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Speaker 5: You are now listening to true Murder, The most shocking
Speaker 5: killers in true crime history and the authors that have
Speaker 5: written about them. Geesy Bundy, Dahmer, The Nightstalker DTK. Every
Speaker 5: week another fascinating author talking about the most shocking and
Speaker 5: infamous killers in true crime history. True Murder with your host,
Speaker 5: journalist and author Dan Zupansky.
Speaker 4: Good evening.
Speaker 6: This is your host Dan Zepasi for the program True Murder,
Speaker 6: The most shocking killers in true crime history and the
Speaker 6: authors that have written about them. Today's program is with
Speaker 6: author Don Lassiter and his book Die for Me, The
Speaker 6: Terrifying True Story of the Charles Zing Leonard Lake Torture Murders.
Speaker 6: Inspired by a fictional book called The Collector ex Marines,
Speaker 6: Leonard Lake and Charles Zing abducted, tortured, and murdered women
Speaker 6: in a secret homemade dungeon, all the while videotaping their
Speaker 6: ghastly deeds. They took the lives of at least sixteen
Speaker 6: victims and are among the most notorious serial killer teams
Speaker 6: in true crime history. Die for Me, The Terrifying True
Speaker 6: Story of the Charles Zing Leonard Lake Torture Murders by
Speaker 6: Don Lassiter. My guest. Don Lassiter is now working on
Speaker 6: his nineteenth and twentieth books. One was about World War II,
Speaker 6: one about the Kennedy assassination, and one called The Patricia
Speaker 6: Cornwell Companion. All the rest of in True Crime. His
Speaker 6: first book was published in nineteen ninety five. Welcome to
Speaker 6: the program, and thank you for Green dis interview. Dawn Lassiter.
Speaker 4: Thank you for a writing me, Dan, I've been looking
Speaker 4: forward to talking about Charles Zing.
Speaker 6: Yes, very much. This is quite the story of an
Speaker 6: incredible story. Now, the first question I have to ask you.
Speaker 6: You've written about many other cases, what specifically made you
Speaker 6: decide to write about this one.
Speaker 4: As a general rule, Dan, I prefer not to have
Speaker 4: high enough to deal with high profile cases like this one.
Speaker 4: I'd much rather select a small, relatively unknown case which
Speaker 4: has some interesting twist and its plot and it doesn't
Speaker 4: have high publicity. But in this case, my publisher gave
Speaker 4: me a bus and asked me if I would drop
Speaker 4: over to the trial, which happened to be a change
Speaker 4: of venue from northern California to Orange County, where I live,
Speaker 4: so that was pretty convenient. I agreed. I went over
Speaker 4: and sat in the trial for a couple of days
Speaker 4: and was hooked. Obviously, this was going to be a
Speaker 4: very very important true kind of story. Now.
Speaker 6: Wishaw author named John Fowls had written a popular fictional
Speaker 6: book called The Collector in nineteen sixty three. It ends
Speaker 6: up being quite significant to this story. Before we get
Speaker 6: to the significance, what is the book about and from
Speaker 6: whose perspective is the story primarily told?
Speaker 4: The Collector by John Fowls is about a young man,
Speaker 4: Frederick Kleig, who is a butterfly collector and he falls
Speaker 4: for a very pretty young woman named Miranda, but he
Speaker 4: realizes that he is not in her class, and he
Speaker 4: just has a lot of fantasies about her. Clague comes
Speaker 4: into a good sudden fortune which allows him to buy
Speaker 4: a house out in the country, and he gets this
Speaker 4: brilliant idea to just capture Miranda like he does his butterflies,
Speaker 4: and hold her there until she falls in love with him.
Speaker 4: The first third of the book is told from his
Speaker 4: point of view, the second third is from her point
Speaker 4: of view, and then finally the last part is his
Speaker 4: point of view. Again, he holds her, she does not
Speaker 4: fall in love with him he has he does not
Speaker 4: have sexual fantasies about her, unlike what we see in
Speaker 4: the Charles ing Leonard leg case, well.
Speaker 6: Let me let me, let me cut you off right there,
Speaker 6: so we can and fold this story here because it
Speaker 6: is very complex story as well, so we've got to
Speaker 6: get everybody to get the fact straight here. Now, in
Speaker 6: the book the Collector, the imprisoned woman Miranda tries many
Speaker 6: ways to either escape or persuade.
Speaker 4: Her abductor to let her go.
Speaker 6: Does the Collector ever mention that he might let the
Speaker 6: woman go?
Speaker 4: I think in the book he hints at it sometimes,
Speaker 4: but I think he has no intention to let her go. Ever,
Speaker 4: eventually she she comes to know that she's not in real,
Speaker 4: real danger, but she unfortunately dies anyway while under his control.
Speaker 4: Uh perhaps from pneumonia, we don't know.
Speaker 6: Okay, Now, Leonard Think is one of the killers featured
Speaker 6: in Die for Me. And what was when Leonard Lake?
Speaker 5: Like?
Speaker 6: What was his background? And finally he was discharged from
Speaker 6: the Marine Corps because of medical reasons? And in the
Speaker 6: end can you tell us what that medical reason was?
Speaker 6: So give us the background on Leonard Lake? What was
Speaker 6: he really like and what was his some of his background, Well.
Speaker 4: Leonard Lake was born excuse me, to an X Navy
Speaker 4: man and a young woman in San Francisco. The parents
Speaker 4: soon split up. When the woman decided to try to
Speaker 4: pursue her husband ex husband, she went to a train
Speaker 4: station with her two babies. She had asked Leonard, who
Speaker 4: was only six at the time, if you'd like to
Speaker 4: go with her, and she said no. But at the
Speaker 4: train station he decided he wanted to go and just
Speaker 4: had a big fit right there on the platform. But
Speaker 4: he had to stay home with his grandparents. Psychiatrists later
Speaker 4: saied ugested that that was the beginning of Leonard Lake's
Speaker 4: hatred for women. He grew up and he never lived
Speaker 4: with his parents again, lived with these grandparents, grew up
Speaker 4: in San Francisco, I went to high school, had some
Speaker 4: peculiar characteristics. One of his cousins later reported that Leonard
Speaker 4: had a huge collection of mice, and when he got
Speaker 4: tired of them, he gave some away and killed the
Speaker 4: rest of them, and the cousin once Leonard dissolve them
Speaker 4: in acid. That sort of gave a hint of what
Speaker 4: kind of a peculiar man he was going to be.
Speaker 6: Yes, certainly, certainly now continuing with his pecurity behavior, maybe
Speaker 6: he could just continue with his background and also leading
Speaker 6: up to his stint in the Marines grret.
Speaker 4: He went through high school and then joined Soon after
Speaker 4: high school, joined the Marines and went to Vietnam. There's
Speaker 4: some controversies whether he actually saw combat or not. He
Speaker 4: claimed he did later. I think he confess confess to
Speaker 4: one woman that he spent most time in a very
Speaker 4: safe place. But he came back all disillusioned, as many
Speaker 4: real Vena Vietnam veterans did, and decided he wanted to
Speaker 4: be a survivalist, preparing for a future holocaust in which
Speaker 4: the world would be destroyed. And he decided he would
Speaker 4: have a bunker equipped with all kinds of supply so
Speaker 4: he could survive, and he would like to have a
Speaker 4: woman in there too. Eventually he decided that that woman
Speaker 4: would be his sex slave, and that became a fantasy
Speaker 4: for him, stemming from his having read The Collector when
Speaker 4: he was a teenager. But he perverted it somewhat Fowls
Speaker 4: character protagonist that just wanted the woman to fall in love.
