Speaker 1: You're listening to the Mind Over Murder podcast.
Speaker 2: My name is Bill Thomas. I'm a writer, consulting, producer,
and now podcaster. I am now trying to use my
experience as the brother of a murder victim to help
other victims of violent crime. I'm working on a book
on the unsolved Colonial Parkway murders, and I'm the co
administrator of the Colonial Parkway Murders Facebook group together with
Kristin Dilly.
Speaker 3: My name is Kristin Dilly.
Speaker 4: I'm a writer, a researcher, a teacher, and a victim's advocate,
as well as the social media manager and co administrator
for the Colonial Parkway Murders Facebook page with my partner
in crime, Bill Thomas.
Speaker 2: Welcome back to Mind Over Murder. This is part two
of our conversation with Jim Clemente, James Fitzgerald and Bobby Shacone.
All three of them have been on the creative staff
for the hit show Criminal Minds. We pick up the
conversation midstream. Very important to listen to part one of
our conversation with Jim, fitz and Bobby so that part
two makes sense. As always, we're really glad to have
you here. Here's part two of our conversation regarding Criminal
Minds and its twentieth anniversary.
Speaker 5: As we're shooting that and doing rehearsals and so forth,
and seeing them interact, it's certainly brought back times when
their lives are on the line, Our lives are on
the line. We although Bobby and I didn't work together,
Fitz and I did, And yeah, we were kicking indoors,
and yeah, we were chasing people armed and dangerous. At
one time, there was an armored car robbery that happened
literally a half a block away from us, and we
were the first two agents on that scene. And there
were a number of times when what we were doing
was dangerous, not as much as it occurs in a
Criminal Mind season. There seems to be a lot of
things that happened to particular profilers on the show that
necessarily happen every week in the real world. Nevertheless, we
did do that kind of work. That's part and parcel
of what an FBI agent is, and there's a lot
of brave men and women who are doing that today
in even tougher times. So it's a very rewarding thing
to see these people play us on TV with such
sort of honor and dignity.
Speaker 3: He threw it out there.
Speaker 6: So I have to ask it, is there some reason
why Spencer Reid was always the person who got kidnapped,
Druggs beat up, or something on.
Speaker 3: Any given week like one kinds, I cut you off?
What were you going to say?
Speaker 7: No, I was going to back up what Jim just said.
And Jim, if you remember, we were still working agents
when maybe after episode I'm sorry, season one, I think
it was season one, they came to you and said,
we want to have a bonus chapter if you will,
on our DVD we're putting out and younger people can
look up what a DVD was. But anyway, they actually
came to the FBI Academy, and remember our ace act
Jack hasse rest in peace. He gave us permission, as
says he did, but we actually shot. They recorded us
sitting in the FBI library, real actual profilers talking about
real actual cases. We couldn't give all the details away
and stuff, but that was actually still out there. The
disc of season one were Criminal Minds, the two of
us being interviewed, walking doing b roll through the academy
grounds and things like that, and as there are very
few TV shows or movies ever filmed at the Academy.
I Signed into the Lambs is one of them, but
not too many others after that power except our clip
from season one of Criminal Minds. Bonus.
Speaker 5: Yeah, and I should say something about Spencer Reid since
you brought him up. When he came to the audition,
he thought he was auditioning as a director because that's
where he went to school for. But when he was
in school, his director teacher professor had them act in
a movie that he had done. And I can't remember
the name of it. He might have been Mars Attacks,
I don't know. Anyway, I think he was confused, and
they said to him, look, we want to read for
this part, doctor Reid, and he says. He picks up
the script and he looks at flips through it really quick,
and he says okay, and they said, no, we want
you to do it now. And they said, he said,
give me my line, So they give him the lead
in line without looking at the script again. He does
his lines and they're like, what's going on here? And
he goes to an adetic memory, so that immediately became
part of his character. He also wore one green, white
and blue stripe sock and one red, purple and orange
stripe sock. So that became part of his character as well.
So we actually put a lot of him into his character.
He's such a first of all, an amazing linguist in
that he can he just has this power of being
able to use language. I would write the most difficult
technical language for his lines, and he would look at
it once and made changes. Yeah, he would hate it
when he when we made changes to the script because
he always relied on the first read he did. But
anyway way, he would look at it once and he
would say these lines psychological terms, profil filing terms as
if he knew what they meant, and it was just like,
it was amazing. It was just he was yeah, but
an amazing actor, and so many of them are like that.
