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Speaker 3: You are now listening to True Murder, The most shocking
Speaker 3: killers in true crime history and the authors that have
Speaker 3: written about them, Gasey, Bundy, Dahmer, The Nightstalker, DTK. Every
Speaker 3: week another fascinating author talking about the most shocking and
Speaker 3: infamous killers in true crime history. True Murder with your host,
Speaker 3: journalist and author Dan Zufanski.
Speaker 1: Good Evening, twenty five years on Florida's first serial killer, GJ.
Speaker 1: Schaeffer returns with a new expanded volume of illustrated killer
Speaker 1: fiction featuring the stories used a convictim of double murder
Speaker 1: in nineteen seventy three. The ex cop and serial killer
Speaker 1: was doing two life sentences for the murder of two
Speaker 1: teenage girls when he himself murdered in nineteen ninety five.
Speaker 1: Sondra London first published a collection of these stories in
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty nine under the infroter of media. Queen Feral
Speaker 1: House published Killer Fiction in nineteen ninety seven. Now comes
Speaker 1: the new expanded collection that also includes the story Schaefer
Speaker 1: wrote in prison for Sondra London seventy three. Illustrations include
Speaker 1: drawings by Schafer seized by police in nineteen seventy three
Speaker 1: and uses evidence to convict him of murder. Impressionistic sketches
Speaker 1: of Schaeffer by Sondra London and facsimiles of his handwritten statements.
Speaker 1: The book that were featuring this evening is Beyond Killer
Speaker 1: Fiction Rogue Copp with my special guest, investigative journalist and author,
Speaker 1: Sondra London. Welcome back to the program, and thank you
Speaker 1: very much for this interview. Sondra London.
Speaker 2: I'm so pleased to talk to you, Dan. You're always
Speaker 2: such a good interviewer.
Speaker 3: Oh, thank you so much.
Speaker 1: You were also the most fascinating and interesting and controversial
Speaker 1: guest a person can imagine to have, and I thank
Speaker 1: you for that. Let's talk about how you came to
Speaker 1: be involved with this book Beyond Killer Fiction.
Speaker 2: Where should I start? Yes? Should I start with meeting Schaefer? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Start with the Well, obviously we have to for those
Speaker 1: people that don't know that story when you first met
Speaker 1: him when you were seventeen and he was eighteen, tell
Speaker 1: us about that and what happened nine years later, and
Speaker 1: what happened twenty five years.
Speaker 2: Later, like everything? Yes, yes, all right, Well we'll just
Speaker 2: take him one step at a time. And Dan I
Speaker 2: was a kid. I went Strayahan High in Fort Lauderdale,
Speaker 2: and I had a steady boyfriend for a year, and
Speaker 2: we went to a dance like we often did, and
Speaker 2: there was this handsome guy. I never saw him before.
Speaker 2: The reason for that was he went to the Saint
Speaker 2: Thomas Aquinas Catholic School. So he had a date a
Speaker 2: girl who went to my school, and he was there,
Speaker 2: but he kept looking at me. And so there I
Speaker 2: stood there at the punch bowl and he came up.
Speaker 2: It sounds a kind of corny and cliche, but it
Speaker 2: did happen that way. And he came up and chatted
Speaker 2: me up, and he got my name but not my
Speaker 2: phone number, and we both went back to our respective
Speaker 2: dates and continued the evening. But he went home and
Speaker 2: he looked up in the phone book every name with
Speaker 2: that last name and called them until he found me.
Speaker 2: And so what I like to say about that is
Speaker 2: that was the first I'd been pursued by a serial killer,
Speaker 2: but it wasn't going to be the last.
Speaker 1: So you talk about this relationship, and despite what people
Speaker 1: might think for the reason for breaking up, what was
Speaker 1: the reason for breaking up and what was characteristic of
Speaker 1: the relationship in terms of what he would have to
Speaker 1: offer in this relationship.
Speaker 2: John was a good looking called to six foot two,
Speaker 2: and he was physically fit. He had blond hair, blue eyes.
Speaker 2: He had been very social before he dated me. His
Speaker 2: girlfriend was a socialite and he was her escort to
Speaker 2: all the upper class functions of family. Belonged to the
Speaker 2: yacht club and the country club. And he was a
Speaker 2: Catholic boy, went to Catholic school and did masks every day,
Speaker 2: seven days a week. He went to Mass and so
Speaker 2: he was outdoorsman. He loved to go out. The family
Speaker 2: had a boat and loved to go out on the
Speaker 2: boat and go fishing and go hunting. His father and
Speaker 2: his brother also did. And we did a lot of
Speaker 2: normal things that kids do dating, went to the dances,
Speaker 2: in the football games, and went to the beach. We
Speaker 2: were in Fort Lauderdale, so going to the beach is big.
Speaker 2: The thing was a little different when John was all
Speaker 2: this outdoor stuff, which I never really that was not
Speaker 2: part of my interests or anyone I ever knew, So
Speaker 2: that was new. And he would take me out in
Speaker 2: the Everglades and go hunting or He took me out
Speaker 2: on a thing people might recognize called Whiskey Creek. In
Speaker 2: the beach, there's usually a little strip of water that's
Speaker 2: behind the sceand it's like a tidewater pool, but down
Speaker 2: there it's called Whiskey Creek. They used to use it
Speaker 2: for Moonshine took me out there. We were supposed to
Speaker 2: be out there and come back, But the way I
Speaker 2: heard it was he got the information wrong about when
Speaker 2: the tide was out. So the tide went out and
Speaker 2: we couldn't come home and stuck at Whiskey Creek in
Speaker 2: his boat came home. That was a little stress over that,
Speaker 2: and I thought, you know, there was really nothing creepy
Speaker 2: about it. Nothing happened bad. But I think back and
Speaker 2: I just wonder, you know that, really there's something wrong
Speaker 2: with that. Because he was so attuned to the outdoors,
Speaker 2: the weather and knowing when the tide comes in. It's
Speaker 2: kind of base. And the more I learned about John later,
Speaker 2: the more began to look back on and examine what
Speaker 2: I went through. And I learned that John would pact
Speaker 2: people and he would find out what they were like,
Speaker 2: and then he would treat them accordingly. So it could
Speaker 2: be that that little interlude we had at on Miskey
Speaker 2: Creek could have ended differently. But I was a good girl.
Speaker 2: I was a nice girl. I was a virgin, and
Speaker 2: unbeknownst to me, when we're getting to know each other
Speaker 2: and talking about, oh I like this, I like that,
Speaker 2: or you know, whatever people do in their meeting, that
Speaker 2: he was profiling me. And what he would say later
Speaker 2: was I'd offer a girl twenty bucks for a blowjob,
Speaker 2: and she took it. She was dead meat. He had
Speaker 2: a complex virgin horror or complex. So I was switched
Speaker 2: called the virgin, so I was really safe from him,
Speaker 2: from the things that obsessed him. I didn't see them.
Speaker 2: And I think it's important to realize that a serial
Speaker 2: killer is not like a regular killer. He's able to
Speaker 2: rack up all of those scores because he can pass
Speaker 2: for normal, and he can mix with people and not
Speaker 2: attract the kind of attention that we we like to
Speaker 2: think that we can tell when someone's a wrong number. Right,
Speaker 2: he'd like to say, Oh, man, you know, I got
Speaker 2: a sense for people there that are off and that's
Speaker 2: why serial killers are so rare. You know, people talk
Speaker 2: like that are talking about regular offenders. If you will
Speaker 2: just plain disturbed people, but a serial killer masks that
Speaker 2: and you don't see it. And so that set for
Speaker 2: me later when I found out about his primes none
Speaker 2: years later, it set up for me the mystery of
Speaker 2: how in the world I spent a year with this
Speaker 2: guy and we were as close as can be. We
Speaker 2: were steady boy from and girlfriend knewly Minzuela as you
Speaker 2: can know anyone, and at the same time he had
Speaker 2: this whole other life going on. So that was the
Speaker 2: mystery that determined my going into this issue than in
Speaker 2: nineteen eighty nine to really to face up to it
Speaker 2: and try to come to terms with the With my experience.
