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Chumba 43 00:01:46.840 --> 00:01:49.280 Casino's home to hundreds oft casino style games you can 44 00:01:49.280 --> 00:01:53.200 play for free anytime, anywhere, even at thirty thousand feet 45 00:01:53.239 --> 00:01:55.519 so sign up now at Chumbuck Casino dot com to 46 00:01:55.560 --> 00:01:58.760 claim your free welcome bonus that's Chumbuck Casino dot com 47 00:01:58.879 --> 00:02:00.079 and live the Chumba Laan. 48 00:02:00.120 --> 00:02:03.079 Bilvert neverarymedivery lost term conditions eating pluss. 49 00:02:12.599 --> 00:02:16.000 You are now listening to True Murder, the most shocking 50 00:02:16.120 --> 00:02:19.120 killers in true crime history and the authors that have 51 00:02:19.199 --> 00:02:26.439 written about them Gasey, Bundy, Dahmer, The Nightstalker DTK. Every 52 00:02:26.520 --> 00:02:30.159 week another fascinating author talking about the most shocking and 53 00:02:30.319 --> 00:02:34.800 infamous killers in true crime history. True Murder with your host, 54 00:02:35.199 --> 00:02:37.719 journalist and author Dan Zufanski. 55 00:02:47.479 --> 00:02:52.280 Good evening. In this superb work of literary true crime, 56 00:02:52.919 --> 00:02:58.039 a spellbinding combination of memoir and psychological suspense, a female 57 00:02:58.120 --> 00:03:02.479 journalist chronicles unusual connection with a convicted serial killer in 58 00:03:02.599 --> 00:03:07.919 her search to understand a darkness inside us. Well, well, Claudia, 59 00:03:08.240 --> 00:03:10.719 can I call you? Claudia. I'll have to give it 60 00:03:10.800 --> 00:03:13.599 to you. When confronted, at least you're honest, as honest 61 00:03:13.639 --> 00:03:16.520 as any reporter. You want to go into the depths 62 00:03:16.560 --> 00:03:19.080 of my mind and into my past. I want to 63 00:03:19.120 --> 00:03:22.840 peek into yours. It is only fair, isn't it. Kendall 64 00:03:23.000 --> 00:03:28.439 Francois in September nineteen ninety eight, young reporter Claudia Rowe 65 00:03:28.520 --> 00:03:30.479 was working as a stringer for the New York Times 66 00:03:30.520 --> 00:03:33.960 in Poughkeepsie, New York, when local police discovered the bodies 67 00:03:34.000 --> 00:03:36.400 of eight women stashed in the attic and basement of 68 00:03:36.439 --> 00:03:41.759 the small colonial home that Kendall fran Kendel Francois, painfully polite, 69 00:03:41.840 --> 00:03:44.840 twenty seven year old community college student shared with his 70 00:03:45.000 --> 00:03:50.680 parents and sister. Growing up amid the safe bourgeois affluence 71 00:03:50.719 --> 00:03:54.039 of New York City, Roe had always been secretly fascinated 72 00:03:54.080 --> 00:03:57.080 by the darkness, and soon became obsessed with the story 73 00:03:57.560 --> 00:04:00.840 and with Francois. She was consumed with the desire to 74 00:04:00.919 --> 00:04:04.120 understand just how a man could abduct and strangle eight women, 75 00:04:04.719 --> 00:04:07.840 and how a family could live for two years, seemingly unaware, 76 00:04:08.400 --> 00:04:11.439 in a house with the victim's rotting corpses. She also 77 00:04:11.520 --> 00:04:14.919 hoped to uncover what humanity, if any, a murderer could 78 00:04:14.960 --> 00:04:19.680 maintain in the wake of such monstrous evil. Reaching out 79 00:04:19.720 --> 00:04:22.800 after Francois was arrested, Roe and the serial killer began 80 00:04:22.920 --> 00:04:27.439 a dizzying four year conversation about cruelty, compassion, and control. 