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Speaker 6: You are now listening to True Murder, The most Shocking
Speaker 6: Killers in True Crime History and the authors that have
Speaker 6: written about them Gaesy Bundy Dahmer, The Nightstalker VTK. Every
Speaker 6: week another fascinating author talking about the most shocking and
Speaker 6: infamous killers in true crime history. True Murder with your host,
Speaker 6: journalist and author Dan Zupansky. Good evening, This is your
Speaker 6: host Dan Zupanski for the program True Murder, The most
Speaker 6: Shocking Killers in True crime History and the authors that.
Speaker 2: Have written about them. My special guest this evening is
Speaker 2: an author named Kathy Scott. This is her sixth true
Speaker 2: crime book. Her most recent is on Saint Martin's Press,
Speaker 2: this one being a Penguin book. This is called The
Speaker 2: Rough Guide to True Crime, Organized Crime, serial Killers and
Speaker 2: Expert psychological Profiles. Welcome to the program, and thank you
Speaker 2: very much for this interview. Kathy Scott, Well, thank you,
Speaker 2: happy to be here. Thank you very much. Let me
Speaker 2: just give for our audience a little bit of the
Speaker 2: contents of your book, and then we'll go through some
Speaker 2: of the really fascinating stuff that you've compiled in this
Speaker 2: Rough Guide to True crimea The first part of the
Speaker 2: content start with Outlaws, The Money or Your Life, including
Speaker 2: Billy the Kid, John Dillinger, Pretty Boy, Floyd, Oh, pardon me,
Speaker 2: pardon me, Yes, Outlaws The Money or Your Life? Sorry,
Speaker 2: Billy the Kid, John Dillinger, Pretty Boy, Floyd, Babyface, Nelson,
Speaker 2: Bonnie and Clyde, and Mab Barker. The next the section
Speaker 2: is Heists and Robberies, art Theft, Diamonds and Pearls, cat
Speaker 2: Burglars and lone Wolves. The next section is kidnapped, White
Speaker 2: collar crime, deception, the Art of the Khan. Next section
Speaker 2: is homicide, unsolved murders including Lizzie Borden and Jimmy hoffa
Speaker 2: section and in that as well. Under homicide is women
Speaker 2: who kill, including Betty Broderick, which we'll be talking about
Speaker 2: today a little bit, murder and the Media, the trials
Speaker 2: of O. J. Simpson, and also under homicide offspring who kill,
Speaker 2: such as the Menendez Brothers trial. The next section is
Speaker 2: serial killers, including a Son of Sam, David Berkowitz, Jerome,
Speaker 2: Henry Brutos, Jeffrey Dahmer, John Glover, the Granny Killer, Ted Kasinski,
Speaker 2: the Unibomber, Richard the Iceman, Kuklinsky, the Green River Killer,
Speaker 2: Gary Ridgeway, Doctor Harold Shipman, Doctor of Death, and the
Speaker 2: Yorkshire Ripper. She also includes another section called organized crime,
Speaker 2: the US mob, al Capone in the Chicago Outfit, John Gaudi,
Speaker 2: and the Gambino Family, the Luchese Family. The next section
Speaker 2: is organized Crime Worldwide, Asian Gangs, Yakuza Triads and Big
Speaker 2: Circle Boys. Also includes Pablo Escobar and the Madeline Cartel,
Speaker 2: the Russian Mafia and street gangs, Los Angeles street Gangs,
Speaker 2: Bloods and Crips and criminal tattoos, Gangs of New York,
Speaker 2: Westy's Black Spades, and Latin Kings. And she includes another
Speaker 2: section called Dirty Cops and Bad Apples, the LAPD, the
Speaker 2: beating of Rodney King, the New York City Police Department,
Speaker 2: Mafia cops, Louis Epelito and Stephen kra Kappa. And she
Speaker 2: also includes in the last section lesser Violations, celebrity, missed demeanor's, obscenity,
Speaker 2: blasphemy and free speech including the Larry Flint story and
Speaker 2: also absurd laws and another section called cyber crime. So
Speaker 2: that is an amazing compilation of true crime.
Speaker 5: That's my most lengthy book thus far. Was a one
Speaker 5: hundred and thirty five thousand words.
Speaker 2: So right now, how many how long did it take
Speaker 2: you to do this project, specifically from beginning to end,
Speaker 2: and how many years did it take?
Speaker 5: Well, probably about a year. I was actually working on
Speaker 5: another book at the time when my agent at the
Speaker 5: time came to me and said Penguin had contacted him
Speaker 5: and they were looking for an author I think one
Speaker 5: had fallen through or something, and did he have any
Speaker 5: authors who could pull it out? Another word, somebody who
Speaker 5: could stick to it and get it done because it
Speaker 5: was a lengthy book. And so the good thing is
Speaker 5: I didn't have to do a book proposal. And then
Speaker 5: I got together with the editor and we went back
Speaker 5: and forth and he had a proposal and he had
Speaker 5: my books, you know, and that sort of thing, and
Speaker 5: they chose me, and it was like giving birth to
Speaker 5: a baby. I mean, it was all of that is
Speaker 5: sort of a fog right now because I've done two
Speaker 5: books at the same time. So but but it's I'm
Speaker 5: really proud of it. I I sweated through this and
Speaker 5: learned a lot about about some stories I didn't know about.
Speaker 5: What I tried to do. One thing is is to
Speaker 5: try to take a different angle with a lot of
Speaker 5: these stories because so much has been written about a
Speaker 5: lot of the cases, you know, so the funny things
Speaker 5: in it as well.
Speaker 2: Okay, well, tell us what number one, maybe what your
Speaker 2: criteria was for picking the stories specifically it would be
Speaker 2: included in the book, and then give us that what
Speaker 2: was your twist? What was your angle that you approached
Speaker 2: the writing of this sort of presenting of these same
Speaker 2: maybe familiar stories differently, What was your approach?
Speaker 5: Well, one thing I always try to do is to
Speaker 5: write about the underdog. That's always, you know, even with
Speaker 5: the Tupac Sha court case, you know, because he was
Speaker 5: murdered and nobody seems to be solving the crime. To me,
Speaker 5: he's an underdog. And and so I do you know,
Speaker 5: I do go after that sort of thing. And I'm
Speaker 5: trying to think of a case that Bertha Pippen is
Speaker 5: one murder case and and this was a family and
Speaker 5: in Oklahoma, and and her her son who happened to
Speaker 5: find her body. And this was an elderly woman, I mean,
Speaker 5: she was in her eighties. It was very very sad,
Speaker 5: and two teenagers in the neighborhood who she given odd
Speaker 5: jobs to, and that sort of thing murdered her over
Speaker 5: something like three dollars and uh hit it, beat her
Speaker 5: with a baseball bat. It's really horrible and and very
Speaker 5: very lettle was written about that case. I mean it
Speaker 5: barely was a blip, you know, on the radar, and
Speaker 5: I found it because I knew somebody who knew the family,
Speaker 5: and so I went after that. Took quite a bit
Speaker 5: to get the old articles and stuff because there wasn't
Speaker 5: anything available, and then I interviewed the son, Jerry Pippen,
Speaker 5: who happens to be on a radio guy, and it
Speaker 5: was a fascinating case. And what I wanted to do
Speaker 5: was kind of give Bertha Pippen a voice. You know,
Speaker 5: just went out like a light, so sad, and I
Speaker 5: just wanted to give her a voice. A lot of times,
Speaker 5: when you write about murder, it's the last time these
Speaker 5: people are ever going to be written about, because not
Speaker 5: everybody who's murdered is famous, and so I always take
Speaker 5: it sort of personally and try to give them a voice.