Speaker 1: You were an accomplished writer, but you, as you write,
Speaker 1: you were a technical writer, and you were looking and
Speaker 1: longing for something other than this technical writing to get
Speaker 1: your teeth into. So in nineteen eighty nine you looked
Speaker 1: at the writing situation, I mean, the reality of writing
Speaker 1: for yourself. Tell us about this correspondence, how you initiated
Speaker 1: this correspondence with Sheriffy. Tell us a little bit about
Speaker 1: the first Okay meeting.
Speaker 2: It was after nineteen eighty eight, So nineteen eighty eight,
Speaker 2: people who were into business know was a terrible year
Speaker 2: for business. I never knew that. I thought it was
Speaker 2: just me, okay, and I was smart, but I was
Speaker 2: not worldly, and I just thought I had always gone
Speaker 2: and pitched my services and got the job immediately. And
Speaker 2: then I spent that whole year wasn't happening. So I
Speaker 2: continually searching myself for what was I doing wrong and
Speaker 2: what can I do right? And in the midst of that,
Speaker 2: they executed. And I noticed on the media everything was Bundy, Bundy, Bunny,
Speaker 2: and everything was serial killers, serial killers. So I bought
Speaker 2: that book by Anne Rule and read it and said
Speaker 2: him and I did not think that she was that
Speaker 2: good of a writer, and I did not think from
Speaker 2: her story that she knew that fellow that well. And
Speaker 2: I said to myself, I can write better than that.
Speaker 2: Number one. Number two, I knew a serial killer a
Speaker 2: lot more than she did, and maybe I'll write about that.
Speaker 2: So I looked up to the police, sheriffs and the
Speaker 2: Port Lauderdale police, Brown County. I called them and I said,
Speaker 2: you got a Geword shaper down there in prison, and
Speaker 2: I was thinking of contacting him, but I wanted to
Speaker 2: find out did he ever kill that girl? That lived
Speaker 2: by him, Lee hang Aline, and the police looked and
Speaker 2: they came back. Now you see that's not someone who
Speaker 2: knows anything, right, it's just someone who's sitting on a desk.
Speaker 1: Sure, So they go and.
Speaker 2: They consult something, and they come back and they say, no,
Speaker 2: he did not kill anyone named Lee Hainline. Well guess what.
Speaker 2: Right before he killed her, she'd married another guy. So
Speaker 2: they had her on the record is Bonadies, Lee bonadiese.
Speaker 2: But I didn't ask him if he killed Lee Bonadies.
Speaker 2: I asked him if he killed Lee Hainline, and they
Speaker 2: said no. And so I said, well, all that talking
Speaker 2: he did to me about her, that was nothing, And
Speaker 2: I'm just gonna go ahead and contact him. So I
Speaker 2: believe if I had confirmed that he was a suspect
Speaker 2: in the disappearance of Lee Hainline, that I would not
Speaker 2: have contacted him. But I did.
Speaker 1: Tell us about that first reconnection. It had been twenty
Speaker 1: five years.
Speaker 2: I know, it's terrible. So I wrote and I said,
Speaker 2: do you remember me? And I'm a writer now and
Speaker 2: would you like to write a book about your life
Speaker 2: and crimes? And he wrote back, of course I remember you.
Speaker 2: How could I forget you? My love for you burned
Speaker 2: with a cold blue flame, and he was off to
Speaker 2: the races. So an answer to my question, oh, yes,
Speaker 2: very much, he would like to engage in any kind
Speaker 2: of project with me because he was still obsessed with me.
Speaker 2: He said, I loved you, then, I love you now,
Speaker 2: all this kind of stuff. So, at any rate, looked
Speaker 2: like the deal was on. So he proceeded to exchange letters.
Speaker 2: And the working premise was I asked him, you know,
Speaker 2: when you got arrested, there were all those stories, and
Speaker 2: I said, do you still write that stuff? Yeah? And
Speaker 2: he or, well, yeah, And then it started a whole
Speaker 2: new deluge of this activity that Schaeffer liked to engage in,
Speaker 2: involving writing. So we have those stories he wrote for me,
Speaker 2: or maybe I should say at me, at you, he
Speaker 2: hurled them at me. Let me explain what I see
Speaker 2: going on here. It's a perversion that is analogous to lawyerism.
Speaker 2: I'm sorry, exhibitionism. I'm sorry, I said, the only thing exhibitionism.
Speaker 2: And so he sits there and he creates this appalling, shocking,
Speaker 2: disgusting scenario that appeals to his perversions, and then he
Speaker 2: packs it up and he sends it to you, and
Speaker 2: then he sits there and just grins, thinking about how
Speaker 2: this is going to hit you, because it does hit you.
Speaker 2: The things that he wrote for me in that book
Speaker 2: are assaultive, palpably assaultive. Okay, it hurts to read it.
Speaker 2: I don't recommend this book. Let me say start right
Speaker 2: off here. I don't recommend this book for anyone who
Speaker 2: is tenderhearted, or anyone who just like me, wants to
Speaker 2: have fun. You know, girls just want to have fun.
Speaker 2: Don't read this book. This is for people who are
Speaker 2: very serious about trying to learn about the pathology that
Speaker 2: creates these violent crimes. It occurs in the mind. And
Speaker 2: we have gone deeper in this book than anyone ever has.
Speaker 2: And I've had many people review this work and say that,
Speaker 2: not just me. I wouldn't dare say that, because how
Speaker 2: would I know. But since it's been out, there's been
Speaker 2: all kind of reviews where they have said it's more
Speaker 2: explicit horrifying than Marquis de Sade. And there really isn't
Speaker 2: anything more depraved or explicit than this book. And so
Speaker 2: you have to understand what the nature of it is.
Speaker 2: And if you come to read this book, you have
Speaker 2: to know what you're doing. Okay, this is not like
Speaker 2: a Disney rider. You get it on and you louuh,
Speaker 2: that's fine. This is the real thing. We're talking about
Speaker 2: the kind of minds that are still walking around, and
Speaker 2: that is the kind of things that they are thinking,
Speaker 2: and we don't like to hear it. But I agree
Speaker 2: with Shaeffer. It with Shaeffer's esthetic that he taught me,
Speaker 2: and now I agree with him that it serves the
Speaker 2: public better to go with the disgusting viol explicit repulse.
Speaker 2: They've horrifying true thinking. You are better served to know
Speaker 2: that than you are to read some disneyfied version, because
Speaker 2: all that can do is ttilate you and give you
Speaker 2: the wrong idea of what violence is all about. It
Speaker 2: makes it seem like recreational entertainment that anyone could participate
Speaker 2: in by cleaning it up and expregating it. And so
Speaker 2: I went the other way. I put everything in there
Speaker 2: that you don't want to hear. And I experienced a
Speaker 2: lot of trauma working on this project. I got over
Speaker 2: it by getting over it. It got through it. I
Speaker 2: did it. I closed the book, I went on with
Speaker 2: my life, and I got better. Now I'm deep into
Speaker 2: it again and It's just like a psychological reenactment of
Speaker 2: a trauma, because I feel it again. I feel traumatized
Speaker 2: working on this now.
Speaker 1: So you talk about the trauma and I can understand that,
Speaker 1: I can comprehend it. This is very hard to read.
Speaker 1: It's incredibly hard to read. Yeah, the thing is, who
Speaker 1: had you had the power to direct this book project?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Why was it?
Speaker 1: Why was it important for him? It seems to direct
Speaker 1: this book project and its contents.
Speaker 2: Oh, well for him, I think he was acting under it,
Speaker 2: but like an obsessive, compulsive type of a syndrome. And again,
Speaker 2: it's a perversion. It's just like exhibitionism. It's like, oh,
Speaker 2: she wants to know about my filthy mind. Well look
Speaker 2: the the you know, open up the trench coat and
Speaker 2: show you. Because you asked that you wanted to know.
