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Speaker 1: Missing in Arizona contains graphic depictions of violence and may

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Speaker 1: not be suitable for all listeners. This episode also discusses suicide.

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Speaker 1: You can reach the National Suicide and Crisis Lifeline at

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Speaker 1: nine to eight eight. I want you to run an experiment.

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Speaker 1: Go to Google News, type in mankill's family, See what

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Speaker 1: comes up. I'm scripting this episode. On May sixth, twenty

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Speaker 1: twenty four, two weeks ago, a forty two year old

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Speaker 1: named Jonathan Candy shot and killed his thirty nine year

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Speaker 1: old wife, Lindsay, and three of their sons, ages eighteen, fourteen,

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Speaker 1: and twelve. He then died by suicide. For some reason,

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Speaker 1: he didn't kill his youngest son. That boy, ten years old,

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Speaker 1: woke up the next morning, found his family dead, and

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Speaker 1: called nine one to one. Jonathan Candy was a video engineer.

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Speaker 1: He lived in a nice home in a well to do,

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Speaker 1: Oklahoma City suburb. Hours before the murders, he even attended

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Speaker 1: an NBA game that night, Jonathan and Lindsay had a fight.

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Speaker 1: Jonathan shot Lindsay, then went room to room, killing his

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Speaker 1: three older sons. According to Koco, a local TV station,

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Speaker 1: it's unclear why he didn't kill his youngest son, or

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Speaker 1: how that boy either slept through everything or ignored it.

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Speaker 1: The Candy and Fisher cases are similar. Everyone was roughly

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Speaker 1: the same age, dads, respectable jobs, moms caring for the kids,

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Speaker 1: nice suburban homes, late night fights that apparently led to murder,

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Speaker 1: no known history of domestic violence. These cases are called familicides,

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Speaker 1: or more brutally, family annihilations. They're rare statistically, yet they're

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Speaker 1: common enough that by the time this episode airs, you'll

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Speaker 1: be able to google man kills family and read about

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Speaker 1: yet another tragic, comparable case. This speaks to broader societal patterns.

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Speaker 1: We lift up men, push down women, and try to

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Speaker 1: subjugate women who don't consent to being controlled, often with violence. Yes,

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Speaker 1: in some ways the Candy and Fisher cases stand out

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Speaker 1: the Candy Boy survived, Robert Fisher disappeared. But in other

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Speaker 1: ways they're not unique at all. They share similarities with

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Speaker 1: hundreds of other familicides, and in these similarities we have

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Speaker 1: an opportunity not only to learn about Robert Fisher, but

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Speaker 1: to save lives from iHeartRadio and Neon thirty three. I'm

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Speaker 1: John Walzac and this is Missing in Arizona, the story

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Speaker 1: of a man who disappeared after allegedly killing his wife

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Speaker 1: and kids, blowing up their suburban home, and escaping into

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Speaker 1: the wilderness. Twenty three years later, I'm hunting Robert Fisher,

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Speaker 1: and I need your help. It's tough to research familicide

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Speaker 1: because so little research has been done. The only experts

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Speaker 1: are a few hyper specialized academics scattered around the globe,

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Speaker 1: including Neil Webs Based of all places, in Phoenix, Neil

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Speaker 1: is director of Arizona State University's Family Violence Center. He

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Speaker 1: also has the National Domestic Violence Fatality Review Initiative. I'm

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Speaker 1: looking at the Robert Fisher case. I'm sure, as a

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Speaker 1: specialist and familicide in Arizona, you're familiar with that case.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I know the Fisher case.

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Speaker 3: Yeah.

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Speaker 1: Neil wrote a book called Familicidal Hearts the emotional styles

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Speaker 1: of two hundred and eleven killers. He divides family annihilators

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Speaker 1: into two categories.

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Speaker 2: Vivid coercive, the sort of classic angry batterer who's bullying

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Speaker 2: but vulnerable and dependent at the same time.

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Speaker 1: This annihilator is the stereotypical wife beater, motivated by shame

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Speaker 1: and anger. He's obsessed with being a man, but he's

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Speaker 1: really a bully. He hides, interfeares of abandonment, weak, with

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Speaker 1: outer spasms of violence strong to him. Masculinity is control

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Speaker 1: and control is violence.

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Speaker 2: These men, when you really look at their lives, they're

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Speaker 2: not that powerful, they're not that in control. In fact,

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Speaker 2: they kill when they're out of control and their power

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Speaker 2: is ebbing.

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Speaker 1: About fifty percent of annihilators fit the livid course of subtype.

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Speaker 2: On the other end, civil repeatable. These are offenders where

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Speaker 2: I could find no prior history of domestic violence. They

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Speaker 2: were often respectable members of the community. There's often a

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Speaker 2: lot of surprise expressed about the killing. The killings often

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Speaker 2: were done not necessarily in the heat of rage, but

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Speaker 2: as part of the unfolding of very uncomfortable circumstances like,

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Speaker 2: for example, foreclosure on a mortgage, loss of a job,

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Speaker 2: some grand ignominious end, perhaps saving the family from destitution,

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Speaker 2: thinking that you're doing people of favor. Some people refer

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Speaker 2: to this as misguided ultruism. There's a strong sense of

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Speaker 2: entitlement there. There's a strong sense of narcissism there. Often

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Speaker 2: there's a lot of repression, depression, suicidality, often very much masked,

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Speaker 2: and they would probably number a third and then there

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Speaker 2: was the remainder. Twenty percent of cases that rattled both

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Speaker 2: I call those contradictory cases, and it was difficult to

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Speaker 2: classify them.

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Speaker 1: This is probably where Robert Fisher falls in the middle.

