Speaker 1: You're listening to the Mind Over Murder podcast.
Speaker 2: My name is Bill Thomas. I'm a writer, consulting, producer,
and now podcaster. I am now trying to use my
experience as the brother of a murder victim to help
other victims of violent crime. I'm working on a book
on the unsolved Colonial Parkway murders, and I'm the co
administrator of the Colonial Parkway Murders Facebook group together with
Kristin Dilly.
Speaker 3: My name is Kristin Dilly. I'm a writer, a researcher,
a teacher, and a victim's advocate, as well as the
social media manager and co administrator for the Colonial Parkway
Murders Facebook page with my partner in crime.
Speaker 4: Bill Thomas. Welcome to Mind Over Murder.
Speaker 2: I'm Kristin Dilly and I'm Bill Thomas.
Speaker 4: We are joined today by Mark Olshaker, author of too
many books to count at this point, writing partner with
John Douglas. Mark, welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 5: Thank you, Kristen. Always good to be here.
Speaker 4: Can you actually give us account of how many books
you've written at this.
Speaker 5: Point, Let's say, with John, I think we've done like
ten or eleven. Now I'm not quite sure something like that.
Speaker 2: And then and then on your own you've written a
number of books as well.
Speaker 5: Yeah. Yeah, I've written in five novels and a couple
of other nonfiction books.
Speaker 4: And I know when I talked to you the other day,
you said you're working in one with doctor Ostroholm right now,
another pandemic.
Speaker 5: We're doing another book, a sequel to the one we
put out in twenty seventeen, Deadliest Enemy War against the
Killer Germs, which actually, I have to say our chapter
on coronavirus was called Sars and Mers Harbingers of Things
to come. We are doing another book now about what
we've learned and haven't learned from COVID and how we
can apply that, we hope to the next inevitable pandemic. So, yeah, sex,
violence and pestilens, that's what I do.
Speaker 4: Well, in the first page of that one should just
be we told you.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I know, but people hear that unfortunately.
Speaker 2: Although it probably is good for all of us to
hear you summarize some of what I hope we've learned
from this recent pandemic. I shouldn't even refer to it
in the past tense.
Speaker 5: Yeah, No, it's one of the things the only thing
we really didn't predict and didn't talk about in Deadliest Enemy,
And the thing that really surprised us the most was
what I would just call the non compliance. I thought
everybody would want to pull together on this common threat,
Whilst we would expect humanity to pull together if there
were an alien invasion. We were just surprised that they didn't.
That it became so politicized that the people would act
against their own best interests just because of a political
view they'd taken. And the other thing is, I think
from both sides, from both the Trump administration and the
Biden administration, I have to say I'm very disappointed in
the public messaging, the messaging from CDC, from NIA and others.
We really need to develop a strong sense of humility
about what we know and don't know, and just be prepared.
So yeah, I think there's a lot of lessons and
I think we're still just we're still processing them. And
people often ask me what's the connection between the writing
you do about public health and the writing you do
about criminal justice, And I say they're both mystery stories
and about killers who are lurking there when we least
expect them, and they're both detective stories, and I think
they're all crime and disease are always going to be
with us, and I have a tremendous amount of respect
for the detectives and investigators in both of those fields
who try to get ahead of the problem.
Speaker 4: Mark, we wanted to bring you in today to talk
a little bit about John Hinckley, who has been in
the news recently because he has been released from all
court oversight with relation to his role in the near
assassination of Ronald Reagan. For any of our listeners who
may not be aware, because we do have international listeners
and we also have some younger listeners, can you just
tell us very quickly who John Hinckley Junior actually is.
Speaker 5: Yeah. John Hinckley Junior was a young man on March thirtieth,
nineteen eighty one, who waited outside the Washington Hilton Hotel
after new President Ronald Reagan was giving a speech. He
came out one of the lower entrances to his waiting
limousine with his press secretary James Grady and a couple
of other aides and his coterie of guards and secret
service agents, and John Hinckley came up to him and
fired into the group, seriously injuring Jim Grady. He never
worked again from that day on. And it turns out
when they got into the limousine and they rushed off,
found out that President Reagan had been seriously injured. He
was taken to George Washington University Hospital emergency room, where
we found out later he almost died. John Hinckley was arrested.
