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. 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 4: Welcome to Mind Ever Murder. I'm Kristin Dilly and I'm
Bill Thomas, and we're joined today by author, a podcaster
and journalist Richard Foster to talk to us about his
book Southern Nightmare, The Hunt for the South Side Strangler,
which is our book club selection for July. Richard, thank
you so much for joining us today.
Speaker 5: Thank you glad to be here. Richard.
Speaker 2: We were talking about this off air. We've been talking
about having you on mind over murder for three years,
and it's our failing that we haven't had you on
until now.
Speaker 5: No, not at all, we were saying, I've been fairly
busy for the last several years, so it's not a problem.
I'm looking forward to it.
Speaker 4: Start by telling us a little bit about your professional background.
Speaker 5: I have been in journalism and communications for a little
over thirty years. I started working as i'm working journalist
when I was still in college at Virginia Commonwealth University,
writing for the Richmond Times Dispatch. I was a reporter
on their state desk and business desk when I was
still in college. Over the years, I've worked for several
daily papers. I've been an editor for a news site,
city magazine, and I'm currently editor of Virginia Business Magazine,
which is monthly glossy and over the years has done
a little bit of everything. I've written a couple of books.
I've done a lot of investigative writing, profiles, government reporting,
entertainment writing, a little bit of everything.
Speaker 2: Now, are you one of those people, Richard, that knew
what you wanted to do ever since you were a kid?
Speaker 5: Yes and no. I think I had an epiphany when
I was about nineteen or so where I realized that
I did know and hadn't been paying attention to it.
I was one of those guys that was in garage
bands and stuff and was thinking I was going to
be in rock and roll and whatnot. But then when
I started getting into taking college a little more seriously
in my late teens, I started thinking. And I got
into my first journalism class and loved it. I started thinking,
I've been doing this all along, now that I think
about it. Yeah, I was in a newspaper when I
was in middle school, and I've done some writing like
this for different things. And a light bulb went off
that yeah, I've been writing my whole life in one
form or another, and I like this.
Speaker 4: Yeah, Southern Nightmare is not your only book. Tell us
about your book about Betty Page.
Speaker 5: Yeah, so thatlan is an interesting story. It has done
very well. It came out in nineteen ninety eight and
was adapted into a film by HBO, which actually got
released in theaters called The Notorious Betty Page. Some people
may have seen that movie. I've got a credit all
the way at the very end of the movie. I
think it's solely because they remembered the very last minute,
they contractually had to put that. I've collected comic books
as a kid, was really loved art, had gone to
a lot of different comic book stores and had started
in the early nineties seeing these fanzines about Betty Page.
And I didn't know who Betty Page was. Of course
I knew the rocketeer those comics, Dave Stevens, and I
didn't realize, oh, hey, that's who that's where he got
his heroin for his comic from. And yeah, read a
little bit and found out that there was this mystery
that she had just I started thinking, I'm gonna do
a little piece about the fan following, local fan following,
and then I dug in and I ended up finding
out she has a brother in Nashville and she's still alive,
and ended up getting the first interview with her. Went
from there, I ended up writing a biography of her.
Speaker 2: Did you end up meeting with miss Page face to face?
Speaker 5: Never did? Yeah, she sent me one letter. It was
this sixth page, very nicely online stationery. Every line is
sharp and steady and perfect penmanship of this former English
teacher she had been at one point in her life.
But no, I never did and I have friends who
did and people I know who did. But she was
not happy with my reporting some of the details of
her life, and I'll be as upfront about that as
I can be. It turned out that this became a
true crime book because she had alluded to that she
had some troubles during her time and didn't want to
talk about. And as I dug and started talking to people,
I found out she had some severe mental health crises,
and it actually stabbed some people and nearly stabbed a
roommate to death. In fact, it led to California changing
some laws around matching roommates for elderly people. And I
was still debating on whether or not to write that
story when I interviewed the survivor of one of her
attacks and you could still hear her name was Leoni Hadad,
and I get chills thinking of you could still hear
how scared she was, and I would have talked to
her probably thirteen fourteen years after that attack, maybe more,
I can't quite remember, and she still obviously was still traumatized.
