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, Bill Thomas.
Welcome to Mind Ever Murder.
Speaker 2: I'm Kristin Dilly and I'm Bill Thomas.
Speaker 3: We're joined today by one of our very favorite guests,
Casey Sherman, here to talk to us about his new
book Blood in the Water, The Untold story of a
family tragedy. Casey, welcome back to the podcast for your
fourth time.
Speaker 4: It's so good to be back with you guys. You're
my favorite show and I feel like family, so I
feel like this is a natural conversation that we always
have about pretty tough subjects.
Speaker 2: I was just smiling, Kristen, because as you were introducing
Casey's new book, you read it in such an upbeat way,
and I thought, man, she makes blood in the water
the untold story of a family tragedy sound like fun.
Speaker 4: Is.
Speaker 3: It's the reason that I love reading your books, Casey,
and the reason that I think a lot of our
listeners love it too, is because you have such a wonderful, natural,
easy way of telling a story and making it accessible
for everybody. You don't have to ever struggle through your
books like sometimes people do with true crime. You do
a wonderful job of presenting it. And so that's why
I do tend to think of your books so this
is fun true crime. I enjoy it.
Speaker 4: I appreciate that, Kristin. And it's all about storytelling. It's
about capturing that reader and taking them on a journey
that's very similar to the discovery phase that that I
took when I reached arched this incredibly complex case and
then laid it out for the reader, where I don't
necessarily judge the accused killer in this case, I lay
out the facts and I allow the reader to make
up their own mond on what really happened, not only
in twenty thirteen where the first murder occurred, a twenty
sixteen where the national sensational crime at sea was alleged
to have happened.
Speaker 3: And that's a great place to start. So go ahead
and outline for anybody who has not heard of Nathan
Carmon before, and the tragedies both in twenty thirteen and
twenty sixteen late. Lay that out for us. Give us
the backbone of this case.
Speaker 4: Sure, I would say, on a thirty thousand foot level,
this story is really the talented mister Ripley meets the
murder murders because it's a story about wealth, a very
complicated family, and a double murder. And I was first
drawn to the case in twenty sixteen, like many people
who are a nation wide and around the world, when
Nathan Carmen, who was a young man at the time,
took his mother Linda out on a deep sea fishing
trip off the coast of Rhode Island. His fishing boat
goes down and he is allegedly a castaway in a
life raft for seven long days in the middle of
the North Atlantic before being rescued by a passing Chinese
cargo ship. And when the story first broke it almost
a lot of people compared it to Tom Hanks in
the Castaway, meaning this miraculous rescue at sea, but it
was also bittersweet because the young man's mother could not
be found. And then just a few short days later,
Coastguard investigators start peeling Nathan Carmen's story back a little bit,
and they ultimately don't believe that his mother just went
down with his fishing boat one hundred and fifteen nautical
miles off of Martha's vineyard. They believed that he had
killed it at sea. And then lo and behold, they
also become aware that Nathan is also the prime suspect
in his grandfather's rifle murder in twenty thirteen, all allegedly
to get his hands on a fifty million dollar family fortune.
Speaker 2: You drop some breadcrumbs in the early going of Blood
in the Water casey, where you talked about Carmen's physical
condition that was noted when he was picked up by
the Chinese cargo ship. What is it about his condition
that makes people like the ship's doctor and captain suspicious?
What would his condition should have been like after seven
days in a life raft.
Speaker 4: I would say, after twenty four hours in a life raft,
he would have been incredibly weak. He would have been hypothermic,
he would have been dehydrated. He showed none of those
signs after allegedly being in a life raft for seven days.
And it really startled the ship's doctor on board or
the Orient Lucky, which is the cargo ship that rescued
him at sea. Not only was he physically fit, but
he actually had to swim from the life raft to
a life ring of very choppy waters in order to
swim toward his salvation. Now, someone who'd been in a
life raft for that long would have had no physical
capabilities to do such a thing.
Speaker 3: It is funny. One of the three lines that I've
noticed with your books is a connection to all things nautical.
But of course, when I picked up Blood in the
Water to read through it, I giggled a little bit
at the fact that we're starting off at Casey Sherman
book and here we are, we're on the water. Now.
