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Speaker 2: You are now listening to True Murder, the most shocking
Speaker 2: killers in true crime history and the authors that have
Speaker 2: written about them Gasey, Bundy, Dahmer, The Nightstalker DTK. Every
Speaker 2: week another fascinating author talking about the most shocking and
Speaker 2: infamous killers in true crime history. True Murder with your
Speaker 2: host journalist and author Dan Zufanski, Good Evening.
Speaker 4: Diane Fanning is the author of fourteen true crime books
Speaker 4: published by Saint Martin's Press and Berkeley Books, including the
Speaker 4: Edgar Award nominated in Blood about Michael Peterson of Netflix,
Speaker 4: The Staircase, and the best selling Mummy's Little Girl about
Speaker 4: the infamous Casey Anthony Case. For the work she began
Speaker 4: with Through the Window about serial killer Tommy Lynde Sells,
Speaker 4: she received the Defender of Innocence Award from the Downstate
Speaker 4: Illinois Innocence Project. Diane's fourteen true crime books are written
Speaker 4: in Blood, Baby be Mine, Under the Knife, Gone Forever,
Speaker 4: Through the Window, The Pastor's Wife, A Poisoned Passion, Mummy's
Speaker 4: Little Girl, Her Deadly Web, Sleep My Darlings, under Cover
Speaker 4: of The Night out There, Bitter Remains, and Death on
Speaker 4: the River. We will discuss how her incredible true crime
Speaker 4: writing career began, the cases and books that most affected
Speaker 4: her career, and what's next for the incomparable author. The
Speaker 4: books that we're featuring this evening. The story this evening
Speaker 4: is Diane Fanning True Crime Retrospective with my special guest,
Speaker 4: journalist and author and a show favorite, Diane Fanning. Welcome
Speaker 4: to the program, Diane Fanning.
Speaker 5: Hi. Dan, Great to be with you and your listeners today.
Speaker 4: It is always a pleasure having you on, and especially
Speaker 4: now to talk about all of the books that you
Speaker 4: have had in your collection, fourteen true crime masterpieces, many
Speaker 4: of these true crime classics and by any standard, and
Speaker 4: here we're going to talk about them today. Diane, take
Speaker 4: us back to Baltimore, Maryland you growing up. Tell us
Speaker 4: a little bit about your childhood and this incredible incident
Speaker 4: when you were nine years old that certainly had some
Speaker 4: influence in your true crime writing career.
Speaker 5: Well, I was born in Baltimore and started my first
Speaker 5: few years in the city itself, and then we moved
Speaker 5: out to Baltimore County when I was six I had
Speaker 5: just a pretty normal upbringing.
Speaker 6: I'd say when I was nine to zero.
Speaker 5: And this car pulled up and he said that he
Speaker 5: was lost and could we give him directions. So I
Speaker 5: told us where we wanted to go, and we tried
Speaker 5: to explain to him where it was, and he said,
Speaker 5: I don't understand. Could you please come up and look
Speaker 5: at my map? Well, he threw open his car door
Speaker 5: and I walked up in total innocence, and he, instead
Speaker 5: of a map, was showing his genitals and was shocked.
Speaker 5: I mean, I was like frozen in place, and he
Speaker 5: grabbed my upper arm.
Speaker 6: And started tugging on me.
Speaker 5: I was resisting for all it was worth, but I
Speaker 5: was a little kid, small in size for.
Speaker 6: My age, and.
Speaker 5: I was just about to lose my footing and go
Speaker 5: into that car when another car came up over the
Speaker 5: hill and laid on its horn. He let go of
Speaker 5: me and drove off with his car doors still open.
Speaker 5: I had been a big fan of Dragnet reruns on TV,
Speaker 5: and I knew exactly what Sergeant Friday wanted me to do,
Speaker 5: so I memorized the license plate number and I went
Speaker 5: home and I told my mom and she called the police.
Speaker 5: And they stopped the guy a couple days later, and
Speaker 5: in the trunk of his car they found evidence that
Speaker 5: he had sexually assaulted and murdered an eight year old
Speaker 5: girl the month before. It was kind of stunning to
Speaker 5: me because well, I had to see his face.
Speaker 6: On TV, which was shocking, and I.
Speaker 5: Was also very confused. I mean, I wanted to know
Speaker 5: why was I chosen to be a victim? And I
Speaker 5: wanted to know how could someone do something like that.
Speaker 5: It seemed so horrible to me and so against everything
Speaker 5: that I'd been taught as I was raised, And so
Speaker 5: I wanted to do some reading, and I was a
Speaker 5: bit of a precocious kid. So I drugged my mother
Speaker 5: to the library and made her sign because at that time,
Speaker 5: you couldn't send out books.
Speaker 6: From the adult section when you were just a little kid.
Speaker 6: So she signed so that I could.
Speaker 5: And I was getting out criminal psychology books with a
Speaker 5: dictionary by my thought, and I started that started my
Speaker 5: interest in true crime.
Speaker 4: Now, you write about going to college in Virginia and
Speaker 4: writing for radio and television working for an ad agency.
Speaker 4: How did that prepare you for writing in general? And
Speaker 4: tell us about how you got in the position. What
Speaker 4: are the circumstances with your very first book?
Speaker 7: Deal?
Speaker 5: Well, I the writings of commercials and commercial announcements and
Speaker 5: public service announcements taught me the importance of being concise.
Speaker 5: So that became a natural trait for me. I when
Speaker 5: I wrote, and it wasn't you know you can only
Speaker 5: put so much in thirty seconds?
Speaker 6: So many words?
Speaker 5: I think seventy five was the recommended account, And so
Speaker 5: I I learned to get right to the point because
Speaker 5: I wrote a lot of theater than mine, kind of.
Speaker 6: Spot and.
