh frequently, and then over
Speaker 5: time that became combined with a a great deal of
Speaker 5: verbal and mental abuse, very uh statistic type of demeaning
Speaker 5: statements that you know, she wished she'd never been born,
Speaker 5: and wished he would die, and wish she had wish
Speaker 5: she was not in her life, and uh she regretted
Speaker 5: ever having him. Things like that. So these are the
Speaker 5: kind of things that that that he experienced from a
Speaker 5: very from very young age, the physical and mental abuse.
Speaker 5: And you know, unfortunately for a child like that who
Speaker 5: particularly it was socially isolated, he you know, he doesn't
Speaker 5: you know, because like that don't don't know that that's
Speaker 5: that's wrong and that that's unusual and that's not the
Speaker 5: way that that you know, most parents and at least
Speaker 5: many parents treat their children and kind of assume that
Speaker 5: this is the way life is, and this is this
Speaker 5: is this is how families are. And so he didn't
Speaker 5: really come to realize that there's anything unusual about the
Speaker 5: way his mother treated him until he uh uh started
Speaker 5: school and and started interacting with the other children more
Speaker 5: in uh say, in the in the second third fourth grade,
Speaker 5: and had an opportunity to observe how other parents interacted
Speaker 5: with their with their children. So that was really the
Speaker 5: foundation of his personality development. Uh. This type of abuse
Speaker 5: by by her, and at the same time, his his
Speaker 5: father was really uh several steps removed. His father worked
Speaker 5: uh work, work, nights, and and uh it was it
Speaker 5: was very uh it was it was I think probably
Speaker 5: a very affable, likable man, but he was uh passive
Speaker 5: and submissive uh in his relationship with his life. And
Speaker 5: despite the fact that he knew that that she was
Speaker 5: executing this type of abuse on on tom during during
Speaker 5: those early years, essentially did nothing to intervene and and
Speaker 5: that pattern continued over the next you know, for for
Speaker 5: the rest of their life. Basically because she then Uh,
Speaker 5: she abused her uh, their third child, Sean, and she
Speaker 5: actually I think somebody abused him more physically than she
Speaker 5: had actually even abused Tom. One of the things that
Speaker 5: she would do she would chain She would chain them
Speaker 5: to their beds at night so that she could, you know,
Speaker 5: she would go out with her friends, or she could
Speaker 5: go out bowling and then go out to socializing because
Speaker 5: her husband was at work and she was going to
Speaker 5: go out of the town. And uh, so she would
Speaker 5: you know, she would change his voice to the to
Speaker 5: the bed at night. And so the other thing that
Speaker 5: she would also deprive Sean of food in the house
Speaker 5: and punish him if he did anything to try to
Speaker 5: obtain food, uh in the house. And as a result,
Speaker 5: then you know, of hunger. He would you steal other
Speaker 5: kids' lunches at school and that ultimately brought attention to
Speaker 5: to the abuse and led to Sean ultimately being removed
Speaker 5: from the old house by the DCFS.
Speaker 6: Now, Tom being the older son, like we just alluded
Speaker 6: to this, or we just mentioned that his younger brother
Speaker 6: actually got the serious attention of the school because despite
Speaker 6: Tom's bruises, and there was an incident where he seemed
Speaker 6: to talk about the same sorts of things, or at
Speaker 6: least the abuse in the family, and either was not
Speaker 6: believed or the mother came by and came and refuted
Speaker 6: this story. Anyway, so tell us a little bit more
Speaker 6: about it. Seems like an escalation in his mother's behavior,
Speaker 6: though more a socializing. But and I'm glad you mentioned
Speaker 6: the chaining to the bed, because when people talk about
Speaker 6: verbal abuse and and physical abuse, it's good we get
Speaker 6: the details of this because this is where I say,
Speaker 6: this is maybe not as uncommon as some people would
Speaker 6: like to think, but this is quite unusual by most
Speaker 6: people's standards, isn't it.
Speaker 5: Uh yeah, the yeah, this kind of uh, this kind
Speaker 5: of behavior where you know, chaining your child to uh
Speaker 5: his bed at night, uh is uh it's quite extreme,
Speaker 5: you know. I mean some some parents will you know,
Speaker 5: lock children in closets.
Speaker 6: Uh.
Speaker 5: That's another technique that is uh, you know, similar to
Speaker 5: uh uh you know, chaining to a bed, basically restricting
Speaker 5: their movement and and keeping them.
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Speaker 5: You know, you know forcing them to you know remain
Speaker 5: in a you know, in one one location so that
Speaker 5: you can go, you know, with the parents can go
Speaker 5: do something else. So uh it is you know, I
Speaker 5: think the important thing is to try to you know,
Speaker 5: try to imagine, and I think it's difficult for many
Speaker 5: of us to try to imagine what that you know,
Speaker 5: what that experience must must be like with your when
Speaker 5: your mother, your your your primary female role model, behaves
Speaker 5: in this way and and acts this kind of behavior
Speaker 5: on you as a young child, you know how that
Speaker 5: affects your self image and your self concept and and
Speaker 5: your you know, your understanding of how you know, what
Speaker 5: kind of a relationship you have with your with your
Speaker 5: parents when you know, when a parent does something like this,
Speaker 5: So it's it's uh, you know, and what happened in
Speaker 5: Tom's case then is is uh he then? Which is
Speaker 5: which is very common in in in children who are
Speaker 5: who sustain this type of abuse, particularly at a very
Speaker 5: young age, is then they start acting out aggressively at
Speaker 5: at school. It's it's kind of like there's you know,
Speaker 5: there's this this need to release this this frustration and
Speaker 5: anger and resentment that is just you know, building up
Speaker 5: against the mother and and it's not it's not safe
Speaker 5: to release it toward her directly because you're going to
Speaker 5: suffer more abuse if you do. So what happens is
Speaker 5: then these kids at school, you know, start getting in fights,
Speaker 5: they start a niche and become more aggressive. And and
Speaker 5: that's what happened with with Tom and uh again, you know,
Speaker 5: and I'm not not trying to have proposed that this
Speaker 5: is you know, exclusi civily and you know, one hundred
Speaker 5: percent due to the abuse that he sustained. I mean,
Speaker 5: he's he's you know, he has a genetic makeup that
Speaker 5: I think also is contributing to some of his some
Speaker 5: of his behavior and some of the antisocial tendencies. I think.
Speaker 5: You know, we now know pretty well that that approximately
Speaker 5: fifty percent of the in terms of the factors that
Speaker 5: contribute to violence, particularly in adolescents and then on into adulthood.
Speaker 5: You know, about fifty percent of that comes from your
Speaker 5: you know, is biological and comes from your genetic makeup,
Speaker 5: but the other half is derived from your environmental experiences,
Speaker 5: your you know, your family relationships and you know, so
Speaker 5: it's the nature nurture you know, conflict, which is is
Speaker 5: always you know, debatable but you know, the science that
Speaker 5: at least in this point in time, certainly supports of
Speaker 5: that type of division. So you know, when you when
Speaker 5: you add then the two together, so you've got, you know,
Speaker 5: somebody who's kind of you. You know, he's he's he's
Speaker 5: the he's the biological offspring of a satistic, emotionally depatched.
Speaker 6: Mother.
