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Speaker 1: You're listening to the Mind Over Murder podcast.

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Speaker 2: My name is Bill Thomas. I'm a writer, consulting, producer,

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and now podcaster. I am now trying to use my

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experience as the brother of a murder victim to help

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other victims of violent crime. I'm working on a book

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on the unsolved Colonial Parkway murders and I'm the co

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administrator of the Colonial Parkway Murders Facebook group together with

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Kristin Dilly.

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Speaker 3: My name is Kristin Dilly.

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Speaker 4: I'm a writer, a researcher, a teacher, and a victim's advocate,

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as well as the social media manager and co administrator

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for the Colonial Parkway Murders Facebook page with my partner

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in crime, Bill Thomas.

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Speaker 3: Welcome to Mind Over Murder.

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Speaker 2: I'm Kristin Dilly and I'm Bill Thomas.

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Speaker 3: We're joined today by author Kate Winkler Dawson here to

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talk to us about the Sinners All bow To Authors,

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One Murder and the Real Hester Prinn. Kate, thank you

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for joining us today.

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Speaker 5: Thanks for having me. I'm excited.

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Speaker 3: You are a very accomplished author with three titles under

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your belts already. So before we get into your latest work,

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why don't you tell us about the subjects that you

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have previously covered.

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Speaker 5: Oh my goodness, they run the gamut. Let's see. So

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my first book, which you flashed at me nicely before

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we started recording, is called Death.

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Speaker 3: In the Air.

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Speaker 5: What I've done with my career is I've started in

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nineteen fifty two with Death in the Air and I

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just keep getting backwards, going backwards and backwards in time,

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which is how we land in Fall River, Massachusetts in

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eighteen thirty two. So Death in the Air is set

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in nineteen fifty two. And if you are a woman

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who is probably about forty or older, you've probably seen

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the Crown. It's and it's about the Great Smog of

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nineteen which seems like an awful disaster on the Crown,

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but and the reality was as it quietly killed about

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twelve thousand people, and the government covered it up. It

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And amongst the people who are suffering are the real

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people who I interviewed for my book. And someone I

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didn't interview was a serial killer, nam Joe Reginald Christie,

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who was trapped in his house for five days with

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his wife when nobody knew he was a serial killer.

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The second book was American Sherlock, which is what I

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think I'm probably at this point best known for, and

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that's about a forensic scientist who worked in the nineteen

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twenties in Berkeley, California, and he just worked on the craziest,

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wildest cases and innovated a lot of really good forensic

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techniques and some pretty lousy ones too. And then the

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third book was called All That Is Wicked, which is

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based on my first season of one of my podcasts,

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which is tenfold more wicked. That was about Edward Ruloff,

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who was a genius in linguistics. He was just this

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gifted academic, but he also killed his wife and his child,

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and his brother in law and her child, and then

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created a crime ring in New York City during the

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Gilded Age, and you know, ultimately ends up killing someone else.

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What's interesting about that book is his brain became sort

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of the beginning of comparative anatomy in the United States

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because people were so fascinated with this guy who was

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so intelligent and yet seemingly so evil that he was

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the first brain purchased in the very first brain museum

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in the United States. And he studied pretty extensively, so

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then that leads us to the Ghost Club, which is

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when I say I have books at four and a

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half books. The Ghost Club is a is it probably

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about a six hour audio book, exclusively a book on

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audible and that is about a men's club in London

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that was started with Charles Dickens in the eighteen hundreds

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and all of these men from around the world would

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get together and eat French food and talk about their

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families and ghosts and goblins and witches and mediums, and

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a lot of them would try to debunk bad mediums

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who we're builking money out of people. Then we come

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to Listeners All about which takes place in eighteen thirty two.

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Speaker 2: So you are you're working backwards through history.

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Speaker 5: I know, okay, nineteen fifty two, and then the next

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book was nineteen twenties. Then the next book, All That

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It Was, All That Is Wicked was eighteen seventies, and

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then Ghost Club is a little bit further back in

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the origin of the Ghost Club. And then of course

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I can't I'm not sure I can get any older

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than eighteen thirty three. I can, but I don't know.

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At some point you run out of sources that are

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reliable so this is the oldest one for sure.

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Speaker 2: What made you decide to run Ghost Club as an

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audio book as opposed to a traditional print book.

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Speaker 5: That's a great question. My publisher, I believe, had never

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done that before, so they were very confused because it

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was like, I think one of the questions was, so

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do we publish this as a pamphlet? What happens with this?

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Because my books are usually ninety thousand words. In the

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Ghost Club's thirty thousand, it's a third the size. And

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I look at these projects like I'm getting ready to

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pitch a slew of audible books because I really want

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stay in nonfiction. But it takes years to write a

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good nonfiction book an audiobook. It's just it's a shorter commitment.

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The New York Times will still review you. They now

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review audio books. You still get great press, and it's satisfying.

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When I looked at Ghost Club, I did not think

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it was going to end. My editor agreed would not

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be a great ninety thousand word length because the Ghost

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Club was an oddity. It was a club that influenced leaders,

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but I don't think it was ground shifting in the world.

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And I look for big books for me that are

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like ground shifting, like the beginning of forensics, or the

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biggest air pollution disaster in the world, or the beginning

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of neurology. And the center is all about the inspiration

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for one of theirs, the world's greatest novels, and the

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Ghost Club wasn't that. It was just a really good, spooky,

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weird story that involved the world's best known ghost hunter

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and he spent the night in this really creepy house

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in the and so it's a good ghost story. But

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for me, it wasn't going to pass muster for a

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ninety thousand word book. That's what's great about these audible

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books is it's great to have that way to go.

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But it definitely confused my publisher for just like a

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hot minute, Wait what okay, how do we do this?

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Nobody believes me. Everybody was messaging me, wait, okay, can

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I buy this? No, you can buy the audio, you

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can't buy there's no print out of this. So yes,

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it's been a great experience though.

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Speaker 3: As most of our listeners will know, my day job

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is as an American literature teacher, and of course the

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title of this book captured my attention right away, especially

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because I had just finished teaching The Scarlet Letter a

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couple of weeks ago our school library and actually reached

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out to me. She goes, have you heard about this book?

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Do you want me to order it for the library?

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And I was like, yes, It's been on my Amazon

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list forever and she goes, oh, I'll order it. You'll

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get it the day that it comes out, and sure

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enough shed and that was when I decided, Okay, I

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need to reach out to Kate's pubbl assistancy if I

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can get her on the podcast. I love the connection

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to The Scarlet Letter because I teach it every year

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and it's one of the bits of American literature that

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my AP students really actually seem to enjoy, because s

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a Puritan level soap opera pretty much is for anybody

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who might not be familiar. There might be some people

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out there who aren't familiar. Who was Hester Prinne And

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why are we connecting Sarah Maria Cornell the Victim to

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Hester print?

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Speaker 5: I will say, the easiest thing is actually for you

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to give the shortest little summary of The Scarlet Letter

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from your point of view, and then I'll say where

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it is, because I think you're going to do a

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much better job of defining the most epic heroine in

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the history of liter I think, in the history of literature.

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But can you do for me a tiny little summary

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just to let everybody know?

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Speaker 3: Sure? Yeah, wow, I feel weird. I don't normally get

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asked questions on my own plod.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, they're a bigger Yeah.

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Speaker 5: I think you know about the book even more than

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I do. Certainly, No, I love it.

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Speaker 3: Yeah. This Scarlet Letter is from Nathanael Hawthorne, who is

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I think one of our greatest Romantic Sledge Gothic writers,

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and it is the story of Hester Prynne, a very

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independent woman, I would say, almost an early feminist hero

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who after she has a relationship with the minister of

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the town, Arthur Dimmesdale, she becomes pregnant, and as an

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appropriate punishment for her adultery and having an illegitimate child

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out of wedlock, she is sentenced to wear a scarlet

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letter on her dress for the rest of her life,

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and she eventually is like just shunned by the members

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of her puritan town, and she refuses to give up

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the name of the person who she committed adultery with,

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and so it becomes this wonderful morality lesson about what

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happens when you let sin and guilt define your life

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for Arthur Dimmesdale, and what happens when you you can

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accept the things that have happened to you and eventually

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grow and prosper past the things that have defined your

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life for Hester.

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Speaker 5: So when you read The Sinners All about do you

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see what I'm doing? And I interview people on my.

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Speaker 2: Show, Yeah, I'm feeling the shift here.

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Speaker 5: Did you see the parallels pretty clearly?

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Speaker 3: Oh? I totally did.

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Speaker 5: She's protecting Arthur Dimmesdale and Sarah Maria cornell inexplicably is

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protecting her rapist, the man who got her pregnant. And

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you see this? For me when I read The Scarlet Letter,

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which I'm sorry to say this, but my friend texted

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me in the middle of her reading the book and said,

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did you really read this again? You read the Scarlet

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Letter all?

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Speaker 3: Well?

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Speaker 5: Did you read it together in high school? Yeah?

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Speaker 2: Didn't we all read it in high school?