81 00:04:27.839 --> 00:04:30.959 An unusual and provocative relationship that would eventually lead to 82 00:04:31.079 --> 00:04:35.360 her lead her to the Abyss, forcing her to clearly 83 00:04:35.439 --> 00:04:38.639 see herself and her own past and why she was 84 00:04:38.720 --> 00:04:41.800 drawn to danger. The book that were profiling this evening 85 00:04:41.879 --> 00:04:45.519 is The Spider and the Fly Reporter, A Serial Killer 86 00:04:45.920 --> 00:04:48.600 and the Meaning of Murder, with my special guest, journalist 87 00:04:48.680 --> 00:04:51.920 and author Claudia row Welcome to the program, and thank 88 00:04:51.959 --> 00:04:54.240 you very much for this green to this interview. Claudia 89 00:04:54.360 --> 00:04:58.560 rowe Hi, it's nice to be here. Thank you very 90 00:04:58.639 --> 00:05:01.639 much for coming on and talking about this incredible book. 91 00:05:03.319 --> 00:05:06.360 Let's jump right into this and tell us a little 92 00:05:06.399 --> 00:05:08.639 bit about for those people that don't know for our 93 00:05:08.720 --> 00:05:14.959 international audience, and tell us where Poughkeepsie is, and a 94 00:05:15.000 --> 00:05:17.920 little bit about Poughkeepsie. And tell us what you were 95 00:05:18.000 --> 00:05:21.600 doing in nineteen ninety eight. We alluded to it that 96 00:05:21.680 --> 00:05:23.199 you were a stringer for the New York Post, So 97 00:05:23.319 --> 00:05:25.680 tell us a little bit about who you were at 98 00:05:25.720 --> 00:05:32.439 that time when these crimes were reported, and tell us sure, 99 00:05:33.040 --> 00:05:33.279 I was. 100 00:05:33.360 --> 00:05:35.480 Not a stringer for the New York Post. I was 101 00:05:35.519 --> 00:05:39.079 a stringer for the New York Times and with a 102 00:05:39.279 --> 00:05:43.319 very different newspaper, and I was living in Poughkeepsie, New York, 103 00:05:43.360 --> 00:05:45.160 which is about an hour and a half or two 104 00:05:45.240 --> 00:05:49.319 hours north of New York City. It was at the 105 00:05:49.480 --> 00:05:55.839 time a sort of rural community in transition. It had 106 00:05:55.920 --> 00:06:00.399 previously been very much a sort of rural agrarian com unity, 107 00:06:02.639 --> 00:06:05.199 but it was transitioning to sort of more of a 108 00:06:05.279 --> 00:06:08.399 bedroom community. At the time that I was there, I 109 00:06:08.519 --> 00:06:12.920 had previously been a local reporter for the Poughkeepsie Journal. 110 00:06:13.040 --> 00:06:16.199 I was an education reporter for the local newspaper. I 111 00:06:16.279 --> 00:06:19.160 had quit that job, but I stayed in the area. 112 00:06:20.560 --> 00:06:24.000 There were certain aspects of that small city that really 113 00:06:24.639 --> 00:06:28.360 kind of gnawed at me, particularly what I had seen 114 00:06:28.439 --> 00:06:30.839 as a local reporter and what I continued to see 115 00:06:31.000 --> 00:06:36.759 as its profound denial. I felt that that local journalism 116 00:06:36.839 --> 00:06:42.160 there was not terribly honest or forthright about the reality 117 00:06:42.319 --> 00:06:47.040 in the city. Because while the county surrounding Poughkeepsie was 118 00:06:48.120 --> 00:06:54.040 very beautiful and quite a wealthy county had estates built 119 00:06:54.079 --> 00:06:56.360 by the Vanderbilts and the Roosevelts, and a lot of 120 00:06:56.439 --> 00:07:01.800 horse country and sort of a lovely rural pastoral view 121 00:07:02.160 --> 00:07:05.639 along the Hudson River, the city of Poughkeepsie itself was 122 00:07:05.800 --> 00:07:10.000 not that it is the home to two pretty well 123 00:07:10.079 --> 00:07:14.199 known colleges, Vassar College is Vassar College and Marist College. 124 00:07:14.680 --> 00:07:18.839 Both are private, liberal arts institutions. However, they do not 125 00:07:19.199 --> 00:07:24.759 really sort of inform the reality of the city of Poughkeepsie, 126 00:07:24.800 --> 00:07:27.399 or they certainly didn't at that time. And city of 127 00:07:27.439 --> 00:07:33.399 Poughkeepsie was a had very high poverty, a fairly lousy 128 00:07:33.680 --> 00:07:37.279 education system, and on Main Street, which had once been 129 00:07:37.360 --> 00:07:42.279 this kind of bustling thoroughfare and bustling shopping area that 130 00:07:42.759 --> 00:07:47.600 drew people