Speaker 5: And uh so he is you know, some of some
Speaker 5: of his makeup is is derived from from that. Then
Speaker 5: you combine that with all the uh, this kind of
Speaker 5: abusive experience and and also uh, you know her as
Speaker 5: a role model. She he's also observing her abusing his
Speaker 5: brother and uh and hearing how you know her, you
Speaker 5: know how how she hates is his younger brother. In fact,
Speaker 5: there's this one just really disturbing incident that occurred where
Speaker 5: when she was when she was pregnant with Sean. This
Speaker 5: actually came out in the trials the next door neighbor.
Speaker 5: She stood in the in the in the driveway between
Speaker 5: the two houses of the next door neighbor and and
Speaker 5: and told the the you know, the the next door
Speaker 5: neighbor that she she hated, uh, the fetus that was
Speaker 5: to be Sean before he was even born. And uh.
Speaker 5: And and Tom would hear that mm hmm.
Speaker 6: And then he, as a consequence, abused his own brother
Speaker 6: as well.
Speaker 5: He did, he did, Yeah, and again you about you
Speaker 5: go back to U. You know, you've got observational learning here.
Speaker 5: You're you're seeing your your your the primary maternal you know,
Speaker 5: the primary female role model in your life. And uh
Speaker 5: you know she, you know, she she abused him, and
Speaker 5: so we had that you know, experiential learning. Then she
Speaker 5: observes her abusing Shawn and and hears her talking about
Speaker 5: how much she hates sewn On even before he's born,
Speaker 5: and then continues to make those kinds of statements after
Speaker 5: he's born, and and then forces Tom to uh basically
Speaker 5: kind be the pseudo parent to Sean because she didn't
Speaker 5: want to be bothering him very much. So she is
Speaker 5: still a great deal of resentment in Tom towards Sean,
Speaker 5: which is uh you know, makes it all the more
Speaker 5: uh sad that, particularly for for Sean, he was just
Speaker 5: set up to uh you know, I mean, his his
Speaker 5: short life was was clearly filled with with pain and
Speaker 5: uh you know, and an extreme lack of love.
Speaker 6: This tom Odal, though, really seems to be like many
Speaker 6: people despite their backgrounds and despite their upbringing. They they
Speaker 6: are determined to try to either reinvent themselves or find
Speaker 6: other people that seem to understand them, try to you know,
Speaker 6: reach for something that comforts them from the in pain
Speaker 6: that they feel, the loneliness or disassociation that they feel.
Speaker 6: How does he adapt? And for example, you talk about
Speaker 6: his sexual relationship even of course his parents have kept
Speaker 6: him socially inept or and and so what what happens
Speaker 6: to him at a young age in terms of sexual relationships?
Speaker 6: How does he adapt? And talk a little bit about
Speaker 6: how he adapts sort of trying to survive despite his
Speaker 6: background that he now realizes that is there's something definitely missing.
Speaker 5: Well, as he as he grew older, he then he
Speaker 5: did benefit then from the uh, the socialization that goes
Speaker 5: on in the in the school system and he and
Speaker 5: did you know then have the opportunity to interact with
Speaker 5: with with normal kids who are coming from normal uh
Speaker 5: families with caring and loving parents and uh uh you know,
Speaker 5: so he did have that can to observe that uh,
Speaker 5: you know, along the same lines, uh, you know, as
Speaker 5: he greud adolescents, you know, he did uh you know,
Speaker 5: engage in you know, a lot of promiscuous sex with
Speaker 5: you know, with with young uh you know, adolescent girls,
Speaker 5: and which is which is a typical part of the
Speaker 5: the development of involvement into a conduct disorder. That that's
Speaker 5: one of the classic uh uh features uh of that
Speaker 5: in addition to some of the you know, the shoplifting
Speaker 5: and the uh uh burglar ring and the drug abuse,
Speaker 5: uh and and all those kinds of behaviors. They're all
Speaker 5: they're all fairly classic. But I think, you know, I
Speaker 5: I I uh, I think what you may be asking about,
Speaker 5: uh and and and I think it's probably true that
Speaker 5: that he was you know, seeking some you know, affection
Speaker 5: and physical contact you know, through his you know, contact
Speaker 5: with girls, particularly in uh junior high school and and
Speaker 5: high school as he as he grew older, because he
Speaker 5: didn't you know, he didn't experience that kind of uh
Speaker 5: that kind of affection in the home. He did experience
Speaker 5: received some some affection of that, you know, just maternal
Speaker 5: affection from his grandmother's So there there, he did have
Speaker 5: that experience. It just was it was always his time limited,
Speaker 5: and it was you know, it wasn't it wasn't as
Speaker 5: as often you know, he he loved going and and
Speaker 5: uh spending time at his grandparents house because he felt
Speaker 5: he felt like they cared for him and they loved him,
Speaker 5: and he didn't feel that at home.
Speaker 6: In his adolescence though, he was shifted over to his
Speaker 6: grandmothers a couple of times, and both times he kind
Speaker 6: of disappointed them. So tell us how he sort of
Speaker 6: responds sometimes to the people that he cares about. And
Speaker 6: of course this this is the side of the story
Speaker 6: that people, you know, feel less sympathy for.
Speaker 5: Sure. Sure, yeah again, I mean, he's he's he he
Speaker 5: has you know, by the time he's an adolescent, he
Speaker 5: has a evolved into a classic uh you know, adolescent
Speaker 5: with the conduct disorder, and he's manifesting many of the
Speaker 5: behaviors and tennessees that characterized a conduct disorder at that time.
Speaker 5: And I was enumerating previously. He is you know, he's
Speaker 5: he's lying, he's acceptive, he is manipulative, he is you know,
Speaker 5: he will steal, uh, he will uh uh you know,
Speaker 5: he's he's breaking rules and he's violating laws, and he
Speaker 5: is uh you know, he is acting out in many ways,
Speaker 5: and he's getting in a lot of fights and uh,
Speaker 5: and that that is, you know, it's this part of
Speaker 5: the classic course there and and he did, you know,
Speaker 5: he he stole from his grandmother despite the fact that uh,
Speaker 5: you know, I mean she's one of the you know,
Speaker 5: one of the few people that uh I think he
Speaker 5: did feel love from. But yeah, I mean he he
Speaker 5: you know, stole money from her and and wrote bad
Speaker 5: checks on her checking account and uh and got caught
Speaker 5: doing it. Uh and uh you know it was also
Speaker 5: it was primarily doing it to, you know, to get drugs.
Speaker 5: And it's just kind of the uh, the negative spiral
Speaker 5: that you know, such individuals end up in where there's
Speaker 5: you know a lot of drug abuse and uh, you know,
Speaker 5: need money to buy drugs, and you know, I'm going
Speaker 5: to do it to get that money. And you know,
Speaker 5: however however you can and in this case it was
Speaker 5: it was, you know, basically stealing from one of the
Speaker 5: few people that really cared for him.
Speaker 6: So he's his drug addiction, his anti social behavior. How
Speaker 6: does all of this stuff manifest itself that in the
Speaker 6: home itself, he's never gotten along with the mother and
Speaker 6: the and the father is submissive to the mother. So
Speaker 6: regardless of the kind of abuse, let's talk after he
Speaker 6: is finally you know, said to his mother, no more,
Speaker 6: you won't abuse me anymore. But now his is there
Speaker 6: some defiance? What's the dynamic at home and how what
Speaker 6: what's the situation wation in the household itself, say, you
Speaker 6: know in his teen years or sixteen years old or so, yeah, in.
