1
00:00:01,880 --> 00:00:04,880
Speaker 1: The public has had a long held fascination with detectives.

2
00:00:05,360 --> 00:00:06,840
Speaker 2: Detective see aside of life.

3
00:00:06,840 --> 00:00:10,040
Speaker 1: The average person has never exposed her I spent thirty

4
00:00:10,039 --> 00:00:12,680
Speaker 1: four years as a cop. For twenty five of those

5
00:00:12,760 --> 00:00:15,200
Speaker 1: years I was catching killers. That's what I did for

6
00:00:15,240 --> 00:00:18,600
Speaker 1: a living. I was a homicide detective. I'm no longer

7
00:00:18,680 --> 00:00:21,759
Speaker 1: just interviewing bad guys. Instead, I'm taking the public into

8
00:00:21,760 --> 00:00:24,560
Speaker 1: the world in which I operated. The guests I talk

9
00:00:24,640 --> 00:00:27,159
Speaker 1: to each week have amazing stories from all sides of

10
00:00:27,160 --> 00:00:29,840
Speaker 1: the law. The interviews are raw and honest, just like

11
00:00:29,920 --> 00:00:32,320
Speaker 1: the people I talk to. Some of the content and

12
00:00:32,440 --> 00:00:35,400
Speaker 1: language might be confronting. That's because no one who comes

13
00:00:35,440 --> 00:00:38,800
Speaker 1: into contact with crime is left unchanged. Join me now

14
00:00:38,920 --> 00:00:47,239
Speaker 1: as I take you into this world. Most people go

15
00:00:47,320 --> 00:00:51,240
Speaker 1: on honeymoons to relax Kansas. Fox goes to San Quentin

16
00:00:51,520 --> 00:00:54,840
Speaker 1: to hang out with serial killers. She's an award winning

17
00:00:54,880 --> 00:00:57,560
Speaker 1: force of nature I'm happy to call a friend and

18
00:00:57,600 --> 00:01:01,280
Speaker 1: one of the sharpest minds in crime writing. Today we're

19
00:01:01,320 --> 00:01:04,840
Speaker 1: diving into the real life murders that fuel her darkest plots.

20
00:01:05,120 --> 00:01:10,320
Speaker 1: This is Candace Fox. Candace Fox, Welcome to I Catch Killers.

21
00:01:10,520 --> 00:01:12,039
Speaker 3: Hi, Gary, thanks for having me.

22
00:01:12,200 --> 00:01:15,880
Speaker 1: Well I'm excited about getting on. We've got a lot

23
00:01:15,920 --> 00:01:19,000
Speaker 1: to talk about. I think our paths first crossed when

24
00:01:19,000 --> 00:01:21,919
Speaker 1: we were or when I was out of the cops

25
00:01:21,920 --> 00:01:26,760
Speaker 1: at the writer's festival or whatever. You were the well known,

26
00:01:27,000 --> 00:01:31,520
Speaker 1: established fictional crime writer. Yeah, and I was the unemployed,

27
00:01:32,640 --> 00:01:35,760
Speaker 1: criminally charged ex detective try and make my way in

28
00:01:35,840 --> 00:01:36,400
Speaker 1: the media.

29
00:01:36,480 --> 00:01:39,039
Speaker 3: I thought to myself, this guy is the best dressed

30
00:01:39,080 --> 00:01:41,760
Speaker 3: guy at this festival. You know, it's a whole bunch

31
00:01:41,760 --> 00:01:45,000
Speaker 3: of fiction writers walking around in hoodies and that kind

32
00:01:45,040 --> 00:01:47,000
Speaker 3: of thing. And you had like the nice shirt and

33
00:01:47,040 --> 00:01:50,360
Speaker 3: the suit and all that. You look great, you're up

34
00:01:50,360 --> 00:01:51,040
Speaker 3: on the stage.

35
00:01:51,760 --> 00:01:55,120
Speaker 1: Yeah, well I wasn't. I wasn't trying to make a statement.

36
00:01:55,160 --> 00:01:57,000
Speaker 1: That's just how I thought you had to dress. Now,

37
00:01:57,000 --> 00:01:59,720
Speaker 1: I just turned up in the casual.

38
00:01:59,400 --> 00:02:01,800
Speaker 3: Gift dacks and uggies, you know, where you.

39
00:02:01,720 --> 00:02:03,960
Speaker 1: Turn up at that fancy dress party. That's not a

40
00:02:04,000 --> 00:02:05,400
Speaker 1: fancy dress party or whatever.

41
00:02:05,520 --> 00:02:07,000
Speaker 3: So I dressed like a frog or something.

42
00:02:07,280 --> 00:02:10,800
Speaker 1: I'd never dressed like a frog. Now, last time I

43
00:02:10,840 --> 00:02:13,639
Speaker 1: spoke to you were looking for a home for twelve chickens.

44
00:02:14,080 --> 00:02:17,560
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's right. Things have changed. I mean that was

45
00:02:17,680 --> 00:02:21,119
Speaker 3: what forty eight hours ago. Things have changed since I've

46
00:02:21,160 --> 00:02:25,280
Speaker 3: rescued a gigantic muscovy duck and a pekin duck that

47
00:02:25,320 --> 00:02:29,000
Speaker 3: were both dumped at the same park, and somebody's called

48
00:02:29,000 --> 00:02:31,440
Speaker 3: them in, you know, thinking these don't belong here, and

49
00:02:31,480 --> 00:02:34,360
Speaker 3: they don't because they're farm ducks. And I've gotten rid

50
00:02:34,400 --> 00:02:37,920
Speaker 3: of the chickens. I've picked up two fantail pigeons and

51
00:02:38,240 --> 00:02:44,160
Speaker 3: seven wood duck ducklings. My daughter loves poultry. She's six

52
00:02:44,320 --> 00:02:49,320
Speaker 3: years old and she's had a long fascination with eggs

53
00:02:49,360 --> 00:02:52,639
Speaker 3: and chickens and ducks. So I started out with wires

54
00:02:52,680 --> 00:02:55,680
Speaker 3: doing wildlife rescue, but then we ended up getting chickens

55
00:02:55,680 --> 00:02:59,480
Speaker 3: and ducks and just filling the driveway with them and

56
00:02:59,560 --> 00:03:02,799
Speaker 3: rehome them. It's just so much fun because it's good

57
00:03:02,800 --> 00:03:05,239
Speaker 3: for her because the wildlife bite her and scratch her,

58
00:03:05,680 --> 00:03:08,639
Speaker 3: whereas these ducks and things that don't they're kind of mild.

59
00:03:08,880 --> 00:03:11,680
Speaker 1: Well, given the fact this is a true crime podcast,

60
00:03:11,720 --> 00:03:14,680
Speaker 1: we better put this in perspective. Not only are you

61
00:03:15,280 --> 00:03:19,440
Speaker 1: a renowned fictional crime writer, you've also been working or

62
00:03:19,840 --> 00:03:24,480
Speaker 1: volunteer work. I believe it is for wives rescuing wildlife.

63
00:03:25,280 --> 00:03:27,680
Speaker 3: I don't stop well, I need I need something to

64
00:03:27,680 --> 00:03:30,360
Speaker 3: distract me because I can't write from nine to five.

65
00:03:31,000 --> 00:03:33,799
Speaker 3: You know, I'll send Violet to school and I'll sit

66
00:03:33,840 --> 00:03:36,280
Speaker 3: down and I'll do a big burst of writing, you know,

67
00:03:36,360 --> 00:03:38,400
Speaker 3: for an hour and a half, and then I need

68
00:03:38,440 --> 00:03:41,720
Speaker 3: to get out and think. So sometimes when I'm driving

69
00:03:41,720 --> 00:03:44,760
Speaker 3: to these rescues, you know, there's a possum stuck in

70
00:03:44,800 --> 00:03:47,360
Speaker 3: a down pipe or something, I'm thinking, what am I

71
00:03:47,360 --> 00:03:49,520
Speaker 3: going to write next when I get home, you know,

72
00:03:49,840 --> 00:03:53,480
Speaker 3: drive out there, pop the possum out of the pipe,

73
00:03:53,760 --> 00:03:55,840
Speaker 3: chuck it in a carrier, come home, put it in

74
00:03:55,840 --> 00:03:57,960
Speaker 3: the garage because I'll go back and release it tonight

75
00:03:58,000 --> 00:04:00,400
Speaker 3: there's nothing wrong with it, and then hammer the again.

76
00:04:00,440 --> 00:04:01,600
Speaker 3: It's like a little refresher.

77
00:04:02,000 --> 00:04:04,400
Speaker 1: It seuns like you must have a lot of empathy

78
00:04:04,440 --> 00:04:07,880
Speaker 1: for animals, rescuing them, and I put my detectives hat

79
00:04:07,920 --> 00:04:11,200
Speaker 1: on here. I look at some of your novels and

80
00:04:11,240 --> 00:04:15,120
Speaker 1: you go into a very dark place. How do you

81
00:04:15,160 --> 00:04:18,520
Speaker 1: get into the dark dark place when you've got empathy

82
00:04:18,600 --> 00:04:22,599
Speaker 1: so you understand things, But how do you get into

83
00:04:22,640 --> 00:04:24,080
Speaker 1: the dark world that you do when your.

84
00:04:23,960 --> 00:04:29,480
Speaker 3: Crime not It's I really think that animal rescue shows

85
00:04:29,520 --> 00:04:33,839
Speaker 3: you the best and the worst parts of humanity. You know,

86
00:04:33,960 --> 00:04:38,400
Speaker 3: I've gone out to chicken dumping and there's this, you know,

87
00:04:38,440 --> 00:04:41,760
Speaker 3: there's there's four chickens and they're starved half to death,

88
00:04:41,839 --> 00:04:44,839
Speaker 3: and they're covered in disease and they're super sick, and

89
00:04:44,880 --> 00:04:48,160
Speaker 3: it's a raging hot day. And I think, whoever has

90
00:04:48,279 --> 00:04:52,039
Speaker 3: put you in this situation is a bad, bad person,

91
00:04:52,680 --> 00:04:55,640
Speaker 3: you know. But then whoever's reported them and brought me

92
00:04:55,720 --> 00:04:59,240
Speaker 3: out there is dropping everything in their life to help

93
00:04:59,279 --> 00:05:01,640
Speaker 3: me wrangle them, you know. And then you take him

94
00:05:01,640 --> 00:05:04,320
Speaker 3: to the vets who are rushing there trying to save

95
00:05:04,360 --> 00:05:07,880
Speaker 3: the lives of these chickens, trying to CPR to this chicken.

96
00:05:09,279 --> 00:05:13,560
Speaker 3: It's the heart of people, And yeah, I get to

97
00:05:13,640 --> 00:05:16,560
Speaker 3: super dark places. I kind of grew up like that.

98
00:05:16,839 --> 00:05:17,039
Speaker 2: You know.

99
00:05:18,400 --> 00:05:21,599
Speaker 3: My mother had four kids, and then she adopted two,

100
00:05:21,680 --> 00:05:24,240
Speaker 3: and then she fostered one hundred and fifty five kids

101
00:05:24,320 --> 00:05:25,240
Speaker 3: as I was growing up.

102
00:05:25,279 --> 00:05:27,960
Speaker 2: A lot of people coming through your house.

103
00:05:28,040 --> 00:05:30,840
Speaker 3: Yeah, Yeah, it was just a madhouse because she did

104
00:05:30,880 --> 00:05:33,479
Speaker 3: the animal rescue as well, and she also loved to

105
00:05:33,520 --> 00:05:35,960
Speaker 3: rescue things off the side of the street. So this

106
00:05:36,160 --> 00:05:39,920
Speaker 3: house was crammed with all of these kids who all

107
00:05:40,000 --> 00:05:44,320
Speaker 3: had terribly dark stories as to how they'd gotten there.

108
00:05:44,839 --> 00:05:49,159
Speaker 3: My mum is someone who was born without subtlety, so

109
00:05:49,400 --> 00:05:52,320
Speaker 3: she would tell you. She'd say, oh, that kid's uncle's

110
00:05:52,360 --> 00:05:55,039
Speaker 3: been sexually abusing him for the last year and a half,

111
00:05:55,080 --> 00:05:58,320
Speaker 3: and those kids, their parents have just done an armed robbery.

112
00:05:58,560 --> 00:06:01,839
Speaker 1: Okay, that makes it. It's because, sadly, the type of

113
00:06:01,880 --> 00:06:05,400
Speaker 1: kids that pass through foster homes might have that backstory

114
00:06:05,440 --> 00:06:09,240
Speaker 1: of growing up in not the perfect, perfect world, not

115
00:06:09,279 --> 00:06:13,880
Speaker 1: the perfect childhood. I know in your book Red Belly Crossing,

116
00:06:14,440 --> 00:06:16,480
Speaker 1: I'm reading that and I've seen them and done a

117
00:06:16,520 --> 00:06:18,599
Speaker 1: lot of things, so there's not much that shocked me.

118
00:06:18,640 --> 00:06:20,360
Speaker 1: And you know, you take me to a dark place.

119
00:06:21,880 --> 00:06:24,120
Speaker 1: I've seen that or heard that before. But there was

120
00:06:24,160 --> 00:06:26,640
Speaker 1: one particular early in the book, and we won't give

121
00:06:26,680 --> 00:06:29,919
Speaker 1: away the storyline of the book, but where a father

122
00:06:30,040 --> 00:06:34,680
Speaker 1: comes across his two sons in a car parking with

123
00:06:34,720 --> 00:06:38,680
Speaker 1: their girlfriends as teenagers do at night, stopped them, got

124
00:06:38,680 --> 00:06:43,479
Speaker 1: them out, berated the boys, berated the girls, and then

125
00:06:43,920 --> 00:06:46,640
Speaker 1: directed his sons to get back in there and continue

126
00:06:46,680 --> 00:06:49,760
Speaker 1: on what the teenagers do in a park car at

127
00:06:49,839 --> 00:06:52,839
Speaker 1: night while he watches And I thought.

128
00:06:53,040 --> 00:06:58,240
Speaker 2: That's really icky, that's horrible. Where do you dig up

129
00:06:58,240 --> 00:06:58,719
Speaker 2: this stuff?