Speaker 2: And we had a lot of arguments and I'm going
Speaker 2: to be including them in my next volume. My next
Speaker 2: volume goes into the true story of George John Schaeffer.
Speaker 2: This volume is limited to the fiction that he wrote
Speaker 2: at one time or another, and the next one I'm
Speaker 2: going to include some of the dialogues that we went
Speaker 2: through back and forth between writer and editor about what
Speaker 2: I would allow him to do, so there were limits drawn.
Speaker 2: There are things that he sent me that I refused
Speaker 2: to publish, and I'll just say briefly because I don't
Speaker 2: like to dwell on it. He was obsessed with defecation.
Speaker 2: It's a very primitive and very regressive kind of obsession
Speaker 2: and disgusting and I always explained to him that that's
Speaker 2: disgusting and that he can write about murder or anything.
Speaker 2: But when he starts going on and on and on
Speaker 2: about toilet functions, I'm just like John, I'm not going
Speaker 2: to publish this, Okay. We don't want to read that.
Speaker 2: We are grown up. We don't we're not interested in
Speaker 2: PPKKA Okay, So you can be assured that what he
Speaker 2: actually wrote had a lot more of that than it. However,
Speaker 2: I did allow and that wait, we argued fought so
Speaker 2: much that he got real canny, and he'd work it
Speaker 2: into the plot where it had to be in there,
Speaker 2: right because I say, it's just good too, because you
Speaker 2: spent the first five pages of the story with them
Speaker 2: sitting in the bathroom and taking a poop, you know
Speaker 2: what I mean. It's just infantile. We don't want to
Speaker 2: read it. Nobody does. Well, that's when we went through writing.
Speaker 1: Now, normally, normally you are a serious nonfiction writer, exactly.
Speaker 1: And now with that, when you deal with these people
Speaker 1: that are self aggrandizing and also prone to exaggeration and
Speaker 1: outright lies for various reasons, normally the journalist in you,
Speaker 1: or any journalist would would strive for some kind of
Speaker 1: baseline for honesty to establish that some of this stuff
Speaker 1: is honest. But that's also complicated by the fact that
Speaker 1: some of these stories that are in this book were
Speaker 1: used to convict him of murder somehow, somehow.
Speaker 2: It really delves into that shadow world between what really
Speaker 2: happened and the ideas or the expressions coming out of
Speaker 2: this sick mind. And that is why when I went back,
Speaker 2: I didn't mean to make two new books. I meant
Speaker 2: to make one new book. But it's just too many
Speaker 2: pages and it's just too much material. And when I
Speaker 2: worked with the Shaeffer during the time I worked with
Speaker 2: him on this original project, you know, I accumulated a huge,
Speaker 2: massive amount of data and I could only put out
Speaker 2: one book, and I could only tolerate so much of this,
Speaker 2: and I was having hurt to just get that book
Speaker 2: out and just get it off off of my desk
Speaker 2: and out of my daily schedule so I didn't have
Speaker 2: to deal with it. So I put it out one
Speaker 2: book full of stuff. I put out one book full
Speaker 2: of stuff. So of all this other stuff. So now,
Speaker 2: given the study of Shaffer's mind in this reciprocal arrangement,
Speaker 2: given that, next we move on to the next volume
Speaker 2: where we do examine what is on the record, and
Speaker 2: we go over exactly what he did claim and then
Speaker 2: what was actually found and what is supported by other evidence.
Speaker 2: And we came to the part with my little game
Speaker 2: with him. I provoked him. I kept telling him to
Speaker 2: write more, and oh, he was such a great writer,
Speaker 2: and let's see more. And really every day it was
Speaker 2: hurting me so much, and it was so painful and
Speaker 2: it was so difficult, but the tap was running, and
Speaker 2: I felt that this was valuable information, even if I
Speaker 2: was unable to analyze it as such at the time,
Speaker 2: I was able to get the information. So I kept
Speaker 2: it going as long as I could, collected as much
Speaker 2: as I could, and try to use that to kind
Speaker 2: of work found it. So we getting into the spirit
Speaker 2: of all this. As things went on, he you know,
Speaker 2: here's something I haven't mentioned in this interview yet. Shaeffer
Speaker 2: had two stories that he required me to maintain at
Speaker 2: all times, two opposite stories. He would would go on
Speaker 2: and on and on about how he was an innocent
Speaker 2: framed ex coup who got framed because he knew about
Speaker 2: a dope dealing in the high places, and he was
Speaker 2: just a creative writer and he wrote really good creative
Speaker 2: writing that made people think it was real. That was
Speaker 2: one story. The other story was he was what he
Speaker 2: liked to quote the the DA and the headlines saying
Speaker 2: that he was the greatest killer of in this century.
Speaker 2: And he would say that, you know, I'm the greatest,
Speaker 2: you know, and you've got the real thing, you know,
Speaker 2: and oh I've beat a whoors to a bloody pulp,
Speaker 2: you know. And he would go on and on and
Speaker 2: say all these affirmative statements about incriminating himself literally. But
Speaker 2: then when I would he would hear me saying that
Speaker 2: he was a serial killer, he would lose his mind
Speaker 2: and go into an absolute rage and want me killed
Speaker 2: and my daughter killed, and he files suit against me
Speaker 2: because he's not a serial killer. He filed suit against
Speaker 2: Colin Wilson, against Mike Newton against Harold Schechter against I
Speaker 2: can't think of the other guard's name, but another truck
Speaker 2: grime author and everyone for calling him a serial killer.
Speaker 2: But he was also you know, saying you was he?
Speaker 2: So I collected when he sued me, I collected five
Speaker 2: hundred pages of his handwritten statements and made a document
Speaker 2: I called the five hundred pages, and I attached to
Speaker 2: my response to the lawsuit to bring it to the
Speaker 2: attention of the judge and say, this is what we're
Speaker 2: dealing with here, judge, and I need you to look
Speaker 2: over at this. And this man has made all of
Speaker 2: these statements freely of his own will. And that's my response.
Speaker 2: And I refused to be drawn to be required to
Speaker 2: come to court where he is. You know. He wanted
Speaker 2: me to come to court, you know, and I refuse
Speaker 2: to do that. But I need you to review this,
Speaker 2: your honor, thank you, and your honor just threw it out,
Speaker 2: you know. That was that for that same five hundred
Speaker 2: pages went to Mike Newton, and his court ruled and
Speaker 2: made very very poignant comments about you know, these documents,
Speaker 2: these five hundred pages. Now he proudly asserts his status
Speaker 2: as a serial murderer. So then when he sued Colin
Speaker 2: Wilson in England, the judge commented that he was libel proof.
Speaker 2: And so these comments by the judges made a different cases,
Speaker 2: were passed around and used to defeat him in his efforts.
Speaker 2: But he didn't care. He'd like to be annoying and
Speaker 2: these saying I may not win in court, but I'll
Speaker 2: sure break them going to defend themselves, you know. So
Speaker 2: that was the nature throughout the entire Schaeffer experience. The
Speaker 2: two stories. When he all I wrote this piece about him,
Speaker 2: that he ran it off on one side of piece paper.
Speaker 2: He took that and he copied it and he sent
Speaker 2: it around to newspaper editors everywhere. So I'm talking about
Speaker 2: is he youer a killer? Or is he framed up?
Speaker 2: Which was his story was a question is he framed
Speaker 2: cop is what my question asked. He goes here, he
Speaker 2: hand writes on these this, dear your name editor, you
Speaker 2: have eighteen unsolid homicides in your jurisdiction, and to find
Speaker 2: out more about what happened to these victims, contact media
Speaker 2: queens Sondra London. He sent all these around to these people.
Speaker 2: And so this one which was us today. He said
Speaker 2: he wanted to talk to me. So I came into
Speaker 2: his office. I sent there in his office in USDA
Speaker 2: today and I'm saying, yeah, well, he says he's a
Speaker 2: framed cop and all this, and then he pulls out
Speaker 2: that note. He says, you wrote this. Yes, he said,
Speaker 2: well why did he write this stuff here? And he
Speaker 2: shows it to me and I'm just like, well, there
Speaker 2: you have it, there you have it. He sends me
Speaker 2: out to tell the world he's a framed cop. Then
Speaker 2: he rides on it. I've got unsolved homicides I want
Speaker 2: to talk about. See. So this is really really madness,
Speaker 2: don't you see? Yes, And being dangled around like that
Speaker 2: for years it really was traumatic, I must admit.