Speaker 4: Leonard admitted that he wanted the woman just to be
Speaker 4: a sex object.
Speaker 6: Now, when we talk about the Leonard Lake doing a
Speaker 6: stint in Vietnam and Marines, he was discharged for medical reasons,
Speaker 6: like I mentioned. What was that medical reason?
Speaker 4: Let's see. I think it was called him pending psychosis
Speaker 4: or something of that nature. He apparently had some very
Speaker 4: serious mental problems.
Speaker 6: Didn't the psychiatrists say that he was harmed to himself
Speaker 6: or to others? With that a conclusion they made at
Speaker 6: the end.
Speaker 4: That's correct, he probably would be a harm to others.
Speaker 6: Okay, Now Charles Ng is the other killer featured and
Speaker 6: die for me? What was his background and what type
Speaker 6: of character was Charles Ng.
Speaker 4: Charles Ng was born in Hong Kong to a middle
Speaker 4: class family. His father had survived the war and worked
Speaker 4: his way up to become a camera salesman for a
Speaker 4: major company, had three children and determined absolutely that his
Speaker 4: kids were going to have a great education. They lived
Speaker 4: in a high rise apartment, very crowded, with several relatives
Speaker 4: living with him. But Charles didn't seem to go along
Speaker 4: with the idea that was that important, so his father
Speaker 4: sometimes had to give him a pretty good spanking. He
Speaker 4: was later accused of beating him severely, but it didn't
Speaker 4: seem to change the young man. Eventually, they sent young
Speaker 4: Charles Ing to England to live with a relative that
Speaker 4: didn't work out, and then by the time he was
Speaker 4: in high school age, they sent him to San Francisco
Speaker 4: to live with an ant. He did that for a while,
Speaker 4: but as soon as he turned eighteen, he joined the Marines.
Speaker 4: It's interesting how he got in the Marine because he's
Speaker 4: not a US citizen. Somehow it was suggested that documents
Speaker 4: were forged to allow him to get in there.
Speaker 6: Okay, I see now, how did Charles Ing and Leonard
Speaker 6: Lake eventually meet? You say they were both in the Marines.
Speaker 6: How did they meet and where?
Speaker 4: Well, Charlie decided while he was in Conneaway Bay in
Speaker 4: Hawaii that it would be a good idea to steal
Speaker 4: some weapons from the armory and sell them for profit.
Speaker 4: He did, and he was caught and he was facing
Speaker 4: a court martial, but he escaped and made his way
Speaker 4: to San Francisco. While he was in in Hawaii, though
Speaker 4: he had met he had met with a few other
Speaker 4: fellows who wanted to be survivalists, and one of them
Speaker 4: mentioned that he knew a fellow in California named Leonard
Speaker 4: Lake who was a survivalist. So when Charlie came to
Speaker 4: San Francisco, well, I'm sorry. We joined the Marines, he
Speaker 4: stole the weapons. He was going to be court martially escaped,
Speaker 4: and he comes back and he links up with Leonard
Speaker 4: Lake in a little town called Philo in northern California.
Speaker 6: Now we spoke of the book and getting back to
Speaker 6: the book The Collector, the fictional tale of a man
Speaker 6: who was a butterfly collector who fantasized about collecting a
Speaker 6: woman instead one day acts upon his urges. Now, this
Speaker 6: book was Leonard Lake's favorite and why was it his
Speaker 6: favorite and what was it about The Collector that interested
Speaker 6: in him so much?
Speaker 4: Well, he read it as a teenager, and I think
Speaker 4: he began this idea of having a woman as a captive,
Speaker 4: as have a complete control over a woman. But his
Speaker 4: was a perverse view. The protagonist in Fowls book just
Speaker 4: wanted to be loved. Leonard wanted a six slave.
Speaker 6: Now there's another central character to this story and her
Speaker 6: name is Claire Lynn Baalis or Cricket her nickname, And
Speaker 6: you describe as the girlfriend, ex wife slash girlfriend of
Speaker 6: Leonard Lake.
Speaker 4: Who was she?
Speaker 6: When did they meet and how close were they? How
Speaker 6: well did Cricket really know Leonard Lake?
Speaker 4: While Leonard was moving around from town to town after
Speaker 4: getting out of the Marines. He was a pseudo photographer.
Speaker 4: He lured young women and for various methods to lure
Speaker 4: them into posing. The usually tried to get the post
Speaker 4: nude for him. He found at one point in northern California,
Speaker 4: a man who owned a goat that had been its
Speaker 4: horn transformed a single horn to make it look like
Speaker 4: a unicorn. Leonard saw that as a great attraction to
Speaker 4: young girls. He took it to the Renaissance pleasure Fair
Speaker 4: in Marin County, north of San Francisco. And while he
Speaker 4: was there demonstrating the goat and trying to lure young
Speaker 4: women to pose, this young woman came by, Claire Lynne
Speaker 4: Bella's cricket and they really hit it off together. She
Speaker 4: was equal to him in his weird sense of humor,
Speaker 4: his jokes, and he's interests in sex. And they became
Speaker 4: lovers and eventually married and eventually divorced, but they continued
Speaker 4: their relationship together for the rest of his life.
Speaker 6: Now you say that they shared a mutual interest in sex.
Speaker 6: How important was sex to Leonard Lake and what were
Speaker 6: some of the features of the sexual desires even early
Speaker 6: on before his bunker was realized and was constructed. What
Speaker 6: were some of the features of a sex life that
Speaker 6: may or may not be in a precursor to some
Speaker 6: of the events that happened later. What was his interest
Speaker 6: like in what were some of the features of that
Speaker 6: sex life?
Speaker 4: Well, actually she went along with the idea of capturing
Speaker 4: a woman and using him in a menagetoi forcing a
Speaker 4: woman to be in managertwa with him. But they didn't
Speaker 4: have to force it. In some cases they met young
Speaker 4: women who were very willing to perform with them. They
Speaker 4: were both highly experimental in sexuality. They one time, at
Speaker 4: one point made a tape of themselves and that was
Speaker 4: shown in the trial later to show that cricket bellas
Speaker 4: was it was probably culpable. And the murders that happened later.
Speaker 6: Okay, the Lake Leonard Lake relocated and put his sex
Speaker 6: safe slave plan into action. Whose property was it? Where
Speaker 6: he did this construction of this bunker and whose property
Speaker 6: was this? And give us a little bit of background
Speaker 6: on the construction of the bunker itself and how this
Speaker 6: his plan to have a sex slave came to fruition.
Speaker 6: What was the what was the turn of events that
Speaker 6: led Leonard Lake to be able to begin achieving his
Speaker 6: his long, long time fantasy.
Speaker 4: Well, let's back up a little ways at Filo where
Speaker 4: he met Charles Ang, where Charles Ain connected with him.
Speaker 4: He and he and his wife Cricket were living in Filo,
Speaker 4: operating a little motel. Charlie shows up and they're working.