Speaker 4: I grew up on nautical way, on Cape CODs. I've
always been very tied to the sea. In one of
the inspirations for this book. I've been connected with the
US Coast Guard for several years. I wrote a book
called The Finest Hours, which became a big Disney movie
in twenty sixteen. That story is about the greatest boat
rescue in American history. That is a very positive and
inspiring story. So when the Coast Guard launches a extended
day search and rescue mission for two people missing in
the North Atlantic and they cover fifty eight thousand square
miles and cannot find one trace of a boat going
down or people that might have been on life rafts,
I leaned in on that a little bit and started
to dig through the story and see what I could find.
Speaker 3: The winter first hit the airwaves did was that when
your antenna went up? Or did this not come to
your attention until very recently when you started writing the book.
Speaker 4: My antenna went right up, obviously when it happened, But
I was engaged with other book projects at the time,
and I just put it in the back of my mind.
I look at my books as airplanes on a runway,
and I probably had about four planes on the runway
when this all broke, and I had to get through
those four book projects hoping that the Nathan Carmen case
would still be viable for me that another writer wouldn't
come in and try to attempt and do what I did.
Speaker 2: So that idea of airplanes stacked up. You're a prolific writer.
You've done seventeen am I right.
Speaker 4: I'm actually working on my twentieth right now.
Speaker 2: You've done twenty books so far. So they do sequence
out where much. If you're at the airport and watching
planes land and take off, you're seeing a line of
projects out towards the horizon.
Speaker 4: Yeah. It makes my literary agent and my publisher very
happy because I've always got something next. I've got two
kids in college. Dad's got to be as prolific as
I can. And I try to write and release a
book a year because I like to be engaged in
the writing process. Guys, I tell writers, real writers write,
and writers need to write every day. When I'm my
most surly is when I don't have a project. Just
ask my lovely wife, who I dedicated this book to.
She's been amazing, and I certainly my shoulder to lean
on in many instances when I'm researching stories like this.
Speaker 2: I should dish that scandal for a second. I noticed
Casey's dedication to his wife. He put this loving dedication
to Kristen spelled the same way as Mss Dilly, and
I thought to myself, is there more going on here
than I need to know about it? So your wife
is Kristin also with an eye?
Speaker 4: That's right. Yes, my wife is Kristen with an eye,
and it's a little unusual here in the New England area.
So anytime I meet a Kristen who spells it the
right way, my wife always says, it's always a great
conversation to have.
Speaker 3: Has she ever told you why she was named Kristin?
Because my parents had a very specific reason for naming
me what they did, I'm curious if our reasons are
the same.
Speaker 4: I'm not sure. I'd have to ask your permission to
share any of those stories, but maybe for another podcast.
Speaker 3: My parents decided to name me Kristen because Kristen was
the woman who shot you Are You in? On Dallas?
Speaker 4: Was obsessive.
Speaker 3: My mom was obsessed with that show when she was
great with me. So that's where my name loved rhyme. Yeah,
with a legacy like that, how could I.
Speaker 2: Not speaking of important historical figures. Really, it's funny.
Speaker 3: I've never watched Dallas in my life, but.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean Dallas honestly. To segue back to this book,
very similar you had a very wealthy family in Texas.
You've got a very wealthy family here in New England
with a patriarch of the family that had amassed and
built a company worth forty seven million dollars by the
time he was murdered. And part of the story goes into,
as I said, some really dynamic and very complex relationships
within the family and people that were interested or motivated
possibly to gain access to the family fortune.
Speaker 3: You're an extraordinarily thorough in very detailed researcher. Does your
research process vary from book to book or does it
start in relatively the same place and end in the
same place.
Speaker 4: Most times, research is really what I love to do.
I call myself an archaeologist of words for a reason.
That's because I love to dig into a story, whether
that story happened thirty six hours ago or thirty six
years ago, and finding something that maybe somebody overlooked or
maybe somebody missed. And for this book, particularly Blood in
the Water, I really had to gumshoo this case and
really stretched my investigative journalist skills as widely as I could,
interviewing up to forty witnesses in this case, all had
different perspectives on Nathan Carmen, because when the finger of
suspicion pointed to Nathan, especially in the media, it was
basically a flat line between the allegations against Nathan and
his guilt not only in the disappearance and alleged murder
of his mother, but the murder of his grandfather. The
story's much more complex than that, and I learned that
there were several other people motivated by wealth and ingreed
who may have had that motivation to kill the grandfather,
John Chocolus, and possibly had something to do maybe with
the disappearance of Linda Carmen. Or I always call Nathan
Carmen guys. He's either he's both a villain and victim
of his own story. Here was somebody that was on
the autism spectrum. There was a word for it, they
used to call it aspergers. And Nathan was highly functioning,
but he had all the ticks and all the difficulty
connecting with human beings that people on the autism spectrum had.
