WEBVTT - Face to face with John Wayne Gacy: Dr. Jeff Smalldon Pt.1 0:00:01.880 --> 0:00:04.880 The public has had a long held fascination with detectives. 0:00:05.360 --> 0:00:07.800 Detective see a side of life. The average person is 0:00:07.880 --> 0:00:11.119 never exposed her I spent thirty four years as a cop. 0:00:11.560 --> 0:00:14.040 For twenty five of those years I was catching killers. 0:00:14.440 --> 0:00:16.200 That's what I did for a living. I was a 0:00:16.200 --> 0:00:20.560 homicide detective. I'm no longer just interviewing bad guys. Instead, 0:00:20.600 --> 0:00:23.120 I'm taking the public into the world in which I operated. 0:00:23.840 --> 0:00:26.400 The guests I talk to each week have amazing stories 0:00:26.440 --> 0:00:28.760 from all sides of the law. The interviews are raw 0:00:28.800 --> 0:00:31.440 and honest, just like the people I talk to. Some 0:00:31.600 --> 0:00:34.640 of the content and language might be confronting. That's because 0:00:34.640 --> 0:00:37.640 no one who comes into contact with crime is left unchanged. 0:00:38.159 --> 0:00:40.400 Join me now as I take you into this world. 0:00:46.600 --> 0:00:48.800 Imagine you open your leather box to a letter from 0:00:48.840 --> 0:00:52.680 Ted Bundy or a handmade Christmas card from John Wayne Gacy. 0:00:53.479 --> 0:00:58.560 My guest today, forensic psychologist doctor Jeffrey Smalden, doesn't have 0:00:58.640 --> 0:01:02.920 to imagine. He's communicated with some of America's most notorious 0:01:03.000 --> 0:01:07.080 killers trying to understand them. I found the conversation fascinating, 0:01:07.360 --> 0:01:10.600 and it gave a surprising insight into the mind of evil. 0:01:10.920 --> 0:01:15.759 Take a listen, doctor Jeffrey Smallman. Welcome to I Catch Killers. 0:01:16.319 --> 0:01:18.000 Thank you very much. Good to be here. Gary. 0:01:18.480 --> 0:01:22.120 Well, I'm excited about sitting down and speaking with you. 0:01:22.160 --> 0:01:26.400 Although I've spent the past weekend reading through your book. 0:01:26.480 --> 0:01:30.319 The Beast was not me and it's pretty heavy reading. 0:01:31.280 --> 0:01:34.160 I suppose it is. I mean, it's you know, I 0:01:34.160 --> 0:01:37.959 think of that. It's mainly a memoir true crime second, 0:01:38.440 --> 0:01:41.800 but it's got some pretty dark stuff in it for sure. 0:01:42.240 --> 0:01:44.280 Well, I think the way that you told the story 0:01:44.319 --> 0:01:48.440 through your perspective, and there was I might say, almost 0:01:48.440 --> 0:01:50.840 an innocence to you at the start when you were 0:01:50.840 --> 0:01:54.960 a meeting with some of these notorious, notorious killers. 0:01:54.920 --> 0:01:58.200 Probably giving me a little more credit than I deserved. Actually, 0:01:58.520 --> 0:02:01.440 I was very young and pretty stupid in most ways 0:02:02.160 --> 0:02:04.800 in some of the early things reported in my book. 0:02:05.200 --> 0:02:09.280 Yeah, with it, Like, I was a homicide detective for 0:02:10.360 --> 0:02:12.600 over twenty years, and I know what it's like sitting 0:02:12.720 --> 0:02:16.639 and communicating with people that are evil or have committed 0:02:16.720 --> 0:02:21.520 crimes that shocked most people. How did you isolate yourself 0:02:21.520 --> 0:02:22.839 from the type of people. 0:02:22.560 --> 0:02:24.080 You were you were dealing with. 0:02:24.560 --> 0:02:26.919 How did you, from a personal point of view, step 0:02:27.000 --> 0:02:29.079 back from it and not walk away thinking the whole 0:02:29.120 --> 0:02:29.760 world's evil. 0:02:30.160 --> 0:02:33.800 Yeah, you probably learned early on in your career to 0:02:33.880 --> 0:02:36.920 do the same thing, and I did too, Otherwise I 0:02:36.919 --> 0:02:39.960 couldn't have done my job, and that's to compartmentalize pretty well. 0:02:40.000 --> 0:02:44.040 I mean, you have to be. I'm a good compartmentalizer. Weirdly, 0:02:44.240 --> 0:02:46.799 I've been asked that question before, and I didn't really 0:02:46.919 --> 0:02:49.760 bring a lot of it home with me. During most 0:02:49.760 --> 0:02:52.200 of my career, I had a wife to young kids, 0:02:53.080 --> 0:02:57.840 and for whatever reason, this maybe says something pathological about me, 0:02:58.080 --> 0:03:00.639 I don't know, but never I never had any mirrors 0:03:01.040 --> 0:03:04.200 about you know, the crime scene photos, and I wasn't 0:03:04.200 --> 0:03:07.919 the one doing like crime scene analysis like you probably, 0:03:08.280 --> 0:03:11.079 but I saw the photographs of some of the most 0:03:11.160 --> 0:03:15.640 gruesome crime scenes imaginable. I think it became good at compartmentalizing. 0:03:16.400 --> 0:03:19.320 I have a theory on it that I'm talking to 0:03:19.360 --> 0:03:22.800 a psychologist and talking about theories of the mind. A 0:03:22.880 --> 0:03:26.440 theory on it that when I went to a homicide scene, 0:03:26.800 --> 0:03:29.640 I was focusing on doing the work. And I'm sure 0:03:29.680 --> 0:03:32.000 that was your focus when you're sitting down speaking to 0:03:32.040 --> 0:03:36.360 these killers, consulting with them, that you're focused on your job. 0:03:36.360 --> 0:03:39.400 And I think that provides a degree of protection from 0:03:39.720 --> 0:03:43.600 the horrors that you see or hear about the people 0:03:43.640 --> 0:03:44.119 that you meet. 0:03:45.000 --> 0:03:47.760 I think that's right. You focus on what you're doing. 0:03:47.840 --> 0:03:53.320 This is my job, and you know, you just you 0:03:53.400 --> 0:03:56.640 couldn't take that home with you, certainly not at the 0:03:56.720 --> 0:04:01.120 level of intensity you experience while you're actually going through 0:04:01.160 --> 0:04:06.560 the encounter, either with the suspect or with the crime 0:04:06.600 --> 0:04:09.440 scene itself. You just, you know, if you were walking 0:04:09.480 --> 0:04:11.720 around with that in your head all the time, you'd 0:04:11.760 --> 0:04:14.360 have a hard time functioning. But you did bring up 0:04:14.400 --> 0:04:18.640 one interesting point, I think, at least implicitly, and that's, 0:04:20.000 --> 0:04:22.200 you know, you deal with these people. It would be 0:04:22.320 --> 0:04:25.320 nice if they all look like Charles Manson, because we 0:04:25.360 --> 0:04:29.560 would all go to immediately turn and run. But most 0:04:29.560 --> 0:04:33.200 of them don't. Most of them are very well camouflaged. 0:04:33.240 --> 0:04:38.360 They've got a carefully curated social persona. And I did 0:04:38.520 --> 0:04:43.799 think frequently over the years about the relatively superficial cues 0:04:44.320 --> 0:04:47.880 that all of us use every day. And you know, 0:04:47.960 --> 0:04:51.200 it seems like a nice guy, nothing the least bit threatening, 0:04:51.839 --> 0:04:55.760 easy to talk to, and a lot of people rely 0:04:55.880 --> 0:04:59.479 on those cues to put themselves in positions where they 0:04:59.480 --> 0:05:03.400 would be potentially very vulnerable to a predator, for example, 0:05:03.480 --> 0:05:04.719 a Gazy or a Bundy. 0:05:05.400 --> 0:05:09.000 Yeah, that's what you're saying. There the normality of people 0:05:09.040 --> 0:05:12.760 that have committed horrendous crimes, and it is hard not 0:05:12.880 --> 0:05:15.200 to drop your guard down because I think it's human nature. 0:05:15.200 --> 0:05:17.039 And I would often say to people, you locked me 0:05:17.040 --> 0:05:20.000 in a room with someone long enough, and there I 0:05:20.000 --> 0:05:21.360 will develop a rapport. 0:05:21.440 --> 0:05:22.600 I think it's human nature. 0:05:22.960 --> 0:05:25.320 And some of those people are very bad people, but 0:05:25.640 --> 0:05:30.520 you start to communicate, your socialize, and it's just human nature. 0:05:30.520 --> 0:05:32.719 I think that you make that connection. 0:05:33.560 --> 0:05:36.680 And that's certainly how I thought about my interviews with 0:05:37.839 --> 0:05:41.120 even some of the most horrible people on the planet. 