Speaker 2: Certainly, So what you mean by underdog as well is
Speaker 2: that you're taking low profile cases or no profile cases
Speaker 2: and then taking those stories finding out this kind of care.
Speaker 5: Yeah, telling people about them. And I think that, you know,
Speaker 5: and I'm really a person for detail. I mean, I
Speaker 5: I'm working on a case right now Barbara Cogan out
Speaker 5: of New York, and I just landed some documents from
Speaker 5: court that are like a Christmas present to me when
Speaker 5: I get things like that, and and I just love
Speaker 5: the details, and I pour through them, and you know,
Speaker 5: the documents and to find the details and and so
Speaker 5: that's what I try to do, is kind of tell
Speaker 5: the reader different things, you know, relevant details of course,
Speaker 5: and something maybe they didn't know before. You know. I
Speaker 5: think that some of these I spent a lot of time.
Speaker 5: For example, I've spent a lot of time in New Orleans,
Speaker 5: you know, after Hurricane Katrina, because I was down there
Speaker 5: for a rescue group and animal rescue group, and ended
Speaker 5: up writing Poprins of Katrina, a book about it, which
Speaker 5: was in depth, you know, reporting, because I had to
Speaker 5: follow the animals from beginning to end and and and
Speaker 5: being down there, I know what the New Orleans Police
Speaker 5: Department is, and I know they're trying to trying to
Speaker 5: clean up and change their image, but you know, there
Speaker 5: I did cover the New Orleans Police Department in this
Speaker 5: book too. I have a personal interest in it. So
Speaker 5: some of it was you know, personal, some of it wasn't,
Speaker 5: you know, And I think people ought to know. You know,
Speaker 5: when you're going to a city that, you know, like
Speaker 5: New Orleans, it's not as as safe necessarily as you
Speaker 5: think it is. But I love that city, you know.
Speaker 5: So at the same time, I'm not going to you know,
Speaker 5: write anything to try to hurt them, but I do
Speaker 5: write the truth.
Speaker 2: Sure, Well, that's that's journalism right now.
Speaker 5: Yeah, yep, well journal as first.
Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely absolutely, And that's that's evident with the book
Speaker 2: that you've put together here and getting let's get back
Speaker 2: to that. Let's let's start with some of the cases
Speaker 2: that may be more more interesting to our audience and
Speaker 2: my audience is as the title of the program is
Speaker 2: the most Shocking Killers in true crime History. And despite
Speaker 2: you having some less of violent crime, will say and
Speaker 2: non serious crime will be better described non serious crime. Yes,
Speaker 2: you know, there is a.
Speaker 5: Serious crime in here. There's some serious crime in.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, absolutely, it's it's it's all serious crime. But
Speaker 2: there is some stuff that is one's in here.
Speaker 5: Yeah. Well, we tried to balance it with kind of
Speaker 5: off the wall, and but there are some big cases
Speaker 5: in here. Sure Pads is one, and and and then
Speaker 5: the you know, Barbara or I'm sorry, the Betty Broadreck
Speaker 5: case is an interesting one in the women who kill category.
Speaker 5: She was the one who sort of stood out from
Speaker 5: the other cases in that in that section because they
Speaker 5: really were they were either battered wives or or you know,
Speaker 5: had very mean husbands. And you know, she was a
Speaker 5: socialite and lawyer.
Speaker 2: Okay, well, let's let's get back to that just in
Speaker 2: a little bit. I just want to go back to
Speaker 2: a little bit in the beginning. I'm really fascinated with
Speaker 2: and I know that some people too that that are
Speaker 2: true crime fans, are more current history, maybe the seventies
Speaker 2: or everything from in Cold Blood. But we've had the
Speaker 2: same psychopathic killer amongst us for many more years than
Speaker 2: just the last forty or fifty. And you talk specifically
Speaker 2: about some of these characters of Billy the Kid, Mab Barker,
Speaker 2: and Bonnie and Clyde, some of the gangsters and some
Speaker 2: of the outlaws from the Old West. Yeah, maybe can
Speaker 2: tell us about a couple of the people from the
Speaker 2: Old West that or maybe even one person from the
Speaker 2: Old West that really the story really resonated with you
Speaker 2: and you felt it necessary to put in your true
Speaker 2: crime compilation. Tell us a little bit about one of
Speaker 2: those stories.
Speaker 5: Well, I think that everybody knows, you know, you know,
Speaker 5: Billy the Kid, and John Dillinger and pretty boyd Boy
Speaker 5: Floyd he was a pretty he was a pretty dark
Speaker 5: He was a pretty dark character. The thing about these
Speaker 5: like Bonnie and Clyde and and and Floyd and those
Speaker 5: guys in Babyface Nelson, they you know, it was a
Speaker 5: different time and in America, and and you know when
Speaker 5: when there was it was fairly easy apparently to just
Speaker 5: go in and rob a bank. And these guys were
Speaker 5: actually they became famous by the news stories, you know
Speaker 5: that would be written about them. I don't think we
Speaker 5: had true crime books back then, did we per se
Speaker 5: and they and they actually there would be people who
Speaker 5: would give them a home for the night, or feed
Speaker 5: them or you know, egg them on, you know, because
Speaker 5: it was it was almost like living vicariously through them,
Speaker 5: you know. And they were they were, you know, for
Speaker 5: the most part, pretty big bad guys. But you know,
Speaker 5: Ma Barker and those guys, I mean that was a
Speaker 5: dysfunctional family, you know, and and her boys and she
Speaker 5: she claimed she didn't know what they were doing, and
Speaker 5: of course she did, but they just moved from city
Speaker 5: to city and her boys rob Banks. But I think
Speaker 5: that's uh, you know, I think that was an interesting
Speaker 5: case to kind of look at Ma Barker. You know,
Speaker 5: we could as the boys are written about her. Sons
Speaker 5: are written about a lot, but not necessarily her, And
Speaker 5: I think the things that have been written about her weren't.
Speaker 5: You know, there's nothing glorious about what they did and
Speaker 5: nothing glamorous about what they did. You know, these people
Speaker 5: could barely eat sometimes because they couldn't go anywhere, they
Speaker 5: couldn't be seen. And I think Bonnie and Clyde, I mean,
Speaker 5: these guys are all they're they're part of lore. But
Speaker 5: Bonnie and Clyde too. I think that was an interesting,
Speaker 5: really an interesting case kind of looking at their their
Speaker 5: their story. And what I did was I went way
Speaker 5: back to how they met. They met at a friend's house,
Speaker 5: you know, and she was just a teenager. And I
Speaker 5: think that's I think it's interesting just to kind of
Speaker 5: go back into the history and kind of give more
Speaker 5: than just the standard fear of what you're used to
Speaker 5: hearing about that those cases, well, what.