He was put on trial for attempted murder and assassination
because that is a federal crime. And it turns out
that his whole attempt was a He wanted to impress
the actress Jodie Foster, who he'd first seen in the
movie Taxi Driver with Robert de Niro, and he thought
that somehow if he committed this dramatic act and had
her come away with him, she would be impressed and
he would win her affection. Through that, he was i suspect.
Through that, and through some probably good representation, he was
found not guilty by reason of insanity and committed to
Saint Elizabeth's Hospital for the mentally Ill at that time
and where he remained for several decades, eventually being allowed
some limited privileges, then being allowed to go to his
parents' home in Williamsburg, Virginia, and as Kristen said, most
recently being deemed completely recovered, maintained saying whatever you want
to call it, and allowed to go about his business.
He's now in his sixties.
Speaker 2: I believe, yes, before we get into Hinckley and some
of the mechanics involved. It seems to me the Secret
Service has been back in the news recently. I don't
feel like a president in twenty twenty two, regardless of
who the president might be, would be exposed in the
same way the President Reagan was on the steps of
a major hotel.
Speaker 5: Probably right, Bill, But things have gotten tighter and tighter
as we've gone along. It's unimaginable now to think that
a president could be exposed the way President Kennedy was
on November twenty second, nineteen sixty three, riding in a
somewhat hostile city of Dallas, Texas in an open top limousine.
That's just in a slow moving motorcade. That's n things
thable today. During the Clinton administration, the Secret Service closed
off Pennsylvania Avenue in front of the White House to
avoid truck bombs or car bombs. More and more things
have happened like this, if you remember, since this has
also been in the news. President Trump wanted to go
to the Capitol on January sixth, the twenty twenty one,
after his incendiary speech near the White House, and the
Secret Service said that he couldn't go. In fact, he
also wanted the magnetometers taken away from the site where
he was speaking so that the more and more people
of his followers can be let in. The Secret Service,
of course, were trying to keep all weapons out. Trump
didn't seem to care about that because he thought that
the weapons were not aimed at him. Yeah. I think
there's been tighter and tighter security as we've gotten more
sophisticated about what's going on in this country. And look,
we are a violent country. There was a mass murder
in Copenhagen, Denmark, just this past week. Now what's interesting
is Copenhagen has one twenty fourth of the mass murders
that we do, according to my latest information. But we're
seeing things all over the place now.
Speaker 2: I know sometimes too, the presidents have surprised the Secret
Service with impromptu jumping out of limousines and that sort
of thing. I know that in the example you just
brought up President Trump didn't want the magnetometers used because
he wanted a larger crowd. But I also remember President
Obama jumping out, I was just going to be around
the mall, and I'm sure it gave his Secret Service
to tail.
Speaker 5: You can only do, you can only do a certain amount.
But I felt the same way when I saw that
scene of Obama built, I said, this is crazy.
Speaker 2: As a citizen, I liked it because I thought, Wow,
wouldn't it be cool to see the president and be
able to interact with the president so closely? But from
a Secret Service a details perspective, they had to be
having a cat.
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, this is the Secret Service has been criticized
a lot of late, sometimes validly, sometimes not validly. But yeah,
it's an increasing problem as our country becomes more and
more politicized, more and more diverse in its political views,
and people are just angry.
Speaker 4: So prior to attempting to assassinate Reagan, Hinckley had actually
stocked President Jimmy Carter and he had stoked to Jodi
Foster in like that seven months prior to actually shooting
President Reagan. Does the Secret Service have an awareness of
those sorts of things when they have been aware that
Hinckley was a stalker, and that only come out late.