from around the region, Main Street had sort 131 00:07:47.639 --> 00:07:50.439 of fallen into decrepitude, and it was by the time 132 00:07:50.600 --> 00:07:54.759 I got there, essentially just a strip for drug dealing 133 00:07:54.959 --> 00:07:59.680 and prostitution and pawn shops and pizza joints. It was 134 00:08:00.639 --> 00:08:06.040 a really kind of depressed area that people tended to 135 00:08:06.160 --> 00:08:07.959 avoid if they came into town at all. 136 00:08:10.800 --> 00:08:13.800 Now, you talk about this book because what we talked 137 00:08:13.800 --> 00:08:17.360 about in the opening, it's part memoir, and so you 138 00:08:17.560 --> 00:08:21.319 are directly involved in the story, Unlike many most of 139 00:08:21.399 --> 00:08:24.920 the time the journalist is not part of the story, 140 00:08:25.079 --> 00:08:28.279 and you are an instricable part of this incredible story. 141 00:08:29.000 --> 00:08:30.920 So tell us, as you do in the book about 142 00:08:31.120 --> 00:08:35.759 your relationship with Derek, your boyfriend, and how you got 143 00:08:35.840 --> 00:08:38.399 encouraged to be involved in this story in the first place, 144 00:08:39.039 --> 00:08:42.679 and also what was happening with in terms of missing 145 00:08:42.720 --> 00:08:48.000 women and your response and the community's response before we 146 00:08:48.120 --> 00:08:52.799 talk about your first phone call to Marguerite Marsh Sure. 147 00:08:54.039 --> 00:08:56.080 Where we are when the story opens, and where I 148 00:08:56.279 --> 00:08:59.399 was in my life personally. I was stringing for the 149 00:08:59.440 --> 00:09:01.320 New York Times, but I was kind of at loose ends. 150 00:09:01.360 --> 00:09:04.200 I had this idea about the city of Poughkeepsie as 151 00:09:04.240 --> 00:09:11.120 this kind of symbol of denial. And the person I 152 00:09:11.200 --> 00:09:14.200 called Derek in the book was my boyfriend, and he 153 00:09:14.399 --> 00:09:18.080 still worked at them at the paper, the local paper, 154 00:09:18.120 --> 00:09:20.480 which was the Poughkeepsie Journal, and he would come home 155 00:09:20.679 --> 00:09:25.000 at every night and say, if there was another woman, 156 00:09:25.679 --> 00:09:29.399 you know who's missing, but the local paper wasn't writing 157 00:09:29.519 --> 00:09:34.080 anything about it. After the first two women were reported 158 00:09:34.159 --> 00:09:37.240 missing in nineteen ninety six, there were two, there were 159 00:09:37.399 --> 00:09:40.399 tiny little briefs in the paper that you know, they're 160 00:09:40.480 --> 00:09:44.399 just missing woman, maybe maybe four inches long or less, 161 00:09:44.720 --> 00:09:46.919 very very short, and no follow up. And after that, 162 00:09:47.399 --> 00:09:51.159 as women continued to be reported missing, and all the 163 00:09:51.240 --> 00:09:54.759 same kinds of women and all women who walked this straight, 164 00:09:55.080 --> 00:10:01.320 same stretch of Main Street, this decrepit strip where they 165 00:10:01.360 --> 00:10:05.840 were all involved with using drugs. Most of them were 166 00:10:05.960 --> 00:10:10.320 prostitutes to support their crack habits. So these were all 167 00:10:10.360 --> 00:10:13.559 the same kinds of women who were being reported missing 168 00:10:13.639 --> 00:10:18.559 within a fairly specific time range, and they were all 169 00:10:18.639 --> 00:10:23.000 reported missing from the same place. However, the local paper 170 00:10:24.240 --> 00:10:27.159 didn't seem to want to connect the dots. It wasn't 171 00:10:27.200 --> 00:10:30.360 as if this was a secret. There were missing person 172 00:10:30.480 --> 00:10:33.679 flyers up on lampposts and storefronts, and Derek, who was 173 00:10:33.759 --> 00:10:36.519 not a crime reporter, he knew about it. People knew 174 00:10:36.559 --> 00:10:38.600 about it, and of course the police knew about it. 175 00:10:38.720 --> 00:10:41.080 The mayor knew about it. People knew about it. But 176 00:10:41.519 --> 00:10:45.159 the local paper was not really digging into it. So 177 00:10:45.279 --> 00:10:48.639 Derek would come home every night and say, you got 178 00:10:48.799 --> 00:10:50.879 to look at this. You're writing for the New York Times. 