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Speaker 1: This story contains adult content and language. Listener discretion is advised.

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Speaker 2: Scarpetta had other thoughts in store. She said, you don't

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Speaker 2: even know what you don't know. If a fictional character

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Speaker 2: could talk, that is what she would say to me.

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Speaker 1: I'm Kate Winkler Dawson, a nonfiction author and journalism professor

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Speaker 1: in Austin, Texas. I'm also the co host of the

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Speaker 1: podcast Buried Bones on Exactly Right, and throughout my career,

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Speaker 1: research for my many audio and book projects has taken

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Speaker 1: me around the world. On Wicked Words, I sit down

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Speaker 1: with the people I've met along the way, amazing writers, journalists, filmmakers,

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Speaker 1: and podcasters who have investigated and reported on notorious true

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Speaker 1: crime cases. This is about the choices writers make, both

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Speaker 1: good and bad, and it's a deep dive into the

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Speaker 1: unpublished details behind their stories. I've interviewed quite a few

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Speaker 1: authors who are inspired by real people or real crimes,

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Speaker 1: and then they write these fantastic novels. Patricia Cornwell's iconic character,

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Speaker 1: doctor k Scarpetta, has a legion of fans because of

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Speaker 1: how clever she is as a medical examiner, how she

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Speaker 1: solves the mystery. Cornwell was working with Virginia's first female me,

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Speaker 1: doctor Marcella Fierro, and she was an invaluable source to

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Speaker 1: a young writer.

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Speaker 2: I got into Scarpetta's world and into post mortem in

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Speaker 2: a way that's probably different than a lot of people

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Speaker 2: who sort of fictionalize a true crime story. Truman Capodi

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Speaker 2: Band the best example of that, where you don't know

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Speaker 2: what you read. In Cold Blood, it's very hard to

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Speaker 2: know what's true and what isn't actually true because it's

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Speaker 2: that kind of fictionalized real case. I wasn't looking to

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Speaker 2: do that with those crimes that were committed in Richmond,

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Speaker 2: what work we'll call the South Side strangling crimes, murders

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Speaker 2: that began in nineteen eighty seven. I'd written three books

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Speaker 2: by then, all three of them rejected. Scarpetta was a

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Speaker 2: minor character. I'd been told that the thing that's best

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Speaker 2: about these books that you're trying to write is this

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Speaker 2: woman medical examiner. And I'm curious what you really see

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Speaker 2: in the morgue, because what you're writing about is more

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Speaker 2: like a cozy a little bit. You know, they're plots,

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Speaker 2: and you know their people, the Garden Club, and somebody's

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Speaker 2: lying and there's somebody cheated the will this kind of thing. Meanwhile,

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Speaker 2: I have a twenty page autopsy stuck in the middle

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Speaker 2: of all that because I'm working at the Morgue and

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Speaker 2: I just didn't know what I was doing. But this person,

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Speaker 2: this editor, said, try with the Scarpettit character. I would

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Speaker 2: write a story about her and show the kind of

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Speaker 2: stuff that you see every day. Meanwhile, about the same time,

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Speaker 2: these serial murders began in Richmond, and it was the

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Speaker 2: most one, most horrendous things that I ever remember going through,

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Speaker 2: even though they didn't personally impact me. There was one

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Speaker 2: person I think I did meet. I'll get to that.

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Speaker 2: But as this was going on and the city was electrified,

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Speaker 2: people were terrified.

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Speaker 1: You know.

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Speaker 2: It was a woman neurosurgeon who was in her residency.

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Speaker 2: She was the second victim. The first one had worked

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Speaker 2: for a magazine. And then you had Susan HELLMSS murdered

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Speaker 2: like about a month or so later in the same

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Speaker 2: kind of neighborhood. And then there's another victim. I mean,

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Speaker 2: and these are people who are in their own homes,

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Speaker 2: minding their own business. But one girl, Diane Cho, her

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Speaker 2: parents were downstairs watching TV when this guy came in

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Speaker 2: through her bedroom. Window and raped and murdered her in

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Speaker 2: her own bedroom and then left and the parents didn't

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Speaker 2: even know it until they got up the next morning

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Speaker 2: and her door was locked.

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Speaker 1: I don't know why I'm surprised by when things like

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Speaker 1: that happened in apartment buildings. I guess because I think

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Speaker 1: you're surrounded by people. It's really risky. It's not an

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Speaker 1: easy way to get in and get out. And so

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Speaker 1: what about this. I think it was four female victims

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Speaker 1: and maybe one male at some point, But four female victims.

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Speaker 1: Is that what you remember from Timothy Spencer?

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Speaker 2: There were no male victims with Timothy Spencer that I'm

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Speaker 2: aware of. He started out in Northern Virginia as a

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Speaker 2: serial rapist, and the reason he got caught he was

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Speaker 2: half He was living in a halfway house in Richmond,

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Speaker 2: and he was sneaking out of his room. He was

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Speaker 2: in there for he'd been I think had gone to

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Speaker 2: prison for burglary or something. But he was a serial

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Speaker 2: rapist and his mo was recognized by a detective up

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Speaker 2: there in Northern Virginia when these crimes started in Richmond.

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Speaker 2: He said, what really got him is I guess it

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Speaker 2: was after the first three Timothy Spencer went home because

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Speaker 2: his mother lived up in Northern Virginia, and I think

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Speaker 2: why he was there he murdered a woman lawyer or something.

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Speaker 2: I don't remember the sequence of all of this, but

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Speaker 2: the crimes were Northern Virginia and then Richmond. Everybody was

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Speaker 2: so frightened. Nobody had a clue who was doing this,

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Speaker 2: and they figured it was somebody that you wouldn't have suspect,

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Speaker 2: like maybe it's the person you're sitting next to at work,

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Speaker 2: or maybe it's in the medical examiner's office. We started

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Speaker 2: getting spooke to like, could it be the guy that

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Speaker 2: comes in and services the microscopes? Is it somebody who

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Speaker 2: seems to be targeting professional women? And maybe in the

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Speaker 2: medical community. I don't know, but there are all these theories.

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Speaker 2: That's when I bought my first handgun. That's when I

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Speaker 2: learned how to shoot.

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Speaker 1: And how close were you? Where were you when you

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Speaker 1: were working for the medical examiner? And tell me what

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Speaker 1: you did again before we took about where this was

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Speaker 1: in your proximity.

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Speaker 2: Well, my job was I was in charge of their

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Speaker 2: computer system and I did all their programming and their

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Speaker 2: statistical retrievals. I learned how to do that. Because I

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Speaker 2: started working there the research. I would say, is there

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Speaker 2: anything I can do to make myself useful? And the

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Speaker 2: first thing they asked me to do was to be

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Speaker 2: the editor of a technical bulletin that they published. So

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Speaker 2: I started doing technical writing while I'm doing research. Then

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Speaker 2: one day the chief medical examiner came to me and

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Speaker 2: he said, if you want to do something really useful

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Speaker 2: for us, He said, go in that room back there

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Speaker 2: and look at what they put on the counter that

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Speaker 2: we're supposed to learn how to use. This was their

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Speaker 2: first computer, you know, with the daisy wheel printer and

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Speaker 2: the continuous paper and the dial up modem kind of thing.

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Speaker 3: I didn't.

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Speaker 2: I've dropped computer science after three days in college, so

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Speaker 2: I'm not the best person to ask to do this,

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Speaker 2: but I do anything just to have my foot in

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Speaker 2: the door. Long story short, I worked with somebody to

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Speaker 2: learn how to do all this, and that became my

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Speaker 2: job because I ended up being there six years. I mean,

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Speaker 2: I thought I was going to be there a few

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Speaker 2: months and write a great novel and that would be it.

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Speaker 2: But Scarpetta had other thoughts. In the stores, she said,

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Speaker 2: you don't even know what you don't know if a

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Speaker 2: fictional character could talk, that is what she would say

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Speaker 2: to me. You don't even know what you don't know,

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Speaker 2: my dare, stay here a few more years and then

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Speaker 2: maybe you'll be ready. So i'd been there, let's see,

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Speaker 2: three years when the crimes, the serial murders began, and

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Speaker 2: three books that had been rejected, and I thought, okay,

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Speaker 2: I'll give it one more shot. I tried what that

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Speaker 2: editor said, and I thought to myself, if scar Pettit

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Speaker 2: were going through this right now, if this were her

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Speaker 2: city and these crimes were happening, what would she do?

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Speaker 3: And that's how it started.

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Speaker 2: It wasn't me deciding to investigate the crimes so that

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Speaker 2: I could write a book based on them. I was

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Speaker 2: already going out to the crimes. I was already out

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Speaker 2: in the cars with the detectives. I would was out

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Speaker 2: with them every weekend because I was also a volunteer

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Speaker 2: police officer. Oh my gosh, well, I wanted to learn

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Speaker 2: what Marcel that. The people at the Morgue wouldn't let

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Speaker 2: me watch Autops season unless I had some legitimacy, so

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Speaker 2: they said, go become a volunteer cop. So I did,

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Speaker 2: and you know, I had fancy little uniform, my little whistle.

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Speaker 3: I was very proud of myself.

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Speaker 1: Wow.

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Speaker 2: And the first time I rode, I put on my

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Speaker 2: uniform and I was all ready to go. And this

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Speaker 2: sergeant of the Detective Division was going to take me

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Speaker 2: out on his shift that night, and so I was

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Speaker 2: so proud of myself. I peered at his office in

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Speaker 2: my uniform and he looked at me and he said, so, Patricia,

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Speaker 2: where do you live in the city And I said, no, sir,

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Speaker 2: I lived just right outside of it in Henryko County.

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Speaker 2: He said, oh good. He said, well, let's go get

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Speaker 2: in my car so I can drive you home, so

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Speaker 2: you can change your clothes. He said, I'm a detective

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Speaker 2: and people don't ride around in uniform and detective cars

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Speaker 2: plus the number one. So I'd been doing all this

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Speaker 2: stuff for several years anyway, And when the South Side

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Speaker 2: strangling cases started, I was two of the main detectives

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Speaker 2: who were working the case. I was riding with them

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Speaker 2: every weekend and we would ride past the houses that

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Speaker 2: are now empty with the lights out, where Susan Hallims

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Speaker 2: had lived or one of the other victims, and we

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Speaker 2: would stop and park on the curb and we would

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Speaker 2: just look out the window and try to imagine who

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Speaker 2: did this, and what do these people have in common?

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Speaker 2: Why did he pick them geographically? What's going on here?

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Speaker 2: And all of this is sort of what you start

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Speaker 2: seeing scarpettit do in post mortem. And so it was

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Speaker 2: really about her put in a situation like that, much

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Speaker 2: more than it was about the real cases, although those

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Speaker 2: real cases touched me in a very deep and personal way.

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Speaker 2: For one thing, I think it was about a year

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Speaker 2: or so before the cases began, when Marcela Fieriro, the

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Speaker 2: deputy chief, when she would go to court or do

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Speaker 2: labs at the medical school and things like that. You know,

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Speaker 2: if it was convenient, I would follow her so I

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Speaker 2: could learn. I'd shadow her anywhere that I could, And

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Speaker 2: so on this one occasion, we went over to the

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Speaker 2: Medical College of Virginia and she was doing a wet

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Speaker 2: lab where she would have organs that are fixed and

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Speaker 2: formal in and you're sectioning them and looking for diseases.

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Speaker 2: And this was a brain cutting, so it was the

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Speaker 2: neuropathology lab. And I'm in there with all these surgeons

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Speaker 2: and the medical examiner, and I feel very out of place.

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Speaker 2: I'm taking notes, I'm this failed author who's written three

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Speaker 2: books nobody wants. And I'm not even a doctor and

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Speaker 2: I couldn't do chemistry, so what the hell am I

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Speaker 2: doing here? And there was this lady, a woman doctor,

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Speaker 2: standing over away from everybody else, and I can still

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Speaker 2: see her. She was in this white lab coat, all

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Speaker 2: buttoned up, long red hair, and she looked at me,

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Speaker 2: and somehow she knew I was uncomfortable, and she gave

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Speaker 2: me the biggest.

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Speaker 3: Warmst smile. That was Susan Hellams.

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Speaker 1: Oh wow, which victim was she? The second one?

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Speaker 2: Yes, that was the neurosurgeon, Susan Helens, and she smiled

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Speaker 2: at me. And then not even a year later, I'm

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Speaker 2: seeing her house and the photographs of the detectives showed

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Speaker 2: me of what they did to her, of what that

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Speaker 2: guy did to her. So it's not about, oh, this

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Speaker 2: is a great story to tell. This is about something

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Speaker 2: that became organic. And some of the details in post

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Speaker 2: Mortem very closely mirror what really happened, but a lot

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Speaker 2: of it's very different. Certainly, the killer's nothing like the

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Speaker 2: killer in real life was.

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Speaker 1: And one of your characters in post Mortem was a physician, right,

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Speaker 1: but not the same kind of physician.

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Speaker 2: Yes, Laurie Peterson was a surgeon that was very much

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Speaker 2: the word I would use is is inspired by not copying,

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Speaker 2: but inspired by people who think you shouldn't do that.

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Speaker 2: But you know what I say, I don't think her

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Speaker 2: name should ever be forgotten. Susan Hallam's name should never

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Speaker 2: be forgotten. And there are other people whose names I

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Speaker 2: still remember, whose autopsies I saw. I did not see hers.

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Speaker 2: But there are people who that I can remember their

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Speaker 2: faces to this day, and I remember their names, and

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Speaker 2: I remember what was done to them, and I still

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Speaker 2: talk about it. And when my memoir comes out in May,

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Speaker 2: you'll read the names of some of these people, because

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Speaker 2: I don't think they should be forgotten. One early case

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Speaker 2: I saw. The woman was my same age. She'd be

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Speaker 2: bound in all these different colored pairs of pantyhose and

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Speaker 2: been kept alive all night by the sky that broke

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Speaker 2: into replace someone she didn't know, and it was murdered

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Speaker 2: in the morning. And I think your life should not

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Speaker 2: have stopped at age twenty seven or whatever. And I

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Speaker 2: will make sure people remember you if I can. And

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Speaker 2: so I kind of look at it that way. Don't

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Speaker 2: sweep this under the rug, and the south Side strangling cases.

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Speaker 2: I know that they were horrible, and some people did

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Speaker 2: get mad at me. When the book came out, it

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Speaker 2: got banned in Richmond by a certain bookstore. I got

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Speaker 2: uninvited from anything i'd been invited to, like women's clubs.

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Speaker 3: You know that kind of thing.

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Speaker 2: Wow, this one local bookstore, this independent bookstore, called me up.

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Speaker 2: I'm sitting at my desk at the Morgue and it's

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Speaker 2: this bookstore on the phone. I'm oh, my god, he's

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Speaker 2: going to ask me to do a signing. I was

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Speaker 2: so excited, and he said, I just wanted to let

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Speaker 2: you know personally that I will not be carrying your book,

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Speaker 2: that I am banning it from my store because I

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Speaker 2: think it's too violent and it's too close to what

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Speaker 2: happened here in Richmond. It created a whole lot of

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Speaker 2: attention for the book that wasn't even there to begin with.

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Speaker 2: And I found out later that that might be the

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Speaker 2: reason that person did it, be honest with you, for

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Speaker 2: the publicity for his own store.

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Speaker 3: Oh, that is kind of how that all began.

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Speaker 2: I've always been very much influenced by what's real. That's

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Speaker 2: just it's part of what I do. If I because

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Speaker 2: if I don't feel something, I have to feel a

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Speaker 2: little bit of.

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Speaker 3: You know, I've got to feel that.

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Speaker 2: That's why I go out and do the research I do,

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Speaker 2: and that's just to remind myself this is not just

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Speaker 2: something where you're weaving a pretty tale. You are trying

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Speaker 2: to also embody the truth about what happens out there

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Speaker 2: and what somebody likes. Scarpett's going to do about.