Speaker 5: I try, they try to, and this is but this
is not unusual. Most assassins really are not focused as
much as you would think on the object of their
of their violence. It's more about making a name for themselves,
feeling some kind of importance. I can say with I
think without any exception, all of the assassins that I
can think of have been deeply troubled individuals, very inadequate,
feeling that they had to make their statement somehow. John
Hinkley thought that by killing Reagan that he would impress
Sode Foster. Why he thought that remains under discussion. But
Arthur Bremer, who tried to assassinate Governor George Wallace when
Wallace was running for a president on a third party
ticket in nineteen seventy two, he got him at a
shopping center in Laurel, Maryland. Wallace was a paraplegic for
the rest of his life and in pain after that.
But what's interesting is Bremer had nothing particular against Wallace.
He had first stalked President Nixon and tried and stalked
him for several months. But because of the Secret Service.
He was never able to get close enough to Nixon
to do anything. He switched to an easier, less hard
hardened target. All of these got most. Almost all of
these guys, with the exception of a couple like Sarah
Jane Moore and Squeaky From, both of whom tried to
were Manson family members who tried to assassinate President Ford.
Most almost all of these others are men. Almost all
of them come from the backgrounds that were not optimum
in one way or another. They almost all kept diaries
and lists of their grievances, so these are pretty much unfocused,
angry young men who look for a focus for their
grievance or something to make them stand out, to make
them important, even somebody like Mark David Chapman, who assassinated
John Lennon. John Lennon was an international celebrity. Chapman was
a nobody. But if Chapman had power over Lenin, he
became a somebody in his own mind.
Speaker 2: I want to jump back to Kristen's earlier question for
a second. Mark, I know you were crediting the Secret Service,
who deserved the credit for keeping our public figures safe.
When you say that the Secret Service is able to
head off some of these assassinations. Does that mean then
that those individuals who may have thought of attempting those
assassinations move on to the radar of the Secret Service.
Speaker 5: Or a lot of them? Do The ones you don't
hear about are all the people that the Secret Service
keeps track of, and there are hundreds of them, if
not thousands. I was involved in a situation once where
I contacted the Secret Service about somebody who I thought
from communications with me, I thought might have been a threat,
and the Secret Service that, yeah, we know about him.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so this is someone we are aware of and
on some level we're tracking or whatever.
Speaker 4: Do you know if this has always been a bit
of a rumor that goes around Williamsburg, because of course
Hinckley spends a lot of time here in Williamsburg. More so,
now does Secret Service still keep track of John Hickley?
Speaker 5: I'm sure they do.
Speaker 4: We've never been able to I've never been able to
get information.
Speaker 5: You won't get that confirmed, but I'm.
Speaker 4: Sure that I wasn't sure if that was Is there
a Secret Service person on him at all times?
Speaker 5: And I suspect that his release was not an arbitrary time.
I believe he would. I believed he would not be
released until Nancy Reagan died and after that, Oh.
Speaker 4: Very interesting.
Speaker 2: What's sad then, is that James Brady has died. Yes,
as well, and Kristin and I talked about this. You
could make a case that Hinckley is directly responsible for
Jim Brady's untimely demise.
Speaker 5: Yes, you could. The problem is, since he was found
not guilty by reason of insanity, that would be a
very hard case to make up.
Speaker 4: So what are the criteria required to find someone not
guilty by reason of incisiony to said, have something to
do with this.
Speaker 5: This is very interesting and very relevant. Unfortunately, this really
goes back to the McNaughton case in Britain in the
late seventeen hundreds early eighteen hundred, Daniel McNaughton sometimes spelled McNaughten,
tried to had some grievances against the British government and
tried to assassinate the Prime Minister, Sir Robert Peel, outside
the Prime Minister's official residence. He ended up not being
able to assassinate Peeal, but was able but able, to
kill his private secretary. He was put on trial and
he was found essentially not guilty by reason of insanity.
The McNaughton rule, which came out of that in the
British common law, essentially said two things. Somebody is not
guilty by reason of insanity if number one he does.