And I think that's when I realized there are victims involved,
and that this is a bigger story and it's not
just her story, and I decided to tell the full story.
Speaker 2: So she was a lot more than just a fifties
pin up and burlesque came.
Speaker 5: She was iconic. She still has inspired tons of fashion
photographers and designers and all kinds of You'll see her
influence and image everywhere once you see it. But yeah,
it was a more difficult story. They are more human
story and fascinating story. But unfortunately, not everyone wants that story.
I think a lot of people just want to sanitize safe,
cute pin up model story. And I think if you
want that's there. There's other versions of that out there
without all the other details. But yeah, there's more to it,
for sure.
Speaker 4: Speaking of incredibly complex stories, let's go ahead and talk
a little bit about Southern Nightmare. The tagline for the
book is the Hunt for the South Side Strangler. For
anybody who's unfamiliar, can you give just a brief summary
of the south Side Strangler case please.
Speaker 5: The bulk of the case takes place about thirty five
years ago, when I was the kind of summer and
fall of when I was about sixteen years old. Eight
from September through November, four women were killed in Richmond
and in the Northern Virginia. They were killed in their
homes brutally. It was bondage. Murders were really horrible and
it set the whole I remember being a teenager. The
entire city was terrified. The story ended up being a
bigger story than that because there actually had been another
murder that predated those back in eighty four, and there
were a string of other attacks that were linked to
these murders later. The amazing thing about this case is
it was not only the first case in American history
where DNA solved a murder, but the first case where
DNA solved a serial killing. It was both. It was
just astounding. It's a historic case. It's taught at criminal
justice universities and classes. It deserves to be a lot
better known.
Speaker 4: And that really is something that was a theme with
all of our comments on our Facebook page. A lot
of people said, why don't I know about this case?
This is so historic and so interesting. Why do you
think the South Side strangler murders have not received their
proper place in the history of true crime injustice in
this country.
Speaker 5: I can't say entirely for sure why that is. It's
not the first case in the world there was one
other case that predated it, Colin Pitchfork in England, which
that name you couldn't pick a better name for a
serial killer. And that guy is actually out on parole
right now. For those of us who follow the UK papers,
he has been paroled, which is a little mind blowing.
I'm not sure I have a great answer why the
case has been forgotten. I think there was one book
written about it back in the nineties that was very
a little didactic, that was really heavy into the DNA
and the science that maybe just didn't catch the audience
that should have. Perhaps and somehow this also, I think
the case was solved, which sometimes the unsolved cases tend
to be the ones that get a little more attention.
I don't know, I really don't know, but it's one
that definitely deserves to be known more and I hope
I've done my part in trying to get it out there.
Speaker 2: We As Kristen says, there were a lot of questions
and discussion on our social media pages about this. Why
don't I know about this case? Why haven't I heard
about this case? And the fact that it was so
innovative from a forensic perspective. I think the factors you've
cited are certainly part of it. I also wonder if
this had happened in a larger city, if that might
have made a difference, if Richmond was just a little
too small, Not that I consider Richmond a small town.
Far from it.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it got national coverage. It didn't get national coverage
when the arrest was made. I know I've seen clips
and some time magazine from others. I know that it
got some national coverage during the trials. Certainly we can
talk a little bit later. But Patricia Cornwell, the famous
bestselling crime novelist. Her first book was a very loosely adapted,
fictionalized version of these murders that inspired her on a career.
I'm not exactly sure why these got lost to memory,
and they it's a case that deserves to be known.
Speaker 4: What is it that sparked your interest in the case.
Is it just because you remembered it and you lived
through it. Has it always stayed with you? Or is
there something more to it than that.
Speaker 5: There were a few factors at the time. In twenty seventeen,
I had a friend who was an editor at Style
weekly magazine here in Richmond, which is an Alternative Weekly,
and I was a reporter there back in the mid nineties.