Paget was really good whenever we had really tough lines
that we had to some because at the last minute,
you're producing the show, right and they're like, Okay, they're
shutting this venue down in an hour, so we have
to leave, so we have to You can't do these
three pages of dialogue. What are you gonna do? And
that's what you have to do and everybody would freak
out and I'd say, you take out your computer and
you do this just like Garcia does and it's all fixed.
They would get all screwed through the roof. But we
we were actually in the real world where people were
actually dying, so this these kind of problems were fixable,
and but you had to do things. And we would
always like Paget, we could just give her and we
could give read Matthew Goobler the most difficult lines. We'd
have to give them the lines from three other people
because we had to cut them out of scenes because
we had to finish it in two minutes, not twelve.
So anyway, the point is one of the main reasons
why this show has been on so long is because
all of the actors that have been on and have
stayed on, they're all of them are amazing actors, and
they really are dedicated to their craft.
Speaker 8: I wanted to say something about Yes because and I
do hardly agree with Jim that the reason you see
a lot of things on TV that you've seen before
is because when a person at twenty four years old
graduates with MFA and goes right to Hollywood and starts
writing in a Hollywood room. They don't have a lot
of life experiences. So if they're writing on something that
they've never experienced, they're going to recall something that they've
seen before in either a movie or TV show or whatever.
And so that's why you have That's how tropes develop,
ISZB again.
Speaker 9: But I did.
Speaker 8: I will say I was guilty in Ghost of.
Speaker 9: Putting a scene in there that I had seen before.
Speaker 8: And it was only because my dad was NYPD, my
brother NYPD and The French Connection was a seminal movie
in my life in the early seventies.
Speaker 5: Many of our lives, many of our lives, and I.
Speaker 8: Think we just passed like the fiftieth anniversary on that
thing recently a couple of years ago, and Billy Friedkin
and Gene Hackman and they, you know, that movie was
one of the best ever. I think I've seen that
movie thousands of times. And there's a scene in there
with a famous bar scene in there where Gene Hackman
walks into the bar and he goes under the bar,
and you know where everybody used the bubblegump to put
the heroin a little because he knew the cops are
in there, and he just knew exactly where, and he
just put it all into it's a shaker with a
bunch of beer or stuff and just and then he
takes a guy and he throws him into the bathroom
and he hits him and they gets him in the bathroom,
but the guy is actually his informant. He needs that
space in the bathroom to be able to exchange a
few words. And then he says, okay, it's this guy,
a sack guy. This guy's holding to that guy and
he's okay. And then he said, okay, where do you
want it? He goes, he goes in the stomach. It's
gonna hurt or in the face, it's going to show.
And so he hits him in the face that.
Speaker 9: He out out there. Yeah you can't, you don't know, no, So.
Speaker 8: The guy has to hurt that And so we I
recreated that scene and ghost and Jim's at the bar.
Speaker 9: I'm behind the bar bartending.
Speaker 8: Joe Montagne is placed to Gene Hackman character and throws
the undercover into the bathroom. I think Pageant's outside in
the bar keeping everybody at bay. And they have that
little exchange in the bathroom and then he throws them
back out. But that was an homage to that scene
in The French Connection. I'm not sure how many people
picked up on that or could see that, but if
you're a French Connection fan, you might have that might
have stirred a little bit of a memory.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it was great, Bobby, and it was great to
be able to act in that scene with you. And
there was a little I think there was one moment
when I look over my shoulder in the scene when
you're a bartender right in front of me, and I'm
trying to be a little subtle. But the fact is
I tried to be in every episode that I wrote
as an homage to Alfred Hitchcock, because it's.
Speaker 9: Just gonna say.
Speaker 5: Yeah, there's one episode where I think it was a
Good Husband where I hadn't figured out where I was
going to be in it yet, and then they were
doing they were resuscitating a guy, EMTs were resuscitating a guy.
So I said, oh, okay, great, all right, so do
that and on the close up I took the actor
out and it was my hand doing that. For example,
in Lifeboat, Alfred Hitchcock had to be creative because he
was in every movie he made, right, but in lifeboat.
There was only the six people or eight people that
were in this lifeboat, and that's it. Those the entire
that's the entire cast. So on that when the debris
from the ship was floating by, there was a newspaper
and it was the front page was a picture of
Alfred Hitchcock. He gently in the waves, and that's how
he did it. So that's what I tried to do,
is make sure there's some way that I could sneak
into everyone.
Speaker 2: That also I think, oh really, yeah, it's a cool
thing to do, and there's so fun when I studied
Hitchcock undergrad to watch the film and wait for that
moment when typically he'll show up, only for a few seconds.