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Speaker 1: It could save you thousands a year. Now, Sondra, we
Speaker 1: were talking about that you had to fight this person
Speaker 1: that you were supposedly collaborating with to write this book
Speaker 1: for the purported porpoise, for the purported purpose of having
Speaker 1: him explore maybe be some insights gained through his writings.
Speaker 1: And he is a good writer, and you talk about
Speaker 1: some of the training he had before you came on
Speaker 1: the scene and help them as well as any editor
Speaker 1: do would shape a writer's writing and the story for
Speaker 1: the book.
Speaker 2: Well, you know, Tom had a college degree and he
Speaker 2: also minored in creative writing and studied under the novelist
Speaker 2: Harry Crews, who wrote kind of harsh an exprecated type
Speaker 2: fiction him self.
Speaker 1: So when you came to write this project or you
Speaker 1: knew that there were stories that he was convicted of,
Speaker 1: and there were stories that he used to write that
Speaker 1: you encouraged him to write these stories. Was there any direction?
Speaker 1: You said, you talk about the arguments that you would
Speaker 1: have not including so much stories about excreatment and urine
Speaker 1: and his fascination with these subjects. But what was the
Speaker 1: guidance that you did employ in helping him craft this book?
Speaker 1: You edited this book, so tell.
Speaker 2: Us Okay, well, let's give you a good example. There
Speaker 2: came the time when I challenged him and said that
Speaker 2: these characters he created were not realistic enough, that there
Speaker 2: were stick figures, and that he needed to go back
Speaker 2: and give them, you know, real personalities and let them
Speaker 2: become a person instead of just you know, NPC, you know,
Speaker 2: a non playing character, you know, just a stick So
Speaker 2: I was urging him to do that. Well, here's what
Speaker 2: he did without telling me. He went behind my back
Speaker 2: and he assumed an identity of a sixteen year old
Speaker 2: girl that was a fictional character of his that he
Speaker 2: called Crystal Beavers. And in this persona he invented, she
Speaker 2: is a on about people going to getting convicted of
Speaker 2: murder and not being executed promptly. And so she supposedly
Speaker 2: got this nonprofit called Justice Now, and she's agitating for
Speaker 2: all the people who are serving life like John Shaeffer,
Speaker 2: and people who are sitting on death row but hadn't
Speaker 2: been killed yet, and to advocate for hurry it up
Speaker 2: and kill them, all right, That is the character he invented.
Speaker 2: So what did he do? Then? He start writing letters
Speaker 2: to death row inmates in the other states as Crystal
Speaker 2: Hi I'm Crystal. I represent justice now and we want
Speaker 2: to see people like you brought to your execution. You're
Speaker 2: wasting the people's money and wasting my life. And he's
Speaker 2: writing to people all over on death row as Crystal. Okay.
Speaker 2: So he picked on a Virginia and then I got
Speaker 2: uh informed about this by the authorities and they he
Speaker 2: had death row in Virginia in such an uproar, and
Speaker 2: that's how I met Joe Odell. Odell was like the
Speaker 2: hall monitor of the whole death row, the only one
Speaker 2: with any sense, and everyone brought every issue to him,
Speaker 2: and he was like the president of death row. Right.
Speaker 2: So he writes and he's like, this is terrible. Why
Speaker 2: is this justice? This Crystal Beaver's doing this and everything.
Speaker 2: You know. I wrote to Joe Dell. I said, okay, look,
Speaker 2: there is no Crystal Beavers. This is a convict who
Speaker 2: is doing this to prove to me that his characters
Speaker 2: are more real than they should be. All right. So
Speaker 2: Joe Dell was like, what, well, lo and behold. Joe
Speaker 2: O'Dell had done time in Florida at the same prison,
Speaker 2: and he knew Shaffer. Okay, Joe O'Dell was in prison
Speaker 2: in Florida State Prison when the warden was dealing dope,
Speaker 2: and Joe Odell helped bust the warden for the dope
Speaker 2: dealing ring. And they opened the doors of the prison
Speaker 2: and they said, go leave Florida. Don't come back. He
Speaker 2: had one hundred year sentence. They opened the door of
Speaker 2: the prison and they called it off and they said,
Speaker 2: don't come back to Florida. And so he fetched up
Speaker 2: in Virginia, got in trouble on a murder. So then
Speaker 2: I dealt with him for about a year. He wrote
Speaker 2: a whole book. Not a year, about more like four years.
Speaker 2: He wrote a whole book about Shaefer and me and
Speaker 2: harassing them on death row. This just goes on and
Speaker 2: on and on. Dan, It's not normal.
Speaker 1: I agree with you there.
Speaker 2: How real is your character? You know, who in the
Speaker 2: world would think of proving how good their character was
Speaker 2: by pulling a stunt like that. And he had the
Speaker 2: authorities in the uproar in Virginia, you know, and he
Speaker 2: tickled him to death. And I'm including the whole crystal
Speaker 2: controversy in my next volume of you know, the real
Speaker 2: stuff about shapes, because that's what his madness really started.
Speaker 2: So what is real. What is real? Well, we don't
Speaker 2: know about a lot of the murders, but we do
Speaker 2: know that is real. See, so that's a true story.
Speaker 2: So it all gets into the delving into the pathology
Speaker 2: of the mind here and goes in a lot of
Speaker 2: different directions. My friend, I'll tell you another one where
Speaker 2: when we first started working together, before we met in
Speaker 2: person in a visit, I wrote him a letter and
Speaker 2: I said I was concerned because of the things that
Speaker 2: he had told me as a teenager, and then they
Speaker 2: kind of gave me pause, and I was concerned. And
Speaker 2: so when we got together in person, he asked me
Speaker 2: about that, and he said, what were you talking about?
Speaker 2: Those things I told you that gave you concern? And
Speaker 2: so then I told him what he had told me.
Speaker 2: Would you like me to go ahead and tell you
Speaker 2: that now? Yes, all right. We were kids and instead
Speaker 2: of going out to a party or a dancer having fun,
Speaker 2: he wanted to go down to the beach and hide
Speaker 2: under the plank. I mean, usually when we took the blanket,
Speaker 2: we'd go in and lie down and make out, right,
Speaker 2: but no, we sit in on the sand and we
Speaker 2: put the blanket over our heads. And then he cries
Speaker 2: and he goes to pieces and he uh, he's complaining
Speaker 2: about his life and all his problems. And you know,
Speaker 2: that's great, that's great, That's just great. You know what,
Speaker 2: if I was seventy five years old and a wise person,
Speaker 2: I might be interested in that. But I was sixteen
Speaker 2: years old and girls just want to have fun. My friend,
Speaker 2: it was a drag okay, if you really want to know,
Speaker 2: that was what it was like to me. It was
Speaker 2: a drag okay. And I was just rolling my eyes
Speaker 2: when she shut up. And so he goes on, here's
Speaker 2: what he's telling me. He wants to kill women, and
Speaker 2: that there was a woman on his street. He lived
Speaker 2: on a cool det sack at the end, and she
Speaker 2: lived up where that little short road hit the regular road,
Speaker 2: riot at a tea bone that was on the corner.
Speaker 2: And I've been there many times. And so she liked
Speaker 2: to go in her backyard and sunbathe. Okay, she would
Speaker 2: wear a bikini in her backyard sunbathing. That's the fact,
Speaker 2: as he related now he describes it in how that
Speaker 2: hit him. He is a virtuous He's on the mountaintop
Speaker 2: of virtue actually where he lives on this mountaintop of virtue,
Speaker 2: and he's just going out for a walk and he
Speaker 2: sees this horror flaunting herself at him. All right, those
Speaker 2: are the words. Okay, this poor lady, she's just sitting
Speaker 2: in her own backyard, mine in her own business. She's
Speaker 2: not nat just wearing the babies, look all the rest
Speaker 2: of us in Florida. She's just sitting in her yard.