So I think that there's a lot of that in
the book that breaks down some of the stereotypes about
a person of Nathan's background. And I think that Nathan
did say early on in the investigation that he may
have been targeted at least in his grandfather's murder because
of his disorder, because he called himself low hanging fruit,
meaning was an easy mark for skilled interrogators and investigators.
Speaker 2: When you talk about your research project, Casey, just before
you started, you're in your home office on the cape
you gestured across the room. Now we're not in the
room with you, but I imagine a big flat table
or desk spread out with files or how's it work?
Speaker 4: That's exactly it. I'm actually my computer is set on
my desk right now, and it's the I would say,
the messiest desk you'd ever want to see. There are
research and investigative materials piled and stacks books regarding my
upcoming book that I use for research, newspaper articles, interviews.
It's ugly, and my wife just comes in and shakes
her head once she looks at it, and then leaves
because she knows that even though it's messy, I know
where everything is and I will get to cleaning it
once I write the end, at the finality of the book,
and behind me, you've got a massive bookcase filled with periodicals,
filled with books because writers, I believe that writers should
read as well. Not only just writing, but reading is
really the masterclass. People ask me, I want to be
a best selling author, said, that's not your motivation. What
you want to be is a really good storyteller and
a solid writer, and start that by reading books, not
necessarily in your genre. I don't have a lot of
true crime books. Instead, I have a lot of different
books from different genres. But the way that these authors
tell their stories is fascinating to me. I can learn
a lot, and I learn every day on how authors
pace the story, whether it's a fictional novel that takes
place on Mars or whether it's a biography of Ernest Hemingway.
Real good writers can capture the reader's attention in those
first few pages, and quite frankly, in these days, guys,
they have to because there are so many other media
outlets that are competing for your attention, and years ago
a few books would be public year, so readers would
have to invest in a book. I've learned that I've
got to capture that reader's attention literally in the first page.
And I always try to start my books in a
sensational way that is very in line with what actually
happened in the story.
Speaker 3: You would mention that this case had received a large
amount of media attention, and of course your research desk
will attest to that. I'm sure when you are researching
something that has received a lot of press coverage, how
do you decide what you're going to use for inclusion
in your manuscripts and what ultimately is going to stay
on the cutting room floor? And are there media sources
that are like your go tos for solid coverage?
Speaker 4: No? Not, It depends on the story. Okay, so a
lot a story like this. It's entering the interesting that
the hyper local community newspapers were really there was some
real solid reporting in what they were doing, because some
of the larger newspapers, at least early on in the story,
weren't paying much attention to it. Going back, not only
reading these articles, the articles are the springboard to actually
do digging and doing the real research. So the real
research comes in trying to gather up as many This
story takes place on the ocean. Half of it does anyways.
Getting access to as many Coast Guard reports as I can,
so I want to be in the room when the
Coastguard is searching for a mother and a son for
several days and deploying massive amounts of resources in an
attempt to find them. With this story was really, like
I said, gum shoeing the story, interviewing so many people,
and that was really what I think lent the credibility
to this book, And I think why it's going to
be successful is because I thought everybody would have the
same response or perspective when it came to Nathan Carmon
where his grandfather John chocolates or Lynda Carmen. But I
found were conflicting perspectives from a lot of different people.
And that's very true to anyone walking around today. Somebody
can be your best friend, I can find somebody that
probably hates you, and their perspectives have a ring of
truth to it. So by talking to and interviewing as
many folks as I could, I thought I was able
to really write a balanced story about what may have
happened in this case.
Speaker 2: The finger of suspicion that you mentioned, Casey, as you
outline the story in blood and the water. At what
point do you feel like the questions start and the
maybe not accusations, but suspicions begin early on.