They were looking to do something. They weren't sure what
they wanted to do, but they wanted to do some
kind of series, something true crime. They weren't sure what
the story was. We all went away and did a
little brainstorming, and within a couple of days it became
really obvious what the story was because we all came
upon an independently, we need to do the South Side
strangler story. Because one of the victims had been an
employee at Style. I did not work with her because
she would have been killed about ten years before I
worked there, but she was friends of mine, people that
I still am in touch with today. So I think
there was that little feeling of there was one of
our own who needed to be remembered. But I think
also it quickly became we realized, Okay, the thirtieth anniversary
of this case is coming up. In fact, the more
we dug into it, we realized it was the thirtieth
anniversary of the trials were coming up. We're already in
the middle of the thirtieth anniversary of the killings. That
whole fall during the thirtieth anniversary of the killings. I
was talking to a lot of people who were connected
with it, survivors, homicide detectives, FBI agents, family members, going
to some of the places where the murders had taken place.
I really spent a lot of that Fall of twenty
seventeen and Winner of twenty eighteen doing a lot of
research and a lot of interviews.
Speaker 4: Talk to us a little bit about that research process.
How do you go about getting all your information for
a book like this? Is it just interviews or do
you have to dig into the microfiche or turn to Google?
What do you do when you're ready to sit down
and work on a project.
Speaker 5: This one, I will say, was a lot easier than
doing the Betty Page book, which I had written in
the early to mid nineties, because that one I had
to go to the Library of Congress to get access
to some newspapers that were only available on microfish and
were not at my local library. There was no Internet
when I did that, and you had to use these
reverse phone directories to look up where people had lived
and where they went, and what their names and numbers were,
look up all census records. It was a great exercise
back then I learned a lot in tracking people and
figuring things out with the Internet. With the resources we
have today, it makes things a lot easier. I did
have to go to the Library of Virginia in person
to track down some old contemporaneous tapes from WRVA radio
their reportings of the murders and the trials. So I
was able to find some of that, but a lot
of it. I was able to find some archives online,
like from our local paper of record, the Richmond Times
Dispatch and it's afternoon paper which is no longer with us,
the Newsleader, and they, of course had done a ton
of reporting back then. Dile Weekly of course had done
some too, and I had some of their materials. And
another thing I really lucked out on one of my
predecessors at Style, another reporter, Lisa Bacon. She had covered
the trial unknown to me. She's come over by my house.
I've got some stuff you might want to look at.
Oh wow, okay, So I go over and sit down
with Lisa. She has the entire trial transcript and which
not even the courthouses had anymore.
Speaker 2: Phenomenal.
Speaker 5: She had all of this. She had all of this
stuff and had hung on to it that was probably
that was a tremendous resource because it listed names, it
listed witnesses, it listed direct testimony. It was fantastic.
Speaker 2: Was she excited about the fact that you were working
on a new project.
Speaker 5: Oh yeah, yeah, Lisa's We've worked in so many places.
She was also a reporter at Virginia Business where I
am now. She was a reporter at Style. Yeah, Lisa,
I think it has always been a big It's always
been in my court. She was really happy to help
and it was great getting to hear because she had
covered the court case, so I got her insights and
that first hand perspective of what it was like and
what she remembered. And of course you'll see in the
book her recollections because I interviewed her for this and
she stepped in the Style. I think she went to
work for Style like two weeks after the murder took place,
and she talked about she came into this place two
weeks after Debbie Davis, who was the person at Style
who had been murdered. Yea, and she said it was
just like walking in someplace that had a bomb thrown
and everybody was just walking around like zombies. And of
course they would be again murder Caser. There's gonna be
a lot of downer moments, but it was a great
exercise and I met some really fascinating people. I met
an FBI agent who had also worked on the Atlanta
child murders and had some really interesting thoughts and perspective
on that that, you know, I just got to hear.