0:05:41.640 --> 0:05:44.920 One of the things, and not every forensic psychologist would 0:05:44.960 --> 0:05:49.239 agree with me on this approach, but I always tried 0:05:49.240 --> 0:05:52.919 to establish a very horizontal relationship with whoever I was 0:05:53.000 --> 0:05:55.880 talking with. Never never wanted to come across as the 0:05:56.040 --> 0:05:59.039 expert looking down on someone, always trying to make it 0:05:59.120 --> 0:06:03.919 conversation well. I always introduced myself as Jeff, not doctor Smolden, 0:06:04.400 --> 0:06:07.000 gave them my business card. They could see who I was. 0:06:07.800 --> 0:06:10.840 Their attorneys told them they knew I was a psychologist. 0:06:11.600 --> 0:06:13.919 I didn't need to tell them that what I was 0:06:13.960 --> 0:06:17.159 interested in mainly is making a connection with them. 0:06:17.760 --> 0:06:21.640 Right in your book you talked about and we're going 0:06:21.680 --> 0:06:25.240 to speak about specific killers and people that you met 0:06:25.279 --> 0:06:27.080 through the course of your career, but just talking in 0:06:27.120 --> 0:06:30.200 a general sense. I picked up there and I found 0:06:30.240 --> 0:06:32.640 it interesting. That made me reflect a little bit that 0:06:33.480 --> 0:06:37.279 a lot of the people you spoke to didn't understand irony. 0:06:37.680 --> 0:06:40.880 And you've got people that have committed or are in 0:06:40.960 --> 0:06:44.479 jail or on death row horrendous things and they're talking 0:06:44.480 --> 0:06:47.080 about someone else. Oh, I don't agree with that type 0:06:47.120 --> 0:06:51.440 of behavior. And you raised it very well and quite 0:06:51.520 --> 0:06:55.040 humorously in your book about you know, there's a little 0:06:55.040 --> 0:06:56.919 bit of irony there given the fact that you're in 0:06:56.960 --> 0:07:00.200 here for murdering a dozen people. Is that a right 0:07:00.279 --> 0:07:04.160 that they've got because I link like irony. Maybe they 0:07:04.160 --> 0:07:07.080 haven't got empathy. They don't understand. But I thought it 0:07:07.120 --> 0:07:10.320 was quite a revelation to me reading that I hadn't 0:07:10.360 --> 0:07:13.920 thought about the fact that they don't see the irony 0:07:13.960 --> 0:07:15.120 in situations. 0:07:15.440 --> 0:07:18.040 It's something I often had occasion to think about throughout 0:07:18.040 --> 0:07:20.240 my career, but I don't know what it is. It 0:07:20.400 --> 0:07:26.280 just didn't seem to grasp irony. One particularly dramatic example 0:07:26.280 --> 0:07:28.600 of that was, you know, Gasey talked with me for 0:07:28.840 --> 0:07:33.280 hours on end about how he couldn't possibly have killed 0:07:33.320 --> 0:07:36.040 all of these boys and young men who he was 0:07:36.440 --> 0:07:39.600 convicted of killing, twenty six of whom were found in 0:07:39.640 --> 0:07:43.520 the crawl space under his suburban home. He could go 0:07:43.560 --> 0:07:47.280 on for hours and hours about all kinds of different 0:07:47.280 --> 0:07:50.160 people had keys to that house. The cops assumed it 0:07:50.200 --> 0:07:53.040 was like a normal residence, but it wasn't. There were 0:07:53.080 --> 0:07:55.680 people been, people coming out, and he could go on 0:07:55.840 --> 0:07:59.040 forever like that. But he insisted that the cops really 0:07:59.040 --> 0:08:03.320 had the wrong guy. But he saw no irony in 0:08:03.480 --> 0:08:07.760 posturing as an expert about serial murder. He would address 0:08:07.840 --> 0:08:11.320 these national FBI conferences. They would invite him to be 0:08:11.360 --> 0:08:14.920 a guest through some sort of technology, and he would 0:08:14.960 --> 0:08:18.760 do it. And I would say, John, what makes you 0:08:18.800 --> 0:08:22.480 think you have anything special to contribute to law enforcement 0:08:22.560 --> 0:08:25.200 studying the mind of the serial killer when you insist 0:08:25.200 --> 0:08:28.360 that you're not one? And he would just pause for 0:08:28.600 --> 0:08:32.040 he would just pause from and say, well, I don't know. 0:08:32.120 --> 0:08:35.479 I just assume that I've got something to say that 0:08:35.520 --> 0:08:36.520 there's worth there. 