179 00:10:50.960 --> 00:10:54.120 It's your responsibility. You have to tell your editors what's 180 00:10:54.200 --> 00:10:57.559 going on here. But nobody really was saying what was 181 00:10:57.639 --> 00:11:01.159 going on. Nobody was saying for sure there was some 182 00:11:01.320 --> 00:11:05.480 sort of crime afoot because there was no crime scene. 183 00:11:05.679 --> 00:11:08.200 You know, these women would be reported missing, but the 184 00:11:08.279 --> 00:11:12.559 police could quite reasonably say we're not sure there's a 185 00:11:12.720 --> 00:11:15.960 crime here, because it's not as if anybody has ever 186 00:11:16.080 --> 00:11:21.320 been discovered. So while I later learned that the chief 187 00:11:21.399 --> 00:11:26.840 of detectives had very strong suspicions, very early on in 188 00:11:27.039 --> 00:11:30.879 public law enforcement was saying, well, it's yeah, but we 189 00:11:31.080 --> 00:11:34.360 just don't really know what this is. Anyway, I did 190 00:11:34.519 --> 00:11:37.320 call my editor at the New York Times and say, 191 00:11:38.200 --> 00:11:40.759 you know, it's what's going on up there? I said, 192 00:11:40.919 --> 00:11:44.240 I don't really know. There's these women. They keep being 193 00:11:44.279 --> 00:11:47.080 reported missing. It's been going on for two years, we're 194 00:11:47.159 --> 00:11:51.240 now up to seven. But I don't really know if 195 00:11:51.279 --> 00:11:53.440 this is a story because I just don't know what 196 00:11:53.600 --> 00:11:57.039 this is. And he said, of course, start making some 197 00:11:57.159 --> 00:11:59.799 phone calls, get on it. And as I did that, 198 00:12:00.559 --> 00:12:04.799 very soon afterward, another woman was reported missing. And it's 199 00:12:04.879 --> 00:12:09.919 not funny. And then within a week after my beginning 200 00:12:10.000 --> 00:12:14.200 to call the women's families, a man confessed and his 201 00:12:14.320 --> 00:12:15.399 name was Kendall Francois. 202 00:12:18.000 --> 00:12:22.720 Now you had called Marguerite Marsh, Catherine Marsh's mother, and 203 00:12:22.840 --> 00:12:27.240 you spoke to her, and she talked about her daughter's 204 00:12:27.279 --> 00:12:30.960 life and her diction. And then you, as you write 205 00:12:30.960 --> 00:12:32.879 in a book, you talk to Pat Barne, which was 206 00:12:32.919 --> 00:12:35.759 the mother of Gina. And then you talk to James DeSalvo, 207 00:12:35.919 --> 00:12:41.840 brother of Kathleen Hurley. Now you also talk about just 208 00:12:41.919 --> 00:12:44.080 a little bit about why you became a reporter in 209 00:12:44.120 --> 00:12:47.000 the first place, so we can kind of understand how 210 00:12:48.000 --> 00:12:51.000 this story really did consume you, and this case really 211 00:12:51.080 --> 00:12:54.639 did consume you. Sure, so tell us a little bit 212 00:12:54.679 --> 00:12:58.600 about just why you wanted to become a reporter, and 213 00:12:58.799 --> 00:13:01.519 then what you knew. I actually saw you didn't know 214 00:13:01.639 --> 00:13:03.879 what the story was when you talked to your editor 215 00:13:03.919 --> 00:13:06.519 at the Times. But tell us a little bit about that, 216 00:13:06.639 --> 00:13:07.440 as you do in the book. 217 00:13:08.200 --> 00:13:11.480 Sure, I had become a reporter, really for two reasons. 