I remember one he got off the bus and he
looked directly at the camera briefly and then continued on
his way. But people got a big kick out of it.
I love the fact that you're doing the same thing.
Speaker 5: Yeah. I did that. Yeah, in every episode I was in,
I had written and sometimes it's a little lobbyous and
sometimes it's very.
Speaker 9: Do you have the truck driver picture? It was.
Speaker 5: It was a van driver, Yes, it was. It was
in Gabby right, Okay, Yeah, it.
Speaker 6: Was Gabby for the benefit of our listeners. Oh gosh,
it was so hard to be me last night. I
had to come home from work and watch Criminal Minds
for hours.
Speaker 3: I knew I was going to.
Speaker 6: Be talking with these guys, and I wanted to watch
the episodes that each of them were interested in in
talking about. So I had watched the one I'm going
to talk to fits about in a second amplification, and
I moved on to Gabby, which I'd only ever seen once,
and I knew the gym had written it. So I'm
like a wonder when Jim's gonna show up exactly The
camera turns and pans over and there's Jim, dressed as
the most redneck sleezbag of the century looking guy.
Speaker 5: I don't know what you're talking about.
Speaker 7: He made Tim Curry look like a runway model.
Speaker 9: Yeah, I don't know that I would have recognized you
if you didn't send.
Speaker 8: If I was just watching that episode and a flashby,
I'm not sure I would.
Speaker 9: Have recognized you.
Speaker 5: Let me tell you how it happened. Okay, we are
I wrote the episode right, and I believe I wrote
it with Erica, and we're done with casting and we
got notes back from the studio. They're saying, look, we
really want to just delay the capture just a little bit,
So can we come up with a boyfriend of the
offender and we go to his house first and then
we go to her house. That's what they wanted to do, Like, yeah, sure,
we could do that. And then they're like, oh man,
we have to reopen casting. And I said I'll do it.
Speaker 3: Uh huh.
Speaker 5: And I remember Erica looking at me like are you
out of your mind? And I said, no, who's gonna
believe I'm actually you know that an FBI agent is
actually going to play a child abductor. Come on, It's
a perfect opportunity for me. And so we just so
we didn't have to cast it. I just did it.
And literally I grew out my scraggly beard and obviously
they fitted me for a wig, and they did the
same thing with my teeth. Oh my god, like they
made some of them black so you couldn't see them,
and some of them like yellow, crusty like crap. And
then we took some pictures and then the actual scene
was me. I think there were two scenes. One was
me driving drinking a beer while.
Speaker 2: Yes, driving the beard, driving and drinking a beer and
then drinking.
Speaker 5: We had kids in the back of the van. And
then another scene where you know, obviously I was at
my place whatever, and Joe comes in and arrests me,
throws me around a little bit, and and I think
I had it. I actually had a trake tube sticking
out of my throat and I think I was smoking
in that as well. No, really, the character.
Speaker 9: You were the inspiration for Joe Dirt.
Speaker 5: I think, yeah, wow, Joe Dirt is But it was acting.
It was all acting. It was acting. Yeah. Well, one
of the best things was they had to do some
photographs my jacket, my criminal my criminal record. So I
had to do some pictures, mugshots, and I remember Thomas
Gibson directed that. So he's directing me how I should be,
and he goes, can you give me like a real
dead look? And I was like, okay, and I just
did like that in the camera and he's a perfect
that's great, looking like this scumback with mostly just rotted
away teeth and nastiness all over the place. But anyway,
that was a lot of fun doing that. It also
was a learning point because these guys, these killers, One
of the things I asked them, ed Baranaro, when I
first got involved, was look, I will do this show.
I will be a consultant for free for you as
long as you help us do a job. Don't hurt us.
And two things he said, how And I said two things.
One is, don't show that the FBI comes in and
steals cases from locals. We have to work with the locals.
We want to help them and then fade away into
the night and let them get all the glory. That's
what we want to do. Okay, great, what's the other thing?
I want you to show that these killers are not
all these monster predators. They're not the people that you
think wear cereal colored glasses and lurk behind the trees
in the park and do all those kinds of things
or in their mother's basements. Yes, there are those kinds
of people, but the vast majority of them are people
who look like anybody else. And I think it's really
important for people to understand that the threat is not
just from people who look differently or act differently. The
threat can be from people who look and act exactly
like you do, and that's how they get close to you.
So that was one of the things that I really
wanted to make sure that the show did, and they did.
I believe they did it very well.
Speaker 6: That's a good segue into the episode that I want
to ask about next, which is going to give me nightmares.