And of course the two detectives, the two homicide detectives,
one from Arlington, one from Richmond. Joe Horgas from up
at Arlington, and Ray Williams, who is no longer with us.
Ray was the detective primary detective Richmond, and both of
them were very were retired, and both were very generous
with their time.
Speaker 2: These tapes that you found yourself going through, Richard, where
were they stored in? What format? Were you listening to.
Speaker 5: The WRVA tapes? Yes, they were on cassette. Somehow they
were digitized as well. I can't quite remember. Somehow I
got a digitized version of them. Sorry, this is going
to be where No it's not five years later, and
lots of stuff that's happened since it's hard to remember
all the details. But yeah, I know I worked with
the librarians there the research librarians the Library of Virginia
who were stellar and yeah, they helped me find a
lot of this and they have excellent archives there.
Speaker 4: Yeah, shout out to the Library of Virginia because they
are amazing. If there's anybody like in our local listening
area who's never had a chance to go to the
Library of Virginia, do it.
Speaker 5: It is so cool, such a great resource for us
to have.
Speaker 2: Now help me out as a person that doesn't live
in Virginia. Who runs the Library of Virginia. Is this
a state facility.
Speaker 5: Or state Yes, that's a state one.
Speaker 4: But it's wonderful because they bring in lots of guest speakers.
Our friend Kate Miles was speaking at the Library of
Virginia a couple months back about her book Trailed, and
they're really great about making sure that it's open and
accessible to everybody through guest speakers and.
Speaker 5: Everything's very cool. Yeah. Beth may See, one of my
former coworkers at Rona Times who wrote Dope Sick. I
think she's been there and not too recent past.
Speaker 4: Yeah, let's get into the Patricia Cornwell of it all,
because you did mention her before. Sure, so she did
use the Southside Strangler case as a model for her
first book, Post Mortem, much in the same way that
she would later use to Colonial Parkway murders as a
model for All that Remains. Have you read Post Mortem?
And if so, can you assess how accurately she depicted
the south Side stranglings.
Speaker 5: I'm just gonna be upfront and say no, I have
not read it. I flipped through it selectively to look
for certain information. Patricia Cornwell she lived here in Richmond
for a long time. A lot of people my parents'
generation were huge fans of her, and a lot of
people I knew, older journalists knew her. They all called
her Patsy. I have never met her. I flipped selectively
through post Mortem to get a little taste of what
where it was going. She had a tremendous front row
seat because she was working in the State Medical Examiner's
office at that time. A lot of people don't know that.
They probably do around here, they know it not so
much maybe elsewhere. But she based her case Scarpetta character
on doctor Fierro, our state medical examer, a former state
medical examiner who I interviewed for the book and who
worked on this case or the entire Southside strangler case.
And yeah, Patricia Cornwell, she had a front row seat
working there in the Medical Examiner's office, and of course
she had been a local newspaper reporter before that. I
think had a good eye for detail and was inspired
to write this case. I think it is probably very
fictionalized what I saw of it. Well, I think there
may be a few details. I don't think it's way
you know, she's got a lot of stuff about oder
and the killer being this diabolical mastermind who's out menacing
the medical examiner, and none of that is truly I
think it's sufficiently fictionalized beyond just some very basics that
it's a bondage murder, the bondage murders and things.
Speaker 2: And doctor Fierro also worked on the Colonial Parkway murders,
and I've spoken to her as well some years back now,
and she was a wonderful person and incredibly helpful. Boy,
could you learn a lot talking to an expert like.
Speaker 5: That, And she is amazing. I did a profile on
her years ago for Richard Magazine when she was still
state Medical Examiner. It was frustrating because she won't let
you see her work, not allowed him because she this
is not entertainment. She was the best advocate for quote
unquote her patients. She did not see them as bodies
or objects. She saw them as people. That murder victim
was somebody's mother. She treated them like a patient, and
she God bless her. She was an amazing expert forensic
pathologist that we were very lucky to have in this state,
and an amazing woman.