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Speaker 1: It well, And I think using things as other authors

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Speaker 1: have told me as a jumping off point is for me.

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Speaker 1: I don't know how else you can do it. I'm

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Speaker 1: sure there are people Stephen King who can pull things out,

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Speaker 1: but I really think that that true life is so

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Speaker 1: much stranger than fiction, and it doesn't mean to me,

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Speaker 1: it doesn't mean you're copying. I interviewed Megan Abbott just

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Speaker 1: a couple of months ago, and she had her book

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Speaker 1: El Dorado come out, which has gotten great reviews. She

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Speaker 1: read about the case of a woman who was the

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Speaker 1: head of a pyramid scheme in Connecticut who was murdered

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Speaker 1: and they could not figure out if it was her

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Speaker 1: estranged husband or somebody in this old woman scheme, and

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Speaker 1: Meghan took the story and turned it into a story

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Speaker 1: set in Michigan about three sisters and two of whom

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Speaker 1: are involved in the pyramid scheme and how that hole works.

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Speaker 1: So it wasn't, you know, stealing information from that case.

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Speaker 1: I just don't think it even occurred to her how

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Speaker 1: that would work with a mystery and a thriller. And

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Speaker 1: it's a great book. So I don't know anybody who

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Speaker 1: doesn't pull either real people into it as inspiration or something.

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Speaker 1: I don't know how you can avoid that.

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Speaker 3: All of us are little, itty bitty, two legged.

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Speaker 2: Artificial intelligence computers, and everything that we put together for

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Speaker 2: our stories or our music or our movies comes from

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Speaker 2: something we've experienced in our database, which is exactly what

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Speaker 2: AI does. It pulls out, It pulls from everything that

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Speaker 2: already exists. We're not I dare say that nobody makes

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Speaker 2: up anything from whole cloth.

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Speaker 3: There's no such thing that we are.

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Speaker 2: We may not remember what gave us an idea, but

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Speaker 2: I think ideas come from other places, and we get

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Speaker 2: sparked by something and it inspired tires us to dig deeper,

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Speaker 2: and then next thing you know, we're weaving a tail

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Speaker 2: that might not have happened had this other thing not happened.

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Speaker 3: But at the end, the story has nothing to do

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Speaker 3: with it.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, And when you drilled down to it, to me,

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Speaker 1: the importance of this series that I know you said,

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Speaker 1: began with three failed books and then turned into your

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Speaker 1: career of more than one hundred million copies sold of

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Speaker 1: all of your books, I think is what I read

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Speaker 1: you know as a very very strong female character. Is

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Speaker 1: it strictly based on doctor Fierro or who was the

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Speaker 1: first female medical examiner.

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Speaker 2: I mean, I give her all the credit because she's

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Speaker 2: the first medical examiner I ever met. There were only

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Speaker 2: a handful of women back in the day in the eighties.

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Speaker 2: She was like one of the first five women in

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Speaker 2: the country to be a medical examiner. I mean, Scarpetta

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Speaker 2: would not exist had I not met Marcella. I really

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Speaker 2: don't think so. But and I made her Italian, as

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Speaker 2: in Marcella's Italian. But I actually made Scarpetta Italian because

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Speaker 2: the name was either to me going to be Spanish

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Speaker 2: or Italian. And my former husband used to tell me

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Speaker 2: these crazy stories about a landlady he had in graduate

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Speaker 2: school and her last name was Scarpetta, and I thought

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Speaker 2: it was the coolest name ever. So I said, I'm

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Speaker 2: going to make that the character's name. Now what do

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Speaker 2: I do? Make Italian or Spanish?

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Speaker 1: Why?

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Speaker 2: I like Italian food, so I thought I'll make her Italian.

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Speaker 2: So that's how that happened. And it just so happens

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Speaker 2: that Marcella is about as Italian as they get. But

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Speaker 2: Scarpetta Marcella is. She's a very different person than Scarpetta.

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Speaker 2: And I don't know anybody likes Scarpetta.

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Speaker 3: I really do not. She's a combination of probably a

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Speaker 3: lot of people.

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Speaker 1: Why don't you describe this series for people who haven't

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Speaker 1: read it before? So you start with post Wartem and

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Speaker 1: it's about a medical examiner who solves these cases. And

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Speaker 1: for the record, anybody listening, the ending to post Wartem

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Speaker 1: is drastically different, Patrusa's right, than the ending to the

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Speaker 1: South Side strangler case. And it's very different. So tell

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Speaker 1: me about the series and just how it went, because

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Speaker 1: I will say, Patrishaw, I don't know if this was

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Speaker 1: this was My memory is when I talked to you

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Speaker 1: last time, I asked you, probably post recording, are you

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Speaker 1: still gonna write? And you thought you might be done

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Speaker 1: with novels? And don't you have one coming out at

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Speaker 1: some point another Scarpetta.

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Speaker 2: Whenever, whenever I say I might be done, do not

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Speaker 2: listen to me.

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Speaker 1: That's what's exactly what she said.

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Speaker 2: I have one that just came out last October. I've

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Speaker 2: got another one coming out in six weeks, and my

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Speaker 2: memoirs coming out in May.

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Speaker 3: So that's what happened.

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Speaker 2: That's what happens when I quit writing and then I

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Speaker 2: wake up and I go, what the hell am I

355
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Speaker 2: supposed to do with myself?

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Speaker 3: But Scarpetta, Doctor K.

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Speaker 2: Scarpetta is a woman chief medical examiner who also has

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Speaker 2: her law degree. And the way the series begins with

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Speaker 2: post Mortem, which, by the ways, thirty five years ago

360
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Speaker 2: that came out. She's just moved to Richmond and she's

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Speaker 2: been hired as the first woman chief of Virginia. And

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Speaker 2: it's an all boys band, and she's got her work

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Speaker 2: cut out for her. And on top of that, I'm

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Speaker 2: having a lot of anti agonistic relationships because the men,

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Speaker 2: the male cops in particular, they don't want her showing

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Speaker 2: up at all the crime scenes. Before she appeared in town,

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Speaker 2: the drunk chief who she followed would never show up

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Speaker 2: at anything, so the cops had free run of what

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Speaker 2: they wanted to do. And now there's a new sheriff

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Speaker 2: in town, which is her so lo and behold, these

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Speaker 2: serial murders have started. This is her maiden voyage, you know,

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Speaker 2: of arriving in Richmond. And you add to that she's divorced.

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Speaker 2: She has a ten year old niece who's this genius

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Speaker 2: named Lucy who comes to spend the summer with her.

375
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Speaker 2: And then she gets to know this homicide detective named

376
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Speaker 2: Pete Marino, and then Benton Wesley is the FBI profiler,

377
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Speaker 2: and those characters will become the ensemble that you will

378
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Speaker 2: see from then on really in the books, and it's

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Speaker 2: always something terrible's happened, and she goes storming in to

380
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Speaker 2: gather her evidence and look at the body and do

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Speaker 2: the autopsies and go to the forensic labs, and somehow

382
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Speaker 2: she always finds something that puts a different spin on things,

383
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Speaker 2: and in the process she gets way too involved in

384
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Speaker 2: the case, and of course she has to put herself

385
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Speaker 2: in harms way or it's just not any fun.

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Speaker 3: And that doesn't happen in real life much either.

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Speaker 1: Just so you know, I know, they're usually stuck in

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Speaker 1: the lab, right and you have her out and about

389
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Speaker 1: with all of these other folks from different divisions, and

390
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Speaker 1: she's talking to suspects and the whole thing right.

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Speaker 2: Well, you know, the funny thing is medical examiners, if

392
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Speaker 2: they do more that the boundaries aren't as clear. I mean,

393
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Speaker 2: you've probably seen it some of these shows. You'll see

394
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Speaker 2: a medical examiner on camera talking about what happened during

395
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Speaker 2: a shooting when it's stuff that he really shouldn't be

396
00:19:34,359 --> 00:19:37,520
Speaker 2: testifying too. It's not his area of expertise. But to say, yeah,

397
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Speaker 2: I think the guy was like this and he pointed

398
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Speaker 2: it that way and was leaning. And you're not a

399
00:19:41,320 --> 00:19:45,840
Speaker 2: firearms examiner. But these days people talk about everything I've

400
00:19:45,880 --> 00:19:47,600
Speaker 2: done the same thing. You know, you put me on

401
00:19:47,680 --> 00:19:49,880
Speaker 2: a show and talk about a real case as if

402
00:19:50,200 --> 00:19:52,760
Speaker 2: as if I'm the greatest expert. Well, no, I'm probably not.

403
00:19:53,000 --> 00:19:56,159
Speaker 2: But the boundaries are not as clear. When I was

404
00:19:56,200 --> 00:19:59,359
Speaker 2: starting my series, the boundaries were very clear. A medical

405
00:19:59,359 --> 00:20:01,800
Speaker 2: examiner test to fight in court, and they went to

406
00:20:02,040 --> 00:20:04,000
Speaker 2: some of them went to the crime scene and they

407
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Speaker 2: did the autopsy. Most medical examiners don't even deal with

408
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Speaker 2: forensic labs because the labs aren't in their same building.

409
00:20:11,160 --> 00:20:14,320
Speaker 2: Virginia has a bizarre system and that the forensic labs

410
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Speaker 2: and the medical examiner's offices are all in the same building,

411
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Speaker 2: so I got to see everything from the anatomical division

412
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Speaker 2: where they're getting bodies cremating stuff, to the autopsy suite,

413
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Speaker 2: to all the labs, to all the forensic labs upstairs.

414
00:20:30,560 --> 00:20:32,800
Speaker 2: So I could follow a case from beginning to end.

415
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Speaker 2: And that was what the biggest difference, because the truth is,

416
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Speaker 2: there's only so much you can say about an autopsy.

417
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Speaker 2: It's the forensic science that throws it in all the

418
00:20:42,240 --> 00:20:45,400
Speaker 2: mysteries because even if you find out that this person's

419
00:20:45,520 --> 00:20:48,440
Speaker 2: DNA was left at something, that doesn't mean they did it.

420
00:20:48,840 --> 00:20:50,560
Speaker 2: Now you gotta find out why it was left there.

421
00:20:51,160 --> 00:20:53,399
Speaker 2: Is there another reason that could have been there? And

422
00:20:53,480 --> 00:20:55,520
Speaker 2: so on and on. It goes with all the ways

423
00:20:55,520 --> 00:20:58,439
Speaker 2: that you can put spin on science and turn it

424
00:20:58,480 --> 00:21:01,919
Speaker 2: on its head and inside out, upside down and have

425
00:21:02,000 --> 00:21:03,600
Speaker 2: it tell you the truth and make it lie the

426
00:21:03,640 --> 00:21:06,800
Speaker 2: next minute because it's implying something that's not accurate even

427
00:21:06,840 --> 00:21:10,320
Speaker 2: if the science is correct. So those are the balls

428
00:21:10,320 --> 00:21:12,320
Speaker 2: that I juggle, mostly because I can do more with

429
00:21:12,359 --> 00:21:15,680
Speaker 2: them than just the why incision and what the organs

430
00:21:15,680 --> 00:21:17,639
Speaker 2: look like, and you know, now and then there's some

431
00:21:17,720 --> 00:21:21,360
Speaker 2: really cool surprise. But what I'm fascinated by with crime

432
00:21:21,800 --> 00:21:25,159
Speaker 2: is really truly what people bring into the scene and

433
00:21:25,240 --> 00:21:29,240
Speaker 2: take away those things that you don't think that you've done.

434
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Speaker 2: If you think of the case in Idaho that's just

435
00:21:31,960 --> 00:21:34,159
Speaker 2: been all over the news with the guy, that's an

436
00:21:34,200 --> 00:21:38,080
Speaker 2: example of somebody people think they've planned everything just right,

437
00:21:38,160 --> 00:21:41,080
Speaker 2: and they do one thing, and now you've got real

438
00:21:41,119 --> 00:21:43,440
Speaker 2: trouble on your hands. As long as someone's smart enough

439
00:21:43,440 --> 00:21:46,200
Speaker 2: to find it. You know, that's a low card's principle

440
00:21:46,720 --> 00:21:50,280
Speaker 2: is exactly right. You always leave something behind.

441
00:21:50,400 --> 00:21:53,879
Speaker 1: You always do. And when I wrote my book about

442
00:21:53,880 --> 00:21:58,639
Speaker 1: a forensic investigator, the nonfiction book in the nineteen twenties,

443
00:21:59,000 --> 00:22:02,520
Speaker 1: he's solved a partially by doing some profiling based on

444
00:22:02,640 --> 00:22:06,199
Speaker 1: the way that the kidnapper had written a ransom note.

445
00:22:06,240 --> 00:22:07,720
Speaker 1: And he said, I don't know who this guy is,

446
00:22:07,800 --> 00:22:11,200
Speaker 1: but he was a expert baker because of the way

447
00:22:11,240 --> 00:22:14,840
Speaker 1: that he was writing with loops. And the guy was

448
00:22:14,960 --> 00:22:17,919
Speaker 1: ultimately the kidnapper had been somebody who was a master baker,

449
00:22:17,960 --> 00:22:20,960
Speaker 1: somebody had trained as a baker. And you know, my

450
00:22:21,040 --> 00:22:25,639
Speaker 1: guy said, just because you are a killer or a kidnapper,

451
00:22:25,640 --> 00:22:28,240
Speaker 1: doesn't mean you stop being a baker. You can't stop

452
00:22:28,359 --> 00:22:33,040
Speaker 1: those habits and so fascinating. Now, what tell me these days?

453
00:22:33,359 --> 00:22:36,120
Speaker 1: Would k Scarpett of the way she was in post

454
00:22:36,200 --> 00:22:38,359
Speaker 1: mortem and the premise of her as a character or

455
00:22:38,359 --> 00:22:41,000
Speaker 1: not the crimes or anything. Would that work now? You

456
00:22:41,040 --> 00:22:43,199
Speaker 1: would really have to change some stuff like kind of

457
00:22:43,240 --> 00:22:45,720
Speaker 1: where women are now and maybe in the medical field

458
00:22:45,760 --> 00:22:46,400
Speaker 1: or what do you think?

459
00:22:46,760 --> 00:22:48,240
Speaker 3: No, I think it would work today.

460
00:22:48,359 --> 00:22:52,320
Speaker 2: I think the biggest difference is though I was on

461
00:22:52,400 --> 00:22:55,760
Speaker 2: a wide open frontier where nobody else was walking around,

462
00:22:56,000 --> 00:22:58,040
Speaker 2: And I mean even P. D. James would not write

463
00:22:58,040 --> 00:23:00,920
Speaker 2: about autopsies because she just didn't want to get into it.

464
00:23:01,520 --> 00:23:03,439
Speaker 2: And so you know, she wrote about a lot of

465
00:23:03,440 --> 00:23:07,159
Speaker 2: hospital stuff, but nobody put their hands in it that way,

466
00:23:07,520 --> 00:23:08,639
Speaker 2: and for good reason.

467
00:23:08,960 --> 00:23:11,080
Speaker 3: I don't know how you could if you don't experience it.

468
00:23:11,400 --> 00:23:12,000
Speaker 3: I just don't.

469
00:23:12,560 --> 00:23:15,440
Speaker 2: So I think the difference is that there's so much

470
00:23:16,119 --> 00:23:19,600
Speaker 2: fiction out there now that deals with everything there it

471
00:23:19,640 --> 00:23:22,080
Speaker 2: would not be as original as it was.

472
00:23:22,720 --> 00:23:25,400
Speaker 1: What about Kay just as a person do you think

473
00:23:25,480 --> 00:23:29,800
Speaker 1: resonated with readers? And I'm is it both male or

474
00:23:29,840 --> 00:23:32,320
Speaker 1: in female or do you skew one way or the other?