218 00:13:11.919 --> 00:13:14.559 I always wanted to. I always thought I would be 219 00:13:14.720 --> 00:13:17.720 some sort of writer. I knew that pretty early on. 220 00:13:17.879 --> 00:13:21.159 But I was not terribly disciplined, and I was unable 221 00:13:21.200 --> 00:13:23.679 to finish anything. So that was the very sort of 222 00:13:24.120 --> 00:13:28.279 superficial reason. I knew that becoming a newspaper reporter would 223 00:13:28.440 --> 00:13:33.240 force me to learn structure, pace, to learn what was 224 00:13:33.320 --> 00:13:36.200 important and to concentrate on what was real, and to 225 00:13:36.320 --> 00:13:41.279 turn it into a structure into something that was comprehensible. 226 00:13:41.320 --> 00:13:43.279 I knew it would sort of teach me the rudiments 227 00:13:43.440 --> 00:13:49.039 of writing. But more importantly, I had grown up with 228 00:13:49.200 --> 00:13:52.799 a fair amount of sort of emotional violence in my 229 00:13:52.919 --> 00:13:58.720 own home and a tremendously frightening, unstable environment at home, 230 00:13:59.200 --> 00:14:04.840 and it framed my worldview. And I grew up absolutely 231 00:14:05.840 --> 00:14:10.320 riveted on this idea of cruelty and what is it 232 00:14:10.679 --> 00:14:14.919 that drives a person toward cruelty? So when I had 233 00:14:14.960 --> 00:14:17.960 this idea about becoming a reporter would teach me to write, 234 00:14:18.240 --> 00:14:21.840 what I wanted to write about was cruelty. I really needed, 235 00:14:22.159 --> 00:14:26.679 for personal reasons to understand what is that drive. I 236 00:14:27.120 --> 00:14:29.960 was desperate to understand it as a way of feeling 237 00:14:30.120 --> 00:14:33.200 less controlled by it. I felt like if I could 238 00:14:33.639 --> 00:14:38.759 break down cruelty and the impulse impulse toward violence, even 239 00:14:38.799 --> 00:14:42.159 if it's emotional violence or physical violence, if I could 240 00:14:42.200 --> 00:14:45.679 break that down and kind of understand its components, it 241 00:14:45.759 --> 00:14:51.440 would seem less mysterious and thus less powerful. It would 242 00:14:51.440 --> 00:14:54.720 be more comprehensible and less frightening to me. So that 243 00:14:54.879 --> 00:14:57.320 was kind of my drive early on as a reporter 244 00:14:57.840 --> 00:15:01.759 covering crime in the bro in New York City, and 245 00:15:02.720 --> 00:15:05.480 by the time I got to Poughkeepsie, I was covering schools, 246 00:15:06.200 --> 00:15:11.600 but schools are not exactly immune from violence themselves. 247 00:15:11.240 --> 00:15:11.320 And. 248 00:15:12.919 --> 00:15:16.240 All people start in schools, So schools seem to me 249 00:15:16.519 --> 00:15:20.639 kind of a logical place to understand where kids' brains 250 00:15:20.720 --> 00:15:23.879 begin to be formed and what does kind of drive 251 00:15:23.960 --> 00:15:26.799 you toward one path or another. So it wasn't quite 252 00:15:26.840 --> 00:15:30.559 as divergent from that original interest as it might seem. However, 253 00:15:31.559 --> 00:15:33.919 I wasn't really a crime reporter when I got all 254 00:15:34.039 --> 00:15:36.759 embroiled in this case. 255 00:15:40.159 --> 00:15:43.440 Now you talk about that, after a week of speaking, 256 00:15:43.720 --> 00:15:48.480 after a week after speaking the Marguerite Marsh about her daughter, 257 00:15:48.559 --> 00:15:52.240 you were at the Poughkeepsie Police station and you were 258 00:15:53.279 --> 00:15:56.240 interviewing the chief of detectives about the missing women mystery, 259 00:15:56.720 --> 00:16:00.759 and this Lieutenant pygrist Or Secrest walked in and said 260 00:16:00.759 --> 00:16:01.679 the case was solved. 261 00:16:02.360 --> 00:16:05.080 So I wasn't actually I wasn't actually interviewing him. I 262 00:16:05.200 --> 00:16:08.559 was waiting for the interview. And as you say, he said, 263 00:16:09.399 --> 00:16:11.320 I was waiting for this interview, which was going to 264 00:16:11.399 --> 00:16:14.639 be what are you doing about these missing women cases? 