Speaker 7: The teen years, Yeah, you're right.
Speaker 5: He eventually he eventually stood up to her and uh
Speaker 5: in one in one occasion where uh, she was you know,
Speaker 5: slapping him, he finally said that's it, that's enough, and
Speaker 5: he pushed her against the wall and held her against
Speaker 5: the wall and said, you're you're not going to You're
Speaker 5: not going to hit me, You're not going to beat
Speaker 5: me anymore. And and that essentially was the end of
Speaker 5: her physical abuse of him. But he had, Yeah, he
Speaker 5: had established himself as a problem child years before, and
Speaker 5: he wasn't really you know, he wasn't developing out of that.
Speaker 5: In fact, he was you know, getting worse if anything,
Speaker 5: and particularly with the drug abuse he was. You know,
Speaker 5: he's tom Oldos is a you know, he's he's a
Speaker 5: smart individual. He's intelligent, and you know, he could conceal
Speaker 5: his behaviors. I mean, most of the drug abuse, and
Speaker 5: most of the drinking was done you know, outside of
Speaker 5: the house. I mean he would often he would come
Speaker 5: home drunk, and he would come home you know, high
Speaker 5: and uh uh you know, intoxicated with various drugs.
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 5: And sometimes you know, he'd be confronted with his parents.
Speaker 5: Other times he'd just kind of sneak in and you
Speaker 5: know and pass out in his in his room.
Speaker 6: And so he.
Speaker 5: Managed to and and I'm sure uh at that point.
Speaker 6: Uh.
Speaker 5: And it's the speculator of on my part, but I'm
Speaker 5: sure I'm sure his parents at some point just you know,
Speaker 5: just would turn their head and didn't want to have
Speaker 5: to deal with him at times when he was yeah,
Speaker 5: when he was drunk or he was high, and u uh,
Speaker 5: you know, I think they were they were well aware
Speaker 5: of it. You know. Again, you know the you know,
Speaker 5: the father is working at night. You know, he's working
Speaker 5: you know, from say four to midnight, so he's not
Speaker 5: there you know, in the evening. And the mother as
Speaker 5: he got as he go into adolescence, the mother is
Speaker 5: she's out, you know, she's out with her friend, she's
Speaker 5: out bowling out of the town. So so it wasn't
Speaker 5: you know, there there he could, he could arrange it
Speaker 5: so he would you know, could avoid them. Hm.
Speaker 6: Now I'd like to get to this how we get
Speaker 6: to the situation. Obviously there's another part of the story too.
Speaker 6: Maybe we'll talk about that and then we'll get to
Speaker 6: how the family itself gets to the point where they
Speaker 6: just can't have him around anymore. So how we what
Speaker 6: are the I guess chain of events that happened that
Speaker 6: they just don't want them around anymore. But before that,
Speaker 6: there is some looks like, uh, something in the wind
Speaker 6: for him, and he joins the army. So tell about
Speaker 6: his experience with the with the army.
Speaker 5: Well, yeah, the army, you know, was was probably even
Speaker 5: though it wasn't a matter of choice by him, he
Speaker 5: basically had, you know, his girlfriend had gotten pregnant, and
Speaker 5: his girlfriend's father said, you know, look, either you're going
Speaker 5: to get the statutory rape charges against you or uh,
Speaker 5: you know you're gonna you know, you're gonna have to
Speaker 5: go to the army, or you you have to leave
Speaker 5: town basically, and so that was kind of the deal
Speaker 5: that was made that he would he would join the army,
Speaker 5: and you know, she ended up then, you know, having
Speaker 5: an abortion, and you know, so he went off to
Speaker 5: the went up to the army, and uh, it's it
Speaker 5: is extremely unfortunate that he didn't uh stick that out,
Speaker 5: because that was probably the best opportunity that I think
Speaker 5: tom Ouldle ever had. That you know, he could have
Speaker 5: stayed in the army and uh and and worked through
Speaker 5: that and then you know, never actually returned to live
Speaker 5: in the the oldal house, and that would have probably
Speaker 5: prevented this crime from ever happening. But unfortunately, uh, you know,
Speaker 5: he was still uh you know, relatively immature at that time,
Speaker 5: and you know, his girlfriend is still back in uh,
Speaker 5: you know, back in his hometown and writing letters saying
Speaker 5: how much she misses him. And the next thing, you know,
Speaker 5: he's you know, he's doing whatever he can to uh
Speaker 5: uh try to get out and basically uses the fact
Speaker 5: that he's got a bad knee and saying that, you know,
Speaker 5: he can't do some of the physical exertion that required
Speaker 5: basic training. And the next thing, you know, he gets
Speaker 5: a you know, he gets discharged, he gets the medical discharge,
Speaker 5: and so then he's back, you know, he's back at home,
Speaker 5: and so you know, in his mind, to some degree,
Speaker 5: he'd kind of it kind of failed there. And then
Speaker 5: as soon as he as soon as he returned to
Speaker 5: his hometown, he realized that, you know, his girlfriend really
Speaker 5: had moved on, and she had you know, she wasn't
Speaker 5: really just waiting for him, and uh and uh, he's
Speaker 5: really done that for nothing and uh and and and
Speaker 5: at that point, I think it was kind of a
Speaker 5: it's kind of the beginning of the uh of the
Speaker 5: decline that ultimately resulted in the murders. I mean, he
Speaker 5: he made that decision, he went back there, and then
Speaker 5: he basically rejected and he then turned to a no
Speaker 5: holds barred type of drug fueled existence and returned to
Speaker 5: the property crime and the drug crimes that he had
Speaker 5: been committing when he was younger. And it was really
Speaker 5: a downhill ride for him emotionally and then psychologically overall.
Speaker 6: From that point onward, Well, what I found was interesting
Speaker 6: is that I'll maybe just talk about this now. We
Speaker 6: could talk about this a little bit later too, just
Speaker 6: because I have you here about trauma itself. What one
Speaker 6: person might you know, could perceive as a traumatic event
Speaker 6: in their life and not to you talked about the
Speaker 6: story he left the military because she wanted to tell
Speaker 6: him something and apparently he got discharged from the military.
Speaker 6: That the army, which he really enjoyed, and it was
Speaker 6: something he felt really he belonged to. But yet when
Speaker 6: he saw her, she's what she wanted to tell him
Speaker 6: was that she had been fooling around with somebody he
Speaker 6: knew and she had moved on. So I thought, if
Speaker 6: anything's gonna you know, snap this this man to a
Speaker 6: certain degree, it said he if he said it felt
Speaker 6: like he broke his heart, and of course it led
Speaker 6: to this decline. But is this Is there any talk
Speaker 6: or any research about how people perceive what one person
Speaker 6: might see is a traumatic event, another person might just
Speaker 6: shrug off that type of event.
Speaker 7: Well, yeah, I.
Speaker 5: Mean I think there is. I think it comes down
Speaker 5: to individual differences and that you know, some of us
Speaker 5: can kind of step back and keep things in perspective
Speaker 5: and realize that, Okay, well I got I kind of
Speaker 5: got burned with this and this is not what I expected.
Speaker 5: But you know, I'm not going to I'm not going
Speaker 5: to just lose it over this. And yeah, I've a
Speaker 5: little more will power and I've got some ego strength
Speaker 5: to to push me through this, and I'm gonna be okay,
Speaker 5: And may take me a little while, but uh, uh
Speaker 5: I'm going to recover and uh and you know that's
Speaker 5: what that's what many of us do. And we had
Speaker 5: that that resilience. Tom Little didn't have that that resilience.