Speaker 6: Just fascinating opinions Villa and I about Patricia Cronwell's work,
because she very obviously based all that remains on the
Colonial Parkway murders, and that is something that we don't
feel should be used as entertainment.
Speaker 4: So I'm just curious. Do you have an opinion about
using real crime as a basis for fictional work.
Speaker 5: Yeah, look, I'm going to come at this from saying
I don't. Obviously I can understand where Bill's coming from completely.
I very much respect where Bill is. As a family
member of a murder victim, having also had someone close
to me murdered that were fictionalized, I don't know how
I would feel that said, I think, just looking at
it from a literary basis, and also as a writer myself,
I think you can't help. But lots and lots of writers,
almost going back to the dawn of detective fiction, have
used true cases as an inspiration to write from. I
think there's a million pastiches of Sherlock Holmes modern interpretations.
Holmes meets Jack the Ripper and tracks them down. And
I'm pretty sure Arthur Conan Doyle took some inspiration for
some of his Holmes cases from some real things too. Yeah,
I think I guess the question is it sufficiently fictionalized?
Is there sufficient distance? Are you doing harm? I think
those are all questions that probably should be asked. I
think Patricia Cornwell was writing almost contemporaneously. Her book about
Southside strangling killings came out what a year or two
after the killings. It was very and I think the
same thing with the Parkway. I don't think there was
a lot of distance.
Speaker 2: It's about three years. And here's one area where I'll
push back, solved versus unsolved. There's a lot of myths
now that have gotten mixed in with the Colonial Parkway murders,
and many of them started with Patricia Cornwall and all
that remains in terms of creating confusion kind of urban
myths that have become part of this case. When you
start drilling down, you realize, oh, this is in the book,
and people read the book and they think that's an
accurate telling of the Colonial Parkway murders story, which obviously
it's not. And then we can let this topic go
because I don't want to turn this into a rant.
There is a tremendous amount of detail in all that
remains that is lifted directly from excruciating detail that only
someone would access, would be able to write with this
level of specificity, particularly about issues and details that didn't
even come out until later. They may have come out
in the years since because I've been outspoken, Kristen and
other family members have been outspoken in our interviews as
we continue to pressure the FBI and the Virginia State Police,
and so more detail has come out about those murders
in the thirty plus years since. I think there's a
big difference in if you're writing a story that's about
a case that's solved or a case that is hundreds
of years ago, like Jack the Ripper.
Speaker 5: Sure, yeah, and I agree, yeah, And again I think
it comes down to that, are you doing harm? Are
you putting information out there that could harm a case.
I can't speak because I've never written fiction, so I
can't speak from that side of the fence. But I
can say having been a journalist, I have been privy
sometimes to things that I've known that the general public
doesn't know about murders or about certain cases. When I've
been asked, Hey, we need you not to say that,
And that's sometimes we're in journalism. You get to make
little deals where okay, okay, I cannot say that. Can
you give me something else I can use or something?
And that's part of the back and forth you develop
with sources. Yeah, there's definite times when you have to
realize there's a public good to consider as well. Yeah,
that's concerning if there are details there that should not
be there.
Speaker 2: You're listening to Mind over Murder. We'll be right back
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my Murder now.
Speaker 4: Southern Nightmare not only was a fantastic book, but it
was also a podcast as well. And so what were
your goals ultimately for the book and for the podcast.
Was it just to bring awareness to the case or
do you have other goals in mind when you sat
down to write this and then to bring it to
the podcast space.
Speaker 5: I think initially we were just looking to tell a
good story. I think we saw, okay, that there's this
story that really has that's been forgotten. One of the
people who worked at Style was a victim of this.
We think, Okay, thirty years later, all of the people
who are connected with it are getting a lot older.
We may be losing some of them. We did lose Ray.
Ray Williams died not too long after the podcast aired,
so we knew we were under a little bit of
a ticking clock there. So yeah, I would say from
a journalistic perspective, we were looking to tell a good
story that had been forgotten. However, once I got into
the digging in and started looking at this talking to people,
and realized, on a second, this may be the first
case in US history solved with DNA. What's going on here?