Thanks for making me watch it, Fits, I appreciate it.
Speaker 3: Fitz. You wanted to talk about.
Speaker 6: The episode Amplification from season three, which deals with anthrax,
which I know that you guys were active duty during
the Anthrax scares and I find it absolutely terrifying. And
I hated watching that episode because anthrax scares me. Why
was that episode particularly important to you, Fitz? Why did
you feel like it was worth draumatizing on TV?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 7: It was definitely life meeting art. But I don't want
to leave Gabby yet because I'll never forget receiving.
Speaker 9: A POOCOM call.
Speaker 7: I'm back East. Jim's out in the set in La Fitz.
We have a Criminal Minds emergency. I said, oh great,
what this time I need? I need your linguistic help
on something. Here's my episode And Garcia is looking at
the computer. There's this note written, these words on the wall.
I forget exactly what they were, and I said, we
need some word that we know the killer wrote, but
then we can find it in some database somewhere. Garcia
is going to search all these old libraries whatever. So
I sit and think a little bit. Said, I got
one for you.
Speaker 9: What's that?
Speaker 7: I said, light bug? No, I need a real word
something you wrote it, I said, Jim, light bug? And
what does it even mean? So I told him about
an Alabama case where a guy killed his wife and
he was a suspect of the cops couldn't arrest them,
and they his buddy wore a wire and the guy
pointed to a light bulb that was out flashing in
top of a bar. He's looked at that stupid light
light bug, it's not working. But he also wrote a
fake note to the cops claiming someone else killed his wife,
and he seld the same.
Speaker 9: Word light bug.
Speaker 7: So it was a real case in which that linguistic
analysis I did a whole lot of work around that
case helped save the case. The guy pleaded guilty twenty
years for murdering his wife. So I gave that to Jim,
and they in fact use it in the episode Gabby,
And absolutely that's right.
Speaker 5: I'll just correct one thing I don't think I screamed that, lud,
I really do. I think I was much more calm
than you portrayed. But thank you for yeah. And you're
known for your calmness, Jimmy, Yeah, and and my acting.
Speaker 2: Obviously the best make the best sleeves in the business.
Speaker 7: And jim we should put a picture up of you
in your undercover role on skid Row in the Lower
Manhattan that was your first two years. Had we take
the pictures driving by?
Speaker 5: That's right? I wondered who took that picture? There you go.
Speaker 7: Now I know there was your audition in real life.
Speaker 5: I'll find it. But you I think you were supposed
to answer a question about and attacks.
Speaker 7: The very quick story version of that is in the
real Antracts case, the FBI persecuted a guy named Steven
Hatfil and we profidders are looking at all the facts
in that case, all the evidence, and we said, it's
not him, it's not him, it's someone else. But there
was this task force with horse blinders on and out
of headquarters. I tried to get on the task force
after success on Unibomb and some other cases. It fits.
So we don't have room for you right now. Maybe
some other time they wouldn't let me on, and they
kept thinking it was this guy, Stephen Hatfil. We finally
went up to FBI headquarters my other time ever, meeting
Director Muller and I was in a room with him,
and I was there with two other profilers, and we said,
I understand, you guys are really focused on Steven Hatfil.
He's a microbiologist. I get it. He's not your guy.
We're looking at someone else like him, probably the work
in the labs. Yeah, okay, Fitzgerald, what's your name? Yeah?
I actually corrected the director about something he said. Afterwards,
someone pulled me aside and say, I love that.
Speaker 5: Yeah, he just corrected the.
Speaker 7: FBI director in public. I said, no, we're not in public.
We're in a room with ten of us. Good luck
with your career, Fitzgerald.
Speaker 5: Wow.
Speaker 7: I was fine. Afterwards, they finally broke up that task
force because they were after the wrong guy. Then three
years later, Bruce Ivans was identified. Just as I was
retiring the agent. The new task force got together. I
helped them put some leads together and he was eventually identified,
but he killed himself.
Speaker 2: Okay, you're listening to mind over Murder. We'll be right
back after this word from our sponsors. We're back here
at Mindover Murder.
Speaker 7: Season three, Criminal Minds Amplification. Everyone knows the formula for
the TV show. The first segment is some kind of
crime is happening. People are missing, people are killed. In
this particular case, there's a flurry of white stuff flying
through the air. It's invisible, but you can see it.
People passing out, and I think that was the episode
read was actually infected, if I recall. And he's in
the hospital bed and everyone's upset. So now we're beginning
the first act, and it's almost always the team at
the headquarters at their office. They get on their jet,
which is actually a big wooden box, but they get
on the private jet.