0:08:36.600 --> 0:08:39.320 Listening to a bit of a floor in these argument 0:08:39.600 --> 0:08:46.160 or rationale. Let's talk about John Wayne Gacy, because I 0:08:46.200 --> 0:08:49.360 don't know, there's something very chilling about that man, and 0:08:49.640 --> 0:08:52.360 I've read the aspects and your dealings with him in 0:08:52.640 --> 0:08:55.920 the book, but also know the I think it was 0:08:55.960 --> 0:09:00.320 thirty three victims that he had. Could you expe' flying 0:09:00.320 --> 0:09:02.960 to our listeners, and I think most people went that 0:09:03.000 --> 0:09:06.080 you start talking about remember who he is, because it 0:09:06.160 --> 0:09:10.080 was someone that was just I don't know the nature 0:09:10.120 --> 0:09:12.959 of the crimes. It was pure leval tell us about 0:09:12.960 --> 0:09:16.080 the crimes, and then how you became connected to him 0:09:16.080 --> 0:09:18.160 and how you started communicating with him. 0:09:19.040 --> 0:09:23.360 Yeah, I don't know if Gasey's infamy same in Australia 0:09:23.880 --> 0:09:26.959 as it is in the United States. And even if 0:09:26.960 --> 0:09:30.040 it was, Yeah, I talk with a lot of college 0:09:30.080 --> 0:09:33.320 age students and Gasey is at most kind of a 0:09:33.320 --> 0:09:35.880 footnote in their minds, where for people of my generation, 0:09:36.640 --> 0:09:39.240 you know, he was one of the truly monstrous he 0:09:39.440 --> 0:09:45.800 and Bundy and Manson. But basically in the nineteen seventies, 0:09:45.960 --> 0:09:50.040 Gasey had his own business in a suburb outside Chicago, 0:09:50.559 --> 0:09:56.160 not far from O'Hara Airport, and it was called PDM Painting. 0:09:56.280 --> 0:10:02.080 Decorating and modeling, I think, or maintenance maybe. But he 0:10:02.120 --> 0:10:04.200 had a company and he hired a lot of young 0:10:04.280 --> 0:10:07.520 boys to work with them, and some of them disappeared 0:10:07.600 --> 0:10:14.120 under mysterious circumstances, and in the end he was convicted 0:10:14.160 --> 0:10:17.720 of thirty three murders. There were twenty six bodies found 0:10:17.760 --> 0:10:21.080 buried in the crawl space underneath his house. There were 0:10:21.800 --> 0:10:26.760 three others buried at other locations on his property, and 0:10:26.800 --> 0:10:29.559 then when he ran out of space, he started disposing 0:10:29.600 --> 0:10:33.160 of them in the nearby Desk Plains river. So he 0:10:33.240 --> 0:10:36.760 threw four in the river, for a total of thirty three. 0:10:36.880 --> 0:10:39.840 And he was arrested in December of nineteen seventy eight. 0:10:40.240 --> 0:10:43.680 These killings had begun in nineteen seventy two, and he, 0:10:44.280 --> 0:10:48.079 like a lot of these predatory killers. He chose people 0:10:48.200 --> 0:10:52.880 who might not immediately be missed. Maybe they had problems, 0:10:52.920 --> 0:10:57.400 they were addicted to drugs, they had legal issues, and 0:10:57.960 --> 0:11:01.400 some of their families in quiet you know what happened 0:11:01.400 --> 0:11:04.760 to so and so He was working for you, And 0:11:04.840 --> 0:11:08.360 Gasey would say, well, you know how hard I was 0:11:08.520 --> 0:11:11.440 working to get him off drugs and put him on 0:11:11.480 --> 0:11:15.839 the straight and narrow. And he disappeared one day. I 0:11:15.920 --> 0:11:19.000 don't know where he went. So there were any number 0:11:19.040 --> 0:11:23.120 of cases like that where people inquired, but they were 0:11:23.200 --> 0:11:28.240 relatively quick to believe Gasey's bullshit about what really happened, 0:11:29.320 --> 0:11:33.640 and in the end what happened and got him arrested. 