Why don't more people know about this? And so then
I think it became a little background on me. My
father was deputy chief of the county. I lived in
Henriiko County. He was a thirty year some thirty some
year police veteran, and I grew up interested in law enforcement,
never really considered his career because my dad just told
me he didn't want me doing that. But I think
I had always had an interest in crime and law
enforcement all that, just because having my dad and hearing
stories and things. When I heard okay, we had the
first case DNA right here in Richmond, and nobody remembers it,
I'm thinking, this is the story. This is the story
that needs to be told. This story needs to be
brought back to the public consciousness and given some real
given some real prominence.
Speaker 4: Did the book come first or did the podcast come first?
Speaker 5: The podcast came first, and then the book came very
fast behind it. I had a media partnership deal with Style.
I did this independently of Style as my own enterprise,
but I had a deal with them where they would
get an excerpt, a written excerpt each week from the podcast.
For ten weeks we had the episodes airing. Style was
airing installments of the stories, which started with a cover
story in Style, and we kicked it off with a
live event at VCU, and then once we finished, I
had a live show where we did the last episode
and a live performance, and then after that I decided
I've got all this material here I think I can
make a book out of this. I've already written a lot,
and I was still piecing together some things, like, for instance,
you'll hear in the podcast, I was equivocating on the
DNA a little bit because I wasn't sure because there
was another case that was going through right at the
same time, more or less as the as the South
Side strangler case. So there was some question from different
people about, Okay, which one was the first? I believe me.
I was still doing interviews, still doing research. Sometimes as
a basis of things that were being aired, I would
get calls from people saying, oh, hey, you didn't interview.
I was still doing reporting all the way up to
the very end of the podcast. It was crazy outside
of work. Outside of my full time job I had then,
I was working probably another twenty thirty hours more a
week at nights and weekends. By the time all of
this finished, I had collected enough information and was able
to definitively say yes, this was the first DNA case.
I'd been able to do enough digging. And also I
just had so many little things that we didn't have
room for in the podcast, seminatle things that got left
on the cutting room floor, so many interesting little tangents
and side things. I dug up that I think it
made for some extra material in the book that I
think if you liked the podcast, you'll still find some
new stuff in the book.
Speaker 4: Let's gohead and turn to listener questions about Southern Nightmare.
I want to start with the first question, and this
is from fellow author Lindsay Wade, who just had a
book come out and whose book is actually going to
be our next pick for our book club. So Lindsey writes,
my question is whether or not there has been confirmation
that Timothy Spencer's DNA was added to Virginia's DNA database.
The database was created in nineteen eighty nine and he
was executed in nineteen ninety four. I'm curious if Virginia
went back and collected from death row inmates after the
database went into effect. Since this is not always the case.
Speaker 5: I don't know for certain. I would think yes, but
I'm not certain. Doctor Paul Ferreira, who unfortunately is no
longer with us, he was director of the Virginia Department
of Forensic Science, and he established that databank, which again
another first that Virginia created. The first DNA database in
the country, and that's what the FBI's database ended up
getting based on. And he established that here, and it
was established more or less as a direct result of
the South Side strangler case. So I would have to
think that because that case was what kicked it off.
And also they knew that there were other attacks. There
were a string of rapes in addition to the five murders,
and they did find those connections, they did make connections
to some of those where there was some evidence left. Yeah,
I would think it would have to.
Speaker 2: Be I'm only going to push back lightly here because
I can't comment specifically about Virginia, but we have been
disappointed numerous times in that people who you would think,
I'm talking about convicted killers, people on death row, people
that have even been executed, whose DNA is not in
the system in the way that you would think it
should be for a variety of reasons. And there's an
undercurrent here nationally that there are tens of thousands of
people whose DNA clearly belongs in the CODIS system and
their DNA is not in the system, including people that
are currently incarcerated on death row now and the States,
and again this is not a shot at Virginia, and
it's not a comment about Virginia per se. The states
are completely dropping the ball.