130
00:06:58,800 --> 00:07:03,000
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's that's real deep character work for me. That's

131
00:07:03,400 --> 00:07:08,159
Speaker 3: a lot of contemplation of that father, Arthur and how

132
00:07:08,200 --> 00:07:12,320
Speaker 3: he feels about his sons. For Arthur in this novel,

133
00:07:12,440 --> 00:07:18,560
Speaker 3: it's all about control and humiliation, and for them it

134
00:07:18,680 --> 00:07:23,480
Speaker 3: was all about escape and fantasy. So Russell and Evan

135
00:07:23,520 --> 00:07:25,840
Speaker 3: are the two teenage boys and they have fixed up

136
00:07:25,840 --> 00:07:28,720
Speaker 3: this car so that they can just have, you know,

137
00:07:28,840 --> 00:07:31,920
Speaker 3: a couple of hours of escape from this guy. So

138
00:07:31,960 --> 00:07:35,520
Speaker 3: they're there with these girls and he turns up, of course,

139
00:07:35,960 --> 00:07:40,160
Speaker 3: because he's just this malevolent presence in the novel who

140
00:07:40,240 --> 00:07:42,560
Speaker 3: just knows, he knows what they're doing all the time,

141
00:07:42,600 --> 00:07:44,320
Speaker 3: and he says to them, you know, you can't get

142
00:07:44,360 --> 00:07:47,480
Speaker 3: anything past me, I know. And in that moment, I

143
00:07:47,600 --> 00:07:50,320
Speaker 3: was thinking to myself, you know, how would they try

144
00:07:50,360 --> 00:07:53,200
Speaker 3: to escape? What would they do with themselves? And once

145
00:07:53,240 --> 00:07:58,800
Speaker 3: he's caught them, how could he humiliate them as much

146
00:07:58,840 --> 00:08:01,840
Speaker 3: as possible, just you know, spun the wheel of things

147
00:08:01,920 --> 00:08:05,840
Speaker 3: that he could do to them. And Yeah, sometimes it's

148
00:08:05,880 --> 00:08:08,600
Speaker 3: things that I just come up with, and sometimes it's

149
00:08:08,640 --> 00:08:12,880
Speaker 3: stories I've heard from people. I pride myself on being

150
00:08:12,920 --> 00:08:17,040
Speaker 3: someone that anyone can talk to. And you know, my

151
00:08:17,120 --> 00:08:18,960
Speaker 3: husband says to me. If you get on a train

152
00:08:19,360 --> 00:08:21,800
Speaker 3: and there's eighty people in the carriage, but one of

153
00:08:21,840 --> 00:08:25,040
Speaker 3: them is like a half psycho. He's been in prison

154
00:08:25,160 --> 00:08:27,480
Speaker 3: half his life. He was accused of murder and he's

155
00:08:27,520 --> 00:08:30,360
Speaker 3: now homeless. He will wander through the carriage and he

156
00:08:30,400 --> 00:08:33,160
Speaker 3: will find you, and he will sit next to you

157
00:08:33,200 --> 00:08:36,040
Speaker 3: and tell you his life story. Like I just attract,

158
00:08:36,360 --> 00:08:41,560
Speaker 3: you know, talkers, and it must be that I'm listening

159
00:08:42,080 --> 00:08:44,920
Speaker 3: and making them feel validated, and then they just keep going.

160
00:08:44,920 --> 00:08:48,000
Speaker 3: They keep going because I'll listen to anyone. And I've

161
00:08:48,040 --> 00:08:49,640
Speaker 3: had whole novels inspired.

162
00:08:50,360 --> 00:08:50,600
Speaker 2: You know.

163
00:08:50,760 --> 00:08:53,800
Speaker 3: I wrote a novel called Devil's Kitchen and it was

164
00:08:53,840 --> 00:08:57,520
Speaker 3: inspired by these builders who came to my backyard. They're

165
00:08:57,520 --> 00:09:00,559
Speaker 3: building a deck in my backyard. There's four builders and

166
00:09:00,800 --> 00:09:03,120
Speaker 3: just listening to them, the way they talk to each other,

167
00:09:03,559 --> 00:09:06,960
Speaker 3: the way they all henpeck to the apprentice. Everyone in

168
00:09:06,960 --> 00:09:09,640
Speaker 3: that group had their role and the way that the

169
00:09:09,720 --> 00:09:13,880
Speaker 3: guys would all tense up and everything when the boss

170
00:09:13,920 --> 00:09:16,360
Speaker 3: Matt was coming. You know, they get a call and

171
00:09:16,400 --> 00:09:18,160
Speaker 3: they go mad, I'll be here in ten minutes, put

172
00:09:18,160 --> 00:09:20,520
Speaker 3: that away, do this, do that, And I'm.

173
00:09:20,320 --> 00:09:23,080
Speaker 1: Just watching and watching and a story can evolve from

174
00:09:23,080 --> 00:09:25,400
Speaker 1: that in the dynamics of that group and the power

175
00:09:25,440 --> 00:09:28,960
Speaker 1: plays and bullies and all that. Yeah, it's interesting. But

176
00:09:29,240 --> 00:09:31,680
Speaker 1: in terms of writing, you told me so much about

177
00:09:31,679 --> 00:09:35,680
Speaker 1: that person at that particular point in time. If he's

178
00:09:35,679 --> 00:09:38,280
Speaker 1: prepared to go that far, I wonder what else he

179
00:09:38,320 --> 00:09:41,480
Speaker 1: would do. And yeah, very very descriptive. But I got

180
00:09:41,520 --> 00:09:46,040
Speaker 1: to say, I'm thinking, oh, like, that's taking that too far.

181
00:09:46,280 --> 00:09:48,520
Speaker 2: What about breaking it up?

182
00:09:48,600 --> 00:09:50,920
Speaker 1: Like in a crime the way I look at it,

183
00:09:51,120 --> 00:09:54,240
Speaker 1: You've got you've got the offender, you've got the victims,

184
00:09:54,240 --> 00:09:57,520
Speaker 1: and you've got the police. Are you looking for something

185
00:09:57,520 --> 00:09:58,720
Speaker 1: in each of those characters.

186
00:09:58,840 --> 00:10:03,680
Speaker 3: Yeah. When I'm writing, you know, someone like Arthur the villain,

187
00:10:04,160 --> 00:10:09,040
Speaker 3: I'm trying to channel all of the seriously vile people

188
00:10:09,120 --> 00:10:11,839
Speaker 3: that I have even known, and things that they've said,

189
00:10:11,960 --> 00:10:16,480
Speaker 3: and how they've undermined their own children, you know, and

190
00:10:16,840 --> 00:10:21,360
Speaker 3: the how do you display that callousness? You know. So

191
00:10:21,880 --> 00:10:24,000
Speaker 3: one of the worst people I've ever met in my

192
00:10:24,080 --> 00:10:27,200
Speaker 3: life was an actual serial killer that I went and

193
00:10:27,240 --> 00:10:30,480
Speaker 3: I sat with him, and I did that because I

194
00:10:30,520 --> 00:10:33,320
Speaker 3: had written twelve novels at that time. So I've written

195
00:10:33,360 --> 00:10:36,800
Speaker 3: about twelve killers, but I've never actually met one sat

196
00:10:36,880 --> 00:10:37,360
Speaker 3: with one.

197
00:10:38,080 --> 00:10:39,680
Speaker 1: I want you to tell us about that, because that

198
00:10:40,480 --> 00:10:42,959
Speaker 1: I won't say funny because there's nothing funny about but

199
00:10:42,960 --> 00:10:44,200
Speaker 1: that is a little bit funny.

200
00:10:44,200 --> 00:10:45,760
Speaker 2: And how naive you were.

201
00:10:46,000 --> 00:10:49,920
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, the toolbox killer, like they are. Well, because

202
00:10:49,920 --> 00:10:52,120
Speaker 1: there was two of them, wasn't there. Yeah you met

203
00:10:52,160 --> 00:10:52,600
Speaker 1: what was it.

204
00:10:52,679 --> 00:10:54,040
Speaker 2: Lawrence Lauren Vitecker.

205
00:10:54,240 --> 00:10:54,840
Speaker 3: Yeah, I did.

206
00:10:55,280 --> 00:10:58,160
Speaker 1: So tell the story, tell the crimes, and tell the

207
00:10:58,160 --> 00:11:00,320
Speaker 1: story because people will just be shocked. This is what

208
00:11:00,360 --> 00:11:02,720
Speaker 1: you do for research for a book.

209
00:11:02,880 --> 00:11:05,640
Speaker 3: Yeah. I wasn't researching it for a particular book. It

210
00:11:05,679 --> 00:11:08,280
Speaker 3: was just one of those experiences that I thought, I'm

211
00:11:08,280 --> 00:11:10,280
Speaker 3: going to go and do that and we'll see what

212
00:11:10,320 --> 00:11:14,400
Speaker 3: it feels. Do that a lot in my life. So

213
00:11:14,840 --> 00:11:17,000
Speaker 3: I was watching a documentary. I was living in LA

214
00:11:17,080 --> 00:11:19,640
Speaker 3: because I had TV and film stuff that I was doing,

215
00:11:20,200 --> 00:11:22,760
Speaker 3: and then we're just my husband and I just love LA.

216
00:11:22,920 --> 00:11:24,920
Speaker 3: So we're just living there and having all sorts of

217
00:11:24,960 --> 00:11:28,880
Speaker 3: experiences there. And I watched this documentary and I stopped

218
00:11:28,920 --> 00:11:31,360
Speaker 3: what I was doing. Because I'm a multitasker, I stopped

219
00:11:31,400 --> 00:11:33,760
Speaker 3: and I just watched this thing. This is the worst

220
00:11:34,440 --> 00:11:37,520
Speaker 3: crime I think I've ever heard of. These two guys

221
00:11:38,000 --> 00:11:41,679
Speaker 3: were driving around La in the late seventies, and they

222
00:11:41,720 --> 00:11:45,520
Speaker 3: were picking up teenagers and taking them in a van

223
00:11:45,920 --> 00:11:49,920
Speaker 3: into the mountains, the San Gabriel mountains, and they were

224
00:11:49,920 --> 00:11:53,199
Speaker 3: doing horrific things to them for up to three days

225
00:11:53,240 --> 00:11:58,960
Speaker 3: at a time, and then throwing their bodies off the.

226
00:11:58,800 --> 00:12:01,720
Speaker 2: Canyons, basically torturing them with tools.

227
00:12:01,800 --> 00:12:05,920
Speaker 3: Yeah, with tools and pliers and screwdrivers and ice picks

228
00:12:05,960 --> 00:12:09,599
Speaker 3: and stuff. And they're victims, are you know, thirteen? And

229
00:12:09,640 --> 00:12:12,480
Speaker 3: one of the girls was walking home from church, you know,

230
00:12:12,640 --> 00:12:15,079
Speaker 3: and they've picked her up and they've done this. And

231
00:12:15,200 --> 00:12:19,199
Speaker 3: so I just went down this deep spiral of who

232
00:12:19,559 --> 00:12:25,079
Speaker 3: are these men? And I sort of through the court

233
00:12:25,120 --> 00:12:28,720
Speaker 3: documents and that kind of thing. I found that Lawrence.

234
00:12:29,559 --> 00:12:32,320
Speaker 3: There was Roy and Lawrence, and Lawrence was sort of

235
00:12:32,320 --> 00:12:34,160
Speaker 3: the ringleader. I felt like he was the one that

236
00:12:34,240 --> 00:12:36,880
Speaker 3: was in control. Certainly Roy was saying it was all

237
00:12:37,040 --> 00:12:42,640
Speaker 3: Lawrence was idea. So Lawrence was in San Quentin on

238
00:12:42,720 --> 00:12:45,000
Speaker 3: death row, and that was only an hour and a

239
00:12:45,000 --> 00:12:47,600
Speaker 3: half away. So I said to Tim, I think I'm

240
00:12:47,600 --> 00:12:51,439
Speaker 3: going to write to Lawrence and say, you know, I

241
00:12:51,440 --> 00:12:55,319
Speaker 3: have some questions that i'd like you to answer, and

242
00:12:55,360 --> 00:12:57,920
Speaker 3: if he says yes, I'd like to go and visit

243
00:12:58,000 --> 00:13:01,320
Speaker 3: him because I want to look at him. And Tim said,

244
00:13:01,520 --> 00:13:04,640
Speaker 3: you'll have fun, you know, I'll stay here if you go,

245
00:13:05,120 --> 00:13:07,880
Speaker 3: And so I did that. I wrote to Lawrence and

246
00:13:07,920 --> 00:13:11,520
Speaker 3: in that first letter, I'm starting the first letter, and

247
00:13:11,520 --> 00:13:13,920
Speaker 3: this is where the moral gray territory will come into

248
00:13:14,000 --> 00:13:16,679
Speaker 3: it later with red belly crossing and what inspired that.

249
00:13:16,960 --> 00:13:21,880
Speaker 3: But I wrote, dear Lawrence, and then I went, oh, dear,

250
00:13:22,360 --> 00:13:28,600
Speaker 3: like dear Lawrence and Lawrence, and I just thought, this

251
00:13:28,679 --> 00:13:31,960
Speaker 3: guy is clearly a psychopath. He's gonna manipulate me and

252
00:13:32,040 --> 00:13:34,199
Speaker 3: lie to me the entire time, you know. So I'm

253
00:13:34,200 --> 00:13:36,679
Speaker 3: going to be brutally honest. And I said in that

254
00:13:36,720 --> 00:13:40,240
Speaker 3: first letter, I've just watched the documentary about you. I

255
00:13:40,480 --> 00:13:44,800
Speaker 3: have the feeling that you might be like an absolute monster.

256
00:13:45,320 --> 00:13:50,120
Speaker 3: Are you interested in trying to bring my bring more

257
00:13:50,360 --> 00:13:53,280
Speaker 3: complexity to my understanding of you, because you seem to

258
00:13:53,320 --> 00:13:57,120
Speaker 3: be just the worst person on the planet. And I said,

259
00:13:57,160 --> 00:14:01,600
Speaker 3: please understand, there is no romantic underpinnings to this whatsoever.

260
00:14:01,640 --> 00:14:04,840
Speaker 3: I'm not interested in you romantically. And I'm really not.

261
00:14:04,920 --> 00:14:07,120
Speaker 3: If you're going to come to me and say I

262
00:14:07,120 --> 00:14:10,400
Speaker 3: didn't do it, it wasn't me, don't bother because I

263
00:14:10,480 --> 00:14:11,960
Speaker 3: really I want you to be accountable.

264
00:14:12,360 --> 00:14:16,000
Speaker 1: So interesting, interesting approach. But I understand why you put

265
00:14:16,000 --> 00:14:16,600
Speaker 1: those barriers.

