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Speaker 1: Block host Radio.
Speaker 2: You are now listening to True Murder, the most shocking
Speaker 2: killers in true crime history and the authors that have
Speaker 2: written about them. Gazy Bundy, Dahmer, The Nightstalker DTK. Every
Speaker 2: week another fascinating author talking about the most shocking and
Speaker 2: infamous killers in true crime history. True Murdered with your
Speaker 2: Host journalist and author Dan Zupanski.
Speaker 5: Good Evening. Fred Rosen is a former columnist for the
Speaker 5: Arts and Leisure section of the New York Times. He
Speaker 5: is also one of the most important and successful figures
Speaker 5: in true crime writing and the author of several true
Speaker 5: crime classics. He got off to an incredible start with
Speaker 5: Lobster Boy in nineteen ninety five, Blood Crimes in nineteen
Speaker 5: ninety six, and Gangmum and The Mad Chopper, both published
Speaker 5: in nineteen ninety eight. Deacon of Death was published in
Speaker 5: two thousand, Needlework in two thousand and one, Body Dump
Speaker 5: and Flesh Collectors were published in two thousand and two,
Speaker 5: The Historical Atlas of American Crime in two thousand and five.
Speaker 5: When Satan Wore Across and There But for the Grace
Speaker 5: of God were both published in two thousand and seven,
Speaker 5: Deadly Angel in two thousand and nine, and Trails of
Speaker 5: Death in twenty eleven. Did They Really Do It was
Speaker 5: published in twenty and fifteen. Born to the Mob and
Speaker 5: Murdering the President were published in two thousand and sixteen,
Speaker 5: The Bayou Strangler in two and seventeen, and Bat Masterson
Speaker 5: in twenty and nineteen. We will discuss how he got
Speaker 5: started in what cases and killers in particular most shaped
Speaker 5: his remarkable true crime body of work. The episode tonight
Speaker 5: is Fred Rosen True Crime Retrospective my special guest journalist
Speaker 5: and author Fred Rosen. Welcome back to the program, and
Speaker 5: thank you very much for this. Fred Rosen, Oh.
Speaker 1: Dan, I am, I'm overwhelmed, I really am. I mean,
Speaker 1: as you were reading off those books, you know it
Speaker 1: brings back all these memories.
Speaker 5: You know, Well, that's good.
Speaker 1: Yes. Do you know what's interesting when you look back
Speaker 1: on a book, and you know this, When you look
Speaker 1: back at a book, you don't remember necessarily, Yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean you remember some of the details about the case,
Speaker 1: depending upon what the case is, but you also remember
Speaker 1: what was going on personally, you know.
Speaker 5: Sure, Let's talk about the books in particular. As I
Speaker 5: mentioned and in the introduction, you got off to an
Speaker 5: incredible start with Lobster Boy. Now where were you previous
Speaker 5: to Lobster Boy in your career? And give us the
Speaker 5: particulars the circumstances in which this book, very important true
Speaker 5: crime classic with the wildest cover in true crime history.
Speaker 5: Tell us about Lobster Boy, tell us about the genesis
Speaker 5: of Lobster Boy and your career as a result.
Speaker 1: Okay, thank you, I'll tell you what happened. I had
Speaker 1: actually done another true crime book prior to that, called
Speaker 1: Doctors from Hell, right, and what happened was and what
Speaker 1: happened was I was trying to sell a novel and
Speaker 1: I got friendly for various reasons, you know, with this editor.
Speaker 1: His name is Paul Dennis, who really shaped a lot
Speaker 1: of true crime at Pinnacle Books, right. And I was
Speaker 1: standing on the corner of Park Avenue and thirty fourth
Speaker 1: Street in the middle of Manhattan, ban and he said
Speaker 1: to me, well, you know what, I don't want to
Speaker 1: publish your novel, but I'd like you to work on
Speaker 1: this book called Doctors from Hell. I need a journal
Speaker 1: list and I I was teaching journalism at the time, okay,
Speaker 1: at Hastra University, so uh, you know, he offered me.
Speaker 1: You know, I remember the wind. You know, it was
Speaker 1: almost like a what do you call it? A spiritual moment.
Speaker 1: You know, I was thinking, you know, do I do
Speaker 1: I do this? Because it wasn't something that I was
Speaker 1: necessarily looking to do. It was an opportunity and I
Speaker 1: went with it. And then what happened Loss the Boy. Okay,
Speaker 1: shortly after I do that book. Oh man, I'm in Florida,
Speaker 1: Yeah it was. I was. I was on vacation and
Speaker 1: I saw something in the local paper about a case
Speaker 1: involving a lobster boy, and I'm going, uh, right, okay,
Speaker 1: and uh And I called and I called up pulled
Speaker 1: Dennis the editor, and I said, you know, this is
Speaker 1: a weird case. He says, it's your next book. So
Speaker 1: what he says, it's your next book. Okay, it's my
Speaker 1: next book. So I start looking into it and uh
Speaker 1: there was there was the what happened, okay, what happened
Speaker 1: was Grady Styles Junior, who's Lobster Boy was a circus
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, Carnifreak, who had ectodactyle, which is what caused
Speaker 1: the feet and the and they hands to fuse and
Speaker 1: give him what looked like the lobster cause.
Speaker 5: Okay, he was.
Speaker 1: He was abusive to the family. Blah blah blah blah blah. Anyway,
Speaker 1: loves for short. His wife working with her her son
Speaker 1: who is his steps on, Grady's step son, they harbor
Speaker 1: a hit man to come into the house and kill him. Well, uh,
Speaker 1: I uh. The the the attorney for uh for the
Speaker 1: wife sent out a video and it was it was
Speaker 1: supposed to be used and heard defense and where it
Speaker 1: shows is Lops the Boy wrestling with his song and
Speaker 1: Lops the Boy Junior. Okay, right, And I get a
Speaker 1: copy of it. Dan. I don't know if I ever
Speaker 1: talked about this. I don't think I have. And and
Speaker 1: I get a copy of it, and I, you know,
Speaker 1: and I listened to it, you know, our play. You
Speaker 1: know it's this is back in the nineties, so it's
Speaker 1: it's video. And uh, what you hear in the background
Speaker 1: is tibbetsy. I think I have to translate that. Huh, right,
Speaker 1: tibbotsy is a Yiddish term for kidding around. You hear
Speaker 1: the family kidding around in the background, Okay, fade out,
Speaker 1: fade in. I go to the trial. I'm at the trial,
Speaker 1: and uh, the the the during the trial, they the
Speaker 1: defense attorney shows the tank, except he turns down the
Speaker 1: sound and it's silent. I didn't know he turned it down.
Speaker 1: I found that out later. But when you look at
Speaker 1: it without sound, it looks like the fathers abusing his son. Right,
Speaker 1: So what what is? What does your buddy do? He
Speaker 1: walks up to the prosecutor. I walk up to the prosecutor.
Speaker 1: I said, my copy of the tape has has sound
Speaker 1: and there's kibbe say And he said, get me a
Speaker 1: copy of it, send it, send it. It's evidence in
Speaker 1: a murder case. Oh my God, you know this this
Speaker 1: was you know, I'm going, what the hell do I do? Dan?
Speaker 1: You know, I'm getting involved in a murder case directly,
Speaker 1: and you know usually journalists don't do those things, and
Speaker 1: you know we report, we don't get involved. Well, I'll
Speaker 1: tell you what. So I have to decide. I mean,
Speaker 1: I got the tape, and you were asking what I
Speaker 1: was doing at that time. I was still teaching. But
Speaker 1: get this. I get the tape, okay, I mean, and
Speaker 1: I'm in a hotel room in Campa and I get
Speaker 1: a phone call and it's from the school I was
Speaker 1: teaching at there telling me I don't I'm not getting
Speaker 1: tenure because my degree is in film, it's not journalism.
Speaker 1: I'm not qualified to continue teaching. And I look at
Speaker 1: the tape and I'm going, okay, I'm not qualified to
Speaker 1: teacher journalism, but I'm about to break a major murder cake.