475
00:23:32,720 --> 00:23:35,320
Speaker 2: I think more women read thrillers than men do anyway,

476
00:23:35,400 --> 00:23:37,840
Speaker 2: So I think that she very much appeals to women,

477
00:23:38,200 --> 00:23:40,240
Speaker 2: but a lot of men like her a lot too,

478
00:23:40,240 --> 00:23:44,440
Speaker 2: because she I mean, she's just logical. She's not Miss Marble,

479
00:23:45,160 --> 00:23:47,480
Speaker 2: you know, some of these men that have to be logical,

480
00:23:47,520 --> 00:23:49,880
Speaker 2: because she'd out smart all of them. I do think

481
00:23:49,920 --> 00:23:52,199
Speaker 2: it would work today, and I think that she's I

482
00:23:52,200 --> 00:23:54,440
Speaker 2: think she was really ahead of her time way back

483
00:23:54,480 --> 00:23:57,439
Speaker 2: when I first wrote about her, because there really there

484
00:23:57,480 --> 00:24:00,800
Speaker 2: were weren't many women medical examiners. Most people didn't know

485
00:24:00,880 --> 00:24:04,080
Speaker 2: much about forensic science, and that was I think one

486
00:24:04,080 --> 00:24:06,359
Speaker 2: of the reasons that the books were very, very strong

487
00:24:06,440 --> 00:24:10,639
Speaker 2: during the nineteen nineties is because that series dominated the

488
00:24:10,640 --> 00:24:13,320
Speaker 2: field and there wasn't any competition for it.

489
00:24:13,720 --> 00:24:15,440
Speaker 3: But that's changed with CSI.

490
00:24:15,640 --> 00:24:20,359
Speaker 2: Things changed dramatically where now it's all over TV. Whether

491
00:24:20,359 --> 00:24:22,640
Speaker 2: it's accurate or not, who cares, But it's all over

492
00:24:22,720 --> 00:24:28,360
Speaker 2: TV and everybody's writing forensic stuff. I mean, that's what happens.

493
00:24:28,720 --> 00:24:31,639
Speaker 2: You know, people follow the trend. And now here's the

494
00:24:31,720 --> 00:24:34,959
Speaker 2: interesting thing. I feel like we're now more in an

495
00:24:35,000 --> 00:24:38,320
Speaker 2: anti science trend. I feel like we've gone back to

496
00:24:38,359 --> 00:24:42,200
Speaker 2: the days of more of the cozy sort of crime story.

497
00:24:42,880 --> 00:24:45,040
Speaker 2: And that's true also of what you see on TV.

498
00:24:45,440 --> 00:24:49,959
Speaker 1: You know, I remember reading Agatha Christie talking about her characters,

499
00:24:50,000 --> 00:24:53,119
Speaker 1: because you brought up Miss Marple, and Agatha Christie's saying

500
00:24:53,400 --> 00:24:57,320
Speaker 1: she loves her protagonists. The main person figuring out the

501
00:24:57,400 --> 00:25:00,919
Speaker 1: crime to be someone who is often dismissed. Oh sure,

502
00:25:01,119 --> 00:25:02,800
Speaker 1: So who's this kind of in the corner, the little

503
00:25:02,800 --> 00:25:06,199
Speaker 1: old lady. Nobody thinks she can do anything, and you know,

504
00:25:06,280 --> 00:25:08,240
Speaker 1: and there she is, just taking all sorts of notes

505
00:25:08,280 --> 00:25:09,600
Speaker 1: in her head and then solving, you know, like a

506
00:25:09,680 --> 00:25:12,800
Speaker 1: Jessica Fletcher. So case Scarpetta is not that kind of

507
00:25:12,880 --> 00:25:15,560
Speaker 1: a character, right, So she's kind of front and center.

508
00:25:15,760 --> 00:25:18,159
Speaker 1: Have you thought about exploring that kind of a character,

509
00:25:18,200 --> 00:25:19,360
Speaker 1: the one who sneaks up on you.

510
00:25:19,880 --> 00:25:22,159
Speaker 2: I don't know that there's any way in the world

511
00:25:22,200 --> 00:25:25,960
Speaker 2: that I could get away from telling a crime story

512
00:25:26,480 --> 00:25:28,639
Speaker 2: and using the kinds of things that I know that

513
00:25:28,720 --> 00:25:31,439
Speaker 2: you would look for. To go back to the days

514
00:25:31,480 --> 00:25:35,040
Speaker 2: of like a Nancy Drew That technically primitive, but you're

515
00:25:35,080 --> 00:25:37,560
Speaker 2: going to use your deductive abilities and you know, just

516
00:25:37,640 --> 00:25:39,760
Speaker 2: watching what the neighbors are doing. That kind of thing

517
00:25:40,280 --> 00:25:42,000
Speaker 2: that would have to be a very different kind of

518
00:25:42,040 --> 00:25:45,160
Speaker 2: story because I would have to be emptying my box

519
00:25:45,200 --> 00:25:47,719
Speaker 2: of all its crayons. It'd be hard for me to

520
00:25:47,760 --> 00:25:50,359
Speaker 2: do that because I would be I would almost feel

521
00:25:50,359 --> 00:25:52,800
Speaker 2: like I'm cheating, because I would have somebody doing something

522
00:25:52,840 --> 00:25:54,439
Speaker 2: and I would know that there would be evidence that

523
00:25:54,480 --> 00:25:56,439
Speaker 2: would tell you whether that was true or not. But

524
00:25:56,520 --> 00:25:59,399
Speaker 2: what I am trying to do because you have to

525
00:25:59,480 --> 00:26:02,000
Speaker 2: learn to a I mean, I've been out there for

526
00:26:02,040 --> 00:26:05,720
Speaker 2: thirty five years, been published with crime fiction for thirty

527
00:26:05,720 --> 00:26:09,440
Speaker 2: five years, and you can't keep doing things the same way,

528
00:26:09,480 --> 00:26:11,159
Speaker 2: and the moral is not the same, and I'm not

529
00:26:11,240 --> 00:26:14,199
Speaker 2: the same. So one of the I do watch what

530
00:26:14,280 --> 00:26:17,320
Speaker 2: other people are doing. And one of the things that

531
00:26:17,480 --> 00:26:20,919
Speaker 2: is very obvious that that people very much need.

532
00:26:20,720 --> 00:26:22,320
Speaker 3: Relationships more than ever.

533
00:26:23,000 --> 00:26:25,679
Speaker 2: I think people feel more isolated and more lonely, and

534
00:26:25,720 --> 00:26:29,000
Speaker 2: so I think that ensemble is more important than ever

535
00:26:29,440 --> 00:26:32,000
Speaker 2: make sure, and I'm trying to focus on that a

536
00:26:32,000 --> 00:26:36,240
Speaker 2: little bit more in my current work, the relationships. And

537
00:26:36,320 --> 00:26:40,520
Speaker 2: interestingly enough, you know, the Scarpetit TV show, which of

538
00:26:40,520 --> 00:26:42,920
Speaker 2: course I've gotten to see already, won't be out till

539
00:26:42,920 --> 00:26:46,600
Speaker 2: next spring. But when I watch the way characters are

540
00:26:46,600 --> 00:26:49,840
Speaker 2: developed in a television show because things are so much

541
00:26:49,920 --> 00:26:52,439
Speaker 2: more interpersonal because that's what everybody wants.

542
00:26:52,960 --> 00:26:54,720
Speaker 3: It gives me some good ideas.

543
00:26:54,320 --> 00:26:57,080
Speaker 2: About that I need to loosen up and be a

544
00:26:57,119 --> 00:26:59,359
Speaker 2: little bit more that way myself and my work because

545
00:26:59,359 --> 00:27:00,679
Speaker 2: that's what people to see.

546
00:27:00,760 --> 00:27:03,639
Speaker 1: And that is Nicole Kidman right in the scarpetal role,

547
00:27:03,720 --> 00:27:06,000
Speaker 1: and then Jamie Lee Curtis also. You have a nice

548
00:27:06,040 --> 00:27:07,199
Speaker 1: cast in that series.

549
00:27:07,280 --> 00:27:10,760
Speaker 3: It's a great cast. Bobby Canavalli is playing Marino.

550
00:27:11,400 --> 00:27:13,680
Speaker 2: It's going to be fun. People shouldn't expect it to

551
00:27:13,720 --> 00:27:17,520
Speaker 2: be exactly like what I've written. It's different. It should

552
00:27:17,520 --> 00:27:20,560
Speaker 2: be something in addition to what I've written. And you

553
00:27:20,640 --> 00:27:22,640
Speaker 2: will see the bones of what I've written, and you'll

554
00:27:22,640 --> 00:27:24,520
Speaker 2: see echoes in the DNA of a lot of it.

555
00:27:24,560 --> 00:27:26,479
Speaker 2: But you'll also see a lot of things that are different.

556
00:27:26,880 --> 00:27:29,760
Speaker 2: And that's sort of fun because there's stories that are

557
00:27:29,800 --> 00:27:32,840
Speaker 2: developed that I would not have developed because that's not

558
00:27:32,960 --> 00:27:34,800
Speaker 2: the point of view I'm telling my story from.

559
00:27:38,520 --> 00:27:42,400
Speaker 1: Let's go back and wrap up the South Side Strangler story.

560
00:27:42,640 --> 00:27:45,880
Speaker 1: So when we go back to these women and how

561
00:27:45,920 --> 00:27:50,359
Speaker 1: it's terrified, you know this area and you're working in

562
00:27:50,400 --> 00:27:53,080
Speaker 1: the morgue, are you getting any kind of insights there

563
00:27:53,240 --> 00:27:57,000
Speaker 1: that the normal person picking up the Washington Post wouldn't

564
00:27:57,000 --> 00:27:59,240
Speaker 1: be getting. Is there a lot of chatter happening.

565
00:28:00,320 --> 00:28:03,040
Speaker 2: The kind of insights that I got about the South

566
00:28:03,080 --> 00:28:05,399
Speaker 2: Side strangling cases while I was working at the medical

567
00:28:05,400 --> 00:28:11,240
Speaker 2: examiner's office was how incredibly stressed people were. Marcella was

568
00:28:11,280 --> 00:28:15,400
Speaker 2: the medical examiner on the case, and I remember, first

569
00:28:15,440 --> 00:28:18,760
Speaker 2: of all, she would not let anybody look at anything.

570
00:28:19,000 --> 00:28:21,119
Speaker 2: They would call her out when the body was found,

571
00:28:21,160 --> 00:28:22,920
Speaker 2: like at one or two in the morning. She would

572
00:28:22,920 --> 00:28:25,320
Speaker 2: go to the scene. She'd go straight to the morgue

573
00:28:25,600 --> 00:28:28,080
Speaker 2: and do the autopsy right there so that nobody saw

574
00:28:28,119 --> 00:28:32,200
Speaker 2: it and except the cops. She had tape wrapped around

575
00:28:32,240 --> 00:28:35,200
Speaker 2: the file and locked in her credenza in her office

576
00:28:35,240 --> 00:28:38,040
Speaker 2: so that nobody could look at those cases, because she

577
00:28:38,120 --> 00:28:41,240
Speaker 2: knew it was going to just be the biggest circus

578
00:28:41,320 --> 00:28:44,239
Speaker 2: ever and so and I was there during all that.

579
00:28:44,280 --> 00:28:46,040
Speaker 2: I did not go to any scenes with her. I

580
00:28:46,040 --> 00:28:48,240
Speaker 2: did not see the autopsies. I did not look at

581
00:28:48,280 --> 00:28:51,360
Speaker 2: the cases. But I did see photographs because I was

582
00:28:51,440 --> 00:28:53,520
Speaker 2: riding with the police every weekend and they would show

583
00:28:53,560 --> 00:28:56,480
Speaker 2: me their crime scene pictures, and so I knew a

584
00:28:56,520 --> 00:29:00,520
Speaker 2: lot that was going on. But in terms of knowing

585
00:29:00,640 --> 00:29:03,200
Speaker 2: things that ended up in the book in my novel

586
00:29:03,280 --> 00:29:06,080
Speaker 2: that might have been so we say classified information.

587
00:29:06,280 --> 00:29:09,920
Speaker 1: No, no, but you were able, I'm assuming, because of

588
00:29:09,960 --> 00:29:12,840
Speaker 1: that specific case to kind of glean what what it

589
00:29:12,880 --> 00:29:16,040
Speaker 1: would have been like in this situation where you have,

590
00:29:16,720 --> 00:29:19,240
Speaker 1: you know, a medical examiner who's under pressure to help

591
00:29:19,280 --> 00:29:22,400
Speaker 1: police figure out, you know, what the next step is.

592
00:29:22,720 --> 00:29:25,640
Speaker 1: And I'm sure there's just this energy and now it

593
00:29:25,720 --> 00:29:28,400
Speaker 1: sounds like maybe there was a fear of leaks happening.

594
00:29:28,400 --> 00:29:31,360
Speaker 1: Did that ever happen in medical examiner's offices that you

595
00:29:31,400 --> 00:29:31,680
Speaker 1: know of?

596
00:29:31,880 --> 00:29:34,080
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, there's always been the fear of it. I mean,

597
00:29:34,120 --> 00:29:36,480
Speaker 2: back in those days, it was a lot harder to

598
00:29:36,560 --> 00:29:40,600
Speaker 2: have leaks because technology was so there were no cell phones,

599
00:29:40,640 --> 00:29:43,360
Speaker 2: none of that stuff, so you had to you'd have

600
00:29:43,400 --> 00:29:46,360
Speaker 2: to literally steal something and make a photocopy or whatever.

601
00:29:46,800 --> 00:29:50,640
Speaker 2: Unlike today. Now leaks are a real problem because people

602
00:29:51,000 --> 00:29:53,400
Speaker 2: You've seen it all the time where autopsy pictures end

603
00:29:53,480 --> 00:29:56,560
Speaker 2: up on the internet because somebody took pictures with their

604
00:29:56,560 --> 00:29:59,560
Speaker 2: phone and have you know, and they're all over the place.

605
00:30:00,000 --> 00:30:02,560
Speaker 2: So there's always a thread of that and they're always

606
00:30:02,680 --> 00:30:05,600
Speaker 2: very careful, you know, they're mindful of it. Anybody is,

607
00:30:05,600 --> 00:30:08,760
Speaker 2: whether it's a police department or a medical examiner's office.

608
00:30:08,920 --> 00:30:11,840
Speaker 2: But you know, I knew when I worked there. I

609
00:30:11,880 --> 00:30:15,760
Speaker 2: got ideas about things, but they were like a classification

610
00:30:15,960 --> 00:30:20,080
Speaker 2: of something. You know, a rape strangling case or a

611
00:30:20,080 --> 00:30:23,560
Speaker 2: motor vehicle accident or this or that or this. When

612
00:30:23,560 --> 00:30:25,680
Speaker 2: you've seen a lot of them, you know what the

613
00:30:25,720 --> 00:30:28,920
Speaker 2: hallmarks of them are. It's not that you're copying the

614
00:30:28,960 --> 00:30:32,240
Speaker 2: exact details from a specific case. For example, I have

615
00:30:32,360 --> 00:30:36,160
Speaker 2: that Lori Peterson was a musician and her fingers were broken,

616
00:30:36,800 --> 00:30:39,240
Speaker 2: And as far as I know, nobody in the posts

617
00:30:39,240 --> 00:30:42,120
Speaker 2: in the South Side strangling cases had their fingers broken

618
00:30:42,200 --> 00:30:44,560
Speaker 2: that I know of. My killer in the book was

619
00:30:44,680 --> 00:30:48,960
Speaker 2: very sadistic. Now Timothy Spenser was sadistic, but I don't recall.