Speaker 2: Was unusual about their their teenage life that you thought
Speaker 2: maybe was a precursor to some of the crimes they
Speaker 2: did later, or or you thought, Jesus, that's unusual that
Speaker 2: they may have led a life of crime because of
Speaker 2: their ordinary we'll say teenage life.
Speaker 5: Well, I think that it was. It was the times,
Speaker 5: I mean she was she was helping, helping a friend
Speaker 5: do housework, or helping a neighbor or whatever, and you
Speaker 5: know it, there wasn't an opportunity. Excuse me, there wasn't
Speaker 5: an opportunity for women back then other than to, you know,
Speaker 5: meet a man and marry him. And then she met
Speaker 5: Clyde and and he wasn't out for her, and she
Speaker 5: hooked up with him, and he wasn't out for her,
Speaker 5: and she got to leave the life you know that
Speaker 5: she she you know, was in. And so I think
Speaker 5: in some cases women hooked up with men back then
Speaker 5: just just to get them out of the situation they
Speaker 5: were in and get them out of the town they
Speaker 5: lived in. And I think that was the case here
Speaker 5: and then. But I think there was a real attraction
Speaker 5: between the two and she didn't quite know who he was.
Speaker 5: She didn't know who was an outlaw. When she hooked
Speaker 5: up with him, she could have left anytime you wanted to,
Speaker 5: you know, so she I mean there are those photos
Speaker 5: of her holding a rifle and smiling and that sort
Speaker 5: of thing, since she was a part of it. I mean,
Speaker 5: the women who hook up with these guys say they
Speaker 5: pretty much know what they're doing.
Speaker 2: Well, I was going to say, as you were starting
Speaker 2: to say, I thought, well, geez, these people. There's always
Speaker 2: been people that are attracted by the dark side. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and you throw in romance and good looks. I mean,
Speaker 2: I think the media has always played a big part
Speaker 2: in this. You say, well, they probably weren't true crime
Speaker 2: books in those days, probably not per se, But the
Speaker 2: newspapers were the medium and people it was well read,
Speaker 2: and they were always sensationalistic, and they were always looking
Speaker 2: for interesting characters. And I think the media's fascination with
Speaker 2: this has just been reflective of people's fascination with the
Speaker 2: criminal mind, because it is so deviant and so out
Speaker 2: of the ordinary compared to the way we may think.
Speaker 2: And some of it, when people are robbing a bank,
Speaker 2: I can see what are some of that there wouldn't
Speaker 2: be so much distaste for the type of crime as
Speaker 2: opposed to some of the serial killers and lust and
Speaker 2: torture killers and baby kidnappers and you know, so yeah, well.
Speaker 5: You know, I think I think it's you know, people say,
Speaker 5: you know, crime has become more violent. It's always been violent.
Speaker 5: I mean they you know, they thought nothing back then
Speaker 5: of just blowing somebody's head off, you know, and then
Speaker 5: it would get headlines and the guys were you know,
Speaker 5: there were outlaws on the run and sort of you know,
Speaker 5: made to be heroes in a lot of ways. But
Speaker 5: I think I don't know that it's become any more violent.
Speaker 5: I think that we just have more of it because
Speaker 5: we have more people, and then we hear about We
Speaker 5: have other ways of hearing about it now too. I mean,
Speaker 5: the internet is incredible how you hear about things, you know,
Speaker 5: and then of course they are the copycat crimes. But well,
Speaker 5: you know, as a newspaper reporter because I was one
Speaker 5: for a long time, you know, the reader's typical. We'll say,
Speaker 5: you know, can't you give us the good news? Well,
Speaker 5: you know, it's not sexy, and people, you know, people
Speaker 5: do give the good news, but you know, crime cells
Speaker 5: people want to read about it, you know, and sometimes
Speaker 5: like in this book, you know, I write about kind
Speaker 5: of the dumb things people did too, And I'll never
Speaker 5: forget a cop telling me early in my career that,
Speaker 5: you know, most of the crooks are stupid, that's why
Speaker 5: they get caught. And so you get to write about
Speaker 5: kind of the bungling burglaries too. And the FBI has
Speaker 5: they age it on a little bit because of a
Speaker 5: lot of cities, the bureaus when there's a bank robbery,
Speaker 5: the bureaus name them like there's you know, there's the
Speaker 5: bad breath robber, and there's the you know, pretty face
Speaker 5: or the ponytail robber. They give them names, the pink shirt,
Speaker 5: I mean, whatever it is, they give them names, and
Speaker 5: they sort of help, you know, kind of help sensationalize
Speaker 5: it a little bit themselves.
Speaker 2: Now speaking of people too, and you talk about the
Speaker 2: media aiming, say a bank robber, but they're more so
Speaker 2: after the FBI. Pardon me, yeah, but well the FBI.
Speaker 2: But media will also in a different example, name specific
Speaker 2: serial murders like the Green River killer or the Zodiac
Speaker 2: or well the Zodiac that was his own name.
Speaker 5: Did he but up and carries it through? Yeah, And
Speaker 5: don't you.
Speaker 2: Think that's don't you think that's a certain feature that
Speaker 2: we didn't always have. I mean, Jack the Ripper before
Speaker 2: the turn of the century loved and reveled in his
Speaker 2: notoriety for the killings that he did. But it is
Speaker 2: I mean, you've just said that you don't think crime
Speaker 2: is any more violent, But we do have a more
Speaker 2: recent phenomena since probably the seventies, which include all of
Speaker 2: some of the killers that we mentioned and then that
Speaker 2: I wanted to talk about, and you've included in your
Speaker 2: book as well, Son of Sam, Jerome, Henry Brutos, Jeffrey Dahmer,
Speaker 2: John Glover, Ted Kazinski, Richard Koklinsky, Gary Ridgeway. We the
Speaker 2: whole palette of different types of serial killers, insane serial killers,
Speaker 2: psychopathic serial killers.
Speaker 5: They're all kind of crazy, aren't they they. Kazynski, that's
Speaker 5: a I mean, he's crazy as alone, you know, and
Speaker 5: then you look at you look at some of them
Speaker 5: that are I mean, Jeffrey Dahmer case something I had
Speaker 5: a hard time even writing that. That's just such a dark,
Speaker 5: dark story, you know, the cannibalism and the you know,
Speaker 5: luring luring young guys into his place and his apartment
Speaker 5: and some of them teenagers. It was horrible, I mean,
Speaker 5: such a horrible, you know, ghastly thing.
Speaker 2: Well, you know, the court's uh part of his trial
Speaker 2: was whether he was insane or not. The courts deemed
Speaker 2: him sane and he received a penitentiary sentence. But I
Speaker 2: think that I think a lot of people will look
Speaker 2: at the types of crimes and say that that's insane.
Speaker 5: And of course, you know how you know, how sort
Speaker 5: of justice was served in that case. You know, if
Speaker 5: it's looked at that way was you know, they had
Speaker 5: him and you know he was in high security for
Speaker 5: his own safety, right, Well, they led him, they lowered
Speaker 5: his security, and then a bunch of guys got him
Speaker 5: in the shower.
Speaker 2: Well, he's one of the more reviled criminals ever so.