Speaker 4: The three of them are living together. But because Charlie
Speaker 4: had had stolen those weapons and was a fugitive from
Speaker 4: the Marines, Leonard also had stolen some weapons.
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Speaker 4: The FBI got wind of it and raided the place,
Speaker 4: captured Charlie and send him to send him for a
Speaker 4: trial and eventually wound up in Levenworth. Lake was also captured,
Speaker 4: but went to jail and his wife put up the
Speaker 4: bail and he became a fugitive from then on, operating
Speaker 4: under various fake names, and he moved around to various
Speaker 4: places in California on the run. He started building that
Speaker 4: bunker in three different sites, but it just didn't work out. Eventually,
Speaker 4: he moved to a little hamlet in the Gold Country
Speaker 4: in Calaveras County in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada,
Speaker 4: into a house owned by Cricket's father, and it's very
Speaker 4: rural way at the end of a long, narrow driveway,
Speaker 4: and he decided that was going to be the final
Speaker 4: site and he went to work and it took him
Speaker 4: six months to finally build that concrete block bunker and
Speaker 4: with a secret room inside it covered by a hidden
Speaker 4: shelves that were actually concealed door, and it was a
Speaker 4: sale for his six slaves. So on that property in Willseyville,
Speaker 4: he actually his fantasy came to fruition to have a bunker.
Speaker 4: And then when Charlie got out of Leavenworth prison, he
Speaker 4: rejoined Lake and that's when the murders began.
Speaker 6: Okay, Now, Leonard Lake had kept a written diary for
Speaker 6: many years outlining his ghoulish fantasies while all the necessary
Speaker 6: construction was being done on the property in preparation for
Speaker 6: the Secret Dungeon. Leonard Lake, in preparation for the Secret Dungeon,
Speaker 6: recorded a video diary outlining the progress of the construction,
Speaker 6: but also stating his philosophy in life. And I quote
Speaker 6: this tape which you are hearing now is going to
Speaker 6: be the lead in of the various phases of construction
Speaker 6: of a building which hopefully will be the first of
Speaker 6: a series of underground buildings. The main emphasis of the building,
Speaker 6: the whole justification for its expense and its effort, will
Speaker 6: be a hidden portion, a secret room, if we can
Speaker 6: call it that, that will house a cell, a jail cell,
Speaker 6: if you will. The purpose of that cell will be
Speaker 6: the imprisonment of a young lady who probably at this
Speaker 6: moment is unknown to me. Whether I can do this
Speaker 6: or not will remain to be seen. Obviously, I have
Speaker 6: never done such a thing before, and it may not work. However,
Speaker 6: I want to try. I want to try. Life as
Speaker 6: I am living, it is boring. The challenge of this project.
Speaker 6: The excitement, the thrill of it will be citing experience
Speaker 6: even if it fails, as long as I don't get caught.
Speaker 6: It's very attractive. It's something that I fantasized daily about.
Speaker 6: We'll see. I don't think there's much more to say
Speaker 6: on the subject. This hopefully will be a mystery. I
Speaker 6: can hardly wait.
Speaker 4: Now.
Speaker 6: What was Leonard Lake's basic philosophy regarding women which he
Speaker 6: included in the same incredible video diary, which is.
Speaker 4: Very simple, Dan that women should be used at his
Speaker 4: whim when he wanted them, and should be put back
Speaker 4: on a shelf or in that little secret cell when
Speaker 4: he didn't want them, and he had absolutely no value
Speaker 4: on their lives at all. To him, they were nothing
Speaker 4: but something to be used. That tape you've just described,
Speaker 4: he made himself. He set up on a tripod and
Speaker 4: sat in a brown chair in the Willseyville property and
Speaker 4: tape that in February of nineteen eighty three. It was
Speaker 4: later called the Light Philosophy tape.
Speaker 6: Incredible. Now you say the construction took about six months,
Speaker 6: and after that Charles Ing reunited with Leonard Lake. How
Speaker 6: long is it before they begin to abduct someone and
Speaker 6: how long till they kill and who is their first victim.
Speaker 4: Actually, Charlie joined him before the construction was finished, because
Speaker 4: he actually they're photographs with Charlie ain't helping build that bunker.
Speaker 4: And it was some time, not very long after it
Speaker 4: was finished. But we need to back up again because
Speaker 4: Lake's first victim murder victim, incredibly was probably his own
Speaker 4: younger brother. In December nineteen eighty two, Donald Lake, who
Speaker 4: was somewhat I don't know, it's an old fashioned term retarded.
Speaker 4: He had some mental disabilities, and Lake his whole life
Speaker 4: was very denigrating toward his younger brother, who was six
Speaker 4: years younger, and criticizing for being collecting Social Security disability payments,
Speaker 4: saying that he was just a maggot own society. He
Speaker 4: didn't deserve to live. But one time he shows up
Speaker 4: in San Francisco, where his brother was living with his relatives,
Speaker 4: and said, Oh, I have a great job for Donald
Speaker 4: up north. He's going to go with me. He left
Speaker 4: the Lake and was never seen again. But Lake suddenly
Speaker 4: showed up in various places around the state using the
Speaker 4: name Donald at Lake and collecting the Social Security disability
Speaker 4: check that was probably his first murder victim was his
Speaker 4: own younger brother. His second murder victim was probably the
Speaker 4: best man at his wedding, a man named Charles Gunnar,
Speaker 4: a very heavy set fellow who had known Lake for
Speaker 4: many years and had been a friend. But Gunnar was
Speaker 4: also collecting disability payments. He disappeared in May nineteen eighty three,
Speaker 4: and Lake was suddenly using his name where he went,
Speaker 4: So those murders preceded anything Charles Ing was involved in. Also,
Speaker 4: while Lake was living in Haye Ashbury in San Francisco,
Speaker 4: selling drugs for a living, several other people, a young
Speaker 4: man named Randy Jacobson, a musician named Maurice Rock, and
Speaker 4: a young woman named Cheryl O'Carroll all vanished. Their remains
Speaker 4: were later found up in the will just pieces of
Speaker 4: their bones were found up in the Willseyville property. So
Speaker 4: the first victim that Charles Ing was involved was a
Speaker 4: family of three, Harvey Dubbs, his wife and their little
Speaker 4: little infant son, who lived in San Francisco and owned
Speaker 4: some very exotic, i should say, advanced video equipment. In
Speaker 4: nineteen eighty four, everyone didn't have a video camera, but
Speaker 4: he advertised he had video equipment and would do special
Speaker 4: filmings for people. Lake shows up with Charlie uh and
Speaker 4: that that family three suddenly vanished. So that was probably
Speaker 4: the first murder in which Charles Ing was involved.
Speaker 6: Now, I spoke at the beginning of the program about
Speaker 6: Leonard Lake and Charles Ing's fantasy of abducting women and
Speaker 6: keeping them as sex slaves in their in their dungeon,
Speaker 6: in their in their homemade dungeon. But you spoke of
Speaker 6: Leonard Lake's first victim being his own brother, and then
Speaker 6: his second victim likely most likely being his best man
Speaker 6: in his own wedding. Why were these people murdered? In
Speaker 6: the end, when the trial is finished and you've gathered
Speaker 6: all the information is why is this part of Leonard
Speaker 6: Lake's master plan? Why does it fit in with the
Speaker 6: rest of his plan to abduct and kidnap a kill
Speaker 6: these people that are not women, but just have to
Speaker 6: be people in his in his circle, people that he's
Speaker 6: connected with.