Speaker 4: The suspicions around Nathan primarily in his grandfather's death. His grandfather,
John chock was killed with three rifle blasts in his
bedroom in twenty thirteen. Nathan Carmen was the last person
to see his grandfather alive. Now, his grandfather, John Chockolis,
was this alleged benevolent businessman, someone that poured millions of
dollars into the community, but he also had a dark side.
He was eighty seven years old. He had a twenty
five year old mistress that he was showering with money
and illicit sex toye to perform to his own amusement.
So here was a dark guy who had a lot
of people in his personal life, in his business background
that may have had motivation to kill him, including a
bookkeeper who embezzled four hundred thousand dollars from the family
business that John Chocolus certainly did not know about at
the time. But I think that the police understood that. Okay,
Nathan is the last person to see him that night.
I always looked at Okay, what was Nathan's motivation to
murder his eighty seven year old grandfather in a Greek
American family, John Chocolus doated on his firstborn grandson, who
was Nathan Carmen, and really saw past his autism spectrum
disorder and was grooming Nathan to take over the family
business when John passed. So John had showered Nathan with
everything he ever wanted financially, the love, care and support
that Nathan needed. So really Nathan may have been the
last person who was motivated to murder the grandfather. Investigator
zeroed in on Nathan because Nathan had purchased a rifle
shortly before his grandfather's murder. It was a sig sour
rifle that shot a similar bullet that had been used
to murder John Chocolates, and that rifle has still not
been recovered. Nathan was a little skittish in terms of
what he told authorities had happened to that rifle, So
the suspicion was warranted, I would say, in some respects.
But when you're investigating a case like this, you don't
just focus on one suspect. You have to really cast
a wide net because that likely suspect that you have
in your crosshairs might be completely innocent, and that person
that is a person of interest, maybe you've talked to
them once, maybe you haven't, might be the actual killer.
Speaker 3: One of the things that you put into context with
regard to suspicion with Nathan was something that I wouldn't
not have thought to link these two cases together. But
you do mention the fact that there were a lot
of discussions after the Sandy Hook shooting about the link
whether there was a link or not between autism spectrum
disorder and violence. Because the Sandy Hook shooter, who were
not going to name because he doesn't deserve it, murdered
his mother, he also was on the autism spectrum. Talk
to us a little bit about sort of those discussions
that came up and how they might have affected Nathan.
Speaker 4: Now, if you were call the murder of John Chocolas
happened in the state of Connecticut, in the town of Windsor,
which is a short drive from Newtown, Connecticut. So you
had so called talking heads and experts around the country
weighing in on the Nathan Carmen case and infusing all
of the information with regard to what happened in Newtown
and pretty much not separating Nathan and the shooter who
will not be named, but really conjoining them, if you will.
If one person has autism spectrum, they're violent, so the
other person must be I have that same volatility. And
Nathan had really nothing in common with the shooter in
Newtown at all. But I think that the public certainly
perceived that there was a potential link to at least
the behavior that was alleged in both crimes.
Speaker 3: I want to take that one step further, because Nathan
actually ended up acting is his own attorney in court.
Do you feel the autism spectrum diagnosis helped him or
hindered him when it came to him representing himself?
Speaker 4: Oh a little both, actually, certainly, Nathan. What frustrated me
in this case is that when the FBI got its
hands on it, they really put a target on Nathan
Carmen's back. And when I interviewed the special agent in
charge of Nathan's investigation, I asked her, I said, did
you ever consult an outside consultant and expert on autism spectrum?
And she looked at me and she said, no, we
never did. We profiled Nathan with our own profilers. We
were going to get to that. I said you were
going to get to that. You investigated this young man
for four years, and now he's dead. It's a little
too late to get to that now. And I think
that Nathan's disorder certainly made him a prime suspect and
the murder of his grandfather and the alleged murder of
his mother. But then you get to look at Nathan,
and you get to look at separate the grandfather's murder
a little bit. And because there are a lot of
conflicting reports that put Nathan several miles away at the
alleged time that John Chockolas was murdered in his bed.
Now you look at what happened to his mother on
the high seas. Now, Nathan, because of his disorder, likes
to take things apart and put things back together. After
his grandfather's death, he earned some of his inheritance. He
spent about seventy thousand dollars on buying a historic farm
home in Vermont, and the place was beauty, but what
he wanted to do was tear it all apart and
then flip it and to sell it for double it's worth.