And we always use the term he because overwhelmingly the
people the offenders were talking about are male. The two
issues are he does not know the difference between right
and wrong and number two cannot conform his behavior to
the dictates of society. Now, there have been many reinterpretations
since then, but that is essentially still the insanity defense.
Today we talk about a doctrine known as the policeman
at the elbow, and the doctrine states that if there
is a uniformed policeman at the scene of the crime,
and the criminal goes ahead and commits the crime anyway,
he is probably insane. If the uniformed police officer's presence
deters him from the crime, then he is probably not insane.
Now that's a very simple explanation. The next thing that
always comes up in these discussions when I explain this
is they say, don't you have to be crazy to
kill somebody in cold blood? As opposed to self defense
or anything like that. And the answer is crazy doesn't.
Speaker 2: Mean anything to the law.
Speaker 5: Is somebody mentally ill who does that? Most likely they are.
I can't think of many cases where somebody would commit
cold blooded murder or attempt to and not be mentally ill. However,
mental illness and insanity are two different things. Mental illness
is a very vague psychiatric term. Insanity is a legal
term which has to do with your ability to comport
yourself according to the dictates of society. In other words,
somebody who is delusional may or may not be insane.
Somebody who is hallucinatory most likely is. So. I would
submit to you that somebody like John Hinckley, while certainly
mentally ill, I don't think he was insane by any
stretch of the of a reasonable approach to the law.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I remember reading that he was found to have
schizophrenia and major depressive disorder. So do you feel like
the insanity defense wasn't warranted there?
Speaker 5: I absolutely feel it wasn't. I don't think I saw
no indication then or now that he ever suffered from schizophrenia,
which is a shattered personality. One hears voices, one has
delusions and sometimes hallucinations. He probably did have some kind
of depressive disorder, but that again does not conform to
the definition of insanity. He knew right from wrong, he
was able to conform his behavior. Also, he planned this,
He knew exactly what he was doing. You could say
that there's some very irrational behavior. The idea that he
was going to impress a beautiful famous actress into going
off with him by killing the president. That's certainly i rational.
One could call it delusional, whatever you want to say,
but that's not insane. He didn't have to do it,
and he knew it.
Speaker 2: But many of us civilians used these terms interchangeably, don't
you think.
Speaker 5: Right now, Look, we all use the term crazy, we
say that's a crazy idea or whatever. But my point
is that insanity has, over the last three centuries had
a very specific legal connotation, and in my view, obviously
the jury disagreed with me. But in my view, John
Hinckley was not insane at the time, nor has he been.
I think it was obsessional. Certainly, he certainly had mental problems,
but those don't excuse what he did, particularly to Jim Brady.
Speaker 4: So the more appropriate punishment in your view would have
been life in prison. Absolutely no, I tend to agree
with you on that. So in two thousand and five
they started loosening restrictions on him at Saint Elizabeth, And
that was the first time that I remember, as a
citizen of Williamsburg hearing they're going to let John Hinckley
come home. They're going to let him visit his parents.
Do you And then just three weeks ago, as we
said at the top of the pod, he was freed
from all court oversight. Do you feel like that's the
right call to make? Should he be free?
Speaker 5: What I think? I think the psychiatrists and the officials
were going to bind because if he had been declared
not guilty by reason of insanity and he was no
longer insane, which I don't think he was to begin with,
what is your logic for holding him in prison? So
I think this was a miscarriage of justice to begin with.
Had he been look Sirhan who assassinated Robert Kennedy certainly
had the same kind of mental instability as John Hinckley.
But he was found sane and guilty and he's still
in prison, where he has been since spring of nineteen
sixty eight. I don't have a good solution for what
you do with the John Hinckley. Now, had there been
what I would consider a reasonable jury verdict, I think
that he would still be in prison and it wouldn't
be an issue. Now. Let me say at the same time,
I have read the judge's instructions many times. They are
so complicated and so convoluted based on both defense and prosecution.
But I would think a jury of layman would be
very confused by this, and they probably gave him the
benefit of the doubt. I think a better case maybe
could have been made explaining just exactly what the insanity
defense is, because, as you both know from your own
research and criminology, the insanity defense doesn't work very often.