Speaker 4: Those murders were for nothing more than the minor amount
Speaker 4: of money he could get by collecting their their disability
Speaker 4: checks and catching them. That's it, nothing more. Isn't that
Speaker 4: amazing that it's it's it's chilling. To think that he
Speaker 4: was so so rejecting of the value of life that
Speaker 4: he would kill his own brother and his best friend
Speaker 4: just so they could have their small checks.
Speaker 6: Yes, his desire to for his own, his own needs,
Speaker 6: his own physical and his own needs and sexual fantasy
Speaker 6: just seemed to be paramount over anything anyone else's concern. Now,
Speaker 6: who are the first women to be held in the cell,
Speaker 6: tortured and videotaped.
Speaker 4: Probably a young woman named Kathy Allen. When Ing was
Speaker 4: in Leavenworth. He was in there with another a fellow prisoner,
Speaker 4: another Marine, Mike, Mike Carroll. Mike and Kathy Allen were
Speaker 4: lovers in the South San Francisco area. Suddenly, one day
Speaker 4: Kathy is working a Safeway and she gets a call
Speaker 4: where she's working and someone is saying that Mike it
Speaker 4: needs her very badly over in Lake Tahoe. She is panicky,
Speaker 4: and she goes out to a car where a man,
Speaker 4: a bald bearded man is waiting for her, and that's
Speaker 4: Leonard Lake under an assumed name, and he takes her
Speaker 4: to Willseyville and she is the first one that is
Speaker 4: filmed on the so called M Lady's tape. The M
Speaker 4: standing for Miranda, and you recognize that name from the
Speaker 4: Fouls book the Collector, and so he used that as
Speaker 4: a code name from then on to identify his plan.
Speaker 4: The Duck Women m ladies and Kathy Allen is shown
Speaker 4: on that tape being a street than and abused.
Speaker 6: Now part of the part of the torture is the
Speaker 6: psychological torture that Leonard Lake and Charles ingu enacted on
Speaker 6: their on their victim. Just give us a little we
Speaker 6: don't want to get into too much graphic detail, but
Speaker 6: she had a there was a baby involved in this,
Speaker 6: in this crime, in this story of Kathy Allen and
Speaker 6: Mike Carroll, can you tell us a little bit about
Speaker 6: the psychological the type of psychological torture that these two
Speaker 6: men enacted on their victim regarding this baby.
Speaker 4: Well, uh, just a slight correction there. The baby belonged
Speaker 4: to a couple who lived in a house up above
Speaker 4: the Willseyville house, Brenda O'Connor and Lonnie Bond, and they
Speaker 4: happened to be the next victims. And on that same
Speaker 4: m Lady's tape we see a segment of Brenda O'Connor
Speaker 4: also being tortured and she's asking where's my baby, and
Speaker 4: they're making these these terrible comments about the babies asleep
Speaker 4: forever or the baby's again given been given away to
Speaker 4: a couple in Fresno. And she is just desperate. The
Speaker 4: poor woman is just begging, please, you can't take my baby,
Speaker 4: and they're just taunting her terribly while they're also forcing
Speaker 4: their strip and being abused. So the only two women
Speaker 4: who are actually videotaped in this whole series of murders
Speaker 4: were Kathy Allen and Brenda O'Connor.
Speaker 6: Okay, now, how many more victims do how many more
Speaker 6: victims do they fall under? Leonard Lake and Charles Ing
Speaker 6: after Rende O'Connor and Kathy Allen and Charles Gunner and
Speaker 6: Donald Lake. How many victims are we up at now
Speaker 6: after the videotapes of those of those two women at
Speaker 6: that point, how many people have been murdered by this pair?
Speaker 4: You know, Dan, No one knows for sure how many
Speaker 4: victims there were. There were bits of burned bones found
Speaker 4: on that property that represented anywhere from fifteen to perhaps
Speaker 4: twenty five. Some people have even guessed at the forty victims. Eventually,
Speaker 4: the trial involved charges for murdering twelve. So after Kathy
Speaker 4: and Kathy Allen and Brenda O'Connor and Brenda O'Connor's mate,
Speaker 4: Lonnie Bond, and that baby that we just mentioned, Lonnie
Speaker 4: Bond Junior. And there was another man named Scott Stapley
Speaker 4: from southern California. So there were twelve murders and the
Speaker 4: eventual charges against Ing because a Lake was no longer
Speaker 4: around by that time.
Speaker 6: Okay, let's talk about that. What happened at a lumberyard
Speaker 6: that led to Leonard Lake's arrest, and what happened to
Speaker 6: Charles Ing That same day.
Speaker 4: Leonyard was still working on finishing up some of his
Speaker 4: bunker building and he and Charlie Ing went to South
Speaker 4: San Francisco to a lumber yard and hardware store to
Speaker 4: buy some things. While Leonyard is shopping around for the
Speaker 4: things he knows he needs, Charlie decides to be a
Speaker 4: good idea to steal a vice of all things, thirty
Speaker 4: pounds vice he picks up. He tries to conceal in
Speaker 4: his shirt and walks out, but he spotted and the
Speaker 4: police are called. By the time they arrived, Charlie has
Speaker 4: put the vice in the trunk of a stolen car
Speaker 4: they're using from another victim, and Charlie makes a run
Speaker 4: for it. Leonyard comes out to talk to the police
Speaker 4: and offers to pay, but no, no, no no. They
Speaker 4: look in the car and they find some stolen weapons.
Speaker 4: They also find documents that suggest that Leonard Lake is
Speaker 4: not who he says he is. He identifies himself as
Speaker 4: Lonnie Bond, as we know now, one of the victims.
Speaker 4: They take Leonard to the police station and he realizes
Speaker 4: he's in big trouble. Now. All through his whole life,
Speaker 4: Leonard has said he would never never go to jail again.
Speaker 4: After he was captured up a pilo and bailed out,
Speaker 4: he carried a Sinaide capsule with him from then on.
Speaker 4: While he's in the South San Francisco lock up, he
Speaker 4: begins to confess, tells those that yes, he's been involved
Speaker 4: in crimes, and he names Charles Ing as his accomplice,
Speaker 4: and he asks for a glass of water and a
Speaker 4: piece of paper to write a note. He writes a
Speaker 4: note to his family, pops the Sinaide capsule out and
Speaker 4: probably in his collar of his shirt, drinks it and collapses.
Speaker 4: He lasts six days after that in a hospital on
Speaker 4: life support and dies.
Speaker 6: Now what did police find when they searched Lake's bunker
Speaker 6: and what was carved on a plaque on the wall
Speaker 6: of the cell when officers first discovered the room.
Speaker 4: Well as a result of the investigation after about the car,
Speaker 4: they find it belongs to a manager.
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Speaker 4: Necessary.
Speaker 1: I lost the terms conditions eighteen plus.
Speaker 4: There's been missing for several days. Paul Kosner, who is
Speaker 4: one of the victims, and the murder charges, and they
Speaker 4: realize that they've got something going on very important here.