And he just could never complete the project. He could
tear things apart, but he could never put them back
together again.
Speaker 2: You're listening to Mind over Murder. We'll be right back
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mindover Murder.
Speaker 4: Kristen, to your point, he is representing himself in court
in New Hampshire. He thinks he can do it. He
thinks that he is as good as any legal counsel
or successful defense attorney. The judge in that particular case
is telling him, no, Nathan, you need counsel. But Nathan
would study up and think he was an expert on it,
which gets us to the murder at sea. The disappearance
and alleged drawer drowning of Linda Carman was caused because
Nathan had drilled holes in his fishing boat and obviously
ultimately the fishing boat sack. Now, if Nathan wanted to
kill his mother to gain access to her inheritance, he
would have taken that fishing boat out of the marina
into dry dock under the cover of night. He would
have drilled those holes. Instead. He is actually on the
dock with probably about thirty witnesses watching him drill these holes.
And try to repair the holes. And he's got this
epoxy which looks like bubblegum wrapped all around his body
because he doesn't know what he's doing, but he thinks
he does. Did Nathan cause the sinking of his boat
at sea? Absolutely? Was it criminally negligent? That is the
question that's posed in a blood in the water.
Speaker 2: What purportedly was the reason that he was drilling holes
in his boat which would not make it seaworthy?
Speaker 4: In his mind, he wanted to make the boat go faster. Now,
Nathan was a very inexperienced boater and fisherman. The area
he was alleged to have taken his mother is called
the Black Canyon, hush Bill being from New England, and
Block Canyon is basically the undersea Grand Canyon of the
North Atlantic and the depths there are one hundred and
forty fathoms in spots, so you don't go out there
unless you have a forty five to fifty foot vessel,
you've got all of the modern equipment to call for
help when you need it, and you've got several fishermen
around you because it's going to be a long trek
out there, and you're going to stay there for several days.
Now Nathan is out there with thirty one foot aluminum
fishing boat with his mother, who has no experience fishing.
She doesn't even eat fish. She packs peanut butter sandwich
is when she goes out fishing with Nathan. But she
does so because she wants to connect with her son,
because they had a very complicated and difficult relationship for
several years. So Nathan was completely out of his depth
by doing so.
Speaker 2: When I read that, I was so shocked because the
North Atlantic, even one hundred plus miles off shore, this
is not a place to be messed with. As you
and other writers and filmmakers have covered, if things go bad,
you end up dead.
Speaker 4: Oh absolutely, Bill, they call. When I was researching The
Finest Hours, I know that mariners called a general area
the graveyard of the North Atlantic for good reason. Four
thousand or five thousand ships have gone down over the
generations in that general area. It's an incredibly unforgiven region
of the sea. And Nathan was, as I said, not
equipped both physically, mentally or certainly had the right equipment
to go out there and do what he had claimed
he was doing, which was fishing for tuna.
Speaker 3: What I really liked, and you said this in your
author's note at the very end of the book. I
like the fact that you present all of the evidence
for the reader and then allow them, of course, to
make their own decision as to whether they feel Nathan
was responsible the death of his mother or not. And
then same thing with the grandfather. Now that you have
seen all the evidence in the Checklist case and Linda
Carman's death, what conclusion have you reached about Nathan's guilt
or innocence?
Speaker 4: Christ Then it depends on the day you asked me
that question. I'll wake up one day and think that
Nathan Carmen was a criminal mastermind, that he committed these
two murders and hoped to get away with it and
did for several years. Then there are other days I
wake up and I think there is no way he
could have possibly pulled off this double murder three years apart.
Pulling off a murder itself is incredibly difficult. As an
investigative journalist, I've covered about two hundred homicides, so I
know that how difficult it is. And nine times out
of ten the killers are always caught. And here is
Nathan pulling off two dramatic murders, one at sea in
the North Atlantic and then another in the bedroom of
his grandfather's home. Murdering is his grandfather, as I said,
with three rifle blasts, one in the torso leading up
to the head and then to the skull. One thing
that the Coastguard and the FBI was never able to
explain to me when I was questioning them, I said, Okay, granted,
your theory is that Nathan murdered Linda Carmen AT's sea.