It's invoked a lot, but most juries are not willing
to let killers out on that basis, and they really
worry that if you don't convict somebody, then it's an
open question about when they're going to be back on
the street again.
Speaker 2: It feels like the holy Grail for a lot of defense. Oh. Sure,
attorneys like they're going to try it, but they're not
likely to succeed. And as you said a moment ago.
Speaker 5: In our in my most recent book with John Douglas,
When a Killer Calls about the Larry Jean Bell murdered
case in South Carolin in the mid nineteen eighties. What
this man did to these two victims, one seventeen year
old girl just graduating from high school and then two
weeks later a nine year old girl, both of whom
he abducted, sexually violated, and then killed in horrible fashion.
The defense was, okay, he did it. Clearly, this guy
is insane, and the way he was acting out in
the court. But again, the prosecution was able to prove,
with John Douglas's help, that while this guy was bizarre,
while he was certainly mentally unstable, he knew exactly what
he was doing. He planned it, he planned his escape,
he planned not getting caught, he hid the bodies, all
of these things. Again, we really, I can't emphasize this enough.
We have to make a distinction between mental illness and insanity,
and there was a lot of far. The illness itself
is not an excuse.
Speaker 2: And when you see tons and tons of rational behavior
by the killer or killers, they're clearly an ability to
make decisions which will minimize the opportunity for them to
get caught.
Speaker 5: I don't want to get really personal here, but whoever
it was who killed your sister, by the mere fact
that he was able to get away is not insane.
Speaker 2: They're still wandering around years later.
Speaker 5: Was rational able to plan and carry out?
Speaker 2: Is evil, no question about it. I also think sometimes
jury's fear letting someone out. In other words, I think,
well they should. Yeah, on some level, you have to
say to yourself, if you're a citizen who's been chosen
for a jury, after sitting through days, weeks, sometimes even
months worth a testimony, on some level I think the
thought must cross the minds of every juror do you
want this person back out in society with the opportunity
perhaps to re offend? And some of these people are
people that could easily cross over to whatever their darkest
behaviors represent.
Speaker 5: Absolutely, and from my experience, juries take their responsibilities very seriously,
particularly in capital cases or murder cases or violent crime
of any sort. I think they really do, and they
are reaware of victims and potential victims. So yeah, I
agree with it.
Speaker 2: You're listening to Mind over Murder. We'll be right back
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Speaker 4: Mentioned Sarahan a couple of minutes ago, who, for the
benefit of our listeners, assassinated Robert F. Kennedy in nineteen sixty.
Speaker 5: Eight on blank range.
Speaker 2: By the way, point.
Speaker 4: Blank range, Yeah, is the only difference between his case
and John Hinckley is the fact that he succeeded where
Hinckley fails.
Speaker 5: I think that's a large part of it.
Speaker 4: Yes, do you feel like it would be appropriate to
let's heir han out of prison? This many years on?
I know Rfk's son even was saying, Hey, I think
it's time to let this guy out. Any thoughts on that.
Speaker 5: Yeah, No, I would say you don't let him out,
or they may be a more glib way of putting
it is, yeah, let him out. When Robert Kennedy is
brought back to life. This brings up a very interesting
and difficult philosophical point Kristin. There are traditionally three pieces
of logic for imprisonment. One is rehabilitation, which we've all
heard about. The other is punishment, which we all know about,
and the third is simply warehousing. In other words, if
somebody is dangerous, you just have to keep them off
the street, and the emphasis on these three goals changes
with the public opinion and how the crime rate and
things like that. Rehabilitation is a nice idea when it
can be done. I would submit that almost no sexual
predators can be rehabilitated. That's my own opinion based on
my research and experience warehousing. I think that if you
take somebody likes Sirhan, or let's say, the remaining members
of the Manson family, there is no need to wear
house them now. None of them are going to be
none of them are going to dangerous on any level.