Speaker 5: I quickly realized that instead of having to cut things
Speaker 5: out when I started writing books, I really had to
Speaker 5: plump things up a little bit because I was being
Speaker 5: very sparse in my writing, and so that was kind
Speaker 5: of a different way to come at it. But I
Speaker 5: had been trying to get an agent for two years,
Speaker 5: and this is the message to anybody out there that.
Speaker 6: Wants to write a book.
Speaker 5: Two years I tried without getting to keep trying, And
Speaker 5: finally one day I was home alone and I was
Speaker 5: flicking among channels on TV, and I came upon forty
Speaker 5: eight Hours and this little girl named Crystal Searles, and
Speaker 5: she was telling her story, and it resonated with me immediately,
Speaker 5: because what she said was like what I did when
Speaker 5: I was nine times one hundred. Crystal Searles sat there
Speaker 5: on the top bunk and watched a serial killer murder
Speaker 5: her best friend. Then he slit her throat and left
Speaker 5: her for dead. That little child got up at four
Speaker 5: o'clock in the morning and walked barefoot down a gravel
Speaker 5: road where there were tarantulas and poisonous rattlesnakes and cactus
Speaker 5: and lord knows what else in far West Texas. And
Speaker 5: she got to a house where she found a man
Speaker 5: who had an interesting hobby. Every year, he got up
Speaker 5: when to watch TV and see every New Year's arrive
Speaker 5: all around the world. So he was up watching New
Speaker 5: Year's arriving, I think in a your New Zealand or something.
Speaker 5: And so he came right to the door and he
Speaker 5: saw her, and she couldn't speak. She had a huge
Speaker 5: blood clot on her neck and she couldn't say a
Speaker 5: word because her vocal cords have been cut. So she
Speaker 5: motioned for a pencil on paper, and he got it,
Speaker 5: and she wrote, get the cops. He killed everybody. And
Speaker 5: so he got her in and made her comfortable while
Speaker 5: he got an ambulance for her, and then she was
Speaker 5: airlifted to San Antonio where she went into surgery. And
Speaker 5: she's ten years old, just ten years old. She goes
Speaker 5: into surgery, she comes out her vocal cords have been repaired,
Speaker 5: but she's still not capable of speech. And she wrote
Speaker 5: another note, get the cops, and they brought them in,
Speaker 5: and they brought it for endsic artist. And without being
Speaker 5: able to speak, this little child commune cadd so well
Speaker 5: that with the drawing they had, they knew within an
Speaker 5: hour exactly who it was, and they were able to
Speaker 5: make plans go out and arrest that man who was
Speaker 5: planning another murder that day before he left tail. And
Speaker 5: that was like, Wow, she is my hero. And I
Speaker 5: had to write a story.
Speaker 6: It was like a passion.
Speaker 5: It wasn't like, oh, I really would like to write
Speaker 5: her story, maybe kind of, it was I had to.
Speaker 5: So I sat right down and I wrote the chapter.
Speaker 5: What the few things I knew from the show i'd watched,
Speaker 5: And I wrote the chapter. And at that time, you
Speaker 5: weren't supposed to email anything to agents.
Speaker 6: It all had to be.
Speaker 5: By the regular rayel. But I thought, well, heck, you
Speaker 5: know that hasn't been.
Speaker 6: Working for two years.
Speaker 5: So I sent an email to Jane Distel with the
Speaker 5: first chapter, and within twenty four hours I was signed
Speaker 5: up with a new agent. So then I didn't know
Speaker 5: what to do. I mean, I really was totally ignorant
Speaker 5: of everything to do with writing books. So she spent
Speaker 5: a couple of months teaching me how to write a
Speaker 5: proposal and making corrections, and we went back and forth
Speaker 5: in the mail with this until I finally got it
Speaker 5: to a point where she said, okay, I'll send it out. Well,
Speaker 5: she send it, sent it out, and in a week
Speaker 5: she got offers from two publishers for a two book deal.
Speaker 5: So I had to pick my publisher, which was something
Speaker 5: I never expected I have to do, but I picked
Speaker 5: Saint Martin, and so there I was. You know, I
Speaker 5: had a little bit of panic in my heart because
Speaker 5: I knew I didn't know what I was doing, and
Speaker 5: I also didn't have any idea what that second book
Speaker 5: would be, and so I just got busy. I mean,
Speaker 5: I just taught myself as I went. I didn't know
Speaker 5: any of the rules, didn't know what I was doing, but.
Speaker 6: I fingered it all out, you know.
Speaker 5: I I wrote for my high school newspapers. So I
Speaker 5: used what I learned they are from doing interviews and
Speaker 5: a short internship at a major city newspaper to guide
Speaker 5: me to what I needed to do. And I did
Speaker 5: a lot of reading on the side, and then I
Speaker 5: hit this one really tricky place where I didn't know
Speaker 5: which way to turn. Somebody was asking something of me
Speaker 5: that didn't really seem ethical. So I called up.
Speaker 8: And Rule.
Speaker 5: And Ann Rull was very very sweet.
Speaker 6: She was very kind.
Speaker 5: She gave me time, and she she ed me, Oh,
Speaker 5: you're writing about that case. Oh they wanted me to
Speaker 5: do that, but I wouldn't do it. It was going
Speaker 5: to be two months work. And so that's whay ignorance
Speaker 5: is bliss. You step into something that you don't know
Speaker 5: because you don't realize how hard it's going to be,
Speaker 5: but you learn the hard way, and I surely did.
Speaker 5: It was a big lesson, and I'm so glad that
Speaker 5: I didn't let my fears an uncertainty stop me from
Speaker 5: doing that, because that book actually resulted in one woman
Speaker 5: getting a new trial and being acquitted and ultimately getting
Speaker 5: a certificate of you innocence from the State of Illinois.