266
00:14:16,760 --> 00:14:18,760
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, you know, because I don't want to waste

267
00:14:18,760 --> 00:14:19,960
Speaker 3: my time going there.

268
00:14:20,000 --> 00:14:21,440
Speaker 2: It wasn't me. You don't understand.

269
00:14:22,600 --> 00:14:27,280
Speaker 1: There's nothing more boring than hearing someone plead that they're

270
00:14:27,280 --> 00:14:27,960
Speaker 1: sitting in there.

271
00:14:28,240 --> 00:14:30,760
Speaker 3: So he wrote back and he said, yeah, sure, great,

272
00:14:30,840 --> 00:14:33,560
Speaker 3: Come you know what else am I? John? I'm sitting

273
00:14:33,600 --> 00:14:35,560
Speaker 3: around in a cage or twenty three hours a day,

274
00:14:35,720 --> 00:14:37,360
Speaker 3: you know, and then for one hour a day I

275
00:14:37,400 --> 00:14:40,440
Speaker 3: go to a bigger cage. Come. So I filled out

276
00:14:40,720 --> 00:14:42,560
Speaker 3: all of the stuff I'm supposed to fill out and

277
00:14:42,600 --> 00:14:44,920
Speaker 3: I sent it off. And what they give you when

278
00:14:44,920 --> 00:14:49,240
Speaker 3: you visit San Quentin is the visitor's handbook, okay, which

279
00:14:49,280 --> 00:14:51,280
Speaker 3: is not a book at all. It's an a four

280
00:14:51,320 --> 00:14:54,880
Speaker 3: sheet of paper, one sided, three columns, and it says

281
00:14:55,280 --> 00:14:57,680
Speaker 3: this is you know, this is the prison, and this

282
00:14:57,720 --> 00:14:59,560
Speaker 3: is where it is, and this is where you should park.

283
00:15:00,120 --> 00:15:02,120
Speaker 3: And then yeah, it says this is what you should

284
00:15:02,160 --> 00:15:06,160
Speaker 3: and shouldn't wear. So don't wear denim, don't wear ten

285
00:15:06,440 --> 00:15:09,480
Speaker 3: because the prisoners wear denim and the guards wear ten.

286
00:15:09,640 --> 00:15:11,960
Speaker 3: And if there's a riot, you know, we're going to

287
00:15:12,080 --> 00:15:15,360
Speaker 3: need to know who to shoot, and don't wear an

288
00:15:15,440 --> 00:15:20,360
Speaker 3: underwire bra because you'll be X ray and that kind

289
00:15:20,400 --> 00:15:23,440
Speaker 3: of thing. And column three was like, you're allowed to

290
00:15:23,560 --> 00:15:26,880
Speaker 3: bring in, you know, twenty dollars in one dollar notes only,

291
00:15:26,960 --> 00:15:29,000
Speaker 3: you can have ten a four sheets of paper. You

292
00:15:29,040 --> 00:15:32,320
Speaker 3: can have twenty photographs and bring everything in a plastic

293
00:15:32,360 --> 00:15:34,560
Speaker 3: bag so we can see through it. And then there

294
00:15:34,600 --> 00:15:37,360
Speaker 3: was like a little line that said, if an inmate

295
00:15:38,320 --> 00:15:41,200
Speaker 3: takes you hostage, we will not negotiate for you.

296
00:15:41,520 --> 00:15:43,360
Speaker 2: So that's a big disclaimer.

297
00:15:43,640 --> 00:15:46,560
Speaker 3: Yeah, like no monkey business with the you know, oh,

298
00:15:46,760 --> 00:15:50,320
Speaker 3: the hostage, you know, none of that. So I went, okay,

299
00:15:50,800 --> 00:15:53,520
Speaker 3: it doesn't say anything about how the visit's going to go,

300
00:15:54,200 --> 00:15:56,120
Speaker 3: but I imagine it's just he's getting to be a

301
00:15:56,200 --> 00:15:59,080
Speaker 3: screen with a screen and the phone and all that,

302
00:15:59,160 --> 00:16:01,040
Speaker 3: like you see in the movies. So I'll get there

303
00:16:01,280 --> 00:16:03,440
Speaker 3: and I go through all the levels of security and

304
00:16:03,480 --> 00:16:05,840
Speaker 3: the guards are really stern, and I had like a

305
00:16:06,960 --> 00:16:09,800
Speaker 3: V neck back on my shirt that went pretty low,

306
00:16:10,240 --> 00:16:12,520
Speaker 3: like mid back, I guess, and they were like, no,

307
00:16:12,640 --> 00:16:14,400
Speaker 3: you'll have to wear a jacket over that. That's too

308
00:16:14,400 --> 00:16:17,360
Speaker 3: provocative and all this. I was like okay. So I

309
00:16:17,400 --> 00:16:20,280
Speaker 3: went back to my car, I got my jacket, and

310
00:16:20,320 --> 00:16:22,360
Speaker 3: they said stay on the line. Follow the line, do

311
00:16:22,480 --> 00:16:24,400
Speaker 3: not go anywhere else in the prison. You know. I'm

312
00:16:24,400 --> 00:16:28,240
Speaker 3: walking along this line and there's dogs and barking and

313
00:16:28,320 --> 00:16:31,240
Speaker 3: fences and stuff. Then then I got to death row

314
00:16:31,920 --> 00:16:34,200
Speaker 3: and maybe I go in the door clank shut, and

315
00:16:34,200 --> 00:16:37,040
Speaker 3: there's no one telling me what to do. I was like, okay.

316
00:16:37,320 --> 00:16:40,600
Speaker 3: So I see all of the phones with the windows,

317
00:16:41,120 --> 00:16:42,920
Speaker 3: and there was a guard just standing there and he's

318
00:16:42,960 --> 00:16:47,160
Speaker 3: like picking his fingernails, and I said, Hi, my name's Candas.

319
00:16:47,160 --> 00:16:50,320
Speaker 3: I'm sorry. I don't know what to do. I'm supposed

320
00:16:50,360 --> 00:16:52,640
Speaker 3: to be meeting Laurence Bittaka, you know, the serial killer,

321
00:16:52,680 --> 00:16:55,360
Speaker 3: you know him, meet him here at eight o'clock. And

322
00:16:55,800 --> 00:16:59,880
Speaker 3: I don't know which window is mine. And the guard goes, oh,

323
00:17:00,440 --> 00:17:03,360
Speaker 3: you know, and and in this thing. I said, actually,

324
00:17:03,440 --> 00:17:04,840
Speaker 3: as well, while I'm at it, can I borrow a

325
00:17:04,840 --> 00:17:06,440
Speaker 3: pencil because I got my paper but I don't have

326
00:17:06,440 --> 00:17:08,000
Speaker 3: a pencil. He goes, oh, yeah, well you're gonna have

327
00:17:08,040 --> 00:17:09,960
Speaker 3: this pencil. I saw his pencil. He said, you're gonna

328
00:17:09,960 --> 00:17:14,399
Speaker 3: have this pencil. And no Lawrence will be He's not

329
00:17:14,480 --> 00:17:16,439
Speaker 3: one of the ones with the phones. He'll be in

330
00:17:16,480 --> 00:17:19,119
Speaker 3: that cage there, and I went, oh, oh, he's going

331
00:17:19,160 --> 00:17:20,960
Speaker 3: to be in the cage. And there was this floor

332
00:17:21,000 --> 00:17:25,760
Speaker 3: to ceiling shark cage style thing with steel mesh and

333
00:17:25,960 --> 00:17:28,000
Speaker 3: bulletproof glass all the way around. There's a whole row,

334
00:17:28,200 --> 00:17:30,480
Speaker 3: two rows of them with an aisle. I said, oh,

335
00:17:30,480 --> 00:17:32,040
Speaker 3: he'll be in there. Where am I going to be?

336
00:17:32,480 --> 00:17:37,000
Speaker 3: And the guard said in there and I said at

337
00:17:37,000 --> 00:17:39,920
Speaker 3: the same time, and the guard was like yes at

338
00:17:39,920 --> 00:17:43,639
Speaker 3: the same time, and he's like, didn't you know, And

339
00:17:43,680 --> 00:17:46,160
Speaker 3: I'm like, no, I didn't know, and he said, didn't

340
00:17:46,160 --> 00:17:48,280
Speaker 3: you read the visitor's handbook. I said, that's not a book,

341
00:17:48,280 --> 00:17:50,440
Speaker 3: it's an a foor sheet of paper. And I said,

342
00:17:50,520 --> 00:17:53,760
Speaker 3: nothing about this, you know. And at this point that

343
00:17:53,840 --> 00:17:56,840
Speaker 3: they're leading Lawrence out because then he's all cuffed up

344
00:17:56,880 --> 00:17:59,199
Speaker 3: and everything, and I didn't want to be rude and

345
00:17:59,320 --> 00:18:00,920
Speaker 3: be like making a fuss, like I don't want to

346
00:18:00,920 --> 00:18:02,760
Speaker 3: get in a cage with you type of thing, because

347
00:18:02,800 --> 00:18:06,360
Speaker 3: this is like the start of the relationship, I suppose

348
00:18:06,440 --> 00:18:08,320
Speaker 3: I don't want to, and so I just went off.

349
00:18:08,840 --> 00:18:11,760
Speaker 3: And so they unlocked the cage and they put him in,

350
00:18:11,840 --> 00:18:14,399
Speaker 3: and he's cuffed and the guard said, all right, in

351
00:18:14,480 --> 00:18:16,640
Speaker 3: your hop. So I got in and we both sat

352
00:18:16,680 --> 00:18:18,800
Speaker 3: on our plastic chairs and we were sitting closer than

353
00:18:18,880 --> 00:18:20,920
Speaker 3: you and I are sitting now, like there was a

354
00:18:20,960 --> 00:18:26,040
Speaker 3: gap like this between half a yeah, yeah, yeah. And

355
00:18:26,320 --> 00:18:28,520
Speaker 3: he sits down and I was saying, oh, thank god,

356
00:18:28,520 --> 00:18:31,560
Speaker 3: he's cuffed, you know. So then he turned sideways in

357
00:18:31,640 --> 00:18:34,200
Speaker 3: his chair and he stuck his wrists through a hole

358
00:18:34,560 --> 00:18:38,359
Speaker 3: and they uncuffed him. And they while that's happening, they've

359
00:18:38,480 --> 00:18:42,199
Speaker 3: shut the grille on the cage and they're threading a

360
00:18:42,240 --> 00:18:45,919
Speaker 3: pet a padlock through it and snapping it shut. And

361
00:18:45,960 --> 00:18:48,800
Speaker 3: I'm watching all of this happen like this, and then

362
00:18:48,840 --> 00:18:51,200
Speaker 3: the guards went around the corner.

363
00:18:51,520 --> 00:18:54,719
Speaker 2: So no one's getting in there.

364
00:18:55,080 --> 00:18:58,639
Speaker 3: And I was like, well, you know, and but like

365
00:18:58,680 --> 00:19:01,240
Speaker 3: I said, I feel like one of my skills as

366
00:19:01,280 --> 00:19:02,959
Speaker 3: a writer as I can talk to anyone. So I

367
00:19:03,000 --> 00:19:05,440
Speaker 3: was just matching his energy and he was like, oh,

368
00:19:05,520 --> 00:19:08,199
Speaker 3: so how are you going? And I'm going fine, but

369
00:19:08,240 --> 00:19:10,400
Speaker 3: how are you? You know? I like what you've done

370
00:19:10,400 --> 00:19:14,119
Speaker 3: with the place. It's very industrial chic, you know. And

371
00:19:14,240 --> 00:19:17,760
Speaker 3: but then in terms of like nerves, I just started

372
00:19:18,440 --> 00:19:21,280
Speaker 3: like word vomit. And I was just like well, I'm

373
00:19:21,359 --> 00:19:23,439
Speaker 3: kind of surprised that this is happening. Actually, you know

374
00:19:23,480 --> 00:19:26,400
Speaker 3: that we're in here and the cage together. And he said, yeah,

375
00:19:26,440 --> 00:19:29,520
Speaker 3: it's full contact visit. Didn't you It's in a handbook,

376
00:19:29,560 --> 00:19:34,640
Speaker 3: isn't it. It's not handbook. And then he said, yeah,

377
00:19:34,640 --> 00:19:36,440
Speaker 3: it's a full contact visit. We can touch each other

378
00:19:36,480 --> 00:19:39,880
Speaker 3: if you want. And I was like, okay. He goes,

379
00:19:40,680 --> 00:19:42,480
Speaker 3: I'll put my hand out. Will you shake my hand?

380
00:19:42,920 --> 00:19:45,600
Speaker 3: And then I was like, oh will I though, you know,

381
00:19:46,280 --> 00:19:50,359
Speaker 3: because these are the hands. I'm looking at the hands

382
00:19:50,480 --> 00:19:54,119
Speaker 3: that tortured and murdered the girls, you know, at least

383
00:19:54,440 --> 00:19:59,040
Speaker 3: five and I and so I shook his hand. His

384
00:19:59,200 --> 00:20:02,920
Speaker 3: hand was ice cold and super soft. I was like, oh,

385
00:20:03,000 --> 00:20:04,160
Speaker 3: like full bodies shiver.

386
00:20:06,840 --> 00:20:09,400
Speaker 1: How do you feel like with that? Because I know

387
00:20:09,840 --> 00:20:13,879
Speaker 1: I've sat opposite serial killers and just evil human beings

388
00:20:14,440 --> 00:20:17,160
Speaker 1: and when they offer the hand, and invariably if I'm

389
00:20:17,200 --> 00:20:19,920
Speaker 1: sitting there trying to get a rapport and all that,

390
00:20:20,880 --> 00:20:24,440
Speaker 1: and you shake the hand, and what you were going

391
00:20:24,440 --> 00:20:26,960
Speaker 1: through and as a police officer, at least there was

392
00:20:27,000 --> 00:20:29,720
Speaker 1: a build up to by the time I'm sitting opposite

393
00:20:30,119 --> 00:20:31,600
Speaker 1: like that going in there.

394
00:20:31,640 --> 00:20:32,880
Speaker 2: That must have freaked you out.

395
00:20:34,920 --> 00:20:39,919
Speaker 3: I was going in thinking this is incredibly moral gray

396
00:20:40,240 --> 00:20:45,840
Speaker 3: territory because one of the any joy yeah and attention.

397
00:20:46,600 --> 00:20:49,800
Speaker 3: And I'm listening to him, and you know, I'm thinking

398
00:20:49,840 --> 00:20:53,920
Speaker 3: to myself, if he asks me to buy him commissary

399
00:20:54,200 --> 00:20:57,600
Speaker 3: as payment for this, what am I going to do?