They're all in their seventies at this point. So the
third element is punishment. And I would say with I
don't know about Sirhan, because he's now saying he doesn't
know whether he had committed the crime or not. But
the remaining members of the Manson family, they all understand
what they did. They have had forty years or more
to sometimes fifty years to reflect on what they did
on that horrible two nights in the summer of nineteen
sixty nine in Los Angeles. On the other hand, I've
studied the cases, I've seen the crime scene photos, I've
seen the horrible things that these people did, how they
stabbed a nine month pregnant Sharon Tate to Debt wrote
on the walls with her blood, And some things just
can't be forgiven. I'm afraid. And while I think that
these people all have understood the error of their ways,
I don't think they're dangerous anymore. I don't want to
let them out of prison because there are some things
that are just too horrible to forgive. If there is
an if there is an afterlife, then that's taken care
of in the next world. I don't think we have
the capacity or facility to take care of it in hours.
All we can do is balance the scales to the
extent that is humanly possible. No, I don't want Sarahan out.
I agree with Governor knew something, the Manson family members out.
And had John Hinckley been had John Hinckley been convicted
as I think he should have been, I think he
should have spent the rest of his life in prison,
as should Mark, David Chapman and other assassin personalities.
Speaker 2: So that just leads me back to Mark. How in
the world is John Hinckley Junior being allowed to wander
around Williamsburg, Virginia essentially unsupervised.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I don't think there's a I would be very
surprised if the Secret Service is not keeping track of him,
at least on a surreptitious or unofficial basis, since he
was declared not guilty with the caveat that he was
insane and he is no longer is. Since again, I
think he no longer he never was. I don't know
what else you can do. If it were me and
he Jaywalk, I'd pick him up.
Speaker 2: The whole thing's preposterous, just to review, he wounded two
police officers, He shot and nearly killed President Reagan, a
sitting president. He paralyzed Jim Brady, a key member of
the president's staff, And as we discussed a few minutes ago,
I definitely believe, as a big fan of Jim and
Sarah Brady's, that he shortened mister Brady's life questionably.
Speaker 5: Not only that, but I happen to know from some
inside sources how hard and how difficult Jim's life was
after that. The only person I've talked to about this
in the Reagan family is their daughter Patty, and I
know she certainly doesn't think he should have been led
off with an insanity, pleat and eventually let out. And
I know she noted that how this affected her mother
for the rest of her life.
Speaker 2: Oh my gosh, it's just the thing of nightmare. And
Kristin and I talk about this, and Kristin keeps thinking
she's going to run into Hinckley at one of the
area bookstores that she frequents.
Speaker 4: Because he frequents there too. People actually keep tabs on
where does this guy go? We know he goes to
Sweet Frog Dantique's Market, the bookstore that I like.
Speaker 5: And then the other issue is he's going on this
music tour, this concert tour, and I understand he's selling
out in some places. I think I'm enough of a
I'm enough of a First Amendment. And since he's not
actually doing things having to do with the assassination the
Son of Sam, laws don't apply to him. I really
question anybody who would pay money to see this free. Yeah.
Speaker 4: That that for context for any of our listeners who
aren't aware. A federal judge did rule in twenty twenty
that John Hinckley could showcase and market his artwork, his writing,
which is bad, and his music, which is not great either,
under his own name. He has a YouTube channel where
he posts videos of himself performing his original songs and
then covers of other songs. He is selling out concert halls,
although his Brooklyn concert recently had to be canceled due
to security concerns. Should he be allowed to profit from
his artwork in his music?
Speaker 5: Again, many states, and I don't know if the District
of Columbia or Virginia are among them, have what's called
son of Sam laws say a criminal cannot convicted criminal
cannot profit by anything having to do with his crime.
Since my understanding is that for these songs or artwork
don't have to do directly with the attempted assassination of
Ronald Reagan and the wounding of Jim Brady and several others,
that this would not fit under the son of Sam rules.
So yeah, I think this is one of those things
where I would absolutely defend his right to do this,
and I would just as vociferously condemn anybody who supports it.