Speaker 5: Served in that case. If anybody you know wanted wanted
Speaker 5: worse for him, he certainly got it. But yeah, it is,
Speaker 5: you know, and the laws are so I mean, I
Speaker 5: think the you know, I think justice is you sort
Speaker 5: of get justice by whatever, you know. The attorneys are.
Speaker 5: I think that some are better than others, and you know,
Speaker 5: it's I don't know if that's fair, you know what
Speaker 5: I mean, because it ends on if somebody gets off,
Speaker 5: it's it's because they had a better attorney.
Speaker 2: Well, wouldn't it be much a much different situation if
Speaker 2: you were had a means to afford your lawyers and
Speaker 2: had the means to hire the best lawyers as opposed
Speaker 2: to being assigned a lawyer from the state.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I think so. And then it depends on the
Speaker 5: case too, And you know how good it is. The
Speaker 5: thing that they do today is they try so hard
Speaker 5: to just plead everybody out, you know, instead of taking
Speaker 5: them all the way to trial. And I think that's
Speaker 5: a really typical thing. And I think some people plead
Speaker 5: guilty and they're not guilty, and we found that, you know,
Speaker 5: we found that a lot. But in then other cases,
Speaker 5: you know, the people aren't they're not guilty, and they're
Speaker 5: not they don't have the funds to do it, and
Speaker 5: their attorneys are overloaded, you know, because they're assigned and
Speaker 5: they can't keep up with the cases they have, so well,
Speaker 5: you know, most of them are guilty.
Speaker 2: So well. The thing is is, I think you have
Speaker 2: a system where you have a few states where you
Speaker 2: will not have a review of the case before say,
Speaker 2: a death penalty sentence is carried out. So you have
Speaker 2: that prospect of you know, that's you know, letting somebody
Speaker 2: out after a review after ten or fifteen years with
Speaker 2: a DNA review or something else came up in terms
Speaker 2: of new evidence. But if you do enacted death penalty,
Speaker 2: then you have that you always have that problem. Yeah,
Speaker 2: you know, maybe I'll ask you this question here, Like
Speaker 2: I'm sitting in Canada and I won't go into our
Speaker 2: Canadian politics and our judicial system, which is based on
Speaker 2: the same system as yours, which is a British system
Speaker 2: and very similar to Australia and other jurisdictions in the world. However,
Speaker 2: there have been many changes and it is almost night
Speaker 2: and day when we look at serious crime in terms
Speaker 2: of the sentencing, the way things are proceed in court,
Speaker 2: in terms of conviction, plea bargaining. Just for example, first
Speaker 2: degree and second degree murder are tiered differently. Manslaughter only
Speaker 2: has one manslaughter designation. There's not degrees of manslaughter.
Speaker 5: Yeah, the rule is complicated, very complicated.
Speaker 2: It's very complicated.
Speaker 5: We've we.
Speaker 2: Voted against the death penalty many years ago in Canada.
Speaker 2: So you know, I just asked you this question. I've
Speaker 2: asked my first two guests the same question. What is
Speaker 2: your opinion about the death penalty as a sentence in
Speaker 2: certain cases.
Speaker 5: Well, you know, like I just said, you know, in
Speaker 5: the domercation he got a death sentence, but it was
Speaker 5: you know, inmates who did it. I'm you know, I'm not.
Speaker 5: I hate to come out and stance asking if I'm
Speaker 5: pro life, you know what I mean, it's almost the
Speaker 5: same thing, and I like to kind of stay neutral
Speaker 5: as far as my opinion is going that sort of thing.
Speaker 5: But but I do like to see justice needed out.
Speaker 5: I think it's I think it's kind of an antiquated
Speaker 5: way to handle a criminal. Yet are you know, to
Speaker 5: kill them? Yet? Our prisons are full of people. We're
Speaker 5: just overloaded with criminals, and we can't you know, we
Speaker 5: can't keep up with you know, housing them, and then
Speaker 5: the you know, in the way they're housed, and and
Speaker 5: you know, the recidivism is awful because they don't get
Speaker 5: a lot of rehab and you know, to prepare them
Speaker 5: for the outside world if they go out on parole. So,
Speaker 5: I don't know. I think our justice system in a
Speaker 5: lot of ways is broken, you know, especially now with
Speaker 5: DNA tests going back and getting people where DNA was preserved,
Speaker 5: and you know, the evidence did not point towards certain
Speaker 5: people and their their release. You know, they get another
Speaker 5: trial on their release because they weren't guilty. I think
Speaker 5: that speaks volumes too about our judicial system. You know,
Speaker 5: I think it's the criminal justice system is a little
Speaker 5: bit broken, don't you.
Speaker 2: Think, well, I mean, obviously the criminal justice system can't
Speaker 2: be perfect. And at the same time time, it's in
Speaker 2: response to, you know, very very serious criminals. We wouldn't
Speaker 2: I mean, it's idealistic to talk like this, but there
Speaker 2: are there are serious criminals that cannot be dealt with
Speaker 2: in any other way except incarceration. And even then, some
Speaker 2: of these people have broken every taboo and every boundary
Speaker 2: of humanity known to man.
Speaker 5: And you look at Manson, I mean, he's a case.
Speaker 5: I mean, that's another dark case. But you look at
Speaker 5: Manson and you know, he didn't carry out the murders himself,
Speaker 5: but he had people do it. And I'm talk about crazy.
Speaker 5: And I've watched some parole board meetings of his, hearings
Speaker 5: of his on TV and it's creepy just looking at
Speaker 5: his eyes and somebody like that is I think they've
Speaker 5: got him more. In general, population right now too, and
Speaker 5: he's should he have been killed? You know, I mean
Speaker 5: it's you know, he's going to stay there till he dies,
Speaker 5: you know. So I don't know, I don't know. It's
Speaker 5: a it's an interesting subject right now.
Speaker 2: You talked about included in your book a section on
Speaker 2: women who kill, and you said it would be interesting
Speaker 2: to talk about this because this woman does come up
Speaker 2: for a parole hearing in March of this year.
Speaker 5: She actually had it. They did it early.
Speaker 2: Oh they did. Okay, don't give it don't give it away.
Speaker 2: We'll talk about it and you can tell. I think
Speaker 2: I know the answer here. And this is a story
Speaker 2: that a lot of people may have seen on American Justice.
Speaker 2: I know I've seen it, and it's it's riveting because
Speaker 2: they have, uh, they do have. They was televised a trial,
Speaker 2: and so they do have very good footage of the
Speaker 2: woman on the stand. And well, let's get to that
Speaker 2: and we'll we'll talk about that because that's again just
Speaker 2: interesting that I had forgotten her last name. Anyway, So
Speaker 2: tell us a little bit about the Betty Broderick case.
Speaker 5: Well, Betty was a socialite in Lahois. I'm friend san Diego.
Speaker 5: I have a cabin there, so I'll be there hopefully
Speaker 5: this year again living there. But Ohia is a very
Speaker 5: high end community and expensive. And her husband was an
Speaker 5: attorney and she helped put him through law school. And
Speaker 5: they had four children and two boys and two older girls,
Speaker 5: and she remained a housewife and you know, did everything
Speaker 5: for him. And then he met He hired a young
Speaker 5: attorney or a young assistant or whatever she was at
Speaker 5: his law firm and started having an affair with her.