Speaker 5: And given his background, I think and uh, the the
Speaker 5: personality development that he had had previous to that, this
Speaker 5: was this was another in a long line of failures
Speaker 5: and rejections. And it was this kind of I think,
Speaker 5: almost you know, some degree confirming to him that you know,
Speaker 5: I'm I'm I'm not I'm not really worth i am
Speaker 5: worthless and I'm not you know, my mother's right, I'm
Speaker 5: I'm a loser and you know, so why why should
Speaker 5: I try? Uh? And that's uh, with the perspective that
Speaker 5: he take that he that he I think that he
Speaker 5: took at that time, and I think that that's what
Speaker 5: that's what he thinks he did at that time. And
Speaker 5: and there was there was one then, you know, final
Speaker 5: uh you know attempt that he made to you know,
Speaker 5: kind of get away from the family, and it moved
Speaker 5: to uh, Kentucky with some to you know, be a
Speaker 5: because he knew a guy down there that he had
Speaker 5: met in the army and and then that that kind
Speaker 5: of felt through and and uh, he felt like he
Speaker 5: had been manipulated, and that then just became got turned
Speaker 5: into you know, another other personal failure. And and in
Speaker 5: my opinion, he at this point is he's becoming progressively.
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Speaker 5: Uh. Uh, you know, more and more clinically depressed, and
Speaker 5: he's taken a very negativistic outlook. He's you know, his fee.
Speaker 5: You know, he has a pessimistic view of himself and
Speaker 5: his future, and he's starting to perceive the world as
Speaker 5: as kind of a threatening place that you know, where
Speaker 5: people can't be trusted. And uh, it's you know, it's
Speaker 5: kind of him against the world and and you know,
Speaker 5: and that's what I was talking about earlier in terms
Speaker 5: of this kind of this is this uh, this spiral
Speaker 5: uh downward that you know occurred following his uh departure.
Speaker 7: From the army.
Speaker 6: Now, how long is it from the time he's the
Speaker 6: discharge from the army and this decline? How long are
Speaker 6: we talking about in terms of months? Approximately?
Speaker 5: Yeah, that's that's really only about a uh you know,
Speaker 5: that's less than a year. So it is uh, it's
Speaker 5: relatively a rapid uh you know period uh of decline there,
Speaker 5: because I mean he had he really he really uh
Speaker 5: to a large degree, just gave up and uh and
Speaker 5: he was thinking a lot more and more about suicide
Speaker 5: during that period of time.
Speaker 6: Uh.
Speaker 5: He would he would play Russian roulette. Uh uh in
Speaker 5: you know, he played Russian lette a few times. I
Speaker 5: think he kind of scared himself ultimately poling Russian roulette
Speaker 5: and then uh and then stopped. But he certainly was
Speaker 5: was thinking about suicide and uh so he really wasn't
Speaker 5: uh you know, thinking about any kind of realistic future.
Speaker 5: And uh, you know, he had, by all events, you know,
Speaker 5: basically given up and then you know, as you know, then,
Speaker 5: you know, as as time went on with you know,
Speaker 5: his his basically his his his refusal what is what
Speaker 5: his parents perceived as as his refusal to attempt to
Speaker 5: initiate anything productive and attempt to move on with his life.
Speaker 6: Uh.
Speaker 5: They then, you know, told him that, you know, we're
Speaker 5: we're done with you. You you are you know or
Speaker 5: you're you're you're going you're you know, we're going to
Speaker 5: kick you out of the house. You're going to have
Speaker 5: to make it on your own. We don't know how
Speaker 5: you're going to do that. We don't know, weally care
Speaker 5: how you're going to do that. But you know, we've
Speaker 5: had it, and you know, they drew the line and
Speaker 5: they set the date and you know that was, uh,
Speaker 5: that was you know, the eve of the of the end.
Speaker 6: Now, later he talks about especially thinking about certain events
Speaker 6: on the evening before, and of course he's doing very
Speaker 6: various drugs, PCP being if not everybody knows about that's
Speaker 6: quite a powerful drug LSD p CP, smoking weed and
Speaker 6: and drinking alcohol and probably maybe some pills too, but
Speaker 6: specifically cocaine and PCP and alcohol and marijuana. Tell us
Speaker 6: about the night before on the eve of the Faithful Day.
Speaker 5: Yeah, the night before he uh he did. Yeah, I
Speaker 5: mean he was he was using multiple uh you know,
Speaker 5: multiple drugs and uh as as he did every day.
Speaker 5: You know, at that point in his life, you know,
Speaker 5: he was he was really there. There was no direction,
Speaker 5: there was no initiative, There was no plan. It was
Speaker 5: just living from day to day and hour to hour
Speaker 5: and and uh, you know, scoring drugs that were available
Speaker 5: and with whatever money he could scrape up, and you know,
Speaker 5: and then just doing them immediately. And uh. The night before,
Speaker 5: uh he did, he had the the idea of of
Speaker 5: killing the uh, you know, at least some of the
Speaker 5: family members. I think primarily the idea at that point
Speaker 5: was to to kill his mother. The the the impetus
Speaker 5: behind the the Odal family murders was clearly to to
Speaker 5: kill Carolin Odele. Uh. And that was That's very clear,
Speaker 5: and that was very clear in his mind, uh at
Speaker 5: the time. But he did have that idea the night before.
Speaker 5: It wasn't it wasn't a well planned it wasn't he
Speaker 5: didn't really have a strategy. It was more of a
Speaker 5: you know, it was an idea that you know, you know,
Speaker 5: I could I could just you know, just kill her
Speaker 5: and and then kill myself and and that would be
Speaker 5: uh you know, and that'll get the end of it.
Speaker 5: Uh And uh So there was you know, there was
Speaker 5: this uh you know, brief really somewhat fleeting uh premeditation
Speaker 5: of the of the murder that he did have the
Speaker 5: night before.
Speaker 6: Now, how did events unfold the next day? Start in
Speaker 6: the morning?
Speaker 5: If he could, please sure the next the next morning?
Speaker 5: Uh he you know again as this you know, the
Speaker 5: father working at night. Uh So, uh fathers up uh
Speaker 5: probably gets up, you know, a little bit later than
Speaker 5: the rest of the family. The you know, his mother
Speaker 5: had had gotten up. The other three kids had gotten up.
Speaker 5: They'd gone off school. One was still in elementary school
Speaker 5: and uh one was in junior high school and was
Speaker 5: in high school. And so they had all they had
Speaker 5: gone off to their you know, they had some some
Speaker 5: breakfasts and gone up school. And and Carolyn, the mother,
Speaker 5: had gone off to run her errands. And you know,
Speaker 5: she had uh to deposit some uh you know money
Speaker 5: from the bowling league, and she had to go to
Speaker 5: the school because she was at that time the parents
Speaker 5: she was president of the parent teacher organization at the
Speaker 5: elementary school where all the older children had attended, and
Speaker 5: and and the PTO had their meetings in the in
Speaker 5: the school library. So that's what that's what Carolyn was
Speaker 5: doing that morning, so that Tom and his father alone
Speaker 5: in the in the house. And so his father was,
Speaker 5: you know, sitting in the kitchen, uh you having some
Speaker 5: having some coffee and having a little breakfast. And and
Speaker 5: Tom gets up and you know, as usual, smokes the
Speaker 5: smokes a joiner too, and and then you know, comes
Speaker 5: into the kitchen and and uh has some you know,
Speaker 5: super visual interaction with his father. And then as he
Speaker 5: is uh finishing this this brief talk with his father,
Speaker 5: he he looks over and he sees the uh, you know,
Speaker 5: a rack of knives on the on the counter, and
Speaker 5: he uh, I think at that point it just kind
Speaker 5: of registers with him. He remembers what he was thinking
Speaker 5: about the night before, and he uh he takes one
Speaker 5: of the knives, a uh an old Hickory butcher knife,
Speaker 5: that's the brand called Hickory, and uh, you know, tries
Speaker 5: to conceal it behind him and then uh and hopefully,
Speaker 5: you know, hope that his father doesn't doesn't notice it.