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Speaker 5: Oh my gosh, I really had to reaccustom myself to

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the language. For me, the Scarlet Letter, I thought you

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summarized it beautifully. But for me, the Scarlet Letter and

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Hawthorne really was focusing in on the impossible, incredible feats

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that women have to go to satisfy what is our

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perceived role in society, And so with the Center's all about.

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When I looked at Sarah's story, on the surface, it's simple,

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I'll do a very kind of like cursory thing. This

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young woman who is a factory worker is found dead

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December twenty first, eighteen thirty two, hanging from a pole

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on a farm in what was Tiverton, Rhode Island. It's

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now Fall River, Massachusetts. It turns out she's pregnant. Most

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people thought it was a suicide at first, including her

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own doctor. The heroes in my story often are women,

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thank goodness, and I'm always looking for women because I'm

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constantly writing about men who murder women. And there's a

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set of the matrons are heroes in this and we

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could talk about that in a little bit. Certainly, her

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male doctor is an incredible hero, as is the farm owner.

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As this whole story progresses, you see the unraveling of

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Sarah's reputation, and it is mostly from women that's life.

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The Scarlet Letter. There is a Methodist minister who goes

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on trial and a litany of women, just a list

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get on the stand, women who Sarah thought were her friends, Methodist,

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Fall River workers, farm actually from all over New England,

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who step on the stand and clearly lie about her,

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call her crazy, vindictive, she took her own life to

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frame this guy. They are the villains. So the women

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in my story, I think, just like in the Scarlet Letter,

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are the heroes and the villains. The coolest comments about Sarah,

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slut shaming, victim shaming, doing all this stuff, just saying

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what an awful person she was were from women who

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she thought liked her. And so I think that to

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me when we hear the story of Sarah Cornell and

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everything I've read in there's some history books that have

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been written about her and this case, it's always like

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the Methodists versus the mainstream Protestants in their fight. That's

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what it's really about, and that's what made the story

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a big deal, And I don't think that's what it is.

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I think that much like in the Scarlet Letter, it

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is clear I have been saying this. I don't know

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if people really know this, but the leading reason why

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women who are pregnant die is murder. Wow, it with

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Fardam it is murder. And how many cases can you

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guys think of every one of these that comes up.

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There was a course of rumor about Gabby Patito being pregnant,

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and all of this stuff comes up, and they are

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at their most vulnerable, and so this Sarah Cornell and

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Hester Prynne happened hundreds of years ago, it is happening now.

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It happened, and it will happen. It is very to me,

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very simple women who get pregnant. The men who cannot

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handle it still, the women try to protect them for

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a variety of reasons, because that's the role they've been

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told they have to play in society. And then in

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Sarah's case, she finally makes a demand, I need the

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money you owe me money, I need to raise this child.

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You did this. So he agrees, and then she's dead.

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And so that's the whole story. And the connections those

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are to me, like the really big connections to the

250
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Scarlet Letter. It's the essence of it, the essence of

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just women putting their heads down and just getting through life,

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the kind of with the society demanding things of them

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that are just completely out of reach for any normal person.

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Speaker 2: So how does a story from eighteen thirty two end

255
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up on your radar? We laughed about you moving backward

256
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through time here, but how did this story rab you

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and make you think I want to spend the next

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year researching and writing this book.

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Speaker 5: I think there were several steps. One was I had

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a listener reach out to me from one of my

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podcasts and she said, you need to look at this case.

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She was just thinking for my podcast, and it's called

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the Haystack Murder. And I said, okay, and I googled it.

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A pop the story of Sarah Maria Cornell, and it

265
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pops up because the pole that she's hanging from is

266
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called a haystack pole. She was on John Durfy's farm.

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So I googled it and I saw Sarah's story and

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I thought, this is interesting. I'm going to look into it.

269
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It actually could be a book because you read that

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she's pregnant, you read all of these details. And then

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I emailed the listener back and said, hey, thanks for

272
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that tip. I think Sarah's story sounds really interesting. She said,

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what are you talking about. That's not the case I

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was telling you to look at.

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Speaker 2: Oh, it was you talking about?

276
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Speaker 5: A different haystack order, which actually was even more well

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known about this looney tune butcher in nineteen twenties Midwest

278
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who found a doppelganger, killed the guy for insurance fraud

279
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to fake his own death, and set his car on

280
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fire next to a haystack so that they would all

281
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go up in flames. And she said, that's what I

282
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was talking about. So actually I just put it on

283
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the we'll talk about it on Buried Bones.

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Speaker 2: That actually is a pretty good case.

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Speaker 5: And I said thanks anyway, because this is a really

286
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good case. I looked at that and then I thought

287
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this could be a good podcast. Maybe it's a good book.

288
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I wasn't quite sure. And then I've learned about the connection.

289
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I am not the one who made the connection to Hawthorne.

290
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It was half a dozen at least academics who all

291
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recognize this. Because Hawthorne had gone to a wax museum

292
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in Boston and saw the depiction of Sarah and Ephram Avery,

293
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the reverend who was accused of murdering her, and he

294
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comments on it in his journal. He was a huge reader,

295
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big lover of true crime, and a huge reader of newspapers.

296
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I think between those details and those comments. There were

297
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little bits and pieces that the academics put together and said, Okay,

298
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this is clearly his inspiration, and when you read both stories,

299
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it's just an overwhelming amount of details that you pick

300
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up on. I thought, Okay, this is really good. This

301
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could be a book. Because I told you all earlier,

302
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I'm looking for significance. I'm not going to just do

303
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a story that, oh, it's interesting. And I can't even

304
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tell you how many books that I've looked at that

305
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say Crime of the Century are the very first serial killer.

306
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I just wrote about the first serial killer, Lucusta the

307
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Goal from three a D. So everyone who says that

308
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they had the world's first serial killer is wrong. They

309
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go back and back. I really need something more than that.

310
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So I thought, okay, the inspiration for the Scarlet Letter

311
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is amazing, and my editor loved that. But really I

312
00:16:20,639 --> 00:16:26,000
got excited when I discovered Katherine Arnold Williams and her book,

313
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which I know you're probably gonna want to talk about next.

314
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That's what really kind of geared me up for this story.

315
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Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, my next question essentially is exactly about that.

316
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So thank you for teeing me up for that. You

317
00:16:36,639 --> 00:16:38,960
approached this book with what I think is a very

318
00:16:38,960 --> 00:16:42,080
interesting stylistic conceit, and it's not one that I would

319
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have thought to do in my own writing. So I

320
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really liked this. So you not only discussed the work

321
00:16:47,000 --> 00:16:50,759
of Katherine Williams, who penned America's first widely read true

322
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crime book, Fall River, an authentic narrative, but you refer

323
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to Katherine as your co writer. So how did you

324
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become familiar with Catherine? Why do you feel like she

325
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was the most worthy person to be considered your co

326
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author for this project.

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Speaker 5: It's a funny, little funny story because I read her book.

328
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The first thing you do when you're a non fiction author,

329
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and if you guys are doing research, you get a

330
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little folder that says research, and then you start looking

331
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at the usual suspects. Looking at Gutenberg, you're looking at

332
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archive dot org. You're looking at every world cat Org

333
00:17:23,079 --> 00:17:25,200
where you're looking through the World Catalog trying to find

334
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out what where your archives are for the story. You're

335
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looking at all of these different resources and I found,

336
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I think it was through archive dot org. I found

337
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Catherine Williams's book, and I was startled because I'm a

338
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crime historian. I pretty much. I feel like I've almost

339
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read everything out there. And while I think conventional wisdom

340
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is that Truman Capodis in Cold Blood was the mothership

341
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of all true crime books, which I have my own

342
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issues with that book just to begin with, which I

343
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think most people do. I know, yeah, it's a controversial book,

344
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but I go back to the nineteen tens, nineteen twenties

345
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to Edmund Pearson, who would write longer, almost feature length

346
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books about one case. So it's very common in the

347
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eighteen hundreds to read blips or newspaper articles covering a case,

348
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but not a full length book. So I thought it

349
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began with Edmund Pearson. And then I see this book

350
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one hundred years earlier, and I was startled because Catherine

351
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was a poet, single mother, she divorced her husband. She

352
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was from a very affluent the Arnold family, very affluent family,

353
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but became separated when she made the decision to leave

354
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her husband, and she solely raised her child in the

355
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eighteen twenties and eighteen thirties based on being a poet

356
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and a biographer, so she for me, it was very

357
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mysterious why she picked up this story. She was so

358
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passionate about Sarah's case, and she became just a huge

359
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source for me, so big of a source. When I

360
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realized everything she had that I said to my editor,

361
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I think I'm going to have to credit this lady.

362
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If I were going to do that with some David

363
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Muir for ABC or some reporter and a newspaper art,

364
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I I'd have to approach them and say, listen, I'm

365
00:19:06,799 --> 00:19:07,720
using so much of your stuff.

366
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Speaker 3: Do you want to write this together?

367
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Speaker 5: And I said, I think she should be on the

368
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cover Kate Winkle Dawson with Catherine read Williams. And my

369
00:19:14,279 --> 00:19:17,519
editor said, I think there could be legal issues with that, but.

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Speaker 2: So that that did not end up happening, but it

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was discussed as you were developing the project.