Speaker 5: And then he dumped Betty and for eight years they went.
Speaker 5: They tried to get a divorce and she he worked
Speaker 5: the court system, you know, the his friends and whatnot.
Speaker 5: She couldn't get a fair attorney. He put very stringent
Speaker 5: rules on her. And you know, she says he drove
Speaker 5: her crazy. I don't know if he did or not.
Speaker 5: You know, some people do very well, and you know
Speaker 5: if there aren't any problems, and you throw a problem
Speaker 5: in and they can no longer function.
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Speaker 2: No necessary day lost in terms conditions eighteen plus that
Speaker 2: he seems to.
Speaker 5: Be one of those people. And she early one morning
Speaker 5: eight years later, and she was living in La Joya.
Speaker 5: He was giving her sixteen thousand dollars a month and
Speaker 5: that was twenty years ago, which wasn't a bad alimony.
Speaker 2: Pay, but that was just till the divorce divorce.
Speaker 5: Star finalized and she had a cle, She had an
Speaker 5: STV and that sort of thing that he paid for school.
Speaker 5: The kids went to private school, Lahoya Day School, and
Speaker 5: and she early in the morning before dawn went to
Speaker 5: had taken her daughter's and he had custody of the
Speaker 5: kids too, part of partial custody, I mean he had
Speaker 5: two of the two of the kids.
Speaker 2: And well it was that now, how.
Speaker 5: You don't want to be around her. All she did
Speaker 5: was trash their father.
Speaker 2: Okay, no, But the thing is that that's you got
Speaker 2: to go back a little bit further. There's a little
Speaker 2: bit of information that may have drove a woman over
Speaker 2: the edge. One thing is that one thing is that
Speaker 2: he's having an affair with a younger woman, and she
Speaker 2: put him through college. The second thing is that now
Speaker 2: he's he's in the celebrity pages of society pages that
Speaker 2: she felt was real important.
Speaker 5: Now maybe the last now she's in she replaced her.
Speaker 2: But the thing is, I think that it's fair to
Speaker 2: say that maybe part of it was that this custody
Speaker 2: battle with trying to take the children away from her,
Speaker 2: and maybe that.
Speaker 5: So go on because Betty wanted Betty wanted let him
Speaker 5: see the kids. So he went to court, you know,
Speaker 5: or he'd come to pick up the kids and they
Speaker 5: want to be there. She played as many games with
Speaker 5: him as he played with her. The two of them
Speaker 5: played sort of the cat and mouse game with each other,
Speaker 5: and in one case, she was he came home late,
Speaker 5: and I think it was when she suspected he was
Speaker 5: having an affair and he wasn't home yet, and so
Speaker 5: she took his very expensive Italian shoes and suits and everything,
Speaker 5: put him in a big pile, and she had a
Speaker 5: bonfire with the kids and burned all his clothes, and
Speaker 5: she did crazy stuff when they were they were still together,
Speaker 5: and she made it she made it as difficult on
Speaker 5: him as he did on her. I mean he really
Speaker 5: he contributed greatly to the dysfunctionality of their relationship. And
Speaker 5: the kids, the boys, they were younger, and one was
Speaker 5: nine and one was twelve. I think they wanted to
Speaker 5: live with their dad, you know, because mom was acting crazy, right,
Speaker 5: and she was just mean. She was obsessed and wanted
Speaker 5: to know every detail of what he was doing. And
Speaker 5: the you know, the kids didn't. They were providing her
Speaker 5: with information and they didn't want to do it anymore.
Speaker 5: She became unobsessed woman, you know, she was driven and
Speaker 5: and it ended and ended quite ugly.
Speaker 2: Telescope.
Speaker 5: So what so what she did was she she got
Speaker 5: into her her daughter was the one was a teenager
Speaker 5: and the other was I think eighteen or nineteen, and
Speaker 5: she got her, got into her person, got her father's
Speaker 5: front door key into the house and Mission Hills in
Speaker 5: San Diego, a high end area as well, and early
Speaker 5: in the morning before the sun rose, she got into
Speaker 5: their house and went upstairs to the bedroom where Dan,
Speaker 5: her almost ex husband, and and well he was her
Speaker 5: ex husband at that point because this was his new wife.
Speaker 5: So she finally did get the divorce after eight years.
Speaker 5: And she shot them, and she not only shot them
Speaker 5: while they were sleeping, but Dan, Dan was still alive
Speaker 5: and Dan reached for the phone and and Betty went
Speaker 5: and yanked at out of the wall, so he was
Speaker 5: still moving and still alive. And she emptied the gun
Speaker 5: into both of them, and then she drove fifteen minutes
Speaker 5: twenty minutes to the beach. Laoya sat and watched the
Speaker 5: ocean for a little bit, picked up a phone and
Speaker 5: called Dan's best friend and said, I just shot Dan
Speaker 5: and Linda. Then she called her daughter, Kim and very
Speaker 5: calmly said I just shot your father. And that was
Speaker 5: how it went down. And then they used the defense
Speaker 5: of you know, she was driven to kill but she
Speaker 5: says she went to the house and she never intended
Speaker 5: to kill them. She took a gun with her and
Speaker 5: she did very early in the morning. She said she
Speaker 5: went to talk to Dan. I mean she very quietly
Speaker 5: went up those stairs and opened fire. And those two people.
Speaker 5: It was a you know, he probably never figured she'd
Speaker 5: do something like that, but he did make it very,
Speaker 5: very difficult on her.
Speaker 2: Now you talk about having the defense that she was
Speaker 2: insane at the time, were temporarily insane. It did result
Speaker 2: in a hung jury at first, so she did have
Speaker 2: some success with that. Did she testify at the first
Speaker 2: trial or was it the second trial? She testified at it,
Speaker 2: and give us a little bit of that. What happened
Speaker 2: when she did testify and if that did help her
Speaker 2: hurt her.
Speaker 5: Well, she testified at both trials, and I believe she
Speaker 5: testified the second trial and she sounded more sane than
Speaker 5: she did the first time. But what she did during
Speaker 5: the first trial is she would get into the sort
Speaker 5: of screeching voice. And the assistant district attorney in San
Speaker 5: Diego was a woman and I can't remember her name
Speaker 5: off the top of my head, but she went for
Speaker 5: first degree murder, which of course is premeditated, and and
Speaker 5: it appears as if it was premeditated. I mean, all
Speaker 5: evidence points to it. But she went blow by blow.
Speaker 5: And this is a woman who's stuck and you know,
Speaker 5: couldn't get past things. Obviously, you know, she was talking
Speaker 5: about it Dan like it had just happened. The you know,
Speaker 5: the problems with Dan. You know, she's the woman who
Speaker 5: was not living in the moment. And so she got
Speaker 5: up on the stand and just screeched and cried and
Speaker 5: literally sounded crazy. And but the way she was treated,
Speaker 5: I mean it came across. I think there were some sympathizers,
Speaker 5: but she basically just sounded nuts and very self serving.
Speaker 5: She didn't seem in the way she treated her children
Speaker 5: and badgered them about their father, she justified in her
Speaker 5: own mind. I mean that I can't imagine those poor children,
Speaker 5: you know, who are all grown now, but having to
Speaker 5: live that day after day, and that's what she concentrated on,
Speaker 5: was their father. And so she still has no remorse.