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Speaker 1: Civil reputable, a church going man who works at a hospital,

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Speaker 1: no known history of domestic violence. His life spirals out

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Speaker 1: of control. He'd rather kill his family than see it

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Speaker 1: break apart like his did when he was fifteen. His

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Speaker 1: parents had an acrimonious divorce, which impacted him severely. The

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Speaker 1: boy whose world is destroyed becomes as a man, the

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Speaker 1: destroyer of worlds. This blends into the other subtype, livid

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Speaker 1: course of hyper masculine me man very controlling. One example,

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Speaker 1: Robert fixated on Mary's weight. A family friend told me

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Speaker 1: Robert quote was not going to have a fat wife

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Speaker 1: or kids. Mary would hide cookies around the house. Another

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Speaker 1: friend said, quote, he would make her go out and walk,

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Speaker 1: then he would lock the door and he wouldn't let

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Speaker 1: her in if he didn't think it was long enough.

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Speaker 1: He was like, you need to do a double walk.

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Speaker 1: A final example, the salt incident.

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Speaker 3: We went camping with them one time.

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Speaker 1: Fits your family friend John rode In, is there a

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Speaker 1: night to cook.

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Speaker 4: They cook try tip steak, and she forgot the salt

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Speaker 4: and he would not let that go.

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Speaker 3: You just like nagging her for the whole night.

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Speaker 5: John's wife Mary Beth, and we had salt.

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Speaker 6: Well, forgetting salt was like, what a jerk.

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Speaker 7: He could be a jerk and she wouldn't fight with him.

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Speaker 7: She was very controlled by him. I remember once I

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Speaker 7: drove from our house in Skoyspell to the Pavilions and

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Speaker 7: then went later with her to dinner that night. She's like,

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Speaker 7: I can't believe that John lets you drive there twice

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Speaker 7: in one day. Like okay, I never even thought about that.

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Speaker 7: He controls where you drive, how far you drive, how

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Speaker 7: much you eat, like Mary, how many pieces of pizza?

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Speaker 7: Is that just very controlling, but she put up with it.

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Speaker 1: My second femalo side expert is David Wilson. David is British,

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Speaker 1: which seems random to say, but it's relevant. I'll tell

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Speaker 1: you why in a minute we chat by zoom. David

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Speaker 1: takes great delight when I use in American phrases like.

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Speaker 6: On the lamb. I love that I went to school

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Speaker 6: in North Carolina and.

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Speaker 1: I always you know, I'm from North Carolina.

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Speaker 6: Oh, while I was at Chapel Hill.

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Speaker 1: I grew up in Carry, North Carolina, right near Chapel Hell.

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Speaker 6: Oh wonderful. I have such fond memories and we're speaking

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Speaker 6: at such a sad time about Carolina, aren't we? In

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Speaker 6: Because of the murder a couple of days ago.

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Speaker 1: It was literally yesterday. On August twenty eighth, twenty twenty three,

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Speaker 1: a grad student shot and killed a chemistry professor at UNC.

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Speaker 1: This is where the UK angle comes in. David co

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Speaker 1: authored a seminole paper called A Taxonomy of Male British

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Speaker 1: Family Annihilators. He studied fifty nine British annihilators. I didn't

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Speaker 1: consider that important. I didn't even think about it before

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Speaker 1: we spoke, but it matters.

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Speaker 6: Gaining access to guns in Britain is very difficult. As

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Speaker 6: a result of the dun Blaine massacre of those school

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Speaker 6: children in Scotland on.

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Speaker 1: March thirteenth, nineteen ninety six, a forty three year old

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Speaker 1: man killed sixteen five year olds, their teacher and himself.

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Speaker 1: The massacre led to a handgun ban in most of

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Speaker 1: the UK. I want you to run another experiment. Go

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Speaker 1: to Google news, type in school shooting. See what comes

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Speaker 1: up again. I'm scripting this. On May sixth, twenty twenty four.

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Speaker 1: Three days ago, a bullet hit a girl at a

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Speaker 1: high school in DC. Five days ago, police shot and

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Speaker 1: killed a boy with a pellet gun outside of middle

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Speaker 1: school in Wisconsin. Twelve days ago, a boy shot and

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Speaker 1: killed another boy at a high school in Texas. This

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Speaker 1: is our society. That's not a comment on gun control.

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Speaker 1: It's a statement of fact. This is our society. This

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Speaker 1: is America twenty twenty four. And this is why I

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Speaker 1: have to highlight that David is British, because easy access

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Speaker 1: to guns means that while in many ways his findings

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Speaker 1: on femili side are universal, in some ways they're unique

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Speaker 1: to the UK. For example, only six of the fifty

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Speaker 1: nine annihilators David studied used guns. The five most common

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Speaker 1: methods were stabbing nineteen, carbon monoxide poisoning nine, strangulation eight,

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Speaker 1: bludgeoning seven, fire seven, and then guns six. Most common

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Speaker 1: day of the week Sunday, most common month August. Most

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Speaker 1: common locations home thirty four, country lane ten, beauty spot

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Speaker 1: six other nine. Most annihilators had jobs. Fifty five percent

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Speaker 1: were thirty to thirty nine years old. Eighty four percent

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Speaker 1: of victims were under the age of ten. Sixty six

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Speaker 1: percent of cases were triggered by family breakdown, meaning the

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Speaker 1: family broke up or was about to break up. How

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Speaker 1: do the fissures fit in here? Robert was thirty nine

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Speaker 1: normal employed normal. He killed Mary and the kids at

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Speaker 1: home normal by slitting their throats abnormal, and shooting Mary abnormal.

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Speaker 1: For the UK, Bobby was ten and Brittany was twelve abnormal.

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Speaker 5: The murders were likely.

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Speaker 1: Triggered by family breakdown normal and took place in April abnormal,

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Speaker 1: on a Monday or Tuesday abnormal. You might ask, why

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Speaker 1: does the day or month matter, Well, think about it.

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Speaker 1: The most common month August, the most common day Sunday,

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Speaker 1: the summer, the weekend.