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Speaker 5: Oh, fair is fair. And so the reason her book

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is significant because that was a very long explanation, Kristen.

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Speaker 3: For what you were asking me.

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Speaker 5: And the reason that her book was significant was that

376
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she had just access I would never in a million

377
00:19:41,079 --> 00:19:44,559
years be able to get Sarah's family. Her sister and

378
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her mother and her brother in law all spoke essentially

379
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exclusively to Catherine. She was given letters that nobody had

380
00:19:52,480 --> 00:19:54,759
ever read. I'm not even sure the prosecutor had access

381
00:19:54,799 --> 00:19:57,880
to all her letters. Catherine got into all of these

382
00:19:57,880 --> 00:20:01,240
factories where Sarah worked with the permis of the factory owners.

383
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She interviewed just an incredible amount of Sarah's friends and

384
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family she went to the trial. She interviewed her personal

385
00:20:08,000 --> 00:20:10,839
physician to figure out he was the one who knew

386
00:20:10,839 --> 00:20:13,519
about the pregnancy. Basically, almost aside from her family, the

387
00:20:13,519 --> 00:20:16,359
only one who knew about it. She interviewed her landlady.

388
00:20:16,559 --> 00:20:18,400
It was just like a dream come true. I never

389
00:20:18,400 --> 00:20:20,839
thought that would be possible for a story set in

390
00:20:20,880 --> 00:20:24,119
the early eighteen hundreds. But the purpose of her book

391
00:20:24,160 --> 00:20:26,240
is what was the issue. I read the book and

392
00:20:26,279 --> 00:20:30,000
I thought, this is incredible. But if you are a

393
00:20:30,039 --> 00:20:32,839
Bill Thomas and you are picking up Catherine's book and

394
00:20:32,880 --> 00:20:35,880
no one else's book on the case of Sarah Cornell,

395
00:20:36,039 --> 00:20:40,240
within the first few pages, Bill would say he's guilty.

396
00:20:40,720 --> 00:20:43,640
Every Ma Averne's guilty. That's it. Yeah, case closed.

397
00:20:44,799 --> 00:20:44,839
Speaker 3: It.

398
00:20:45,039 --> 00:20:49,319
Speaker 5: Because that's what Catherine really believed. She was parting this

399
00:20:49,400 --> 00:20:51,319
book to be even handed. I'm going to give you

400
00:20:51,359 --> 00:20:53,200
all of the evidence, but it was all of the

401
00:20:53,240 --> 00:20:57,440
evidence that she believed convicted him, and it was not fair.

402
00:20:57,480 --> 00:20:59,640
It was not the way I was going to approach

403
00:20:59,680 --> 00:21:02,319
the book, and I thought, I joke about this, but

404
00:21:02,400 --> 00:21:05,160
I have enough of a problem policing myself when I

405
00:21:05,200 --> 00:21:08,319
write a book. Am I staying fair? Am I staying accurate?

406
00:21:08,400 --> 00:21:10,400
I'm now I got this lady to deal with, who

407
00:21:10,599 --> 00:21:14,160
is not? She's very accurate. Her reporting was incredible and

408
00:21:14,240 --> 00:21:17,839
I had no less than nine trial transcript versions to

409
00:21:17,920 --> 00:21:20,920
look at to compare, so her reporting was spot on.

410
00:21:21,480 --> 00:21:24,559
But she was really sneaky. She was doing things like

411
00:21:24,640 --> 00:21:27,680
Sarah got into trouble when she was very young for thieving.

412
00:21:28,440 --> 00:21:32,640
She stole things on several different occasions. Catherine in the

413
00:21:32,680 --> 00:21:36,240
book conflated them into one essentially because one could be

414
00:21:36,279 --> 00:21:40,759
dismissed as a youthful indiscretion. But if habitual ceiling was

415
00:21:40,799 --> 00:21:43,720
a capital crime in New England in this time period,

416
00:21:43,920 --> 00:21:48,359
so Catherine very clearly wanted to advocate for Sarah. She

417
00:21:48,640 --> 00:21:53,039
very clearly desperately needed Sarah to be the perfect victim.

418
00:21:53,920 --> 00:21:55,880
Never slept with men. I don't know if she did

419
00:21:56,000 --> 00:21:58,680
or not. Sarah said she didn't. She was assaulted, I

420
00:21:58,720 --> 00:22:02,880
believe by frame. But Catherine had to craft a narrative

421
00:22:03,400 --> 00:22:06,519
that number one, This man was guilty beyond reasonable doubt.

422
00:22:06,559 --> 00:22:10,240
And number two that Sarah was a gift that was

423
00:22:10,759 --> 00:22:13,920
drifted off from earth by this man and nobody else

424
00:22:13,920 --> 00:22:16,319
could have done it. And that is not the book

425
00:22:16,359 --> 00:22:18,599
I was going to write. I wanted to re examine

426
00:22:18,680 --> 00:22:22,240
this case using forensic experts from the twenty first century,

427
00:22:22,279 --> 00:22:25,119
including Paul Holes, you know who is my co host

428
00:22:25,119 --> 00:22:27,880
on Baried Bones. And I wanted to look at the

429
00:22:27,920 --> 00:22:31,480
case again because I did not trust Catherine, and you

430
00:22:31,480 --> 00:22:34,200
know her book was so popular. I was concerned about it,

431
00:22:34,240 --> 00:22:37,160
and I wanted to make sure history was told correctly.

432
00:22:37,359 --> 00:22:40,079
Sarah was not perfect. She certainly did not deserve what

433
00:22:40,119 --> 00:22:44,079
happened to her. But the big question is does what

434
00:22:44,279 --> 00:22:46,640
happened with E. F ram Avery and his trial is

435
00:22:46,680 --> 00:22:49,160
it the right thing? And why or why not would

436
00:22:49,200 --> 00:22:50,599
it be? And so that was the question I had

437
00:22:50,640 --> 00:22:51,000
to answer.

438
00:22:53,279 --> 00:22:56,000
Speaker 2: You're listening to Mind over Murder. We'll be right back

439
00:22:56,200 --> 00:23:14,119
after this word from our sponsors, We're back here at

440
00:23:14,160 --> 00:23:15,079
Mind over Murder.

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Speaker 3: You brought up in cold Blood where there is very

442
00:23:19,119 --> 00:23:22,599
clearly also authorial bias there, and I love the fact

443
00:23:22,599 --> 00:23:25,839
that you set out for the reader, very clearly for

444
00:23:25,880 --> 00:23:29,400
anybody who isn't familiar with the idea that, like people

445
00:23:29,400 --> 00:23:32,000
who write true crime books a lot of times do

446
00:23:32,160 --> 00:23:35,640
have an authorial bias, whether it is absolutely set out

447
00:23:35,640 --> 00:23:37,960
there at a pody or let Catherine read, or whether

448
00:23:38,000 --> 00:23:40,920
it's just intentional and they don't police themselves as well.

449
00:23:41,000 --> 00:23:43,400
You were talking about that idea of having a police yourself.

450
00:23:44,000 --> 00:23:46,960
But I love that you were really straightforward about that

451
00:23:47,079 --> 00:23:49,720
and pointed out, here are the times when Catherine was

452
00:23:49,799 --> 00:23:52,279
not being unbiased. This is the times when she was

453
00:23:52,319 --> 00:23:55,000
being dishonest or misleading, or you'd even pointed out a

454
00:23:55,039 --> 00:23:57,799
time or two when she was being pretentious with her language.

455
00:23:57,839 --> 00:23:59,920
And I appreciated that you were willing to call her

456
00:24:00,319 --> 00:24:02,640
and be like, you know what, she wasn't reporting this right,

457
00:24:02,680 --> 00:24:03,559
and that's not fair.

458
00:24:04,240 --> 00:24:07,319
Speaker 5: What that does, which is being totally selfish on my part,

459
00:24:07,440 --> 00:24:10,720
Besides of course being honest with the reader, it also

460
00:24:10,839 --> 00:24:14,240
gives the reader an opportunity to realize that I am

461
00:24:14,799 --> 00:24:18,119
doing the very best I can with checks and balances

462
00:24:18,160 --> 00:24:20,519
on myself and on her, and I don't think you

463
00:24:20,680 --> 00:24:23,799
get that. Sometimes you have to just trust that if

464
00:24:23,799 --> 00:24:26,559
the person says they're a journalist or a cop on

465
00:24:27,079 --> 00:24:30,640
a podcast, that they are examining all of the information

466
00:24:30,759 --> 00:24:32,799
and giving you. As a journalist, my job is to

467
00:24:32,920 --> 00:24:35,200
take in all of this information and spit it back

468
00:24:35,200 --> 00:24:36,920
out to you in a narrative so you can make

469
00:24:36,920 --> 00:24:39,799
your own decision. And that's what my goal was. I'm

470
00:24:39,920 --> 00:24:42,880
very uncomfortable with the idea in any of my books

471
00:24:42,880 --> 00:24:44,759
of having to take a stand at the end of

472
00:24:44,799 --> 00:24:46,759
the book, because that's not what I'm supposed to be doing.

473
00:24:46,799 --> 00:24:48,799
I'm just supposed to be giving you all your options.