Speaker 2: That's the facts. And then it triggers him into this
Speaker 2: whole whar thing. And the thing is that she's dragging
Speaker 2: him down off of his pinnacle of righteousness. You know,
Speaker 2: he would be such a righteous person if it just
Speaker 2: wasn't for these women flaunting themselves at him. They were
Speaker 2: trying to, you know, upset him and take him horse.
Speaker 2: You know. So he told me he determined she needed
Speaker 2: to be punished. And so he found out when uh, well,
Speaker 2: of course he knew. Obviously he didn't find out when
Speaker 2: they ran the garbage on the street. That was a Tuesday.
Speaker 2: So on the Tuesday, and he drove the station right
Speaker 2: and say he took Casey when I parked it right
Speaker 2: next to her house wait for her to bring her
Speaker 2: trash out. And he had concrete blocks and he had
Speaker 2: a blanket, and he had a rifle, and he had
Speaker 2: ropes and he had knives, okay, in the back of
Speaker 2: the car. And his plan was when she came out
Speaker 2: to uh to uh get through trash, that he would
Speaker 2: take the blanket and mob her with the blanket and
Speaker 2: you know, wrapping arms around her in the blanket and
Speaker 2: throw her in the back of the of the car
Speaker 2: and get her down to the end of the street,
Speaker 2: which is where their boat was docked. At the end
Speaker 2: of the street, the street ended in the canal, Okay,
Speaker 2: so then and that's where their boat stayed in the water.
Speaker 2: So he'd muscle her down into the car and driving
Speaker 2: the end of the street, put her in his boat,
Speaker 2: take her out to the Gulf stream, shoot her, wave her,
Speaker 2: and sink her and no one would ever know. Okay,
Speaker 2: that is what he told me while we're sitting out
Speaker 2: on the beach. And why didn't he do it because
Speaker 2: his father came along in his car and drove up
Speaker 2: next to John and said, John, what are you doing?
Speaker 2: And John, you know, oh, and so he canceled the
Speaker 2: mission because of that because his father came along. So
Speaker 2: let's uh, that was what he told me when we
Speaker 2: were kids. So now let's go back to our first
Speaker 2: and meeting face to face in prison, whereas he I
Speaker 2: told him that whole story. I said, that's what you
Speaker 2: told me. And he said that's very interesting. And he said,
Speaker 2: because that's not what happened. I said, oh okay. And
Speaker 2: so that's when he wrote the story gator bait, and
Speaker 2: he wrote dude in a way that included his little moco.
Speaker 2: Excuse me, I have to call.
Speaker 1: This is an opportunity, just to stop for a second
Speaker 1: for these messages.
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Speaker 1: Sorry, go ahead. You were talking about Schaeffer and the
Speaker 1: things he was saying.
Speaker 2: We were in prison and we were talking and I
Speaker 2: told him that's what he said, and he said, that's
Speaker 2: not what happened. So then he wrote the story gator Bait,
Speaker 2: and the story gaetor Bait is supposed to be what
Speaker 2: really happened to the lady on the corner. Okay, So
Speaker 2: I'll just leave it at that. That's what gator Bait is.
Speaker 2: It's where he clarified that something really did happen, but
Speaker 2: it's not what he told me when we were teenagers.
Speaker 1: Yes, what we haven't talked about is sort of the
Speaker 1: tone of his writing as well. And then very much
Speaker 1: like a lot of these serial killers or yes, there's
Speaker 1: a grandiosity, but there's also a denigration of almost everybody involved.
Speaker 1: The police of course, oh yes everyone, and there is
Speaker 1: no one who escapes it.
Speaker 2: Okay, So don't take sides. I mean, he wrote, I'm
Speaker 2: not gonna I'm not going to give in the whole
Speaker 2: language thing. Okay. I don't believe in censorship, and I
Speaker 2: believe in using the words that people use. But I
Speaker 2: interested we're in a broadcast medium and I don't want
Speaker 2: to start a whole backlash, So I'll just say the
Speaker 2: guy was black, Okay, So when he wrote that story
Speaker 2: to me, it upset me so much. I took the story.
Speaker 2: I tore it up. Well, no, first I scribbled all
Speaker 2: over it and I wrote, this is disgusting, and then
Speaker 2: I tore it in half. And then I put it
Speaker 2: back in the envelope and sent it back to him.
Speaker 2: But that was a turning point for me because I
Speaker 2: always had to ask myself, even now, why should I
Speaker 2: get upset about the ugly way he talks about a
Speaker 2: black person when I've set here for two years listening
Speaker 2: to the way he talks about every every woman, every child,
Speaker 2: every every man, every gay person. Yeah, and he even goes.
Speaker 2: He spends quite a while there. When he gets into
Speaker 2: it on the Mideast, on the Arabs, he likes to
Speaker 2: go off on them, Oh god, and don't even mention
Speaker 2: the Jews. Look, I gotta tell you this part. This
Speaker 2: is how crazy he is and how crazy this whole
Speaker 2: project was. I had a girlfriend who was a lesbian,
Speaker 2: and she'd been in a relationship with another woman for
Speaker 2: five years and the other woman dumped her for a
Speaker 2: skinny Jewish girl. Okay, so I'm out with my friend
Speaker 2: and we're telling you. She said he's still writing. Is
Speaker 2: that crazy guy? And I'm like, yeah, man writing these stories?
Speaker 2: And she says does he take requests? And I'm like, well,
Speaker 2: I don't know, maybe what do he want? And she says,
Speaker 2: we'll make one of them a skinny Jewish girl. I'm like, okay,
Speaker 2: so I mentioned it to him, just I have no idea.
Speaker 2: Oh god, when I mean, it could be anyone. They
Speaker 2: could be Polish, French, I don't care English. If whatever
Speaker 2: it was I requested, they would come out full of
Speaker 2: some kind of vile characterization. But it happened to be Jews.
Speaker 2: So there he goes off with all this anti Semitic stuff.
Speaker 2: And then people will read this and say, you know,
Speaker 2: this is not fun. Why don't I have to read
Speaker 2: these insulting things about Jews? Why do I have to
Speaker 2: read this terrible thing where he calls black people old
Speaker 2: fashioned names that we don't use anymore, you know. And
Speaker 2: then then you have to ask, well, how did you
Speaker 2: get this power in the book? What about the rest
Speaker 2: of the people he talked about? That was okay? You see,
Speaker 2: he said, so reading it it really makes you question
Speaker 2: your own reactions in that sense, there's no need and
Speaker 2: you cut to a special exception. Because the guy was black,
Speaker 2: he's supposed to write nicely about him. That's not going
Speaker 2: to happen. If he was fat, he'd write something about
Speaker 2: him being fat, right, I don't care what he was,
Speaker 2: it would turn it into something ugly.
Speaker 1: But he talks well. At least Wilson talks about in
Speaker 1: your introduction about what Schaefer said his purpose was, and
Speaker 1: it seems uncharacteristically altruistic because he's a self serving person.
Speaker 1: He talks about this higher purpose of this literature, whereas
Speaker 1: you know, and you say, and it's pretty evident he's
Speaker 1: getting off on shocking people. He's getting off on reliving
Speaker 1: some things that happened and something.
Speaker 2: Prevented from perpetrating. He was a very athletic guy. I
Speaker 2: remember he was in the world. He wasn't an intellectual
Speaker 2: sitting in a hole. He was out doing stuff. So
Speaker 2: he's been prevented from his primary mode. So all the
Speaker 2: urges that he had are then translated into this abstract
Speaker 2: form of the same.
Speaker 1: Thing he talks about. Though in this book, it's very
Speaker 1: interesting the interaction with Bundy, and again in this same
Speaker 1: idea that he talks about Bundy being so respectful so
Speaker 1: fascinating him asking for advice. So there this again, this grandeur,
Speaker 1: that he is such an important person that everybody gives them,
Speaker 1: offers them this respect, including Ted Bundy.