Speaker 4: They send investigators and get the address. There was a
Speaker 4: piece of paper, a bill in the car that showed
Speaker 4: the address up in Willseyville, So San Francisco Missing Person's
Speaker 4: police go up to search, go up to look at
Speaker 4: the cabin, and they begin looking around more and more,
Speaker 4: and I realized they've found something really interesting. They can't
Speaker 4: go in the in the bunker with our search warrant, right,
Speaker 4: so they contact the cricket Colilyn Belas, and she agrees
Speaker 4: to meet them up there, but she's not very cooperative.
Speaker 4: A matter of factually goes into the house and seizes
Speaker 4: a calendar and tears some pages out of it that
Speaker 4: may implicate her in this thing. The police immediately get
Speaker 4: a search warrant and they go into that bunker and
Speaker 4: they they find the secret door and the cell, and
Speaker 4: they I don't think there's anything engraved on a I
Speaker 4: don't remember any engraving, but they did find a U
Speaker 4: typed piece of paper with rules on it. Would you
Speaker 4: like to know what those rules say? Sure? Certainly. Hang
Speaker 4: on to second. I need to pick up something. Oh,
Speaker 4: here it is okay. These are the rules posted in
Speaker 4: the bunker for the women in there. One I must
Speaker 4: always be ready to service my master. I must be clean,
Speaker 4: brushed and made up with my cell neat. Two I
Speaker 4: must never speak unless spoken to unless in bed, I
Speaker 4: must never look my master in the eye, but I
Speaker 4: must keep my eyes downcast. Three I must never show
Speaker 4: my disrespect, either verbally or silent. I must never cross
Speaker 4: my arms or legs in front of my body, or
Speaker 4: clench my fists. And unless eating, must always keep my
Speaker 4: lips parted. Four. I must be obedient completely and in
Speaker 4: all things. I must obey immediately and without question or
Speaker 4: a comment. Five. I must always be quiet when locked
Speaker 4: in my cell. Six I must remember and obey any
Speaker 4: additional rules told to me. I must understand that any disobedience,
Speaker 4: any pain, trouble, or annoyance caused by me to my
Speaker 4: master will be grounds for punishment. Those were the rules.
Speaker 6: Now, police found a series of underground buildings, or possibly
Speaker 6: more than one building. Can you describe a little bit
Speaker 6: about what the police discovered in this home? The construction
Speaker 6: that Leonard Lake had done well.
Speaker 4: The bunker is separate from the house. The bunker is
Speaker 4: outside and is cut into the hillside. The police realized
Speaker 4: that the perimeter of the place does not match the
Speaker 4: tool room that they see as they open the front
Speaker 4: door of it. So when they go in, that's when
Speaker 4: they discover the secret door. And the cell and there's
Speaker 4: a tiny cell in there with a bad in it,
Speaker 4: and a bucket for the use of as a toilet
Speaker 4: and a roll of toilet paper, and the rules. And
Speaker 4: that's it.
Speaker 6: Now as far as Leonard Lake's accomplished Charles ng were
Speaker 6: police initially able to find him No.
Speaker 4: At the lumberyard when Lake was arrested and took a cyanide.
Speaker 4: Later Charlie ran for it. Cricket, who later was claiming
Speaker 4: she had nothing to do with any of this, picked
Speaker 4: him up and drove by the lumberyard and saw the
Speaker 4: police talking to a Lake and realized that their big
Speaker 4: trouble is going So she took him to a bus station,
Speaker 4: took to Charlie to a bus station. He catches a
Speaker 4: bus to Chicago and crosses into Canada and is on
Speaker 4: the run for a while.
Speaker 6: Now you say he makes it to Canada, and in
Speaker 6: your book you say he makes it all the way
Speaker 6: to Calgary. And they speculate that he has some family
Speaker 6: members that might have assisted him, but nevertheless he ends
Speaker 6: up getting caught in Calgary. Tell us how what happened
Speaker 6: and how did he get finally get caught in Calgary.
Speaker 4: He's actually we believe he was probably stinguished in relatives
Speaker 4: for a while. But at that time when he was taught,
Speaker 4: he was camped out in a big park and he
Speaker 4: was in a department store and was spotted by the
Speaker 4: guard shoplifting some food, some canned items, some soft drinks
Speaker 4: and slipping him into his backpack. They confronting, and the
Speaker 4: guard pulls a gun and Charlie wrestles with him, and
Speaker 4: the guard is shot in the hand, and so now
Speaker 4: it's becomes much more than a shoplifting case. So they
Speaker 4: arrest Charlie. Eventually find out if he's wanted in the
Speaker 4: US on federal warrants, but they try him in Canada
Speaker 4: and sentence ing four and a half years in a
Speaker 4: Canadian prison.
Speaker 6: Now you talk about him being sentenced to four and
Speaker 6: a half years in a prison and Edmonton in the
Speaker 6: same province as Calgary for the charges stemming from the
Speaker 6: lumber yard altercation and arrest. And now he was placed
Speaker 6: in isolation or we call protective custody while in Edmonton,
Speaker 6: where he met a fellow inmate who was housed in
Speaker 6: the adjacent cell named Maurice Leberge. They struck up a
Speaker 6: friendship conversing while outside for their hour exercise and writing
Speaker 6: notes to each other. What did Ing tell Leberge, if
Speaker 6: anything regarding the murders.
Speaker 4: He told him just about everything, and he illustrated him too.
Speaker 4: They were in cells side by side, but there was
Speaker 4: enough space under the cell door that they could reach
Speaker 4: under and pass notes or books or pieces of paper
Speaker 4: back and forth. At la Berge's request. He learned that
Speaker 4: Charlie was a pretty good artist cartoonist, and Charlie began
Speaker 4: drawing on eight and a half by eleven paper cartoons
Speaker 4: and so he not only told labours about the murders
Speaker 4: they had committed, been the things they did, but he
Speaker 4: drew cartoons obscene, disgusting, file horrible pornographic cartoons depicting what
Speaker 4: they did. One of them shows Charlie labeled it sometime
Speaker 4: in the future. He could see into the future, and
Speaker 4: it shows him in a jail cell. And on that
Speaker 4: jail cell are posted drawings of Kathy O'Connor and several
Speaker 4: of the other victims with just terrible things I can't
Speaker 4: even say on this program about what they were doing
Speaker 4: to them.
Speaker 6: Now this Leburge had encouraged Charles Ing to draw or
Speaker 6: recognize his talent, and there was a series of cartoons
Speaker 6: one hundred and fifty in total, if I'm not incorrect,
Speaker 6: and he had told him details about the murder, did
Speaker 6: Leburge also write down the tales of their conversations as
Speaker 6: well pertaining to the murders? And why was this Maurice
Speaker 6: Leberge even though he's you know, convicted of hainous crimes.
Speaker 6: That's why he ends up adjacent to him in this
Speaker 6: isolation sell in Edmonton prison facing serious time. Why would
Speaker 6: Laberge encourage Charles Ing and then and then provide this
Speaker 6: information to authorities?