0:11:34.600 --> 0:11:37.240 It's really a creepy story. And I've been to this 0:11:37.400 --> 0:11:42.480 location and it was a drug store like a chemist 0:11:42.960 --> 0:11:47.160 back in nineteen seventy eight. Now it's a childcare center, 0:11:47.600 --> 0:11:52.040 but it's where it's where Gasey speak about irony. Casey 0:11:52.080 --> 0:11:55.239 wouldn't get that one at all, but where he abducted 0:11:55.280 --> 0:11:59.440 his final victim. That is drug store talking the owner 0:11:59.480 --> 0:12:02.800 about doing some remodeling inside, and he saw a young 0:12:02.880 --> 0:12:05.440 man and said, hey, I can pay you more money 0:12:05.440 --> 0:12:08.040 than they're paying you here. I want to talk with 0:12:08.080 --> 0:12:12.920 me about a summer job. And the kid's mother was 0:12:13.040 --> 0:12:15.800 in the parking lot, and this is a small parking lot. 0:12:16.080 --> 0:12:19.040 She was there waiting for him to take take I 0:12:19.080 --> 0:12:22.040 think it was her birthday. And he went over to 0:12:22.040 --> 0:12:23.440 her and said, I'm just going to talk with this 0:12:23.480 --> 0:12:25.600 guy for a few minutes. I'll be right there. And 0:12:25.640 --> 0:12:30.200 he was never seen again. And Gasey insisted he had 0:12:30.240 --> 0:12:32.960 never seen this guy and knew nothing about it, and 0:12:33.000 --> 0:12:36.040 it was some very good police work that Gasey would 0:12:36.040 --> 0:12:38.480 never admit that it was good police work, but it was. 0:12:39.559 --> 0:12:44.679 They tracked down a receipt from a photo order at 0:12:44.760 --> 0:12:47.600 the at the drug store that a coworker of his 0:12:47.679 --> 0:12:51.800 had put in a jacket that she had lent to him, 0:12:51.880 --> 0:12:56.200 so that that receipt ended up in Gasey's kitchen trash bag, 0:12:56.880 --> 0:12:59.920 and the police found it there and did further invest 0:13:00.520 --> 0:13:02.960 and you know, the gig was up for Geisey in 0:13:03.000 --> 0:13:04.120 December of seventy eight. 0:13:04.360 --> 0:13:08.520 So thirty thirty three victims all up over what sort 0:13:08.520 --> 0:13:11.840 of period of time, whether these murders being committed. 0:13:12.040 --> 0:13:15.800 Seventy two, nineteen seventy two to nineteen seventy eight. 0:13:15.880 --> 0:13:19.880 Yeah, it's frightening the way that he got away with 0:13:19.920 --> 0:13:22.040 it for so long. But I think that he had 0:13:22.080 --> 0:13:26.199 that confidence to present as a decent person. He might 0:13:26.240 --> 0:13:29.880 have his flaws in his personality, but people mustn't have 0:13:29.920 --> 0:13:34.440 suspected him to have that. Many people disappear around you 0:13:34.559 --> 0:13:38.520 and suspicion, but he had enough bluff to get through 0:13:38.559 --> 0:13:39.760 it for all those years. 0:13:40.160 --> 0:13:43.720 Yeah, very disarming. I remember after that I spent with 0:13:43.800 --> 0:13:48.040 him on death row in Illinois back in nineteen eighty six. 0:13:49.600 --> 0:13:53.800 I called my wife from this fleabag hotel that Gasey 0:13:53.880 --> 0:13:58.280 had recommended for me, and she said, My wife said, so, 0:13:58.360 --> 0:14:02.320 what were your impressions of Geese? And I said, well, yeah, 0:14:02.320 --> 0:14:04.280 he's the sort of guy. If I walked into a 0:14:04.320 --> 0:14:07.040 bar for a beer and he was sitting there and 0:14:07.080 --> 0:14:10.240 I sat next to him, within minutes we would be talking. 0:14:10.480 --> 0:14:15.880 He would seem totally unthreatening. He would talk about politics, sports, 0:14:16.920 --> 0:14:20.000 and what I would eventually notice before too long, actually 0:14:20.120 --> 0:14:23.000 was that he had literally no interest in my point 0:14:23.040 --> 0:14:25.920 of view at all. It always came back to him. 0:14:25.960 --> 0:14:30.080 He would pause and make a perfunctory where did you 0:14:30.680 --> 0:14:33.840 say you're from? Or what do you do? And then 0:14:34.040 --> 0:14:36.680 immediately it would go back to him. So that would 0:14:36.720 --> 0:14:39.320 have stuck out. But he would come across as a 0:14:39.520 --> 0:14:43.680 very normal guy. And he's a world class bullshitter. I mean, 