Speaker 1: And I had to decide what to do with the tape.
Speaker 1: Did it was? It was one of the most pivotal
Speaker 1: moments in my life because I knew if I turned
Speaker 1: it over, she'd get convicted and I was putting my
Speaker 1: life at risk. So I didn't know what to do.
Speaker 1: And I sat in the room, I looked out the window,
Speaker 1: and I went back to my childhood, and I thought,
Speaker 1: what would the lone ranger do? Because he was huh
Speaker 1: And so I said, the lone ranger would turn over
Speaker 1: the tape and would serve justice regardless of the consequences.
Speaker 1: And that's always been the way that I functioned, you know,
Speaker 1: in terms of the way I work. And so that's
Speaker 1: what happened. I turned the tape over, and sure enough,
Speaker 1: the yeah, I got, I got, I gotta you know,
Speaker 1: I got, I got a threat from the family, but
Speaker 1: thank god, nothing happened.
Speaker 5: And were you criticized by them? Were you criticized by
Speaker 5: the media at all? With your stats?
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, well yeah, there were some people that criticized me. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: But the funny thing is, Dan, as sensational as this sounds,
Speaker 1: it didn't get very much in the way of national publicity. Really,
Speaker 1: I don't know. Yeah, and now it could be because
Speaker 1: it was the mid nineties, and you know it's different today, obviously,
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, but no, so, yeah, there was
Speaker 1: some people that criticized me, but hi, I just you know,
Speaker 1: I just rolled with the punctures.
Speaker 5: The publisher pinnacle at the time. Must have been pretty
Speaker 5: happy with the results. And so you get to your
Speaker 5: next book. In nineteen ninety six, Blood Crimes. Oh yeah,
Speaker 5: Brian Freeman and his fifteen year old brother murdered their
Speaker 5: entire family mother, mother, father, and younger brother. And these
Speaker 5: are neo Nazi skinheads. Tell us just something that comes
Speaker 5: to mind with this your second book, Blood Crimes.
Speaker 1: I'll tell you what comes to mind. They were the
Speaker 1: brothers with Jehovah's witnesses, so they rebelled against the parents
Speaker 1: by becoming skinheads. It's weird, but they got friendly when
Speaker 1: they escaped after they did the killing. They went up
Speaker 1: to Michigan and uh, and they with some white supremacist friends.
Speaker 1: What happens during the trial, which is in Allantown, Pennsylvania.
Speaker 1: Their white supremacist friend's skinhead friend comes down to testify,
Speaker 1: and I, you know, I'm sitting here and I got
Speaker 1: to stop myself from laughing so much because what happens
Speaker 1: is I started talking to him. You know, I'm a reporter,
Speaker 1: and you know, of course I'm thinking to myself, gie Fred,
Speaker 1: it's a little bit weird. A Jewish guy talking to
Speaker 1: neo nasty blah blah blah, but I said, you know what,
Speaker 1: I'm working, and I talked to the guy who says, oh,
Speaker 1: I need to live to the airport. I drove the
Speaker 1: neo Nazi to the airport and all it was, it was,
Speaker 1: and you know it was. It was very interesting because
Speaker 1: he gave me the information about the brothers. Yeah, amazing
Speaker 1: and and and the other thing that was interesting about
Speaker 1: that was that because I had lived in Brooklyn Heights
Speaker 1: section of Brooklyn, a neighborhood in Brooklyn, and that is
Speaker 1: where the UH the Uh Jehovah's witnesses are based. That's
Speaker 1: where they have their world headquarters. So I was very
Speaker 1: familiar with with witnesses.
Speaker 5: Okay, let's talk about gang mom. This is very interesting
Speaker 5: case of incredible deception. Was Mary Louise Thompson UH, mother
Speaker 5: of a troubled team. She had been an active become
Speaker 5: an active campaigner against team gang activity. What did the
Speaker 5: the neighbors find out about the model.
Speaker 1: Mother the neighbors found out in it was Eugene Washington
Speaker 1: that she was running her own her own street gang.
Speaker 1: That while she was coming cross publicly as an advocate
Speaker 1: against gangs, she had her own gang. And Uh, she
Speaker 1: running her own gang and eventually, uh uh, she her son,
Speaker 1: rather her son. What happens is she winds up, she
Speaker 1: winds up getting one member of her of the gang
Speaker 1: to kill a boy, a teenager that's going to testify
Speaker 1: against her son in a case. And that's why she
Speaker 1: winds up going to jail for life, you know. And
Speaker 1: this is this is the Pacific Northwest. They don't get
Speaker 1: around with these things, you know what I mean, they're
Speaker 1: they're they're very you know, it's not someplace you're going
Speaker 1: to get away with something like that.
Speaker 5: What do you remember about the Mad Chopper tape of Florida?
Speaker 1: Oh, oh boy, I'll tell you what I remember about
Speaker 1: the Mad Chopper. Oh boy. Uh. I had to take
Speaker 1: two trips. I always go to the scene of the
Speaker 1: crime always, and so the first trip was down to
Speaker 1: Florida where he killed a murdered a a prostitute. But
Speaker 1: then I went out to California because the reason he
Speaker 1: was called the Mad Chopper is it's awful he shopped,
Speaker 1: he kidnapped the young girl and chopped over warm. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I mean it's and he wound up getting, oh,
Speaker 1: you know, a lot of years in prison. And I
Speaker 1: wound up going up to. I actually went up to
Speaker 1: northern California to the area where it happened. You know,
Speaker 1: I went to the scene of the crime and and
Speaker 1: I talked to the it was it was and I
Speaker 1: also was I remember Modesto. Uh, I had to go
Speaker 1: to Modesto and uh I talked to the police officer
Speaker 1: there who was the detective on the case. It was just,
Speaker 1: it was just it was. It was a very very
Speaker 1: upsetting case because the girl, oh god, you know, she
Speaker 1: never recovered you know, I mean, sure she got it,
Speaker 1: you know, an artificial arm, but you know, emotionally, forget
Speaker 1: about it.
Speaker 5: The interesting thing was she testified that trial though remarkably. Yeah,
Speaker 5: she was able.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, but it but it uh, it was, man,
Speaker 1: it was the mere fact that the law let and
Speaker 1: they changed it afterwards, I know that they changed it.
Speaker 1: They let the guy out. Was ridiculous. I mean it
Speaker 1: was really really ridiculous. And uh so, and when when
Speaker 1: they did let him out, no community would take them,
Speaker 1: you know, they had to move him around.
Speaker 5: Incredible. Did you have a couple again, sheeps and wolves
Speaker 5: in sheep's clothing? Pardon me, A couple of remarkable stories
Speaker 5: involving something that people would not believe if it were
Speaker 5: not for they would believe it, will have a hard
Speaker 5: time believing if it was fictional. This deacon of Death church,
Speaker 5: deacon Smithers. This is in Tampa. Yeah, by day he's
Speaker 5: the church deacon. But what's he doing at night? And
Speaker 5: what does believe to.
Speaker 1: Well? I also have a memory on that book too.
Speaker 1: What happens is what Sam is doing is at night
Speaker 1: he leaves his house and he picks and he picks
Speaker 1: up girls along one you know the street that Hillsborough
Speaker 1: I think it's Hillsboro Avenue where we're prostitute. She'll do
Speaker 1: that on a way of work. Blah blah blah, I
Speaker 1: does stuff like that. But eventually he picks up two
Speaker 1: girls and he transports them to this house where he's
Speaker 1: the caretaker, someplace out of the country, and he murders
Speaker 1: both of them and dumps him and ah, what do
Speaker 1: you call it? Uh, I don't know. A pond a
Speaker 1: pond right, and dumpson in a pond and uh it
Speaker 1: was Oh, and what happened was that both of the
Speaker 1: women were prostitutes. And what happens is all must have
Speaker 1: been about a couple of years afterwards. I mean Facebook
Speaker 1: is amazing, Dan, sometimes because I started getting what do
Speaker 1: you call it pms, the personal message from from a
Speaker 1: prostitute who've been working the streets with one of them,
Speaker 1: and she started telling me about the woman and basically
Speaker 1: what she's what she's telling me is she's lucky she
Speaker 1: didn't wind up that way. It was it was really amazing.