Speaker 5: She showed no remorse on the stand and easily admitted
Speaker 5: to doing it, and it gave great description of how
Speaker 5: she did it. And then just she went upstairs and
Speaker 5: all of a sudden, boom, the gun went off, like
Speaker 5: she didn't fire it. And the assistant DA tried to
Speaker 5: get her to admit to you know where you pointed it,
Speaker 5: you knew what you were doing, that sort of thing.
Speaker 5: She had a hard time in that first trial getting
Speaker 5: Betty to admit to specifics, and because it was her
Speaker 5: first degree case, it was a hung jurney and she
Speaker 5: did go to a second trial and they went after
Speaker 5: a second degree murder.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so a little bit easier to achieve, and yeah,
Speaker 2: lastly they did, especially with her testimony.
Speaker 5: It's a sad case. It's sad for you know, it's
Speaker 5: sad for Dan and Linda who were killed. It's sad
Speaker 5: for the kids who had to endure that for so
Speaker 5: many years. Then they lost both their parents. So it's
Speaker 5: it just was, you know, sat all the way around.
Speaker 5: And Betty seems to have just very very well in prison,
Speaker 5: likes it. She's like the dead mother and you know,
Speaker 5: she's older and everybody you know comes to her, and
Speaker 5: she's very comfortable in that environment. So there have been
Speaker 5: stories about it. She's interviewed about it, and she did
Speaker 5: go up for parole and what happened They denied it. Yeah,
Speaker 5: And she basically was very calm when she was talking
Speaker 5: and that sort of thing. And then it said that
Speaker 5: two lovely people are dad and there were people who
Speaker 5: love them. But she still didn't show any remorse. She
Speaker 5: didn't say she was sorry. You know, you want to
Speaker 5: be paroled. You've got to say you're sorry. And she said,
Speaker 5: you know, she seems a little unpredictable. And like I said,
Speaker 5: a woman like her needs everything neat and tidy, and
Speaker 5: something gets thrown out and she can't adapt to it.
Speaker 5: I mean, she couldn't adjust to her husband leaving her.
Speaker 5: Lots of men go out on women and the women
Speaker 5: don't go kill them, you know. And and he did
Speaker 5: prolong it for so long. But they both contributed to it.
Speaker 5: You know. She wanted agree to certain things. She wanted
Speaker 5: a lot of money, and he didn't want to give
Speaker 5: it to her, and so it went very, very badly.
Speaker 5: And she does well in prison, and I think that's why,
Speaker 5: because it's you know, she's got rules and regulations and
Speaker 5: she operates very well in that environment.
Speaker 2: Well, how old is how old is Betty? And she
Speaker 2: still has other prospects of potential parole help.
Speaker 5: Yeah, she comes up again in fifteen years. I think
Speaker 5: she's around sixty one sixty two, And she does come
Speaker 5: up again. But in fifteen years she got a sentence
Speaker 5: of something like thirty two years to life, I believe.
Speaker 5: So it's their option, and you know, at the end
Speaker 5: of the thirty two years, which she was you know,
Speaker 5: in her what early forties, late thirties hour old she
Speaker 5: was when when it happened, And so she'll be much
Speaker 5: much older, you know, So she'll probably die in prison,
Speaker 5: which she'll be what seventy five when she comes up again,
Speaker 5: So ye be interesting most of her life. I let
Speaker 5: someone like her out, you know, because what do they do?
Speaker 5: And and and she does seem to be doing well
Speaker 5: in prison.
Speaker 2: Sure, sure now you talked to You have a section
Speaker 2: called the unsolved Murders in the homicide section, and you
Speaker 2: include a story about Jimmy Hoffer for our audience that
Speaker 2: may be younger or doesn't know about Jimmy Hoffer. Give
Speaker 2: us a little bit about Jimmy Hoffa. And I know
Speaker 2: it's a legend, but nobody really seems to have specifics
Speaker 2: of what happened to who he was.
Speaker 5: Hafa was the union leader. Let me cooted that section
Speaker 5: real quick.
Speaker 6: Sorry, Seamsters Teamsters.
Speaker 5: Union, thank you. And I'll also had a relationship with
Speaker 5: the mafia, you know, because the mob was all involved
Speaker 5: with the Teamsters for years, and you know, and it
Speaker 5: isn't unsolved murder, and there there are rumors that you know,
Speaker 5: he was you know, buried inside a wall of one
Speaker 5: of the casinos here when it was built. You know.
Speaker 5: But but it's it's you know, it's hard to solve
Speaker 5: mob related cases sometimes, you know. But he I think
Speaker 5: he he you know, in Haffa's case, there was a
Speaker 5: lot of there was a lot of controversy going and
Speaker 5: and on at the time, and and he ticked off
Speaker 5: a few people and and the word is it was
Speaker 5: the mafia that did it. But you know, I mean
Speaker 5: Maya Lanski and all those guys and uh, the Italian mafia.
Speaker 5: But uh, but uh it you know, nobody will ever
Speaker 5: get to it for sure. It's one of those old
Speaker 5: mob stories, you know that you it's you know, it's
Speaker 5: the brotherhood, and they don't talk about you know, they
Speaker 5: don't admit anything, you know. But I do cover a
Speaker 5: new book where there was a low level a low
Speaker 5: level criminal hanging out with those guys and with the
Speaker 5: Union and the mafia in that sort of thing, very
Speaker 5: low level, and he claims that he uh helped kill him.
Speaker 5: And on his deathbed he uh he talked about it,
Speaker 5: so you know, whether it's true or not. And then
Speaker 5: he was buried out in a under you know, in
Speaker 5: a in a backyard of a house, and that house,
Speaker 5: you know, the FBI two years ago went to it
Speaker 5: and dug up in everything and never did find never
Speaker 5: did find a body. But the book was h Charles
Speaker 5: Brandt's book I Heard You Painted Houses. As supposedly you
Speaker 5: go up to mafia guy and say, when you want
Speaker 5: somebody killed, Then you say, I heard you painted houses,
Speaker 5: and so he yeah, it's kind of interesting, and so
Speaker 5: he uh, he writes about a guy by the name
Speaker 5: of Sheehan and he claims he you know, he was
Speaker 5: there when he was killed, and it was the mafia
Speaker 5: that didn't. Whether it's true, I'll ever know. And the
Speaker 5: guy on his deathbed told him this, so.
Speaker 2: Knows right now. Of all the cases that that you
Speaker 2: cover in this and I mentioned a bunch of these
Speaker 2: cases obviously, from organized crime to famous serial killers and
Speaker 2: and even outlaws from the Old West. Now what you
Speaker 2: had mentioned a couple names eaten paths you had mentioned
Speaker 2: and the ChIL Chilla case. Tell us about these cases.
Speaker 2: I know we spoke just before the program. These are
Speaker 2: the kinds of cases or these are cases specifically that
Speaker 2: you that are not so well known and are cases
Speaker 2: that you really found interesting and really fit into this
Speaker 2: compilation that you put together, and you felt it necessary
Speaker 2: to put in there maybe and cut off the wall.