Speaker 5: Let's not ruin the whole thing.
Speaker 7: I'm reading the script. I'm reading the script, and the
the agents all walk in the room. Do an army
army CID office. They're now running the antrac's investigation. And
as soon as the agents walk in the room, they're
all there, Oh, hey, great, the FBI here, come on over, guys,
let's have a let's get together and.
Speaker 5: Work this case.
Speaker 7: So I'm talking to the writer after all these years, Jim,
I forget who it is. But I said, no, we
got to change that because of all the politics, all
the bs that happened in that case. I said, here's
what I would like to suggest. I'm just a technical
advisor and all I can do is advise these guys
make the decisions, the writers. I said, have the team
walk in, and the smart ass sort of colonel running
the CID investigation Army investigation said everybody, hey, boss, the.
Speaker 9: FBI is here.
Speaker 7: Ah and and I said, here, change it to this.
Oh yeah, you FBI did a great job in the
last case, didn't you. And that's when Hotch looks right
at the colonel and the cameras. He's looking right into
the camera now. He said, no, the profilers had it right.
Oh okay, okay, and then the rest of case files
out in his formulatic fashion, with Reid finally recovering. I
was so proud. I'm not a writer. I wasn't given
writer's credit. I didn't need it. But I was so
proud to have them reflect real life that some profile,
some FBI agents did screw up that case and they
wanted to put us in that under that umbrella. When
we walk in the door, our characters, and I said no,
and Hodge said no, the profilers had it right. Okay, yeah,
come one in And eventually in the TV show, we
got it right too.
Speaker 3: Fits. Didn't you ever want to do a cameo? Oh
my gosh, look at this skid row.
Speaker 5: Yeah, there's me, there's my buddies on the street.
Speaker 7: Director of photography Fitzgerald. Were those other guys real?
Speaker 9: Bump? Yeah?
Speaker 5: They were real?
Speaker 9: Yeah?
Speaker 7: Yeah.
Speaker 8: Because I can't tell between them and you, I can't
even tell the difference.
Speaker 5: I borrowed my friend who was a roofer. I borrowed
his clothes, his jeans and his T shirt. They were
all covered in tar. And anyway, Yeah, we had a
bank robber who escaped from Boston from prison in Boston,
and we knew his girlfriend went to a methadone clinic.
I was right next to where I was sitting there,
and sure enough he walks up with her. I follow
him down to the subway, jump the turnstile, and get
screamed at by the guy in the booth, and pay
you fair and then we get on the train and
the next stop, six agents come in and rest them,
and I had to go take the train back. And
then When I walked out, the same guy was like,
I know you, and I put my credentials on the ground.
He was like, yeah, those are the fun parts of
being an FBI agent.
Speaker 3: Fitz, did you ever win a cameo like these guys did?
Speaker 7: Really, I didn't really care about that. But in Manhunt
un Obomber, which a Jim of course was a co
creator of that, I was supposed to fly down to
Atlanta where they were shooting, and I think it was
April of twenty seventeen, and I was going to have
a cameo like behind a bar or something like it's
funny how you can be at a bartender, and that
seems to be a lot of cameos of our IRL people.
There was a bad storm we had to miss our flights,
and we went back a month later and scene was
shot and there's no way I got in there. So
no cameo of me on either Criminal Minds or Manhunting
the Bomber, And I'm quite frankly, I'm just as happy.
Speaker 5: To that whereas Bobby guys.
Speaker 2: Whereas Bobby makes a great bartender.
Speaker 7: Yeah he does.
Speaker 8: And I actually played a Russian cop in The Beyond Borders.
I lead our team to the house right behind.
Speaker 5: That's awesome.
Speaker 9: I got blown up.
Speaker 8: They actually they put all that goop on me because
I got to do a stunt that day.
Speaker 9: They set me on fire. It was actually quite glad.
Speaker 5: Doesn't sound like fun. No, I'd rather be a bartender
in a biker bar.
Speaker 9: Sorry.
Speaker 6: So there was a line in that episode that's going
to fester for me for a while there, and it
was ROSSI is talking to Apprentice and he said, do
you think the public would feel safer if they knew
how many attacks the FBI had prevented since nine to eleven.
Speaker 3: That's going to fester for a while.
Speaker 6: So I'm curious for all three of you guys, would
you characterize the FBI as being more in the business
of preventing crime or more in the business of solving crime?
Speaker 3: And has that changed since nine to eleven?
Speaker 2: Wow?
Speaker 7: Nine eleven changed it.