620
00:30:49,040 --> 00:30:51,240
Speaker 2: I don't know that he did stuff like that. I

621
00:30:51,240 --> 00:30:53,360
Speaker 2: don't think he spent that much time to do that

622
00:30:53,400 --> 00:30:55,920
Speaker 2: sort of thing. And by the way, I literally ran

623
00:30:55,960 --> 00:30:58,160
Speaker 2: into him one time. Not only did I meet one

624
00:30:58,200 --> 00:30:59,480
Speaker 2: of his victims, I met him.

625
00:31:00,600 --> 00:31:01,480
Speaker 1: How did that happen?

626
00:31:01,800 --> 00:31:04,160
Speaker 2: I went to court with Marcella when she was testifying

627
00:31:04,160 --> 00:31:07,920
Speaker 2: in the sentencing face of the trial, and I was backstage,

628
00:31:07,960 --> 00:31:09,600
Speaker 2: so to speak, and we all know that I have

629
00:31:09,640 --> 00:31:12,520
Speaker 2: a notoriously bad sense of direction, and I needed to

630
00:31:12,560 --> 00:31:14,840
Speaker 2: go to the lady's room. And she said, well, you

631
00:31:14,920 --> 00:31:17,120
Speaker 2: go out here and turn here, and blah blah. This

632
00:31:17,160 --> 00:31:20,760
Speaker 2: is an old, icky courthouse, nothing, no signage. I walk

633
00:31:20,800 --> 00:31:22,640
Speaker 2: out and I do my little turn, and I open

634
00:31:22,720 --> 00:31:25,560
Speaker 2: this door and I walk in and clearly it's not

635
00:31:25,640 --> 00:31:28,400
Speaker 2: a bathroom. It's a room, and there's a desk in it,

636
00:31:28,480 --> 00:31:32,040
Speaker 2: and Timothy Spencer is standing there with his back to me,

637
00:31:32,280 --> 00:31:35,720
Speaker 2: leaning on the desk with his hands like thinking. I

638
00:31:35,760 --> 00:31:38,520
Speaker 2: had on a white shirt, dark gray pants, and brown belt,

639
00:31:38,680 --> 00:31:41,840
Speaker 2: and I thought, that's a nice looking guy, and I

640
00:31:41,920 --> 00:31:44,600
Speaker 2: better get out of here. He wasn't even shackled. I

641
00:31:44,680 --> 00:31:46,960
Speaker 2: turned around and shut the door and went back to

642
00:31:47,000 --> 00:31:47,800
Speaker 2: the witness room.

643
00:31:49,360 --> 00:31:51,200
Speaker 1: When I've been talking to you about sort of being

644
00:31:51,200 --> 00:31:53,320
Speaker 1: able to pick up on the vibe, I definitely don't

645
00:31:53,360 --> 00:31:56,560
Speaker 1: mean as in picking up details about this specific case.

646
00:31:57,080 --> 00:31:59,800
Speaker 1: I mean for this series that's been How many books

647
00:31:59,800 --> 00:32:01,800
Speaker 1: have you published in the Scarpetta series.

648
00:32:02,160 --> 00:32:04,400
Speaker 3: I think I'm working on the thirtieth one. Now you

649
00:32:04,480 --> 00:32:07,520
Speaker 3: think I think I have to count, I'm not sure.

650
00:32:07,680 --> 00:32:10,240
Speaker 1: I mean, so you know your experience with how many

651
00:32:10,280 --> 00:32:13,400
Speaker 1: years were you with the medical examiner or total in

652
00:32:13,440 --> 00:32:14,600
Speaker 1: this world do you think?

653
00:32:14,800 --> 00:32:17,000
Speaker 2: Well, I don't know about total, but I was an

654
00:32:17,040 --> 00:32:20,280
Speaker 2: employee there for six years, okay, And then of course

655
00:32:20,320 --> 00:32:22,480
Speaker 2: I've continued. I don't do as much of it now,

656
00:32:22,760 --> 00:32:25,360
Speaker 2: especially since COVID going into morgues and all that is

657
00:32:25,440 --> 00:32:28,400
Speaker 2: not as it's never been easy, but it's certainly harder now,

658
00:32:29,080 --> 00:32:31,880
Speaker 2: you know. I did six years of that, and then

659
00:32:31,920 --> 00:32:34,760
Speaker 2: would continue to go now and then for just a

660
00:32:34,760 --> 00:32:38,000
Speaker 2: refresher course, because I used to say, when you walk

661
00:32:38,080 --> 00:32:41,000
Speaker 2: in a big morgue might have eight tables, and let's

662
00:32:41,000 --> 00:32:43,440
Speaker 2: say there's a body on every table, and this is

663
00:32:44,120 --> 00:32:46,959
Speaker 2: your morning roundup, and you walk in. This is what

664
00:32:47,000 --> 00:32:49,560
Speaker 2: they do in Baltimore, for example, and their big office there,

665
00:32:49,960 --> 00:32:53,600
Speaker 2: and the doctors go table to table and they tell

666
00:32:53,800 --> 00:32:58,080
Speaker 2: everybody at staff meeting this gentleman. You know, he's bloblin.

667
00:32:58,200 --> 00:33:00,840
Speaker 2: He do this, and he died in jail or whatever.

668
00:33:01,040 --> 00:33:03,120
Speaker 2: So you go from body to body to body, and

669
00:33:03,160 --> 00:33:07,000
Speaker 2: hear there anybody little story about why they're here. And

670
00:33:07,040 --> 00:33:10,280
Speaker 2: I always get reminded, these are real people who have

671
00:33:10,360 --> 00:33:15,000
Speaker 2: real families, and none of them, with rare exception, none

672
00:33:15,000 --> 00:33:17,080
Speaker 2: of them ever thought they were going to end up here.

673
00:33:17,760 --> 00:33:20,680
Speaker 2: And I try to pay attention so that I can

674
00:33:20,800 --> 00:33:26,000
Speaker 2: honor the reality of all this by telling a story

675
00:33:26,280 --> 00:33:29,640
Speaker 2: that doesn't in any way trivialize what I know should

676
00:33:29,640 --> 00:33:32,160
Speaker 2: not be trivialized, and also does not get things wrong

677
00:33:32,200 --> 00:33:34,880
Speaker 2: that you really don't need to get wrong. It's a

678
00:33:34,920 --> 00:33:37,800
Speaker 2: balancing act because MY biggest struggle has always been is

679
00:33:38,200 --> 00:33:40,040
Speaker 2: this a good thing or a bad thing I'm doing?

680
00:33:40,280 --> 00:33:44,000
Speaker 2: What do you mean I'm writing about really true, awful things?

681
00:33:44,560 --> 00:33:46,040
Speaker 3: And is this a.

682
00:33:45,960 --> 00:33:48,560
Speaker 2: Good thing to be putting in people's minds or a

683
00:33:48,600 --> 00:33:51,200
Speaker 2: bad thing? But then I tell myself if it didn't

684
00:33:51,240 --> 00:33:55,320
Speaker 2: really happen, if it didn't really happen, then that would

685
00:33:55,320 --> 00:33:57,800
Speaker 2: be a different story. But it does happen, and you

686
00:33:57,880 --> 00:34:00,280
Speaker 2: know that. To this day, I still have people will

687
00:34:00,280 --> 00:34:02,160
Speaker 2: come up to me at a book signing or an

688
00:34:02,160 --> 00:34:04,720
Speaker 2: event and they'll say, ever since I read post Mortem,

689
00:34:04,760 --> 00:34:08,640
Speaker 2: I've always locked my windows. Yeah, and I go, and

690
00:34:08,719 --> 00:34:12,040
Speaker 2: you should and you should. Everybody should lock their windows,

691
00:34:12,080 --> 00:34:15,040
Speaker 2: even if you're on an upper story. People can be

692
00:34:15,080 --> 00:34:17,920
Speaker 2: resourceful to get in, and especially if you don't have

693
00:34:17,920 --> 00:34:19,760
Speaker 2: an alarm system or a dog.

694
00:34:20,160 --> 00:34:23,759
Speaker 1: I teach a very large True Crud podcast course at

695
00:34:23,840 --> 00:34:26,040
Speaker 1: UT and I always say at the very beginning, how

696
00:34:26,080 --> 00:34:28,640
Speaker 1: many of you put your hands up if as soon

697
00:34:28,680 --> 00:34:31,000
Speaker 1: as you get into a hotel or an AIRBNBU look

698
00:34:31,080 --> 00:34:33,880
Speaker 1: under the bed, in the closet, behind the shower curtain,

699
00:34:33,880 --> 00:34:36,600
Speaker 1: and you know about half of them do? I don't.

700
00:34:36,719 --> 00:34:38,880
Speaker 1: I don't know what's wrong with me, but there I should.

701
00:34:39,400 --> 00:34:42,000
Speaker 1: I don't. I just don't even think that anything's gonna happen.

702
00:34:42,480 --> 00:34:42,879
Speaker 1: I don't.

703
00:34:43,320 --> 00:34:45,759
Speaker 2: I have to admit I don't usually search my hotel room.

704
00:34:46,280 --> 00:34:48,239
Speaker 2: Usually I'm more worried about other things when I walk

705
00:34:48,280 --> 00:34:49,920
Speaker 2: into a hotel room, like do I need to get

706
00:34:49,960 --> 00:34:51,719
Speaker 2: out my crime light and see whether I should be

707
00:34:51,719 --> 00:34:52,840
Speaker 2: sleeping on the sheets or not?

708
00:34:53,000 --> 00:34:55,880
Speaker 1: Oh, I just don't do it.

709
00:34:56,000 --> 00:34:57,719
Speaker 3: No, don't do it, don't do it.

710
00:34:57,719 --> 00:34:58,600
Speaker 1: I'll bring that light.

711
00:35:00,480 --> 00:35:02,640
Speaker 2: I like that you're asking these questions, and it's a

712
00:35:02,680 --> 00:35:05,440
Speaker 2: really important thing to think about, because we're inspired by

713
00:35:05,440 --> 00:35:08,400
Speaker 2: everything in life, including what happens in our own lives

714
00:35:08,400 --> 00:35:11,200
Speaker 2: and our own families, and so what that means as

715
00:35:11,280 --> 00:35:14,279
Speaker 2: writers is that we must always try to demonstrate some

716
00:35:14,320 --> 00:35:17,640
Speaker 2: sense of responsibility about what's okay to say and what's

717
00:35:17,680 --> 00:35:18,600
Speaker 2: not okay to say.

718
00:35:18,920 --> 00:35:19,719
Speaker 3: I mean it really is.

719
00:35:19,800 --> 00:35:23,440
Speaker 2: I mean it's Truman Capodi if you mean that he

720
00:35:23,840 --> 00:35:26,480
Speaker 2: learned that lesson the hard way. When you're writing books

721
00:35:26,480 --> 00:35:28,960
Speaker 2: where you're telling all about your friends and everybody hates

722
00:35:29,000 --> 00:35:31,239
Speaker 2: you and doesn't want you at lunch anymore, you're never

723
00:35:31,320 --> 00:35:33,960
Speaker 2: going to make everybody happy. But if you feel that

724
00:35:34,360 --> 00:35:36,120
Speaker 2: there's a story that you need to tell, you how

725
00:35:36,120 --> 00:35:38,800
Speaker 2: to find a way to tell it. And I struggled

726
00:35:38,840 --> 00:35:41,400
Speaker 2: with post mortem because I wasn't sure whether should I

727
00:35:41,440 --> 00:35:42,640
Speaker 2: walk into that water or not.

728
00:35:43,160 --> 00:35:46,440
Speaker 1: When you came to the medical Examiner's office when you're

729
00:35:46,440 --> 00:35:48,319
Speaker 1: applying for jobs and you said you just wanted your

730
00:35:48,320 --> 00:35:51,960
Speaker 1: foot in the door. What happened before with you? Did

731
00:35:52,000 --> 00:35:54,640
Speaker 1: Little Patricia say I want to be Agatha Christie growing up?

732
00:35:54,680 --> 00:35:56,360
Speaker 1: I mean, how did you end up at this place?

733
00:35:56,560 --> 00:35:58,759
Speaker 2: I never read a murder mystery when I was growing up,

734
00:35:58,800 --> 00:36:01,280
Speaker 2: and I did not want to be a I wrote

735
00:36:01,320 --> 00:36:04,160
Speaker 2: all the time. I wrote my first novel in college.

736
00:36:04,520 --> 00:36:07,320
Speaker 2: It wasn't really a novel. It was actually more autobiographical.

737
00:36:07,360 --> 00:36:10,600
Speaker 2: But I mean I spent when I wasn't in school

738
00:36:10,880 --> 00:36:14,239
Speaker 2: in classes, I was at my typewriter working on a

739
00:36:14,239 --> 00:36:17,040
Speaker 2: three hundred page book. I've never stopped. Then I went

740
00:36:17,080 --> 00:36:19,880
Speaker 2: to the Charlotte Deserver and I became a police reporter.

741
00:36:20,400 --> 00:36:22,640
Speaker 2: That's how I got into all this was crime reporting.

742
00:36:22,800 --> 00:36:24,879
Speaker 2: I was married at the time, and my husband wanted

743
00:36:24,880 --> 00:36:27,160
Speaker 2: to move to Richmond to go to seminary, so I

744
00:36:27,200 --> 00:36:29,920
Speaker 2: had to find some I couldn't state the newspaper. I

745
00:36:30,000 --> 00:36:32,440
Speaker 2: did the biography of Billy Graham's wife. That was my

746
00:36:32,480 --> 00:36:36,279
Speaker 2: first project, and that was published by Harpurn wrote in

747
00:36:36,360 --> 00:36:39,440
Speaker 2: nineteen eighty three. Then I thought, what am I going

748
00:36:39,520 --> 00:36:41,200
Speaker 2: to do with myself? And I said, there's only two

749
00:36:41,239 --> 00:36:43,640
Speaker 2: things I know right now. I'm interested in crime because

750
00:36:43,680 --> 00:36:46,560
Speaker 2: of the Charlotte Observer, and I like writing books. I

751
00:36:46,560 --> 00:36:49,399
Speaker 2: think i'd like to write books, so maybe I could

752
00:36:49,440 --> 00:36:52,160
Speaker 2: put the two together somehow. And the only thing I

753
00:36:52,160 --> 00:36:55,520
Speaker 2: didn't really know much about was what the medical examiner does.

754
00:36:56,000 --> 00:36:59,080
Speaker 2: And I got somebody to get me an appointment to

755
00:36:59,080 --> 00:37:02,239
Speaker 2: meet Marcella at the Emmy's office in Richmond, and that's

756
00:37:02,239 --> 00:37:04,520
Speaker 2: how it all started. In the I think it was

757
00:37:04,520 --> 00:37:07,840
Speaker 2: the spring of eighty four, and at first I was

758
00:37:07,920 --> 00:37:10,399
Speaker 2: just going there to do interviews with her, and then

759
00:37:10,440 --> 00:37:13,279
Speaker 2: I was working on my crime novel, my first one

760
00:37:13,400 --> 00:37:16,640
Speaker 2: that nobody wanted but I spent more and more and

761
00:37:16,719 --> 00:37:19,759
Speaker 2: more time there, and then with the police, and then

762
00:37:19,800 --> 00:37:21,920
Speaker 2: I started doing the technical writing, and then they got

763
00:37:21,960 --> 00:37:23,680
Speaker 2: the computer and one thing went from there, and then

764
00:37:23,680 --> 00:37:25,800
Speaker 2: I was a full time job. You know, when I

765
00:37:25,840 --> 00:37:28,239
Speaker 2: wrote Post Mortem and that was rejected. That was four

766
00:37:28,280 --> 00:37:31,040
Speaker 2: books in a row. So for all those people out

767
00:37:31,040 --> 00:37:33,279
Speaker 2: there that think, you know, make it the first time,

768
00:37:33,320 --> 00:37:34,480
Speaker 2: that means you're not good enough.