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Speaker 6: Lots of fathers would gain access to their children, especially

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Speaker 6: during school holidays, when they had access arrangements. After they

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Speaker 6: had perhaps left the family home. They would take the

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Speaker 6: children as if they were going to spend some time

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Speaker 6: at his home or say at a picnic area, but

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Speaker 6: he would rig the car so that they would all

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Speaker 6: die through carbon monoxide poisoning.

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Speaker 1: David's paper separates annihilators into four categories, disappointed, anomic, paranoid,

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Speaker 1: and self righteous, disappointed, believes that the family has let

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Speaker 1: him down, that they've failed, either actively or passively, from

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Speaker 1: fulfilling his view of what a family should be. Sees

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Speaker 1: family as simply an extension of his own needs, desires, hopes.

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Speaker 5: And aspirations.

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Speaker 1: Anomic has lost the source of the family's income or

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Speaker 1: is facing the threat of bankruptcy. Oversocialized into a belief

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Speaker 1: that consumption determines quality.

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Speaker 2: Of life, paranoid.

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Speaker 1: Annihilator believes that an external threat, which may be real

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Speaker 1: or imagined, such as from social services whom he believes

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Speaker 1: will take his children into care, will destroy his family.

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Speaker 1: In his own mind, killing his family is a way

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Speaker 1: of protecting them from that threat. Self righteous seeks to

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Speaker 1: blame his partner or ex partner for the annihilation. Will

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Speaker 1: have often been controlling, slash possessive in the past, narcissistic

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Speaker 1: and dramatic, both in the method by which the annihilation

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Speaker 1: takes place and in his statements prior to the murders.

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Speaker 6: I was always amazed by how performative the family annihilators

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Speaker 6: in our study, where these are very dramatic events, and

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Speaker 6: it reveals the underlying need for the hegemonic masculinity of

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Speaker 6: the annihilator to be able to demonstrate, even in the

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Speaker 6: moment when lives are being taken, that he's still the man.

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Speaker 1: This squarely fits Fisher. A family killed their throats, cut,

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Speaker 1: a wife shot in the head, a house raped to explode.

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Speaker 1: Robert the man is really Robert. The drama Queen David

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Speaker 1: repeatedly mentions a similar annihilator named Christopher Foster. In two

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Speaker 1: thousand and eight, Foster, a fifty year old British man,

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Speaker 1: shot and killed his wife and daughter, their dogs and horses,

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Speaker 1: burned down their house, and died by suicide.

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Speaker 6: What unites all of the family annihilators, whether you're talking

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Speaker 6: about Robert Fisher or whether we're talking about Christopher Foster,

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Speaker 6: is an idea of the performance of masculinity and how

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Speaker 6: they have total control over their family as they see it,

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Speaker 6: to do as they would please with those people within

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Speaker 6: their family. They do not see their family members, their partner,

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Speaker 6: their children as sentient beings, but almost as possessions, almost

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Speaker 6: as if they're just like the TV or some kind

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Speaker 6: of r They are simply reduced to being objects that

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Speaker 6: can be used for whatever purpose the family annihilator would

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Speaker 6: like to use them for.

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Speaker 1: I've tried to paint Robert Fisher not as a simplistic demon,

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Speaker 1: but as a complex man, in part to highlight that

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Speaker 1: there's no universal portrait of evil. Evil often sees you

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Speaker 1: before you see it. By the time you know someone's evil,

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Speaker 1: it might be too late to save yourself. Evil can

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Speaker 1: lie dormant in a civil shell, then explode outward with

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Speaker 1: sudden force.

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Speaker 6: It would be really easy if violent men, if murderers

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Speaker 6: and serial murderers or family annihilators had horns on their

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Speaker 6: head and a long pointed tail, we could point to

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Speaker 6: them and say that's the killer. Avoid them. It doesn't

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Speaker 6: work like that. There is a Hollywood trope that somebody

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Speaker 6: like a Fisher, or serial killers or mass murderers more generally,

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Speaker 6: will be some kind of dysfunctional loner who is clearly

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Speaker 6: not socialized within his peer group or within the community

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Speaker 6: in which he lives or operates. However, that's not the case.

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Speaker 6: Whether we're talking about serial murderers or family annihilators. These

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Speaker 6: men are often incredibly successful and well socialized within the

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Speaker 6: group or neighborhood. They are seen as trustworthy and you know, John,

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Speaker 6: whether we're talking about the United States or in Britain,

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Speaker 6: And if I just think about serial murder for a second,

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Speaker 6: our most prolific serial killer in Britain was a respected

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Speaker 6: old fashioned general practitioner at GP, doctor Harold Shipman, who

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Speaker 6: kills two hundred and fifteen, perhaps as many as two

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Speaker 6: hundred and sixty of mostly older women patients that he

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Speaker 6: had within his general practice. When he was first arrested,

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Speaker 6: the other patients in his practice were so annoyed that

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Speaker 6: Shipmen had been arrested they set up a fund to

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Speaker 6: pay for his legal expenses, a fighting fund. So you know,

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Speaker 6: here were somebody who was respected within the community. And

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Speaker 6: if I think about the United States, your most prolific

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Speaker 6: serial killer was a nurse, Charles Cullin.

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Speaker 1: Can I stop you real quick. I was born on

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Speaker 1: September eighth, nineteen eighty eight, in Saint Barnabas Hospital in Livingston,

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Speaker 1: New Jersey. That is the hospital where Charles Colin worked,

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Speaker 1: and he was actively working as a nurse when my

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Speaker 1: brother and I were both born there. I was born

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Speaker 1: in eighty eight, my brother was born in nineteen ninety one.

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Speaker 1: So the hospital where I was born in Livingston, New Jersey,

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Speaker 1: Saint Barnabas is exactly where the most prolific serial killer

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Speaker 1: in American history was working at the time I was born.

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Speaker 6: This is why you are so fascinated with true crime.