474
00:24:48,880 --> 00:24:51,880
But I had to do that. So with Catherine, every

475
00:24:51,920 --> 00:24:55,359
time I would say she's being sneaky and she's doing

476
00:24:55,359 --> 00:24:58,400
something incorrectly here, it was an opportunity for me to

477
00:24:58,480 --> 00:25:01,559
show how to do it correctly, which just validates me

478
00:25:02,039 --> 00:25:04,680
as an author. But I threw her under the bus

479
00:25:04,680 --> 00:25:08,279
because she deserved it. She was hired, we find out

480
00:25:08,279 --> 00:25:09,480
at the end of the book. I don't think it's

481
00:25:09,480 --> 00:25:12,039
a huge spoiler, but she was hired by the factory

482
00:25:12,039 --> 00:25:15,640
owners to just skewer for Avery. Now do I think

483
00:25:15,640 --> 00:25:18,680
he was morally guilty, Oh, God, of course absolutely, And

484
00:25:18,720 --> 00:25:20,759
there's a lot of evidence for me. We could talk

485
00:25:20,799 --> 00:25:24,480
about why I think that she was hired. It would

486
00:25:24,480 --> 00:25:26,519
be like being hired by the White House to write

487
00:25:26,559 --> 00:25:29,160
an unbiased piece and it's only your point of view

488
00:25:29,200 --> 00:25:31,880
and their point of view, and that's it. So she

489
00:25:32,039 --> 00:25:35,599
was a very convincing I think, in some ways like

490
00:25:35,599 --> 00:25:38,599
a provocateur of this story, and for Mavery didn't ever

491
00:25:38,640 --> 00:25:42,279
get a fair shake, and everybody deserves it. I tell

492
00:25:42,319 --> 00:25:45,960
my students, if you're stopped by the police, call an attorney.

493
00:25:46,599 --> 00:25:50,119
Innocent people call attorneys no matter what they say. At

494
00:25:50,119 --> 00:25:51,880
the beginning of the book, I had to say, I

495
00:25:51,920 --> 00:25:53,960
don't know if this guy's guilty or innocent, but we're

496
00:25:53,960 --> 00:25:56,359
going to work it through together and see what happens.

497
00:25:56,599 --> 00:25:59,640
Speaker 2: But that happens a lot. In other words, people come

498
00:25:59,680 --> 00:26:03,680
in to any number of I was about to say literature,

499
00:26:03,680 --> 00:26:07,440
but it's far beyond that. Come in with a perspective

500
00:26:07,519 --> 00:26:10,240
and a point of view. I think it sounds like

501
00:26:10,319 --> 00:26:12,880
you were trying to play it fair and down the

502
00:26:12,920 --> 00:26:18,640
middle and present just the facts. That clearly wasn't what

503
00:26:19,079 --> 00:26:23,680
Catherine was doing almost two hundred years ago. As you said,

504
00:26:23,799 --> 00:26:27,440
it comes late in the book that she's actually hired

505
00:26:27,599 --> 00:26:30,039
to do this, because when you were talking a moment

506
00:26:30,079 --> 00:26:34,440
ago Kate about the level of access that she had,

507
00:26:34,640 --> 00:26:39,200
I thought to myself, that's two hundred years ago. How

508
00:26:39,240 --> 00:26:43,720
does an author, a reporter, if you will, and a

509
00:26:43,839 --> 00:26:48,240
woman get that level of access where she's able to

510
00:26:48,319 --> 00:26:49,759
go everywhere?

511
00:26:50,240 --> 00:26:54,799
Speaker 5: Right? Why would Sarah's family talk to her almost exclusively?

512
00:26:55,440 --> 00:26:59,359
She had an awful lot of witnesses that she could

513
00:26:59,359 --> 00:27:01,960
talk to, so that never took the stand for the

514
00:27:02,000 --> 00:27:04,960
prosecutor because he must have thought they were unreliable who

515
00:27:05,000 --> 00:27:08,480
were really saying some pretty nasty things about from avery,

516
00:27:08,519 --> 00:27:11,200
which frankly I believed. I think he was a terrible person,

517
00:27:11,640 --> 00:27:13,720
but I agree I wouldn't have put them on the

518
00:27:13,759 --> 00:27:16,839
stand either. It's all hearsay. Cavin didn't have the ability

519
00:27:16,880 --> 00:27:18,880
to go track all these people down. She had a

520
00:27:18,920 --> 00:27:21,519
little kid at home, and she was a woman, and

521
00:27:21,720 --> 00:27:25,519
she was not just a woman, just a pious with

522
00:27:25,599 --> 00:27:29,799
three underlines under the word pious woman who I think

523
00:27:29,880 --> 00:27:33,079
it would have been a real, really difficult for her

524
00:27:33,160 --> 00:27:36,240
to do all of the leg work that clearly went

525
00:27:36,319 --> 00:27:39,960
into making this book. I don't have a doubt that

526
00:27:40,079 --> 00:27:42,160
she talked to all these people. I don't have a

527
00:27:42,200 --> 00:27:44,920
doubt that she went to all of the trial. I

528
00:27:44,920 --> 00:27:46,839
don't have a doubt that she read through every little,

529
00:27:46,839 --> 00:27:49,279
tiny piece there was. I think that a lot of

530
00:27:49,279 --> 00:27:51,839
people were brought to her though. I just don't see

531
00:27:51,839 --> 00:27:54,799
any other explanation. I mean, she talked to dozens of people,

532
00:27:54,920 --> 00:27:57,400
and one person would not really in that time period,

533
00:27:57,440 --> 00:27:59,319
would not really be able to do that. Where would

534
00:27:59,319 --> 00:28:02,440
you even look? The factories were filled with Methodist women

535
00:28:02,960 --> 00:28:05,240
who were protecting from avery. Those are the ones who

536
00:28:05,240 --> 00:28:07,920
all got on the stand. These people were cherry picked

537
00:28:07,960 --> 00:28:09,240
for sure that she was speaking to.

538
00:28:10,279 --> 00:28:13,759
Speaker 3: Let's get into the forensic experts that you used for

539
00:28:13,799 --> 00:28:18,000
the twenty first century. First, explain the podcast that you

540
00:28:18,079 --> 00:28:20,119
have with Paul Hols. Because I know that we have

541
00:28:20,160 --> 00:28:22,359
a lot of fans out there who are always looking

542
00:28:22,400 --> 00:28:25,440
for good new podcasts. Please take a moment to plug

543
00:28:25,480 --> 00:28:26,480
your project with Paul.

544
00:28:27,319 --> 00:28:30,920
Speaker 5: Luckily, it's a good explanation for how Paul gets involved

545
00:28:30,960 --> 00:28:31,359
with the book.

546
00:28:31,400 --> 00:28:31,640
Speaker 3: For me.

547
00:28:32,200 --> 00:28:35,839
Speaker 5: Paul Hols is a forensic investigator. I used to say retired,

548
00:28:35,880 --> 00:28:39,079
but he's not. He works active cases and he works

549
00:28:39,079 --> 00:28:41,960
for a DNA lab also and works cases with them.

550
00:28:42,319 --> 00:28:43,119
Speaker 3: He's so interesting.

551
00:28:43,279 --> 00:28:44,519
Speaker 5: I said, what do you do for this lab? And

552
00:28:44,559 --> 00:28:47,160
he said, sometimes I'll just tell them they'll give me

553
00:28:47,200 --> 00:28:50,960
a case. Because he's not a DNA analyst. He's an investigator,

554
00:28:51,079 --> 00:28:53,039
and he said, I'll tell him where to look for DNA.

555
00:28:53,160 --> 00:28:55,079
Why don't you try under the hood right about over

556
00:28:55,119 --> 00:28:58,759
here kind of stuff. Paul isn't incredibly smart, and he

557
00:28:59,200 --> 00:29:01,279
was one of the people who cracked the Golden State

558
00:29:01,359 --> 00:29:04,720
killer case. And he became well known because he's an

559
00:29:04,720 --> 00:29:09,319
attractive man apparently, and so there's a moniker ashtag hot

560
00:29:09,359 --> 00:29:13,839
for holes for Paul. He's so humble. And I had

561
00:29:13,880 --> 00:29:15,599
known Paul for a few years and I thought we

562
00:29:15,640 --> 00:29:17,839
would be great co hosts. And so I came up

563
00:29:17,839 --> 00:29:20,759
with this concept of a show called Buried Bones, which

564
00:29:20,799 --> 00:29:24,000
is on the exactly right network. Our mothership is my

565
00:29:24,079 --> 00:29:27,240
favorite murder, And essentially I pick a case. Paul has

566
00:29:27,279 --> 00:29:29,480
no clue about the case to begin with. I used

567
00:29:29,480 --> 00:29:32,680
to send him a prep document, but sometimes the title

568
00:29:32,720 --> 00:29:35,640
would give away what was happening, and so it'd send

569
00:29:35,720 --> 00:29:38,039
him some simple questions. But now I'd ask him stuff

570
00:29:38,039 --> 00:29:41,480
on the fly. So I'll pick a case. For instance,

571
00:29:41,519 --> 00:29:46,200
we taped one about a man who had attacked women.