Speaker 1: You know, once in a while those things happened, you know,
Speaker 1: not very often with you know, where somebody told after
Speaker 1: the fact, you know, after the case. But that was
Speaker 1: that was very upsetting. And yeah, that was very upsetting.
Speaker 1: And but you see, you Wilson mentioned a lot of
Speaker 1: those earlier cases took place in Tampa, Florida, in that
Speaker 1: area Hillsburg County, because that's where Lobster Boys took place,
Speaker 1: even though it was pretty far south in the county.
Speaker 1: But it's basically what happened was I formed a relationship
Speaker 1: with with the you know, with the police officers and
Speaker 1: also with the public information officers. So I'd ask you
Speaker 1: to let me know if they had any interesting cases,
Speaker 1: and they would.
Speaker 5: Talk about interesting cases. When Satan wore across this is
Speaker 5: nineteen eighty in Toledo, Ohio, and again on one of
Speaker 5: the holiest Days of the church calendar. You write the
Speaker 5: body of a none was discovered in the sacristy of
Speaker 5: a hospital chapel. Seventy one year old sister Margaret Anne
Speaker 5: been strangled and stabbed, and here it goes her corpse
Speaker 5: arranged in a shameful and stomach churning to say the
Speaker 5: least pose. Police had a suspect, Father Gerald Robinson, tell
Speaker 5: us how what happens here? And then what happens twenty
Speaker 5: three years later in this incredible story.
Speaker 1: Well what happens is what happens is that Robinson is
Speaker 1: interrogated originally, but the monor comes in and gets him out.
Speaker 1: You know, the church used its influence and got him out,
Speaker 1: and then they moved him around from parish to parish.
Speaker 1: And funny thing on that case is, as I got
Speaker 1: into it, uh, there was a cop, former cop, who
Speaker 1: had been at the crime scene and he uh he
Speaker 1: had been I don't I guess blacklist. He had been
Speaker 1: blacklisted by the department because he didn't go with their
Speaker 1: what you know, their take on the thing. Right, so
Speaker 1: you know so and and oh oh oh oh, I
Speaker 1: forgot one more thing is Colombo used to say, Uh,
Speaker 1: I Uh, this is the first time I ever spoke
Speaker 1: to an exorcist. Well, Dan, I got on the phone
Speaker 1: with an exorcist, and you know, because they called in
Speaker 1: an exorcist and to help them figure out what was
Speaker 1: going on because it was a satanic inspired crime. And
Speaker 1: then I and so I got to talk to the exorcist.
Speaker 1: You know. Uh, that was pretty that was pretty interesting.
Speaker 5: Yes, no kidding. What was interesting too? Is it twenty
Speaker 5: three years later. Really, what we had and what you
Speaker 5: write about I thought was very interesting. It was a
Speaker 5: different time, and you know, it's twenty three years later,
Speaker 5: but the societal shift in attitude was really what facilitated
Speaker 5: Robinson being convicted because it was a different, completely different time.
Speaker 5: I you say, the church didn't have the power that
Speaker 5: it had with the exposing of all the scandals over
Speaker 5: the years in that interim.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, oh yeah, and that was what was so
Speaker 1: interesting about it. In fact, Oh yeah, just Robinson died
Speaker 1: in jail a couple of years ago. Somebody contacted me
Speaker 1: to let me know about it.
Speaker 5: Interesting. You wrote a book called there but for the
Speaker 5: Grace of God. Oh it's just what that is. Briefly,
Speaker 5: what do you mean by there but for the grace
Speaker 5: of God. What do you include?
Speaker 1: Well, it's based on that old expression, oh God, help
Speaker 1: help me out here. Well there, but for the grace
Speaker 1: of God is about Oh boy, this is the most
Speaker 1: emotional book I ever did. Questions, Oh yeah, I mean it.
Speaker 1: This was a book. I interviewed survivors of sections and
Speaker 1: it was, it was, it was. It was a real education.
Speaker 1: In fact, one of the survivors, who I'm not going
Speaker 1: to mention by name, but found a way to make
Speaker 1: money off of it. But I've got to say that
Speaker 1: what was so hot? Oh man, I'll never forget this.
Speaker 1: I met the woman who who was in the uh
Speaker 1: the woman who put ted Bundy in the chair. It
Speaker 1: was when Bundy went into the sorority house in Florida,
Speaker 1: uh and Central Florida. And this woman had come in
Speaker 1: after Bundy had killed two of her sorority sisters upstairs,
Speaker 1: and she came into the the I's gonna say the
Speaker 1: ante room, but it would be the living room. And
Speaker 1: she said to me she could feel her grandfather's arm
Speaker 1: on her, stopping her from going further into the room,
Speaker 1: because if she'd gone further into the room, she would
Speaker 1: have been close to Bundy. And he might have killed her,
Speaker 1: but she was able to see him and at the
Speaker 1: stairs in a circle of light, pool of light, whatever,
Speaker 1: and what happened was she she later testified against him
Speaker 1: and put him in the lectric chair. But I gotta
Speaker 1: tell you the emotion. I have never ever been that
Speaker 1: close to that kind of evil. I mean, I I
Speaker 1: you know, I don't mean to get you know, mystical
Speaker 1: or anything, but I just have to tell you that
Speaker 1: the vibe was just I could feel the bundye vibes
Speaker 1: and I'm just talking to this woman, you know, luck.
Speaker 1: But again locally she's vibed and had a life and
Speaker 1: so forth and so on. That was just very very emotional.
Speaker 5: Tell us how you came to be involved and write
Speaker 5: Deadly Angel Clime That occurred in Wasscilla, Alaska, a little
Speaker 5: place about forty two hundred people. She was an exotic
Speaker 5: dancer at this bush company in nearby Anchorage. Well, so
Speaker 5: it's a little bit about what you remember about this.
Speaker 1: Well, the thing I gotta tell you about that is
Speaker 1: that the woman Okay, this is about an exotic dancer
Speaker 1: who allegedly lures one of the one of the guys
Speaker 1: she's living with out into the country in murderism. The
Speaker 1: thing is, later on this became the first closed case
Speaker 1: that the closed case squad in that area of the
Speaker 1: state police handled. Okay, But she actually was later found
Speaker 1: her conviction was overturned by the what you called, you know,
Speaker 1: the appeals court. So as far as the you know,
Speaker 1: of course of concern, she's not guilty.
Speaker 5: There was no follow up to this. I mean normally,
Speaker 5: even Pinnacle had a sort of a rule, didn't they
Speaker 5: didn't they have if this is a Pinnacle release, didn't
Speaker 5: they have a rule to wait till those appeals were exhausted.
Speaker 5: What was it that was there a new evidence brought
Speaker 5: up later? Was it was circumstances.
Speaker 1: It was circumstances. But but also the this wasn't Pinnacle,
Speaker 1: this was Harpercollin, Okay, and this was different. I have
Speaker 1: to tell you that that this was a different point
Speaker 1: in in in my career. It was. All I can
Speaker 1: say is it was different. Okay. And in terms of appeals,
Speaker 1: now that you mentioned it, yeah, you got a good point. There.
Speaker 1: Usually wait until everything is is juticated before you you publish.
Speaker 1: But this is but this is what happened. But of
Speaker 1: course it took years. You know. That's the other thing.
Speaker 1: It took you know, it took years. I remember that
Speaker 1: it was the stripper in the case. She came from
Speaker 1: joy Z. It's amazing how you remember those things. She
Speaker 1: came from New Jersey. But it was it was I
Speaker 1: didn't go Now, see that's the case. That's the case
Speaker 1: where I did not go to I've been to Alaska,
Speaker 1: but I didn't go to Alaska on that. Maybe if
Speaker 1: I had, you know, I would have realized you know,
Speaker 1: the you know, the the legal problems whatever.