Speaker 9: Yeah, nine leven definitely changed it. Yeah, we actively proactive, Yeah,
very definitely, very much.
Speaker 8: Yeah, But for nine to eleven it was there, but
it wasn't certainly a priority.
Speaker 9: It wasn't ever near the top of the priority. Then
it became a top priority.
Speaker 5: Yeah, sure, Yeah, if you look at certain types of crime.
They're certainly not trying to interdict and prevent white collar crime,
for example, and they didn't do anything like that, but
counter terrorism and counter narcotics, I think they've been there
for a long time. And of course in crimes against children,
we do a lot of the big stings that we
do or to try to gather up undercover operations, and.
Speaker 8: Yeah, certain crimes I think I'm friends of mine now
are experts in school shootings in the Bureau and they
do a lot of training with schools and try to
do that kind of stuff, And so I think there's
much more of an anticipatory nature to it and trying
to figure out, like you said, prevention, but that was
never a role we did and we just didn't have
that mindset before. We were like, come in, what are the
facts and follow the evidence where it goes, and much
much more now and in the future.
Speaker 5: Yeah, they should add and pe at the end of
FBI for and prevention. Yeah, that would that's.
Speaker 9: The hard one.
Speaker 8: And like what usually said that quote from that thing
is there's a double edged sword to you want to
especially when our executives go to the hill and then
need funding or want to have an increase in our budget.
You want to show them the successes you have, particular
on the counter terrorist emissions, but at the same time,
you don't let a lot of that out because part
of the terrorist mission, their objectives don't always have to
be met by the successful operation, just people knowing oh
my god. For example, suppose tomorrow the fa announced we
interdicted twelve cells that were going to major shopping malls
around the country that were going to hit on Black Friday.
Speaker 9: They were going to set off there. Oh, what's so great?
What would that do the economy? People would panic and.
Speaker 5: Not go out on Black Friday.
Speaker 8: Now that would shops online anyway, but the retail business
is already on its heels. And if we I'm not
saying it happened, but if it did happen and we
it publicized it, it would achieve a certain measure of
the terrorists objectives, which is an economic damage and economic
harm that would come from everybody going, oh my god,
I can't go out because the FBI was successful. I'm
stopping these twelve coordinator attacks. But what about some people
got through. So you want to show your successes even
to the public.
Speaker 9: You want to they're getting their.
Speaker 8: Money's worth, their text dollars work, But at the same
time you have to be wary of the fact that
what that information will be when the public is the same
thing with serial killers. There's a point time in the
serial killer investigation where you want to catch the guy
before you have to tell the public he's out there, because.
Speaker 9: It's going to it's going to create a panic in
the public.
Speaker 8: Jim lived through live both of us lived through the
DC sniper case and the panic that ensued that you
had curtains on every gas station because people afraid to
fill their cars with gas. The panic that that whole
Tri State area went through during the d C cnipertext
is a result of the fact that we're putting that
out there. These people are getting killed, there's a serial
killer or whatever, and so you really want to kind
of balance that. Sometimes you need to tell the public
for their own safety, and that's the kind that's the rub.
Speaker 7: And Bobby, I think you and I have had some
discussions some of these killings, and they come from all
different walks of life. But these people leave manifestos, sometimes
are to be published, sometimes they're not to be published.
And I know you and I have been on different
news shows and saying except for some very critical signatory
type information, get that stuff out there. And in a way,
that's a proactive method to in fact, let people know
what some people are thinking before they do these killings.
So that's one way the FBI can look at it.
And I know over the last few years or so,
the FBI doesn't always think the same way as some
other people do. So that's one proactive versus reactive way. Hey,
here's the kind of manifestos these people are writing. This
is what to look for if it's your son, your neighbor, student,
and keep that in and that's how we can prevent
these things from happening in the future.
Speaker 9: And that's a good point.
Speaker 8: That's the follow on is if you're a parent and
writings like this, or if you're a teacher or a
counselor or a therapist and you see this kind of stuff,
this is what it could lead to. So that's why
you don't want to publish it for salacious reasons and
things like that, but you want to publicize it so
that the it gets into the right people's hands. That
could take a step towards preventing the next one.
Speaker 2: I think I'm hearing the germination of a great script idea.
Speaker 7: Who can play a subamb that's Jim Flemente you.
Speaker 2: If we need it, and Bobby wants to be the barender.
Speaker 5: Just don't cut me off, Bobby, don't cut me off.
Speaker 9: Yeah no, you'll set me on fire.