572
00:29:46,880 --> 00:29:49,359
It was in nineteen seventy and he had sexually assaulted

573
00:29:49,400 --> 00:29:52,359
some women. And I'll unspool it as a mystery, this

574
00:29:52,400 --> 00:29:54,599
is what happened, This is how they figure out who

575
00:29:54,599 --> 00:29:57,640
he is. And we get into the case, and I

576
00:29:57,680 --> 00:30:00,599
think he knowices in that show that I started asking

577
00:30:00,680 --> 00:30:04,079
him a lot of questions about interrogation techniques, and I

578
00:30:04,119 --> 00:30:07,119
always have a point of why I'm picking a particular story,

579
00:30:07,559 --> 00:30:11,000
And I said, what about the rights of the workers?

580
00:30:11,200 --> 00:30:13,039
And are the people who are being called in? What

581
00:30:13,079 --> 00:30:15,720
about their rights? And he stopped. It just annoyed me

582
00:30:15,799 --> 00:30:17,400
and he stopped and he said, I know exactly what

583
00:30:17,480 --> 00:30:19,440
case this is because I said, it's a landmark case

584
00:30:19,440 --> 00:30:22,640
and it's Miranda. The guy's last name is Miranda Randa,

585
00:30:23,440 --> 00:30:26,240
origin of Miranda Rights. A lot of times these are

586
00:30:26,279 --> 00:30:28,799
cases where I try to fool him. There was a

587
00:30:28,839 --> 00:30:32,559
case about the whole family that's murdered except for two brothers,

588
00:30:33,240 --> 00:30:35,799
and I tell him about this person who was roaming

589
00:30:35,839 --> 00:30:38,480
around the house with an axe, what order they go into?

590
00:30:38,519 --> 00:30:40,759
The access to the house. It's in the eighteen hundreds.

591
00:30:42,000 --> 00:30:44,200
It was creepy. And then we get to he's trying

592
00:30:44,200 --> 00:30:45,880
to say, oh, it's a stranger of this and how

593
00:30:45,920 --> 00:30:47,960
do they get in? And then we get to the reveal,

594
00:30:48,000 --> 00:30:50,920
which is that one of the surviving brothers, comes face

595
00:30:50,960 --> 00:30:53,680
to face with his oldest brother who's covered in blood

596
00:30:53,680 --> 00:30:56,920
and holding the axe. Then it changes the story completely.

597
00:30:57,039 --> 00:30:59,400
So I think of him as a cop who I

598
00:30:59,440 --> 00:31:01,799
meet up on the scene and I give him a

599
00:31:01,839 --> 00:31:04,440
rundown of what's happening, and he gives me advice along

600
00:31:04,480 --> 00:31:08,000
the way. And it's been a successful show because Paul

601
00:31:08,680 --> 00:31:11,759
it's so interesting for him to talk about. I'll talk

602
00:31:11,799 --> 00:31:14,039
to him about a case from I think the latest

603
00:31:14,039 --> 00:31:16,119
one was maybe, or the earliest one was like sixteen eighty,

604
00:31:16,519 --> 00:31:18,160
and he'll say, I worked a case just like that

605
00:31:18,200 --> 00:31:21,079
ten years ago. And it's an illustration of what I

606
00:31:21,119 --> 00:31:23,559
always try to say. The reason people killed in three

607
00:31:23,799 --> 00:31:27,640
AD has not changed in thousands of years. It's all

608
00:31:27,680 --> 00:31:29,640
the same. It's the same emotions most of the time.

609
00:31:29,640 --> 00:31:30,079
Speaker 3: It's fear.

610
00:31:30,640 --> 00:31:33,359
Speaker 5: We learn from history. It just repeats over and over again.

611
00:31:33,400 --> 00:31:37,400
It's the point with my book, Sarah Cornell, pregnant, vulnerable,

612
00:31:37,559 --> 00:31:41,079
demanding money, she ends up dead, And this happened, I'm

613
00:31:41,119 --> 00:31:44,000
sure yesterday in some country, and it will happen. It's

614
00:31:44,039 --> 00:31:46,640
a repeating pattern. We're humans, that's what happens.

615
00:31:47,000 --> 00:31:50,799
Speaker 2: Yeah, I feel like I see reports now. Obviously we

616
00:31:50,880 --> 00:31:54,000
can't follow every case, but when you're in the true

617
00:31:54,000 --> 00:31:56,799
crime space, you read a lot about true crime and

618
00:31:56,799 --> 00:31:59,960
about new cases as well as older, particularly unsolved on

619
00:32:00,720 --> 00:32:04,160
and I feel like I hear that story over and

620
00:32:04,200 --> 00:32:04,759
over again.

621
00:32:05,160 --> 00:32:09,400
Speaker 5: Ye shnan Anne Watts, Chris Watts, who killed two little girl,

622
00:32:09,440 --> 00:32:12,559
she was pregnant, Lacy Peterson, she was pregnant. It just

623
00:32:12,559 --> 00:32:15,319
goes on and on, and it really is there's I

624
00:32:15,319 --> 00:32:17,759
think there are things that are common in citing incidents

625
00:32:17,799 --> 00:32:20,440
for people who are killers, and having a pregnant partner

626
00:32:20,519 --> 00:32:23,440
is one of those things if they're hiding something, and

627
00:32:23,920 --> 00:32:26,559
so it's yeah, it's really it's interesting to see that

628
00:32:26,599 --> 00:32:30,160
pattern repeat itself over and over again, and we learned

629
00:32:30,279 --> 00:32:33,720
things from that show. There was an episode from the

630
00:32:33,720 --> 00:32:36,559
seventeen hundreds about a woman who was in a terrible

631
00:32:36,559 --> 00:32:38,559
marriage and she ends up having an affair with a

632
00:32:38,599 --> 00:32:42,960
young revolutionary soldier who's walking past her house essentially, and

633
00:32:43,039 --> 00:32:46,079
he's an older teenager. They have an affair, he gets

634
00:32:46,119 --> 00:32:49,680
her pregnant. The woman says, he's my husband's going to

635
00:32:49,720 --> 00:32:52,680
find out because we haven't slept together in probably a year,

636
00:32:53,119 --> 00:32:55,079
so they have to kill him. They feel like there's

637
00:32:55,119 --> 00:32:58,759
absolutely no other choice. But killed the husband because she's pregnant.

638
00:32:58,799 --> 00:33:01,200
It's going to happen. And Paul and I were talking

639
00:33:01,160 --> 00:33:03,960
about it, and I said, I see it. She felt

640
00:33:04,000 --> 00:33:07,880
like she had no choice because she would have been executed,

641
00:33:07,960 --> 00:33:10,599
run out of town, all sorts of terrible things if

642
00:33:10,599 --> 00:33:13,279
she had a child with somebody other than her husband.

643
00:33:13,640 --> 00:33:15,839
So it was like self preservation. I'm not saying it

644
00:33:15,839 --> 00:33:17,440
was the right thing to do, but I think he

645
00:33:17,599 --> 00:33:20,000
was totally clueless about how serious that would have been

646
00:33:20,000 --> 00:33:23,720
in the seventeen hundreds and it's still serious in places today.

647
00:33:24,519 --> 00:33:27,680
Speaker 3: Did you treat the work on this with Paul the

648
00:33:27,720 --> 00:33:29,799
same way that you do one of your podcast episodes

649
00:33:29,839 --> 00:33:32,119
where you just said, I'm going to spill a case

650
00:33:32,160 --> 00:33:34,960
for you. I want you to give me your interpretation.

651
00:33:35,480 --> 00:33:38,359
Speaker 5: Yeah, and during certain points, So if I were having

652
00:33:38,440 --> 00:33:41,000
to poor Paul, he would be there for hours and

653
00:33:41,039 --> 00:33:43,119
hours listening to me. And actually we've done that in

654
00:33:43,160 --> 00:33:46,319
a more casual setting in person. Talked to him about cases,

655
00:33:46,640 --> 00:33:48,680
but I gave him the highlights and I would ask

656
00:33:48,759 --> 00:33:53,960
specific questions. One part is, hopefully I'm not jumping ahead here,

657
00:33:54,000 --> 00:33:57,160
but when Sarah is discovered and the men cut her

658
00:33:57,200 --> 00:34:00,599
down and there's a coroner's jury who was all of course,

659
00:34:00,599 --> 00:34:02,960
and I think everybody knows Corner's juries. You don't have

660
00:34:02,960 --> 00:34:05,240
to have any medical expertise at all, and in this

661
00:34:05,279 --> 00:34:07,079
time period, I think you just had to own an

662
00:34:07,119 --> 00:34:07,839
acre of land.

663
00:34:07,920 --> 00:34:08,320
Speaker 3: Maybe.

664
00:34:08,719 --> 00:34:11,360
Speaker 5: So these men show up, they don't take her clothes off.

665
00:34:11,400 --> 00:34:14,679
She's dressed in a bonnet. Her shoes were lying next

666
00:34:14,719 --> 00:34:17,239
to her. Her knees were barely off the ground. She would

667
00:34:17,280 --> 00:34:19,920
have been tall enough to tie this twine on the

668
00:34:19,960 --> 00:34:23,280
top of the hook. Her physician said she was pregnant.