Speaker 5: Yeah, you have an experience with a particularly evil serial killer.
Speaker 5: They all, I guess certain amount of evil. But this Hilton, oh,
Speaker 5: Gary Michael Hilton, Trails of Death. What do you remember
Speaker 5: about this guy that struck in Florida, Georgia, and North
Speaker 5: Carolina before he was finally caught by.
Speaker 1: I gotta just say a couple of things about this. First,
Speaker 1: you know, you willways when you you know, except for
Speaker 1: like podcasts, which of course this is, you don't expect
Speaker 1: a tape of an interview that well to stay around.
Speaker 1: I did an interview in twenty eleven with Yate Line
Speaker 1: NBC on this case, and they rebroadcasted a week ago
Speaker 1: last Friday. And the thing about Hilton that was different
Speaker 1: from me than any other well, yeah, I think it
Speaker 1: probably different than certainly any other serial killer case. But
Speaker 1: any I think any other case that I've done. Is
Speaker 1: what happened was I got friendly with one of his
Speaker 1: childhood friends ends in Highah, Florida, not too far from
Speaker 1: where I live now. So Dan, I went over to Hialiah,
Speaker 1: and his friend took me. Oh man, he took me
Speaker 1: down the canals they used to go down as kids.
Speaker 1: He took me to where they they what do he
Speaker 1: called they played as kids. And when I added it
Speaker 1: all up, Okay, I see the guy's background. I talked
Speaker 1: to his friend. I researched his background and found out
Speaker 1: that he'd got through a certain amount of abuse. Okay,
Speaker 1: and I and he and he clear, and I sat
Speaker 1: behind him. Oh man, Dan, I sat behind the guy
Speaker 1: in court. I mean, the only thing between us it
Speaker 1: was the rail so I could hear all of his
Speaker 1: conversations with his attorney and stuff like that. Hilton, and
Speaker 1: I have to tell you that this was the first
Speaker 1: time I was in a courtroom where a man was
Speaker 1: sentenced to death. I'd never experienced that. And I'll be
Speaker 1: quite frank and say, when I walked out of that
Speaker 1: courtroom after that happened, I shed a few tears. And
Speaker 1: the reason I shed a few tears is because it
Speaker 1: was pretty obvious from the when the defense argued for
Speaker 1: the guy's life, how he'd been abused, how he had
Speaker 1: brain problems for very you know, he'd had some brain damage.
Speaker 1: You know, this was actually you know it was it
Speaker 1: was very interesting, and so I felt badly, you know,
Speaker 1: I felt like, you know, I don't know, you know,
Speaker 1: just the idea, you know, help. However, look and the
Speaker 1: guys and then what happened with that one? Here we
Speaker 1: go Facebook again. Somebody contacts me on Facebook who was
Speaker 1: a friend of his, who's in Florida and goes and
Speaker 1: sees him every now and then. So I've said to
Speaker 1: myself now for a couple of years, do you want
Speaker 1: to visit them? Because I never did an interview, and
Speaker 1: I don't know where I go with it? Dan, you know, right,
Speaker 1: you know where do you go with it? You visit
Speaker 1: a convicted serial killer and jail. The books will realit
Speaker 1: what am I going to write about? Now?
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Speaker 1: You know sure, I don't know.
Speaker 5: Yeah, let's talk about flesh collectors. Well you call it
Speaker 5: misfit Jeremy Rogers twenty one and racist devil worshiper Jonathan
Speaker 5: Lawrence twenty three. They met in a Florida Penal System
Speaker 5: mental hospital. So right, a relationship made in True crime Heaven.
Speaker 5: That's nineteen ninety eight in Pensacola, Florida. Layton Smitherman. What
Speaker 5: happens with these guys? And why? What are what are
Speaker 5: these guys really all about?
Speaker 1: As you write, Well, these guys are they're weird. I
Speaker 1: mean even for killers, they're weird. One of them seems
Speaker 1: to be into the devil. But they, oh boy, what
Speaker 1: they do is first they when they go when they
Speaker 1: fire at Smitherman, it's it's it's sort of a random thing.
Speaker 1: But then eventually they wind up killing the cousin. One
Speaker 1: of these two killers, right, because they and then and
Speaker 1: that's really the sad part. What happens is one of
Speaker 1: them goes out at day with a girl and it
Speaker 1: really said he ticks her up in her house. And
Speaker 1: the guy's got tattoos all over his body, but he's
Speaker 1: a little clothed because when he picks the girl up,
Speaker 1: the mother is there, and the girl is just like
Speaker 1: I think, I think she was eighteen, she was just
Speaker 1: about to graduate. And what happens is they take her
Speaker 1: out into the country. I mean, you know, these two guys,
Speaker 1: I think this is one of those situations where those
Speaker 1: two personalities became very working together, became very deadly. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and and and so they one of them shoots her,
Speaker 1: and then the other one, Oh boy, he uses a
Speaker 1: knife and he cuts up her calf muscle like he's
Speaker 1: gonna And then when the when Todd Hand who's the detective,
Speaker 1: comes into their when he goes to arrest them, and
Speaker 1: he comes into their trailer. He finds he finds the
Speaker 1: flesh and the refrigerator. Incredible, incredible, I mean just incredible,
Speaker 1: but very evil people, you know, Like when we were
Speaker 1: talking a couple of minutes ago about Gary Hilton, I
Speaker 1: I just I don't, I don't. I wouldn't call Gary evil. Okay,
Speaker 1: bad maybe, but but there's these but these two guys,
Speaker 1: oh man, they're they're they're off the charts and uh,
Speaker 1: they're just off the charts. And it was very, very upsetting.
Speaker 1: And of course I went to the UH. I traveled
Speaker 1: to Pensacoa to well, it's it's across from Pensacola and
Speaker 1: it's it's the Redneck rivi Era. That's where I first
Speaker 1: learned that the that the the UH the coast of Florida,
Speaker 1: New Mexico. You call it the Redneck rivy Era.
Speaker 5: Wow.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and that's just go ahead, go ahead, fred No,
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna say, I just remember that when I
Speaker 1: covered that case, a hurricane hit, and uh, a hurricane
Speaker 1: hit and the tree came down right near me. So
Speaker 1: I feel very lucky, you know that it got added
Speaker 1: out one alive.
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Speaker 5: your first box at www dot fabfitfund dot com. Now, Fred,
Speaker 5: we were talking, were about to talk about one of
Speaker 5: the books that you in the eighteen books that we're
Speaker 5: featuring today. Did they really do it? Tell us a
Speaker 5: little bit about the genesis of this book and what
Speaker 5: you cover in this food cases?
Speaker 1: Oh boy, yeah, oh boy. I I have a I
Speaker 1: have a very strong interest, as you know, Dan, in history,
Speaker 1: American history, and uh and so I was interested in
Speaker 1: cases in American history where maybe there was some doubt
Speaker 1: about whether the bad guy did it or not. And
Speaker 1: I had to pick the cases, okay, and one of
Speaker 1: the cases that was pretty easy. It was uh uh
Speaker 1: that the what's his name? The bomber, but the the
Speaker 1: no no, no, no, no, I'm sorry, Uh, no, the
Speaker 1: the uh, the the the the the the guy that
Speaker 1: was allegedly involved with the World Trade Center bombing. Uh.
Speaker 1: But the point is the point is when I was
Speaker 1: working on the cases, there was one case that really
Speaker 1: got to me. It was doctor Samuel Mudd. A lot
Speaker 1: of people don't remember this, but doctor Mud was a
Speaker 1: doctor in uh, Maryland. Who's who what? After John Wilkes
Speaker 1: Booths shot President Lincoln escapes and he he uh and
Speaker 1: and he wound up coming to MUD's house to get
Speaker 1: his ankle set. Well, the question was did Mud know
Speaker 1: Booth before? Did he have any idea that what what
Speaker 1: Booth was going to do? So I thought that were
Speaker 1: my research tan and I find I find that there was.