Speaker 5: You know, cases the chel Chilla case, want me start
Speaker 5: with that. Okay, the child Chilli case was out of
Speaker 5: central California, and it was a group of students out
Speaker 5: for the day to go swimming and their drivers driving
Speaker 5: down a uh, you know, a quiet highway and and
Speaker 5: they see somebody in trouble and they stop or the
Speaker 5: the guys barricading the street actually, and they stop and
Speaker 5: they you know, some two guys get on, get on
Speaker 5: the bus, take it over. They drive for a long time.
Speaker 5: And what the driver did was he paid attention to
Speaker 5: the distance and the sound of where he was going.
Speaker 5: And they they drove for several hours, and then they
Speaker 5: drove the They drove the the bus into a school
Speaker 5: bus into a hole in the ground, and then they
Speaker 5: buried it. And they put mattresses on top of the
Speaker 5: They put mattresses on top of the well. They put
Speaker 5: mattresses inside for the kids to sleep on. And then
Speaker 5: they put and then the the roof was covered in dirt,
Speaker 5: and they put something on the roof, but I can't
Speaker 5: remember what it was, and then they covered an in
Speaker 5: dirt and then they put pipes down so the kids
Speaker 5: could breathe. So with this, after several hours, they left
Speaker 5: him food and water too, and they were planning on
Speaker 5: doing a ransom. These two guys. Well, what they did
Speaker 5: was they drove. They had they had dug a hole
Speaker 5: on the property of a construction site that one of
Speaker 5: the guy's fathers owned, and they just thought they'd go
Speaker 5: ahead and they'd get ransom for these kids and then
Speaker 5: it would all be over in twenty four hours. And
Speaker 5: what the driver did was he took those mattresses that
Speaker 5: they gave him inside the bus and he stacked them
Speaker 5: and he and he pushed and pushed on the roof
Speaker 5: and kept taking whatever sharp thing he could do, and
Speaker 5: he busted through and they merely climbed out and walked
Speaker 5: and they walked down and they went to a construction
Speaker 5: worker on the site who called the police. Everybody knew
Speaker 5: they were missing, but it it, you know, anyway, it
Speaker 5: was a stupid crime. And those guys got put away
Speaker 5: for you know, twenty one kids. There's one count each,
Speaker 5: so they'll never see the light of day. And it's
Speaker 5: nobody got hurt. Nobody was killed, you know, and it
Speaker 5: just is a miracle really that they got out of there,
Speaker 5: and and it was the driver really who saved them,
Speaker 5: because who knows how long they could have lasted down there.
Speaker 5: And then Eaton Pat's case is is you know, he's
Speaker 5: a Manhattan boy who was six years old and for
Speaker 5: the first time walked from his walk up apartment in
Speaker 5: Manhattan to the corner with his mother looking out the window,
Speaker 5: and he begged or that he wanted to go alone
Speaker 5: to school, and somebody grabbed him. And that is the
Speaker 5: case that they had. It was a kidnapped case and
Speaker 5: a ransom, I believe, and they never it's unsolved, and
Speaker 5: and it's just a very very sad, uh sad case.
Speaker 5: When you see cases like that, there's like a Lindbergh
Speaker 5: baby almost, But the Eaton Pat's case wasn't you know,
Speaker 5: wasn't as famous. But it's just a sad story a
Speaker 5: beautiful little boy and the parents who had to deal
Speaker 5: with that.
Speaker 2: Now, how many of these cases, some of the obviously
Speaker 2: you had to do an incredible amount of research to
Speaker 2: put this book together. Were there cases that you were
Speaker 2: already familiar with that you just simply were able to
Speaker 2: include from your true crime research the stories that you
Speaker 2: were familiar with and what stories specifically were very surprising
Speaker 2: to you. And in doing this research and putting this
Speaker 2: book together, which ones really stuck out at you and
Speaker 2: you'd never done the research before, you weren't so familiar
Speaker 2: but were quite interesting to you.
Speaker 5: Well, I think there was a jewelry heighst out of
Speaker 5: out of Europe. Was an interesting case because it was
Speaker 5: so orchestrated the way they planned it. I had no idea.
Speaker 5: I mean, you know, you hear about the jewelry heist
Speaker 5: and you read a little bit about them, but the planning,
Speaker 5: the months and months of planning to go in and
Speaker 5: rob you know, the the jewelry districts in Europe and
Speaker 5: or the jewelry district and and go in and actually
Speaker 5: pull it off and wear black clothing and and you know,
Speaker 5: have vans waiting and that sort of thing, and wiring
Speaker 5: and and everything else they have to do to pull
Speaker 5: it off. It's pretty incredible. I didn't know that they
Speaker 5: were that sophisticated, you know. That was one thing I
Speaker 5: learned in it. A case that I was very familiar
Speaker 5: with was that Tony Spilatro and the Hole in the
Speaker 5: Wall gang case. I covered Herbie Blitztein. He was Tony
Speaker 5: Spilatra's right hand man.
Speaker 2: And was tell us about that because I'm not familiar
Speaker 2: with I'm familiar with mobsters quite a bit, but tell
Speaker 2: us about this Hole in the Wall gang.
Speaker 5: Well, they were the the you know, it's they. You know,
Speaker 5: Tony Spilatro was was hooked up with the Italian mob
Speaker 5: here the Chicago mob and and ran and ran the
Speaker 5: skim you know, at at some casinos, and and he
Speaker 5: was sort of being forced out, but not yet. And
Speaker 5: so what he did was he formed this Hole in
Speaker 5: the Wall gang. And what they would do is they
Speaker 5: would find out from their moles, like insurance agents, who
Speaker 5: had what in their houses and like the Las Vegas
Speaker 5: Country Club, which you need a pass to get in there.
Speaker 5: I've got a friend who lives there, and they've got
Speaker 5: high rises in there. They actually had their own They
Speaker 5: rented a place there, and at one time, I think
Speaker 5: Tony's flatter owned a house. So what they would do
Speaker 5: there are houses there, and there they're the high rises,
Speaker 5: you know, these huge skyscrapers and apartment buildings, and they
Speaker 5: would go in from either the outside door or a
Speaker 5: hole in the ceiling or whatever and drop in and
Speaker 5: take jewels and whatever the people had. And they would
Speaker 5: find out from mad or D's at restaurants, you know,
Speaker 5: when they were coming and going, when they went to
Speaker 5: a restaurant, when they were on their way out, so
Speaker 5: they could get in and out very quickly. And they
Speaker 5: did this right and left. It was pretty incredible. And
Speaker 5: they had like, you know, seven burglars or something, eight burglars,
Speaker 5: and and they'd have a lookout guy. And the lookout
Speaker 5: guy was was a cop, you know, because they pulled
Speaker 5: out the cops too, so they who would listen to
Speaker 5: the radio traffic so they could tell who was coming,
Speaker 5: if any cops were coming or whatever. And they got
Speaker 5: they got caught in the middle of a middle of
Speaker 5: a highst and it shut the whole thing down. But
Speaker 5: they had a jewelry store and and that's where they
Speaker 5: would fence every thing from. And Herbie Blitstein was an
Speaker 5: incredible fence. I mean he could he could ship jewelry
Speaker 5: to Chicago and and wherever else and get high numbers
Speaker 5: for them, you know, for whatever they would take and
Speaker 5: they'd dis fence everything. And it was his side job.