Speaker 4: Well, he eventually began to see that he could use
Speaker 4: it as a Laberge could see that he could use
Speaker 4: that as a leverage to get himself a shorter sentence,
Speaker 4: and so he began talking to authorities. He also professed
Speaker 4: a discuss for what Ing was, saying that at first
Speaker 4: he thought he was just an another guy, a shell mate,
Speaker 4: but it turned out to be such a monster that
Speaker 4: Leburge felt conscience stricken to tell what he knew about him,
Speaker 4: and it probably did help Leberge a bit. He got
Speaker 4: out soon afterwards.
Speaker 6: Now, how long was this correspondence between these two, these
Speaker 6: two people.
Speaker 4: I think it was a good portion of the four years,
Speaker 4: at four and a half years that being served in
Speaker 4: that prison.
Speaker 6: Okay, Now, the Canadian justice officials refused to extradite Charles
Speaker 6: Ing because he would likely be sentenced to a death
Speaker 6: penalty once extraded back to the US. Now, can you
Speaker 6: tell us a little bit about I guess how the
Speaker 6: story resonated in the US concerning this refusal to extradite
Speaker 6: a convicted and very very serious, high profile murderer.
Speaker 4: Actually, for the whole four and a half years that
Speaker 4: Charlie was in prison up there, there were negotiations going
Speaker 4: on between the two countries. The US saying we want
Speaker 4: this man back to pay the penalty, to come to
Speaker 4: justice for incredible crimes that were committed here in Culiverse County.
Speaker 4: Meanwhile Canada is saying, we do not send people back
Speaker 4: for the death penalty. I guess in Canada there is
Speaker 4: no death penalty, so they didn't want to comply with that.
Speaker 4: The United States representatives said, yes, do you really want
Speaker 4: to become the place where all murderers go? So they've
Speaker 4: con avoid the death penalty. I think that carried some persuasion.
Speaker 4: I can't say what the final decision was based upon.
Speaker 4: But finally in legal hearings it was decided in Canada
Speaker 4: that they would indeed extradite Charles Ing back to the
Speaker 4: US for trial. Okay, now.
Speaker 6: You said, finally Canada relented and that was in nineteen
Speaker 6: ninety one, who sent back to California for trial. Now,
Speaker 6: Clara Lynne ballas Cricket Leonard Lake's ex wife, becomes a
Speaker 6: central figure in the trial. Can you explain that? Why
Speaker 6: did she become a central figure? What was her role
Speaker 6: in the trial? Tell us a little bit about that.
Speaker 4: Well, Charles Ing was clearly involved in a lot of
Speaker 4: these murders, but there was no forensic evidence connecting them
Speaker 4: to them. There was the m lady's tape shows into
Speaker 4: abusing two girls, and there was a lot of there
Speaker 4: were remains found on the property, but nothing really connected
Speaker 4: Charles Ng forensically to these murders. The authorities thought that
Speaker 4: Clara Lynn Belas would be able to cast some light
Speaker 4: on that, so eventually they made a deal with her.
Speaker 4: They offered a complete immunity for her testimony in the trial.
Speaker 6: She gets complete immunity and what can she how does
Speaker 6: she testify? She testifies against Charles Zing, But what does
Speaker 6: she have to say about Leonard Lake in the trial
Speaker 6: that helps help convict Charles Zing as well? How is
Speaker 6: that connection between Charles Ing and Leonard Lake and Cricket
Speaker 6: helped to convict Charles Ing at trial?
Speaker 4: Actually it didn't. Clara lynn And came to the trial
Speaker 4: in Orange County. It was moved from Calaveras County because
Speaker 4: there were so many there were so few people in
Speaker 4: that small county up in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada,
Speaker 4: that it was decided he couldn't get a fair trial there.
Speaker 4: They would all automatically believe he was guilty. So it
Speaker 4: was moved to Orange County down here in southern California.
Speaker 4: Clara Lynne was given immunity. She showed up and I
Speaker 4: was sitting in the courthouse that day and watching, and
Speaker 4: they called her up to the stand. They said, what
Speaker 4: is your name? She said it, thank you. That's all.
Speaker 4: No more questions than they excuse her. It's inexplicable. I
Speaker 4: have no idea what they were thinking. I have no
Speaker 4: idea why they offered her immunity in the first place.
Speaker 4: She should have been tried, I believe, but they got
Speaker 4: nothing from her. The evidence presented against Charles ng mostly
Speaker 4: with those cartoons and a lot of other circumstantial things
Speaker 4: that eventually led the jury to a verdict.
Speaker 6: Now, you talked about that her deal for immunity, in
Speaker 6: your opinion, was wrong and that she should have been sharred. Definitely,
Speaker 6: she had something to do with these crimes and very
Speaker 6: willing participant. Now, was there some outrage when the public
Speaker 6: found out about this deal? Was there anything resonating in
Speaker 6: the in the in the in the media from the
Speaker 6: public talking about was there anything to the story itself
Speaker 6: that people thought it was unfair that this person was
Speaker 6: receiving immunity despite her involvement in these crimes.
Speaker 4: Well, we have to be very careful about this. I'm
Speaker 4: not saying that she is guilty of anything. She may
Speaker 4: or may not be. A lot of people suspected she did,
Speaker 4: and I suspected it, but we don't know that. We
Speaker 4: can only go by what the what was presented in
Speaker 4: trial and in the newspaper accounts. So we don't know
Speaker 4: whether Clerlande Bellas really was involved in murders or any
Speaker 4: actual crimes. But it turned out that she said nothing,
Speaker 4: did nothing to actually help convict Charles ng and it
Speaker 4: was countniversial, no doubt about it.
Speaker 6: So there was outrage from the public concerning this.
Speaker 4: Well at that I know the newspapers had to be
Speaker 4: very careful too and what they were saying. So I
Speaker 4: don't know how much the public knew about Clara Lynn
Speaker 4: belast I tried very tried to be cautious in my
Speaker 4: book about indicting or for anything that she may not
Speaker 4: be guilty of.
Speaker 6: Certainly, Now, what was the how high profile was this
Speaker 6: trial and this case and how prominent was as it
Speaker 6: appeared in the media at that time, How big a
Speaker 6: story was this.
Speaker 4: Well, it's a huge story. And I have to admit
Speaker 4: my publisher was Ryan and convinced me to do it.
Speaker 4: Because this book is now when it's thirteenth printing, and
Speaker 4: has been a bestseller for nearly ten years, and has
Speaker 4: resulted in my appearing on four television documentaries and a
Speaker 4: couple of the live talk shows, and it has legs
Speaker 4: that people are interested in this thing because it's so
Speaker 4: mind boggling, It's so staggering what these two people were
Speaker 4: convinced themselves the right thing to do, to kill people
Speaker 4: for their own greedy, disgusting perversions.
Speaker 6: Now at the trial, it really struck me as probably
Speaker 6: being the most horrific, or one of the most horrific
Speaker 6: the moments is the recalling of the actual video itself
Speaker 6: and playing of the video at the trial where they
Speaker 6: were featured Kathy Allen and Brenda O'Connor on videotape. Now,
Speaker 6: how did the courtroom attendees, including the family react to
Speaker 6: that videotape being played at the trial?