Speaker 5: And then there's another guy that was Shirly Ray. And
Speaker 5: then there's this other guy, Rodney Lincoln, who I never
Speaker 5: mentioned him or.
Speaker 6: His case or anything, but because of.
Speaker 5: The fact that is the way I described the crimes
Speaker 5: and everything, and I was willing to be interviewed, and
Speaker 5: I said, it could have been selves.
Speaker 6: It very well could have been Sales.
Speaker 5: He was able to get out of prison after decades.
Speaker 5: So it's just amazing to me that Well Sales put
Speaker 5: it best. He says, there are a whole lot of
Speaker 5: people in prison for crimes I committed and I don't care.
Speaker 4: Wow, incredible. That was an incredible start to your career.
Speaker 4: Let's talk about let's talk about Written in Blood, about
Speaker 4: Michael Peterson, and I mentioned that for people that just
Speaker 4: a reference Netflix the Staircase because so many people tuned
Speaker 4: into that series. Tell us about your experience in writing
Speaker 4: Written in Blood.
Speaker 5: Well, that was back in the day when Court TV
Speaker 5: was broadcasting Trials live and they podcast the whole for
Speaker 5: our live all three and a half months.
Speaker 6: I think it wasn't it.
Speaker 5: And I think that even had jury selection there, Yes,
Speaker 5: they did, but I went out for part jury selection.
Speaker 5: I was there at least one week every month so
Speaker 5: I could get the flavor of the of the live
Speaker 5: and and to meet lots of people and make contacts
Speaker 5: for interviews. And it was just fascinating Because I went there,
Speaker 5: I wasn't certain of the guilt. I thought, he's a novelist.
Speaker 5: Novelists don't kill people. Well, then the evidence started rolling in,
Speaker 5: and you know, the people who were doing the original
Speaker 5: version of the Staircase, which was a French film company,
Speaker 5: and there's heered on Sundance.
Speaker 6: I mean, they were.
Speaker 5: So convinced that he just wasn't guilty, and they were
Speaker 5: doing all the taping directly from the defense point of view,
Speaker 5: and they didn't really care what the prosecutors wanted to
Speaker 5: say or anything. And they left out some very vital evidence,
Speaker 5: the evidence that I and the two nurses on the
Speaker 5: jury both found absolutely compelling. One of them was a
Speaker 5: thing called red neurons. Red neurons are something that form
Speaker 5: in your brain when you slowly bleed to death. And
Speaker 5: Kathleen had those founded autopsy. They were in her brain,
Speaker 5: and that made a complete and total lie of everything
Speaker 5: Michael Peterson said had happened that night, because he said
Speaker 5: it was a half hour to forty five minutes. Well,
Speaker 5: there's neurons have never been recorded as forming in less
Speaker 5: than two and a half hours, so that that right
Speaker 5: away you got a serious problem with the evidence. And
Speaker 5: the other thing is is they had this state witness
Speaker 5: that did blind spatter and stuff like that, and he
Speaker 5: was discredited for some of the things he did, and
Speaker 5: so you can't really count anything he testified to except
Speaker 5: to me, there was one vital thing that mattered, and
Speaker 5: that's because he testified to something that the defense witness,
Speaker 5: doctor Henry Lee, agreed with wholeheartedly, and that was the
Speaker 5: fact that in that stairwell there was a point of
Speaker 5: impact where something hit the back of Kathleen's skull in
Speaker 5: mid air. Yeah, so you know that when the defense
Speaker 5: witness supports the prosecutional witness, you know.
Speaker 6: You've got a fact.
Speaker 5: And I will always be convinced that Michael Peterson was
Speaker 5: guilty of that crime and guilty of the murder of
Speaker 5: Liza Ratliffe. And he you know, I talked to him
Speaker 5: in the courtroom and he he said that in another
Speaker 5: end review with BBC, he said that we that we
Speaker 5: never talked, we never shared a word, and he was
Speaker 5: just busy name dropping with me when he was talking
Speaker 5: and digging for information and in his agent UH threatened
Speaker 5: my publisher uh and said that if they published my book,
Speaker 5: you know, that was it. He wouldn't get any more
Speaker 5: of that guy's clients. And the agent, I can't recall
Speaker 5: his name, but he was a big deal.
Speaker 6: But but you know, I got a credit Saint Martin's.
Speaker 6: They continued on. They didn't, They didn't pull back at all.
Speaker 5: In fact, I didn't let me know about it until
Speaker 5: the book was out, and and.
Speaker 6: It was.
Speaker 5: From what I hear on air and off air. Michael
Speaker 5: Peterson disparages me everywhere he goes Lucky.
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Speaker 6: Actually, do I have to say?
Speaker 7: Yes?
Speaker 5: You do?
Speaker 8: In the car before my kid's PTA meeting?
Speaker 5: Really? Yes, excuse me? What's the weirdest place you've gotten lucky?
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Speaker 6: That's okay because I know who he is and I
Speaker 6: know what he is.
Speaker 4: Absolutely let's talk about another. If you can get more
Speaker 4: controversial than that, Let's talk about one of the most
Speaker 4: controversial cases in history, and that's the three year old
Speaker 4: Kaylee Anthony's disappearance from her home in Florida in July
Speaker 4: two thousand and eight, subject of your book, Mommy's Little Girl.
Speaker 4: Tell us about the writing A Mummy's Little Girl.
Speaker 5: Well, to writing A Mommy's Little Girl was insane, absolutely insane,
Speaker 5: because it was a feeding frenzy for media at the
Speaker 5: time I was getting the backs down, but I did
Speaker 5: manage to get some inside track on a lot of things,
Speaker 5: and it was really good. And the prosecutor had an
Speaker 5: interesting philosophy on making records public. He said, if I
Speaker 5: give them to the defense, then I've given them the enemy,
Speaker 5: so I might as well give them to public. So
Speaker 5: official records who are very easy to come by, and
Speaker 5: as long as you got credentialed by the Die's office.