Speaker 6: And with the question what is what would you say
is the value of procedurals like Criminal Minds? What do
you want viewers to take away from it at the
end of the day, Because it's not just good looking
people solving crimes. There has to be more to it
than that. And Jim you touched on that early on
when you said there are teaching points anchored in every episode. Absolutely,
so what ultimately do you want people to get out
of Criminal Minds?
Speaker 5: Unlike many other procedurals out there, we have maintained the
integrity of what the investigators do, what it means to
be an FBI agent, what it means to be law
enforcement officers. And we have also used all of our experience,
the three guys you're talking to now and our colleagues
to basically infuse these episodes with real teaching points. And
I think that's the reason why I did it. The
first episode. The very first scene I ever wrote for
Criminal Minds was when doctor Reed is telling the statistics
of child abduction homicides. As he's talking, he walks into
we call it read vision. He walks into a green screen,
but he's actually in a studio, but it looks like
he just walked out onto a playground. And he says,
of the kids who were abducted and killed, forty four
percent are killed in the first hour. And these ten
kids that are playing around is playing ground, half of
them disappear.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 5: And then he says, seventy three percent in the first
three hours, and now three quarters of them are gone.
And then he says, and ninety nine percent in the
first twenty four hours. And there's one girl left swinging
on the swing, and then she disappears, and the swing
swings epty, and the hair on the back of my
neck stood up, and I realized just then, in at
ninety seconds, that image went out to something like eighteen
or nineteen million people, and by the time it goes
through syndication, it's one hundred and sixty two million people.
And they all now understand that on child abducts and cases,
you have to act immediately, there's wait twenty four hours
and then we'll figure it out. No, you can't do that.
And just the fact that I could get that message
out in a minute and a half to over one
hundred million people, I realized, Oh, this is what I
need to do. This is what I need to do
after the FBI, and it will be an opportunity for
me to teach people all around the world some things
that Bobby and Fitz and I were privileged to learn
as part of the FBI.
Speaker 6: It's what's something that you want people to take away
from your episodes of Criminal Minds?
Speaker 3: What's the best teaching point for you?
Speaker 7: Yeah, anytime I would talk to the writers, I would
just keep it pretty simple and there's only so much
advice I could give, of course, But any show that
I would work on or certainly enjoy watching, I like
the humanity of the officers being present. They're not perfect,
they're not superheroes. You can watch other X Men and
those if you want that kind of stuff. But they
have families, and if they make a mistake on the job,
it doesn't mean they're one.
Speaker 5: Of the ists.
Speaker 7: They're an evil people trying to overthrow government or someone else.
There can be mistakes made, but they are still good people.
So just show with humanity. That's what I always tried
to instill in the writers. I would suggest and remember
again one of my earlier scenes was advising one of
the writers. It was for I think forty two minutes
was the time for an episode. Adjectives how to be
taken out and adverbs sometimes to make a scene fit.
And they had a one scene and one of the
writers fits. I had this police officer was killed and
he and the chief wants to tell his officers and
watch and read are going to be in the room
with them. But I, it's going to take so much time.
Cauld I cut down this dialogue. So it was an
emotional scene to begin with, and I was glad in
a way that was in there, because officers do get killed,
agents do get killed. But I said, you could probably
save a lot of dialogue. Are you familiar with the
little black bands that officers wear on their badges when
one of their colleagues has been killed? No, what are
you talking about? Said, When a police officer is killed,
his colleagues, as are her colleagues, will wear a black
band over their badge. For thirty days. That's showing respect
and commemoration and memorial to them. He's there, fits. You
just saved me eighty seconds of dialogue. Thank you so
much for that. But it was also a moving moment
when the achieve and I watched the episode when he's
handing out these little black bands to put around the
officers badges because they lost one of their colleagues, one
of their friends. So that's why I wanted to instill
a lot of fun stuff car chases, shootouts, but officers
and agents do get killed, and every once in a
while that has to be shown. And they are family people,
their fathers and mothers and sons and daughters and all
that kind of stuff.
Speaker 3: Bobby, how about you take us home?
Speaker 8: Oh yeah, yeah, it's hard in a all echo what
Fitz said, because that's my thing too, is that, And
I think that Criminal Minds did this so well, and
certainly long before I got there, is that that's a
squad becomes a family and really people's home lives and
their kids and the problems they haven't. I still am
in touch with the two or three of the ages
that I work gangs with closely, and that was in
nineteen ninety we're talking about thirty five years ago, and
we still text each other on certain days and holidays
or birthdays or whatever. And so that's why I like
at the end of Ghosts, Adam and Daniel have that
moment on the jet where they did decompressing and their
stuff and they're like they saved each other's lives and
Joe came in with a crackshot and stuff. But it's
always and we do the same thing in the Voters
with the with the procedural show is you need to
be on the air a long time because, like it's said,
forty two forty three minutes all you got, and so
you've got to drive the story. You don't have a
lot of time for the characters backstories and stuff. But
if you're successful and you're on a number of years,
you get that luxury of having that more time. And
Criminal Minds, I think did that there's a family when
at Lea's leaving, like when she's maybe leaving it to
go out west or whatever, they feel it it's going
to be like losing a family member.