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Speaker 6: I absolutely guarantee, and I often say John, that an

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Speaker 6: interest in true crime is not just normal, it's necessary

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Speaker 6: because if we understand the circumstances and which we are

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Speaker 6: likely to face violence, we can avoid them. And there's

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Speaker 6: a speed. As a specie, human beings have evolved because

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Speaker 6: we solved mysteries, and why people kill is a mystery,

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Speaker 6: and we want to understand that phenomenon better. And that's

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Speaker 6: why it's normal and necessary to have the kind of

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Speaker 6: interest that you've got and to do the kinds of

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Speaker 6: podcasts that you want to make.

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Speaker 1: So I said, my brother was born in nineteen ninety one. Well,

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Speaker 1: my family at the time lived in a town in

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Speaker 1: New Jersey called Sayerville, New Jersey. And there's a famous

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Speaker 1: case nine days after my brother was born, where this

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Speaker 1: little boy disappeared from a carnival. His body was found,

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Speaker 1: but for many years they didn't arrest anyone. They later

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Speaker 1: arrested the mother. Five year old Timothy Wilsey disappeared from

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Speaker 1: a carnival in Sayerville, New Jersey on May twenty fifth,

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Speaker 1: nineteen ninety one. I was two at the time, living

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Speaker 1: a mile away. Police found Tim's remains in a marsh.

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Speaker 1: His mother was later arrested, convicted of murder, and sent

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Speaker 1: to prison. Then in twenty one, in a shocking four

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Speaker 1: to three vote, the state Supreme Court set her free.

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Speaker 5: While not a.

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Speaker 1: Family annihilation, the wilty case was high profile for an

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Speaker 1: obvious reason. The accused killer was Tim's mom. We can

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Speaker 1: barely process these crimes when committed by a father, let

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Speaker 1: alone a mother. How can a father kill his kids?

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Speaker 1: How can a mother? Female annihilators exist, but they're rare.

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Speaker 1: I wish I could tell you more, but believe it

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Speaker 1: or not, no one keeps statistics. I can't go to

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Speaker 1: FBI dot gov and search annihilation data. There is none, which,

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Speaker 1: by the way, from a policy perspective, seems like low

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Speaker 1: hanging fruit. We should track this stuff at a federal level. Regardless.

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Speaker 1: Familicide is undeniably overwhelmingly a male phenomenon. David tells me

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Speaker 1: something surprising. In the not so distant past, judges sometimes

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Speaker 1: went easy on killer dads.

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Speaker 6: There was one particular case where the judge says, I

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Speaker 6: think you suffered enough, and gay from a suspended sentence.

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Speaker 6: It was unbelievable.

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Speaker 1: Now I have two more critical questions for David. One

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Speaker 1: what can his research tell us about premeditation? And two

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Speaker 1: what can it tell us about suicide? How likely is

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Speaker 1: it that Robert Fisher planned the murders in advance? And

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Speaker 1: how likely is it that he died by suicide? How

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Speaker 1: common was it in family annihilations that the family annihilator

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Speaker 1: premeditated and planned the annihilation versus day in the popular

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Speaker 1: imagination snapped because I think people have trouble understanding how

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Speaker 1: somebody could do this.

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Speaker 6: None of the family annihilator that I studied ever snapped.

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Speaker 6: They all had planned to a greater or lesser extent.

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Speaker 6: All of the family annihilations were a consequence of circumstances

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Speaker 6: within the family that he felt he was no longer

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Speaker 6: able to control. So you can talk about premeditation in

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Speaker 6: a very kind of you know, like he had gasoline

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Speaker 6: that he was going to burn the house, doarn he

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Speaker 6: had bought that specially, he had thought about when the

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Speaker 6: children were going to be home. He had premeditated to

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Speaker 6: the extent of thinking in which order would he kill

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Speaker 6: the children.

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Speaker 1: Every single annihilator, David studied. Fifty nine out of fifty

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Speaker 1: nine showed evidence of premeditation, a finding supported by Neil Websdale,

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Speaker 1: who splits annihilators into two groups, livid, coursive and civil reputable.

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Speaker 2: Premeditation was a strong element in both sets of cases.

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Speaker 2: It was particularly strong in the civil reputable cases where

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Speaker 2: people planned it out very carefully and clearly. The Fisher

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Speaker 2: case is an example where there was considerable planning.

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Speaker 1: My third and final expert is Taylor Oatal. Taylor is

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Speaker 1: a PhD student at the State University of New York

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Speaker 1: at Albany. She spent a year and a half studying

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Speaker 1: thirty nine familicides that occurred in the US between twenty

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Speaker 1: nine and twenty nineteen.

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Speaker 4: The overwhelming majority of family sides are premeditated, even if

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Speaker 4: it's not the full family unit. This is a trend

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Speaker 4: I've seen in multiple cases is that they will plan

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Speaker 4: on killing the spouse right and now they have this

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Speaker 4: realization that they've killed the mother of their children. They

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Speaker 4: are now a single parent. They don't want that burden,

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Speaker 4: so they follow up and kill their children.

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Speaker 1: It's important that all three experts, Taylor, David, and Neil

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Speaker 1: say familicide is almost always premeditated, because in the Fisher case,

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Speaker 1: police have so far made public very little evidence, if any,

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Speaker 1: that Robert planned the murders in advance. They note that

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Speaker 1: he changed his oil two days before the murders, so what?

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Speaker 1: And that he bought water purification supplies the night of

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Speaker 1: the murders. Again, so what? He was going to go

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Speaker 1: camping that weekend? Well, they say he always used bottled water.

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Speaker 1: He never purified it with tablets or pumps. But I

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Speaker 1: found a likely explanation for this in a police file.

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Speaker 1: A few days before the murders, Robert and a neighbor

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Speaker 1: watched a TV show called Eco Challenge, which featured a

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Speaker 1: segment on water purification, which intrigued Robert. Well, police say,

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Speaker 1: what about the ATM Robert took out two hundred and

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Speaker 1: eighty dollars right before the murders.