Speaker 1: There was a letter that Jimmy Carter, our former president,
Speaker 1: sent to the grandson of doctor Mudd in the late
Speaker 1: seventies where he said to him, well, I think he's innocent,
Speaker 1: but I can't pardon them because it's not federal if
Speaker 1: something along rose part And he actually was correct. He
Speaker 1: couldn't pardon because it was a military trial. But right,
Speaker 1: the first question, what's the question, why did Jimmy Carter
Speaker 1: write a letter? Why did you know? Why did he
Speaker 1: say that. So what happens. I'll never forget this. I
Speaker 1: get on the phone and I call up the Carter
Speaker 1: Center in in Atlanta, and uh and they and they said.
Speaker 1: I said, I had a question for the president. This
Speaker 1: is about history. And they said, okay, fax it in.
Speaker 1: He's in town. I said, he's in town, he's not
Speaker 1: in planes. They said, no, he's here. I said, okay,
Speaker 1: So I faxed in the question. Dan. Wellin five days,
Speaker 1: I go to the mailbox. I opened my mailbox and
Speaker 1: there's a letter, and there's no stamp on it. And
Speaker 1: what wait a minute, only presidents have franking privileges. Sure
Speaker 1: enough in the back it said Jimmy Carter. I opened
Speaker 1: it up. I opened it up, Dan, I opened it up.
Speaker 1: Carter took my facts and wrote me a note and
Speaker 1: he said, dear Fred, I did what my people told
Speaker 1: me to do. And I thought to myself, what former
Speaker 1: president would say, I messed up that way and get
Speaker 1: back to you so fast. Except Jimmy Carter, you know.
Speaker 1: And and and because it's because he did mess up.
Speaker 1: And this is important because at doctor Mudd's trial, his
Speaker 1: slaves testified that Booth had shown up prior to getting
Speaker 1: his ankle set so he knew him. He knew him,
Speaker 1: and and and mud wound up going to the dry
Speaker 1: Tortugas which is down here off the coast of Florida,
Speaker 1: and he was pardoned because that had a yellow fever
Speaker 1: epidemic and he helped out. But the fact is he
Speaker 1: sure as heck knew what was gonna go on, and
Speaker 1: he's sure as heck knew. John Wilkes Booth.
Speaker 5: Incredible.
Speaker 1: So that yeah, and that that was what was so
Speaker 1: interesting about that book. In terms of the in terms.
Speaker 5: Of the cases, let's go to the Bay You Strangler.
Speaker 5: Ninety seven bodies of young African American men began turning
Speaker 5: up in the cane fields of New Orleans suburbs. You
Speaker 5: had direct access to this investigation and Dominique's confession, and
Speaker 5: you went and explored this community here to be able
Speaker 5: to write this story, The By You Strangler. Tell us
Speaker 5: just a little tidbit about the By You Strangler.
Speaker 1: Okay, this is about a guy named Ronald J. Dominie
Speaker 1: and he is member remember the killed totals, But.
Speaker 5: You're breaking up, Fred, Sorry, can you repeat that again?
Speaker 1: He murdered twenty three men and I was taken the
Speaker 1: investigating officer a woman, Uh, to to all of the
Speaker 1: dump sites where the guy dumped his body. That was something.
Speaker 1: I mean, it wasn't it really? Oh boy, you know
Speaker 1: it's it really, you know, it really talking to you.
Speaker 1: What it really comes to is if you're going to
Speaker 1: write a true crime book in essential being a detective,
Speaker 1: you know. And and I was taken to the dump sites,
Speaker 1: and I'll tell you it was it was very, very
Speaker 1: emotional the fact of that he had picked on gay
Speaker 1: or bi sexual men. And that was what was so
Speaker 1: interesting was that because he did, the case got very
Speaker 1: little national publicity. Nobody wanted to publicize it because it
Speaker 1: you know, at least at that point, they didn't. Maybe
Speaker 1: it would be different today. I don't know, but I mean,
Speaker 1: but so when they finally finally formed their task force
Speaker 1: to get the guy, it really pushed things. You know,
Speaker 1: it got they got things going. But that was also
Speaker 1: very I got upsetting. But I got to tell you something.
Speaker 1: The cop on the case, she took me, she took
Speaker 1: me out for lunch and we went to this lunch
Speaker 1: place and uh, you know we're right, you know, we're
Speaker 1: rural Louisiana right on the Gulf and there were all
Speaker 1: these other cops there and they said I wanted to
Speaker 1: try this. I said, what's that? They said, French fright alligator.
Speaker 1: If there wasn't a few of My response was gonna
Speaker 1: be you know, And of course I knew I was
Speaker 1: being uh, you know, tested. Uh, But they did. They
Speaker 1: This was a case where the cops did a very
Speaker 1: very they did. They did a great job. They really
Speaker 1: did a great job, because if they hadn't gotten this guy,
Speaker 1: he still be out there.
Speaker 5: Yeah, and he was, as you right, he was flying
Speaker 5: under the radar for years. He's working as a pizza
Speaker 5: delivery man and a meter reader.
Speaker 1: Oh.
Speaker 5: He didn't fit anybody's profile, did he didn't.
Speaker 1: No, not at all. And and I only that what
Speaker 1: he didn't do what you would have thought a serial
Speaker 1: killer would do in the bayou, which is dumped the
Speaker 1: bodies in the bayou. He didn't do that. He dumped
Speaker 1: them by the side of the road. He It was certainly,
Speaker 1: certainly an element of ego involved in this. And it yeah,
Speaker 1: certainly an element of ego involved in it.
Speaker 5: Tell us about I know this is close to home
Speaker 5: to you. This is more recent books for you, murdering
Speaker 5: the President. Ooh, James Garfield shot by Charles Guiteau. Tell
Speaker 5: us about the history books, what they did say and
Speaker 5: what you found contra.
Speaker 1: Yeah, what happened was the history books will say that
Speaker 1: President Garfield dived from a wound by this fellow Gutou
Speaker 1: who shot him. And it happens that when I first
Speaker 1: started writing researching, this is when I did my antlas
Speaker 1: of crime. I got a hold of this goes back
Speaker 1: to fifteen years sixteen years. What ever, I got hold
Speaker 1: of a scientific journal in which Alexander Graham Bell writes
Speaker 1: about inventing the world's first metal detector in eighteen eighty
Speaker 1: one to find the bullet in the president's body. And oh,
Speaker 1: that's really interesting, so you know, so I, of course
Speaker 1: I kept going with the research. But what I did
Speaker 1: was I ran the doctor's name through for you know,
Speaker 1: basically for all the computer databases. And why do I
Speaker 1: find out the guy's a convent. The guy claimed to
Speaker 1: have a cure for cancer. He oh, he was a
Speaker 1: coward in battle. Most importantly, he claimed that the bullet
Speaker 1: was on the left side of the President's body. Claimed
Speaker 1: this publicly. And so when doctor Bell and then it's
Speaker 1: the world's first medical metal detector and Alexander Graham Bell
Speaker 1: goes to the White House and and with the doctor
Speaker 1: too to uh uh use the machine on the president.
Speaker 1: And what happens. The doctor won't let Bell use the
Speaker 1: the machine on the side of the body where he
Speaker 1: where he said the bullet isn't because he didn't want
Speaker 1: to look bad. He didn't want him to find a
Speaker 1: bullet and then and then and then and then he
Speaker 1: would look bad. So so the wind up after that is, uh,
Speaker 1: Garfield is dying from the bullet from blood poisoning, and
Speaker 1: the doctor keeps operating without without uh scrubbing his hands,
Speaker 1: even though at that point sepsis was something that was
Speaker 1: coming into vogue. Well, right, Garfield gets the blood poisoning
Speaker 1: and the doctor and then oh and then the other
Speaker 1: thing is you boy, oh boy, this guy decides to
Speaker 1: give the President of the United States a nutritious enema.
Speaker 1: I'm cleaning it up and where he's gonna pump stuff
Speaker 1: up into his rectum that contains uh vitamins, stuff like that.