Speaker 2: Yep, what about the other And this is so untrue.
Speaker 2: He was one of the most reviled citizens of the prison.
Speaker 2: And I mean he was a cop. He killed underage drawls.
Speaker 2: But on top of all that, I mean, I think
Speaker 2: we could have managed to tolerate that. But no one,
Speaker 2: no one anywhere ever, can get tolerate a snitch. It
Speaker 2: will not be. It will not stand. You will not
Speaker 2: go in prison and give snitch. Okay, So cop killing girls,
Speaker 2: all this is no good. And then when they understand
Speaker 2: how much he's into, like his perversions and stuff, that's
Speaker 2: disgusting and they know it, you know. So, And before
Speaker 2: they murdered him with knives, they set his cell on
Speaker 2: fire three times, and they also attacked him with knives,
Speaker 2: failing to kill him, but wounding him severely, okay. And
Speaker 2: they would throw, you know, experiment and urine all him.
Speaker 2: So all this posing, imposturing, trying to assign himself some
Speaker 2: spurious dignity. It comes from the lowest of the low
Speaker 2: in the lowest social venue that exists, reviled among the lowest,
Speaker 2: with no respect at all.
Speaker 1: You say that, and there are critics, but this is
Speaker 1: not for people that are that are still wrestling with
Speaker 1: basic lessons from how on earth could people do this?
Speaker 1: It's exploited. So we're not talking about that. We're talking
Speaker 1: about the experience. We're talking about the person that has
Speaker 1: been involved in true crime and reading true crime and
Speaker 1: has educated themselves and as a sophisticated reader. I would
Speaker 1: say I think I.
Speaker 2: Mentioned that Schaeffer had a degree in criminal justice and
Speaker 2: then he graduated from police academy. I don't think I
Speaker 2: mentioned that.
Speaker 1: He's a very intelligent guy. That's pretty evident. But it's
Speaker 1: also people will ask, even the even the person that's
Speaker 1: very experienced, is this what you wanted?
Speaker 2: Is this? Was this?
Speaker 1: You talk about?
Speaker 2: This drama?
Speaker 3: Was?
Speaker 2: Oh god, no, I wanted to write a normal book
Speaker 2: like a enrule, But I had so much material of
Speaker 2: this nature it made a book, and so they just
Speaker 2: let me get out of here. So I'm like, this
Speaker 2: is what the book is.
Speaker 1: It's an informative book. Though that when you talk about.
Speaker 2: If that's what you want to learn about seriously, if
Speaker 2: you're serious about really, you know, it's a it's a
Speaker 2: recreational entertainment kind of thing. They talk about serial killers,
Speaker 2: who serial killers, what they really like? And oh, I
Speaker 2: want to know and go into the mind of a
Speaker 2: senior to come back when you get those other products
Speaker 2: that pretend to do that. It's not real, dan Y,
Speaker 2: that's right, that's right, okay. And if you think that
Speaker 2: you want to find out what's going on in the
Speaker 2: mind of a seriously disturbed human being who is capable
Speaker 2: of the most profound violations of God's creation. If you
Speaker 2: think you want to know, then you come to this book.
Speaker 2: Take as much as you can. But if you can't
Speaker 2: stand it, dis close the book because it definitely gets
Speaker 2: worse as you're reading through it. It gets harder and
Speaker 2: harder and harder to absorb because you're you just want
Speaker 2: you just want it to be normal, You just want
Speaker 2: to make sense of it. But it really does there
Speaker 2: to find out about real pathology.
Speaker 1: It really does.
Speaker 3: Read though.
Speaker 1: Differently in the book in terms of some of the
Speaker 1: stories seem very realistic, very close to the yeah realistic,
Speaker 1: where other ones are there's some elements of science fiction
Speaker 1: and fancy.
Speaker 2: Oh that's going into the Rogue Cop. Once you get
Speaker 2: to the Rogue Cop stories, they're satirical and it's a
Speaker 2: send up of all the media coverage that Shaffers had
Speaker 2: and all the do you know that theory of dreams
Speaker 2: by Sigmund Freud? He explains that when you have a dream,
Speaker 2: every character in the dream is some part of you,
Speaker 2: all right, So when you look at the Rogue Cop stories,
Speaker 2: every character in there is Shaeffer. Yeah, so he's got
Speaker 2: the cop, you know, the cop Shaefer tracking down the
Speaker 2: killer Shafer in prison, you know, And so you can
Speaker 2: see it that way. But yes, it is a completely
Speaker 2: different style, and he wrote it for a different kick,
Speaker 2: got a different kind of kick out of it. You start.
Speaker 2: I started this book with the Stark stories expecting Dinner
Speaker 2: in the other one that I've been persuaded not to mention.
Speaker 2: And I wanted to tell you something about those two stories.
Speaker 2: You know, I did that documentary with Errol Morris, and
Speaker 2: you know he's the number one documentary filmmaker in the world,
Speaker 2: right Errol Morris wanted to make a film out of
Speaker 2: those two stories, early release and the other one. And
Speaker 2: he told me that and I said, oh, Eryl, no, no,
Speaker 2: this stuff is just nasty. I said, I don't want
Speaker 2: to see you make a film about this stuff, and
Speaker 2: I turned him down.
Speaker 1: It really is revealing the things that he does say
Speaker 1: and the things he focuses on. On one hand, he
Speaker 1: is a are they playboy seducing beautiful women? On the
Speaker 1: other hand, he turns the tables and then tells them
Speaker 1: whose boss? Why their boss? Do you have sinned? And
Speaker 1: he gets into this this bizarre Catholicism where you have sinned,
Speaker 1: so you're a sinner because you're a prostitute, so I
Speaker 1: have to kill you, and I have no qualms with
Speaker 1: killing you. He forgets about what sins are, so his justifica,
Speaker 1: he forgets about everything.
Speaker 2: You know, Danny Rowling was religious too, and I'd ask
Speaker 2: either one of them one time or another, where was
Speaker 2: your God when you were killing? Yeah? You know what
Speaker 2: I mean? What's it all this religion stuff? Why didn't
Speaker 2: that make any difference to you when you know you've
Speaker 2: urged to kill Kane? You know? But you have to
Speaker 2: remember about religion. A lot of people will seek to
Speaker 2: come to religion because they know that they're desperately sinful
Speaker 2: in their heart, and they're trying to cope with. They're
Speaker 2: trying to maybe find a way to control all it.
Speaker 2: So when we think of church people, we generally think, oh,
Speaker 2: good people, nice people, law abiding people that do the
Speaker 2: right thing. But remember that religions serve another purpose. Religions
Speaker 2: are there for sinners, and these are sinners.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Sandre, you talked about the book next beyond killer
Speaker 1: Fiction and totally opposed to this book, totally divergent from it.
Speaker 1: What is this next book? Tell us again about killer
Speaker 1: fast projects.
Speaker 2: And this will go into the whatever we know about
Speaker 2: his cases, and we know more now than we did before.
Speaker 2: And I was able to assist law enforcement in closing
Speaker 2: two murders postmorte atter we lost Shaeffer, we were able
Speaker 2: to close two more murders, which was great, you know.
Speaker 2: And then some of the remains turned up that had
Speaker 2: not turned up when he which was Lee Haneline, the
Speaker 2: very one that I stood outside her window and John
Speaker 2: told me that she would undress in front of him
Speaker 2: and that he was gonna put a stop to that.