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Speaker 5: Again, so what.

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Speaker 1: The only evidence that made sense to me were the

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Speaker 1: poor patterns proving that a liquid accelerant was used, which

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Speaker 1: would indicate the arsonists stocked it up in advance. But

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Speaker 1: in episode three we debunked this. Poor patterns are junk science.

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Speaker 1: Not to mention, neither arsen dogs nor lab tests detected

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Speaker 1: any liquid accelerant. My point here is not that Robert

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Speaker 1: didn't premeditate the murders. I think he did. I'll make

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Speaker 1: that case in a later episode. My point is that

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Speaker 1: everything cited so far publicly as evidence of premeditation is

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Speaker 1: in fact garbage. So that's why the academic angle is important.

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Speaker 1: If Fisher's caught and there's a trial, prosecutors will likely

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Speaker 1: call some of the same experts I've interview you'd end

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Speaker 1: this episode, who found that the vast majority of annihilators

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Speaker 1: did in fact premeditate their crimes. Finally, let me say

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Speaker 1: this to law enforcement. If you have any better evidence,

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Speaker 1: I recommend you make it public asap. There are people

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Speaker 1: who know stuff, and they don't want to talk to

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Speaker 1: you because they still don't believe Robert did this, or

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Speaker 1: if they do, they think he snapped, not that it

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Speaker 1: was a cold blooded, premeditated crime. If you want to

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Speaker 1: squeeze out new leads, show these folks they're wrong. There's

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Speaker 1: no point in saving evidence for a trial that's never

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Speaker 1: going to happen. You got to catch him first. If

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Speaker 1: you like this show, please download our first two seasons,

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Speaker 1: Missing in Alaska and Missing on nine to eleven for updates,

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00:23:51,000 --> 00:23:53,480
Speaker 1: visit meon thirty three dot com or follow me on

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Speaker 1: Twitter at John waalzac jo n Walczak. Thanks for listening. Now,

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Speaker 1: the key question Robert Fischer's fate. What happened to him?

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Speaker 1: Did he die by suicide in the wilderness? Did he

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Speaker 1: escape in the absence of evidence? What can research tell us?

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Speaker 2: It wouldn't surprise me if he was alive at all.

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Speaker 2: It looked like that was a well planned.

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Speaker 5: Exit, Neil Websdale.

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Speaker 2: He knew what he was doing, He planned it. The

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Speaker 2: exit strategy was there.

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Speaker 1: The idea that someone can kill their children and not

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Speaker 1: die by suicide is tough to process. When I ask

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Speaker 1: people who think Fisher died why they think that, they

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Speaker 1: inevitably asked me a question, how could he live with himself?

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Speaker 1: Let's turn to statistics. David Wilson studied the fate of

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Speaker 1: fifty nine annihilators. Forty died by suicide, thirty one immediately

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Speaker 1: after the murders, six after a short delay, and three

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Speaker 1: after a long delay. Eight attempted suicide but lived. The

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Speaker 1: final eleven did not attempt suicide. That's a sizable minority

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Speaker 1: nineteen percent, and it might be even higher in the US.

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Speaker 6: I wonder if they had been Americans, they would have

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Speaker 6: attempted suicide by cop, and of course, because our police

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Speaker 6: aren't routinely armed in Britain, that was never going to

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Speaker 6: be an option.

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Speaker 1: And the biggest question of all, how common did you

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Speaker 1: find cases in which male family annihilators successfully escaped.

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Speaker 6: None. I had no examples where the annihilator would escape

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Speaker 6: or be still at large in the way that you

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Speaker 6: were describing about Robert Fisher.

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Speaker 1: Remember, David identified four types of annihilators self righteous, disappointed, anomic,

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Speaker 1: and paranoid. Taylor Ohal, the PhD student, further classifies as

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Speaker 1: as either.

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Speaker 5: Self preserving or mentally ill.

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Speaker 4: If I had to categorize Robert Fisher, it would be

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Speaker 4: self righteous or self preserving. So these offenders are less

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Speaker 4: likely to commit suicide self preserving specifically, and they're more

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Speaker 4: likely to deny that they had anything to do with

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Speaker 4: it and flee because again, the only person that they're.

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Speaker 3: Concerned with are themselves.

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Speaker 4: And in this case, I would say, it's less about

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Speaker 4: revenge and more about I need to shed myself with

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Speaker 4: this family unit they're holding you back.

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Speaker 1: Taylor found that eighty five percent of American annihilators died

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Speaker 1: by suicide, similar to the eighty one percent of British

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Speaker 1: annihilators who either died by suicide or attempted it. That

432
00:26:40,560 --> 00:26:44,359
Speaker 1: figure is lower for self preserving offenders like Robert Fisher.

433
00:26:44,480 --> 00:26:47,200
Speaker 4: Only sixty percent of these offenders commit suicide. They don't

434
00:26:47,200 --> 00:26:49,040
Speaker 4: think they're going to be caught. They're above the law

435
00:26:49,080 --> 00:26:51,000
Speaker 4: in their minds, so they don't need to kill themselves.

436
00:26:51,040 --> 00:26:54,920
Speaker 4: For that reason, they view their family more as accessories

437
00:26:55,080 --> 00:26:58,919
Speaker 4: than an actual family, so they don't feel compelled to

438
00:26:59,240 --> 00:27:01,439
Speaker 4: reunify that family. That's why they were killing them in

439
00:27:01,440 --> 00:27:05,000
Speaker 4: the first place. So they don't kill themselves, and they

440
00:27:05,000 --> 00:27:07,760
Speaker 4: triumph flee because that, in their mind is what they're

441
00:27:07,960 --> 00:27:11,000
Speaker 4: entitled to. They're saving themselves. They're gonna get rid of

442
00:27:11,000 --> 00:27:12,520
Speaker 4: this family so that they can go and have a

443
00:27:12,600 --> 00:27:13,080
Speaker 4: better life.