Speaker 9: And that's true to life.
Speaker 8: That stuff you when you work with somebody for any
length of time under those intense environments in those intense
situations where you could lose.
Speaker 9: Your own life.
Speaker 8: That's a bond that doesn't go away and stuff, And
so I would always like that. Criminal Minds is no
longer procedural, by the way, now it's a serialized show,
right serialized, which means one case over. It's more of
a serialized show on streaming than it was. But in
a procedural world, it's really tough to do that, and
you have to be on a number of years to
do that. But I'm glad that they were able to
do that, and you see the personal relationships and then
you can actually bring that back into the investigations and
into the story when you have those personal relationships. But
that's what that I was glad that Criminal Minds was
able to do, and some of the other serializers that
are on the air for a long enough time can
do that, can show because we are a family. I
know it probably sounds cliche, but it's that it's going
through the door. And they say that these guys said
kick doseban like the people I kicked doors in with
against the Jamaican gangs and the ladies early nineties in Brooklyn.
We still know each other. You can't you know, you
can't erase that from your emotional memory. And so yeah,
I'm just glad that the show, like Grimlines, was able
to show.
Speaker 6: That Criminal Minds is twenty this year, and Jim Clementy,
there is another season coming up?
Speaker 3: Is that right?
Speaker 5: Actually, no, they haven't approved it yet.
Speaker 3: Haven't approved it yet. Okay, No, we can wrap.
Speaker 5: We just wrapped season nineteen and that would be on
air soon. I would think we will find out probably
in the first couple of months of twenty twenty six.
Speaker 8: Unfortunate, it's a brutal business where you don't get much
multi season approvals anymore.
Speaker 9: Used to know, you have two or three.
Speaker 8: Seasons and you knew you were good, and then it
was like, I can give you example and the last season.
So Jim and I wrote fourteen twenty one, Season fourteen,
episode twenty one. But really season fourteen was only supposed
to be fifteen episodes, so starting season sixteen, it was
supposed to be starting with episode sixteen, it was supposed
to be season fifteen, but they said, we're going to
give you ten more episodes because we were on the
bubble and whether we were going to get canceled or not,
so we were like, so now it goes up to
fourteen twenty five, is the end of the CBS run?
But it was those last ten episodes should have been
really rightfully, season fifteen, but if it was season fifteen,
contractually everybody would get raised and every.
Speaker 5: Rule it's about economics.
Speaker 9: Yeah, so instead of.
Speaker 8: Season fourteen being fifteen episodes and season fifteen to ten,
season fourteen became twenty five like previous episodes were anyway,
previous seasons were anyway. But yeah, so we had fourteen
twenty one, which should have been fifteen oh six.
Speaker 9: But it was, but technically it was.
Speaker 8: Yeah, I'm confused, you're not, that's sure, guys.
Speaker 6: It's it's been an honor and a pleasure to have
you with us as always.
Speaker 3: Thank you so much for so much for having us.
Speaker 7: Thank you, Thank you keep watching Minds.
Speaker 9: Season nineteen hasn't debuted yet.
Speaker 5: Right, No, it hasn't, but we're wrapped.
Speaker 8: Yeah, so can you tell us any secrets any can
you let us know?
Speaker 5: Yeah, it's just the four hundred million people who are listening.
Speaker 9: If you did believe me, it would spread.
Speaker 5: Oh, as you know, it's a second all right, Thank
you so much for having us. Thank you, Thank you,
Bobby and christ take care. Thank you everybody.
Speaker 3: Thank you so much for listening. We'll see you next time.
Speaker 1: Mind Over Murder is a production of Absolute Zero and
Another Dog Productions.
Speaker 2: Our executive producers are Bill Thomas and Kristin Dilley.
Speaker 1: Our logo art is by Pamela Arnois.
Speaker 2: Our theme music is by Kevin McLoud.
Speaker 1: Mind Over Murder is distributed in partnership with Coral Space Media.
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Speaker 2: And finally, you can follow Bill Thomas on Twitter at
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Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to mind Over Murder.