Speaker 5: And and the Chicago bosses told him to knock it
Speaker 5: off and not do it anymore, and he kept doing it,
Speaker 5: and then he was Tony was ending up in the
Speaker 5: papers a lot, you know, and he ended up getting killed,
Speaker 5: you know, in a in a in the cornfield actually
Speaker 5: with his brother by the mob, which isn't those are
Speaker 5: unsolved murders as well, but everybody knows what, you know,
Speaker 5: what happened basically, And then Herbie went to prison a
Speaker 5: year after after Tony was killed, and and Herbie blitstain
Speaker 5: and when he got out and he was ninety I
Speaker 5: don't know, ninety three or whatever it was, he he
Speaker 5: started fencing and set up his own fencing outfit, you know,
Speaker 5: and doing insurance fraud and that sort of thing. And
Speaker 5: he hooked up with an Italian partner who did him
Speaker 5: in and Herbie I was at the scene of his crime.
Speaker 5: And that was about I think Herbie was killed in
Speaker 5: ninety six and weird, weird case and that never you know,
Speaker 5: seven people were convicted in connection with this murder, but
Speaker 5: nobody was convicted of murder. And at the same time,
Speaker 5: here's an interesting side thing on it. At the same
Speaker 5: time as that Oscar Goodman who was a mob attorney,
Speaker 5: previous mob attorney and now mayor of Las Vegas. Oscar
Speaker 5: Goodman was running for office of mayor and he gave
Speaker 5: a news conference in the middle of this mob trial.
Speaker 5: He gave a news conference saying that the mob has
Speaker 5: been out of Las Vegas since the early nineteen eighties,
Speaker 5: and here we were in the middle of a mob trial.
Speaker 5: It was just I guess if you say it, it
Speaker 5: makes it true. It's hilarious. Yeah, And I wrote a
Speaker 5: story for Reuters about that actually, But Herbie was it
Speaker 5: was kind of a sad ending for him, you know,
Speaker 5: if you can think of a sad ending for a guy.
Speaker 5: He's a nice guy. He didn't have any other trade.
Speaker 5: Who wasn't a killer for the mob. He was a
Speaker 5: fence and he was Jewish, so he couldn't be a maid,
Speaker 5: you know. He wasn't a made mobster, so he fenced.
Speaker 5: And he gets out of prison. That's my dog. And
Speaker 5: he gets out of prison and his you know, what's
Speaker 5: he going to do? He doesn't have any you know,
Speaker 5: his partners are all gone and he doesn't have anything
Speaker 5: to do, so he starts up with the rackets again
Speaker 5: and gets himself killed. Over it because he started mixing
Speaker 5: with the wrong people.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 5: Sure, it's an interesting story. So I know that story well.
Speaker 2: And well, it looks like we've had some technical difficulty
Speaker 2: here with Kathy going offline here for a second. We're
Speaker 2: nearing the end of our program. Anyway, you were listening
Speaker 2: to Kathy Scott with the Rough Guide to True Crime,
Speaker 2: Organized Crime, serial Killers and Expert Psychological Profiles. And that's
Speaker 2: Penguin book available just a couple of years ago. I
Speaker 2: believe I want to tell you about next week's program.
Speaker 2: My guest will be Nick Prawn and he is a
Speaker 2: journalist with the Toronto Star for many, many years and
Speaker 2: he was one of the few people that was a
Speaker 2: witness to the incredible trial of Paul Bernardo and Carla
Speaker 2: Homolka in Toronto. And for those that don't know about
Speaker 2: Bernardo and Homoalka, I suggest going to crime Library and
Speaker 2: just getting a little bit of background on these people.
Speaker 2: It is one of the most sensational true crime stories ever. Obviously,
Speaker 2: some people in America aren't so familiar with the story,
Speaker 2: but I think true crime buffs definitely are. It's a
Speaker 2: real Marvi and Ken kind of story, a couple that
Speaker 2: most people would have never thought would be capable of
Speaker 2: anything like this, which included the rape and killing of
Speaker 2: their own sister, of Carla's sister, and the eventual plea
Speaker 2: bargain that was given by the Canadian government negotiated by
Speaker 2: her lawyers. The Canadian judicial system gave her a plea
Speaker 2: bargain which ended up her originally going to be able
Speaker 2: to be out in eight years and then find she
Speaker 2: was released in twelve years, to a lot of outrage
Speaker 2: and protests from the public, considering that her crimes were
Speaker 2: not really known when the deal was struck. There is
Speaker 2: an issue of a videotapes of the torture and rape
Speaker 2: of certain victims that was discovered not by the police
Speaker 2: in their search, but actually by Paul Bernardo's lawyer, and
Speaker 2: that tape depicting Carla's contribution and participation in these heinous crimes,
Speaker 2: including her own sister, was withheld from the Canadian judicial system,
Speaker 2: and hence the deal was done before full disclosure of
Speaker 2: information was achieved. So it's a very very interesting case.
Speaker 2: Don't let me get you with the impression that this
Speaker 2: is a real dry case and it's all about the
Speaker 2: lawn and be very complicated. It is a fascinating case,
Speaker 2: but all kinds of twists and turns, from the somewhat
Speaker 2: bungling police to the ego of separate police forces. This
Speaker 2: is the stuff that fiction has made, except fiction is
Speaker 2: never this horrifying by any means. Nick Prown was privy
Speaker 2: to information that was that no one else had. There
Speaker 2: is really only three or four books on the subject,
Speaker 2: and Nick Pron's is one of the best. It's called
Speaker 2: Lethal Marriage. Paul Bernardo and Carla Jimalka. In the following weeks,
Speaker 2: we have Catherine Casey and she's going to be talking
Speaker 2: about her book The Scent into Hell. We're going to
Speaker 2: be privileged to have such prestigious guests as Philip Carlo
Speaker 2: who did The night Stalker and also a book about
Speaker 2: Richard the Icemankoklinsky. I'm really looking forward to interview with him.
Speaker 2: Have a fine journalist named Stevie Cameron, who was the
Speaker 2: journalist that covered the Robert Pickton trials in Vancouver. This
Speaker 2: is another incredible crime, another true crime historical footnote. The
Speaker 2: Robert Picton murders, incredible trial that still is in the
Speaker 2: appeal process. But Stevie Cameron has given us a wonderful
Speaker 2: book called The Picton Files, and so we're going to
Speaker 2: have her on the show in the following weeks. Sue
Speaker 2: Russell that's done Lethal Intent about the woman famous serial
Speaker 2: killer woman in the US, Alien Wernos. We are going
Speaker 2: to have a number of guests that are going to
Speaker 2: be talking about their incredible crimes. Everything that will be
Speaker 2: coming up in the near future. I will keep you posted.
Speaker 2: You've been listening to the program True Murder, the most
Speaker 2: shocking killers in true crime history and the authors that
Speaker 2: have written about them. Join me every Wednesday at eight
Speaker 2: p m. Central Standard Time for this program or any
Speaker 2: time on demand in archives. Thank you very much for listening.
Speaker 2: I will talk to you next time. Good Night,