769
00:37:34,520 --> 00:37:35,320
Speaker 3: It's not true.

770
00:37:35,840 --> 00:37:40,000
Speaker 1: What is it about this character in this series that

771
00:37:40,320 --> 00:37:44,040
Speaker 1: just keeps going on and on? Is there another series

772
00:37:44,120 --> 00:37:46,279
Speaker 1: that has lasted thirty books?

773
00:37:46,440 --> 00:37:48,320
Speaker 2: I don't know, but I had to quit talking about

774
00:37:48,360 --> 00:37:51,560
Speaker 2: her age because she would have she'd probably be Methusela

775
00:37:51,680 --> 00:37:53,680
Speaker 2: by now. I just I never even say what her

776
00:37:53,719 --> 00:37:57,719
Speaker 2: age is. She's kind of hanging like late fifties. But

777
00:37:57,760 --> 00:38:00,520
Speaker 2: we all know that that if you do the math,

778
00:38:00,760 --> 00:38:03,799
Speaker 2: we know that's not possible. But I just remember it

779
00:38:03,920 --> 00:38:06,160
Speaker 2: is fiction, and I declare my rights of a fiction

780
00:38:06,239 --> 00:38:10,000
Speaker 2: writer when it comes to lying about people's age. Lucy's

781
00:38:10,040 --> 00:38:12,320
Speaker 2: another one. Lucy's not a kid anymore.

782
00:38:12,360 --> 00:38:14,719
Speaker 1: She's ten, right, she was ten, she was.

783
00:38:14,719 --> 00:38:16,959
Speaker 2: We won't talk about how old she really would be now,

784
00:38:17,280 --> 00:38:19,320
Speaker 2: Like maybe it's time to move out of your aunt's

785
00:38:19,360 --> 00:38:21,799
Speaker 2: a guest house, you ninny, But I don't get into

786
00:38:21,840 --> 00:38:22,200
Speaker 2: any of that.

787
00:38:22,280 --> 00:38:24,520
Speaker 3: I just let it be an impression.

788
00:38:24,560 --> 00:38:27,239
Speaker 2: And the reason I think that I can still get

789
00:38:27,280 --> 00:38:30,600
Speaker 2: mileage out of Scarpetta is, first of all, she's really smart,

790
00:38:30,960 --> 00:38:33,480
Speaker 2: So anything new that comes down the pike, it's not

791
00:38:33,640 --> 00:38:35,600
Speaker 2: out of the realm of possibility that she's going to

792
00:38:35,680 --> 00:38:38,560
Speaker 2: understand it. And that she works with big agencies that

793
00:38:38,600 --> 00:38:41,040
Speaker 2: would be dealing with such problems, whether it's drones or

794
00:38:41,040 --> 00:38:44,880
Speaker 2: holograms or artificial intelligence, whatever it might be.

795
00:38:45,600 --> 00:38:45,960
Speaker 3: I don't know.

796
00:38:46,000 --> 00:38:49,200
Speaker 2: I just think that people relate to her as a character,

797
00:38:49,239 --> 00:38:50,680
Speaker 2: and I think they like her as a person.

798
00:38:51,239 --> 00:38:52,279
Speaker 1: That's the most important thing.

799
00:38:52,440 --> 00:38:52,640
Speaker 3: You know.

800
00:38:52,680 --> 00:38:55,239
Speaker 2: She'd be a nice neighbor, especially if she invited you

801
00:38:55,280 --> 00:38:55,839
Speaker 2: over to eat.

802
00:38:56,040 --> 00:38:58,640
Speaker 1: But she's complicated, right, What are some of the complicated

803
00:38:58,640 --> 00:38:59,839
Speaker 1: things that make her well round?

804
00:39:00,080 --> 00:39:02,960
Speaker 2: Because there's nothing more boring than a perfect person. Well,

805
00:39:03,160 --> 00:39:05,680
Speaker 2: she doesn't. A lot of stuff bothers her more than

806
00:39:05,719 --> 00:39:08,200
Speaker 2: she lets on. So she tends to cry in the

807
00:39:08,239 --> 00:39:11,520
Speaker 2: shower because she doesn't want people to see how upset

808
00:39:11,560 --> 00:39:15,120
Speaker 2: she is. She won't watch violence movies. In fact, she

809
00:39:15,160 --> 00:39:18,239
Speaker 2: can't hardly look at them. And I won't tell you,

810
00:39:18,280 --> 00:39:20,960
Speaker 2: well that where I got that idea from, because it's

811
00:39:21,080 --> 00:39:23,080
Speaker 2: the apple didn't fall far from the tree. Because I

812
00:39:23,080 --> 00:39:23,959
Speaker 2: can't watch them either.

813
00:39:24,360 --> 00:39:27,200
Speaker 1: You can't either. What's your threshold? Where do you stop?

814
00:39:27,280 --> 00:39:29,120
Speaker 1: Can you watch like a date on a NBC or

815
00:39:29,120 --> 00:39:30,479
Speaker 1: can you watch a spooky thing?

816
00:39:30,640 --> 00:39:33,480
Speaker 2: I can't take anything more violent than the Sopranos, and

817
00:39:33,520 --> 00:39:35,400
Speaker 2: even then I got to look away sometimes.

818
00:39:35,600 --> 00:39:37,400
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I won't.

819
00:39:37,160 --> 00:39:39,960
Speaker 2: Watch anything glory while eating. The minute I see blood,

820
00:39:40,719 --> 00:39:43,400
Speaker 2: my food is not so because it's real to me,

821
00:39:44,040 --> 00:39:47,000
Speaker 2: it's not fake. And so she's got a lot of

822
00:39:47,040 --> 00:39:50,560
Speaker 2: quirky stuff. People might be surprised at how upset she

823
00:39:50,640 --> 00:39:53,200
Speaker 2: gets by certain things. She can be as composed as

824
00:39:53,239 --> 00:39:55,680
Speaker 2: anybody you'd ever meet, but if she sees somebody being cruel,

825
00:39:55,719 --> 00:39:56,560
Speaker 2: you better watch out.

826
00:39:57,080 --> 00:40:01,560
Speaker 1: Over thirty books, she has to evolve, right, how do

827
00:40:01,640 --> 00:40:05,360
Speaker 1: you figure out how your character evolves? So she's not

828
00:40:05,480 --> 00:40:08,360
Speaker 1: the same old Kay that we met, you know, thirty

829
00:40:08,440 --> 00:40:09,200
Speaker 1: five years ago.

830
00:40:09,800 --> 00:40:12,480
Speaker 2: No, she's had to get become a little more limber

831
00:40:13,320 --> 00:40:16,279
Speaker 2: and live in the same world that we do and

832
00:40:17,080 --> 00:40:19,880
Speaker 2: go along with those things that are just part of

833
00:40:19,920 --> 00:40:21,240
Speaker 2: our everyday life today.

834
00:40:21,600 --> 00:40:23,520
Speaker 3: So she's just had to adapt do.

835
00:40:23,520 --> 00:40:25,439
Speaker 1: You get tired of her. You have to be tired

836
00:40:25,520 --> 00:40:28,520
Speaker 1: for someone. No, is this your character crush Scarpetta.

837
00:40:28,680 --> 00:40:31,560
Speaker 2: No, it's not a character crush. But I don't get

838
00:40:31,600 --> 00:40:35,520
Speaker 2: tired of her because I feel comfortable. I never know

839
00:40:35,560 --> 00:40:38,400
Speaker 2: where something's going. I mean, it's the character surprised me.

840
00:40:38,920 --> 00:40:41,200
Speaker 2: I feel like writers say this a lot. I'm sure

841
00:40:41,239 --> 00:40:44,000
Speaker 2: that you would say the same thing that. Sometimes you're

842
00:40:44,040 --> 00:40:45,959
Speaker 2: not sure if you just said that or they did.

843
00:40:46,400 --> 00:40:48,799
Speaker 2: I get tired of myself, That's who I get tired of.

844
00:40:48,960 --> 00:40:50,279
Speaker 2: I don't get tired of Scarpetta.

845
00:40:51,760 --> 00:40:53,400
Speaker 1: Well, you were saying, you know, like I said, you

846
00:40:53,480 --> 00:40:55,360
Speaker 1: really were saying, I'm done. I don't think I'm going

847
00:40:55,440 --> 00:40:56,879
Speaker 1: to do this book anymore. I'm going to go fly

848
00:40:56,960 --> 00:41:00,600
Speaker 1: my helicopter and that'll be it. And now and then

849
00:41:00,680 --> 00:41:02,919
Speaker 1: when I was prepping for this, I said, oh, she's

850
00:41:02,920 --> 00:41:04,520
Speaker 1: got a book that's coming out, and just have one

851
00:41:04,560 --> 00:41:07,640
Speaker 1: come out. So do you see an end?

852
00:41:07,960 --> 00:41:08,120
Speaker 3: Well?

853
00:41:08,120 --> 00:41:10,000
Speaker 1: Are you? I mean I hate to phrase it like this,

854
00:41:10,120 --> 00:41:15,280
Speaker 1: but are you going to vanish before Casecarpetta vanishes?

855
00:41:15,320 --> 00:41:15,600
Speaker 2: For you?

856
00:41:15,680 --> 00:41:17,319
Speaker 1: Have you thought about how you'll end this?

857
00:41:17,680 --> 00:41:20,720
Speaker 2: I don't think about it. Sometimes it enters my head.

858
00:41:21,719 --> 00:41:24,160
Speaker 2: It'd be nice not to have to do this because

859
00:41:24,200 --> 00:41:27,919
Speaker 2: it's unbelievable. You know that it's an unbelievable amount of work.

860
00:41:27,960 --> 00:41:30,399
Speaker 2: I mean, you can work eight hours an entire day,

861
00:41:30,719 --> 00:41:33,640
Speaker 2: hardly move out of your chair, and you go, I'm

862
00:41:33,680 --> 00:41:34,320
Speaker 2: not much.

863
00:41:34,160 --> 00:41:35,640
Speaker 3: Farther than I was this morning.

864
00:41:36,000 --> 00:41:38,040
Speaker 2: Because you're trying to figure something out and you get

865
00:41:38,080 --> 00:41:40,240
Speaker 2: stuck in places. I mean, we all have it happen.

866
00:41:40,320 --> 00:41:44,240
Speaker 2: It's a lot to figure out. It's an engineering process,

867
00:41:44,280 --> 00:41:48,160
Speaker 2: for one thing, because you're building something, and so it

868
00:41:48,200 --> 00:41:49,680
Speaker 2: seems like it'd be nice to be able to just

869
00:41:49,719 --> 00:41:51,400
Speaker 2: go out and have fun and not have to worry

870
00:41:51,400 --> 00:41:55,040
Speaker 2: about deadlines and all that. But I still feel I

871
00:41:55,080 --> 00:41:57,600
Speaker 2: feel a need to do it. I want, you know,

872
00:41:57,880 --> 00:41:59,400
Speaker 2: I don't. I can't tell you how I feel a

873
00:41:59,440 --> 00:42:02,040
Speaker 2: year from now, but right now I want to keep

874
00:42:02,120 --> 00:42:04,719
Speaker 2: trying to do this. If I ever get tired of

875
00:42:04,760 --> 00:42:06,680
Speaker 2: it and it doesn't seem to come to me anymore,

876
00:42:06,719 --> 00:42:07,640
Speaker 2: I know I will stop.

877
00:42:07,920 --> 00:42:10,160
Speaker 1: And this is different from here. What about the other series?

878
00:42:10,239 --> 00:42:14,400
Speaker 1: Do you do you use anything that you learned, just

879
00:42:14,640 --> 00:42:16,960
Speaker 1: you know, from the process of how do how they

880
00:42:16,960 --> 00:42:19,920
Speaker 1: investigate a crime in the Medical Examiner's Office, on any

881
00:42:20,000 --> 00:42:21,279
Speaker 1: of the other books that you have a couple of

882
00:42:21,360 --> 00:42:23,160
Speaker 1: other series too. Well.

883
00:42:23,200 --> 00:42:25,040
Speaker 2: I mean when you if you learned a lot about

884
00:42:25,040 --> 00:42:28,520
Speaker 2: policing and forensic science and forensic medicine and just crime

885
00:42:28,560 --> 00:42:32,719
Speaker 2: busting in general and all facets of it, then you

886
00:42:32,760 --> 00:42:35,640
Speaker 2: can apply all that to so many different things. I'll

887
00:42:35,640 --> 00:42:38,760
Speaker 2: give you a good example, because of all I'd learned

888
00:42:38,760 --> 00:42:42,560
Speaker 2: from the labs, you know, knowing about things like the

889
00:42:42,600 --> 00:42:47,040
Speaker 2: scanning electron microscope and X rays that where you can

890
00:42:47,160 --> 00:42:50,000
Speaker 2: you can put a tiny little sample, you know, in

891
00:42:50,040 --> 00:42:54,280
Speaker 2: this little column where it's bombarded with elect you know, electrons,

892
00:42:54,760 --> 00:42:57,960
Speaker 2: and it can tell you it can magnify something a

893
00:42:58,000 --> 00:43:02,440
Speaker 2: million times and show you stuff that you just wouldn't believe. Well,

894
00:43:02,640 --> 00:43:04,640
Speaker 2: that is not so different than what some of these

895
00:43:04,680 --> 00:43:08,120
Speaker 2: telescopes do that are set into outer space. They're using

896
00:43:08,239 --> 00:43:11,520
Speaker 2: radio waves and other things to they can tell you

897
00:43:11,560 --> 00:43:15,040
Speaker 2: when you're looking at an asteroid if they're scanning it

898
00:43:15,080 --> 00:43:17,480
Speaker 2: with one of their telescopes. And remind you that not

899
00:43:17,520 --> 00:43:20,200
Speaker 2: all telescopes use light. They're not all visual. Some of

900
00:43:20,200 --> 00:43:22,560
Speaker 2: them are using radio waves and you're talking about radar

901
00:43:22,680 --> 00:43:25,400
Speaker 2: all these kinds of things. You can actually tell what

902
00:43:25,400 --> 00:43:27,480
Speaker 2: an asteroid is made out of. You can look at

903
00:43:27,520 --> 00:43:29,719
Speaker 2: a nebula and say that the gases are made out

904
00:43:29,719 --> 00:43:32,759
Speaker 2: of Formaldrahyde, which is a true story. So we're doing

905
00:43:32,800 --> 00:43:34,840
Speaker 2: the same things in outer space that we're doing in

906
00:43:34,840 --> 00:43:37,360
Speaker 2: the lab with any bitty little things that we're putting

907
00:43:37,760 --> 00:43:40,960
Speaker 2: in a microscope that can magnify stuff millions of times.

908
00:43:41,280 --> 00:43:44,399
Speaker 2: So once you begin to get an idea of how

909
00:43:44,440 --> 00:43:47,480
Speaker 2: things work, you can start applying them to different situations

910
00:43:47,480 --> 00:43:50,399
Speaker 2: and understanding it better. And so yes, I've always been

911
00:43:50,480 --> 00:43:52,760
Speaker 2: using all of my little tricks and all of my books.