Speaker 4: It was very, very sad that believe me. They used
Speaker 4: that video over and over and over in the nine
Speaker 4: months out. But I saw it fifty times, they just said,
Speaker 4: and that was so weighed heavily against Charles ing And
Speaker 4: and many of the family members of those victims were
Speaker 4: at the trial. Kathy Allen's sister was there and she
Speaker 4: was crying. And Robin Scott Stateley's mother and father, who
Speaker 4: had followed the trial. They'd gone to Canada and listen
Speaker 4: to hearings up there. They'd gone to the hearings in
Speaker 4: Calaveras County. They virtually exhausted their fortune to follow this
Speaker 4: all the way through. So did Paul Kosner, whose car
Speaker 4: was stolen and that's the one that was found at
Speaker 4: the lumber yard Paul Kosner. His sister Sharon Salito followed
Speaker 4: this trial all the way through from again from Canada
Speaker 4: to Calaveras County to Orange County, and they were so
Speaker 4: absolutely determined to see justice done. And I sat with
Speaker 4: these family members and I got to know most of
Speaker 4: them pretty well, and I could just feel their pain.
Speaker 4: It is so sad. Cliff Peranto was a co worker
Speaker 4: of Charles Ang that was one of the murdered victims.
Speaker 4: And Cliff's half brother was there and he told me
Speaker 4: these long tales of what a good boy Cliff was
Speaker 4: that they had been the whole Several of the siblings
Speaker 4: had been put out to foster homes and some of
Speaker 4: them were pretty mistreated, and Cliff, being the oldest sibling,
Speaker 4: would escape from his to go ten to his siblings
Speaker 4: and help them out while they could. It was just
Speaker 4: heartbreaking to feel the pain that these people were going
Speaker 4: through all through that nine months of trial.
Speaker 6: Now were cameras allowed at the trial itself?
Speaker 4: There was no television coverage of it. The seal cameras
Speaker 4: were allowed by news reporters, but no television.
Speaker 6: No television. Okay, now I understand the trial ended up,
Speaker 6: and this is surprising ended up being the most expensive
Speaker 6: trial in American history, even more than the OJ Simpson trial.
Speaker 6: What made this case so expensive, well two key reasons.
Speaker 4: Dan. One was though very length of it, nine months,
Speaker 4: it's a long trial. And two is Charles Ing. Here's
Speaker 4: a guy who with high school education and raised in
Speaker 4: Hong Kong. And we have a million or more people
Speaker 4: in prison in the United States and they there are
Speaker 4: many of who regard themselves as jailhouse lawyers. But believe me,
Speaker 4: Charles Ing was a master. He learned the law, and
Speaker 4: it was said that he did it while he was
Speaker 4: in Leavenworth and in the Canadian prison he spent he
Speaker 4: spent just as much time, and he had a lot
Speaker 4: of time on his hands studying law. And he learned
Speaker 4: that you could there are so many ways to set
Speaker 4: up appeals. He learned that if you fire fire your lawyers,
Speaker 4: it's called a Marsden motion here in California, and he
Speaker 4: learned how to use that, and he fired lawyers. He
Speaker 4: had six judges replaced over the period of time, and
Speaker 4: he had his defense attorneys three or four sets of
Speaker 4: them changed. He was just an a master of manipulating
Speaker 4: our system here and each time he would successfully launch
Speaker 4: one of these appeals or objections, it would take time
Speaker 4: and expense. So he was a very costly fellow to
Speaker 4: convict here in California.
Speaker 6: Now, you talked about him delaying the trial and studying
Speaker 6: law so that he would be more prepared. Now, given that,
Speaker 6: how effective was he and his defense at the trial?
Speaker 6: And maybe you can tell us a little bit about
Speaker 6: the missing bullets and the eyewitness testimony that was not
Speaker 6: able to be used at the trial and what that
Speaker 6: effect was. What was that effect in the terms of
Speaker 6: the trial at Charles King, Well.
Speaker 4: I'm a little puzzled by the missing bullets. I'm not
Speaker 4: sure that there were There were no forensic evidence at
Speaker 4: all that tied him to any bullets or smoke gun
Speaker 4: or fingerprints anything else. His attorneys tried to just say
Speaker 4: that Lake was the mastermind in this and Charlie was
Speaker 4: nothing but a gullible bystander who just went along with
Speaker 4: it but did not participate in the murders. That was
Speaker 4: the defense his lawyers used. But they made a terrible blunder,
Speaker 4: in my opinion, laid in the trial. Charlie testified in
Speaker 4: the trial, and that's unusual too, and a great majority
Speaker 4: of time murder defendants do not testify because the subjects
Speaker 4: in the cross examination, which can get them in a
Speaker 4: lot of trouble. But Charlie testified, and while he was testifying,
Speaker 4: the assistant defense attorney brought up the cartoons. The prosecution
Speaker 4: hadn't brought them up, and the judge even told this
Speaker 4: attorney said, why are you bringing these up? Well, because
Speaker 4: I want to bring it up myself before the before
Speaker 4: the prosecution does, but the cross use hasn't done it.
Speaker 4: And he asked the attorney asked, King, did you say
Speaker 4: that any he would say all these these profane things
Speaker 4: that were spelled out in these these cartoon papers that
Speaker 4: Charlie drew, and did you do this? Did you say this?
Speaker 4: Did you do that? And it made it so explicitly
Speaker 4: clear that he had done those things and said those things,
Speaker 4: and the prosecution didn't bring it up, but the defense did,
Speaker 4: and I feel that had a great deal of weight
Speaker 4: in convicting him.
Speaker 6: Now you talk about the artwork at the trial and
Speaker 6: them examining it. What was it about the artwork?
Speaker 4: Was the artwork? Did it?
Speaker 6: Did it match forensic evidence? And is that why the
Speaker 6: artwork was very important?
Speaker 4: No? But it metch names and events. It spelled out
Speaker 4: Kathy H and showed a picture of Lake, a drawing
Speaker 4: I should say, of Lake and ing abusing her and
Speaker 4: then identified her by name, and it did that was
Speaker 4: quite a few of the other victims too, So it
Speaker 4: was very clear that Charlie was present when those those
Speaker 4: abuse and the torture was going on. And obviously the
Speaker 4: killing tube, and so that connected to it in the
Speaker 4: in the minds of the jurors, I'm sure. And there
Speaker 4: were one hundred and fifty of those cartoons, so it's
Speaker 4: not some minor matter. One hundred and fifty pornographic cartoons
Speaker 4: depicting torture and murder.
Speaker 6: Now what I talked about both the bullets, and I
Speaker 6: don't labor this point, but what it was is that
Speaker 6: there was an eyewitness, the victim's roommate, that could not
Speaker 6: positively identify Charles NG and then there was he was wounded,
Speaker 6: and those bullets were ended up lost by the police
Speaker 6: force in San Francisco, I believe.
Speaker 4: Oh, okay, I know what's talking about. A man named
Speaker 4: Donald Giolletti who was a disc jockey in San Francisco,
Speaker 4: and he was gay, and he put an ad in
Speaker 4: for uh that he would service give certain services and
Speaker 4: and uh Leonard Lake showed up at his place and
Speaker 4: uh uh took took advantage of those services and then
Speaker 4: shot Gioletti. Uh. But that really didn't involve Charlie Ing.
Speaker 4: Charlie's Charlie Ing was not charged with that particular murder.
Speaker 4: As a matter of fact, no one was ever charged
Speaker 4: with that murder.