0:14:43.720 --> 0:14:47.840 he could just talk and talk and talk. And what 0:14:48.000 --> 0:14:51.240 happened with these young men, quite a few of them 0:14:51.320 --> 0:14:55.400 he picked up trolling the streets of downtown Chicago. Some 0:14:55.520 --> 0:14:59.920 of them were addicted to drugs and into prostitution. Gave 0:15:00.040 --> 0:15:03.320 See would pick them up, drug them, typically put chloroform 0:15:03.400 --> 0:15:06.160 over their face in a mask or some some sort 0:15:06.160 --> 0:15:09.440 of towel, and they would come too at his house 0:15:10.400 --> 0:15:13.640 and Gasey would say, you know, let me let me 0:15:13.720 --> 0:15:17.520 get you a beer or you know, settle in and 0:15:17.800 --> 0:15:20.920 after a while, maybe you watch some porn movies. And 0:15:21.680 --> 0:15:26.080 then he would say something, you know what, I spend 0:15:26.080 --> 0:15:28.280 a lot of time as a clown. I got a 0:15:28.320 --> 0:15:33.120 registered clown outfit, and I go to nursing homes sometimes 0:15:33.160 --> 0:15:37.000 and I play the clown at children's parties. I've got 0:15:37.000 --> 0:15:39.200 a couple of tricks. You want to see them. And 0:15:39.240 --> 0:15:40.800 he said, let me show you the let me show 0:15:40.800 --> 0:15:44.640 you the handcuff trick. And Gasey would put the handcuffs 0:15:44.640 --> 0:15:49.560 on himself and get out of them and say try it, 0:15:49.720 --> 0:15:52.080 try it. You can do it too, but you got 0:15:52.120 --> 0:15:55.280 to be clever. And the kid would let him put 0:15:55.320 --> 0:15:57.680 the handcuffs on and he said, I can't get out, 0:15:57.920 --> 0:15:59.600 and Gacy would say, you know what the trick is, 0:15:59.840 --> 0:16:02.840 and then he'd hold up the key, and by that time, 0:16:02.960 --> 0:16:05.360 you know, the guy was disabled by this guy who 0:16:05.400 --> 0:16:07.320 had seemed not the least bit threatening. 0:16:07.720 --> 0:16:10.840 That's how he would lieu of the mean was he 0:16:11.320 --> 0:16:15.240 openly homosexual or was he living because I think he 0:16:15.280 --> 0:16:17.600 was married, wasn't he? Was he married at one site? 0:16:17.880 --> 0:16:22.440 Yes, yeah, I had a couple children, and his second 0:16:22.520 --> 0:16:26.080 wife was actually living with him in the house that 0:16:26.840 --> 0:16:30.640 he had done some time in Iowa, a more western state, 0:16:31.160 --> 0:16:35.280 on a couple of sodomy charges involving a teenage boy. 0:16:36.000 --> 0:16:39.320 Served a short time in prison, and then they agreed 0:16:39.320 --> 0:16:42.600 to parole him to his mother's house in Chicago, where 0:16:42.600 --> 0:16:47.800 he was from. So he went to Chicago and for 0:16:47.880 --> 0:16:53.080 a while lived with his second wife, and she had 0:16:53.120 --> 0:16:59.320 two children, I believe, who weren't Gasey's biodical children. I 0:16:59.520 --> 0:17:02.480 lived with them and the murders. There may have been 0:17:02.480 --> 0:17:05.399 a murder that occurred while she was still there, but 0:17:06.480 --> 0:17:09.520 she divorced him, got out of the picture, and that's 0:17:09.600 --> 0:17:13.920 when the murder, you know, the rate of murders really accelerated. 0:17:13.359 --> 0:17:16.280 Once once she was off His saying how was he 0:17:16.320 --> 0:17:17.560 actually killing the victims? 0:17:17.560 --> 0:17:18.040 What was he? 0:17:18.240 --> 0:17:20.879 Did he have an mo in the why did he 0:17:20.920 --> 0:17:22.920 would kill the victims or what happened to them once 0:17:23.000 --> 0:17:24.760 I were restrained by. 0:17:25.440 --> 0:17:29.000 He was a sadist. He tortured one of them lived 0:17:29.040 --> 0:17:31.840 and wrote a book called twenty nine below about his 0:17:31.960 --> 0:17:38.520 experience surviving Gacy. And interestingly, he's the one surviving victim 0:17:38.560 --> 0:17:43.480 I believe who says, you know, he was half knocked 0:17:43.520 --> 0:17:46.920 out by chloroform or whatever Gaysey had used to knock 0:17:47.000 --> 