912
00:43:53,120 --> 00:43:54,680
Speaker 1: There are and I wonder if this is true for

913
00:43:54,719 --> 00:43:59,399
Speaker 1: you too. There are things that are disclosed about either

914
00:43:59,440 --> 00:44:02,680
Speaker 1: serial killer or victims or real crimes that have come

915
00:44:02,680 --> 00:44:06,040
Speaker 1: out that surprised me to a point where it makes

916
00:44:06,080 --> 00:44:10,800
Speaker 1: me rethink either doing I've just wrapped up a mystery,

917
00:44:10,920 --> 00:44:13,480
Speaker 1: my first mystery novel, and thinking about either doing fiction

918
00:44:13,880 --> 00:44:19,080
Speaker 1: or nonfiction. And to me, what shifted my idea about

919
00:44:19,440 --> 00:44:22,600
Speaker 1: serial killers and criminals in some way is when the

920
00:44:22,600 --> 00:44:25,120
Speaker 1: Golden State Killer happened. You know, my co host on

921
00:44:25,120 --> 00:44:27,560
Speaker 1: one of my other shows, Paul Holes, was highly involved

922
00:44:27,560 --> 00:44:30,839
Speaker 1: with it, and I realized, you know, he had said

923
00:44:31,200 --> 00:44:35,279
Speaker 1: the reason that Joseph Dangelo had stopped was because he

924
00:44:35,360 --> 00:44:38,360
Speaker 1: got old, too old to hop in and out of windows.

925
00:44:38,480 --> 00:44:40,799
Speaker 1: He just was there. I'm sure he was doing other

926
00:44:41,200 --> 00:44:43,359
Speaker 1: stuff of some kind. I had no idea, but he

927
00:44:43,480 --> 00:44:45,640
Speaker 1: was not doing what he had been doing when he

928
00:44:45,680 --> 00:44:47,759
Speaker 1: was younger. And it just never occurred to me that

929
00:44:47,760 --> 00:44:49,719
Speaker 1: these guys would age out. And it was just like

930
00:44:49,800 --> 00:44:53,400
Speaker 1: life circumstances. You know, serial killers get married, they have kids,

931
00:44:53,440 --> 00:44:56,880
Speaker 1: they changed jobs, things happen, and so that really, I

932
00:44:56,880 --> 00:44:59,560
Speaker 1: don't know why, that just made me maybe humanize them

933
00:44:59,560 --> 00:45:01,040
Speaker 1: a little bit for me and made me think of

934
00:45:01,080 --> 00:45:04,000
Speaker 1: them a little bit differently. Are there any crimes like

935
00:45:04,200 --> 00:45:06,600
Speaker 1: a John Binney or anything that's happened that just kind

936
00:45:06,600 --> 00:45:09,879
Speaker 1: of really made you flip a switch with the Scarpetta character,

937
00:45:09,960 --> 00:45:11,879
Speaker 1: or at least something that she would have tackled where

938
00:45:11,920 --> 00:45:13,799
Speaker 1: you kind of went, whoa, this is a different way

939
00:45:13,840 --> 00:45:14,520
Speaker 1: of looking at this.

940
00:45:15,080 --> 00:45:17,840
Speaker 2: You may have heard of the Colonial parkwik killings. Oh yeah,

941
00:45:17,880 --> 00:45:19,600
Speaker 2: and that was going on too when I was working

942
00:45:19,600 --> 00:45:21,879
Speaker 2: at the Medical Examiner's office, and of course that's never

943
00:45:21,920 --> 00:45:25,600
Speaker 2: been solved. And to me, I mean, that case drove

944
00:45:25,719 --> 00:45:29,920
Speaker 2: me crazy, because it still does, because you go, how

945
00:45:29,920 --> 00:45:34,400
Speaker 2: does somebody grab couples? What is the psychological dynamic that

946
00:45:34,480 --> 00:45:37,440
Speaker 2: you're able to control two people that way, that.

947
00:45:37,960 --> 00:45:38,640
Speaker 3: You're you know.

948
00:45:38,960 --> 00:45:41,399
Speaker 2: The theories are that somebody was parading as a cop

949
00:45:41,440 --> 00:45:43,360
Speaker 2: and was pulling the car over because they'd find a

950
00:45:43,440 --> 00:45:45,319
Speaker 2: driver's license on the seat, and then the girl and

951
00:45:45,360 --> 00:45:47,239
Speaker 2: the boy or the young man and the young woman

952
00:45:47,280 --> 00:45:49,760
Speaker 2: are gone. But I think there were like five cases

953
00:45:49,800 --> 00:45:55,200
Speaker 2: of this in Virginia and then they just stopped. And

954
00:45:55,600 --> 00:45:58,759
Speaker 2: the question has always been what happened? Where did this

955
00:45:58,800 --> 00:46:01,319
Speaker 2: person go? And it was really creepy because this was

956
00:46:01,360 --> 00:46:03,319
Speaker 2: all in the area of Camp Perry, which is the

957
00:46:03,360 --> 00:46:07,680
Speaker 2: CIA training facility, you know, near Williamsburg, and there as

958
00:46:07,680 --> 00:46:10,000
Speaker 2: a lot of military bases around there, and you start

959
00:46:10,040 --> 00:46:12,720
Speaker 2: wondering as somebody doing some kind of weird trophy hunting

960
00:46:12,719 --> 00:46:13,960
Speaker 2: going out and hunting humans.

961
00:46:14,280 --> 00:46:15,319
Speaker 3: But that case is you.

962
00:46:15,280 --> 00:46:18,239
Speaker 2: Can google it. It's never been solved. And I got

963
00:46:18,239 --> 00:46:20,279
Speaker 2: some people got mad at me for that one too,

964
00:46:20,360 --> 00:46:23,800
Speaker 2: because that was the inspiration for all that remains, where

965
00:46:24,040 --> 00:46:27,880
Speaker 2: I wanted to see what Scarpetta would do with couples

966
00:46:27,880 --> 00:46:30,440
Speaker 2: that vanish and then you find the skeletal remains in

967
00:46:30,480 --> 00:46:33,600
Speaker 2: the woods and there's almost no evidence left. You know,

968
00:46:33,640 --> 00:46:36,040
Speaker 2: what can you tell from those remains.

969
00:46:36,400 --> 00:46:37,920
Speaker 3: How's she going to figure this out and put a

970
00:46:37,920 --> 00:46:38,520
Speaker 3: stop to it.

971
00:46:39,080 --> 00:46:41,719
Speaker 2: So I don't know that caused me to think differently,

972
00:46:41,760 --> 00:46:44,160
Speaker 2: but I guess sometimes I've asked, I've gotten her to

973
00:46:44,200 --> 00:46:45,680
Speaker 2: solve something that nobody else can.

974
00:46:46,080 --> 00:46:49,399
Speaker 1: You know, couples killings, lovers lanes killings, those kinds of things,

975
00:46:49,480 --> 00:46:52,279
Speaker 1: I mean have gone on throughout history. If you look

976
00:46:52,280 --> 00:46:55,520
Speaker 1: at like the Texark Cana, the moonlight, well even the

977
00:46:55,560 --> 00:46:57,640
Speaker 1: sun of Sam Yes, son of Sam Well, I mean

978
00:46:57,680 --> 00:47:00,759
Speaker 1: Textar Cana was I think nineteen forty six, And it's

979
00:47:00,760 --> 00:47:03,960
Speaker 1: always those kinds of circumstances, the same kind of circumstances,

980
00:47:04,160 --> 00:47:06,239
Speaker 1: And I think that's just a category that a lot

981
00:47:06,280 --> 00:47:08,759
Speaker 1: of people would use. You know, what is the psychology

982
00:47:08,800 --> 00:47:11,880
Speaker 1: behind that? I think that's fascinating. And I would have

983
00:47:11,920 --> 00:47:14,839
Speaker 1: to say, I mean, unless you are copying names and

984
00:47:14,920 --> 00:47:19,560
Speaker 1: copying really really specific circumstances, I'm not sure how you

985
00:47:19,600 --> 00:47:23,239
Speaker 1: can have a copyright on how somebody can say, well,

986
00:47:23,280 --> 00:47:25,840
Speaker 1: there's a you know, if you write about couple of killers,

987
00:47:25,840 --> 00:47:27,759
Speaker 1: it has to be attached to the Colonial Parkway just

988
00:47:27,760 --> 00:47:29,240
Speaker 1: because you were in Virginia at the time.

989
00:47:29,480 --> 00:47:32,280
Speaker 2: Well you know, listen, well, you're going to write any story,

990
00:47:32,400 --> 00:47:36,240
Speaker 2: especially if you're going to do it a true crime story,

991
00:47:36,480 --> 00:47:38,640
Speaker 2: you have to give yourself permission just to tell the

992
00:47:38,680 --> 00:47:40,880
Speaker 2: truth and not be thinking about what everybody else is

993
00:47:40,920 --> 00:47:43,279
Speaker 2: going to say about it, because the truth of the

994
00:47:43,280 --> 00:47:46,160
Speaker 2: matter is most people don't want anybody knowing anything about

995
00:47:46,160 --> 00:47:48,200
Speaker 2: the bad stuff that happens to them and a lot,

996
00:47:48,000 --> 00:47:51,400
Speaker 2: but we ask society we kind of need to know

997
00:47:51,480 --> 00:47:54,360
Speaker 2: these things. I mean, this is part of educating ourselves

998
00:47:54,400 --> 00:47:57,200
Speaker 2: so that you realize that this is not don't be

999
00:47:57,239 --> 00:47:59,560
Speaker 2: a Pollyanna. You don't want to live in fear and

1000
00:47:59,640 --> 00:48:01,480
Speaker 2: think that any minute you know, someone's going to break

1001
00:48:01,480 --> 00:48:03,040
Speaker 2: into your house and kill you. But don't make it

1002
00:48:03,040 --> 00:48:04,880
Speaker 2: easy for them to do it either. Don't make it

1003
00:48:04,920 --> 00:48:06,799
Speaker 2: easy because there are people out there who will do

1004
00:48:06,920 --> 00:48:09,920
Speaker 2: terrible things. And I can never get away from all

1005
00:48:10,280 --> 00:48:13,440
Speaker 2: the real cases that I know about people doing their

1006
00:48:13,480 --> 00:48:15,840
Speaker 2: innocent thing on a certain day but left the front

1007
00:48:15,840 --> 00:48:17,920
Speaker 2: door open with just a screen doorshut because of the way

1008
00:48:17,920 --> 00:48:20,040
Speaker 2: they're spreading. And then you have to escape convicts that

1009
00:48:20,080 --> 00:48:22,840
Speaker 2: do a home invasion and all of them are dead,

1010
00:48:23,000 --> 00:48:25,640
Speaker 2: you know. And that's a real case from Virginia. And

1011
00:48:25,680 --> 00:48:29,080
Speaker 2: so I'm glad I know the truth about the way

1012
00:48:29,160 --> 00:48:31,480
Speaker 2: things work. But I can understand why be a lot

1013
00:48:31,560 --> 00:48:32,839
Speaker 2: easier not to know any of it.

1014
00:48:33,680 --> 00:48:37,719
Speaker 1: But why do you think people read that series when

1015
00:48:37,760 --> 00:48:40,200
Speaker 1: you know you're saying it is I've thought about that,

1016
00:48:40,360 --> 00:48:43,319
Speaker 1: you say to yourself, I thought about that. I am

1017
00:48:43,400 --> 00:48:46,080
Speaker 1: I bringing them just the dregs of society and the

1018
00:48:46,120 --> 00:48:49,840
Speaker 1: awful things that happen, and you know, autopsy reports and everything.

1019
00:48:49,960 --> 00:48:53,040
Speaker 1: Why do people keep reading, maybe not even just your series,

1020
00:48:53,080 --> 00:48:55,200
Speaker 1: but in general, what do you think readers get out

1021
00:48:55,239 --> 00:48:57,160
Speaker 1: of mystery thriller suspense?

1022
00:48:57,520 --> 00:49:01,479
Speaker 2: I think it's all this all blo down to one thing.

1023
00:49:02,080 --> 00:49:05,919
Speaker 2: Human beings are driven by their survival instinct, and that's

1024
00:49:05,960 --> 00:49:09,600
Speaker 2: why all of our feelings really truly are the result

1025
00:49:09,880 --> 00:49:14,960
Speaker 2: of our survival instinct. Love, hate, jealousy, pride. It all

1026
00:49:15,080 --> 00:49:18,040
Speaker 2: has to do with our trying to, in our very

1027
00:49:18,080 --> 00:49:21,080
Speaker 2: frail forms, trying to live on this planet. So anything

1028
00:49:21,400 --> 00:49:25,359
Speaker 2: that could threaten that, we're interested. What's the first thing

1029
00:49:25,400 --> 00:49:27,279
Speaker 2: you look at in the aquarium. I bet it's the

1030
00:49:27,280 --> 00:49:29,400
Speaker 2: shark tank. We want to look at the thing that

1031
00:49:29,520 --> 00:49:32,839
Speaker 2: scares us because we don't want we really and it's

1032
00:49:32,880 --> 00:49:36,800
Speaker 2: a weird thing that we want to put ourselves through.

1033
00:49:36,840 --> 00:49:41,239
Speaker 2: It in an imagined way. And maybe it's because there's

1034
00:49:41,280 --> 00:49:43,080
Speaker 2: this part of us that think if I know what

1035
00:49:43,160 --> 00:49:45,440
Speaker 2: it looks like better, if I know more about it,

1036
00:49:45,440 --> 00:49:46,160
Speaker 2: it won't get me.

1037
00:49:47,400 --> 00:49:49,480
Speaker 3: If I look at that shark enough and I watch.

1038
00:49:49,280 --> 00:49:51,560
Speaker 2: The way he moves, I'll bet I'll find a way

1039
00:49:51,560 --> 00:49:52,680
Speaker 2: that he won't bite me.

1040
00:49:52,880 --> 00:49:54,360
Speaker 3: Not me, he'll like me.

1041
00:49:54,920 --> 00:49:56,920
Speaker 2: That's what you say to the psychopath right before he

1042
00:49:56,920 --> 00:50:00,799
Speaker 2: strangles you to death. Now they don't care, they're not

1043
00:50:00,920 --> 00:50:03,320
Speaker 2: moved by your charms, And.

1044
00:50:03,880 --> 00:50:04,359
Speaker 3: I don't know.

1045
00:50:04,440 --> 00:50:05,880
Speaker 2: I just want to know the world I live in

1046
00:50:05,920 --> 00:50:08,280
Speaker 2: so I can navigate it. Next time you go shopping,

1047
00:50:08,280 --> 00:50:10,200
Speaker 2: when you're walking to the grocery store and you're walking

1048
00:50:10,200 --> 00:50:13,160
Speaker 2: through the parking lot, look at every single car you

1049
00:50:13,200 --> 00:50:15,520
Speaker 2: go pass, and tell me to look at it through

1050
00:50:15,560 --> 00:50:18,279
Speaker 2: the eyes of a predator. And look at the information

1051
00:50:18,440 --> 00:50:21,680
Speaker 2: you gather because of bumper stickers, where people hang from

1052
00:50:21,719 --> 00:50:24,360
Speaker 2: the rear view mirrors, what's on their car seat people.

1053
00:50:24,719 --> 00:50:27,560
Speaker 2: I'll never forget. I was in the criminal you know,

1054
00:50:27,600 --> 00:50:30,239
Speaker 2: the forensic unit of Bellevue. I was walking through with

1055
00:50:30,320 --> 00:50:33,640
Speaker 2: a forensic psychiatrist and these guys in cages, right, and

1056
00:50:33,680 --> 00:50:36,719
Speaker 2: one of them yells out to me, love your shoes.

1057
00:50:37,440 --> 00:50:41,000
Speaker 2: He noticed that I was wearing Prada. These people are

1058
00:50:40,719 --> 00:50:44,440
Speaker 2: they're they're like sharks with their radar. And so you

1059
00:50:44,800 --> 00:50:48,680
Speaker 2: learn that you are advertising things about yourself and make

1060
00:50:48,719 --> 00:50:50,640
Speaker 2: sure that you're sending the message you want to send.

1061
00:50:51,200 --> 00:50:53,840
Speaker 2: Because people they picked their victims for a reason, they're

1062
00:50:53,880 --> 00:50:54,399
Speaker 2: reading them.