Speaker 5: So I was able to do that, and I had
Speaker 5: one luxury that no one else did. My book came
Speaker 5: out before the trial. It was seventeen months for the trial.
Speaker 5: So I was able to state very clearly what I
Speaker 5: thought happened to that child, how Kasey Anthony murdered that
Speaker 5: little girl. And I did have to put a legal
Speaker 5: caveat in with it that the lawyer Craft did, but
Speaker 5: still I laid it all out exactly what happened, and
Speaker 5: the evidence was there Dan It was as clear as day.
Speaker 5: It may have been a little complicated because sometimes scientific
Speaker 5: reports are complicated, but the jury did not ask you
Speaker 5: look at any of them, and by their own mouths.
Speaker 5: In interviews after the trial. They said that the defense
Speaker 5: raised reasonable doubt about her father. Well, that is absolutely nuts.
Speaker 5: There was no testimonies leading to the.
Speaker 6: Fact that her father might have committed crime.
Speaker 5: The only thing was there was the open and closing
Speaker 5: statements of the defense. Opening statements and closing statements are
Speaker 5: not evident, they are arguments. They're not supposed to be
Speaker 5: taken as the truth.
Speaker 6: And yet that jury did.
Speaker 5: And I am so certain of it, because I'm sorry,
Speaker 5: they did not find her guilty of even child abuse
Speaker 5: or neglect. And if a mother has a missing child
Speaker 5: and does not report it for more than a month,
Speaker 5: if that's not child abuse, it's child neglect period.
Speaker 4: Incredible. That was an incredible case and a surprising, very
Speaker 4: very surprising verdict. Like you say, this last effort by
Speaker 4: the closing statement, so nobody you had any indication. In fact,
Speaker 4: it was the indication that she'd certainly be convicted. And
Speaker 4: yet a very very surprising verdict.
Speaker 5: Yeah, you know, I've never been one of those people
Speaker 5: to support professional jurors, but after that trial, you know,
Speaker 5: you start rethinking it because I just don't think that
Speaker 5: I don't think all of that Jory understood what they
Speaker 5: were doing and anybody on that jewelry who really understood
Speaker 5: what they were supposed to be doing and came to
Speaker 5: that verdict was just not following what they needed to do.
Speaker 5: They didn't ask for anything. No, they didn't ask for
Speaker 5: any scientific statements.
Speaker 6: I think they tried any cypher.
Speaker 5: They didn't ask for a thing, and that was very,
Speaker 5: very troubling.
Speaker 4: Let's talk about another troubling case here. We didn't talk
Speaker 4: about this in an interview. I never interviewed you about
Speaker 4: this because this is back before twenty ten. But this
Speaker 4: is a book, one of your books called Under the
Speaker 4: Knife and Gang Failure. Had built a thriving beauty business.
Speaker 4: There was one problem with this thriving cosmetic surgery business.
Speaker 4: Tell us about Under the Knife.
Speaker 5: Well, he was well loved by his clients and they
Speaker 5: just thought.
Speaker 6: The world of him.
Speaker 5: And in one segment of his client base were men
Speaker 5: who were transitioning to be women, and one of their
Speaker 5: biggest problems was in fact that grew beards. Well, he
Speaker 5: was really great at doing the laser there, but if
Speaker 5: you're not a doctor, you're not supposed to be doing that.
Speaker 5: So basically he was practicing medicine.
Speaker 6: With aut a license.
Speaker 5: And when he got caught. You know, he's investigated by
Speaker 5: the Health department, and he was up against charges and
Speaker 5: so they said, and he was also given prescriptions, and
Speaker 5: so they said, well, if you help us get the
Speaker 5: doctors that enabled you to do this, the ones that
Speaker 5: signed off on prescription pads.
Speaker 6: And left the blanks so you.
Speaker 5: Could use them, then we will, uh will consider that.
Speaker 6: When when we consider your punishment.
Speaker 5: So he was cooperating, everything was going well, and they
Speaker 5: didn't because of his cooperation get the medical license jerked
Speaker 5: from two doctors. But meantime he realized that this laser
Speaker 5: was really a good business. He set up in an
Speaker 5: apartment in Chelsea and was running his laser business there.
Speaker 5: And this woman who was a Filipino immigrant and had
Speaker 5: been doing so well in this country. She was making
Speaker 5: a six figure salary at Barclay's. I mean, she was
Speaker 5: no lightweight, but yet she was taken in by Flo
Speaker 5: and she went to see him for a condition she
Speaker 5: had in her tongue that he said he could.
Speaker 6: Fix with laser.
Speaker 5: Well, unfortunately he didn't know enough medicine to understand how
Speaker 5: critical dosage of lidokane can be.
Speaker 6: And on top of.
Speaker 5: That, he was injecting it into her tongue, and the
Speaker 5: tongue is the most vascular system in the whole body.
Speaker 5: And that light cane went in there was too much
Speaker 5: of it, and it like.
Speaker 6: Threw her into seizures.
Speaker 5: So Dean calls up of a neighbor of his in
Speaker 5: Knewark who is an emergency room physician, and asked him
Speaker 5: what I should do. He said, listen, three blocks away
Speaker 5: from you, there is a trauma center. You need to
Speaker 5: get her there immediately or her chances of survival are
Speaker 5: next to none. Well, Dean thought, well, I'm already in trouble.
Speaker 5: I'm going to go to prison for this for sure.