265 00:16:14.879 --> 00:16:16.559 You know, I was starting to zero in on a 266 00:16:16.639 --> 00:16:20.759 story about what the families were saying, which was they 267 00:16:20.879 --> 00:16:23.200 felt at the time they were saying that they felt 268 00:16:23.200 --> 00:16:26.320 that the police weren't taking this investigation terribly seriously. They 269 00:16:26.360 --> 00:16:29.519 didn't see a whole lot of urgency. So that's what 270 00:16:29.639 --> 00:16:31.720 I was going to interview him about. And he said 271 00:16:31.879 --> 00:16:35.000 it's done, and he hands me in address, and here 272 00:16:35.080 --> 00:16:38.120 you go and there and then there I was. That 273 00:16:38.200 --> 00:16:41.080 address was just a few blocks away. Pickpsie is not 274 00:16:41.399 --> 00:16:44.279 a huge place, so it took me five minutes to 275 00:16:44.399 --> 00:16:47.159 drive over there, and it was a block from Vassar College, 276 00:16:47.320 --> 00:16:51.759 and media from everywhere were by that point descending. 277 00:16:55.600 --> 00:16:59.759 If you don't mind what's inside, you do incredible job 278 00:16:59.840 --> 00:17:07.440 of describing this contrast that's there. But the remnants of 279 00:17:07.640 --> 00:17:10.279 this the crime scene, the home that we talked about. 280 00:17:10.319 --> 00:17:14.599 The two years, no one noticed the rotting corpses. So 281 00:17:15.279 --> 00:17:17.599 tell us what was found at that crime scene? What 282 00:17:17.720 --> 00:17:19.519 did it look like as you describe? 283 00:17:20.319 --> 00:17:24.480 Sure, So, even though the street that the Francois were 284 00:17:24.519 --> 00:17:29.319 living on was a very sort of genteel, gracious street, 285 00:17:29.519 --> 00:17:32.480 as I said, just down just a block from Besser 286 00:17:32.839 --> 00:17:38.359 College campus, it's a lovely neighborhood. Still, while all the 287 00:17:38.480 --> 00:17:42.799 homes were kind of colonials with large porches and very 288 00:17:42.880 --> 00:17:46.720 nice looking, the Francois home was on that street, but 289 00:17:46.799 --> 00:17:48.599 it was the only house on the block that was 290 00:17:48.720 --> 00:17:51.839 kind of run down looking from the outside, and inside 291 00:17:52.000 --> 00:17:56.000 was a whole different thing. It was a scene that 292 00:17:56.720 --> 00:18:00.799 police detectives who had been in Lawn were spent thirty 293 00:18:00.920 --> 00:18:04.960 years told me they had never thirty years seen anything 294 00:18:05.079 --> 00:18:09.920 like this. This was the home of a family who 295 00:18:10.000 --> 00:18:16.359 went out and appeared absolutely fairly normal. The mom worked 296 00:18:16.400 --> 00:18:19.559 as a psychiatric nurse, and this had worked at DuPont, 297 00:18:19.640 --> 00:18:22.519 which is a chemical plant, and the two kids, Kendall 298 00:18:22.559 --> 00:18:24.880 and his younger sister, went to school. Kendall went to 299 00:18:24.960 --> 00:18:28.240 community college, his younger sister had just graduated high school. 300 00:18:28.480 --> 00:18:31.880 So they sort of operated in the regular world and 301 00:18:32.000 --> 00:18:38.480 appeared fairly normal. However, inside their home were eight decomposing corpses, 302 00:18:38.640 --> 00:18:41.599 five in the attic and three in the basement. On 303 00:18:41.759 --> 00:18:45.359 top of that, the home itself was an absolute sort 304 00:18:45.400 --> 00:18:53.319 of blizzard of species and underwear and papers and random 305 00:18:53.400 --> 00:18:58.640 furniture and rotting food all over the place. Some of 306 00:18:58.720 --> 00:19:03.000 the upstairs bathroom, some of the bathrooms didn't work, some 307 00:19:03.160 --> 00:19:05.680 of the lights didn't work, the gas had not been 308 00:19:05.759 --> 00:19:10.400 on periodically. It was, you know, a place where you 309 00:19:10.480 --> 00:19:15.279 might find like dirty underwear in the kitchen and pajamas 310 00:19:15.720 --> 00:19:22.920 on the steps and torn up insulation falling down. I 311 00:19:23.000 --> 