1063
00:50:54,680 --> 00:50:57,440
Speaker 1: Well. You know, this case, the Timothy Spencer case that

1064
00:50:57,480 --> 00:51:01,239
Speaker 1: we sort of started with, was groundbreaking, right because he

1065
00:51:01,400 --> 00:51:04,480
Speaker 1: was called ultimately through DNA. And wasn't this you said,

1066
00:51:04,480 --> 00:51:05,200
Speaker 1: the first case.

1067
00:51:05,560 --> 00:51:07,799
Speaker 2: It was the first case that DNA was used to

1068
00:51:07,840 --> 00:51:09,480
Speaker 2: link serial murders.

1069
00:51:09,280 --> 00:51:13,080
Speaker 1: And it exonerated somebody who had been wrongfully convicted.

1070
00:51:13,239 --> 00:51:15,120
Speaker 2: I think that's right up in northern Virginia.

1071
00:51:15,239 --> 00:51:17,520
Speaker 1: And it's just the funny how things have changed, you know. Now,

1072
00:51:17,600 --> 00:51:20,279
Speaker 1: I wonder what your biggest challenge is, because you're having

1073
00:51:20,320 --> 00:51:22,480
Speaker 1: to keep up with the times. What do you have

1074
00:51:22,560 --> 00:51:25,040
Speaker 1: to what do you have to have k learn? Is

1075
00:51:25,040 --> 00:51:28,600
Speaker 1: it AI or is it like an authorroom lab that

1076
00:51:28,680 --> 00:51:32,399
Speaker 1: does genealogy or what would be the big frontier for her?

1077
00:51:32,880 --> 00:51:37,840
Speaker 2: Probably going almost the other way. My challenge, My challenge

1078
00:51:37,960 --> 00:51:41,600
Speaker 2: is is to have a scenario where you don't have

1079
00:51:41,680 --> 00:51:45,000
Speaker 2: so much technology answering all the questions all up front,

1080
00:51:45,040 --> 00:51:47,600
Speaker 2: like cameras and sensors and phones.

1081
00:51:47,800 --> 00:51:49,560
Speaker 3: That you go, how am I going to tell the story?

1082
00:51:49,719 --> 00:51:51,080
Speaker 3: Where's the mystery? Anymore?

1083
00:51:51,360 --> 00:51:51,440
Speaker 1: So?

1084
00:51:52,000 --> 00:51:54,319
Speaker 2: And that's where we are with technology. But yet is

1085
00:51:54,320 --> 00:51:58,600
Speaker 2: it really solving crimes? Not necessarily because the bad guys

1086
00:51:58,680 --> 00:51:59,560
Speaker 2: learn how to use all this.

1087
00:51:59,600 --> 00:51:59,880
Speaker 3: Do you know?

1088
00:52:00,000 --> 00:52:02,759
Speaker 2: Now you can on the internet you can order a

1089
00:52:02,800 --> 00:52:03,640
Speaker 2: Faraday bag.

1090
00:52:03,920 --> 00:52:05,279
Speaker 3: Now. A Faraday bag is.

1091
00:52:05,239 --> 00:52:09,279
Speaker 2: A little aluminum like an envelope, and it's literally called

1092
00:52:09,320 --> 00:52:12,000
Speaker 2: a Faraday cage because if you put your phone in it,

1093
00:52:12,000 --> 00:52:14,920
Speaker 2: it blocks out all Wi Fi signals, so that if

1094
00:52:15,000 --> 00:52:17,600
Speaker 2: you're committing a crime and you have your phone in

1095
00:52:17,640 --> 00:52:21,160
Speaker 2: the Faraday bag, then the police cannot pick they can't

1096
00:52:21,160 --> 00:52:21,960
Speaker 2: pick up your signal.

1097
00:52:22,320 --> 00:52:23,440
Speaker 3: And that's not even true.

1098
00:52:23,480 --> 00:52:25,400
Speaker 2: If you turn your phone off, you turn your phone off,

1099
00:52:25,440 --> 00:52:27,719
Speaker 2: it's still emitting a signal, but you put it in

1100
00:52:27,840 --> 00:52:31,200
Speaker 2: a Faraday cage. If you go into a top secret

1101
00:52:31,360 --> 00:52:34,640
Speaker 2: room to look at top secret information, when they take

1102
00:52:34,680 --> 00:52:37,400
Speaker 2: your phone from you, they lock it in a metal

1103
00:52:37,440 --> 00:52:40,840
Speaker 2: locker and that blocks all Wi Fi signals and so

1104
00:52:41,480 --> 00:52:44,640
Speaker 2: nobody can hack into your phone. So I have to

1105
00:52:44,680 --> 00:52:48,200
Speaker 2: try to find ways that something can happen somewhere or

1106
00:52:48,320 --> 00:52:50,960
Speaker 2: maybe there's not a technology that's right off the bat

1107
00:52:51,080 --> 00:52:53,359
Speaker 2: going to tell you what it was, because these days

1108
00:52:53,360 --> 00:52:55,680
Speaker 2: it might even be a satellite that sees it. So

1109
00:52:55,880 --> 00:52:59,600
Speaker 2: that's the challenge today. It's not finding technology, it's getting

1110
00:52:59,680 --> 00:53:00,200
Speaker 2: rid of.

1111
00:52:59,920 --> 00:53:02,040
Speaker 1: It because it'll solve the whole thing, because you'll have

1112
00:53:02,040 --> 00:53:04,560
Speaker 1: an eight page book and then that'll be it.

1113
00:53:05,360 --> 00:53:06,759
Speaker 3: That's exactly right. You know.

1114
00:53:07,320 --> 00:53:10,319
Speaker 2: The thing is the more sensitive some of these sciences

1115
00:53:10,400 --> 00:53:14,400
Speaker 2: get in some ways, the more problematic, Like DNA testing

1116
00:53:14,480 --> 00:53:17,680
Speaker 2: is so sensitive now you can do one sell. Yeah,

1117
00:53:17,880 --> 00:53:20,440
Speaker 2: so you could sneeze walking through a room and somebody

1118
00:53:20,520 --> 00:53:22,520
Speaker 2: places you at that crime scene even though you were

1119
00:53:22,560 --> 00:53:24,320
Speaker 2: there a week ago and you just had a cold

1120
00:53:24,520 --> 00:53:26,520
Speaker 2: mm hm and you and so now you've got to

1121
00:53:26,560 --> 00:53:29,400
Speaker 2: figure out, okay, this we have this, this and this

1122
00:53:29,560 --> 00:53:32,640
Speaker 2: DNA identifications, but what does that even mean when it

1123
00:53:32,680 --> 00:53:36,120
Speaker 2: can identify so much with so little.

1124
00:53:36,520 --> 00:53:39,120
Speaker 1: You know, with you were talking about the Idaho for case.

1125
00:53:39,680 --> 00:53:42,640
Speaker 1: You know, if you if you read what a lot

1126
00:53:42,640 --> 00:53:46,360
Speaker 1: of people the chatter before Ryan Holberger, you know, pleaded guilty,

1127
00:53:46,440 --> 00:53:48,960
Speaker 1: The chatter was there's not enough DNA on the On

1128
00:53:49,040 --> 00:53:52,879
Speaker 1: the sheath, Paul my co host his company authorom who

1129
00:53:52,880 --> 00:53:54,640
Speaker 1: he works for they were the ones who did the

1130
00:53:54,719 --> 00:53:58,440
Speaker 1: DNA and there was enough DNA to conclusively link it

1131
00:53:58,520 --> 00:54:01,040
Speaker 1: to Ryan Holberger. So you know, when there are people

1132
00:54:01,040 --> 00:54:04,480
Speaker 1: on the internet who who feel very strongly and have

1133
00:54:04,560 --> 00:54:07,080
Speaker 1: a really big voice about what they think, who they

1134
00:54:07,120 --> 00:54:09,040
Speaker 1: think is innocent and isn't, and then they kind of

1135
00:54:09,080 --> 00:54:12,600
Speaker 1: throw out facts that they don't know enough yet. I mean,

1136
00:54:12,640 --> 00:54:14,680
Speaker 1: they don't even know the Pole didn't even tell me

1137
00:54:14,840 --> 00:54:16,400
Speaker 1: that the company was working on it.

1138
00:54:16,560 --> 00:54:19,360
Speaker 2: Well, that case right there, I mean, that's a horrible

1139
00:54:19,600 --> 00:54:23,799
Speaker 2: what a horrific case, And that once again that gave

1140
00:54:23,840 --> 00:54:26,640
Speaker 2: me some inspiration for my new book, Sharp Force, because

1141
00:54:26,680 --> 00:54:30,600
Speaker 2: the victims are killed in their own beds by somebody

1142
00:54:30,600 --> 00:54:32,480
Speaker 2: who gets in the house. Only in this in the

1143
00:54:32,520 --> 00:54:35,920
Speaker 2: case of my book, the places aren't easily accessible. But

1144
00:54:36,320 --> 00:54:39,759
Speaker 2: these things that happen out there, I just think there

1145
00:54:39,760 --> 00:54:41,799
Speaker 2: are cases where I go. I love to have Scar

1146
00:54:41,880 --> 00:54:44,480
Speaker 2: Pettit take care of that case because if anybody is

1147
00:54:44,480 --> 00:54:45,919
Speaker 2: going to find what matters, she will.

1148
00:54:45,960 --> 00:54:46,880
Speaker 3: She won't miss something.

1149
00:54:47,360 --> 00:54:50,319
Speaker 2: One thing that's interesting about the case in Idaho. I'm

1150
00:54:50,360 --> 00:54:53,760
Speaker 2: reminded of what this forensic forensic profile or loose lessons

1151
00:54:53,760 --> 00:54:55,239
Speaker 2: you're at, John Jay, I don't know if you know

1152
00:54:55,280 --> 00:54:58,640
Speaker 2: who he is. He's a forensic psychologist and he's an

1153
00:54:58,680 --> 00:55:00,359
Speaker 2: expert in serial crime all that.

1154
00:55:00,600 --> 00:55:01,680
Speaker 3: He told me something once.

1155
00:55:01,800 --> 00:55:04,600
Speaker 2: We're talking about cases where somebody goes into a place

1156
00:55:04,640 --> 00:55:08,080
Speaker 2: and kills multiple people but doesn't kill everybody. Yeah, trying

1157
00:55:08,080 --> 00:55:11,440
Speaker 2: to understand why, and he told me something I've never forgotten.

1158
00:55:11,640 --> 00:55:15,040
Speaker 2: He said, when these people go into their mode to

1159
00:55:15,160 --> 00:55:20,640
Speaker 2: do this, it's like this unbelievable compulsion. And then he

1160
00:55:20,680 --> 00:55:24,200
Speaker 2: calls the compulsive killings. But then they run out of

1161
00:55:24,280 --> 00:55:27,759
Speaker 2: steam and sometimes there may be one person left and

1162
00:55:27,800 --> 00:55:32,040
Speaker 2: the impulse, the compulsion is spent, and they're not They're done.

1163
00:55:32,440 --> 00:55:34,680
Speaker 2: And I think that's what happened in that house, because

1164
00:55:34,719 --> 00:55:36,600
Speaker 2: he ran into one of these people and.

1165
00:55:36,560 --> 00:55:37,239
Speaker 3: He let her go.

1166
00:55:37,640 --> 00:55:39,839
Speaker 1: I had wondered if he had a vision of how

1167
00:55:39,880 --> 00:55:41,440
Speaker 1: it was going to go. He seemed to go to

1168
00:55:41,480 --> 00:55:44,440
Speaker 1: specific floors, like the top floor first, and then came down.

1169
00:55:44,760 --> 00:55:47,080
Speaker 1: And then this was not in his game plan, running

1170
00:55:47,239 --> 00:55:50,640
Speaker 1: right into another roommate, and you know, he walked past

1171
00:55:50,680 --> 00:55:51,960
Speaker 1: and that was it. I don't know if you can

1172
00:55:52,000 --> 00:55:56,560
Speaker 1: explain that either. I do know. I've interviewed Catherine ramsl

1173
00:55:56,640 --> 00:55:59,480
Speaker 1: and you know, who actually worked with Colberger when he

1174
00:55:59,600 --> 00:56:02,799
Speaker 1: was I think he was an assistant of hers, and

1175
00:56:02,840 --> 00:56:06,920
Speaker 1: she's a forensic psychologist, and she said when she was

1176
00:56:07,040 --> 00:56:12,920
Speaker 1: interviewing Dennis Raider BTK, he would complain constantly on when

1177
00:56:12,960 --> 00:56:17,120
Speaker 1: one of his plans would not work perfectly. And it's

1178
00:56:17,160 --> 00:56:19,480
Speaker 1: not even just the guy comes home and it gets

1179
00:56:19,480 --> 00:56:21,799
Speaker 1: sworded and he had to leave. It was like he

1180
00:56:21,880 --> 00:56:24,360
Speaker 1: really did have a clear, as gross as it sounds,

1181
00:56:24,400 --> 00:56:27,000
Speaker 1: a very clear vision. And when then something goes you know,

1182
00:56:27,000 --> 00:56:29,680
Speaker 1: it's a fantasy. And when something goes wrong, you just

1183
00:56:29,719 --> 00:56:32,000
Speaker 1: are frozen and you don't know what to do. So

1184
00:56:32,120 --> 00:56:34,080
Speaker 1: I always thought that that was interesting.

1185
00:56:34,800 --> 00:56:38,200
Speaker 2: I'll never forget that when lou was talking about that

1186
00:56:38,320 --> 00:56:40,360
Speaker 2: and a connection with a different sort of case, and

1187
00:56:40,400 --> 00:56:43,800
Speaker 2: I thought that might explain why with the Idaho situation,

1188
00:56:44,080 --> 00:56:46,480
Speaker 2: you know, there's another person, but the person's out of

1189
00:56:46,560 --> 00:56:49,799
Speaker 2: gas and probably at that point the overwhelming implus is

1190
00:56:49,840 --> 00:56:50,280
Speaker 2: to flee.

1191
00:56:50,680 --> 00:56:53,400
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, and then get zoppy and leaves behind that.

1192
00:56:53,480 --> 00:56:55,560
Speaker 1: Sheaf Oh, that's so great.

1193
00:56:55,320 --> 00:56:57,760
Speaker 3: That that person did that. That's the best.

1194
00:56:58,400 --> 00:57:01,879
Speaker 1: One more question, do you have you ever had Ka

1195
00:57:02,239 --> 00:57:04,960
Speaker 1: go off on vacation or is she always? Is she

1196
00:57:05,000 --> 00:57:07,520
Speaker 1: always in Virginia? I mean, you know, Agatha Christie likes

1197
00:57:07,560 --> 00:57:10,279
Speaker 1: to send people away in all different directions so that

1198
00:57:10,320 --> 00:57:13,120
Speaker 1: they can experience something different. Has Kay ever done anything

1199
00:57:13,120 --> 00:57:14,239
Speaker 1: outside of Virginia.

1200
00:57:14,400 --> 00:57:15,040
Speaker 3: Yes, I've had.

1201
00:57:15,120 --> 00:57:17,720
Speaker 2: I've had some settings in other places like the UK,

1202
00:57:18,200 --> 00:57:20,880
Speaker 2: and I had her a scene set in Poland at

1203
00:57:20,880 --> 00:57:21,320
Speaker 2: one time.

1204
00:57:21,360 --> 00:57:24,360
Speaker 3: I mean, I you know, I've done some other things.