400
00:20:57,720 --> 00:21:01,240
Speaker 3: Am I going to buy this guy muffin? Does he

401
00:21:01,359 --> 00:21:06,320
Speaker 3: deserve a crumb? This guy for what he's done? Shouldn't

402
00:21:06,359 --> 00:21:10,400
Speaker 3: he just be put in a hole and forgotten forever.

403
00:21:10,960 --> 00:21:15,600
Speaker 3: So it's very it's very hard morally. And I'm sitting

404
00:21:15,640 --> 00:21:20,000
Speaker 3: there and I'm starting to get him to talk about

405
00:21:20,000 --> 00:21:22,000
Speaker 3: the crimes. And the two things that I'd said in

406
00:21:22,040 --> 00:21:24,160
Speaker 3: the letter was please don't tell me that it wasn't

407
00:21:24,200 --> 00:21:27,119
Speaker 3: all your fault, and please don't try to come on

408
00:21:27,200 --> 00:21:29,000
Speaker 3: to me. And that's exactly what he did for the

409
00:21:29,040 --> 00:21:32,200
Speaker 3: five and a half hours. He just blamed it all

410
00:21:32,240 --> 00:21:39,040
Speaker 3: on Roy, essentially. And when I really pressed him to say,

411
00:21:39,440 --> 00:21:43,040
Speaker 3: you know, you took over five hundred photos of this

412
00:21:43,080 --> 00:21:46,480
Speaker 3: one victim. Five hundred photos were entered into evidence. You know,

413
00:21:46,640 --> 00:21:48,840
Speaker 3: you can't tell me that you were taking five hundred

414
00:21:48,840 --> 00:21:51,199
Speaker 3: photos of something that you weren't enjoying or that you

415
00:21:51,240 --> 00:21:54,480
Speaker 3: weren't participating in and you know, Roy, even if Roy

416
00:21:54,600 --> 00:21:56,639
Speaker 3: was the A man doing all of the stuff, you

417
00:21:56,680 --> 00:22:01,359
Speaker 3: were the b man sitting there not into he would

418
00:22:01,359 --> 00:22:05,240
Speaker 3: just start crying and I'd go, okay, well, you know,

419
00:22:05,640 --> 00:22:09,760
Speaker 3: but the more I allowed him to speak, the more

420
00:22:10,040 --> 00:22:14,199
Speaker 3: he said. And I didn't kind of press him on.

421
00:22:14,840 --> 00:22:17,320
Speaker 3: I didn't press him on it too hard, and I

422
00:22:17,480 --> 00:22:19,600
Speaker 3: just got more and more and more. And what I

423
00:22:19,680 --> 00:22:24,600
Speaker 3: was getting out of him is a real understanding of psychopaths.

424
00:22:24,720 --> 00:22:27,760
Speaker 3: And yeah, it was morally gray, but and I wasn't

425
00:22:27,760 --> 00:22:31,400
Speaker 3: able to use that knowledge that I gained until years

426
00:22:31,480 --> 00:22:34,840
Speaker 3: later when I was talking to the victims of homicides

427
00:22:35,040 --> 00:22:38,320
Speaker 3: and they were saying to me, you've met a serial killer.

428
00:22:38,320 --> 00:22:41,359
Speaker 3: What are they like? You know, is he sorry? And

429
00:22:42,240 --> 00:22:45,399
Speaker 3: I had to say, you know, to these these husbands

430
00:22:45,440 --> 00:22:49,440
Speaker 3: of these murdered wives, know he wasn't sorry. And maybe

431
00:22:49,480 --> 00:22:55,119
Speaker 3: that's a hard question to answer for these guys, but

432
00:22:55,160 --> 00:22:57,879
Speaker 3: at least they're not wondering anymore. People say to me,

433
00:22:58,200 --> 00:23:01,400
Speaker 3: you know, murderers and killers and psychopaths, do they live

434
00:23:01,440 --> 00:23:03,080
Speaker 3: with it for the rest of their lives? Do they

435
00:23:03,119 --> 00:23:06,080
Speaker 3: think about it every day? No, they don't. You know.

436
00:23:06,359 --> 00:23:10,240
Speaker 3: Lawrence was talking about his victims. And he said, oh,

437
00:23:10,440 --> 00:23:12,160
Speaker 3: you know, by the time we got to number five,

438
00:23:12,800 --> 00:23:14,719
Speaker 3: what was her name? And I said her name and

439
00:23:14,760 --> 00:23:18,400
Speaker 3: he went, oh, whatever her name was like this, yeah,

440
00:23:18,960 --> 00:23:22,399
Speaker 3: I And I saw the hand flick and like a

441
00:23:22,400 --> 00:23:25,080
Speaker 3: piece of dust, like, oh whatever a name was like that,

442
00:23:25,640 --> 00:23:28,080
Speaker 3: And I thought, oh, you're not sorry. There's all this

443
00:23:28,240 --> 00:23:31,080
Speaker 3: crying and saying that you're sorry, but I don't think

444
00:23:31,119 --> 00:23:34,200
Speaker 3: he has the capacity for that. He's dead now, he

445
00:23:34,240 --> 00:23:35,639
Speaker 3: doesn't have the capacity for anything.

446
00:23:35,800 --> 00:23:36,879
Speaker 2: But he.

447
00:23:38,560 --> 00:23:41,160
Speaker 3: Wasn't sorry, and he wasn't able to be sorry. And

448
00:23:41,240 --> 00:23:45,560
Speaker 3: maybe that adds a level of understanding, you know, to

449
00:23:45,680 --> 00:23:49,240
Speaker 3: me of what these murderers are actually like. But also,

450
00:23:49,440 --> 00:23:52,520
Speaker 3: you know, victims of murder to say you were dealing

451
00:23:52,520 --> 00:23:55,120
Speaker 3: with someone who didn't have it wasn't a person who

452
00:23:55,160 --> 00:23:58,240
Speaker 3: had a layer of evil genius added to them. It

453
00:23:58,320 --> 00:24:01,320
Speaker 3: was a person who had something to taken away the

454
00:24:01,359 --> 00:24:05,800
Speaker 3: ability to see this girl as a real human being.

455
00:24:05,880 --> 00:24:08,959
Speaker 3: Like I was saying to Lawrence, you know, not only

456
00:24:09,000 --> 00:24:13,560
Speaker 3: did you kill her, and you deleted her from the

457
00:24:13,600 --> 00:24:15,879
Speaker 3: rest of the life that she would have had, you know,

458
00:24:16,000 --> 00:24:19,119
Speaker 3: the children that she would have had, maybe whoever she married,

459
00:24:19,160 --> 00:24:22,040
Speaker 3: the friends she would have had, the rest of her

460
00:24:22,119 --> 00:24:24,640
Speaker 3: life that she would have had without you. You deleted

461
00:24:24,640 --> 00:24:27,960
Speaker 3: her from that strain, but you also deleted her from

462
00:24:28,000 --> 00:24:30,119
Speaker 3: the rest of her mother's life and the rest of

463
00:24:30,160 --> 00:24:32,680
Speaker 3: her father's life. And the cops. You know, there was

464
00:24:32,720 --> 00:24:37,159
Speaker 3: a police officer who committed suicide and he he named

465
00:24:37,440 --> 00:24:40,639
Speaker 3: you know, he said this, Yeah, this case really messed

466
00:24:40,680 --> 00:24:44,239
Speaker 3: me up. You know, you deleted that guy. And the

467
00:24:44,280 --> 00:24:48,280
Speaker 3: effect that you've had is so huge and profound, it's massive,

468
00:24:48,320 --> 00:24:51,000
Speaker 3: Like do you understand do you understand what I'm saying?

469
00:24:51,600 --> 00:24:55,000
Speaker 3: And he said, oh, you know, the mother of that girl,

470
00:24:55,560 --> 00:24:57,560
Speaker 3: like it was thirty eight years ago, she'd be over

471
00:24:57,600 --> 00:25:01,359
Speaker 3: it by now. I'm thinking she'd be over it by now.

472
00:25:02,320 --> 00:25:06,440
Speaker 3: You don't understand that people don't get over that kind

473
00:25:06,440 --> 00:25:10,080
Speaker 3: of thing ever. But he, you know, he couldn't get it,

474
00:25:10,800 --> 00:25:13,600
Speaker 3: and I think because he wasn't able.

475
00:25:13,320 --> 00:25:16,440
Speaker 1: To and that getting that experience, so I would imagine

476
00:25:16,440 --> 00:25:20,800
Speaker 1: that that helped you in what you're doing writing or understanding.

477
00:25:20,920 --> 00:25:23,199
Speaker 1: And as you said, when you speak to speak to

478
00:25:23,640 --> 00:25:27,280
Speaker 1: parents or people that have experienced murder, quite often it's

479
00:25:27,320 --> 00:25:30,000
Speaker 1: in any climax meeting these people. You've heard and read

480
00:25:30,040 --> 00:25:32,320
Speaker 1: so much, and that the crimes I'm looking at the

481
00:25:32,359 --> 00:25:35,119
Speaker 1: crimes A committed. We're talking about the worst of the worst,

482
00:25:35,800 --> 00:25:37,320
Speaker 1: what they were doing. There was two of them that

483
00:25:37,400 --> 00:25:42,359
Speaker 1: was planning and enjoying it that but yeah, you just

484
00:25:42,400 --> 00:25:45,160
Speaker 1: get nothing from them. There's just no soul, is there

485
00:25:45,160 --> 00:25:46,200
Speaker 1: and no comprehension.

486
00:25:46,480 --> 00:25:49,760
Speaker 3: No, And I was saying to him, literally, the only

487
00:25:49,880 --> 00:25:53,040
Speaker 3: good thing that you can do now is you can

488
00:25:53,119 --> 00:25:57,080
Speaker 3: reveal other victims, or you can reveal the locations of

489
00:25:57,119 --> 00:26:00,720
Speaker 3: their bodies. That's all you have left until the day

490
00:26:00,760 --> 00:26:04,680
Speaker 3: you die, and you're gonna die soon, like he was old,

491
00:26:05,200 --> 00:26:07,639
Speaker 3: and that's all you can do, and you can do

492
00:26:07,680 --> 00:26:12,439
Speaker 3: it today right now. Today, you can admit to this killing,

493
00:26:12,480 --> 00:26:16,400
Speaker 3: which was so clearly you. It was two guys. They

494
00:26:16,440 --> 00:26:19,400
Speaker 3: looked exactly like you in the van you live two

495
00:26:19,440 --> 00:26:23,200
Speaker 3: blocks over from this girl. It was so clearly you.

496
00:26:23,200 --> 00:26:25,800
Speaker 3: You can do a good thing today if you admit

497
00:26:25,880 --> 00:26:28,680
Speaker 3: to that crime and solve that case. And he's like, oh, no,

498
00:26:28,840 --> 00:26:29,359
Speaker 3: it wasn't me.

499
00:26:29,880 --> 00:26:32,040
Speaker 1: I always think it's a little bit of power they

500
00:26:32,040 --> 00:26:35,240
Speaker 1: have hanging on to that. That's like people like my

501
00:26:35,359 --> 00:26:38,160
Speaker 1: latt before he passed away and cops going to see

502
00:26:38,200 --> 00:26:41,119
Speaker 1: him and all that, that was power that he had still.

503
00:26:40,880 --> 00:26:45,240
Speaker 2: Control keeping relevant. They need me for something, But yeah,

504
00:26:45,880 --> 00:26:46,879
Speaker 2: how did you walk away?

505
00:26:46,920 --> 00:26:49,720
Speaker 1: You personally walk away, because in a room like that,

506
00:26:49,760 --> 00:26:52,720
Speaker 1: you walk away, you feel a little bit dirty and conflicted,

507
00:26:52,760 --> 00:26:54,119
Speaker 1: and just yeah.

508
00:26:53,800 --> 00:26:56,439
Speaker 3: I was absolutely shattered. I didn't realize that it was

509
00:26:56,440 --> 00:26:59,080
Speaker 3: a five and a half hour visit, you know, because

510
00:26:59,080 --> 00:27:01,359
Speaker 3: he said, you've come from more than fifty miles away,

511
00:27:01,400 --> 00:27:04,600
Speaker 3: so you get the extended visit. But I feel like

512
00:27:04,800 --> 00:27:07,880
Speaker 3: it felt like it passed in an hour. And then

513
00:27:08,080 --> 00:27:11,760
Speaker 3: I just felt like i'd really scratch the surface. So

514
00:27:11,840 --> 00:27:15,439
Speaker 3: immediately after that, I wrote a letter with all of

515
00:27:15,440 --> 00:27:18,160
Speaker 3: the questions that I didn't get in, and we exchanged

516
00:27:18,240 --> 00:27:22,680
Speaker 3: letters for two years after that, and he died. And

517
00:27:22,960 --> 00:27:26,040
Speaker 3: in those two years, I was just hammering him to say,

518
00:27:26,600 --> 00:27:29,040
Speaker 3: what about this girl? What about that girl? I was

519
00:27:29,640 --> 00:27:33,639
Speaker 3: occupying this arrogant space where I was thinking, he hates

520
00:27:33,720 --> 00:27:37,679
Speaker 3: law enforcement, but he has these girlfriends. You know, he

521
00:27:37,760 --> 00:27:40,760
Speaker 3: has four girlfriends. He's trying to recruit me as number five.

522
00:27:41,000 --> 00:27:42,680
Speaker 2: So he's not going to eat you didn't say.

523
00:27:44,160 --> 00:27:47,320
Speaker 3: I like, no, I would just ignore it, and he

524
00:27:47,359 --> 00:27:49,600
Speaker 3: would be bragging about the other girls and saying, oh,

525
00:27:49,640 --> 00:27:51,639
Speaker 3: I had some German girl come and visit me. The

526
00:27:51,680 --> 00:27:54,119
Speaker 3: other day, and you know, she said she wants to

527
00:27:54,160 --> 00:27:57,520
Speaker 3: have my baby and all this kind of stuff. I was, Oh,

528
00:27:57,560 --> 00:27:59,760
Speaker 3: I thought, maybe between the girlfriends, he's not going to

529
00:27:59,800 --> 00:28:01,720
Speaker 3: tell them what he did, and he's not going to

530
00:28:01,800 --> 00:28:04,320
Speaker 3: tell the police what he did. But maybe if I

531
00:28:04,400 --> 00:28:07,520
Speaker 3: stay on him for long enough, right at the end,

532
00:28:07,640 --> 00:28:10,520
Speaker 3: he'll tell me, you know, and I'll be able to help.