0:17:49.520 him out, but he said he saw a second man 0:17:49.640 --> 0:17:52.720 in the room. That's all. The mystery of the Gaycy 0:17:52.840 --> 0:17:56.480 case was that second man. Was he hallucinating it or 0:17:56.840 --> 0:17:59.800 was there really a second man. Gaysey had some bad 0:17:59.800 --> 0:18:04.400 actors working with him, and I think the police suspected 0:18:04.440 --> 0:18:07.240 that one of them was involved. But anyway, this person 0:18:07.280 --> 0:18:12.360 who survived Gaysey's torture, he described just a horrible ordeal 0:18:12.520 --> 0:18:15.639 of being I think electrically shocked. He was put in 0:18:15.680 --> 0:18:19.800 the bathtub for a while, so they were electrical shocks, 0:18:20.080 --> 0:18:24.119 as I said, chloroform. And he loved tightening a noose 0:18:24.160 --> 0:18:27.440 around someone's neck and then loosening it and tightening again 0:18:27.520 --> 0:18:32.160 and loosening it. He enjoyed that, the fear and the 0:18:32.200 --> 0:18:39.240 power that that gave him. So yeah, sadist and psychopathic killer. 0:18:40.640 --> 0:18:42.520 Let's wind it back a bit and we'll get back 0:18:42.640 --> 0:18:47.440 into Gasey shortly. But tell us about your journey to 0:18:47.480 --> 0:18:51.879 becoming a forensic psychologist because at a little bit different. 0:18:51.920 --> 0:18:54.560 You didn't start out from day one monting to be 0:18:54.600 --> 0:18:56.880 a forensic psychologist. Tell us a little bit about your 0:18:56.920 --> 0:18:59.840 background and how you found your way into the work that. 0:18:59.800 --> 0:19:03.199 You Yeah, I mean, I didn't take any sort of 0:19:03.280 --> 0:19:06.600 direct passage. You know, some kids say as a teenager, 0:19:06.920 --> 0:19:09.720 I knew I wanted to become a psychologist. The opposite 0:19:09.840 --> 0:19:13.439 was true for me. I was a teenager with no 0:19:13.560 --> 0:19:16.119 interest in forensic psychology. I couldn't have told you what 0:19:16.160 --> 0:19:17.719 it was. I thought I was going to be an 0:19:17.720 --> 0:19:21.480 English professor, and I went to graduate school. I did 0:19:21.520 --> 0:19:25.000 a master's degree in English. Then I went and taught 0:19:25.040 --> 0:19:27.679 for a year at my undergraduate school, and then I 0:19:27.720 --> 0:19:31.280 got a grant to study modern Irish literature at Trinity 0:19:31.280 --> 0:19:33.960 College in Dublin. So I went there for a year 0:19:34.440 --> 0:19:38.160 and I was an absolutely wonderful year. When I say that, 0:19:38.160 --> 0:19:40.960 that was the year when I decided not to go 0:19:41.080 --> 0:19:44.760 on for my PhD and become an English professor. People said, what, 0:19:45.000 --> 0:19:47.800 you spend a year at Trinity College, and what was 0:19:47.880 --> 0:19:51.159 bad about it? What convinced you not to continue in 0:19:51.200 --> 0:19:54.160 that direction? And there was nothing bad about my Trinity 0:19:54.200 --> 0:19:59.600 College experience. He was wonderful. I still love literature, but yeah, 0:19:59.600 --> 0:20:01.879 I began to I think at that time in the seventies, 0:20:02.040 --> 0:20:05.359 the prevailing mantra in English departments, at least in the 0:20:05.359 --> 0:20:08.760 States was publish or perish, and you needed to publish 0:20:08.800 --> 0:20:11.760 a tenure and get a promotion. And I just didn't 0:20:11.760 --> 0:20:15.439 want to be on intellectual trial all that time and 0:20:15.520 --> 0:20:18.800 have to prove myself over and over again, so I 0:20:18.880 --> 0:20:23.639 decided not to do that. But then a lot of 0:20:23.680 --> 0:20:28.320 people this experience where you make a decision that seems 0:20:28.440 --> 0:20:32.879 very underdetermined, like there's not much foundation for it, seems 0:20:32.960 --> 0:20:36.840 kind of random, and then it changes the rest of 0:20:36.880 --> 0:20:40.920 your life. And that's what happened with me. And I'll 0:20:40.920 --> 0:20:43.960 tell you what happened. And by the way, we need 0:20:44.000 --> 