669
00:34:23,440 --> 00:34:26,360
She was probably very upset. This is probably a suicide.

670
00:34:26,880 --> 00:34:30,239
When the matrons undress her, which is what their job

671
00:34:30,440 --> 00:34:32,679
was in the eighteen hundreds and the seventeen hundreds, all

672
00:34:32,679 --> 00:34:34,920
the way back, the women in the town, the most

673
00:34:34,960 --> 00:34:38,159
respected women in the town. Their task was when a

674
00:34:38,199 --> 00:34:41,760
woman died, to privately undress her, wash her off, redress her,

675
00:34:41,760 --> 00:34:44,320
get it ready for burial. And so when they did that,

676
00:34:44,360 --> 00:34:47,800
and they saw just incredible violence all over her body.

677
00:34:48,360 --> 00:34:51,719
Handmarks on either side of her hips, which I suspect

678
00:34:51,840 --> 00:34:55,880
was trying to force a termination of the pregnancy, skin knees,

679
00:34:56,119 --> 00:34:58,719
just awful. This would have been a suicide had it

680
00:34:58,760 --> 00:35:02,079
not been for the women saying eventually she was buried

681
00:35:02,400 --> 00:35:04,760
when they said it, they didn't say anything until after

682
00:35:04,800 --> 00:35:06,960
she was buried, But then when they raised the alarm

683
00:35:07,000 --> 00:35:09,320
about that was a really big thing. And so I

684
00:35:09,360 --> 00:35:11,159
talked to Paul about that, and by the end of

685
00:35:11,159 --> 00:35:13,480
my conversation, he said, do you think these would be women?

686
00:35:14,360 --> 00:35:16,159
He was questioning whether or not they would be able

687
00:35:16,159 --> 00:35:19,519
to recognize violence versus maybe someone who was struggling and

688
00:35:19,559 --> 00:35:23,639
had decided against taking their own life, or some old

689
00:35:23,840 --> 00:35:28,360
wounds from a boyfriend from two weeks ago. And he said,

690
00:35:28,400 --> 00:35:31,519
would they have recognized violence? And I said, probably most

691
00:35:31,559 --> 00:35:35,440
of this woman had experienced violence in the lifetime, and yes,

692
00:35:35,920 --> 00:35:38,679
and they had dressed enough women who were victims of

693
00:35:38,719 --> 00:35:41,360
domestic violence to know what a bruise looks like, what

694
00:35:41,440 --> 00:35:44,079
a recent bruise looks like. And so he said, then

695
00:35:44,119 --> 00:35:47,079
they're your best source. So clearly this was she was

696
00:35:47,119 --> 00:35:48,880
in some sort of a violent fight. So it was

697
00:35:48,920 --> 00:35:52,039
interesting because he then said, when you put it into context,

698
00:35:52,360 --> 00:35:55,320
he'll often say, this corner sounds like he knows what

699
00:35:55,400 --> 00:35:58,480
he's doing. I'm going to trust his judgment. And then

700
00:35:58,519 --> 00:36:01,199
other times he'll say, this pathology sounds like a total quack.

701
00:36:01,280 --> 00:36:03,840
I don't think we can trust his judgment, so it

702
00:36:03,920 --> 00:36:06,599
depends on the circumstances. But he really felt pretty strongly

703
00:36:06,639 --> 00:36:08,599
that the matrons knew what they were talking about. I

704
00:36:08,639 --> 00:36:11,280
was able to talk to him about knots. There's a

705
00:36:11,320 --> 00:36:15,119
big controversy the kind of knot that was tied around

706
00:36:15,119 --> 00:36:18,000
Sarah's neck. It was called a clove hitch It was

707
00:36:18,039 --> 00:36:21,400
something that Dennis Raider BTK used, which is why some people.

708
00:36:21,199 --> 00:36:22,039
Speaker 3: Have heard of it before.

709
00:36:22,519 --> 00:36:25,480
Speaker 5: The contention from Catherine and from everybody on the scene

710
00:36:25,519 --> 00:36:28,159
immediately was this is a mariner's knot. It has to

711
00:36:28,199 --> 00:36:31,199
be tied with two hands. She couldn't have done it herself.

712
00:36:31,559 --> 00:36:32,280
Case closed.

713
00:36:32,360 --> 00:36:33,039
Speaker 3: This is murder.

714
00:36:33,079 --> 00:36:35,719
Speaker 5: And that's really what I think Catherine hung her hat on.

715
00:36:35,880 --> 00:36:37,960
Was that clove hitch knot. And when I talked to

716
00:36:37,960 --> 00:36:40,760
Paul and a forensic non expert who had worked on

717
00:36:40,800 --> 00:36:44,000
these cases, they both said a clove hitchcock not could

718
00:36:44,039 --> 00:36:47,800
have been tied accidentally. Paul said, he I have what

719
00:36:47,880 --> 00:36:50,000
he says in the book, but he says, I came

720
00:36:50,039 --> 00:36:52,920
on a scene where it looked like it happened accidentally.

721
00:36:53,119 --> 00:36:56,079
Not the suicide, but the way that the knot tied itself.

722
00:36:56,119 --> 00:36:59,159
Happened when this woman was hanging off of the balcony,

723
00:36:59,280 --> 00:37:02,280
and so he said, it's absolutely possible. Do I think

724
00:37:02,320 --> 00:37:04,639
Sarah took her own life? No? Do I need to

725
00:37:04,639 --> 00:37:07,519
acknowledge to the reader that it was possible? Of course

726
00:37:08,039 --> 00:37:10,519
did Catherine? No?

727
00:37:10,800 --> 00:37:14,400
Speaker 2: Hell no, she didn't know, but she had her perspective,

728
00:37:15,119 --> 00:37:15,960
she had a motivation.

729
00:37:16,519 --> 00:37:19,320
Speaker 5: Yeah. Yeah, So that's where you're looking at two different

730
00:37:19,360 --> 00:37:21,440
authors with two different motivations.

731
00:37:21,440 --> 00:37:24,920
Speaker 3: Here. I want to take a second and quote yourself

732
00:37:24,960 --> 00:37:28,440
to yourself real quick, because I loved what you had

733
00:37:28,480 --> 00:37:30,559
to say at the end as you're wrapping things up.

734
00:37:30,679 --> 00:37:32,760
Because this is a focus. I think that is very

735
00:37:32,800 --> 00:37:35,719
important for us, in particular as true crime hosts, and

736
00:37:35,719 --> 00:37:37,960
I think it's important to anybody who wants to do

737
00:37:38,039 --> 00:37:41,840
a really good true crime podcast or book or anything else.

738
00:37:42,199 --> 00:37:45,239
You said, true crime should educate, explain, and eliminate, not

739
00:37:45,400 --> 00:37:49,400
simply entertained. Many contemporary readers and critics are making some

740
00:37:49,480 --> 00:37:53,039
long needed demands of true crime creators. Cease glorifying the

741
00:37:53,039 --> 00:37:55,760
criminal and his crimes, respect the victim and their family,

742
00:37:56,079 --> 00:37:59,199
complete due diligence, so there is accurate reporting. True crime

743
00:37:59,239 --> 00:38:02,400
can be insightful, evening, grossing, but it must be truthful

744
00:38:02,440 --> 00:38:05,079
and must of it is not. First of all, thank you,

745
00:38:06,400 --> 00:38:10,039
thank you, We wholeheartedly agree. Is that the main message

746
00:38:10,079 --> 00:38:12,000
that you want people to be taken away from the book?

747
00:38:12,000 --> 00:38:15,360
Speaker 5: Would you say, I think from the true crime part

748
00:38:15,400 --> 00:38:17,280
of it? Yes, I think, and I say this in

749
00:38:17,320 --> 00:38:19,679
the book. We are at a real inflection point in

750
00:38:19,719 --> 00:38:22,199
true crime. And I don't know if everybody sees it,

751
00:38:22,239 --> 00:38:24,880
but I feel it from my listeners. When I hear

752
00:38:24,920 --> 00:38:29,000
from them, we have the ability your kid can go

753
00:38:29,079 --> 00:38:32,119
out with two hundred dollars and create a podcast with

754
00:38:32,400 --> 00:38:35,599
no gatekeepers, no attorneys, no nothing. At least with a

755
00:38:35,679 --> 00:38:39,000
Netflix or with books, there are attorneys there to flag

756
00:38:39,079 --> 00:38:41,679
you on stuff. Although some of the stuff I see

757
00:38:41,760 --> 00:38:45,559
on streamers is pretty questionable. Sometimes I wonder did an

758
00:38:45,599 --> 00:38:48,719
attorney actually look at this before they aired it. The

759
00:38:48,800 --> 00:38:51,880
inflection point is that my audience, and I'm sure your

760
00:38:51,920 --> 00:38:56,360
audience is incredibly intelligent. I hear from them, and when

761
00:38:56,360 --> 00:39:00,159
I say intelligent, I don't mean highly educated. I have PhD,

762
00:39:00,559 --> 00:39:03,400
I have moms working at home, and I have sex

763
00:39:03,440 --> 00:39:06,199
workers who I hear from all the time telling me

764
00:39:06,280 --> 00:39:09,920
their points of view about things. When I hear from

765
00:39:09,920 --> 00:39:11,800
a sex worker who's praising the way that I'm talking

766
00:39:11,840 --> 00:39:14,440
about other sex workers, that makes me feel good because

767
00:39:14,480 --> 00:39:17,280
that's important. These are all human beings. Everybody is a

768
00:39:17,360 --> 00:39:20,159
human being that we're talking about, and they are pissed.