And Nathan is in a life raft. You don't think
it's seven days because he's been drifting in the opposite
direction of where he should have been at the time.
Then where was he? How did he get out one
hundred and fifteen miles south of Martha's vineyard? And then
how could he predict that a passing Chinese cargo ship
would be in the vicinity of his tiny life raft
and even notice him. I said, do you have an
answer for that? And they certainly didn't. He may have
pulled off the ultimate crime, but he took a huge
gamble on his getaway. If he was indeed guilty of
killing his mother, Casey, do.
Speaker 2: You feel like Nathan's life on the spectrum had something
to do with these. If he is a killer, and
if he had killed both his grand father and his
mother in separate incidents, is this a function of his
arrogance or his odd way of approaching the world.
Speaker 4: Well, that's a great question. I would say that statistics
show that most people on the autism spectrum are actually nonviolent.
It wasn't necessarily in his nature. Although there are some
family members who claimed that Nathan had held a young
boy hostage with a knife when he was a child.
I spoke to one of Nathan's classmates in high school
who said that Nathan was really non violent and was
bullied all the time between classes. It never swore on
if somebody. There was one time where a student said
that a kid had stolen Nathan's cell phone, and Nathan
didn't act out violently. Nathan just held the person in
place until the teacher got there so that he could
get his phone back. So I'm not sure there's violence
in Nathan's nature. But also Nathan wasn' an enigma. There's
a lot of Nathan's behaviors in acts that contradict kindness,
if you will. Because he had a very volatile relationship
with his mother. There were times where kindergarteners used to
or not kindergarteners trick of treats, would show up at
Nathan's home for trick or treat and Nathan would give
them fish cuts in ziploc bags as a prank that
triggered a visit from the local police. Nathan was certainly
somebody that had unpredictability in his behaviors. But was he
violent to a degree that he would murder the two
people that he loved most in the world.
Speaker 3: I'm not sure that very intriguing sets of questions that
are up for debate with this book. I am curious
Casey so as not only as an investigative reporter, but
also as someone who has your own connections to a
famous murder case. And we should go ahead and remind
our listeners that I will actually remind our listeners about
your connection to the Boston strangler case.
Speaker 4: So, my aunt, nineteen year old Mary Sullivan, was the
youngest and final victim of that notorious nineteen sixties murder spree.
Her murder was also the most violent, if you will.
She'd been sexually assaulted with a broomstick, a Happy New
Year card was placed by her left foot, and I
began investigating that case as a journalism student at Boston
University just to find closure for my family. The answers
that I found over the course of well over twenty
five years are much more terrifying than the idea of
a lone, sadistic killer. There were several men that committed
the Boston Strangler murders under the guise of this Jack
the rippertite character who may have been resurrected to stock
the streets of Boston.
Speaker 3: And anybody who wants to know more about that should
one hundred percent read Casey's book are Roos fir Mary,
It's amazing. I wanted to set that up to ask
you the question. You're an investigative reporter, but you also,
of course have your own connections to a famous murder
case that I think would definitely be described as something
that has a bit of a media circus feel around it.
What do you feel the media got right about their
portrayal of Nathan and everything that happened with this case,
and where do you feel like the media went off
base a little bit?
Speaker 4: I think the media never looked beyond Nathan Carmon as
a suspect for his grandfather's murder, and I think once
that was established, they immediately drew a connection to what
may have happened to Linda Carman. So I think that again,
when you're a day side reporter covering the daily news,
you may not have a lot of time to really
research these cases because you're attending news conferences. You're just
getting your information piece meal. And the reporters that covered
this case, for the most part, they all did really
solid work. But it takes someone that can provide that
thirty thousand foot view and look at all the evidence
that had been collected from twenty thirteen all the way
to Nathan's death in twenty twenty three and lay it
out and then begin to put the puzzle pieces together.
And I think where people become comfortable and share their
stories with me, I think a lot of it has
to do with the fact that I've had a terrible
tragedy in my own family, and I show them empathy.
I don't just beat them over the head with questions.
I want to listen to them. I want to talk
to them. I want to learn about them and their
relationships with the people that I write about.
Speaker 3: So I've been so excited to watch on your social
media the wonderful things that you've got in store, and
one of them is a theatrical production that's in the
works right now. Can you tell us about that amazing
setting production that I only wish I was close enough
to go to.