Speaker 5: I think I'll just wait a little while and see
Speaker 5: if she pulls out of it. Well, he gambled with
Speaker 5: her life, and she lost. She died right there in
Speaker 5: that apartment. Dean folded up her small body, put it
Speaker 5: in a little rolling suitcase and took it out to
Speaker 5: his vehicle, drove back to his million dollar mansion in Newark,
Speaker 5: and out in the carriage house, he buried her and
Speaker 5: covered her body with concrete. Then he sold the house
Speaker 5: and moved to Costa Rica. It was only because his
Speaker 5: boyfriend in New York started thinking about all the little
Speaker 5: things that hadn't seen right before Dean left town, and
Speaker 5: he went to the police saying that maybe this missing
Speaker 5: woman has something to do with Jan Fayelo. So they
Speaker 5: searched his house and Greg had told them about the
Speaker 5: concrete he had toward the carriage house, so they ripped
Speaker 5: that up and found the suitcase containing her body.
Speaker 4: Yeah, incredible. Let's talk about Baby Me Mine. The very
Speaker 4: first episode of True Murder, you were gracious enough to
Speaker 4: come on and talk about a book you had written
Speaker 4: a little bit before that called Baby Be Mine. Bobby
Speaker 4: Joe Stinnett is pregnant, eight months pregnant. And this is
Speaker 4: a very very unusual case, I thought at that time,
Speaker 4: but as we discussed, it's not without its other precedents
Speaker 4: of this type of case. Tell us just a little
Speaker 4: bit about Baby Be Mine, and how hard of a
Speaker 4: book to write was Baby Be Mine? And a case
Speaker 4: to investigate.
Speaker 5: It was extremely difficult because I had a daughter that
Speaker 5: same age at the time as Bobby Joe, and to
Speaker 5: to talk to the mother of Bobby Joe and have
Speaker 5: every conversation and in horrible wailing, to the point where
Speaker 5: she had her best friend call me up and tell
Speaker 5: me ever, everything she wanted to say since she was
Speaker 5: capable of doing it. And the brutality of the crime,
Speaker 5: absolutely brutal, brutal crime. I had never heard of Cesarean
Speaker 5: abduction before and it's rare, but it has happened enough
Speaker 5: that the FBI had written a special report about it.
Speaker 5: Bobby Joe was a sweet woman. She raised rat terriers,
Speaker 5: she worked in a pet shop. She loved animals. She
Speaker 5: was a barrel racer, sweet small town girl, and she
Speaker 5: was about to have her first baby, and she was
Speaker 5: so excited about it, and she just happened to talk
Speaker 5: about it in the wrong places. She was on a
Speaker 5: chat group and basically became the victim of an internet
Speaker 5: scam by a woman named Lisa Montgomery. Lisa was in
Speaker 5: a marriage and her second husband and he was losing interests,
Speaker 5: quickly losing interests.
Speaker 6: But she knew he loved.
Speaker 5: Children because he'd taken in her children she had four
Speaker 5: from a previous marriage, and he was just great as
Speaker 5: a father. So she figured the only way to save
Speaker 5: her marriage was to have a child. But the problem, well,
Speaker 5: she'd had a tube ligation. Her current husband knew nothing
Speaker 5: about that, and she proceeded to fake her pregnancy, and
Speaker 5: her husband, who had physically lost interest in her, was
Speaker 5: just delighted to be let off the hook of that
Speaker 5: part of the relationship. And so she went online, and
Speaker 5: first she was scamming one woman who was pregnant with twins,
Speaker 5: so she was telling anybody she was pregnant with twins,
Speaker 5: and then that woman miscarried and lost both babies. Then
Speaker 5: she moved on and said, oh, it wasn't twins after all,
Speaker 5: it was just I'm going to have a baby, baby girl.
Speaker 5: And that's when she scammed Bobby just in it, and
Speaker 5: she led Bobby Joe under a false name to believe
Speaker 5: that she was looking for a rat carrier puppy, and
Speaker 5: Bobby Joe gave her directions to her house to come
Speaker 5: look at the puppy you could pick one out. When
Speaker 5: they got there, Bobby Joe must have recognized it because
Speaker 5: she'd seen her at other at rat terrier shows and
Speaker 5: probably started running right away. Lisa went after her, slid
Speaker 5: her up the middle. She passed out, and Bobby removed
Speaker 5: the body, started to remove the baby's body, and Bobby
Speaker 5: Joe came too, got up and was fighting for her life,
Speaker 5: and that's when Lisa Montgomery strangled her to death and
Speaker 5: then left the house with the baby and drove back
Speaker 5: to her home a state away. Bobby Joe's mother found
Speaker 5: Bobby Joe's body, and she called the sheriff and she said,
Speaker 5: my god, it looks like she exploded. I can't imagine
Speaker 5: being that mother. I just can't imagine. It's so horrific.
Speaker 5: And so that.
Speaker 6: Made it very difficult to do.
Speaker 5: And in the process I was learning a whole lot
Speaker 5: about that town of Skidmore. You know, McElroy had been
Speaker 5: there many years before. He'd been gunned down in the
Speaker 5: street by his neighbors who were justly distressed at the
Speaker 5: way he was shooting at other citizens, and how his
Speaker 5: lawyer was always getting him off and he was not
Speaker 5: going to prison. He'd been cattle rustling too, and a
Speaker 5: lot of other things, and he just was the town bullying.
Speaker 5: And they finally had enough, and there were a lot
Speaker 5: of people but witnessed it, and.
Speaker 6: He was shot dead, and nobody would talk, nobody.