769
00:39:20,599 --> 00:39:22,559
They do not like some of the stuff they're seeing

770
00:39:22,639 --> 00:39:25,840
or reading. Most of them are advocates. I would say

771
00:39:25,880 --> 00:39:28,199
all of them are advocates. Actually most of them are women,

772
00:39:28,480 --> 00:39:32,199
about eighty percent according to our stats. And then many

773
00:39:32,239 --> 00:39:34,880
of them are survivors, and they do not want to

774
00:39:34,920 --> 00:39:38,000
hear sympathy for the killer. And I don't mean I

775
00:39:38,039 --> 00:39:40,440
think it's important to disclose things that have happened to

776
00:39:40,519 --> 00:39:43,360
people in the past. There always needs to be that

777
00:39:43,440 --> 00:39:46,719
caveat of there are many people who go through absolutely

778
00:39:46,760 --> 00:39:50,639
awful things and they don't torture and murder people and

779
00:39:50,679 --> 00:39:53,800
become serial killers. I really felt like I had a

780
00:39:53,800 --> 00:39:55,960
turning point in my thinking when I interviewed an author

781
00:39:56,000 --> 00:39:59,400
who should remain nameless, not for one of my shows,

782
00:39:59,440 --> 00:40:02,679
but for something else, and she was like fangrolling over

783
00:40:02,719 --> 00:40:03,440
a serial killer.

784
00:40:03,800 --> 00:40:06,960
Speaker 2: This is one of my hot button issues here.

785
00:40:07,480 --> 00:40:10,679
Speaker 5: It is considering your background and your personal what's happened

786
00:40:10,679 --> 00:40:14,719
with you can you imagine somebody spending more time talking

787
00:40:14,760 --> 00:40:17,320
about the serial killer and not even that just saying

788
00:40:17,360 --> 00:40:19,519
how brilliant he was and how nobody else could have

789
00:40:19,519 --> 00:40:23,000
pulled this off, versus talking about your sister and her partner.

790
00:40:23,159 --> 00:40:25,760
Speaker 2: But this is something Kristin and I talk about this

791
00:40:25,920 --> 00:40:30,280
frequently on mindover Murder, and we are certainly in touch

792
00:40:30,320 --> 00:40:32,719
with a number of people, many of whom wear the

793
00:40:32,880 --> 00:40:37,360
advocate hat. But the glorification of serial killers is something

794
00:40:37,440 --> 00:40:40,920
that I will criticize till the day I die and

795
00:40:41,039 --> 00:40:42,719
will never understand.

796
00:40:43,320 --> 00:40:45,880
Speaker 5: No, I won't understand it either. I really don't. I

797
00:40:45,880 --> 00:40:49,840
mean buying. I think it was Jeffrey Dalmer's sunglasses that

798
00:40:49,920 --> 00:40:51,639
he wore in prison, get it.

799
00:40:51,800 --> 00:40:52,719
Speaker 3: I don't understand it.

800
00:40:52,760 --> 00:40:55,719
Speaker 5: I think that my audience is really disgusted with some

801
00:40:55,760 --> 00:40:58,280
of the stuff that's out there. They teach a true

802
00:40:58,320 --> 00:41:01,719
crime podcast course, probably about a two and fifteen two

803
00:41:02,039 --> 00:41:05,000
twenty undergrad students every year at the University of Texas

804
00:41:05,039 --> 00:41:07,519
every semester. So I had them listen to good podcasts

805
00:41:07,559 --> 00:41:10,679
and bad podcasts and talk about the ethics. And they

806
00:41:10,679 --> 00:41:16,079
are now really fine tuned into victim shaming, into droning

807
00:41:16,119 --> 00:41:18,679
on and on about the serial killer and having too

808
00:41:18,760 --> 00:41:22,719
much detail when you're describing a crime. And I will say,

809
00:41:22,760 --> 00:41:25,800
I told them something that I thought was really interesting,

810
00:41:26,039 --> 00:41:28,000
and I wonder how what you would think about this bill.

811
00:41:28,320 --> 00:41:32,000
I got an email after I had written about Death

812
00:41:32,000 --> 00:41:34,320
in the Air. So Death in the Air was about

813
00:41:34,320 --> 00:41:36,599
a serial killer caught in this smog. He was a

814
00:41:36,679 --> 00:41:40,639
rapist and he strangled these women. He was like gassing them.

815
00:41:40,719 --> 00:41:42,920
He was he made a contraption where he would tell them,

816
00:41:42,920 --> 00:41:44,760
I'm going to solve your asthma issues.

817
00:41:44,800 --> 00:41:46,400
Speaker 3: I have a certificate in first aid.

818
00:41:46,480 --> 00:41:50,000
Speaker 5: And then he would pump carbon monoxide into a tube

819
00:41:50,000 --> 00:41:51,480
and it would knock them out. And he would sexually

820
00:41:51,480 --> 00:41:54,039
assault them and then kill them and then bury them

821
00:41:54,039 --> 00:41:56,239
in his backyard and in the walls of his kitchen.

822
00:41:56,280 --> 00:41:58,039
And he killed his wife and put her in the

823
00:41:58,079 --> 00:42:02,800
parlor floorboards. And I had this email from this male author,

824
00:42:03,639 --> 00:42:05,719
and I had never received anything like this before. He

825
00:42:05,800 --> 00:42:07,440
emailed me. He said, I read Death in the Air.

826
00:42:07,519 --> 00:42:09,639
I'm getting ready to write my first true crime book.

827
00:42:09,639 --> 00:42:11,880
I'm a journalist. But he said, I'm scared to death

828
00:42:11,880 --> 00:42:14,400
because I have to deal with sexual assaults in this book.

829
00:42:14,880 --> 00:42:18,559
And I'm a guy and I've got this has to

830
00:42:18,599 --> 00:42:21,239
be right. I have to get this right because I

831
00:42:21,239 --> 00:42:24,119
don't want to be that guy who if I say

832
00:42:24,159 --> 00:42:27,119
two or three things wrong, it's going to be interpreted

833
00:42:27,239 --> 00:42:30,719
as someone who is cessatializing or adding too many How

834
00:42:30,760 --> 00:42:32,440
do I know? He was like, he literally was like,

835
00:42:32,440 --> 00:42:34,480
how do I know? How much is too much? And

836
00:42:34,559 --> 00:42:36,719
what I said was in death in the air and

837
00:42:36,760 --> 00:42:39,639
I'm always looking for the strong women. My goal was

838
00:42:39,679 --> 00:42:42,039
to try to have each of these victims be as

839
00:42:42,079 --> 00:42:46,440
strong a character as Nasty John Reginald Christy the serial killer.

840
00:42:46,760 --> 00:42:50,719
And with those first victims, I wrote from their point

841
00:42:50,760 --> 00:42:53,800
of view based on all the information I had. When

842
00:42:53,840 --> 00:42:56,199
they breathe in the gas and they hear his voice,

843
00:42:56,679 --> 00:42:58,519
they go black, which is we know. I talked to

844
00:42:58,559 --> 00:43:00,679
a pathologist and he said that's what exactly what would

845
00:43:00,719 --> 00:43:04,320
happen is basically they would go black. That's it. Do

846
00:43:04,400 --> 00:43:06,760
I really have to explain what a sexual assault is

847
00:43:06,760 --> 00:43:07,920
to my audience now?

848
00:43:07,960 --> 00:43:08,920
Speaker 2: I mean, I understand it.

849
00:43:09,239 --> 00:43:13,119
Speaker 5: If your goal is to terrify somebody, it's worse to

850
00:43:13,239 --> 00:43:16,639
not explain it. Frankly, in each of those chapters, when

851
00:43:16,679 --> 00:43:19,679
I'm describing this, that scene is done and the next

852
00:43:19,719 --> 00:43:23,880
thing we know their bodies piled into the kitchen, and

853
00:43:23,920 --> 00:43:26,719
then I describe with one of the first women, she

854
00:43:26,920 --> 00:43:27,599
is buried.

855
00:43:27,679 --> 00:43:29,199
Speaker 3: I'm sure, Christen, you've got to this point.

856
00:43:29,320 --> 00:43:33,079
Speaker 5: She is buried and he's freaking planting flowers above her.