533
00:28:10,720 --> 00:28:17,199
Speaker 3: Because the helping and this completely arrogant idea, maybe I

534
00:28:17,240 --> 00:28:20,440
Speaker 3: can be the one to help. That's what fueled the.

535
00:28:20,880 --> 00:28:23,679
Speaker 1: I don't think it's arrogant, may be a little bit naive,

536
00:28:23,840 --> 00:28:28,159
Speaker 1: but incredibly like thinking outside the square. I think with

537
00:28:28,240 --> 00:28:30,840
Speaker 1: these like if you come at from a police point

538
00:28:30,880 --> 00:28:33,439
Speaker 1: of view, and then the girlfriend, I'm trying to impress

539
00:28:33,480 --> 00:28:36,280
Speaker 1: the girlfriend, I think when you're dealing.

540
00:28:36,080 --> 00:28:38,200
Speaker 2: With people like that, you've got to think outside the square.

541
00:28:38,280 --> 00:28:41,120
Speaker 3: So yeah, I gave it a red hot go and he,

542
00:28:41,400 --> 00:28:44,800
Speaker 3: you know, over the years, displayed a tiny bit of

543
00:28:44,880 --> 00:28:48,520
Speaker 3: curiosity in me. He was only able to see himself

544
00:28:48,840 --> 00:28:52,600
Speaker 3: as this great sun and all the planets, you know,

545
00:28:52,680 --> 00:28:54,800
Speaker 3: they all go around him. And in that five and

546
00:28:54,840 --> 00:28:57,560
Speaker 3: a half hours, he didn't ask me a single question

547
00:28:57,640 --> 00:29:01,280
Speaker 3: about myself, not one, you know, where'd you grow up?

548
00:29:01,400 --> 00:29:04,760
Speaker 3: Or your husband, what do you do? Nothing? And that

549
00:29:04,880 --> 00:29:09,080
Speaker 3: kind of fueled me for my understanding of other psychopaths,

550
00:29:09,320 --> 00:29:11,680
Speaker 3: because that's happened to me before. I had the mother

551
00:29:12,040 --> 00:29:15,480
Speaker 3: of a kid that Violet went to daycare with over

552
00:29:15,960 --> 00:29:18,640
Speaker 3: for a playdate and she's there three and a half hours.

553
00:29:18,640 --> 00:29:21,280
Speaker 3: She didn't asked me a single question about myself, not one.

554
00:29:21,800 --> 00:29:24,880
Speaker 3: And I thought I could be anything from an airline

555
00:29:25,040 --> 00:29:29,480
Speaker 3: pilot to a bloody Olympic swimmer? Are you not curious

556
00:29:29,520 --> 00:29:31,960
Speaker 3: at all about what I do? And it just never

557
00:29:32,040 --> 00:29:34,920
Speaker 3: came up, and she never Yeah, because I'm proud of

558
00:29:34,960 --> 00:29:36,640
Speaker 3: what I do and I'm ready to tell you I'm

559
00:29:36,680 --> 00:29:41,040
Speaker 3: a crime writer. It's super interesting nothing you know, not

560
00:29:41,120 --> 00:29:45,360
Speaker 3: what does Tim do or anything like that. And once

561
00:29:45,400 --> 00:29:49,320
Speaker 3: you've seen psychopaths, I'm sure you can spot them a

562
00:29:49,360 --> 00:29:51,400
Speaker 3: mile away and you go, I know what that is?

563
00:29:51,840 --> 00:29:54,840
Speaker 1: You can they give out an energy? I think that's

564
00:29:55,320 --> 00:30:00,240
Speaker 1: something without even articulating the signs, there's an energy, there's

565
00:30:00,320 --> 00:30:01,760
Speaker 1: a darkness or something.

566
00:30:02,280 --> 00:30:02,840
Speaker 2: You meet a.

567
00:30:02,760 --> 00:30:05,600
Speaker 1: Person and you feel the energy from that person. You

568
00:30:05,680 --> 00:30:08,400
Speaker 1: meet one of these evil types and it's sort of

569
00:30:08,600 --> 00:30:12,040
Speaker 1: it's just like a black hole. You're looking and just

570
00:30:12,240 --> 00:30:16,680
Speaker 1: thinking what's there. There's nothing there seeing there, and they

571
00:30:16,720 --> 00:30:20,120
Speaker 1: function and they talk and they communicate, but I would

572
00:30:20,120 --> 00:30:22,840
Speaker 1: imagine that I've had situations where I've had to know

573
00:30:23,240 --> 00:30:25,920
Speaker 1: the friend is probably too strong a word, but that's

574
00:30:25,920 --> 00:30:28,200
Speaker 1: the way I'm trying to build a relationship people that

575
00:30:28,520 --> 00:30:31,520
Speaker 1: I hate for the crimes that committed, but I'm speaking

576
00:30:31,520 --> 00:30:33,560
Speaker 1: to them, I'm talking to them and all that, and

577
00:30:33,600 --> 00:30:35,560
Speaker 1: I always walk away from it. I just feel a

578
00:30:35,560 --> 00:30:37,680
Speaker 1: little bit lucky at the end of it, because you've

579
00:30:37,680 --> 00:30:39,719
Speaker 1: got to give a little bit of yourself, like shaking

580
00:30:39,760 --> 00:30:42,760
Speaker 1: the hand. I would do that with some evil people.

581
00:30:42,800 --> 00:30:46,719
Speaker 3: And I'm thinking, but the sadness in it and what

582
00:30:46,800 --> 00:30:52,080
Speaker 3: I explained to the victims of homicide later, the only

583
00:30:52,120 --> 00:30:54,360
Speaker 3: way you can feel sorry for them, and the way

584
00:30:54,400 --> 00:30:58,479
Speaker 3: I felt sorry for Lawrence is that no one in

585
00:30:58,520 --> 00:31:03,040
Speaker 3: the world love him. And also he had never really

586
00:31:03,080 --> 00:31:06,920
Speaker 3: loved anyone because he doesn't have the capacity for love.

587
00:31:07,120 --> 00:31:10,840
Speaker 3: And you know, having my daughter Violet, that is a

588
00:31:10,880 --> 00:31:16,480
Speaker 3: love that it's unlike anything else. I would throw myself

589
00:31:16,480 --> 00:31:20,320
Speaker 3: off a bridge for this child. And that the selflessness

590
00:31:20,320 --> 00:31:24,959
Speaker 3: that you have, I mean nothing in comparison to what

591
00:31:25,040 --> 00:31:28,680
Speaker 3: I would give you. He has never felt that and

592
00:31:28,920 --> 00:31:32,239
Speaker 3: that is a beautiful thing that just doesn't operate in

593
00:31:32,280 --> 00:31:35,360
Speaker 3: his brain. And then also I don't think that anyone

594
00:31:35,400 --> 00:31:40,480
Speaker 3: had truly ever loved him, because he was this just

595
00:31:40,520 --> 00:31:44,200
Speaker 3: this bad person who couldn't reciprocate it, you know. And

596
00:31:44,720 --> 00:31:47,720
Speaker 3: he was very he was just reptilian. It was as

597
00:31:47,760 --> 00:31:51,320
Speaker 3: close as you'd come to knowing an alien, you know.

598
00:31:51,560 --> 00:31:54,440
Speaker 3: And he's like, so, how do things happen in your world?

599
00:31:54,720 --> 00:31:56,320
Speaker 3: You know? And I'm like, how do things happen in

600
00:31:56,360 --> 00:31:59,280
Speaker 3: your world? You know? And trying to understand each other.

601
00:31:59,320 --> 00:32:01,480
Speaker 3: I was telling him a out. When I was in La,

602
00:32:01,760 --> 00:32:04,560
Speaker 3: I did a few animal rescues, but so I wasn't

603
00:32:04,600 --> 00:32:07,959
Speaker 3: part of an organization. I rescued a gopher and I

604
00:32:08,000 --> 00:32:10,360
Speaker 3: was telling him about this gopher that had been poisoned.

605
00:32:10,520 --> 00:32:13,560
Speaker 3: People poison their whole lawn full of gophers and they

606
00:32:13,560 --> 00:32:15,680
Speaker 3: all die. And I found this one, little sick one.

607
00:32:16,120 --> 00:32:17,320
Speaker 2: After watching Shack.

608
00:32:17,760 --> 00:32:21,400
Speaker 3: Yeah, yes, like that. It was. It was called a

609
00:32:21,520 --> 00:32:24,600
Speaker 3: bottle's pocket gopher. It's only as big as a golf ball.

610
00:32:25,000 --> 00:32:27,800
Speaker 3: And I nursed it back to health and it would

611
00:32:27,840 --> 00:32:30,040
Speaker 3: sit on my knee and I was, you know, and

612
00:32:30,080 --> 00:32:31,640
Speaker 3: I was telling him all about it, and he said,

613
00:32:32,720 --> 00:32:35,520
Speaker 3: why would you do that? Why you know it could

614
00:32:35,520 --> 00:32:37,880
Speaker 3: bite you, You could get rabies, you know. He said,

615
00:32:37,880 --> 00:32:40,480
Speaker 3: there's nine hundred different types of ticks in the US.

616
00:32:40,560 --> 00:32:43,240
Speaker 3: I don't understand you, and I'm saying I don't understand

617
00:32:43,280 --> 00:32:43,640
Speaker 3: you either.

618
00:32:43,920 --> 00:32:47,640
Speaker 2: He's like, it's not even comprehendive. Yeah, if you did.

619
00:32:47,640 --> 00:32:51,520
Speaker 1: You ever see the work of doctor James Fallon, Yeah, yeah,

620
00:32:51,880 --> 00:32:55,840
Speaker 1: I spoke to him, had a lot of communications with

621
00:32:55,920 --> 00:33:00,240
Speaker 1: him about psychopaths, and he's a neuroscientist. Did a pet

622
00:33:00,240 --> 00:33:03,080
Speaker 1: scan the brains of some of the psychopaths that have

623
00:33:03,160 --> 00:33:06,240
Speaker 1: been caught in America, the worst of the worst, looking

624
00:33:06,240 --> 00:33:09,880
Speaker 1: for that pattern in their brain, and he he needed

625
00:33:10,320 --> 00:33:13,840
Speaker 1: something to test it with, so he did the PET

626
00:33:13,880 --> 00:33:17,080
Speaker 1: scan of his own brain. He had the same whatever

627
00:33:17,120 --> 00:33:20,080
Speaker 1: it was, pattern in the brain that the psychopaths had.

628
00:33:20,440 --> 00:33:22,480
Speaker 1: And he said to me, and I learned a lot

629
00:33:22,480 --> 00:33:24,840
Speaker 1: from this. He came up with it because you were

630
00:33:24,840 --> 00:33:29,000
Speaker 1: talking about your mate in prison, Lawrence, who you could

631
00:33:29,000 --> 00:33:33,960
Speaker 1: have been his fifth girlfriend, missed opportunity, not having the

632
00:33:34,000 --> 00:33:35,800
Speaker 1: love support when he was a kid, and all that

633
00:33:35,840 --> 00:33:38,640
Speaker 1: and what James Fallon talked about, and it made a

634
00:33:38,680 --> 00:33:42,360
Speaker 1: lot of sense to me in those formative years from

635
00:33:42,640 --> 00:33:46,160
Speaker 1: birth to the age of two or three. If a

636
00:33:46,240 --> 00:33:49,600
Speaker 1: person has a predisposition as in the brain pattern like

637
00:33:50,480 --> 00:33:54,480
Speaker 1: James Fallon had other psychopaths, he's not term psychopath, not

638
00:33:54,560 --> 00:33:57,960
Speaker 1: a psychopathic killer. If they have in an environment where

639
00:33:58,000 --> 00:34:01,040
Speaker 1: they've got love and nurturing and the type of environment

640
00:34:01,080 --> 00:34:06,040
Speaker 1: that kids should have, it won't play out. But if

641
00:34:06,680 --> 00:34:09,799
Speaker 1: you have that predisposition with the brain to start with,

642
00:34:10,040 --> 00:34:12,719
Speaker 1: and in those formative years you haven't got love and

643
00:34:12,920 --> 00:34:14,480
Speaker 1: you know, the type of kids that you would have

644
00:34:14,480 --> 00:34:18,200
Speaker 1: seen come through your own home, the foster kids, that's

645
00:34:18,239 --> 00:34:20,839
Speaker 1: where it can go terribly, terribly well.

646
00:34:21,239 --> 00:34:25,800
Speaker 3: Yeah, adding the violence. You know, I've known psychopaths that

647
00:34:25,800 --> 00:34:30,239
Speaker 3: that aren't violent, but they just go through workplaces and

648
00:34:30,280 --> 00:34:34,360
Speaker 3: they go through relationships and that's just a it's just carnage,

649
00:34:34,520 --> 00:34:37,640
Speaker 3: you know, like a tornado going through leaving all of

650
00:34:37,680 --> 00:34:42,279
Speaker 3: these girlfriends in their wake, and manipulative and lying and

651
00:34:42,360 --> 00:34:46,600
Speaker 3: it's fascinating, you know, And and so that's how you

652
00:34:46,640 --> 00:34:49,480
Speaker 3: make the fascinating villain. And then you come to it,

653
00:34:49,760 --> 00:34:51,279
Speaker 3: you know, you're writing the book. You come to it

654
00:34:51,320 --> 00:34:53,919
Speaker 3: with a hero that you have something in common with,

655
00:34:54,040 --> 00:34:56,720
Speaker 3: and you know, in Red Belly Crossing it's a it's

656
00:34:56,520 --> 00:34:59,080
Speaker 3: a father trying to get to know his teen daughter again.

657
00:34:59,200 --> 00:35:02,000
Speaker 3: And I have daughter, so I have that, you know,

658
00:35:02,040 --> 00:35:04,040
Speaker 3: I was writing about that yearning to know her.

659
00:35:04,520 --> 00:35:07,840
Speaker 1: It was interesting and I'll choose my words carefully so

660
00:35:07,920 --> 00:35:10,719
Speaker 1: I don't reveal the plot because you wrote the book

661
00:35:10,719 --> 00:35:11,640
Speaker 1: and I don't want to.

662
00:35:11,560 --> 00:35:12,760
Speaker 2: Give away the plot.