Speaker 5: Is it a resources issue bill? Is it?
Speaker 2: It's a lot of it's a lot of different things.
There are questions about whether or not it's legal to
go back and collect people's DNA, potentially forcibly. In other words,
some of these people are refusing to allow their DNA
to be taken. And there's question particularly at the state
level in various states around the country, as to whether
or not you can obligate someone to be forced to
give their DNA.
Speaker 5: I thought that had already been settled. Yeah, that's interesting.
That's something I wasn't aware of. That's fascinating.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's very disturbing.
Speaker 5: And I think, yeah, because look at the Golden State killer.
So many cases in different jurisdictions. Case was similar to
this one in that he was committing crimes sometimes what
an hour or two apart, an hour, two drives apart,
just like this one. And they didn't realize that those
were connected, just like this one. And then some of
those got connected, the dots got connected by DNA and
with a propensity for repeat offenders. Yeah, I'm with you.
That seems to me to be a no brainer that
these people should be in the database.
Speaker 4: Our next question is from Sarah G. It's a bit
of a long one, so I need a preface. So
Sarah G asks, the Diane chowcase really bugs me. It
was completely different from the other crimes. There were two
hypotheses proposed in the book. Lewis Sleschender said that it
was possible and escalation and risk behavior, which is not
uncommon in serial killers. And two one of the detectives said,
maybe Spencer thought Dane was a young single woman because
her parents worked so much and we're out of the house.
Sarah is curious about which theory you hold with for
this case.
Speaker 5: Richard, I think what we do know of serial killers,
what I have learned from talking with criminal justice experts,
they do escalate. In me, one thing leads to another
for various reasons. I cannot say myself. I don't think
Timothy Spencer, the South Side strangler, was the kind of
person that would have cared how old a person was.
I don't think that mattered to him. I think what
mattered to him was did that person did the idea
of attacking them push his buttons, and were they an
easy person to attack? Could he access them? And I
think she was vulnerable because simply because she had there
was a way to get into her room. Her parents
were not there very often, so it looked like a
woman who was on her own, or at least I
think it was more about Again, I think a lot
of times with serial killers, people want things to make sense.
They want there to be some kind of logic what
they do. Sometimes they're just monsters. Sometimes there are just
people who just want to do awful things because it
gets them excited. And that's not a great thing. That's
not something that anybody really wants to accept or believe,
and it's and I think she unfortunately was vulnerable and
he saw those vulnerabilities.
Speaker 4: Very good question from Sarah. So we have two from Amber.
The first one I thought was particularly interesting because I
love theme questions. She says, nightmares are obviously a theme
throughout the book. Did you have any nightmares during your
research and writing process for this? This is tough material.
Speaker 5: It is short answer. Yes, I don't know that I
could say necessarily what they were, just because I don't
know that I remember, but I know I had some
I think it is very difficult to live, breathe, eat,
sleep this for I did it for about thirteen fourteen
months between when I started the research on the project
and published the book. Yeah, it is awful stuff that
sticks in your head and you think about this case
in particular, spoke to somebody who violated home and hearth,
who violated the safety and sanctity of people's homes. It
was such a violation just not only their bodies, but
just the basic decency of everything, of just what you
expect to be safe when you're in your own home.
And I think, yeah, it's hard not to feel that,
and to feel the fear and awfulness of that, and
to have some of the stuff pop up in your head. Yeah,
it's not a fun place to be. My hat is
off to homicide detectives and people who are able to
work in this field because the Lord knows they're needed,
especially good ones and talented ones. And that really is
a case. That's a job that eats some people up alive. Yeah,
I can't see doing this all the time. I think
I once I was done with this, I needed a
break from it. I don't really think I have listened
to true crime podcasts or anything since that. To be
honest with you, I think I just needed to get
away from it.
Speaker 4: That is understandable.
Speaker 2: I had the same thought. Understandable was the word that
came to mind.