Speaker 5: And then there was this weird thing. It was just
Speaker 5: by the time I went there, there were only three
Speaker 5: hundred and fifty people living there, and three of Bobby
Speaker 5: Joe's Two of Bobbi Joe's cousins by marriage were also
Speaker 5: killed within a five year period of her murder, one
Speaker 5: of them by absolute vicious domestic violence assault and the
Speaker 5: other one Branson Perry just went missing and his body's
Speaker 5: never been found. And there was a man who had
Speaker 5: written about murdering Branson without naming him, but it sounded
Speaker 5: very much like that. And he was arrested because he
Speaker 5: was involved in a pornography a plot with child pornographer
Speaker 5: see with a medical student in Atlanta, and they both
Speaker 5: got busted for that, but they've never been able to
Speaker 5: find proof that he actually did kill Branson. And when
Speaker 5: I was there, there was as much interest in Bobby
Speaker 5: Joe by the people who would talk to me as
Speaker 5: there was in Branson Perry and what happened to him,
Speaker 5: and nobody knowing what happened to him, and the other
Speaker 5: people in town. There were people that spoke to me,
Speaker 5: but there were others who I mean literally, I was
Speaker 5: run out of a restaurant, I was run away, I
Speaker 5: was run off and not allowed into a convenience store.
Speaker 5: I knocked on a window, saw someone staring at me
Speaker 5: and turn and walk away. I mean, it.
Speaker 6: Was it was bizarre.
Speaker 5: It was a very unwelcome place, and I thought, well,
Speaker 5: maybe north west Missouri is like this, But I went
Speaker 5: to other little towns around there and know they weren't.
Speaker 5: That town was so scarred by the McElroy story to
Speaker 5: take trusted no stranger at any time.
Speaker 4: Yes, truly truly astonishing case. Let's use this as an opportunity,
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Speaker 4: let's talk about another incredible case, another book that you
Speaker 4: have written. Let's talk about Bitter Remains.
Speaker 5: Oh my, Well, you know, one of the things I
Speaker 5: always look for in a true crime book is a
Speaker 5: case that has something different that I can learn from.
Speaker 5: And I'd never done a dismemberment before, so that that
Speaker 5: was part of what drew me to that. The other
Speaker 5: thing was it's the cast characters. You had a musician who,
Speaker 5: although he wasn't, you know, a big star, he was.
Speaker 5: He did performances in the Caribbean, he did performances up
Speaker 5: and down the East Coast. He was well loved in
Speaker 5: his hometown of Raleigh, and that was one of the characters.
Speaker 5: Then you had an actress who had been in The Step,
Speaker 5: the new version of the stepford Wise. And to top
Speaker 5: it off, you had an artist. So what an odd
Speaker 5: combination an actress, a musician and an artist in this
Speaker 5: love triangle. And it was really very bizarre. And the
Speaker 5: bottom line was the custody of.
Speaker 6: The children.
Speaker 5: Laura had married of him because they were in love.
Speaker 5: I mean they even shared a birth day. I mean,
Speaker 5: it was like fate. So they were married, at least
Speaker 5: that's what Laura thought. But then she had two little boys,
Speaker 5: and unbeknownst to her, when she had to return home
Speaker 5: from the Virgin Islands because her child needed medical care stateside,
Speaker 5: her husband started an affair with another woman, and Grant
Speaker 5: her husband was ended up returning to New York instead
Speaker 5: of Raleigh. When the woman who's having an affair with
Speaker 5: returned to New York with her daughter. Then they went
Speaker 5: to Las Vegas and they took the oldest boy who
Speaker 5: was then sitting with them, and he sent her an
Speaker 5: email and said, we just got married. I never signed
Speaker 5: the papers.
Speaker 6: Our marriage is null and void.
Speaker 4: Wow.
Speaker 6: And she was shocked, and.
Speaker 5: She pulled out her papers and sure enough, he never
Speaker 5: signed them. And so then began the custody battle of
Speaker 5: the children. And he had taken that older boy for
Speaker 5: supposedly just a few days that we kept the time
Speaker 5: kept going on and on.
Speaker 6: It was months and we're talking through year old boy.
Speaker 6: So this is a big deal of time drew you
Speaker 6: away from.
Speaker 5: His mom, and Grant came down and with his new wife, Amanda,
Speaker 5: and they sued for custody. Only they did it away
Speaker 5: that a legal manner that she wasn't allowed to be
Speaker 5: there because of the danger to the children, and Laura
Speaker 5: she was going to fight for her kids because she
Speaker 5: knew that Grant used drugs. She knew that Grant had
Speaker 5: some really crazy weird ideas. They were like if you
Speaker 5: had taken scientology and Christianity in some mix of lunacy
Speaker 5: and put it in a blender and turned it all
Speaker 5: up together. That was his religious belief and it was
Speaker 5: really weird, including the fact that he was one of
Speaker 5: the chosen ones. So she needed to get those kids back,
Speaker 5: and he had gotten custody. The little guy who was
Speaker 5: like eighteen months was.
Speaker 6: Removed from her arms screaming by.
Speaker 5: The Sheriff's department. So she wanted to get those guys
Speaker 5: back and she went to fight for it. And one
Speaker 5: of that the judge insisted on was a psychological evaluate
Speaker 5: evaluation and drug testing. And so the while this was
Speaker 5: going on and they were being all of them, the
Speaker 5: whole family was being psychologic interviewed, and the psychologist was
Speaker 5: getting a real portrait of what was going on in
Speaker 5: that family, and she was going into their homes and
Speaker 5: checking out there, and she was very clear on the
Speaker 5: fact that neither parent was perfect, and she pointed out
Speaker 5: the things that, oh that Laura needed to do, that
Speaker 5: she needed to, you know, become more assertive, She needed
Speaker 5: to work on herself confidence and in order to be
Speaker 5: a better parent and to do a better job of that.