444
00:27:13,560 --> 00:27:15,240
Speaker 5: Like David Taylor found.

445
00:27:15,000 --> 00:27:17,280
Speaker 3: That nobody successfully fled.

446
00:27:17,560 --> 00:27:21,000
Speaker 1: If committing familicide and not dying by suicide is less

447
00:27:21,040 --> 00:27:24,880
Speaker 1: common in the fifteen to twenty percent range, successful escapes

448
00:27:24,960 --> 00:27:29,040
Speaker 1: are almost unheard of, and Robert Fisher did successfully escape.

449
00:27:29,320 --> 00:27:32,360
Speaker 1: We just don't know his ultimate fate. Let's look now

450
00:27:32,400 --> 00:27:34,760
Speaker 1: at a few similar cases and see if we can

451
00:27:34,840 --> 00:27:40,679
Speaker 1: learn anything chrishiun Lungo. Longo, his wife, and their three kids,

452
00:27:40,840 --> 00:27:44,119
Speaker 1: ages two, three, and four lived in Newport, Oregon, a

453
00:27:44,160 --> 00:27:47,560
Speaker 1: seaside town of ten thousand. In December two thousand and one,

454
00:27:47,840 --> 00:27:51,200
Speaker 1: Longo killed his family. He dumped two of the bodies,

455
00:27:51,359 --> 00:27:55,080
Speaker 1: his wife and youngest daughter in Yaquina Bay next to Newport.

456
00:27:55,680 --> 00:27:58,479
Speaker 1: Just outside the bay sits the wreck of an old ship.

457
00:27:58,760 --> 00:28:02,200
Speaker 1: It is, by chance, my great grandfather's ship. He captained

458
00:28:02,200 --> 00:28:06,040
Speaker 1: it during World War Two. After the war it sank mysteriously.

459
00:28:06,480 --> 00:28:10,480
Speaker 1: It's known as the ship that committed suicide. Anyway, After

460
00:28:10,560 --> 00:28:14,360
Speaker 1: Longo suffocated and strangled his family, he fled to Mexico.

461
00:28:15,600 --> 00:28:18,480
Speaker 1: If you're wondering how an annihilator can live with himself,

462
00:28:18,640 --> 00:28:21,719
Speaker 1: listen to this. Longo stole the identity of a New

463
00:28:21,800 --> 00:28:25,520
Speaker 1: York Times writer named Michael Finkel. He spent his days

464
00:28:25,600 --> 00:28:29,800
Speaker 1: in Cancun and Taloom, dancing, drinking, skinny dipping, and hooking

465
00:28:29,880 --> 00:28:33,359
Speaker 1: up with a German woman. After someone recognized him, he

466
00:28:33,480 --> 00:28:37,760
Speaker 1: was arrested, extradited, and sentenced to death. Finkol, the reporter,

467
00:28:38,120 --> 00:28:40,960
Speaker 1: later wrote a book about the case called True Story

468
00:28:41,320 --> 00:28:44,719
Speaker 1: Murder Memoir Maya Culpa, which was turned into a movie

469
00:28:44,760 --> 00:28:46,680
Speaker 1: starring James Franco and Jonah Hill.

470
00:28:48,000 --> 00:28:49,680
Speaker 5: Xavier DuPont de Legonez.

471
00:28:50,280 --> 00:28:53,680
Speaker 1: In April twenty eleven, a French aristocrat named Xavier du

472
00:28:53,680 --> 00:28:57,200
Speaker 1: BoNT de Legonez shot and killed his wife and four kids,

473
00:28:57,440 --> 00:29:00,000
Speaker 1: ages thirteen, sixteen, eighteen, and twelve.

474
00:29:00,600 --> 00:29:01,880
Speaker 5: He also killed his.

475
00:29:01,880 --> 00:29:05,840
Speaker 1: Dogs and buried them in the backyard with his family. Xavier,

476
00:29:06,080 --> 00:29:09,400
Speaker 1: the same age as Robert Fisher, then fled to southern France,

477
00:29:09,480 --> 00:29:12,320
Speaker 1: where he spent four nights in hotels. He was last

478
00:29:12,400 --> 00:29:16,000
Speaker 1: seen withdrawing cash from an ATM before abandoning his car

479
00:29:16,160 --> 00:29:20,960
Speaker 1: and vanishing. Police didn't open an investigation until April nineteenth,

480
00:29:21,000 --> 00:29:23,920
Speaker 1: twenty eleven, ten years to the day from when Mary

481
00:29:23,960 --> 00:29:27,600
Speaker 1: Fisher's forerunner was found in Arizona. It took so long

482
00:29:27,800 --> 00:29:31,040
Speaker 1: in part because Xavier spread letters saying the family was

483
00:29:31,080 --> 00:29:35,360
Speaker 1: moving abroad immediately. That bought him time, maybe ten days.

484
00:29:35,680 --> 00:29:38,320
Speaker 1: His last known location was a small town on the

485
00:29:38,320 --> 00:29:43,560
Speaker 1: French Riviera, surrounded by rugged terrain. Like Fisher, investigators think

486
00:29:43,600 --> 00:29:46,520
Speaker 1: he died by suicide in the wild, or escaped and

487
00:29:46,640 --> 00:29:50,600
Speaker 1: is alive. They searched caves and abandoned mines for his remains.

488
00:29:50,960 --> 00:29:54,680
Speaker 1: They didn't find any. In twenty fifteen, someone sent a

489
00:29:54,720 --> 00:29:57,360
Speaker 1: photo of two of the murdered children to a journalist.