1205
00:57:24,760 --> 00:57:27,280
Speaker 2: But darn it, Agatha, I mean, I would you know,

1206
00:57:27,400 --> 00:57:30,760
Speaker 2: to get on the cruise ship with Benton and Scarpetta,

1207
00:57:31,040 --> 00:57:34,480
Speaker 2: the whole crowd, and then, oh dear, everybody gets poisoned

1208
00:57:34,520 --> 00:57:36,360
Speaker 2: at dinner, and that would be what would happen on

1209
00:57:36,360 --> 00:57:38,640
Speaker 2: her vacation, and then she's got to figure out who

1210
00:57:38,640 --> 00:57:41,560
Speaker 2: did it, and it's not a vacation anymore. So I

1211
00:57:41,600 --> 00:57:43,760
Speaker 2: don't know that it's possible for her to have a vacation.

1212
00:57:44,120 --> 00:57:45,200
Speaker 2: If somebody dies.

1213
00:57:45,480 --> 00:57:48,560
Speaker 1: Oh well, I'm fascinated, you know. Agatha Christie had also

1214
00:57:48,600 --> 00:57:52,880
Speaker 1: said there's nothing better than trapping somebody on vacation on

1215
00:57:52,920 --> 00:57:56,320
Speaker 1: a ship or with a blizzard, because you know, people

1216
00:57:56,360 --> 00:57:59,080
Speaker 1: talk to each other, talk to total strangers in a

1217
00:57:59,120 --> 00:58:02,680
Speaker 1: completely different way when they're on vacation. When you're going

1218
00:58:02,760 --> 00:58:05,040
Speaker 1: to ship a cruise ship and you're never gonna see

1219
00:58:05,080 --> 00:58:07,400
Speaker 1: him again, but you're spending enough time around them where

1220
00:58:07,440 --> 00:58:09,640
Speaker 1: you're getting bored and going, Okay, I'll tell you about you,

1221
00:58:09,640 --> 00:58:12,760
Speaker 1: you know. And that so I had wondered if she

1222
00:58:12,840 --> 00:58:16,720
Speaker 1: had ever been trapped before, or had disclosed something more

1223
00:58:16,760 --> 00:58:19,680
Speaker 1: than she should have, or how you evolve these relationships

1224
00:58:19,720 --> 00:58:20,200
Speaker 1: that she has.

1225
00:58:20,680 --> 00:58:23,520
Speaker 2: I mean, she's had some harrowing experiences. In fact, all

1226
00:58:23,560 --> 00:58:26,080
Speaker 2: the times. If we really made a list, I'm all

1227
00:58:26,120 --> 00:58:29,520
Speaker 2: the people she's killed, all the time, she's almost been killed,

1228
00:58:30,040 --> 00:58:32,520
Speaker 2: some people who were killed but then aren't dead anymore.

1229
00:58:32,680 --> 00:58:35,600
Speaker 2: We'd have quite a list with all these books in

1230
00:58:35,640 --> 00:58:39,280
Speaker 2: all these years. But you know, I'd never say never.

1231
00:58:39,360 --> 00:58:44,520
Speaker 2: But the one technical thing or engineering wise, why it

1232
00:58:44,520 --> 00:58:46,760
Speaker 2: would be very hard for me to tell a story

1233
00:58:46,840 --> 00:58:49,920
Speaker 2: like that, it's because Agatha Christie's not telling her stories

1234
00:58:49,920 --> 00:58:52,120
Speaker 2: from the first person point of view. If you put

1235
00:58:52,160 --> 00:58:55,480
Speaker 2: Miss Marple on a cruise ship and everything is from

1236
00:58:55,560 --> 00:58:59,280
Speaker 2: her perspective, that makes it a whole lot harder to

1237
00:58:59,320 --> 00:59:03,760
Speaker 2: have that puzzle. And see, my thing is, I've tried

1238
00:59:03,800 --> 00:59:05,840
Speaker 2: to get away from the first person point of view,

1239
00:59:05,840 --> 00:59:10,000
Speaker 2: but it doesn't work. If it's really not scarpettit carrying

1240
00:59:10,000 --> 00:59:12,720
Speaker 2: the torch. I mean, I've done it before, and the

1241
00:59:12,760 --> 00:59:15,440
Speaker 2: readers like it better when it's her, but it limits

1242
00:59:15,640 --> 00:59:17,840
Speaker 2: some of what I can do for that very recent

1243
00:59:18,080 --> 00:59:20,439
Speaker 2: you think about it. It's I remember one time, after

1244
00:59:20,480 --> 00:59:23,320
Speaker 2: I'd done ten books, I said, I feel like I'm

1245
00:59:23,360 --> 00:59:25,959
Speaker 2: banging into the sides of her skull because I can't

1246
00:59:25,960 --> 00:59:28,080
Speaker 2: get out of her own head. I can't do I

1247
00:59:28,120 --> 00:59:31,040
Speaker 2: can't go to Marino's house, I can't go to Lucy's house,

1248
00:59:31,440 --> 00:59:33,800
Speaker 2: not unless she's there. And I actually got kind of

1249
00:59:33,800 --> 00:59:36,640
Speaker 2: mad at her. The next book was third person point

1250
00:59:36,640 --> 00:59:39,520
Speaker 2: of view, and my sales went down because people didn't

1251
00:59:39,600 --> 00:59:40,960
Speaker 2: like it as much because.

1252
00:59:40,680 --> 00:59:42,480
Speaker 1: They want to be in her head. They want to

1253
00:59:42,520 --> 00:59:44,800
Speaker 1: be deceived along with her, and then they want her

1254
00:59:44,920 --> 00:59:47,080
Speaker 1: to get smart and figure it out using her own

1255
00:59:47,120 --> 00:59:50,600
Speaker 1: way of doing it. And that's pretty cool. But I agree,

1256
00:59:50,640 --> 00:59:52,960
Speaker 1: I mean first person and third person. I started my

1257
00:59:53,000 --> 00:59:55,360
Speaker 1: book in third person and it just was not working

1258
00:59:55,400 --> 00:59:57,480
Speaker 1: at all. I couldn't do it. I just couldn't get it,

1259
00:59:57,520 --> 01:00:00,560
Speaker 1: and so I'd rather be lost in the main person's

1260
01:00:00,760 --> 01:00:04,720
Speaker 1: brain then a third person that knows everything, and then

1261
01:00:04,720 --> 01:00:06,960
Speaker 1: I have to figure out, well, how do you how

1262
01:00:07,000 --> 01:00:08,440
Speaker 1: do you keep things from people?

1263
01:00:08,480 --> 01:00:10,800
Speaker 2: Because you know what happens is if you're not careful,

1264
01:00:11,040 --> 01:00:15,240
Speaker 2: you start lying to the reader by you deliberately lead

1265
01:00:15,280 --> 01:00:18,880
Speaker 2: them astray with something. And I don't really think you're

1266
01:00:19,280 --> 01:00:21,040
Speaker 2: I don't know. I don't feel comfortable with that. I

1267
01:00:21,080 --> 01:00:24,360
Speaker 2: want to tell a story that it's true, and you

1268
01:00:24,440 --> 01:00:26,240
Speaker 2: either figure it out or you don't figure it out.

1269
01:00:26,240 --> 01:00:29,240
Speaker 2: And even if you do figure it out before it ends,

1270
01:00:29,320 --> 01:00:31,440
Speaker 2: it doesn't matter because you're dying to see what's going

1271
01:00:31,520 --> 01:00:34,720
Speaker 2: to happen, you know what I mean. Let's be honest,

1272
01:00:34,760 --> 01:00:36,600
Speaker 2: we go through the we live this life in the

1273
01:00:36,640 --> 01:00:39,360
Speaker 2: first person point of view. I mean, if you're working

1274
01:00:39,360 --> 01:00:42,040
Speaker 2: a homicide or I am, we only know what we're experiencing.

1275
01:00:42,040 --> 01:00:44,480
Speaker 2: We're not in five places at one time, even if

1276
01:00:44,480 --> 01:00:48,720
Speaker 2: we're zooming, not really, And so that's just what works

1277
01:00:48,720 --> 01:00:50,160
Speaker 2: for me too, and I just go stick with it.

1278
01:00:50,280 --> 01:00:53,880
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I think it's okay for Scarpetta to be

1279
01:00:53,960 --> 01:00:56,440
Speaker 1: lied to, it's probably not okay for the reader to

1280
01:00:56,520 --> 01:00:58,880
Speaker 1: be lied to accept you know, I mean, I know

1281
01:00:58,960 --> 01:01:01,000
Speaker 1: it works for some people. I just couldn't figure it out,

1282
01:01:01,000 --> 01:01:03,880
Speaker 1: and I just though I'd rather be stuck in my characters.

1283
01:01:04,040 --> 01:01:05,479
Speaker 3: I think I'm just not clever enough.

1284
01:01:05,600 --> 01:01:07,520
Speaker 1: No, I know you are. I just think. I think

1285
01:01:07,520 --> 01:01:09,280
Speaker 1: it's more of a challenge, and maybe you like that

1286
01:01:09,400 --> 01:01:11,880
Speaker 1: kind of a challenge, you know. I mean, it's very

1287
01:01:11,920 --> 01:01:15,360
Speaker 1: good character development living in her head, I think, and

1288
01:01:15,400 --> 01:01:18,200
Speaker 1: she becomes that person that I'm sure people have depended

1289
01:01:18,240 --> 01:01:21,720
Speaker 1: on when they are sad or or happy or whatever.

1290
01:01:21,720 --> 01:01:23,960
Speaker 1: They take it on vacation and it's a comfort character.

1291
01:01:24,080 --> 01:01:26,880
Speaker 1: And my lord, you've been around so long. They can

1292
01:01:26,920 --> 01:01:29,200
Speaker 1: go back and they probably don't even remember post warnings.

1293
01:01:29,360 --> 01:01:33,000
Speaker 2: I don't either, and I don't. I've had to get

1294
01:01:33,160 --> 01:01:36,600
Speaker 2: I had to get a retired NASA scientist friend of

1295
01:01:36,640 --> 01:01:39,720
Speaker 2: mine to go through my books and create data sheets

1296
01:01:40,080 --> 01:01:43,880
Speaker 2: because I can't possibly and I have files so that

1297
01:01:43,960 --> 01:01:47,560
Speaker 2: I can have people do searches, because imagine what when

1298
01:01:47,560 --> 01:01:50,600
Speaker 2: you're trying to remember what color somebody's eyes are, and

1299
01:01:50,640 --> 01:01:52,560
Speaker 2: you're saying, if I tell you they're blue, what if

1300
01:01:52,600 --> 01:01:55,800
Speaker 2: I said, ten books go they're brown? You got to

1301
01:01:55,920 --> 01:01:58,080
Speaker 2: It's a lot, and it's not possible to keep all

1302
01:01:58,160 --> 01:01:58,720
Speaker 2: that in your head.

1303
01:01:58,760 --> 01:02:00,000
Speaker 1: You know, people keep track of all that.

1304
01:02:00,280 --> 01:02:01,600
Speaker 2: I know they do, and they'll tell you if you

1305
01:02:01,640 --> 01:02:03,840
Speaker 2: make it wrong. But what I would say to people,

1306
01:02:03,880 --> 01:02:06,280
Speaker 2: the nice thing is, yes, it's a lot of books,

1307
01:02:06,280 --> 01:02:08,120
Speaker 2: but they don't have to read them in order, and

1308
01:02:08,320 --> 01:02:10,960
Speaker 2: you can read them. I mean, I write them as standalone.

1309
01:02:11,480 --> 01:02:13,160
Speaker 2: It's fun to read all of them, but you don't

1310
01:02:13,160 --> 01:02:15,240
Speaker 2: have to. And if you go back and read a

1311
01:02:15,240 --> 01:02:16,920
Speaker 2: lot one a long time ago, let me know what

1312
01:02:16,960 --> 01:02:19,760
Speaker 2: it says and who did it, because I've probably forgotten.

1313
01:02:20,680 --> 01:02:23,480
Speaker 1: When this series comes out next year, you know, with

1314
01:02:23,640 --> 01:02:27,760
Speaker 1: Nicole Kidman in the main role, will it change k

1315
01:02:28,200 --> 01:02:31,200
Speaker 1: in your head when you inevitably write the next twelve

1316
01:02:31,240 --> 01:02:34,640
Speaker 1: books with her, because now you really do have, you know,

1317
01:02:34,720 --> 01:02:36,080
Speaker 1: a K up on the screen.

1318
01:02:36,560 --> 01:02:39,880
Speaker 2: I think seeing all of these actors playing the roles

1319
01:02:40,000 --> 01:02:42,880
Speaker 2: is going to have its impact on me. I mean

1320
01:02:42,880 --> 01:02:46,080
Speaker 2: I've already seen you know, the series. I mean I've

1321
01:02:46,120 --> 01:02:49,280
Speaker 2: seen the first eight episodes so and I'm writing a

1322
01:02:49,320 --> 01:02:51,680
Speaker 2: book at the same time, so I do know. I

1323
01:02:51,720 --> 01:02:53,840
Speaker 2: will tell you this, I'll never see Dorothy the same.

1324
01:02:54,360 --> 01:02:57,040
Speaker 2: I cannot see Dorothy without Jamie Lee Curtis being all

1325
01:02:57,040 --> 01:02:59,800
Speaker 2: over my head in a really good way.

1326
01:02:59,680 --> 01:03:02,240
Speaker 3: Because it's a great role that she's fantastic.

1327
01:03:02,600 --> 01:03:06,360
Speaker 2: And yeah, sometimes I see Nicole or I hear her voice,

1328
01:03:06,560 --> 01:03:09,400
Speaker 2: but mostly, you know, when I'm doing my thing, I'm

1329
01:03:09,440 --> 01:03:12,240
Speaker 2: not really thinking about any of that. It's just I'm

1330
01:03:12,240 --> 01:03:16,040
Speaker 2: in that world and Scarpetta is who she is, and

1331
01:03:16,040 --> 01:03:18,360
Speaker 2: maybe she'll learn a few tricks from Nicole, maybe she'll

1332
01:03:18,360 --> 01:03:18,840
Speaker 2: get Toddler.

1333
01:03:30,360 --> 01:03:33,280
Speaker 1: If you love historical true crime stories, check out the

1334
01:03:33,320 --> 01:03:36,360
Speaker 1: audio versions of my books The Sinner's All About the

1335
01:03:36,400 --> 01:03:39,560
Speaker 1: Ghost Club, All That Is Wicked, and American Sherlock and

1336
01:03:39,640 --> 01:03:42,919
Speaker 1: Don't Forget. There are twelve seasons of my historical true

1337
01:03:42,920 --> 01:03:47,440
Speaker 1: crime podcast, tenfold More Wicked right here in this podcast feed,

1338
01:03:47,720 --> 01:03:50,400
Speaker 1: scroll back and give them a listen if you haven't already.

1339
01:03:50,840 --> 01:03:54,360
Speaker 1: This has been an exactly right production. Our senior producer

1340
01:03:54,440 --> 01:03:58,840
Speaker 1: is Alexis M. Morosi. Our associate producer is Christina Chamberlain.

1341
01:03:59,200 --> 01:04:03,520
Speaker 1: This episode mixed by John Bradley. Curtis Heath is our composer.

1342
01:04:03,800 --> 01:04:08,240
Speaker 1: Artwork by Nick Toga. Executive produced by Georgia Hardstark, Karen

1343
01:04:08,320 --> 01:04:12,120
Speaker 1: Kilgarriff and Danielle Kramer. Follow Wicked Words on Instagram and

1344
01:04:12,200 --> 01:04:16,480
Speaker 1: Facebook at tenfold more Wicked and on Twitter at tenfold More.

1345
01:04:16,720 --> 01:04:18,600
Speaker 1: And if you know of a historical crime that could

1346
01:04:18,680 --> 01:04:21,480
Speaker 1: use some attention from the crew at tenfold more Wicked,

1347
01:04:21,600 --> 01:04:26,080
Speaker 1: email us at info at Tenfoldmorewicked dot com. We'll also

1348
01:04:26,160 --> 01:04:35,960
Speaker 1: take your suggestions for true crime authors, for wicked words,