Speaker 5: And there were Laura, as soon as she got any
Speaker 5: word and stuff like that, she immediately went out and
Speaker 5: found mentors and stuff to try to make herself a
Speaker 5: better parent. She wanted to be a good mother for
Speaker 5: her boys. And Grant, on the other hand, was absolutely
Speaker 5: furious when he looked at the report because it talked
Speaker 5: about him being mentally unstable, it talked about his drug use,
Speaker 5: and so he flew back saying that, I mean, he
Speaker 5: was saying she was promiscuous, he was saying that she
Speaker 5: used drugs. I mean, just on and on on anything.
Speaker 8: He could with no grounding in fact. And so it
Speaker 8: was real clear when the reports came out from the
Speaker 8: psychologist that he was not even a kids these children.
Speaker 8: And so he called her, Laura up and asked her
Speaker 8: if she wanted to go over and have an extra
Speaker 8: Wednesday visit with the children, and which is outside of
Speaker 8: the parameters of the visitation that was currently set up,
Speaker 8: and he said it, we'll talk about maybe giving custody
Speaker 8: to you. Well, instead of that, it appears as if
Speaker 8: she was forced to sign a document that gave up
Speaker 8: custody of her boys for a some of twenty five
Speaker 8: thousand dollars, which was not Laura. Laura would not have
Speaker 8: signed that unless she was pillers.
Speaker 5: Now.
Speaker 8: Laura always took a tape recorder with her and had
Speaker 8: it turned on for any encounter with brand, whether it
Speaker 8: was in person or all on the phone. And though
Speaker 8: she always downloaded to her computer, she had a special
Speaker 8: sight that was shared with her best friend. They had
Speaker 8: both had access to all of that. But the funny
Speaker 8: thing was there was no tape recorder found in the
Speaker 8: apartment Grant's apartment, none found anywhere anytime.
Speaker 7: Ever.
Speaker 5: There was a.
Speaker 8: Nick on her neck that looked like it was caused
Speaker 8: by a knife, and I think it's very possible that's
Speaker 8: what was held to her throat to make her sign
Speaker 8: that document. There were polls of blood, which all that
Speaker 8: was left when the cops got into that apartment was
Speaker 8: a bleach sting, And it was just amazing how the
Speaker 8: whole place of reeked of bleach. That there was no Laura.
Speaker 8: And it turns out that they loaded up the two
Speaker 8: kings and they got all a truck or U haultering.
Speaker 8: They put Laura's body in a couple of coolers after
Speaker 8: cutting it up in the bathroom. They traveled all the
Speaker 8: way out to Texas from Raleigh, North Carolina, and dumped
Speaker 8: those cool the contents of those coolers into the creek
Speaker 8: across the street from Amanda's aunt's house. Essentially dumping their
Speaker 8: problem on her. Now, I'm saw that is so freaking illogical.
Speaker 8: People are so illogical so many times when it comes
Speaker 8: to disposing eleviates. Think of all the places they passed
Speaker 8: on Itan in Louisiana where it would be easy to
Speaker 8: pull off her bio and throw stuff and nobody would
Speaker 8: ever see it because the negators would eat it up
Speaker 8: faster and loot the water.
Speaker 5: I do.
Speaker 8: They put it near her family member's house, and it
Speaker 8: was just amazing. Thank god they were caught.
Speaker 4: Yeah, thank god for incompetent criminals.
Speaker 8: And the thing of it is is Amanda she really
Speaker 8: really put it on thick, tried to make herself a
Speaker 8: victim of Grant just as much as Laura was. It
Speaker 8: was all in act. She used, she had a different
Speaker 8: voice and everything. I mean, it was just one big act.
Speaker 8: And so she didn't get into life without pearl sentence.
Speaker 8: That granted, she got like sixteen to eighteen years, I believe,
Speaker 8: But then the State of Texas they got into the game.
Speaker 8: They got her for another twenty years for abusing a corpse.
Speaker 7: Wow. Yeah, yeah, of all the you have the opportunity,
Speaker 7: as a highly respected journalist to be able to speak
Speaker 7: to almost all of these subjects, these people that are
Speaker 7: involved in these murder trials, many of the players, but
Speaker 7: many of the.
Speaker 4: Perpetrators as well. Let's talk about what book really. You
Speaker 4: had an opportunity to speak to the perpetrator and it
Speaker 4: was the most I would say important, important interview that
Speaker 4: you did have, the most shocking, the most revealing, the
Speaker 4: most impressionable interview that you've done for any book.
Speaker 8: Well, it had to be Tony and sales because not
Speaker 8: only did I talk to him, I interviewed him more
Speaker 8: than twenty times, and I received probably about one hundred
Speaker 8: letters from him. So and this was my first experience
Speaker 8: of true crime. And I, you know, Dan, I led
Speaker 8: a normal, sheltered life up to then, and I couldn't
Speaker 8: you know, he was the most evil person I'd ever met.
Speaker 8: But I never met evil people, you know, I met
Speaker 8: mastery people, I mean people, but never evil. And so
Speaker 8: I didn't know if what I thought had any validity
Speaker 8: as far as him being most evil. But then doctor
Speaker 8: Michael Stone, the forensic psychiatrist out at Columbia University, he
Speaker 8: had a show called Oh, Most Evil, That's what it's.
Speaker 5: Called, and he.
Speaker 8: And he told me that in put on the show
Speaker 8: that Sell's got the highest ranking of any of them,
Speaker 8: and so I said, well, okay, so I started out
Speaker 8: at the top or at the bottom.
Speaker 6: However, you look at it.
Speaker 4: Absolutely when you talk about the last book that we discussed,
Speaker 4: and that is Death on the River, what is a
Speaker 4: what was markedly different about writing that book and covering
Speaker 4: that case for you.