490
00:29:57,680 --> 00:30:00,600
Speaker 1: On the back, they wrote, I am still alive from

491
00:30:00,640 --> 00:30:04,280
Speaker 1: then until this hour and signed the name Xavier DuPont

492
00:30:04,320 --> 00:30:08,200
Speaker 1: de Lagnez. In twenty sixteen, a security camera filmed a

493
00:30:08,240 --> 00:30:12,040
Speaker 1: man who resembled Xavier at a French casino. In twenty eighteen,

494
00:30:12,200 --> 00:30:15,920
Speaker 1: police raided a monastery looking for him, no luck. The

495
00:30:16,000 --> 00:30:22,320
Speaker 1: case remains unresolved. Bradford Bishop Bishop was a Yale graduate

496
00:30:22,360 --> 00:30:25,600
Speaker 1: who spoke five languages and worked for the US State Department.

497
00:30:25,880 --> 00:30:29,120
Speaker 1: On March first, nineteen seventy six, after failing to get

498
00:30:29,120 --> 00:30:32,600
Speaker 1: a promotion, he left work. Agitated, he went to a bank,

499
00:30:32,800 --> 00:30:35,680
Speaker 1: pulled out cash, and bought a sledgehammer, a gas can,

500
00:30:35,920 --> 00:30:39,480
Speaker 1: a shovel, and a pitchfork. Later that night, he bludgeoned

501
00:30:39,520 --> 00:30:43,120
Speaker 1: to death his mom, wife, and three sons, ages five, ten,

502
00:30:43,280 --> 00:30:46,520
Speaker 1: and fourteen. He packed all five bodies into a red

503
00:30:46,560 --> 00:30:50,320
Speaker 1: station wagon and drove from suburban DC to an isolated

504
00:30:50,360 --> 00:30:53,560
Speaker 1: swampy spot in eastern North Carolina, where he dug a

505
00:30:53,600 --> 00:30:56,600
Speaker 1: pit and lit everyone on fire. He then stopped at

506
00:30:56,600 --> 00:30:59,760
Speaker 1: an outdoor store in Jacksonville, North Carolina, where he used

507
00:30:59,800 --> 00:31:02,480
Speaker 1: a credit card to buy fifteen dollars and sixty cents

508
00:31:02,520 --> 00:31:05,960
Speaker 1: worth of supplies. Two weeks later, police found his car

509
00:31:06,040 --> 00:31:08,960
Speaker 1: abandoned at a campground in the Smoky Mountains. In the

510
00:31:09,040 --> 00:31:12,240
Speaker 1: back were a bloody blanket, a shotgun, and an axe.

511
00:31:12,320 --> 00:31:15,480
Speaker 1: According to the Associated Press, the back wheel well was

512
00:31:15,520 --> 00:31:19,480
Speaker 1: filled with blood. An FBI agent told reporters quote were

513
00:31:19,480 --> 00:31:22,240
Speaker 1: working on the assumption that Bishop abandoned the car and

514
00:31:22,320 --> 00:31:26,600
Speaker 1: took off into the mountains. Bradford Bishop and Robert Fisher

515
00:31:26,720 --> 00:31:30,640
Speaker 1: share similar profiles. They were both thirty nine, Their wives

516
00:31:30,680 --> 00:31:33,520
Speaker 1: were thirty seven and thirty eight. Their kids were about

517
00:31:33,560 --> 00:31:36,800
Speaker 1: the same age. Both men allegedly killed their children as

518
00:31:36,800 --> 00:31:39,760
Speaker 1: they slept in bed. Both have surgical scars on their

519
00:31:39,760 --> 00:31:43,120
Speaker 1: lower backs. Both served in the military. Both are avid

520
00:31:43,120 --> 00:31:47,440
Speaker 1: out doorsmen. Both care about fitness. Both are extremely controlling.

521
00:31:47,680 --> 00:31:51,400
Speaker 1: Both prefer neat and orderly environments. Both lived in well

522
00:31:51,440 --> 00:31:54,520
Speaker 1: to do suburbs, had no known history of domestic violence,

523
00:31:54,680 --> 00:31:58,840
Speaker 1: and were once again respectable. Listen to this from a

524
00:31:58,960 --> 00:32:02,760
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy nine Associated Press article. It's about the Bishops,

525
00:32:02,880 --> 00:32:06,480
Speaker 1: but it could easily be about the Fishers. Quote neighbors

526
00:32:06,640 --> 00:32:10,120
Speaker 1: describing the family as well liked puzzled along with police

527
00:32:10,320 --> 00:32:13,719
Speaker 1: over the possible motive for the mass slaying. Police believed

528
00:32:13,720 --> 00:32:16,280
Speaker 1: the most plausible theory of what happened to Bishop is

529
00:32:16,280 --> 00:32:20,239
Speaker 1: that he carried out an elaborate plan to disappear. Since then,

530
00:32:20,560 --> 00:32:23,240
Speaker 1: hundreds of sightings of Bishop have poured in from all

531
00:32:23,320 --> 00:32:26,640
Speaker 1: over the world. From twenty fourteen to eighteen, the FBI

532
00:32:26,720 --> 00:32:29,120
Speaker 1: put him on its ten most wanted list. In twenty

533
00:32:29,160 --> 00:32:31,880
Speaker 1: twenty one, the FBI announced that a sixty three year

534
00:32:31,920 --> 00:32:35,280
Speaker 1: old woman adopted as a child discovered via a commercial

535
00:32:35,360 --> 00:32:39,800
Speaker 1: DNA test that Bishop was her biological father. Bishop apparently

536
00:32:39,840 --> 00:32:42,560
Speaker 1: had her in college long before the murders and may

537
00:32:42,600 --> 00:32:45,720
Speaker 1: not have known she existed. If alive, Bishop would be

538
00:32:45,760 --> 00:32:51,640
Speaker 1: eighty eight. The case remains unresolved. John List by far

539
00:32:51,880 --> 00:32:55,360
Speaker 1: the most famous family annihilator of all time. In November

540
00:32:55,440 --> 00:32:59,000
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy one, List shot and killed his mom and wife.