663
00:35:12,800 --> 00:35:15,840
Speaker 1: But yeah, that relationship was interesting, and from a bloke's

664
00:35:15,880 --> 00:35:18,640
Speaker 1: point of view, the struggle to make that connection and

665
00:35:18,840 --> 00:35:22,000
Speaker 1: you know, the focus of other things that are more

666
00:35:22,040 --> 00:35:24,920
Speaker 1: pressing and trying to make that connection with a teenage kid,

667
00:35:24,960 --> 00:35:27,200
Speaker 1: how difficult was so that certainly came out.

668
00:35:27,560 --> 00:35:30,719
Speaker 3: Yeah, oh good, well, thank you. I'm trying well.

669
00:35:31,200 --> 00:35:33,680
Speaker 1: I think you've been doing pretty good so far. Twenty

670
00:35:33,719 --> 00:35:36,000
Speaker 1: two books. Maybe one day you'll prove yourself. And you're

671
00:35:36,000 --> 00:35:38,760
Speaker 1: still trying. The people that knock back your first novel,

672
00:35:38,760 --> 00:35:39,680
Speaker 1: you still I.

673
00:35:39,640 --> 00:35:44,480
Speaker 3: See him around. I see publishing people, and they've said,

674
00:35:44,560 --> 00:35:46,080
Speaker 3: you know, the first time they meet me, they go,

675
00:35:46,640 --> 00:35:48,400
Speaker 3: I don't know if you know this, but I reject you,

676
00:35:48,440 --> 00:35:49,719
Speaker 3: and I think I know, of course.

677
00:35:50,680 --> 00:35:51,160
Speaker 2: Finger up.

678
00:35:52,760 --> 00:35:57,160
Speaker 1: Yeah, hey guys, it's Gary jubilin here. I want to

679
00:35:57,200 --> 00:35:59,600
Speaker 1: get more out of I catch killers. Then you should

680
00:35:59,600 --> 00:36:03,200
Speaker 1: head over to our new video feed on Spotify where

681
00:36:03,200 --> 00:36:06,560
Speaker 1: you can watch every episode of I Catch Killers. Just

682
00:36:06,680 --> 00:36:10,080
Speaker 1: search for I Catch Killers video in your Spotify app

683
00:36:10,200 --> 00:36:13,719
Speaker 1: and start watching today. Tell us a bit about your background.

684
00:36:13,920 --> 00:36:17,319
Speaker 1: You said you grew up in the family, had two

685
00:36:17,440 --> 00:36:20,680
Speaker 1: kids adopted into the family for other siblings, and then

686
00:36:20,760 --> 00:36:22,640
Speaker 1: one hundred and fifty foster children.

687
00:36:23,000 --> 00:36:26,880
Speaker 3: Yeah, my mum was counting them and taking pictures of

688
00:36:26,920 --> 00:36:29,080
Speaker 3: them all and putting it on. She had like a

689
00:36:29,120 --> 00:36:32,719
Speaker 3: wall of all the kids, you know, that she had fostered,

690
00:36:33,239 --> 00:36:35,400
Speaker 3: and then she also had a wall of all the

691
00:36:35,520 --> 00:36:38,759
Speaker 3: animals that she had rescued. So it was kind of

692
00:36:38,840 --> 00:36:42,360
Speaker 3: weird to have the two walls, and you know, and

693
00:36:42,719 --> 00:36:44,960
Speaker 3: they were just I was taking them to school and

694
00:36:45,000 --> 00:36:48,440
Speaker 3: saying to my friends, this is Eric. Eric's going to

695
00:36:48,480 --> 00:36:51,200
Speaker 3: be here for an unknown amount of time, you know.

696
00:36:51,320 --> 00:36:53,360
Speaker 3: As a teenager, it was kind of annoying because I

697
00:36:53,400 --> 00:36:58,040
Speaker 3: was like, please, nobody date him, and that kind of thing.

698
00:36:58,120 --> 00:37:02,880
Speaker 3: And it was also kind of my role in the

699
00:37:02,960 --> 00:37:09,920
Speaker 3: family was the capable child. You're capable, you're responsible, you're smart,

700
00:37:10,040 --> 00:37:12,160
Speaker 3: you know what you're doing, so for that reason, you

701
00:37:12,160 --> 00:37:15,120
Speaker 3: don't need help. So I would come to my mum

702
00:37:15,200 --> 00:37:18,160
Speaker 3: as a teenager and say, you know, I'm being pretty

703
00:37:18,600 --> 00:37:20,840
Speaker 3: badly bullied at school. Can I get some help? And

704
00:37:20,960 --> 00:37:24,319
Speaker 3: she's like, well, actually, you know, these kids have just

705
00:37:24,400 --> 00:37:27,560
Speaker 3: lost their parents. They're in jail and you know, so

706
00:37:27,600 --> 00:37:35,240
Speaker 3: they have problems. You don't have problems. And I'm like, well, okay.

707
00:37:33,360 --> 00:37:36,400
Speaker 2: That's an interesting way to grow up. It would give

708
00:37:36,440 --> 00:37:37,279
Speaker 2: you a resilience.

709
00:37:37,520 --> 00:37:40,759
Speaker 3: Yeah, and it's given me a lot of things. It's

710
00:37:40,800 --> 00:37:44,279
Speaker 3: given me a desire to solve all of my own

711
00:37:44,360 --> 00:37:48,320
Speaker 3: problems all the time, and a perspective. And they always

712
00:37:48,320 --> 00:37:52,360
Speaker 3: had perspective on things. My father was an interesting characters

713
00:37:52,640 --> 00:37:56,640
Speaker 3: as well. He worked in prisons, his prole officer in

714
00:37:56,680 --> 00:37:59,760
Speaker 3: several Sydney prisons, and so as a kid, I worked

715
00:37:59,760 --> 00:38:04,279
Speaker 3: out that he had this big Vinyl recliner that he

716
00:38:04,320 --> 00:38:06,200
Speaker 3: would sit in right in front of the TV, and

717
00:38:06,280 --> 00:38:08,040
Speaker 3: Mum would sit on the end of the couch here.

718
00:38:08,520 --> 00:38:10,560
Speaker 3: And I found out that if I crawled around the

719
00:38:10,600 --> 00:38:14,479
Speaker 3: back of his recliner and sat in the gap, neither

720
00:38:14,520 --> 00:38:17,280
Speaker 3: of them could see me because the arms of the

721
00:38:17,480 --> 00:38:19,200
Speaker 3: recliner and the couch went like this. Neither of them

722
00:38:19,200 --> 00:38:20,839
Speaker 3: can see me. So I'm there and I'm hearing all

723
00:38:20,880 --> 00:38:26,120
Speaker 3: of the prison talk. Oh, right, okay, yeah, he was

724
00:38:26,160 --> 00:38:30,200
Speaker 3: saying things. I remember he was talking at one point

725
00:38:30,239 --> 00:38:33,719
Speaker 3: about that a prisoner was about to be released and

726
00:38:33,760 --> 00:38:37,120
Speaker 3: they had him on suicide watch and he committed suicide

727
00:38:37,239 --> 00:38:40,280
Speaker 3: using the lid of a tuna can. And I remember

728
00:38:40,320 --> 00:38:44,160
Speaker 3: as a kid sitting there going what like, what does

729
00:38:44,160 --> 00:38:46,600
Speaker 3: that mean? How did he do it? You know, and

730
00:38:46,640 --> 00:38:50,680
Speaker 3: feeling like this whole body rush. And then in a

731
00:38:50,719 --> 00:38:54,280
Speaker 3: household like that, there wasn't a lot of supervision either.

732
00:38:54,920 --> 00:38:59,160
Speaker 3: So I was reading dad's police magazines and law enforcement magazines.

733
00:39:00,080 --> 00:39:03,680
Speaker 3: Remember I was on mum and Dad's bed, and I

734
00:39:03,840 --> 00:39:06,200
Speaker 3: was looking at these. They had graphic.

735
00:39:07,360 --> 00:39:08,640
Speaker 2: Crime scene favor yeah, the.

736
00:39:08,600 --> 00:39:10,560
Speaker 3: Crime scene phatus. I'm looking at them all, you know,

737
00:39:10,640 --> 00:39:12,680
Speaker 3: I would have been seven or eight years old. Wow,

738
00:39:12,840 --> 00:39:16,400
Speaker 3: And my mom comes in and I froze because no,

739
00:39:16,440 --> 00:39:18,360
Speaker 3: I'm not looking. I'm not supposed to be looking at

740
00:39:18,400 --> 00:39:22,200
Speaker 3: this naughty stuff. And Mum leaned over me and she goes, oh, yeah,

741
00:39:22,239 --> 00:39:24,799
Speaker 3: that's what the inside of your leg looks like. So

742
00:39:25,000 --> 00:39:28,080
Speaker 3: that's the muscle, and that's the fat, and that's the skin.

743
00:39:28,160 --> 00:39:30,120
Speaker 3: You can see the bone there. Isn't that interesting? And

744
00:39:30,160 --> 00:39:33,520
Speaker 3: she just walked out and I was like, you know,

745
00:39:34,640 --> 00:39:36,719
Speaker 3: but I got in trouble. I think I was in

746
00:39:37,000 --> 00:39:41,080
Speaker 3: fifth grade. All my friends were reading the Chronicles of

747
00:39:41,200 --> 00:39:43,960
Speaker 3: Narnia and I had been reading all her True Crime,

748
00:39:44,320 --> 00:39:46,560
Speaker 3: and I said, I'm reading this book at the moment

749
00:39:46,600 --> 00:39:50,760
Speaker 3: about these kids. It's kids who kill and these kids

750
00:39:50,880 --> 00:39:55,239
Speaker 3: all murdered this girl named Shanda Sheirah, and I described

751
00:39:55,239 --> 00:39:57,040
Speaker 3: all the ways that they tortured her and all this

752
00:39:57,080 --> 00:39:59,239
Speaker 3: kind of stuff, and they burned her alive. And then

753
00:39:59,239 --> 00:40:01,680
Speaker 3: my friends all and told the teacher, and I got

754
00:40:01,719 --> 00:40:02,200
Speaker 3: in trouble.

755
00:40:02,480 --> 00:40:03,640
Speaker 2: How old were you then?

756
00:40:03,760 --> 00:40:08,120
Speaker 3: In grade five? So probably I don't know, nine or something.

757
00:40:08,520 --> 00:40:10,440
Speaker 3: And then mums like, you can't read any of the

758
00:40:10,440 --> 00:40:13,920
Speaker 3: true crime, none of this. These shelves are off, you know.

759
00:40:14,160 --> 00:40:15,960
Speaker 3: And I was like, oh, so that left me with

760
00:40:16,000 --> 00:40:16,720
Speaker 3: the crime fiction.

761
00:40:17,040 --> 00:40:18,960
Speaker 1: Do you think that was the attraction to it? Like

762
00:40:19,040 --> 00:40:22,120
Speaker 1: you've had that little bit of exposure to it. Your

763
00:40:22,160 --> 00:40:25,319
Speaker 1: interesting in crime because your fictional crime writer, but you

764
00:40:25,400 --> 00:40:28,839
Speaker 1: must have an interest in true crime to get you there.

765
00:40:29,120 --> 00:40:31,080
Speaker 1: Is that a little bit of exposure, a little bit

766
00:40:31,120 --> 00:40:34,239
Speaker 1: of curiosity, and that's what's taken you down that path.

767
00:40:34,920 --> 00:40:38,600
Speaker 3: It's that feeling you know that this is real, this

768
00:40:38,880 --> 00:40:42,280
Speaker 3: really happened. Those kinds of people who would do these

769
00:40:42,320 --> 00:40:48,640
Speaker 3: things are out there in society, and you know, being

770
00:40:48,680 --> 00:40:51,719
Speaker 3: someone who had no subtlety, Like I said, my mother,

771
00:40:51,840 --> 00:40:55,359
Speaker 3: she would warn you about certain things. She'd say. You know,

772
00:40:55,400 --> 00:40:58,000
Speaker 3: she wouldn't just say don't talk to strangers, or if

773
00:40:58,000 --> 00:41:00,759
Speaker 3: anyone you know comes up and says, can you help

774
00:41:00,800 --> 00:41:03,960
Speaker 3: me find my puppy, you know, don't help them. She

775
00:41:04,000 --> 00:41:06,600
Speaker 3: would say, there were these children. There was this girl

776
00:41:06,680 --> 00:41:09,759
Speaker 3: named Elizabeth Smart, and then this happened to her, and

777
00:41:09,800 --> 00:41:14,040
Speaker 3: she'd tell the whole story. She told me about the Mare's.

778
00:41:13,800 --> 00:41:16,640
Speaker 2: Murderers right they were over in the UK.

779
00:41:17,200 --> 00:41:19,920
Speaker 3: She was like, oh, a little boy was walking along

780
00:41:19,960 --> 00:41:22,080
Speaker 3: and a woman said, can you help me find my glove?

781
00:41:22,440 --> 00:41:24,480
Speaker 3: And then they did this, and then they did this,

782
00:41:24,560 --> 00:41:27,000
Speaker 3: and I'm sitting there as a kid going they did what.

783
00:41:27,360 --> 00:41:30,040
Speaker 1: You know, it sounds like got no filter, But was

784
00:41:30,120 --> 00:41:34,880
Speaker 1: that the way of preparing you for society? Because you

785
00:41:34,960 --> 00:41:37,440
Speaker 1: can only shield kids from so much, You've got to

786
00:41:37,440 --> 00:41:39,000
Speaker 1: give them a bit of Okay, this is.

787
00:41:38,920 --> 00:41:42,360
Speaker 2: What the world's like. So yeah, maybe street wise at

788
00:41:42,360 --> 00:41:43,640
Speaker 2: their very young age.

789
00:41:43,560 --> 00:41:46,840
Speaker 3: Very street wise and just seeing things that I couldn't

790
00:41:46,880 --> 00:41:53,279
Speaker 3: really explain. I remember, you know, for that as a teenager,

791
00:41:53,680 --> 00:41:56,520
Speaker 3: I'd get home from school, chuck my stuff in my room.