Speaker 8: What was different was that it was really really difficult
Speaker 8: talking to people to getting documents. It seemed like everybody
Speaker 8: in their brother had lawyered up. And you know, I
Speaker 8: was able to talk to a lot of people on
Speaker 8: the vic inside, but I also like to talk on
Speaker 8: the perpetrator's side, because you know, it's like when you're
Speaker 8: writing fiction, if your bad guy has nothing but bad
Speaker 8: qualities and your good guy has nothing but good qualities,
Speaker 8: it doesn't ring true. Like kind of the most evil
Speaker 8: man I knew he rescued a woman in the middle
Speaker 8: of a flood, risking his own life. Now, that doesn't
Speaker 8: sound like a serial killer who would eventually confess to
Speaker 8: killing over fifty people. But he didn't. He tore up
Speaker 8: four boards to rescue a kitten who was about to
Speaker 8: drown under the house.
Speaker 5: Uh, you know, so.
Speaker 8: There is that thing is absolutely black and white. Even
Speaker 8: the most evil person is capable of a good deed,
Speaker 8: and the best, most wonderful, angelic person, even probably Mother Theresa,
Speaker 8: has done something she wishes she hadn't, and.
Speaker 9: That is why I like to talk to people who
Speaker 9: know those gods. And I think there was a little
Speaker 9: bit of that, but I didn't get as much, and
Speaker 9: the prosecutor is very very thin with any documents, and
Speaker 9: that made it difficult.
Speaker 8: I had to really scrape around. And it also seemed
Speaker 8: to me that police departments have gotten far tighter raised
Speaker 8: on their detectives and.
Speaker 9: Their ability to speak to people.
Speaker 8: I mean, in order to talk to the guy in
Speaker 8: charge of that investigation, I had to have the public
Speaker 8: information officer on the line with me, and a couple
Speaker 8: of times she said, no, you cannot answer that question.
Speaker 9: So I didn't get information. I was going for it.
Speaker 7: It was.
Speaker 9: Difficult, and then to see a good offered a stop
Speaker 9: on the risk, I just I don't know. And I
Speaker 9: kind of doubt that this was a totally pre meditated
Speaker 9: murder because there are too many things that happened that
Speaker 9: she couldn't have any control over it, like the weather,
Speaker 9: and I think.
Speaker 7: That she was.
Speaker 9: Someone who had thought about his death and was looking
Speaker 9: for an opportunity and she saw one. I'm sorry, but
Speaker 9: if you love somebody as much as she claimed to
Speaker 9: have loved Viddo, Dan, you would have worked your own
Speaker 9: life to save that person. I would have done everything.
Speaker 9: Instead of pulling you or away, I would have tried
Speaker 9: to find a way to use it to pull them
Speaker 9: up a tangle in my kayak, so you least hard
Speaker 9: to get the shore. I'd probably ended up showing myself
Speaker 9: in the process. But hey, that's low, that's law.
Speaker 4: Yes, now, Dane, we didn't have time to cover all
Speaker 4: of the fourteen books that you have, and but I
Speaker 4: urge people to go and look at these and and
Speaker 4: read for themselves. What is new for you? I know
Speaker 4: that you are a fictional writer as well, but what
Speaker 4: is are you investigating now for a possible book? True
Speaker 4: crime book? What's next for that?
Speaker 8: Having I am working on a novel right now, the
Speaker 8: last three chapters I've got to get done.
Speaker 5: And I also have a.
Speaker 8: Very very old, like eighteen forty serial killer thing I'm
Speaker 8: looking into and if something contemporary comes up. It seems
Speaker 8: like nothing is getting the press that Saint Martin's press
Speaker 8: wants to have in order to get me to write
Speaker 8: a contemporary book. And the politics are like eating up
Speaker 8: all the airways, so the coverage isn't there, and.
Speaker 6: You want something high profile for me.
Speaker 8: I mean, I'd rather not do high profile, but you
Speaker 8: know that's.
Speaker 7: What they want.
Speaker 8: So I am I'm just I'm just waiting on one
Speaker 8: thing and plodding on other one. And I'm also really
Speaker 8: really excited because Through the Windows has been bought by
Speaker 8: a publisher in China and they are going to translate
Speaker 8: it into simplified Chinese and come out with a new
Speaker 8: edition of the book in Chinese. I can't wait to
Speaker 8: see that.
Speaker 4: That's very interesting. Talk about expanding your market.
Speaker 10: And yeah, and if you heard about the the the
Speaker 10: Netflix Harrison Ford deal, No, okay, not Netflix, excuse me, staircase.
Speaker 8: Well, Harrison Ford is supposed to be playing and co
Speaker 8: producing a thing about Michael Peterson and the options my book.
Speaker 4: Oh wow, congratulations. That's amazing, And so I think.
Speaker 8: Some cares and for Jorady committed it probably will happen,
Speaker 8: but it hasn't beged espicially will happen yet?
Speaker 4: Yes, Well, that's fascinating And look forward to that. That's incredible, Dan.
Speaker 4: I want to thank you very much for coming on
Speaker 4: and talking about all of your books and you're fascinating
Speaker 4: true crime career that's nowhere near from being over. Thank
Speaker 4: you very much, Diane for coming on and doing this
Speaker 4: true crime retrospective. It's been an absolute pleasure. Thank you
Speaker 4: so much. For those that might want to look at
Speaker 4: other work, is there a Facebook page a website? Tell
Speaker 4: us about that, Dan.
Speaker 5: Coo, I have.
Speaker 8: A separate true crime books page for my true crime
Speaker 8: on Facebook, and I also have a website which you
Speaker 8: can read sample trapters from all my books, and that
Speaker 8: is Dianfanning dot com.
Speaker 4: Sounds great. Thank you so much, Dan. I know I
Speaker 4: will be talking to you again soon. You have a
Speaker 4: great night.
Speaker 5: Bye bye