857
00:43:33,400 --> 00:43:35,719
And the only reason I know that is because I

858
00:43:35,719 --> 00:43:38,159
have a photo of when they found her vertebrae. There

859
00:43:38,199 --> 00:43:41,840
was a bush root wrapped all through the vertebrae, so

860
00:43:41,840 --> 00:43:44,119
she had been down there long enough for the plant

861
00:43:44,159 --> 00:43:46,679
to grow. And by keeping it from her point of view,

862
00:43:46,719 --> 00:43:49,519
and I told him this, it gave me the opportunity

863
00:43:49,559 --> 00:43:53,719
to step back empower the victim. There is no need

864
00:43:53,760 --> 00:43:56,400
to explain even what it was like for her to

865
00:43:56,440 --> 00:44:00,519
be choked out, let alone being sexually assaulted. He really

866
00:44:00,559 --> 00:44:02,480
wanted to take that tactics. I'm going to do as

867
00:44:02,519 --> 00:44:04,400
little as possible. And I said, you're not going to

868
00:44:04,559 --> 00:44:07,400
lose a reader because you're not graphic. And I just

869
00:44:07,400 --> 00:44:09,559
don't think people understand, or they maybe they don't give

870
00:44:09,559 --> 00:44:11,159
a shit. I don't know. I don't know why people

871
00:44:11,199 --> 00:44:12,360
describe things the way they do.

872
00:44:13,159 --> 00:44:16,960
Speaker 2: One question, we'd be remiss if we didn't ask this

873
00:44:17,599 --> 00:44:20,599
before we get to a close. How in the world

874
00:44:20,639 --> 00:44:27,880
do you find enough time to do multiple podcasts, multiple books,

875
00:44:28,400 --> 00:44:32,880
and teach and be a mom of teenagers. Yeah, how

876
00:44:32,920 --> 00:44:33,760
does all that work?

877
00:44:34,079 --> 00:44:35,719
Speaker 5: I ignore my family first of all.

878
00:44:38,159 --> 00:44:39,000
Speaker 3: In the bather room.

879
00:44:40,920 --> 00:44:44,320
Speaker 5: I do not ignore them, you know. I just I'm

880
00:44:44,559 --> 00:44:46,840
I've always been. This is probably gonna sound pretty haughty,

881
00:44:46,840 --> 00:44:49,320
but I've always been at work smarter, not harder person.

882
00:44:50,239 --> 00:44:53,440
I'm really good at just buckling. Of course, I will

883
00:44:53,440 --> 00:44:56,199
tell you. ADHD medicine is very helpful for me. I

884
00:44:56,239 --> 00:44:59,280
didn't get done, so I know it's crazy. I didn't

885
00:44:59,280 --> 00:45:01,679
get diagnosed in told about a year and a half ago,

886
00:45:01,760 --> 00:45:03,639
and I just it's a Christmas miracle that I even

887
00:45:03,679 --> 00:45:06,679
got through the first three books with no ADHD medicine.

888
00:45:07,119 --> 00:45:11,519
It helps because I need I literally have to sometimes

889
00:45:11,559 --> 00:45:14,440
Bill assign myself a word count every day. I'm just

890
00:45:14,480 --> 00:45:16,639
gonna do it, five hundred words. I've just got to

891
00:45:16,639 --> 00:45:19,280
get it done, even if it's the crappiest, shittiest five

892
00:45:19,360 --> 00:45:22,880
hundred words anyone could ever write. I do it. I

893
00:45:22,960 --> 00:45:26,000
do it because I'm so satisfied with checking off on

894
00:45:26,079 --> 00:45:30,000
my Google Keep that I've done a task. It's very

895
00:45:30,079 --> 00:45:33,360
that dope it is, and it's I'm a zero inbox

896
00:45:33,440 --> 00:45:35,840
person like I have four emails in my inbox right now,

897
00:45:35,960 --> 00:45:37,960
drives me crazy, and I'm probably gonna address them for

898
00:45:38,079 --> 00:45:40,519
my next podcast. And I'm just that kind of person.

899
00:45:40,719 --> 00:45:44,440
But I will say when I got diagnosed with ADHD,

900
00:45:44,559 --> 00:45:48,760
the psychologist who tested me and he said, so it's conclusive.

901
00:45:48,800 --> 00:45:51,960
You're definitely on the higher end of ADHD. And I said, okay,

902
00:45:52,280 --> 00:45:55,159
when he was explaining options, and then he said, but uh,

903
00:45:55,239 --> 00:45:57,440
look at how many jobs you have. Of course you

904
00:45:57,480 --> 00:46:01,400
have ADHD. No first stopping in the next I know

905
00:46:01,599 --> 00:46:03,639
is do you ever finish one thing? Ever? And I said,

906
00:46:03,679 --> 00:46:06,280
it's not easy, but maybe I'll be able to at

907
00:46:06,320 --> 00:46:09,000
some point. So I don't know if that's a good answer.

908
00:46:09,199 --> 00:46:11,639
I just juggle a lot of different things, and when

909
00:46:11,639 --> 00:46:13,599
I get bored, it's I'm just gonna sit around and

910
00:46:13,639 --> 00:46:15,039
eat popcorn all day pretty much.

911
00:46:15,039 --> 00:46:18,079
Speaker 3: So this is a better alternative. I love this, and

912
00:46:18,159 --> 00:46:21,760
I really I want to take your podcasting true crime

913
00:46:21,840 --> 00:46:22,800
podcasting class.

914
00:46:22,960 --> 00:46:25,079
Speaker 5: I have moms that come in all the time. It's

915
00:46:25,159 --> 00:46:29,280
so sweet. Get a really cute little email from one

916
00:46:29,280 --> 00:46:31,239
of my students of this. My mom's a fan, Can

917
00:46:31,280 --> 00:46:33,199
she come in? I always tell those students bring in

918
00:46:33,239 --> 00:46:33,960
anybody you want.

919
00:46:34,039 --> 00:46:34,559
Speaker 3: I don't care.

920
00:46:34,719 --> 00:46:37,360
Speaker 5: They can't post anything, they can't do any of our posts,

921
00:46:37,400 --> 00:46:39,199
but come in, have them sit and hang out. So

922
00:46:39,320 --> 00:46:41,159
you need to make your way down to Austin, Texas.

923
00:46:41,840 --> 00:46:43,760
Speaker 3: It is on my list. We're supposed to actually, we're

924
00:46:43,760 --> 00:46:46,480
supposed to go to Houston to visit ofthrom and we

925
00:46:46,599 --> 00:46:49,280
know Paul is going to be there. We're headed in

926
00:46:49,320 --> 00:46:52,239
the Texas area at some point or another. Yeah, okay,

927
00:46:52,280 --> 00:46:55,440
where can everybody find your book and your podcasts?

928
00:46:55,760 --> 00:46:59,519
Speaker 5: Everywhere? Both the answers for that are everywhere. You can

929
00:46:59,559 --> 00:47:02,599
go to exactly right network and that's where at three shows.

930
00:47:02,679 --> 00:47:05,920
One that's been finally retired after twelve seasons because it

931
00:47:06,039 --> 00:47:09,920
was killing me slowly. I felt like by the time

932
00:47:09,920 --> 00:47:12,199
I was doing with twelve seasons at Templemore Wicked, it's

933
00:47:12,400 --> 00:47:15,239
like a documentary series. It's a lot to do, and

934
00:47:15,280 --> 00:47:16,960
I always said I felt like I looked like President

935
00:47:17,039 --> 00:47:20,920
Obama at the end of eight years. I quit me

936
00:47:21,519 --> 00:47:24,760
at the beginning of four years of Tenfold because it's

937
00:47:24,800 --> 00:47:27,519
I'm just traveling all over the world. So now I

938
00:47:27,559 --> 00:47:30,079
have I'm happily at home and I have wicked words

939
00:47:30,119 --> 00:47:32,639
and then buried bones and we're on the exactly right network.

940
00:47:32,639 --> 00:47:34,400
Speaker 3: But if you just plug in my name, it'll pop

941
00:47:34,480 --> 00:47:38,280
up amazing. The book is The Sinner's All About to

942
00:47:38,599 --> 00:47:42,239
authors One Murder and The Real Hester Prinn, available now

943
00:47:42,360 --> 00:47:45,400
wherever books are sold. Kate, thank you so much for

944
00:47:45,480 --> 00:47:47,320
joining us today. We really appreciate it.

945
00:47:48,159 --> 00:47:50,519
Speaker 5: Thank you, guys. I loved it. It was a good conversation.

946
00:47:50,719 --> 00:47:52,920
Speaker 3: Thank you. That is going to do it for this

947
00:47:53,000 --> 00:47:56,039
episode of mind Ever Murder. Thank you so much for listening.

948
00:47:56,760 --> 00:47:57,800
We'll see you next time.

949
00:48:07,800 --> 00:48:11,320
Speaker 1: Mind Over Murder is a production of Absolute Zero and

950
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Another Dog Productions.

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Speaker 2: Our executive producers are Bill Thomas and Kristin Dilley.

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Speaker 1: Our logo art is by Pamela Arnois.

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Speaker 2: Our theme music is by Kevin McLoud.

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Speaker 1: Mind Over Murder is distributed in partnership with crawl Space Media.

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Speaker 2: You can follow us on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram.

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Speaker 1: You can also follow our page on the Colonial Parkway

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Murders on Facebook.

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Speaker 2: And finally, you can follow Bill Thomas on Twitter at

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Bill Thomas five six.

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Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to mind Over Murder.