Speaker 6: I see, sorry for the confusion. Now, what did the
Speaker 6: jury finally decide for Charles Ng?
Speaker 4: Well, he was he was charged with eleven or twelve murders,
Speaker 4: twelve murders, and they they found him guilty of eleven
Speaker 4: of them. Uh and and sadly the one of uh
Speaker 4: for Paul Kosner, and that was the one I mentioned
Speaker 4: that his sister followed all the way through it. And
Speaker 4: she was partially responsible or was I should say, largely
Speaker 4: responsible for the investigation being launched in the first place,
Speaker 4: because when her brother went missing in San Francisco, she
Speaker 4: was extremely persistent in demanding the police stay after it,
Speaker 4: and she would not relax and let them just shove
Speaker 4: it aside. And she just pushed and pushed and pushed
Speaker 4: and was instrumental in keeping investigation going it was his
Speaker 4: Honda that was stolen and stolen and his Honda that
Speaker 4: was in the lumber yard the Ing depositive device in
Speaker 4: the trunk of when Lake was arrested. So, but the
Speaker 4: evidence seemed to indicate that Lake and Ing went for
Speaker 4: a test ride in that car which was for sale.
Speaker 4: Paul Cosner put it up for sale. They went to
Speaker 4: test right, and then Paul disappears and they have the car,
Speaker 4: and Charlie was obviously very involved in that one. But
Speaker 4: for some reason, the jury just did not see convincing
Speaker 4: evidence that that Ing had participated in the killing of
Speaker 4: Paul Cosner. So they had a hung jury on that
Speaker 4: particular count, but they got twelve other contion eleven other
Speaker 4: convictions on him.
Speaker 6: What was he finally eventually sentenced to. What was his sentence?
Speaker 4: He sentenced to die in the gas chamber. We had
Speaker 4: a gas chamber at that time. But Charlie's still up there.
Speaker 4: This has happened what in nineteen ninety eight, this trial
Speaker 4: began and Charlie is one of seven hundred convicts on
Speaker 4: death row in California. We have executed thirteen since it
Speaker 4: was reinstituted in this state in nineteen seventy three, we're
Speaker 4: getting a way behind. We're not ever going to catch up.
Speaker 4: And Charlie's Charlie, by the way, in this state, and
Speaker 4: death pinally is automatically reviewed by the Supreme Court, automatically
Speaker 4: appealed to the California Supreme Court, Charlie's hasn't even gone
Speaker 4: that far yet in ten years, over ten years since
Speaker 4: he's been convicted.
Speaker 6: Now, talking about the death penalty, and given the extraordinary
Speaker 6: delays to the death penitently and the exorbitant cost for
Speaker 6: these numerous appeals, what is your opinion regarding the death penalty?
Speaker 6: And did this case in any way change your mind
Speaker 6: at all about the death penalty?
Speaker 4: And I'm glad you asked. I've been sitting here thinking
Speaker 4: about writing a letter to the local newspapers about the
Speaker 4: death penalty. Here we are in this state, our governor
Speaker 4: is trying to find desperate measures to cut back. We
Speaker 4: have a like more than a twenty billion dollar deficit
Speaker 4: in this in this state, and he's trying to find
Speaker 4: ways like selling of fair grounds here in Orange County.
Speaker 4: And yet we continue to pretend that we have a
Speaker 4: death penalty. And in this state, when you when a
Speaker 4: defendant has found defendant is found guilty of murder. Then
Speaker 4: we have a penalty phase, which is very expensive packed
Speaker 4: on the end of it, and then we have the
Speaker 4: automatic appeals, and then we have the appeals beyond that,
Speaker 4: and then we have re trials when the Ninth Circuit
Speaker 4: Court of Appeals overturns these death penalty cases, which they
Speaker 4: do with great regularity. We are spending billions of dollars
Speaker 4: in this state pretending that we have a death penalty
Speaker 4: when we're not ever going to catch up, as I say,
Speaker 4: seven hundred people on death row and it just ain't
Speaker 4: going to happen. And now we're considering building a new
Speaker 4: death row at great expense because this one's getting overcrowded.
Speaker 4: These guys sit up there on death Row and it's
Speaker 4: no great pleasure. It's not a country club hotel. But
Speaker 4: they do have computers in there and single cells. Where
Speaker 4: many other prisons there are three or four or five
Speaker 4: into a cell. Death row inmates have a single cell
Speaker 4: all to themselves, and it's just outrageous to me. I'm
Speaker 4: a proponent of the death penalty, but not the way
Speaker 4: it's administered in this state. We need to get rid
Speaker 4: of it. I see.
Speaker 6: Now, how did writing this book affect you? Given all
Speaker 6: the books that you've written, how did this book affect you?
Speaker 4: You know, I think true crime writers tend to be
Speaker 4: like homicide detectives were Pretty soon we developed kind of
Speaker 4: a thick skin, and you just look at it as
Speaker 4: something to our job that we do. But I can't
Speaker 4: help but be emotionally impacted by this. And let me
Speaker 4: tell you this. There were twelve jurors whom I befriended.
Speaker 4: I was really a lucky guy at the end of
Speaker 4: the trial. You never even talk. You don't need to
Speaker 4: say hi to a juror during a trial. But afterwards
Speaker 4: then I approached one or two of them out in
Speaker 4: front of the courthouse and ask if they would be
Speaker 4: considered an interview. And I guess my approach work because
Speaker 4: I got a call the next day and all twelve
Speaker 4: of them were willing to give me an exclusive interview,
Speaker 4: and I became friends with them. I went to their
Speaker 4: reunions for a while. Now, how it affected me is
Speaker 4: one thing. How it affected them as another. Several of
Speaker 4: them had to go through post traumatic stress syndrome treatment
Speaker 4: after spending nine months watching the horrors of that trial.
Speaker 6: Certainly, certainly. Yeah, it's an incredible story and an incredible
Speaker 6: impact on everyone. I want to thank you very much,
Speaker 6: Don for a very informative program, and thank you for
Speaker 6: green to come on the program at all. And I
Speaker 6: just wanted to tell people if you have a website,
Speaker 6: could you do you have a website at all? Web
Speaker 6: website address?
Speaker 4: You know, I've never developed a website, but they could
Speaker 4: reach me on my email address, which is easily found anytime,
Speaker 4: and I'd be glad to respond to any of that.
Speaker 4: I get letters in the US mail and on my
Speaker 4: email quite frequently, and I love to respond to my readers.
Speaker 4: So thanks for that offer, and I thank you so
Speaker 4: much for allowing you to go on your program. I've
Speaker 4: enjoyed it.
Speaker 6: Well, thank you very much. I've really enjoyed it.
Speaker 4: And have a good night. Thank you, Dan, good night,
Speaker 4: Thank you Don.
Speaker 6: You've just listened to Don Lassiter and he's the author
Speaker 6: of Die for Me, The Terrifying True Story of the
Speaker 6: trials ying Leonard Lake Torture Murders. That's on Pinnacle Books
Speaker 6: by Don Lassiter, L A. S.
Speaker 4: S E T. E. R.
Speaker 6: You've been listening to the program True Murder the most
Speaker 6: shocking killers in true crime history, and the authors that
Speaker 6: have written about them. I will talk to you next time.
Speaker 1: Yes,