792
00:41:56,800 --> 00:41:59,279
Speaker 3: I've got twenty minutes to write my stories because I

793
00:41:59,360 --> 00:42:04,560
Speaker 3: was furiously writing the books as a teenager. And come

794
00:42:04,600 --> 00:42:07,839
Speaker 3: downstairs and Mom's like, right, it's the it's the night

795
00:42:07,920 --> 00:42:12,040
Speaker 3: routine for the toddlers and then the bigger kids, and

796
00:42:12,080 --> 00:42:15,399
Speaker 3: then the sort of teenagers, and just for the rest

797
00:42:15,440 --> 00:42:18,400
Speaker 3: of the night, it was night routine, you know, feeding, bathing,

798
00:42:18,480 --> 00:42:22,279
Speaker 3: putting to sleep. And she said, wash this kid. And

799
00:42:22,320 --> 00:42:24,800
Speaker 3: I was washing this kid in the laundry tub. I

800
00:42:24,920 --> 00:42:26,879
Speaker 3: take his shirt off. This kid has just got here

801
00:42:26,880 --> 00:42:29,640
Speaker 3: this afternoon. Pulled his shirt off and he's covered all

802
00:42:29,680 --> 00:42:35,080
Speaker 3: over in white spots. And I said to Mom, I

803
00:42:35,120 --> 00:42:37,160
Speaker 3: think he's got ringworm or something. Can you come and

804
00:42:37,239 --> 00:42:39,960
Speaker 3: have a look, because ringworm was something that kids would

805
00:42:39,960 --> 00:42:43,120
Speaker 3: come with ringworm all the time. And she's like, oh no,

806
00:42:43,239 --> 00:42:47,239
Speaker 3: there's cigarette burns, scars, it's all over, you know, and

807
00:42:47,280 --> 00:42:50,879
Speaker 3: they've all healed. And he just and I remember going, whoa.

808
00:42:51,080 --> 00:42:51,480
Speaker 2: How.

809
00:42:53,080 --> 00:42:56,279
Speaker 3: Too, you know, to fit in a laundry to dub

810
00:42:56,440 --> 00:42:59,160
Speaker 3: he would have been too, you know. So all you

811
00:42:59,200 --> 00:43:01,879
Speaker 3: think about all my friends as teenagers, they're all going

812
00:43:01,880 --> 00:43:04,560
Speaker 3: home and they've got like one brother and play with

813
00:43:04,600 --> 00:43:07,120
Speaker 3: the dog and do your homework and I was just

814
00:43:07,200 --> 00:43:11,720
Speaker 3: in a factory. Yeah, and it was exciting. I remember

815
00:43:12,520 --> 00:43:15,879
Speaker 3: with the phone would ring and everyone just freeze because

816
00:43:15,880 --> 00:43:18,919
Speaker 3: we just hear like is it an animal? Is it?

817
00:43:19,239 --> 00:43:19,400
Speaker 1: You know?

818
00:43:19,520 --> 00:43:21,239
Speaker 3: Three kids are coming? How old are they?

819
00:43:21,520 --> 00:43:21,799
Speaker 1: You know?

820
00:43:21,960 --> 00:43:25,960
Speaker 3: And you'd all listen for what chaos was going to

821
00:43:26,000 --> 00:43:27,040
Speaker 3: come into the house next.

822
00:43:27,040 --> 00:43:29,560
Speaker 2: Did you have any attachments to when the kids that

823
00:43:29,719 --> 00:43:30,640
Speaker 2: came through? Was there?

824
00:43:31,120 --> 00:43:35,680
Speaker 3: Mom did short to medium term care, so sometimes that was,

825
00:43:36,120 --> 00:43:39,680
Speaker 3: you know, overnight. We had three kids come in overnight

826
00:43:39,800 --> 00:43:42,400
Speaker 3: because they were found wandering around the car park of

827
00:43:42,440 --> 00:43:45,520
Speaker 3: the Star City Casino in their pajamas and the police

828
00:43:45,520 --> 00:43:47,880
Speaker 3: were like, whose kids are they? You know? So they

829
00:43:48,120 --> 00:43:50,520
Speaker 3: just were with us for a couple of nights while

830
00:43:50,560 --> 00:43:53,920
Speaker 3: the police number one find their parents and number two

831
00:43:53,960 --> 00:43:56,439
Speaker 3: find out why did you leave them in the car

832
00:43:56,520 --> 00:43:59,839
Speaker 3: and go to the casino. And those three kids ended

833
00:43:59,920 --> 00:44:02,279
Speaker 3: up having to come to my brother's wedding because it

834
00:44:02,320 --> 00:44:04,959
Speaker 3: was my brother's wedding the next day. Yeah, so Mum's

835
00:44:05,000 --> 00:44:07,040
Speaker 3: called him and gone, I've got three extra kids coming

836
00:44:07,040 --> 00:44:08,520
Speaker 3: to the wedding and he was like, you can't out

837
00:44:08,560 --> 00:44:10,000
Speaker 3: and she was like all right, bye, see there by,

838
00:44:10,200 --> 00:44:13,840
Speaker 3: you know, and yeah, so it was short to medium,

839
00:44:14,200 --> 00:44:17,279
Speaker 3: but you know, she had four and she adopted two.

840
00:44:17,480 --> 00:44:21,960
Speaker 3: She tried to adopt another three kids out of that collection.

841
00:44:23,239 --> 00:44:27,200
Speaker 3: And those kids we had for longer while their parents

842
00:44:27,520 --> 00:44:29,920
Speaker 3: went through the court system to say can we have

843
00:44:30,000 --> 00:44:33,000
Speaker 3: custody or not? And then an aunta and uncle would

844
00:44:33,000 --> 00:44:35,600
Speaker 3: try to take custody and it was all being worked

845
00:44:35,600 --> 00:44:38,799
Speaker 3: out in the courts. Mums decided that she wanted to

846
00:44:38,920 --> 00:44:41,839
Speaker 3: adopt them and that it hasn't it hasn't worked out,

847
00:44:41,920 --> 00:44:43,600
Speaker 3: so she would have had nine of us.

848
00:44:44,080 --> 00:44:46,040
Speaker 2: You know, all good on your family.

849
00:44:46,080 --> 00:44:48,840
Speaker 1: Like I see the importance of sadly in police and

850
00:44:48,920 --> 00:44:51,040
Speaker 1: you come across it a lot fostering in kids that

851
00:44:51,160 --> 00:44:53,439
Speaker 1: need to go in the foster homes. I just full

852
00:44:53,600 --> 00:44:55,800
Speaker 1: courage to the people that can take kids in because

853
00:44:56,080 --> 00:44:58,640
Speaker 1: you rescue animals, and I would imagine that's hard enough

854
00:44:58,960 --> 00:45:01,520
Speaker 1: giving away an animal, But when a child comes into

855
00:45:01,560 --> 00:45:03,319
Speaker 1: your house and you're giving that child a bit of

856
00:45:03,320 --> 00:45:05,880
Speaker 1: love and comfort and security for the first time in

857
00:45:05,920 --> 00:45:09,000
Speaker 1: your life, perhaps it must be so hard handing them

858
00:45:09,040 --> 00:45:11,440
Speaker 1: back to where the future may lie.

859
00:45:11,480 --> 00:45:14,319
Speaker 3: And especially when you send them back and then two

860
00:45:14,320 --> 00:45:17,280
Speaker 3: months later they came back back and they're thinner. And

861
00:45:17,560 --> 00:45:21,279
Speaker 3: this kid came back one time and his mother had

862
00:45:21,320 --> 00:45:23,840
Speaker 3: tried to shave his head with like a big razor

863
00:45:24,440 --> 00:45:26,920
Speaker 3: and she'd cut his head all over and this kind

864
00:45:26,920 --> 00:45:29,680
Speaker 3: of stuff, and he was he would really plumped him up,

865
00:45:29,840 --> 00:45:31,959
Speaker 3: and he was all seen and he come back again.

866
00:45:32,040 --> 00:45:33,920
Speaker 3: You go, and then you got handing back again.

867
00:45:35,080 --> 00:45:38,200
Speaker 1: I can see how it gives you a distored not

868
00:45:38,239 --> 00:45:41,319
Speaker 1: a distorted view on life, but the understanding of the

869
00:45:41,400 --> 00:45:44,080
Speaker 1: dark side life. Making the career out of the writing,

870
00:45:44,160 --> 00:45:46,680
Speaker 1: is that what you aspired to do? So what you

871
00:45:46,760 --> 00:45:47,320
Speaker 1: left school?

872
00:45:47,560 --> 00:45:48,040
Speaker 2: What did you like?

873
00:45:48,520 --> 00:45:52,040
Speaker 3: My mom? I wanted to leave school at sixteen and Mum,

874
00:45:52,280 --> 00:45:54,799
Speaker 3: you know, because I've big bullied. And Mom said, I said,

875
00:45:54,800 --> 00:45:56,200
Speaker 3: I've got a big plan. I'm going to become a

876
00:45:56,239 --> 00:45:58,640
Speaker 3: famous author. And she said, well, you're missing a few

877
00:45:58,640 --> 00:46:01,080
Speaker 3: steps there. You can't just go from sixteen year old

878
00:46:01,160 --> 00:46:04,240
Speaker 3: child to famous authors. She said, if you want to

879
00:46:04,280 --> 00:46:06,600
Speaker 3: be a writer, you got to get a real job,

880
00:46:06,719 --> 00:46:08,800
Speaker 3: and that'll be a side hustle, and then when you

881
00:46:08,880 --> 00:46:11,080
Speaker 3: make money enough money doing that, you give up your

882
00:46:11,120 --> 00:46:16,000
Speaker 3: real job. So I joined the Navy at eighteen. The experience,

883
00:46:16,080 --> 00:46:19,600
Speaker 3: oh yeah, it was a very strange life choice. I

884
00:46:19,640 --> 00:46:24,120
Speaker 3: think to myself, why didn't anyone who knew me as

885
00:46:24,200 --> 00:46:28,879
Speaker 3: a massive creative person, super spacey, not disciplined at all.

886
00:46:29,360 --> 00:46:33,719
Speaker 3: I get violently seasick. Why didn't anyone say this is

887
00:46:33,800 --> 00:46:36,000
Speaker 3: not for you? What are you doing?

888
00:46:36,560 --> 00:46:36,840
Speaker 2: Yeah?

889
00:46:37,880 --> 00:46:40,560
Speaker 3: I wanted to join the Cops and the Navy, and

890
00:46:40,640 --> 00:46:43,160
Speaker 3: I thought the Cops is just the Navy is just

891
00:46:43,160 --> 00:46:46,200
Speaker 3: the cops at sea? Really, And I put the applications

892
00:46:46,239 --> 00:46:48,719
Speaker 3: in and I said, whoever comes back first, I'll go

893
00:46:48,800 --> 00:46:50,640
Speaker 3: with them. Yees. So I went with the Navy, and

894
00:46:50,960 --> 00:46:53,880
Speaker 3: it was eye opening and I learned a lot. But

895
00:46:54,840 --> 00:46:57,200
Speaker 3: one of the ways in which I didn't fit in

896
00:46:57,239 --> 00:47:00,360
Speaker 3: one of them many ways is that I'll talk to

897
00:47:00,400 --> 00:47:02,960
Speaker 3: anyone and I'll listen to anyone. So I got in

898
00:47:03,000 --> 00:47:05,720
Speaker 3: trouble one time because I joined as a direct entry officer.

899
00:47:07,000 --> 00:47:09,640
Speaker 3: I'm standing there on the bridge wing and all these

900
00:47:09,680 --> 00:47:11,799
Speaker 3: sailors are talking to me, and they're telling me these

901
00:47:11,840 --> 00:47:14,919
Speaker 3: fascinating stories and I can't I can't hear enough of it,

902
00:47:15,320 --> 00:47:18,279
Speaker 3: you know. And my EXO said to me, this unbecoming

903
00:47:18,320 --> 00:47:21,960
Speaker 3: of an officer. To be a young female officer eighteen

904
00:47:22,040 --> 00:47:24,840
Speaker 3: years old. You're standing there You've got six sailors in

905
00:47:24,880 --> 00:47:28,719
Speaker 3: their twenties all talking to you. That's unbecoming. And I'm like, well,

906
00:47:28,719 --> 00:47:32,920
Speaker 3: we weren't talking about anything unbecoming. No, we weren't. We were.

907
00:47:33,040 --> 00:47:35,920
Speaker 3: They were saying spinning warries, were spinning warries. They were

908
00:47:35,920 --> 00:47:38,920
Speaker 3: telling me things, and I was super interested. And he

909
00:47:39,000 --> 00:47:41,160
Speaker 3: was like, it look like you were really lapping it up,

910
00:47:41,600 --> 00:47:44,719
Speaker 3: and I thought, well, I probably was like I'll love

911
00:47:44,760 --> 00:47:48,080
Speaker 3: to hear things, you know, and I'm just I'll just

912
00:47:48,080 --> 00:47:48,800
Speaker 3: talk to anyone.

913
00:47:49,160 --> 00:47:54,320
Speaker 2: So your first book, when when was your first published book? Sorry,

914
00:47:54,320 --> 00:47:55,479
Speaker 2: how did you get out of the Navory?

915
00:47:57,200 --> 00:47:59,839
Speaker 3: Well, not kicked out, but I left. How long were

916
00:48:00,000 --> 00:48:04,200
Speaker 3: But they were like bye, I was two years, just

917
00:48:04,400 --> 00:48:07,720
Speaker 3: two years. And in between that and becoming a published

918
00:48:07,719 --> 00:48:09,640
Speaker 3: author for the first time, I did every job under

919
00:48:09,640 --> 00:48:12,120
Speaker 3: the sun. I cleaned houses, I taught kids to swim.

920
00:48:12,400 --> 00:48:16,920
Speaker 3: I worked in a tattoo shop. I taught at university.

921
00:48:17,000 --> 00:48:19,279
Speaker 3: I qualified. I went to university and qualified as a

922
00:48:19,320 --> 00:48:22,000
Speaker 3: high school teacher. So I did high school teaching and

923
00:48:22,080 --> 00:48:25,920
Speaker 3: I subbed for primary schools. I worked for a magazine.

924
00:48:26,400 --> 00:48:28,800
Speaker 3: I did all sorts of different stuff, so all levels

925
00:48:28,800 --> 00:48:32,520
Speaker 3: of society I'm meeting all and that kind of thing.

926
00:48:33,120 --> 00:48:38,719
Speaker 3: And then I was just constantly putting novels in for publication.

927
00:48:38,320 --> 00:48:41,200
Speaker 2: And right so you were knocking them out, going oh.

928
00:48:41,120 --> 00:48:43,440
Speaker 1: Yeah, look at this, this is the greatest story in

929
00:48:43,480 --> 00:48:47,160
Speaker 1: the history that's ever been told, and people go, oh, thank.

930
00:48:47,000 --> 00:48:49,680
Speaker 3: You, Oh yeah, thanks. I thought to myself, I'm going

931
00:48:49,719 --> 00:48:53,279
Speaker 3: to put one novel in per year until I'm seventy five.