Speaker 4: Sure, I cam very excited about this. It's called a
Nightmare with Casey Sherman, and we're going to be performing
the show in a couple of weeks in Boston at
Boston's most historic theater, Wilworth Theater. And basically what I'm
doing there, Kristin, is I'm taking three of my investigations
onto the stage for ninety minutes, and it's really a
kind of a ninety minute white knuckle thrill ride for
the audience. We shouldn't be selling full seats, we should
just be selling edge of seats seconds. Again, the audience
is really going to be put on the edge of
their seats. And I do this. It's not just me
on stage. I've got an ensemble of twenty incredible actors
who bring these real life characters to life on stage,
including John Fiori, who was from the Sopranos fame. Great
Boston area actor. He's actually playing two roles in the show,
and we're going to be really drilling into the Boston
Strangler case. We're going to be talking about a murder
in Hollywood, which is about a lot of Turner story
that I wrote last year, and we're going to end
the night with Helltown. Now, Helltown is the search for
a sadistic serial killer and Provincetown in nineteen sixty nine
that a lot of people nationwide didn't know about until
I wrote the book. And I'll give you, guys, just
one anecdote. We've been rehearsing in person for quite a
while and the young actor Mike Siccola, who I cast
as Tony Costa, the serial killer in Helltown, terrifying, absolutely
terrifying on stage. I think that the audience members are
going to be talking about and thinking about this show
long after we debuted at the Wilburg.
Speaker 2: Now, are you playing the narrator or tell us what's
your part in all this?
Speaker 4: Yeah, So I'm on stage for ninety minutes and I
am the narrator. I'm bringing and introducing these characters on
stage to deliver their lines or create their acts. And
it's a lot of fun because people can really understand
a the journalistic efforts that I went through on the
Boston strangler case. People don't understand that I had Albert DeSalvo,
the self confessed Boston stranglers remains exhumed for DNA testing,
along with my aunt Mary Sullivans. I've held Albert ta
Salvo's skull in my hands. That's how close I get
to some of these stories. And I want to share
that journey with the audience.
Speaker 3: When is this going to be premiering?
Speaker 4: Premiering March twenty six at the Wilbur Theater in Boston.
And the Wilbur is Boston's oldest theater. It's actually where
Marlon Brando gave his first stage performance ever in his
career and a streetcar named Desire. So there's a lot
of history on that stage which is incredible. And I
tell my actors, I said, just breathe in, breathe in
the history. It's a beautiful theater. Know that now you're
a part of that history. Moving forward.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I've been to that theater and it really is incredible.
What possessed you to go down this road?
Speaker 4: Casey Possession is probably the best way to describe it, Bill,
This is actually a theatrical production where all proceeds go
to charity, So all of the ticket proceeds are going
to the Peter Frady's Family Foundation. Pete Frady's was the
young man who created the ice Pucket Challenge in twenty fourteen,
and over the span of ten years, Pete and millions
of others around the world have raised one billion dollars
for ALS research. So all the money is going to
go directly to his foundation, which supports and helps people
in New England living with ALS along with their families
and their caregivers.
Speaker 3: That sounds amazing, and I'm just going to have to
request that you take that on the road at some
point or another because I cannot make.
Speaker 4: It to Boston the fund and maybe I'll be able
to send you a copy of it. I don't know
if for the next time I'm going to jump on
the stage because I've got a book launch and all
so many other projects that I'm involved in right now,
but I'm very passionate about the theatrical and i just
want to get it right on the twenty sixth, then
create a great night of entertainment in theater for the audience.
Speaker 3: That's fantastic. Now, I know you're already hard at work
on your next book, and you've probably got three more
lined up after that. But tell us a little bit
before we wrap up about The Devil and Frank Lloyd Wright.
Speaker 4: Devil and Frank Lloyd Wright will as my next book.