I guess that's a little weird, but that's how I feel.
Speaker 2: I just find the whole thing so infuriating.
Speaker 5: The mate is insane, a word that would maybe come
to mind.
Speaker 2: But here we go again, talking about civilians.
Speaker 5: It's certainly crazy.
Speaker 2: It is crazy, and it's offensive and the idea of it.
Speaker 5: Unfortunately someone Fortunately in our country, I haven't decided which
being offensive is not a crime.
Speaker 2: I'm afraid not, but wow, this.
Speaker 5: But not a crime against the state.
Speaker 2: It would be great if the Secret Service is keeping
an eye on him and just one little thing.
Speaker 5: As I say, if I were the police chief of Williamsburg,
I would be looking out every time he steps off
the curve.
Speaker 4: It is really something else. What a lot of people
may not know about Hinckley is that he does have
tremendous financial resources at his disposal. His family has millions
of dollars.
Speaker 2: Oh where does that money come from? Do you know?
Speaker 4: Had they ran an energy company?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 5: And I suspect Kristen that a lot of the reason
that he was able to get off with an insanity
defense was his family's financial resource.
Speaker 2: Best lawyer's money can buy that sort of thing.
Speaker 5: He certainly wasn't dependent on a public defender who had
thirty other cases.
Speaker 2: Right, And it's a shame the prosecutors couldn't have rammed
home and appropriate guilty verdict because we all saw what
happened there. It was on National teleg I.
Speaker 5: Guess in case I haven't completely answered your question from before.
Do I think he's dangerous? Probably not, although I wouldn't
be I wouldn't be sure of it, but I think
probably not. Is he despicable? Absolutely well?
Speaker 2: And the punishment of that that troitad that you mentioned,
the three legged stool of incarceration, punishment is a valid
end in terms of if you've done something particularly heinous,
which John jul has done well.
Speaker 5: This is an attempt, so far as is humanly possible
in the case of murder or attempted murder or malicious wounding,
to balance the scales. We can't do it the way
we'd like to. We can't bring the dead back to
life or really balance the scales. But this is an
attempt at proportionality. And I would submit to you that
if you kill somebody, anything short of the death penalty
is disproportionate in your favor.
Speaker 4: I like that.
Speaker 5: Oh, but I just made it off.
Speaker 2: Okay. This may be referred to as the Acre formula
down there. Roaw enough, I'm still shocked when people get
out of jail twenty or twenty five years having been
found guilty. In some examples of murder. They don't even
serve life without parole. They a quarter of a century,
which admittedly is a long time. And as someone who's
never been incarcerated, well.
Speaker 5: And let me clear the air here, I think there
are types of murder, specifically felony murder, where a murder
is committed in the commission of another crime, like a
robbery or something where things happened very quickly. There may
not have been any intent to kill or even harm.
Somebody used a gun, they panicked whatever. I think those
people oftentimes can be rehabilitated. I think they should serve
long sentences, and I think their lives should certainly be altered,
and there should be some some kind of attempt at
restorative justice. But I would submit that people like that
you don't have to keep them in prison forever. Twenty
years or whatever is certainly enough time. But the people
who intend to kill, who go about it in a planned,
methodical way, who are sexual predators, who do it just
for their own satisfaction, if you will, their own sexual
needs or desires, these kind of people should never be
let out on the street again under any circumstances.
Speaker 2: This isn't somebody who let me to say.
Speaker 5: One more thing we've written about in our book Obsession.
We wrote about the case of a twenty year old
woman named Stephanie Schmidt in Kansas who shortly before her
twenty first birthday was abducted and raped and murdered by
a co worker who with the parole board. Her parole
officer had not wanted to let anybody know what his
previous crime was, which was aggravated sexual assault with a knife. Now,
he I think had been sentenced to twenty five years.