00:19:27.559 mean it was it was there were trails through through 312 00:19:27.759 --> 00:19:31.160 the garbage that people that the that the family walked 313 00:19:31.359 --> 00:19:34.880 on to get ready for school and work. So they 314 00:19:34.960 --> 00:19:40.440 were living in this profoundly disconnected state, These people living 315 00:19:40.759 --> 00:19:43.039 in a in a in a kind of condition of 316 00:19:43.160 --> 00:19:48.240 denial where they were not incorporating the reality of a 317 00:19:48.519 --> 00:19:55.119 of a of a fully trashed home beyond trashed with Okay, well, 318 00:19:55.200 --> 00:19:57.359 when now we're going out into the working world. There 319 00:19:57.480 --> 00:19:59.359 was some profound disconnect there. 320 00:20:02.880 --> 00:20:05.880 Now you take us to September nineteen ninety eight. Now 321 00:20:06.000 --> 00:20:10.279 Kendall is in is arrested, he's in custody. He is 322 00:20:11.240 --> 00:20:14.720 talking about some of the women they're being questioned about, 323 00:20:14.720 --> 00:20:19.920 Wendy Meyers, Gina Barone, Catherine Marsh, Sandra French. Tell us 324 00:20:19.960 --> 00:20:23.359 about what he says. He's looking at photos. Tell us 325 00:20:23.440 --> 00:20:24.680 what he says to police. 326 00:20:25.640 --> 00:20:29.880 What he did was ask for immediately ask for photographs 327 00:20:30.039 --> 00:20:33.559 of the missing women. He had been booked for something else. 328 00:20:33.680 --> 00:20:36.039 I don't want to give away too much of the story, 329 00:20:36.519 --> 00:20:38.640 but he had been booked and brought in for questioning 330 00:20:38.720 --> 00:20:42.839 on another matter, and he confessed to that, and it 331 00:20:43.000 --> 00:20:47.200 was a completely different thing. It appeared the police acted 332 00:20:47.400 --> 00:20:49.960 or seemed to believe it was a completely different matter. 333 00:20:50.359 --> 00:20:52.880 And when they left him alone and said we're gonna 334 00:20:53.640 --> 00:20:55.960 go follow up on this, he sort of knocked on 335 00:20:56.079 --> 00:20:59.680 the door of the interview room he'd been shut into 336 00:21:00.079 --> 00:21:03.079 that I want to see photographs of the missing women. 337 00:21:03.240 --> 00:21:06.640 This really surprised police, but they sort of hustled together 338 00:21:06.960 --> 00:21:09.680 a bunch of xeroxes that they just printed off their computers. 339 00:21:09.720 --> 00:21:12.519 These were the very same missing women flyers I was 340 00:21:12.640 --> 00:21:16.519 referring to earlier, the same sort of police mugshots of 341 00:21:16.720 --> 00:21:20.480 women that had been posted. And Kendall sort of sorted 342 00:21:20.559 --> 00:21:25.079 through the pile and he put his hand over several 343 00:21:25.200 --> 00:21:28.160 of them and he slid it forward across the table 344 00:21:28.240 --> 00:21:30.799 to the prosecutor. He had asked to speak to the 345 00:21:31.279 --> 00:21:33.799 head prosecutor for sex crimes who was dealing with the 346 00:21:33.880 --> 00:21:36.960 missing women case, which is an unusual request, And he 347 00:21:37.039 --> 00:21:39.480 put his hand over these photographs and he said, I 348 00:21:39.640 --> 00:21:40.680 did it. I killed them. 349 00:21:43.960 --> 00:21:49.839 Now you introduced this very interesting character, Assistant DA Marjorie Smith, 350 00:21:50.759 --> 00:21:53.279 and she speaks with him for seven hours, and you 351 00:21:53.440 --> 00:21:56.680 talk about what happens at the end of that interview 352 00:21:56.720 --> 00:21:59.680 of that seven hours, but tell us a little bit 353 00:21:59.680 --> 00:22:01.119 about Marjorie. 