Speaker 5: And then then kind of his surprise, and his father
Speaker 5: gets up to to move or to answer the phone
Speaker 5: or or or or something, but uh, you know, and
Speaker 5: Tom tries to kind of hide the knife, but doesn't
Speaker 5: do a very good job of it. And then uh
Speaker 5: the uh the next thing, his father turns around, Tom
Speaker 5: just uh just pulls out the knife and uh and
Speaker 5: stabs him in the neck. And you know, his father,
Speaker 5: you know, looks at him in shock, and you know,
Speaker 5: sits back down, you know, backwards into the uh the
Speaker 5: uh chair at the kitchen table, and you know, looks
Speaker 5: at Tom and and you know, and disbelief and and
Speaker 5: and tells Tom that that he loves him, and and
Speaker 5: Tom at that point, uh uh thinks to himself, it's
Speaker 5: really you know, that's that doesn't make any difference, and
Speaker 5: stabbed him again. And then uh his father due to
Speaker 5: massive blood lost because he's he's had his jugular vein severed,
Speaker 5: bleeding peasely from his neck. He then slices the floor
Speaker 5: and and buys on the kitchen floor, and uh, Tom
Speaker 5: at that point then uh puts the knife down and
Speaker 5: drags his father by his feet through the living room,
Speaker 5: down the hall and into the master bedroom and then
Speaker 5: on into the master bathroom and h uh places him
Speaker 5: on the floor in the master bathroom, and uh then
Speaker 5: goes about cleaning up the the dragon arcs and the
Speaker 5: blood's the blood that's pooling on the kitchen floor. And
Speaker 5: because he knows that his mother is going to be
Speaker 5: coming home within an hour and he wants to be
Speaker 5: prepared for her arrival.
Speaker 6: And what does he do on her arrival?
Speaker 5: When Carolyn arrives home, the older family would enter the home,
Speaker 5: typically through their like their back door, which entered into
Speaker 5: the kitchen. And you know, he heard her, uh you know,
Speaker 5: drive drive in, you know, the gravel driveway, and and
Speaker 5: uh he positioned himself behind the door. And Carolyn came
Speaker 5: in and closed the door and turned and saw him,
Speaker 5: saw him there behind the door, and uh uh you know,
Speaker 5: stared at him, and then he very quickly stabbed her
Speaker 5: two or three times in the neck immediately, and she
Speaker 5: staggered backwards, managed to stay on her feet and threw
Speaker 5: her car keys at him and and screamed at him,
Speaker 5: you know, are are you trying to kill me? And
Speaker 5: and he said, he said, yes, I am. And at
Speaker 5: that point then she tried to maintain her balance and
Speaker 5: tried to escape from him by running into the living room,
Speaker 5: and he just attacked her while she was trying to
Speaker 5: escape from him, stabbed her some more. She eventually fell
Speaker 5: in the in the hallway, and he then dragged her
Speaker 5: into the master bedroom and and in a uh you know,
Speaker 5: rather sadistic manner, while she was still conscious, forced her
Speaker 5: to look at her dead husband lying on the bathroom
Speaker 5: floor before she died.
Speaker 8: Now, this is a little bit after noon.
Speaker 6: What does he do after he kills his mother? What's
Speaker 6: the next chain of events?
Speaker 5: After he kills his mother, he again has to you know,
Speaker 5: clean up clean up the blood, and he did so
Speaker 5: with some cleansers and towels and uh but uh and
Speaker 5: then also washed his uh you know, I mean he
Speaker 5: had blood all over his clothes. So he then also
Speaker 5: washed the clothes that he had been wearing and changed
Speaker 5: his clothes and then uh he uh uh you know
Speaker 5: in a while, you know, the youngest uh brother, Scott,
Speaker 5: still in grade school and uh, so he would get
Speaker 5: home earlier than the other two siblings. And so uh
Speaker 5: you know, Tom was Tom was there at the house
Speaker 5: when Scott arrived home. And uh and and Scott was
Speaker 5: probably Tom's favorite, Uh he was Tom really had no
Speaker 5: affection for his sister Robin. They really had no connection
Speaker 5: that they kind of resented her. She was the second
Speaker 5: child and and and his mother had, you know, showed
Speaker 5: her a lot of attention. And I think he had
Speaker 5: kind of resented Robin from a very young age because
Speaker 5: of that. And then uh so Scott came home and
Speaker 5: and uh, you know, although you know, Tom had cleaned
Speaker 5: up a lot of them blood that uh was there.
Speaker 5: It's you know, given the amount of blood loss that
Speaker 5: occurs with with these kinds of stab wounds, you know,
Speaker 5: there was blood spatter on on walls and on uh
Speaker 5: you know, on the TV, and on the dining room table.
Speaker 5: There was you know, uh there was blood spatter and
Speaker 5: and and Scott could see it and what what what's
Speaker 5: you know, what's what is this? And then Tom just
Speaker 5: kind of tried to point it off that this was solid.
Speaker 5: It was it was it's just paint we were painting earlier.
Speaker 5: And uh It's probably unlikely that Scott really believed that,
Speaker 5: but he probably was just confused and trying to figure
Speaker 5: out what was the situation he was in. And then uh,
Speaker 5: Tom eventually uh again, you know, I mean Scott's ten
Speaker 5: years old at the time, and and and and Tom
Speaker 5: eventually said, college, come back to the come back to
Speaker 5: my room, want to show you something. And and so
Speaker 5: he is he alured Scott back to the uh to
Speaker 5: his dead room, and then uh when he was there,
Speaker 5: he then uh grab a pair of Pagana bottoms and
Speaker 5: uh started strangling Scott and eventually strangled him to death
Speaker 5: with the with the pagama bottoms.
Speaker 6: Does he bring his brother's body into the bedroom as well?
Speaker 5: Yes, yes he did. He then uh, right then he
Speaker 5: drug h Scott into the into the parents bedroom late
Speaker 5: next to Caroline. And so he is he's essentially he's
Speaker 5: kind of lining them up. He's not really, he's not
Speaker 5: you know, stacking them. He's he's he's laying them next
Speaker 5: to each other.
Speaker 8: Uh.
Speaker 5: You know, Robert the father is in the master bed bathroom,
Speaker 5: Carolyn is at the foot of the bed, and then
Speaker 5: Scott is laid next to his mother Carolyn, uh, also
Speaker 5: essentially at the foot of the bed. At that point,
Speaker 5: you know, the three family members are uh you know,
Speaker 5: are dead. And you know, actually it was uh uh
Speaker 5: I didn't mention it was kind of that that occurred.