Speaker 1: You know, soup is waving, Yes, soup, he pumps soup
Speaker 1: into his rectum. It's ridiculous. He thinks he's he thinks
Speaker 1: that the that the that the body will absorb it. Basically,
Speaker 1: he was torturing the president. That's what he was doing.
Speaker 1: And and the other thing is, you know, this was
Speaker 1: a book that I felt the personal attachment to because
Speaker 1: through circumstance I had gotten friendly with with with with
Speaker 1: the president's great great great Grandstont Tank Garfield. Mm hmmm,
Speaker 1: and we we've hit it off. And so I felt
Speaker 1: like a responsibility Dan, because this is my friend's family.
Speaker 1: You know, it's amazing, you know some of the things
Speaker 1: that you wind up working on that you never think
Speaker 1: you'd work on.
Speaker 5: Certainly tell us about the Historical Atlas of American crime,
Speaker 5: the historical.
Speaker 1: What happened was I wanted to write a history book,
Speaker 1: and in fact, I just got the rights back to
Speaker 1: the book. I just have to find somebody to publish it.
Speaker 1: And I decided to take a different look at crime
Speaker 1: in America. I decided to look at crime in America
Speaker 1: from the point of view of how crime spread across
Speaker 1: the continent as the United States did, and what influenced crime,
Speaker 1: such as technology, medicine, communications, And I dealt with all
Speaker 1: of those things in this book in terms of how
Speaker 1: they influenced certain crimes.
Speaker 5: Let's talk about needle work.
Speaker 1: Ooh what needlework? Oh boy? What aside from the fact
Speaker 1: that the plane that I was supposed to take from
Speaker 1: from uh, I was supposed to take this plane. Oh,
Speaker 1: I'll just say it, Okay, A plane I was supposed
Speaker 1: to take from Newark Airport was the Lake because the
Speaker 1: weather dan and I'm walking through the I'm walking through
Speaker 1: the airport and because I'm like, I'm going to get
Speaker 1: on a plane to Michigan. I'm walking through the airport
Speaker 1: and who do I who do I see in front
Speaker 1: of me? Uh?
Speaker 5: Oh?
Speaker 1: God? What's his name? He played Captain Captain Cisco on
Speaker 1: Star Trek the Next Generation. What's his name? Well? Anyway, well, anyway,
Speaker 1: what happens is what happens is I want to walk
Speaker 1: up to the guy and say, she can you be
Speaker 1: us out of here? But I luckily I didn't because
Speaker 1: he had a really scowl on his face. So anyway,
Speaker 1: Uh I went. I wound up the next day going
Speaker 1: to mission again, and actually I think, yeah, that was
Speaker 1: I think that was the first time I went to Michigan.
Speaker 1: And that was an interesting one because it's about a
Speaker 1: it's about this couple and it's actually it's actually about
Speaker 1: a what do you call it a triangle, It's a
Speaker 1: romantic triangle. This woman is married to a drug dealer.
Speaker 1: He sets up shot down the block from the police
Speaker 1: officer police department, and because he figures nobody will know
Speaker 1: it's him, and his wife gets involved with a guy,
Speaker 1: and eventually what happens is they working together give the
Speaker 1: husband a hot shot of heroine which kills him instead
Speaker 1: of he was a diabetic, instead of giving him the insulin.
Speaker 1: And then there's a woman who's a friend of hers
Speaker 1: and she learns about some of this stuff and they
Speaker 1: wind up killing her, and then they and then they've
Speaker 1: got to then transport her body to another part of
Speaker 1: uh of Michigan and burn it and you know, stuff
Speaker 1: like that. So that was a very that was in
Speaker 1: some ways that was almost a straightforward case in the
Speaker 1: sense that the police were very helpful, both the two
Speaker 1: police departments, but the the the In fact, I think
Speaker 1: I recently, yeah, I recently got contacted. I tried following
Speaker 1: through one more time on Facebook. One the woman that
Speaker 1: went to jail had two kids and one of those
Speaker 1: kids is now an adult. In contacted me through Faithful
Speaker 1: and I was trying to follow up that nothing's happened yet.
Speaker 5: Wow. Yeah, that's amazing, amazing the contact you do get
Speaker 5: after these books, and even if it is years later,
Speaker 5: these books still get people's attention in order for people
Speaker 5: like this to come forward.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 5: Let's talk about body Dump October nineteen ninety six. You say,
Speaker 5: women began vanishing off the streets of Poughkeepsie, New York,
Speaker 5: all young, pretty and petite, but most were hustlers and crackheads.
Speaker 5: You say, unfortunately. Yeah, the death toll was eight victims.
Speaker 5: What do you remember about body Dump?
Speaker 1: What I remember about body Dump is the fact that
Speaker 1: this case took place near where I was living. I
Speaker 1: was living in Woodstock, New York. This was across the
Speaker 1: river intough Gypsie, and so I was acting actually able
Speaker 1: to go. It was It was a very easy. It
Speaker 1: was very easy in terms of investigating. I didn't have
Speaker 1: to get in the plane, but uh, I went. I
Speaker 1: became friendly with one of the detectives. Again, this is
Speaker 1: a serial killer, Kendall Francois, and he would kill these
Speaker 1: women and bury him in his house. Not very uh
Speaker 1: store them, excuse me, store them?
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 1: And I was in the courtroom when he was sentenced,
Speaker 1: and New York does not have the death penalty, so uh,
Speaker 1: you know, they did for five minutes, but then they
Speaker 1: got rid of it. Well, I listened to the victims
Speaker 1: families delivered victim impact statements. It was very very emotional,
Speaker 1: very very very emotional. I remember that vividly. And then
Speaker 1: I remember looking at Francois. I wasn't I certainly was
Speaker 1: not as close to him as I was the Hilton,
Speaker 1: but the vibes were completely different. I mean, Francois gave
Speaker 1: off bad vibes. You know, Gary didn't do that. This
Speaker 1: guy gave up bad vibes and it you know. And
Speaker 1: I went down the streets where he picked the women up.
Speaker 1: I think I talked to at least one of the prostitutes.
Speaker 1: It was, it was, it was, It was pretty. It
Speaker 1: was pretty upsetting.
Speaker 5: Absolutely.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 5: It reminds me of the case in Cleveland, where that
Speaker 5: person again being it's incredible to think that people could
Speaker 5: keep rotting bodies, not like Gacy in a basement where
Speaker 5: some of the smell would be contained, but rotting bodies
Speaker 5: in the home pilot house.
Speaker 1: Well, and in the case of Kendo Francois, he lived
Speaker 1: with his sister and his parents, and none of them
Speaker 1: they all claimed they didn't smell anything because the place
Speaker 1: was very dirty. You know, I'm not going to get started,
Speaker 1: but it was just, you know, and I remember looking
Speaker 1: at the house, photographing the house. I think at one
Speaker 1: point it was I don't think I'm trying to remember
Speaker 1: if I got one. Now I don't think I did.
Speaker 1: They sold it eventually. In New York they have a
Speaker 1: law that you got to tell people, you know, for place,
Speaker 1: for murder took place, you got to tell them. But anyway, uh, yeah,
Speaker 1: and it was just a very what do you call it,
Speaker 1: very average ordinary, uh, neighborhood. You wouldn't have thought of
Speaker 1: anything out of the blue, you know, out of the ordinary.
Speaker 5: Rather, Yeah, you took a little bit, a little bit
Speaker 5: of a detour and true crime for people. Most people
Speaker 5: would stick to the same serial killers and those types
Speaker 5: of killers. But you wrote a book. I guess it was.
Speaker 5: This was co author too, Born to the Mob. Tell
Speaker 5: us a little bit about Born to the Mob? About
Speaker 5: uh co author this book?
Speaker 1: Oh boy? That that the only reason that book happened
Speaker 1: was because I had an agent at the time that
Speaker 1: put me in touch with a guy who had contacted
Speaker 1: her wanted to write write a book named Frankie's Satio.