He was let out in about ten or twelve or fifteen,
and what he learned from being in prison was you're
going to commit this kind of crime again. You don't
leave any witnesses to put you back in prison. So
now we all know the formulation, which I believe originally
came from the Reverend Increase Mather back in pre colonial times,
about it's better to let one hundred guilty men go
free to confit one innocent man. We all agree with that,
and as we should, but let's turn.
Speaker 2: That on its head.
Speaker 5: If you have one hundred sexual predators, violent sexual predators
who've been incarcerated, and you're going to let them out
on parole, what's your acceptable rate of failure one hundred people?
How many? What a percentage are you willing to concede? Okay,
they may go on to commit the same kind of
crime or worse again, is it five percent? Is it
three percent? Is it one percent? I would submit to
you that my acceptable rate of failure is zero percent.
I'm very hesitant to let these kind of guys out
of prison early.
Speaker 2: I'm at zero. Kristin, Where are you on that?
Speaker 4: I'm at zero? Yeah?
Speaker 5: Absolutely, Because here's another thing that directly affects Kristin in
a way that I'll explain in a minute. People ask
John Douglas, can can you tell who is going to
grow up to be a serial killer? And he says, no,
I can't tell you who's going to grow up to
be a serial killer. But I can tell you I
can tell you by looking at kids whether they're going
to grow up to have real problems with anger and
aggression and all of that. And he said, but so
can any good teacher.
Speaker 4: Yeah, now I agree. We ended up actually having a
conversation very interestingly at the end of the year about
kids that we had taught who went on to become criminals.
If you've been in the profession long enough, you do
invariably have something how disturbing.
Speaker 5: Yeah, disturbing but disturbing but not surprising.
Speaker 2: And yet at the same time, we can't incarcerate those
kids as they're finishing up their year with you or whatever.
Speaker 5: Now, you try to intervene as best you can, but
often there's a lot of pushback to try from parents
or other people who say you're stigmatizing them or whatever.
Speaker 4: The problem, absolutely it is. I want to make sure
we get in a plug for at least one of
your books. If you want to read more about John Hinckley, Mark,
David Chapman, Charles Whitman, and other shooters, there is a
chapter in The Anatomy of Motive by John Douglas and
Markole Shaker that covers all of that information. And Mark,
I know you said that, there is a chapter in
Obsession as well that covers that.
Speaker 5: It covers the Stephanie Schmidt case. But also I would
say our book The Killer's Shadow talks about Joseph Paul Franklin,
who was, as far as we know, the first racist,
anti Semitic serial killer and definitely an assassin personality. Yeah,
I think you can. You'll get a lot of insight
about about this kind of personality through the Killer's Shadow.
And I know the latest book which we mentioned earlier
when the Killer Calls, also a very moving, tragic story,
but an important one.
Speaker 4: I think that was one of your best ones. Actually,
thank you, And of course we did cover that episode
earlier in this year, which we will make.
Speaker 5: Sure we listen to the podcast again.
Speaker 2: Everybody, run it again, absolutely, and Mark, I know it's
always hard to predict when you've got multiple projects in development,
but what do you think the next book to be
released will be?
Speaker 5: Gosh, I really don't know, but I'll confess something here.
What I'd really like to do in my old age
here is I'd like to go back to novel writing
and see if I can still do it. Really quite
a while since I've written a novel, but I've got
three ideas which I think are pretty compelling, and if
I get time, i'd really like to go back to
see if I can go back to fiction.
Speaker 4: Our guest today is then Mark Allshaker. Mark, thank you
so much for joining us. As always, it's a pleasure.
Speaker 5: And always it's a pleasure on this end too.
Speaker 4: Kristen, thank you very much. That's going to do it
for this episode of My Never Murder. We'll see you
next time.
Speaker 1: Mind Over Murder is a production of Absolute Zero and
Another Dog Productions.
Speaker 2: Our executive producers are Bill Thomas and Kristin Dilley.
Speaker 1: Our logo art is by Pamela Arnois.
Speaker 2: Our theme music is by Kevin McLeod.
Speaker 1: Mind Over Murder is distributed in partnership with Coral Space Media.
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Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to mind Over Murder
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