Speaker 5: I think in the before Scott had gotten home. Carolyn's
Speaker 5: best friend UH lady, a woman named Yvonne Uh, arrived
Speaker 5: at the old house, and unbeknownst to her, of course, UH,
Speaker 5: Carolyn and Robert already uh lay dead inside the home,
Speaker 5: and she was stopping by to share some news with Carolyn,
Speaker 5: and Tom basically went out and intercepted her in the
Speaker 5: driveway to an you know, so she wouldn't even get
Speaker 5: anywhere near the house, and and lied to her and
Speaker 5: and uh and managed to uh send her on her way.
Speaker 5: I think it's it's probably an experience that that Vaughan
Speaker 5: looks back at and uh Uh. I think it's probably
Speaker 5: a a an event that has haunted her for only
Speaker 5: most of her life, because I'm sure I suspect she
Speaker 5: believes that if she had if she and Tom had
Speaker 5: not realized that she was, she had built in the driveway,
Speaker 5: and if she had gone up to the little back
Speaker 5: door entered the home, she would have probably she had
Speaker 5: probably been killed. Right. So, after after the killing of
Speaker 5: Scott and Uh, Tom then Uh went Uh over to
Speaker 5: he went to pick up his other two uh siblings.
Speaker 5: He went to pick up Robin and Sean at at
Speaker 5: school and drive them home and uh, so he drove
Speaker 5: his father's car over to their uh to the to
Speaker 5: the school, picked them up, drove them home and then
Speaker 5: surprisingly they're at least according to Tom, there they had
Speaker 5: two of them. Didn't really notice you know, the uh
Speaker 5: bloodstains or uh you know, changes in the uh you know,
Speaker 5: in the house environment, and kind of Robin went on
Speaker 5: her on her own way, went into her room and
Speaker 5: was doing something in her room, and and and Sean
Speaker 5: was talking to Tom and and then Tom said, uh,
Speaker 5: you know, you know, got Sean to come into come
Speaker 5: back into his room, and uh then basically blindfolded uh Sean,
Speaker 5: and then as soon as he had blindfolded him, and
Speaker 5: he just started stabbing him repeatedly in the neck, in
Speaker 5: the back. And uh it's the point where I think
Speaker 5: Tom thought that he had killed Sean. And then kind
Speaker 5: of closed the door and went to uh find Robin,
Speaker 5: and then, much to Tom's surprise, heard Sean up and
Speaker 5: moving in the room. And so Tom then rushed back
Speaker 5: into that room and then uh stabbed Sean repeatedly in
Speaker 5: the face and the neck. Uh and to extreme degree
Speaker 5: uh uh and uh and killed him then and then
Speaker 5: then he went to uh then he went to get
Speaker 5: Robin and uh right or he had uh uh placed
Speaker 5: Sean in the room with the rest of the family,
Speaker 5: and then went to Robin and was then alone in
Speaker 5: her room. She was an in her room watching television,
Speaker 5: so she was kind of unaware of all this, you know,
Speaker 5: that this was going on between Sean and Tom in
Speaker 5: the other room. And uh he went to Robin and
Speaker 5: again in a in another kind of sadistic manner, told
Speaker 5: Robin and the other surprise for her and that to
Speaker 5: come with him. And he walked her down to the
Speaker 5: the parents' bedroom and sit behind her and put his
Speaker 5: hands over her eyes and and said, uh not, I've
Speaker 5: got a great surprise for you, and then and then
Speaker 5: released his hands and so that she saw her entire
Speaker 5: family lying dead and uh pools of blood in the
Speaker 5: master bedroom. And then uh Robin started screaming for her
Speaker 5: life and and then Tom stabbed her death.
Speaker 8: Now there's a little bit of clean up. But what
Speaker 8: what does tom Odal do? And and uh in retrospect
Speaker 8: when he talks about how is he how is he feeling?
Speaker 8: What was the state of mind.
Speaker 5: At that point? In his state of mind, uh was
Speaker 5: a rather numb and uh, I think somewhat emotionless he
Speaker 5: had uh uh he I think it's likely that he
Speaker 5: was kind of in at at that point in time,
Speaker 5: kind of in a de de realized state where uh
Speaker 5: he just you know, he took some money from his
Speaker 5: mother's purse. He took some money out of his father's pocket.
Speaker 5: He laid the knife on the uh you know, the
Speaker 5: the the bureau in the uh in the room where
Speaker 5: all the bodies lay, and walked out of the house
Speaker 5: and uh gott in the got in his father's car,
Speaker 5: which he had always been prohibited from driving, and you know,
Speaker 5: went to pick up his uh, his friends and uh
Speaker 5: and his girlfriend at that time, because he had previously
Speaker 5: made arrangements to spend a night in a local a
Speaker 5: local motel with his uh with his young girlfriend. And
Speaker 5: so uh what they did then was, uh, you know,
Speaker 5: he picked up his and his friends, They drove around,
Speaker 5: they smoked some weed, They got high. Uh I picked
Speaker 5: up his girlfriend at the burger king. They drove around
Speaker 5: some more, and then eventually they went to toy Yes,
Speaker 5: and he then also bought some more, bought some more weed,
Speaker 5: and uh I bought some PCP, and then they went
Speaker 5: to the the uh uh you know, a little local
Speaker 5: kind of mom and pop type of uh motel in
Speaker 5: uh in Aunt Vernon. And so they went there and
Speaker 5: uh checked in and uh uh proceeded them to this
Speaker 5: you know, sit in the motel room, smoked some more weed.
Speaker 5: And then eventually the the other couple, the friends, uh
Speaker 5: you know, needed to needed to leave, and you know,
Speaker 5: Tom drove them, drove them home, and I left uh
Speaker 5: his girlfriend at the motel, dropped the friends and off
Speaker 5: went back to the hotel, and then uh you know,
Speaker 5: he went to uh eventually went to bed. I don't
Speaker 5: according to him, he didn't really sleep at all uh
Speaker 5: that night, and uh, but I just didn't think he
Speaker 5: was still between the between the drugs that he was
Speaker 5: doing and and I think just the emotional state of this,
Speaker 5: of the aftermath of what he had done. Uh he
Speaker 5: was he still was in somewhat of a derealized uh
Speaker 5: state of mind. And I think it really wasn't until
Speaker 5: the following morning then, when uh his uh his girlfriend
Speaker 5: called a friend of hers and was informed that the
Speaker 5: it had been now on the news that the police
Speaker 5: were looking for Tom Odle because his family had been murdered.
Speaker 5: That the awareness hit him that, you know, what, what
Speaker 5: he had done, and he still had a hard time
Speaker 5: accepting it, I think, and it really actually took him,
Speaker 5: I think, a few days after he was arrested in
Speaker 5: jail to kind of fully understand and accept what he
Speaker 5: had done. According to him, his plan was that he
Speaker 5: was going to drop off his girlfriend that morning and
Speaker 5: then he was going to go out, and he had
Speaker 5: planned to kill himself and really didn't have but he
Speaker 5: didn't have a really very formulated plan. But most likely
Speaker 5: I think he was probably gonna he would just probably
Speaker 5: do a high speed car crash and and kill himself,
Speaker 5: and might very well have done a hit on collision
Speaker 5: and killed yet somebody else.