932
00:48:53,480 --> 00:48:56,520
Speaker 3: And when I'm seventy five, I quit. And after you know,

933
00:48:56,920 --> 00:49:00,759
Speaker 3: a publisher has rejected five of you not wolves, they

934
00:49:00,760 --> 00:49:04,160
Speaker 3: start to feel bad and so they call me on

935
00:49:04,200 --> 00:49:07,160
Speaker 3: the phone to reject me. And oh the crying. I

936
00:49:07,160 --> 00:49:10,080
Speaker 3: would try to hold it together as long as I could.

937
00:49:10,160 --> 00:49:12,720
Speaker 3: And then the crying, which is another reason I didn't

938
00:49:12,719 --> 00:49:14,960
Speaker 3: fit in the navy. Whenever someone yells at me, I

939
00:49:15,040 --> 00:49:19,520
Speaker 3: burst into tearsok's not becoming it's not becoming of an

940
00:49:19,560 --> 00:49:23,000
Speaker 3: officer at all. And so when I finally got my agent,

941
00:49:23,360 --> 00:49:25,920
Speaker 3: she said to me, do you know anyone in the

942
00:49:25,920 --> 00:49:28,759
Speaker 3: publishing industry in Australia. I said, I have cried on

943
00:49:28,800 --> 00:49:31,160
Speaker 3: the phone to every I could give you a list

944
00:49:32,840 --> 00:49:35,560
Speaker 3: of all the publishers that I have cried too. So

945
00:49:36,719 --> 00:49:38,920
Speaker 3: I wrote four full novels and then I had a

946
00:49:38,960 --> 00:49:40,319
Speaker 3: whole bunch of starts with.

947
00:49:40,400 --> 00:49:44,520
Speaker 2: The crime crime based. No, they were not all sorts.

948
00:49:44,640 --> 00:49:48,399
Speaker 3: They were vampires and wear wolves, you know. And then

949
00:49:48,440 --> 00:49:53,000
Speaker 3: there was one like kind of crime vampire where wolf crossover.

950
00:49:53,560 --> 00:49:55,040
Speaker 3: Don't know, it's a hard genre.

951
00:49:55,600 --> 00:49:58,359
Speaker 1: So the crime when did you find that was your

952
00:49:58,560 --> 00:50:03,080
Speaker 1: genre that well? And I should say this because people

953
00:50:03,120 --> 00:50:06,320
Speaker 1: listening you are a very very successful author to thanks

954
00:50:07,440 --> 00:50:10,160
Speaker 1: twenty two books at this stage published books, and.

955
00:50:10,800 --> 00:50:13,239
Speaker 3: Nine of them I wrote with James Patterson, you know,

956
00:50:13,440 --> 00:50:16,200
Speaker 3: and so they were all New York Times bestsellers. And

957
00:50:16,239 --> 00:50:19,600
Speaker 3: then I have the TV show The Tropic made out

958
00:50:19,600 --> 00:50:21,760
Speaker 3: of a couple of them. But I came to crime

959
00:50:21,920 --> 00:50:26,640
Speaker 3: slowly because I was intimidated by the procedural aspects. I

960
00:50:26,680 --> 00:50:29,000
Speaker 3: didn't know any cops, and I didn't know how to

961
00:50:29,040 --> 00:50:32,520
Speaker 3: approach any cops, and they seemed intimidating. So I thought, oh,

962
00:50:32,520 --> 00:50:35,000
Speaker 3: stuff it, I'll just make it all up. Who's going

963
00:50:35,080 --> 00:50:40,000
Speaker 3: to know? And I was living in the back of

964
00:50:40,040 --> 00:50:43,680
Speaker 3: the Sunshine Coast with what ended up being my first husband,

965
00:50:44,200 --> 00:50:46,719
Speaker 3: and we were living in this house down this five

966
00:50:46,760 --> 00:50:49,759
Speaker 3: kilometer track and we didn't have any garbage collection because

967
00:50:49,760 --> 00:50:51,640
Speaker 3: it's just a dirt road. So we had to take

968
00:50:51,680 --> 00:50:55,359
Speaker 3: our garbage every week to this guy and he had

969
00:50:55,400 --> 00:50:59,960
Speaker 3: like a cutout in the rainforest and he just had

970
00:50:59,920 --> 00:51:02,080
Speaker 3: a whole bunch of skip bins and all the locals

971
00:51:02,080 --> 00:51:04,680
Speaker 3: will come and bring their rubbish every week. And he

972
00:51:04,840 --> 00:51:09,239
Speaker 3: was this short, stocky guy with little half moon glasses

973
00:51:09,520 --> 00:51:12,000
Speaker 3: and like a greasy pony towel, and he had all

974
00:51:12,000 --> 00:51:16,279
Speaker 3: this rescued furniture and he was really menacing looking, and

975
00:51:16,360 --> 00:51:18,279
Speaker 3: he had all his friends and they'd all sit there

976
00:51:18,440 --> 00:51:23,239
Speaker 3: drinking and drinking black coffee and smoking, and we'd just

977
00:51:23,520 --> 00:51:25,319
Speaker 3: drive in with our rubbish. And I kept looking at

978
00:51:25,320 --> 00:51:27,880
Speaker 3: this guy and going, this guy has a history, you know,

979
00:51:27,960 --> 00:51:32,080
Speaker 3: I can tell. And so my first novel, Hades, was

980
00:51:32,120 --> 00:51:36,560
Speaker 3: about this ex criminal overlord and in his retirement he

981
00:51:36,680 --> 00:51:39,840
Speaker 3: buys a landfill. He buys a tip, and so people

982
00:51:39,880 --> 00:51:41,800
Speaker 3: come to him with bodies and he hides him in

983
00:51:41,840 --> 00:51:45,919
Speaker 3: there for a fee. Yeah, thank you. That's a good idea. Yeah,

984
00:51:45,960 --> 00:51:49,320
Speaker 3: it's a little side hustle. And that was my first

985
00:51:49,360 --> 00:51:51,879
Speaker 3: novel that was picked up, and that won the Ned

986
00:51:51,960 --> 00:51:55,319
Speaker 3: Kelly Award, and it was very successful. I had two

987
00:51:55,400 --> 00:51:57,160
Speaker 3: more in that series, and then I was off to

988
00:51:57,239 --> 00:52:00,680
Speaker 3: the races, you know, I was teaching at university at

989
00:52:00,680 --> 00:52:04,000
Speaker 3: that time, and in between semesters of university, I was

990
00:52:04,000 --> 00:52:07,120
Speaker 3: teaching kids to swim and that was my twenty five

991
00:52:07,160 --> 00:52:10,880
Speaker 3: dollars an hour, and then off I went. And suddenly

992
00:52:11,760 --> 00:52:15,040
Speaker 3: people are super interested in who I am as a

993
00:52:15,080 --> 00:52:17,440
Speaker 3: person and where I grew up and I didn't was

994
00:52:18,280 --> 00:52:20,560
Speaker 3: that was shocking to me. I thought, what do you

995
00:52:20,600 --> 00:52:22,280
Speaker 3: want to know about me? For? Just read the book?

996
00:52:22,640 --> 00:52:25,760
Speaker 1: Yeah, but I think, like, you know, I asked you,

997
00:52:25,800 --> 00:52:27,879
Speaker 1: where do you come up with these ideas? Like it's

998
00:52:27,960 --> 00:52:30,760
Speaker 1: one thing to sit down and put words on paper,

999
00:52:30,800 --> 00:52:34,960
Speaker 1: but okay, where did this story come from? What's clothing

1000
00:52:34,960 --> 00:52:37,240
Speaker 1: around in your head? So that always makes me curious

1001
00:52:37,239 --> 00:52:40,440
Speaker 1: when I read a fictional crime book, I understand the

1002
00:52:40,480 --> 00:52:44,200
Speaker 1: world from the real world, and I've seen that there's

1003
00:52:44,239 --> 00:52:47,120
Speaker 1: not much that I've read that doesn't you know. Oh yeah,

1004
00:52:47,120 --> 00:52:49,720
Speaker 1: I can relate to that because that type of thing happens.

1005
00:52:50,000 --> 00:52:51,719
Speaker 1: But where do you get it when you haven't? But

1006
00:52:51,760 --> 00:52:54,759
Speaker 1: you've explained that in part the fact the way you

1007
00:52:54,800 --> 00:52:57,600
Speaker 1: grew up and what you were exposed to when you

1008
00:52:57,680 --> 00:53:00,399
Speaker 1: got those first books up. How did that feel like?

1009
00:53:00,719 --> 00:53:01,520
Speaker 1: That must have been?

1010
00:53:01,920 --> 00:53:03,760
Speaker 3: That was dream come true?

1011
00:53:04,080 --> 00:53:04,520
Speaker 2: Stuff?

1012
00:53:04,719 --> 00:53:08,480
Speaker 3: And I just having the one book published in Australia.

1013
00:53:09,080 --> 00:53:11,839
Speaker 3: That was enough for me. I thought, I've made it.

1014
00:53:11,920 --> 00:53:14,440
Speaker 3: And if I don't get a second book, you know,

1015
00:53:14,560 --> 00:53:17,800
Speaker 3: that's fine. And I was holding it in my hands

1016
00:53:17,840 --> 00:53:19,640
Speaker 3: and going I've made it. I've made it.

1017
00:53:20,080 --> 00:53:21,120
Speaker 2: Walking around the streets.

1018
00:53:21,320 --> 00:53:23,640
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I'm in big w and I'm like, you

1019
00:53:23,680 --> 00:53:27,200
Speaker 3: know this, and I've heard that's really good, and all

1020
00:53:27,200 --> 00:53:30,719
Speaker 3: of the highlights. Beyond that, the stuff I get to

1021
00:53:30,760 --> 00:53:34,040
Speaker 3: do for research. You're like, you know, writing a book

1022
00:53:34,040 --> 00:53:36,040
Speaker 3: about New York firefighters, I guess I'll just have to

1023
00:53:36,080 --> 00:53:38,640
Speaker 3: go to New York. You know, it's all on tax

1024
00:53:39,000 --> 00:53:41,480
Speaker 3: and just wander around New York talking to New York

1025
00:53:41,520 --> 00:53:45,359
Speaker 3: firefighters and it's just the best job ever.

1026
00:53:45,640 --> 00:53:47,759
Speaker 2: And that's the type of research you do.

1027
00:53:47,920 --> 00:53:49,600
Speaker 1: Like if you've got a character in there that's a

1028
00:53:50,080 --> 00:53:54,000
Speaker 1: New York firefighter, you want to get the sense of Sometimes.

1029
00:53:53,480 --> 00:53:56,040
Speaker 3: The stories come and they're not they're not something you

1030
00:53:56,080 --> 00:53:59,520
Speaker 3: have to travel half of the world away to get.

1031
00:53:59,719 --> 00:54:04,200
Speaker 3: It's just taking the seed of an idea. For example,

1032
00:54:04,320 --> 00:54:09,360
Speaker 3: my daughter Violet started kindergarten and I'm bringing her to

1033
00:54:09,440 --> 00:54:11,799
Speaker 3: school every day and doing the drop off, and at

1034
00:54:11,880 --> 00:54:15,879
Speaker 3: drop off she's howling, and she's clinging onto my leg

1035
00:54:15,920 --> 00:54:17,560
Speaker 3: and I'm trying to peel her off, and I've got

1036
00:54:17,800 --> 00:54:20,040
Speaker 3: you know, I've got a hand to the teacher like

1037
00:54:20,080 --> 00:54:23,640
Speaker 3: a screaming mental patient being to mommy and all this

1038
00:54:24,360 --> 00:54:27,800
Speaker 3: and every day we would do this, and for weeks,

1039
00:54:28,080 --> 00:54:31,960
Speaker 3: I'm looking at this other mother and she's going, you know, bye, Jimmy.

1040
00:54:32,239 --> 00:54:36,719
Speaker 3: Jimmy's like, you know, And I took that idea, and

1041
00:54:36,760 --> 00:54:39,200
Speaker 3: I was thinking to my because after a few weeks

1042
00:54:39,200 --> 00:54:41,399
Speaker 3: the mother came over to me and she said, I'd

1043
00:54:41,440 --> 00:54:44,839
Speaker 3: much rather like i'd gone her. And She's like, I'd

1044
00:54:44,880 --> 00:54:48,440
Speaker 3: much rather yours than mine. Actually like that problem. And

1045
00:54:48,480 --> 00:54:50,239
Speaker 3: I walked away and I thought about her, thought, what

1046
00:54:50,320 --> 00:54:55,839
Speaker 3: if you have this child who is cold and callous?

1047
00:54:56,160 --> 00:55:01,200
Speaker 3: And it got me thinking about the mothers of school shooters. Yeah,

1048
00:55:01,239 --> 00:55:04,160
Speaker 3: because they always pointed the mother and they always say

1049
00:55:04,160 --> 00:55:07,359
Speaker 3: why didn't you know? And everybody's fascinated by you know,

1050
00:55:07,400 --> 00:55:10,200
Speaker 3: Ted Bundy's mother and this person's mother. They always look

1051
00:55:10,200 --> 00:55:13,600
Speaker 3: at the mother. And so that's what's inspired my novel

1052
00:55:13,640 --> 00:55:15,359
Speaker 3: that I'm about to finish and running it right now.

1053
00:55:15,360 --> 00:55:19,799
Speaker 3: I'm always one book ahead whatever's coming out. And yeah,

1054
00:55:19,800 --> 00:55:21,920
Speaker 3: so I didn't have to travel halfway across the world

1055
00:55:21,920 --> 00:55:24,799
Speaker 3: to get that idea. The ideas are just everywhere.

1056
00:55:25,280 --> 00:55:28,040
Speaker 1: Yeah, we'll take a break now. When we come back,

1057
00:55:28,280 --> 00:55:31,879
Speaker 1: we want to talk about the crossover into some true

1058
00:55:31,920 --> 00:55:35,719
Speaker 1: crime that filtered into the book, and your thoughts on

1059
00:55:35,800 --> 00:55:38,120
Speaker 1: that and the impact that you see with murtherer when

1060
00:55:38,320 --> 00:55:41,960
Speaker 1: you're talking the true crime, and quite a few other things.

1061
00:55:42,080 --> 00:55:43,160
Speaker 3: All right, I look forward to it.

1062
00:55:43,320 --> 00:55:44,120
Speaker 2: Okay, cheers.