Speaker 1: He would he had been a member of the Bananas
Speaker 1: and he he he was actually a member of all
Speaker 1: the crime families because he was an earner. And so
Speaker 1: I got together with him. Oh boy, that was that
Speaker 1: was a very tough book because I made the mistake
Speaker 1: mistake of trusting him, and that was a big mistake.
Speaker 1: Once in the mob, always in the mob. You know,
Speaker 1: that's what their their their values are, and so you know,
Speaker 1: I wrote the book with him. But uh, I gotta
Speaker 1: tell you I would never ever, well, I shouldn't say never.
Speaker 1: Sean Connery did that once. It didn't quite work out.
Speaker 1: But uh, I wouldn't go looking for another. It doesn't
Speaker 1: interest me one way or the other. I'm not interested.
Speaker 1: I know too much about it, you know, I think
Speaker 1: I think that's part of it. I think when you're writing,
Speaker 1: you want to learn something, you know. I don't need
Speaker 1: to I need to know the intricacies of the mob families.
Speaker 1: I know all about that. I'm more interested in the
Speaker 1: other stuff. You know, what if people do what they do,
Speaker 1: who are they that sort of thing.
Speaker 5: Yeah, let's talk about something that you was close to
Speaker 5: your heart. You had thought about it and conceived of
Speaker 5: it long ago, and this was a subject that you
Speaker 5: wanted to write about, and you finally did in twenty nineteen.
Speaker 5: Matt Masterson tell us a little bit about Matt Masterson.
Speaker 5: Why this story, this book is so important to you.
Speaker 1: Thank you, Dan oh Well, this book is so important
Speaker 1: to me because I wanted to write a book about
Speaker 1: this guy for forty years, and it's taken me a
Speaker 1: long time to put it together. Why it's percolated for
Speaker 1: so long? And I realized what it is, which is
Speaker 1: this I started out watching the TV series Abottom called
Speaker 1: bat Masters and starring Jane Barrett. But then I did
Speaker 1: my research and I found out he came to New
Speaker 1: York at the turn of the century. I found this
Speaker 1: out in the seventies. He came to New York in
Speaker 1: the nineteen hundreds and became a reporter for a local paper. Well,
Speaker 1: but then I found something else out. I found two
Speaker 1: things out. First was Masterson was involved in the most
Speaker 1: sensational murder case in New York State history, which became
Speaker 1: the basis for the Trial of the Century, involving a
Speaker 1: guy who allegedly what he called drowns his his fiancee
Speaker 1: because he doesn't want to marry her. Well, that became
Speaker 1: the basis for Dreiser's novel And American Tragedy, and later
Speaker 1: the film A Place on the Stunt. Sorry Montgomery Cliff,
Speaker 1: Elizabeth Taylor, and Shelley Winters, but in every single, every
Speaker 1: single iteration, what they got wrong was that bat Masterson
Speaker 1: covered the case and salted for this newspaper, and then
Speaker 1: he knew what happened, okay, And he actually was very
Speaker 1: upset when Chess that you let the elegen murder was
Speaker 1: convicted and he felt and he wrote an article about
Speaker 1: it with a headline news style lechlaw in upstate New York.
Speaker 1: And when I found that out, and and just and
Speaker 1: then really just in the last couple of years, I
Speaker 1: became the only one to find out that Masterson was
Speaker 1: an illegal alien. It had been reported for a long
Speaker 1: time he was born in Much in Quebec Province, but
Speaker 1: nobody ever reported he was illegal. And originally when it
Speaker 1: came to America, the borders were open, but then they
Speaker 1: changed it. That's one of the things I learned, and
Speaker 1: so I said, I have to write this book now
Speaker 1: because of what my country is going through. And what
Speaker 1: was really educational was with all of the criticism being
Speaker 1: leveled at the current American president regarding his way of
Speaker 1: treating immigrants, it turns out there's nothing new under the song.
Speaker 1: This has been going on since Miller Fillmore was president,
Speaker 1: going back into the middle eighteen hundreds. There's always been problems.
Speaker 1: But I felt like I had a responsibility as an
Speaker 1: American to tell Masterson's story now because he's considered to
Speaker 1: be an American legend. Yeah, and well, also, I'm friends
Speaker 1: with you, so I wanted to tell you eight this
Speaker 1: guy's a great Canadian.
Speaker 5: Now, so what I wrote, go ahead, sorry.
Speaker 1: No, no, So that that's it. So I wanted to
Speaker 1: write it, and I finally was able to get it
Speaker 1: to do it. And there's seven murders in the in
Speaker 1: the book, seven different mercis, which is pretty cool.
Speaker 5: Absolutely. Now, what I mentioned in the introduction was that
Speaker 5: we were going to discuss how you got started, and
Speaker 5: we did talk about that, but what cases in particular,
Speaker 5: and cases and killers included with those cases most shaped
Speaker 5: your remarkable true crime body of work, which talk about
Speaker 5: just briefly about some of the cases that really were
Speaker 5: pivotal in your writing career, either changing or reinforcing or
Speaker 5: moving your career ahead.
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Speaker 1: Well, that's the hell of a question. Well, certainly, certainly
Speaker 1: the first one is going to be would be Lobster Boy.
Speaker 1: Lobster Boy, Oh, and Flesh Collectors. When I wrote Flesh Collectors,
Speaker 1: I didn't mention this. I had I totally the the
Speaker 1: the DA on the case. I said, I don't know
Speaker 1: if I can write another true crime book because of
Speaker 1: the way that they killed this young girl. And I
Speaker 1: had had that. You know, at that point my daughter
Speaker 1: was she was young, but not that young. But the
Speaker 1: point is I had some id identification, you know what
Speaker 1: I mean, And so so I I said, I don't
Speaker 1: think I can write another two combooks, and and and
Speaker 1: and the the The prosecutor says to me, Fred, I hope,
Speaker 1: I hope you changed your mind. I said why, And
Speaker 1: that's when he said to me, Fred, we speak for
Speaker 1: the dead. That changed. That changed me, That that that
Speaker 1: really changed me. You gave me an impetus. I mean
Speaker 1: right now, for instance, you know, right now, I mean
Speaker 1: investigating Natalie Woods's death. But the reason I'm doing it
Speaker 1: is because I don't know anybody else is fail here.
Speaker 1: She deserves justice as much as anybody else. So that
Speaker 1: that's that certainly had a lot uh to do with it.
Speaker 1: I will also say that when I wrote the Atlas
Speaker 1: of Crime, the it got me into writing about history.
Speaker 1: And I think, yeah, I didn't realize at that point
Speaker 1: because everything I had done, was I've written to that point,
Speaker 1: was current cases, and I for some reason I hadn't
Speaker 1: thought about historical true crime. And that turned me around,
Speaker 1: you know, and got me looking at historical true crime.
Speaker 1: But you know, I mean, you know, and it's so interesting,
Speaker 1: you know, and and and and bought. You know what
Speaker 1: bothers me. What bothers me is like when it always
Speaker 1: bothers me when somebody is convicted of a murder and
Speaker 1: they didn't do it. And that's that's where, you know,
Speaker 1: did they really do it? The idea came about for that.
Speaker 1: But you know, I will, I will. I didn't even
Speaker 1: look until a couple of years ago. I didn't know.
Speaker 1: There's a song called hang down your Head Tom Dooley, right,
Speaker 1: folks swung by the Kingston Trito. Well, I had no
Speaker 1: idea Tom Dooley was a real guy. Yeah, And well
Speaker 1: that's the way they pronounced it, but it spelled it differently.
Speaker 1: But that's not the point. The point is, yeah, I
Speaker 1: look at it and and I you know, when I
Speaker 1: start reading about these cases, I go, gee, nobody ever
Speaker 1: said this, you know. And it goes back to what
Speaker 1: we were talking about before, which is, after a while,
Speaker 1: you know, oh, you know, it's like when the legend
Speaker 1: it's like they say, and the men who shot Liberty
Speaker 1: balance when the legend becomes back, drank the legend.