Speaker 4: Second question from Amber, she asked about Rena. She said,
did Rena's murder ever get investigated any further? And besides
the fibers that were found, was there anything else forensically
connecting her former roommate or someone else to the crime.
Speaker 5: I can say that I think that case still bothers
some retired law enforcement. I know there were a lot
of rumors around that case. I think I was able
to disprove one of those rumors. But I will say
I just got a call not too long ago from
somebody who was former law enforcement saying that they're still
digging into it. On the side, I don't know that
anything will ever come out of that because it's been
so long. I don't know what evidence, if any, still exists.
My knowledge is there was not a whole lot connecting
the former roommate other than circumstance and some fiber analysis.
But he given the circumstances, it doesn't seem unlikely that
he did it. But it's hard to know. I don't
think it was a Timothy Spencer murder. I really don't
from everything I've heard, But yeah, I do know that
it's something that still interests former law enforcement folks. I
don't know that there's ever going to be a resolution,
but they are still some of them are still bugged
by it.
Speaker 2: I have an additional question as well, Richard, Southern Nightmare
is such an amazing book and podcast series. Was this
ever optioned for a film or television show?
Speaker 1: No?
Speaker 5: I think partly because I didn't have time to do
the marketing and the legwork on it, and partly because
I decided to do it. My Betty Page book had
been done through a traditional publisher and with resources and
an organization that did successfully sell the film rights. With
this one, I decided to self publish and do my
own company because I wanted to see, Okay, if I
do that, do I get a bigger share of royalties?
Blah blahl. I think what I was forgetting is you
also have to do all the marketing. Yes, They're a
big piece of the puzzle there that I was missing,
and I did not have time to really devote myself
to that. Said, yeah, I think it would make a
tremendous mini series or a documentary. Unfortunately some of the
folks are passed. But it's a tremendous story. To me,
it's got It's every bit as interesting and compelling as
some of the things that I've seen from Netflix and such.
Speaker 2: I think we both feel the same.
Speaker 4: Way, absolutely, and we've really already addressed i'd say the
biggest listener question of all, which is why this case
just doesn't seem to be better known. The final listener
question that we have is from Sam, who just says
he what is your next project? To know what else
you're planning on working on.
Speaker 5: Bill knows that when I was finishing Southern Nightmare, I
was actually interested in the Colonial Parkway and that was
where I was thinking about and I had some ideas
on that one.
Speaker 4: He's come over and join us.
Speaker 5: That's how Bill and I met. But as pretty much
right after Southern Nightmare wrapped up and i'd taken a
little rest for a couple of months, I got offered
the editorship of Virginia Business. Since then, just being the
head of this business magazine, it pretty much takes all
of my time. We do great work and it's a
busy publication, busy staff right now doesn't leave time for
things on the side. Unfortunately, I'd love to do another
season of Southern Nightmare. I've got ideas for lots of things,
and I'm hoping I'll get to come back to it sometime.
Speaker 4: The book and the podcast is Southern Nightmare, The Hunt
for the South Side Strangler and Richard. If people want
to buy this, where can they buy it?
Speaker 5: Amazon?
Speaker 4: All right? Richard, thank you so much for joining us.
Speaker 5: We appreciate it, Thank you, Thank you had a great time.
Speaker 4: We hope that everyone has enjoyed our first selection for
the Mind of a Murder book Club, Southern Nightmare. We
will put up some links and resources in our show
notes so that you can locate the podcast, and we
will announce our next book club selection very shortly. Thank
you so much for joining us for this episode of
Mind over Murder. 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 Arnoit.
Speaker 2: Our theme music is by Kevin McLoud.
Speaker 1: Mind Over Murder is distributed in partnership with Coral Space Media.
Speaker 2: You can follow us on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram.
Speaker 1: You can also follow our page on the Colonial Parkway
murders on Facebook.
Speaker 2: And finally, you can follow Bill Thomas on Twitter at
Bill Thomas. Five six.
Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to Mind Over Murder about cont