Speaker 6: Now we don't have as much time as I would
Speaker 6: like with covering this book, but let's get to a
Speaker 6: couple sort of important things and let the audience go
Speaker 6: out and get the book and read more of the
Speaker 6: really personal letters that were sent to you describing tom
Speaker 6: Odle's entire life, and then of course the trial and
Speaker 6: of course what happens with that, and then the death
Speaker 6: penalty has commuted, so that he now has this realization
Speaker 6: that he really needs to understand how he did this
Speaker 6: and why he did this and specific reasons.
Speaker 8: With tom Odle.
Speaker 6: In retrospect when after the death penalty is commuted and
Speaker 6: he's corresponding with you for this project, and that's part
Speaker 6: of the therapy itself in your book, when he talks
Speaker 6: about the actual it's an interesting how detailed his entire
Speaker 6: life is, and he, with your aid, is really able
Speaker 6: to look at certain events and say, yeah, this event
Speaker 6: where I showed my mother something that everyone was proud
Speaker 6: of and I was rejected, Or I was an architect
Speaker 6: and I wanted to and I was rejected and this
Speaker 6: woman and I was rejected and my father could have
Speaker 6: stood up for me, but I was rejected and unloved.
Speaker 6: And so there's all these events. But when we get
Speaker 6: to the actual day of the murders and how he
Speaker 6: could think like that to murder his whole family, it
Speaker 6: seems that tell us about the I mean, I think
Speaker 6: that there's so much detail except for that in terms
Speaker 6: of why. And I mean, I think that's the big
Speaker 6: question what everyone asked from any killer is why. So,
Speaker 6: after doing this entire thing, what is your conclusion on
Speaker 6: tom Odle's conclusion on why? How he could do this?
Speaker 8: How?
Speaker 6: I mean he had fights, he disagreed with his mother,
Speaker 6: he was going to be kicked out by his family.
Speaker 6: But why how is he capable of doing this? And why?
Speaker 5: Sure? Uh yeah, and it's uh, it's uh yeah, there's
Speaker 5: obviously there's not a simple answer to that. This is
Speaker 5: keilly uh you know, complex uh human behavior, and there
Speaker 5: are multitude of factors that uh that led to this
Speaker 5: crime and that that lead to these types of crimes.
Speaker 5: And you know, in my opinion, and I think, uh,
Speaker 5: you know, I think tom Otle agrees with me, for
Speaker 5: you know, I think having learned what he has learned
Speaker 5: from engaging in this process, and and and and some
Speaker 5: of the insight that he has gained from engaging in
Speaker 5: in this process that I think there are you know,
Speaker 5: there there are a number of key factors and uh
Speaker 5: the uh you know, the first of all, there are
Speaker 5: the factors that that that led to to him being
Speaker 5: who he he was at that point in his you know,
Speaker 5: in his development and in his life, and those factors that
Speaker 5: all I've already you know mentioned, you know, the fact
Speaker 5: that you know he's got a you know, his his
Speaker 5: his early personality development is uh is is formed with uh,
Speaker 5: you know, a life of you know, physical and mental abuse,
Speaker 5: and that then influenced many of his choices as he
Speaker 5: you know, as he continued to develop and and the
Speaker 5: acting out behaviors and the aggression and the violence, and
Speaker 5: the drug abuse, uh and so on, and then uh,
Speaker 5: the you know, the failures and the growing depression. So
Speaker 5: you know, in my view, uh, you know, they're there
Speaker 5: are all those factors that kind of you know, just
Speaker 5: formed who he is or who cumly who he was
Speaker 5: at that time. And then but I think what what
Speaker 5: really escalated uh it into a to a homicidal level
Speaker 5: for him to want to kill was the fact that
Speaker 5: you know, this this abusive mother whom he hated, uh
Speaker 5: for for many reasons. Uh and uh uh that his
Speaker 5: father who when he was young, he had a religationship
Speaker 5: with his father, and he trusted his father, but his
Speaker 5: father was you know, allowed her, allowed the mother to
Speaker 5: do what she did. And I think, you know, unless
Speaker 5: you're really familiar with kind of the dynamics of child
Speaker 5: abuse on a household, particularly with boys, boys will often
Speaker 5: in a situation where where there's an abusive mother and
Speaker 5: and there's a passive father who allows the abuse to
Speaker 5: go on, boys will often end up resenting the father
Speaker 5: as much, if not more, than they do the abusive mother,
Speaker 5: because you know, he doesn't protect them, and he doesn't
Speaker 5: you know, he's the father, he's dad.
Speaker 7: He's supposed to you know, he's the same sex as me.
Speaker 5: We're we're we're guys.
Speaker 7: He should be taking care of me.
Speaker 5: And he didn't do that. And what he did, actually
Speaker 5: is is the eyeosite of that. He aligned with the abuser,
Speaker 5: aligned with the abuse of mother to basically abandon Tom.
Speaker 5: And I think that was that was something that he, uh,
Speaker 5: he could not accept, he could not tolerate. Uh and uh,
Speaker 5: I think that was the the point where there was
Speaker 5: that was the point of no return. They were going
Speaker 5: to throw him out of the house. He had nowhere
Speaker 5: to go, He had no money, he had nothing, and
Speaker 5: but he was going to be abandoned. And the father
Speaker 5: who he had always kind of wanted to trust and
Speaker 5: wanted to love and and uh, you know, and wanted
Speaker 5: to align himself with, was now uh not on his
Speaker 5: side anymore. And and that was that was it. So
Speaker 5: he was he was all alone. He was uh you know,
Speaker 5: he was he was depressed, he was uh, you know,
Speaker 5: it was influenced by drugs, and and it was this
Speaker 5: you know, this revenge and hatred that that just came
Speaker 5: pouring out of him in this kind of drug fueled,
Speaker 5: nihilistic type of rage.
Speaker 7: Although quite you know, strategic.
Speaker 5: And methodical, it was still nonetheless a you know, an
Speaker 5: act of of rage. And I think, uh, you know that,
Speaker 5: uh you know that, that to me is the explanation
Speaker 5: why the parents were murdered. That then, however, doesn't answer
Speaker 5: the question about why why murder the siblings, why murder
Speaker 5: these three innocent children? They didn't ever really do anything
Speaker 5: to him. But I think that's when you know that
Speaker 5: that's what happens with uh, mass murders, and you know,
Speaker 5: after the trigger is pulled or after you know, the
Speaker 5: knife is plunged, and after that first killing, first one
Speaker 5: or two killings, there's no coming back. It's you're, you're, you're,
Speaker 5: you're over the bridge, and you know, it's you know, uh,
Speaker 5: then it's it's then it then it becomes kind of
Speaker 5: an all or nothing type of phenomenon in the mind
Speaker 5: of uh, someone who is actively homicidal, and uh that
Speaker 5: was the case for him. I believe in that it
Speaker 5: was you know, it's it's now I I now just
Speaker 5: need to take out the entire family and terminate this,
Speaker 5: this whole and terminate this family because there there's no
Speaker 5: coming back from this and my life is over and
Speaker 5: I'm gonna kill myself off tomorrow.
Speaker 6: Uh and you know.
Speaker 5: So I'm just going to end at all. And it's
Speaker 5: it's it's very it's very nihilistic, it's very devastating. It's
Speaker 5: it's the annihilation of a family unit. And and that
Speaker 5: is that's how I that That's how I perceive it.