Speaker 5: Yeah. Yeah, we talked about you mentioned an early influence
Speaker 5: in your writing, and I'm curious as well, I'm sure
Speaker 5: the audience is curious how much of a role or
Speaker 5: what was the role of this Lawrence, this editor that
Speaker 5: you talked about in other editors, editors at Pinnacle and
Speaker 5: HarperCollins in sort of being able to capture your true
Speaker 5: voice and also just I guess urge you to or
Speaker 5: the end product to be very very concise, a very
Speaker 5: very enjoyable. I can say easy read, but a read
Speaker 5: where you're wanting more at the end. Tell us about
Speaker 5: the shape this some of the shaping the of the
Speaker 5: style of the books.
Speaker 1: Well, actually, actually that goes way back. It goes back
Speaker 1: before I became a true crime author. That goes back
Speaker 1: to film school. I learned how to write in film school.
Speaker 1: That was the first place where I found out in
Speaker 1: my early twenties that I was a writer. Up to
Speaker 1: that point, I thought everybody could write, right, I didn't know.
Speaker 1: I'd had no teacher. She encouraged me. But when I
Speaker 1: got to graduate school and I was at USC, I
Speaker 1: was taught to write film, and so I took even
Speaker 1: though film, of course is different than than than than
Speaker 1: a print, I the same techniques of move the move
Speaker 1: the story along. I'm a story's gotta move, you know.
Speaker 1: When I learned that also, I'll tell you I learned
Speaker 1: a lot of that, you know, the in terms of
Speaker 1: uh how to write, uh from people that I read.
Speaker 1: I'll tell you who I learned the most from, probably
Speaker 1: Sir Roth Connan Doyle. Ah, Sir Routhur Connan Doyle and uh,
Speaker 1: you know, an incredible writer. And then then later on
Speaker 1: Raymond Chandler. I read all of these mystery novelists, and
Speaker 1: you know, and I thought I was gonna I thought
Speaker 1: I was gonna do fiction. But then I got the
Speaker 1: opportunity to do nonfiction and in true crime, and I
Speaker 1: took to it, you know, I you know whatever, and
Speaker 1: it did. Really it's been good. You know. Of course
Speaker 1: things have changed, you know, like Paul Dennis, who I
Speaker 1: mentioned earlier, was a terrific editor. But that's it. As
Speaker 1: far as any other editors, no, there's nobody. I will
Speaker 1: tell you one thing, uh quick, quick story. I have
Speaker 1: become friends with a writer named Alison Adams. Why well,
Speaker 1: at a certain point I her fault. Well, at a
Speaker 1: certain point I started investigating her father's suspicious debt. Who's
Speaker 1: the father? Nick Adams? Nick Adams was one of my
Speaker 1: childhood Heroes. He played Johnny Yuma, the Rebel on ABC TV,
Speaker 1: and he died from an apparent drug overdose. And I
Speaker 1: started watching the old his old show, the Old Shows,
Speaker 1: and it turned out that in the show, the character
Speaker 1: of Johnny Humer is a writer. And I started thinking
Speaker 1: to myself, she could not have influenced me, you know,
Speaker 1: and I felt again, and I felt an obligation to
Speaker 1: help out Alison, which I did, and and in fact,
Speaker 1: she wants to do I think you may have thought
Speaker 1: the word at some point, she wants to do a podcast.
Speaker 1: And but so he Nick was certainly an early influence.
Speaker 1: And we mean early in terms of writing, but but
Speaker 1: really in terms of structure and stuff like that. I
Speaker 1: learned a lot at school, you know, I learned a
Speaker 1: lot at school. And but when it comes time to
Speaker 1: you know, it's from Conan Doyle that you find out,
Speaker 1: you know, you got to talk to people when you're
Speaker 1: doing this work. You know, you got to talk to
Speaker 1: people and put it together and use logic, you know,
Speaker 1: and and so forth.
Speaker 5: Yeah, what is down the pipe for you? What what
Speaker 5: are you working on now? Or what do you hope
Speaker 5: to work on? What is the subject matter that you
Speaker 5: may want to work on what is next for Fred Rosen?
Speaker 1: Oh boy, you ever get tired of me asking me
Speaker 1: difficult questions? Uh, it's a good question, all right. I
Speaker 1: want to do. There's a murder case that somebody told
Speaker 1: me about out in Louisiana. The problem is that they
Speaker 1: got one guy, but there's probably the other guys that
Speaker 1: did it, and there's a really good there's a possibility
Speaker 1: that some of the officials in the parish are involved.
Speaker 1: So that, you know, I try, Dan, I try to
Speaker 1: stay out of dangerous situations, you know what I mean
Speaker 1: when somebody wants you know, you know, if somebody wants
Speaker 1: to hide something. Now, Uh, that's one thing. I'm definitely
Speaker 1: just as we're talking, you know, I'm gonna keep going
Speaker 1: with Natalie would and see what I can find out.
Speaker 1: I don't have any any any you know, I don't
Speaker 1: have any place. I'm going with it because it's that's
Speaker 1: that's incredible. How the heck do you prove that a
Speaker 1: woman would shoved into the water by her husband when
Speaker 1: she's got when when they when the autopsy show she's
Speaker 1: got looses all over her body? How you do it?
Speaker 1: You can't, you know, you can't. So but I'm gonna
Speaker 1: keep I just saw I'm going to keep investigating. And
Speaker 1: the other thing I'm going to do is I I
Speaker 1: want to do a I've been thinking about this. I
Speaker 1: keep going. You know, it's I think it's I keep
Speaker 1: going back to my childhood. But there must be a reason.
Speaker 1: And when I was a kid, there was a mini
Speaker 1: series that Disney did. Disney pioneered mini series, by the way,
Speaker 1: you know, Davey Krockett was a mini series, sure, but
Speaker 1: he did a miniseries in the ooh late fifties early
Speaker 1: sixties called The Nine Lives of El Fago Baca. Alfagobaca
Speaker 1: was a Mexican American lawman, a legend, and I just
Speaker 1: think that would be a very very good true crime
Speaker 1: book because I wanted things I discovered with that are
Speaker 1: one of the cases Baca worked on in the eighteen nineties.
Speaker 1: He used forensics to solve the case. Yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: but also, you know, these days, you know, I don't
Speaker 1: I don't want to get political, but I think it's
Speaker 1: I think it's relevant that in this Mexican American woman,
Speaker 1: oh boy, they discriminated, they discriminated against him, They tried
Speaker 1: to tried to kill him, you know, yeah, it so
Speaker 1: I would like to do something on him.
Speaker 5: Sure America might be ready for it. Yeah, yeah, Fred,
Speaker 5: I want to I want to thank you so much
Speaker 5: for coming on and talking about all of the books
Speaker 5: that you've written. And we've missed a couple that you've
Speaker 5: co authored, and you have some crime files, and we
Speaker 5: could we could go on some more about other things
Speaker 5: that you've written, but these are the major eighteen works
Speaker 5: your body of work, These eighteen books that I urge
Speaker 5: people to go to. These serial killers. As we know
Speaker 5: now it's the age of spree killers and one off
Speaker 5: killers and those kinds of killers. So these books in
Speaker 5: a sense in essence become true crime classics because of
Speaker 5: the killers, because of the investigations, because of the forensic
Speaker 5: limitations at those times enabling these serial killers to go
Speaker 5: on and on and on. I want to thank you
Speaker 5: very much, Fred for coming on talking about Dan.
Speaker 1: I want to thank you so much for this retrospective.
Speaker 1: I don't have words, thank you, sir, Thank.
Speaker 5: You so much. Is there people refer to Amazon page?
Speaker 5: But do you have a website in case people might
Speaker 5: want to contact you? Tell us how people might contact
Speaker 5: you or look at other work fred Rose.
Speaker 1: And.
Speaker 5: There we go.
Speaker 1: That's it. Just either go to Amazon or of course
Speaker 1: Facebook or fred rosendot net.
Speaker 5: We're all over the place. Yes, thank you so much, Fred.
Speaker 1: All right, thank you Dan, Thank you so much.
Speaker 5: Fred. Here suck to you again to say goodnight.
Speaker 1: Okay, idio.
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