0:20:46.960 to go back in time to get to the Manson stuff, 0:20:47.000 --> 0:20:50.159 because that's back before this. Talking to my mom one day, 0:20:50.200 --> 0:20:51.879 I'm in my late twenties and I said, I have 0:20:52.000 --> 0:20:55.399 no idea what to do with my life. And she said, well, 0:20:55.720 --> 0:20:59.320 have you ever thought of hospital administration? And I said, 0:20:59.320 --> 0:21:01.680 I've never heard of it. Hospital administration? What is it? 0:21:02.280 --> 0:21:04.640 And she was a nurse at the local hospital, so 0:21:04.680 --> 0:21:07.679 she said, well, I don't really know what it is either, 0:21:07.920 --> 0:21:10.360 but there are a couple of nice looking young men 0:21:10.800 --> 0:21:12.720 down at the hospital where I work, and I've heard 0:21:12.720 --> 0:21:15.560 them referred to as administrators. They always say hi to 0:21:15.600 --> 0:21:17.680 me when I pass them in the hallway. Why don't 0:21:17.720 --> 0:21:19.679 you go down and talk to one of them? So 0:21:19.760 --> 0:21:21.440 I had nothing better to do, and I did. 0:21:21.440 --> 0:21:21.640 That. 0:21:21.960 --> 0:21:24.199 Seemed like a nice guy. He seemed to like me, 0:21:24.520 --> 0:21:26.119 and he said, I'll tell you what you do, Jeff. 0:21:26.560 --> 0:21:30.360 Go to George Washington University, get your masters that's where 0:21:30.359 --> 0:21:32.880 he had gotten his, and then come back and work 0:21:32.960 --> 0:21:36.480 for me. And it kind of sounded like a job offer. 0:21:37.240 --> 0:21:40.040 And I literally applied to one school. If I had 0:21:40.040 --> 0:21:42.679 gotten rejected there, that would have been the end of 0:21:42.720 --> 0:21:46.399 hospital administration. But I got accepted and I went there, 0:21:46.720 --> 0:21:48.639 and then I ended up doing a residency at a 0:21:48.680 --> 0:21:51.520 hospital here in Columbus, Ohio, where I still live, and 0:21:51.600 --> 0:21:55.399 two of my coworkers were murdered at the hospital. But 0:21:55.560 --> 0:21:58.720 after those murders, I thought, I don't really want to 0:21:58.720 --> 0:22:01.520 be a hospital administrator. I never did, so I went 0:22:01.560 --> 0:22:03.840 back to graduate school with the goal of becoming a 0:22:03.960 --> 0:22:05.680 forensic psychologist. 0:22:06.280 --> 0:22:09.000 Pat your interest tell me about the two co workers 0:22:09.040 --> 0:22:12.760 that were murdered, because well, you've just described it steered 0:22:12.800 --> 0:22:15.200 your career, but it had a sort of profound effect 0:22:15.240 --> 0:22:17.119 on you. And you know a lot of us go 0:22:17.240 --> 0:22:20.199 through life and never knowing anyone that's been murdered, so 0:22:20.720 --> 0:22:23.200 you would have felt the pain and that the shock 0:22:23.280 --> 0:22:27.360 that comes with a homicide. Tell us about that and 0:22:27.480 --> 0:22:29.360 how it played out in the end, because I think 0:22:29.359 --> 0:22:30.760 that's very interesting too. 0:22:31.640 --> 0:22:35.120 It is, and as a homicide investigator, that part would 0:22:35.119 --> 0:22:39.600 be fascinating to you. Yeah, yeah, I mean I was 0:22:39.680 --> 0:22:42.359 at the hospital. I completed my residency year, they asked 0:22:42.400 --> 0:22:45.000 me to stay on. I kept getting promoted, even though 0:22:45.040 --> 0:22:48.800 I had no special skills as a hospital administrator, but 0:22:48.840 --> 0:22:52.320 I kept getting promoted. And among the departments that I 0:22:52.359 --> 0:22:56.600 had responsibility for was this small research lab that a 0:22:56.640 --> 0:23:00.000 total of six employees and it was located just around 0:23:00.119 --> 0:23:03.320 the corner from the main corridor of the hospital, had 0:23:03.359 --> 0:23:07.000 a single door that served as ex veterans, and the 0:23:07.080 --> 0:23:11.440 lab itself was probably the size of an average living room, 0:23:11.720 --> 0:23:18.040 very small. For Christmas that year, as the administrative contact 0:23:18.080 --> 0:23:21.680