Speaker 5: That's how I understand it. And I think that is
Speaker 5: I think that's that's the I mean, it's it's difficult
Speaker 5: to kind of, uh, you know, appreciate and kind of
Speaker 5: understand the mentality that people like that have in that
Speaker 5: moment in time, but that that does seem to be
Speaker 5: an explanation that makes makes sense. And and uh and
Speaker 5: and I can tell you that Tom Otle agrees with that.
Speaker 6: It's a very interesting book. What I got to say,
Speaker 6: just just maybe a little spoiler for the reader, is that,
Speaker 6: you know, Tom Oldle doesn't really seemed to come to
Speaker 6: terms with the whole thing, though it seems that he
Speaker 6: he says, there was a voice in his head and
Speaker 6: a commanded you know it said, you know, he should
Speaker 6: do this, and I need to do this, and it
Speaker 6: seemed like he was out of body. It wasn't quite him.
Speaker 6: It seems like a combination of things that I've heard before.
Speaker 6: And not to say he's being disingenuine, but it's just again,
Speaker 6: while we look for the answers, he looks for the answers,
Speaker 6: we look for the answers. In the end, there's not
Speaker 6: really any real concrete answers except other than this is
Speaker 6: a kind of a background that created this confluence of
Speaker 6: events that created this tragic event. And that's about all
Speaker 6: you could say. That You've done a splendid job of
Speaker 6: really analyzing this as much as anyone possibly can. And
Speaker 6: it's very interesting the articulate and introspective letters that tom
Speaker 6: Ode writes and writes you and become the really the
Speaker 6: backbone of this book as well. And so I commend
Speaker 6: you for for both of you doing a great job
Speaker 6: and trying to understand this, at least looking at one
Speaker 6: particular case and saying this was the you know, the
Speaker 6: recipe for disaster that created that surely was the factors
Speaker 6: in contributing to this very very very sad event.
Speaker 5: Really yeah, well, thank you very much, and I I
Speaker 5: appreciate appreciate your your comments and your feedback, and and
Speaker 5: and and.
Speaker 7: You're exactly right.
Speaker 5: I mean there, yeah, there there is no there there's
Speaker 5: no you know, uh yeah, there's no definitive or or
Speaker 5: simple or concrete explanation for for these kids. I think
Speaker 5: for for any acts like this, they're they're they're just
Speaker 5: they're far more complex than that. And and you know,
Speaker 5: so you try to factor in, uh, you know, the
Speaker 5: variable various components that you know, you know as a
Speaker 5: psychologist that you know, I can look at and and
Speaker 5: try to add to the formula that that makes sense.
Speaker 5: And and you know that's what that's of what we
Speaker 5: tried to do here.
Speaker 7: And it would be it would be very nice if.
Speaker 5: You know, to pin it down to h you know,
Speaker 5: this is you know, this is the reason why. But
Speaker 5: you know it's uh, it's it's human behavior and uh,
Speaker 5: it's it's just not as simple as as often we
Speaker 5: would like it to be.
Speaker 6: Yes, absolutely, And I got to, you know, not to
Speaker 6: give not to have so much sympathy for the killer,
Speaker 6: because I think we have an audience here that doesn't
Speaker 6: shed too many tears for killers, but is a really
Speaker 6: uh compassionate audience and very understanding of you know, life
Speaker 6: experiences itself and what can happen. And being true crime
Speaker 6: readers and fans of true crime, they hear a lot
Speaker 6: of these very tragic stories. And again we're always looking
Speaker 6: for answers.
Speaker 5: So this is uh, you know, and I'm really I'm
Speaker 5: glad you're I'm glad you you brought up that point
Speaker 5: because you know, I believe I can tell you it's yeah,
Speaker 5: this is you know, tom Odle isn't looking for sympathy,
Speaker 5: and you know he's he doesn't deserve sympathy. He's this
Speaker 5: is not what this is about. This is about, you know, uh,
Speaker 5: you know, an individual who looks back on uh, a
Speaker 5: life that is filled with mistakes and problems and bad
Speaker 5: decisions and you know that had horrible effects on many
Speaker 5: many people and five people died and uh you know
Speaker 5: he knows perfectly well that you know, no one is
Speaker 5: going to sympathize with him, uh, these whatever he endured.
Speaker 5: Uh you know he knows that perfectly will and he's
Speaker 5: not looking for that. He is his his objective was
Speaker 5: is pretty much the the same as mine and and
Speaker 5: and that was really why we we did this book
Speaker 5: that you know, if if if if sharing the story
Speaker 5: can can possibly you know, and increase awareness uh for people,
Speaker 5: uh to understand how these kinds of crimes uh you
Speaker 5: know may end up being committed and and uh and
Speaker 5: and help people maybe I identify behaviors uh and tendencies
Speaker 5: that that uh that that may end up uh you know,
Speaker 5: resulting in extreme domestic violence. If if that's what this
Speaker 5: you know, that's in any in any way and that
Speaker 5: you know, not to be grandiose about it, but if
Speaker 5: that can you know, help anyone, uh prevent crimes like this,
Speaker 5: then certainly I will be thrilled and Tom Odle will
Speaker 5: be very pleased that, you know, his story had some
Speaker 5: positive impact.
Speaker 6: What I was going to say is that even though
Speaker 6: there's no sympathy for him, I do admire his candidacy,
Speaker 6: candidacy and in terms of being very candid, very truthful,
Speaker 6: and really again it doesn't seem to be any benefit.
Speaker 6: He's not going to get out of prison, and he's
Speaker 6: certainly not looking for fans by revealing as much as
Speaker 6: he did with this book. There is no fame from this.
Speaker 6: Certainly that you know, killers seek out typically, So again
Speaker 6: I just I got to commend the guy for being
Speaker 6: as truthful, because this is really what we're always looking for,
Speaker 6: is somebody to in retrospect try to look at this
Speaker 6: and try to explain basically something as horrible as this
Speaker 6: for those that might be I don't know, if you're
Speaker 6: person and it uses Facebook, or if there's a website,
Speaker 6: somebody might be able to contact you, or somebody might
Speaker 6: want a more personal copy of a books. Often there
Speaker 6: is that possibility, I know, Amazon and Barnes and Noble
Speaker 6: in your local bookstore. But tell us if there is
Speaker 6: any way to contact you, if anyone is uh uh
Speaker 6: considering contacting you for any reason.
Speaker 5: Sure there there there is a website for the book.
Speaker 5: It has survived buy one dot com, and uh it
Speaker 5: provides a lot more information about the story and uh
Speaker 5: and also provides information about uh, you know, some of
Speaker 5: the other some of the points I was just talking
Speaker 5: about a moment ago about you know, uh, preventing domestic violence,
Speaker 5: particularly preventing uh, the homicides and and so there's a
Speaker 5: lot more information there that there. There are videotapes of
Speaker 5: interviews with media, and there are you know, other articles
Speaker 5: and reviews and and you know that type of information
Speaker 5: on the website. If you know someone who's interested in
Speaker 5: contacting me directly, you know my email address is UH
Speaker 5: our dash Handlin H A N L O N at
Speaker 5: Northwestern dot E d U.
Speaker 6: Great, well, I want to thank you very much, doctor
Speaker 6: Handlon for number one for the Survive. I want a great,
Speaker 6: great read and UH and thank you for this interview
Speaker 6: as well. And thank you very much.
Speaker 5: Thank you, thanks very much, and you have a good evening.
Speaker 5: Good night, Okay, you too, good night.