354 00:22:00.680 --> 00:22:06.559 Smith's Margie Smith was a sex crimes prosecutor and she 355 00:22:06.720 --> 00:22:10.519 had primarily been involved with domestic violence cases and child 356 00:22:10.599 --> 00:22:15.039 abuse cases. She certainly handled rape cases as well as 357 00:22:15.079 --> 00:22:19.000 a sex crimes prosecutor. She was at that point in 358 00:22:19.119 --> 00:22:23.079 her forties, she had been divorced, She was exhausted. By 359 00:22:23.160 --> 00:22:27.960 the time she was summoned to the Poughkeepsie police station. 360 00:22:28.119 --> 00:22:31.559 She had already gone through her whole day, just moving along. 361 00:22:31.680 --> 00:22:35.559 And she knew that there had been a questioning regarding 362 00:22:35.880 --> 00:22:39.519 a rape, that Kendall Francois had been questioned regarding a rape, 363 00:22:39.559 --> 00:22:42.680 and this was the matter that brought him in for questioning, 364 00:22:43.720 --> 00:22:48.240 and she'd dealt with that as just a standard sort 365 00:22:48.279 --> 00:22:51.640 of part of her case load. And she was very 366 00:22:51.759 --> 00:22:55.359 surprised to be summoned to the police station by other 367 00:22:55.480 --> 00:22:58.279 officers saying, yeah, there's a guy here who wants to 368 00:22:58.359 --> 00:23:02.119 talk to sex crimes prosecutor who's dealing with missing women. 369 00:23:02.480 --> 00:23:05.680 You know, at that point Marjorie Smith might have prosecuted 370 00:23:05.759 --> 00:23:08.519 the case. Now she was being turned into a witness, 371 00:23:08.960 --> 00:23:12.319 taking this guy's confession. It was very unusual. Turn. 372 00:23:12.640 --> 00:23:15.759 Now you talk before we go any further, it's I 373 00:23:15.839 --> 00:23:20.920 think it's important to talk about what Kendall Francois looks like, 374 00:23:21.400 --> 00:23:22.920 what is his appearance. 375 00:23:24.680 --> 00:23:29.599 Sure, Kendall Francois was an enormous African American man. He 376 00:23:29.839 --> 00:23:32.960 was well over three hundred pounds and at least six 377 00:23:33.279 --> 00:23:37.440 six feet four inches. He was a huge guy. All 378 00:23:37.519 --> 00:23:42.000 of his victims were small white women, at least all 379 00:23:42.119 --> 00:23:47.720 of his confessed victims. They were all they sort of 380 00:23:47.799 --> 00:23:53.599 looked like me. They in physical type maybe about five 381 00:23:53.680 --> 00:23:56.680 foot five, you know, one hundred and twenty pounds. They 382 00:23:56.680 --> 00:24:02.319 were fairly small white women, and he was a huge guy. 383 00:24:03.519 --> 00:24:07.559 Race was a considerable part of his psychological makeup. Issues 384 00:24:07.640 --> 00:24:09.519 around race, which is why I bring that up. 385 00:24:12.480 --> 00:24:15.759 Now, let's talk about you're a part of the investigation, 386 00:24:17.240 --> 00:24:20.160 which is something that you can control, and as you do, 387 00:24:20.279 --> 00:24:23.279 you interview as many people as possible. But as part 388 00:24:23.279 --> 00:24:26.319 of your investigation, what do you learn early on about 389 00:24:27.039 --> 00:24:31.119 Kendall Francois and the missing women themselves? 390 00:24:33.319 --> 00:24:36.200 Well, seemed to me, I'm not sure if this is 391 00:24:36.279 --> 00:24:38.640 what you're asking about. It seemed to me there was 392 00:24:38.720 --> 00:24:45.839 a fairly clear trigger for him. You know, Kendall Francois 393 00:24:46.039 --> 00:24:49.200 was with many many women from main Street. He was 394 00:24:49.279 --> 00:24:51.799 a regular out there. They all knew him, and they, 395 00:24:52.359 --> 00:24:55.000 you know, many of these women had been with him 396 00:24:55.039 --> 00:24:57.240 a number of times and been beaten up by him 397 00:24:57.319 --> 00:25:01.079 a number of times. Many many women knew who he was, 398 00:25:01.319 --> 00:25:04.000 knew what his habits were, and had reported him to police. 399 00:25:04.000 --> 00:25:10.599 It's as a likely as likely responsible for their missing friends. Really, 400 00:25:14.079 --> 00:25:18.559 it seemed, in talking to Margie Smith and in reading 401 00:25:18.720 --> 00:25:23.279