I'm actually halfway through it right now. I didn't really
know much about Frank Lloyd Wright. I knew he was
an incredible, renowned architect, the most famous architect in the world,
but I learned that he was also involved in a
mass murder when he was a young architect working out
of Chicago in the early nineteen hundreds. And it's almost
similar to the Shining At how this murder unfolds, where
you have a caretaker working for Frank Lloyd Wright who
takes an axe and then just goes on a murder
spree that kills Frank's beloved person in his life, her children,
and several architects. A story I'm going to tell surrounds
not only the murder, but this incredible relationship that Frank
had with his soulmate and how what happened to her
affected and impacted his career. You look at the Guggenheim
in New York City, and I will make that correlation
from what had happened in nineteen ten to what or
nineteen fourteen, rather to what happens ultimately when Frank designs
one of the great structures in our modern architectural history.
Speaker 2: Even the way this story moved onto your radar is
an interesting story in and of itself. Do you mind
telling us how? Yeah, the Devil and Frank Lloyd write?
As an idea, the.
Speaker 4: Stories originate in different forms. Helltown was a story that
my brother convinced me to write. Frank Lloyd Wright The
Devil and Frank Lloyd Wright was a story that I learned.
I was in Los Angeles meeting with Leonardo DiCaprio's company
about Blood and the Water, and they're going to be
developing the book for a feature film, and I asked them,
what are you guys working on? And they said, we
have this Frank Lloyd Wright story that's really interesting. We
don't necessarily have somebody like you, meaning me, the writer, researcher,
investigative reporter, to really dig their nails in ask over
the true story. So I was captivated with that one
conversation I researched it like I do before I decide
to write any project, and I dug right in.
Speaker 2: But his production company, they weren't hitting you over the
head with a pitch on this.
Speaker 4: This is a casual conversation. As I said, my books
come to me in all sorts of different unique ways.
And I always tell myself when someone says comes to
you and has an idea, you cannot dismiss them. You
always have to listen because that may be the next
big book when your portfolio. So I'm always eager to
listen to folks who have ideas. Most of them are
good stories, but not necessarily have the weight that can
carry a three hundred page narrative like Blood in the
Water or The Devil and Frank Lloyd Right, I should say,
but you have to listen. So that's keep my ears up.
I'm always looking for that next project. I think I
have the next project beyond Frank Lloyd right, And I'm
researching at least when my spare time. Right now, if
I have any spare time, a story about a serial
killer who was stalking women in London during the blitz
World War two, which is a fascinating story. So as
the bombs are dropping. Hitler's bombs are dropping on London
and tearing that city apart. As a serial killer on
the hunt, and how does Scotland Yard track down this killer?
While roads are being closed, people are being killed by bombs,
there's a blackout in the city of London. I always
look at not only I don't want to glorify the
killers in these books. I want to really give thanks
and elevate and give agency to the investigators who, with
their due diligence and determination, can find justice for the victims.
Speaker 2: It's funny even just listening to this short description, I'm thinking,
I want to read this book. I want to see
this movie me too.
Speaker 4: Every book I write has I want to have different
life forms. So as you guys know, I write very cinematically.
I want to bring the reader into that moment, especially
the first page of Blood in the Water, where you're
in the North Atlantic with Nathan Carmen, or you're on
board the Chinese cargo ship watching this blue orange ball
in the distance, not knowing what it is until you
realize that it's a person waving a flag of distress,
and then you go to do everything you can to
save that person. Not knowing that person may be a killer.
Speaker 3: Well, Casey, where can everybody find your book? When's your
actual release date?
Speaker 4: So the book is Blood in the Water will be
released on April eighth, nationwide worldwide. You can pick it
up at your local bookseller, your Barnes and Noble online,
at all the major retailers. I will be traveling on
a very exhaustive book tour beginning in April, and I'll
be in obviously the New England area where this story
in falls, but I will be in New York, Los Angeles, Houston, Texas,
anywhere that people are interested and fascinated by true crime.
And then I hope to see you both in Denver
in September at Crime con Sure.
Speaker 3: Well, the book is Blood in the Water, the untold
story of a family tragedy. Casey, thank you so much
for joining us. It's a pleasure as always.
Speaker 4: Kristin and Bill, thank you for the time. It's been
a great conversation.
Speaker 3: That's going to do it for this episode of Mind
Over Murder. Thank you so much for listening. 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 McLoud.
Speaker 1: Mind Over Murder is distributed in partnership with Coral Space Media.
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Murders on Facebook.
Speaker 2: And finally, you can follow Bill Thomas on Twitter at
Bill Thomas. Five six.
Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to mind Over Murder.