Speaker 2: And Honey, I will never forget that scene. I can
Speaker 2: see it now just like it happened five minutes ago,
Speaker 2: because he had an emotional mix that I'd never seen before,
Speaker 2: and I don't think I've ever seen it again. And
Speaker 2: that was a mix between arousal and anger. Rage. Really
Speaker 2: it was really rage, but let's call it anchor. And
Speaker 2: you would see that entwined, inextricably entwined. You know. I
Speaker 2: didn't know anything about him murder, nothing, but it stopped
Speaker 2: me in my tracks. The emotional tone that he presented
Speaker 2: with when he talked to me about Lee, and it
Speaker 2: stood out when he was out there on the beach
Speaker 2: cline and everything, Oh, he wanted to do him and
Speaker 2: it was not the same thing that was a sad,
Speaker 2: broken emotion, but this thing where he was standing out
Speaker 2: there talking about Lee was angry. And anger has energy,
Speaker 2: you know, so you just like U, had energy coursing
Speaker 2: through him talking about He's just gonna put a stop
Speaker 2: to that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's incredible that as you I'll just repeat from
Speaker 1: earlier in the episode, that when you asked about Lee Hayleine,
Speaker 1: or when you investigated about Lee Hayline because of the
Speaker 1: former name, her previous matenance, her previous name before she
Speaker 1: was married. That that and this that enabled you to
Speaker 1: be able to date Schaeffer. Otherwise you said you wouldn't have.
Speaker 1: And then now we come full circle where you were.
Speaker 2: I'll update to him, contact him to do a book.
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, yes, pardon me. But what I'm saying is
Speaker 1: that Lee Hayline factors into this story, right in their factors.
Speaker 2: In all right. You know they can't they were unable
Speaker 2: to bring charges on many of these cases. They didn't
Speaker 2: have enough. But look at here. They had a necklace
Speaker 2: inngraved Lee L E I G H, which is not
Speaker 2: a common spelling, right, and it was identified by her brother,
Speaker 2: who I went to school with. He was in my class.
Speaker 2: Gary Hayline identified that necklace as being Lee's. Okay, now
Speaker 2: let me talk about my theory if you if you
Speaker 2: don't mind about the real story, if you're not coming
Speaker 2: up for a.
Speaker 1: Break, we got a couple of minutes, yeah, all right.
Speaker 2: My theory is this that John has killed many people,
Speaker 2: all right, and that he was already studying and refining
Speaker 2: his theory of corpse disposal when he was seventeen years old. Okay,
Speaker 2: that was what he would talk to me about. I'll
Speaker 2: put her out in the Everglades and she'll be alligator
Speaker 2: meet by morning. That's what the Gatorade titles about. And
Speaker 2: that was one of his little slogans. He had another
Speaker 2: slogan that he said to me, no body, no crime,
Speaker 2: and it was catchy. And he said that to the
Speaker 2: two girls that he abducted and kidnapped and trusted up.
Speaker 2: He said to them, nobody, no crime. And he had
Speaker 2: repeated that phrase, you know, throughout his life several times.
Speaker 2: And he was saying that phrase at age seventeen, nobody,
Speaker 2: no crime. So I think that he gave enough thought
Speaker 2: to that that he planned these murders. He did down
Speaker 2: to the corpse disposed and that he was smart and
Speaker 2: knew how to do corpse disposal. And what he told
Speaker 2: me then the Everglades, and then he told me the
Speaker 2: what do they call it, that current that goes down
Speaker 2: the east coast, what's it called the Gulf stream. You
Speaker 2: get that body out in the Gulf stream, and that's it.
Speaker 2: That takes care of it right then and there. And
Speaker 2: so he had that all figured out. And then when
Speaker 2: he came along to this jessup in place murder, I'm
Speaker 2: really sorry. I'm really sorry to say this, but it
Speaker 2: doesn't matches him all. It doesn't really conform to anything
Speaker 2: about him. The crime scene had hundreds of pieces of
Speaker 2: quote unquote evidence, things that they took into account. Not
Speaker 2: a single piece of it can to him. Okay, there
Speaker 2: were cigarette butts, he doesn't smoke. Okay. These bodies were
Speaker 2: hacked into quarters and kind of crude quarters, and they
Speaker 2: were thrown out in the sand on the beach nearby
Speaker 2: a hole. The hole was two feet by two feet
Speaker 2: by four feet and it's in the sand, and they
Speaker 2: found it three months after John went to prison. Went
Speaker 2: to jail. John was locked up, and that hole shows
Speaker 2: no erosion. I mean, I don't know if you've ever
Speaker 2: built a sand castles, but this is sand and the
Speaker 2: photograph of it shows that like it was carved last night,
Speaker 2: and the bodies were not in it, and it was
Speaker 2: not a grave. A grave is not two feet by
Speaker 2: two feet by four feet, and it caught a grave.
Speaker 2: And then they had branches around and they had marks
Speaker 2: in the branches. They never found a weapon that conformed
Speaker 2: those marks. The ropes that were stuck with fringes of
Speaker 2: ropes stuck in the in the wood did not match
Speaker 2: any ropes that Schaeffer had, of which he had quite
Speaker 2: a lot, but not any that matched. No forensics matched
Speaker 2: at all. There was nothing that placed him on that
Speaker 2: clime scene. I don't think he got a fair trial.
Speaker 2: I would have appreciated the interest American justice. Did anyone
Speaker 2: get a fair trial? I don't really think he did
Speaker 2: that killed those girls. He wasn't. Those girls were not molested.
Speaker 2: And schaeffer theory, which sounded pretty good to me, is
Speaker 2: that they were cut up practically so and there was
Speaker 2: no clime scene. They weren't murdered there. There was no blood.
Speaker 2: The bodies were just dumped there next to this hole.
Speaker 2: No no evidence of a murder having taken place there.
Speaker 2: So those girls were killed somewhere in some apartment or something,
Speaker 2: and they packed cut the pieces up and put them
Speaker 2: in suitcase, carried them out of there. It was not
Speaker 2: any kind of a sex fetishistic torture. There was not
Speaker 2: a sex torture. Those girls were not touched sexually. The
Speaker 2: lower half of the torso still had the jeans on
Speaker 2: attached and zipped, and it just doesn't go with Schafers.
Speaker 2: So my theory is this, maybe he did know something
Speaker 2: about all the dope dealing. The chief investigator on his
Speaker 2: case went to prison for dope dealing. Okay, the Criminal
Speaker 2: Justice building where they have the jail and so forth.
Speaker 2: It's called the Rollerson building. Oh Man, Rollerson was hauled
Speaker 2: away to do big time for a dope dealing working
Speaker 2: with the local officials. So maybe Schaeffer knew about wrongdoing
Speaker 2: in the high places. Maybe when they started investigating his
Speaker 2: case they learned about all these other cases that they
Speaker 2: could not bring and they said, oh my god, he's
Speaker 2: been running up and down killing all these people. We
Speaker 2: can't even charge him, and we've got him on this,
Speaker 2: So how about let's just convict him and that'll be that.
Speaker 1: And I think that, Sorry, Sondra, he says, an opportunity
Speaker 1: to stuff for these messages.
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Speaker 1: The plinty with every retails. Excuse me, Sunder. You were
Speaker 1: talking about sorry right in your theory, and you were
Speaker 1: summing it up about what he you think he actually
Speaker 1: did and what he didn't do.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, I think that law enforcement knew that he'd
Speaker 2: done a lot of things that they couldn't get him on. Okay,
Speaker 2: after they started putting things together, once they had him,
Speaker 2: and they knew he was a big creep, and they
Speaker 2: just wanted to shut him up if he knew did
Speaker 2: know something about the dope dealing, and every better reason
Speaker 2: to shut him up and to allow that inadequate trial
Speaker 2: to go, because there is no one who would say
Speaker 2: this guy's an innocent nice you know, voy scout. Anyone
Speaker 2: who came in contact with him would be just shocked
Speaker 2: and disgusted at what they learned, and they'd be like,
Speaker 2: oh my god, let's stop him. I don't know what
Speaker 2: you have to do to stop him, just stop him.
Speaker 2: So they got him on these two and I think
Speaker 2: they left it at that, and everybody was happy.
Speaker 1: How many did they actually believe that they had semblance
Speaker 1: of evidence.
Speaker 2: Some people might have believed some things. Some people might
Speaker 2: have wanted to pump up their own careers right by saying, ooh,
Speaker 2: I brought down the mighty monster, and what mighty monster?
Speaker 2: Oh we killed everybody in Florida. You know you can
Speaker 2: see that. Okay, So really, the kind of numbers that
Speaker 2: the state's attorney was bandying about have never been able
Speaker 2: to be supported. That we can come up with about
Speaker 2: nine people that were pretty sure he killed The teeth
Speaker 2: were found in his possession, their IDs, their birth certificates,
Speaker 2: for God's sake, their private diaries were found in his possession. Okay,
Speaker 2: so we're pretty sure that he killed them. But I
Speaker 2: think there's people beyond that we don't know about. And
Speaker 2: he did travel in five continents, okay. And he was
Speaker 2: in a Morocco and he kept talking about the white
Speaker 2: slave trade and things that were going on internationally, and
Speaker 2: he put all that in his fiction. And he continued
Speaker 2: to drive to talk to me, and I continued to
Speaker 2: blow him off because I just didn't want to hear it. More.
Speaker 2: I learned more about Jeffrey Epstein and the kind of
Speaker 2: things that were going on, and women to the sawt
Speaker 2: ease and so forth, I said, Oh my god, you know,
Speaker 2: he might have really actually known something.
Speaker 1: How informative was and accurate were some of the things
Speaker 1: that he talked about, in terms of hooking a woman
Speaker 1: up to the bumper of the car so that he
Speaker 1: could raise her up and then lower her so the
Speaker 1: very detailed, the very detailed and very graphic and horrifying things.
Speaker 1: How informative was that when you found out in relation
Speaker 1: to the actual murders.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I can say that. Robert Wrestler's comment was, this
Speaker 2: is right in line with what happens in serial murder.
Speaker 2: He coined the phrase in his book Whoever Fights Monsters.
Speaker 2: Robert Wrestler described how he formulated his theory of the
Speaker 2: modern serial killer, based mostly on the case of Gerard
Speaker 2: John Schaeffer. He says, invariably, when I give presentations to
Speaker 2: law enforcement, someone raises their hand and says, you just
Speaker 2: got all that from the Shafer case. And he said, well,
Speaker 2: that's not true. But I can go through my explanation
Speaker 2: of what the modern organized serial killer is and use
Speaker 2: the Shafer Kate case to illustrate every salient point.
Speaker 1: Wow, that's very interesting.
Speaker 2: That's pretty high authority. M hmm. Now I'll tell you
Speaker 2: how we've got involved with Roy Hazelwood, the other expert
Speaker 2: in serial murder. And when I decided to do this project,
Speaker 2: I called the FBI. I said I'm going to contact
Speaker 2: a serial killer and I want a help, and so
Speaker 2: they referred me to Roy Hazelwood. And that's before the
Speaker 2: movie came out, Silence of the Limbs. So the Behavioral
Speaker 2: Science Unit was not famous. Okay, so after it became famous,
Speaker 2: you could never get through or anything. But it wasn't famous.
Speaker 2: So I went. They referred me right straight to the
Speaker 2: top guy, Roy Hazelwood. He became my personal mentor. He
Speaker 2: mentored all this. So I knew writing to SHAEFFERD knew
Speaker 2: that I was writing to Roy hazel Wood. And Roy
Speaker 2: Hazelwood is author of a book auto erotic asphyxiation, and
Speaker 2: that's where you use hanging type mechanisms to give yourself
Speaker 2: an orgasm. And he wrote a book called that at Associations.
Speaker 2: So Shaffer says, well, I'm the world's expert on this,
Speaker 2: and he doesn't know anything because only people he found
Speaker 2: were dead and they failed. They didn't know how to
Speaker 2: do it. But I know how to do it. So uh,
Speaker 2: with the media queen's assistance, I would correspond with Roy Hazelwood,
Speaker 2: and I'll teach him what for about all, you know,
Speaker 2: bless him with my wisdom about this. And so I'm
Speaker 2: going to be including the letters that went back and
Speaker 2: forth from Schaeffer and Hazelwood in my fact book, and
Speaker 2: you'll see again that same shitty attitude right where he's
Speaker 2: talking to Roy Hazelwood, like he's a puppy, you know,
Speaker 2: and extremely derogatory and disrespectful. So Roy entertained him shortly
Speaker 2: for a couple of letters, and then he's like, I
Speaker 2: don't have time for this. You know, he's bullshit. So
Speaker 2: then hear what he did. I told you how he
Speaker 2: wrote all these editors saying, contact media queen about homicide.
Speaker 2: So he did another little mail out. This was to
Speaker 2: every cop shop in the country. He sent one of
Speaker 2: these mail outs and then he said, you know, unsolved
Speaker 2: homicide and stuff, and contact Sundra London, the close personal
Speaker 2: friend of Roy Hazelwood. Okay, okay. He wrote every law
Speaker 2: enforcement office he you know, seen nothing else to do.
Speaker 2: He wrote to every cup shop in our country telling
Speaker 2: him that I had a thing going with Roy Hazelwood.
Speaker 2: And how did I find out? I got a call
Speaker 2: from Roy. Hi. I was a high Roy, you know
Speaker 2: it's going on and everything, you know, and I hadn't
Speaker 2: heard from you, you know, and he said, well, guess
Speaker 2: what your boy's up to now? Yeah? Right, And he
Speaker 2: told me and I was just horrified down to the
Speaker 2: soles of my feet and my little curling up toes.
Speaker 2: I was so disgusted and angry, and I was roy
Speaker 2: I never told him anything like that, you know, But
Speaker 2: what can you think? I mean, I can say I
Speaker 2: never said that, But he's no For all he knows,
Speaker 2: I'm running around telling people that I'm his fleas. I
Speaker 2: never said anything like that. That was Schaefer. So that's
Speaker 2: the kind of stuff that he would do.
Speaker 1: Incredible troublemaker.
Speaker 2: Yes, So he reported to the authorities that Danny Rowling
Speaker 2: was going to take me hostage and escape. And that's
Speaker 2: why they moved the hearing that I attended three times.
Speaker 2: They I don't mean they moved it from one courtroom
Speaker 2: to another. I mean you had to get in your
Speaker 2: car and drive three different places. Danny was supposed to
Speaker 2: be in court. I came to report on it, and
Speaker 2: they moved that hearing three different times. And that's the
Speaker 2: one where he stood up and sang to me in court.
Speaker 2: That hearing was moved three times. And I had a
Speaker 2: reporter tell me why that was moved, because he had
Speaker 2: it from three forces that these authorities thought that the
Speaker 2: any Roman was going to take me hostage and escape,
Speaker 2: and they got it from Shaeffer'd say.
Speaker 1: It's unbelievable, unbelievable that he could spread all those lives
Speaker 1: and people would believe it for an instant. But his
Speaker 1: fictional writing again makes you question every single thing that
Speaker 1: you're reading as fact or fiction or fantasy. I want
Speaker 1: to thank you so much.
Speaker 2: Of manipulation as a specimen of thought rather than something
Speaker 2: that refers to something that happens in the real world.
Speaker 2: This is a psychological phenomenon. M hm.
Speaker 1: I want to thank you very much for coming on
Speaker 1: and talking about Beyond Killer Fiction has just just been
Speaker 1: released recently. Beyond Killer Fiction wrote cop and we look
Speaker 1: forward to.
Speaker 2: Kill Beyond Killer Fiction, Killer Fact. It's the next title
Speaker 2: for those to take soon.
Speaker 1: Yes, for people that might want to take a look
Speaker 1: at your other work, is there a website other than Amazon?
Speaker 2: I have a website. It's called Sondra London dot com
Speaker 2: s O N d r A l O N d
Speaker 2: o n dot com and I put samples of all
Speaker 2: of these different projects I've done on that website. There's
Speaker 2: plenty to read, and then I put links to shows
Speaker 2: like your podcasts. So if you go down on a
Speaker 2: subject down at the bottom you'll see the podcasts and
Speaker 2: videos that have been done on that case.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well that's great. Thank you so much, Sondra London.
Speaker 1: Beyond killer Fiction, it's been fascinating as usual. Thank you
Speaker 1: so much, Sondra London. You have a great evening.
Speaker 2: Thank you much. Damn thanks, good night.
Speaker 4: F