541
00:32:59,280 --> 00:33:01,400
Speaker 1: He then made him self a sandwich and went to

542
00:33:01,480 --> 00:33:04,240
Speaker 1: the bank before picking up two of his kids, ages

543
00:33:04,280 --> 00:33:08,200
Speaker 1: thirteen and sixteen, from school, taking them home, and killing them.

544
00:33:08,760 --> 00:33:09,760
Speaker 5: That night, his.

545
00:33:09,640 --> 00:33:12,640
Speaker 1: Fifteen year old son had a soccer game. List attended

546
00:33:12,640 --> 00:33:15,400
Speaker 1: the game, then drove the boy home and killed him two.

547
00:33:16,080 --> 00:33:18,600
Speaker 1: He staged the bodies of his wife and kids in

548
00:33:18,640 --> 00:33:21,840
Speaker 1: the ballroom of the family mansion in Westfield, New Jersey.

549
00:33:22,160 --> 00:33:25,240
Speaker 1: He left his mom in her attic apartment. Lisz wrote

550
00:33:25,280 --> 00:33:28,160
Speaker 1: a letter saying he killed everyone to save their souls.

551
00:33:28,600 --> 00:33:32,000
Speaker 1: He lowered the air conditioning to preserve the bodies, piped

552
00:33:32,000 --> 00:33:36,280
Speaker 1: in organ music through an entercom system, halted deliveries of milk,

553
00:33:36,400 --> 00:33:39,840
Speaker 1: mail and the newspaper. Wrote letters saying his kids were

554
00:33:39,920 --> 00:33:42,880
Speaker 1: visiting a sick relative, cut his face out of every

555
00:33:42,960 --> 00:33:47,240
Speaker 1: family photo, and bolted. Police didn't find the bodies for

556
00:33:47,280 --> 00:33:51,160
Speaker 1: almost a month. Imagine crawling through a window at night

557
00:33:51,320 --> 00:33:54,640
Speaker 1: into a chilly mansion filled with gloomy organ music and

558
00:33:54,760 --> 00:33:59,040
Speaker 1: five bodies. Two weeks after the murders, a man using

559
00:33:59,040 --> 00:34:02,160
Speaker 1: the alias DBA Cooper hijacked a plane in the Pacific

560
00:34:02,200 --> 00:34:06,000
Speaker 1: Northwest and parachuted out with two hundred thousand dollars cash.

561
00:34:06,280 --> 00:34:10,880
Speaker 1: Investigators later considered List a suspect, but that theory went nowhere.

562
00:34:11,239 --> 00:34:14,480
Speaker 1: Unlike List, who fled west, he abandoned his car at

563
00:34:14,520 --> 00:34:17,680
Speaker 1: an airport and caught a train to Michigan, then Colorado.

564
00:34:18,200 --> 00:34:21,200
Speaker 1: For the next seventeen years, he lived in Denver, under

565
00:34:21,200 --> 00:34:25,160
Speaker 1: the alias Robert Bob Clark. He got an accounting job,

566
00:34:25,280 --> 00:34:28,880
Speaker 1: joined a church, and in nineteen eighty five remarried. In

567
00:34:28,960 --> 00:34:31,800
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty eight, he and his new wife moved to Virginia.

568
00:34:32,160 --> 00:34:35,560
Speaker 1: A year later, America's Most Wanted featured the case. A

569
00:34:35,600 --> 00:34:39,800
Speaker 1: former neighbor recognized that Bob Clark was in fact John List.

570
00:34:40,239 --> 00:34:44,160
Speaker 1: List was arrested in Virginia, tried, convicted, and sentenced to

571
00:34:44,200 --> 00:34:46,879
Speaker 1: life in prison. He died in two thousand and eight.

572
00:34:48,360 --> 00:34:51,440
Speaker 1: What can we learn from this case? Well, like Robert

573
00:34:51,520 --> 00:34:56,440
Speaker 1: Fisher and Bradford Bishop, John List was respectable, a quiet accountant,

574
00:34:56,640 --> 00:35:00,680
Speaker 1: a Sunday school teacher who lived in a mansion. Importantly,

575
00:35:00,760 --> 00:35:04,239
Speaker 1: though he killed his family, escaped and lived under a

576
00:35:04,239 --> 00:35:08,000
Speaker 1: fake identity for nearly eighteen years, and the case was

577
00:35:08,120 --> 00:35:12,880
Speaker 1: everywhere books, films, TV shows. So by nineteen eighty nine,

578
00:35:12,960 --> 00:35:15,240
Speaker 1: what was the point of yet another show?

579
00:35:15,600 --> 00:35:16,440
Speaker 5: But it worked.

580
00:35:16,760 --> 00:35:20,439
Speaker 1: John List was arrested age sixty three, the same age

581
00:35:20,560 --> 00:35:24,759
Speaker 1: Robert Fisher would be today if alive. Scottsdale Detective TJ.

582
00:35:24,920 --> 00:35:28,240
Speaker 1: Duran often calls Fisher the John List of our generation.

583
00:35:28,800 --> 00:35:31,239
Speaker 1: I agree. If you want to learn more about the

584
00:35:31,280 --> 00:35:34,520
Speaker 1: List case, I highly recommend the podcast Father Wants Us

585
00:35:34,600 --> 00:35:40,160
Speaker 1: Dead by Jessica Rimo and Rebecca Everett. Thomas Shaffrey. On

586
00:35:40,280 --> 00:35:44,280
Speaker 1: July eighteenth, nineteen seventy two, eight months after the List murders,

587
00:35:44,480 --> 00:35:47,800
Speaker 1: in Irvington, New Jersey, only ten miles from the List House,

588
00:35:48,120 --> 00:35:51,920
Speaker 1: a former police officer named Thomas Shaffrey shot and killed

589
00:35:52,000 --> 00:35:55,160
Speaker 1: his wife and two daughters. Police found them in bed,

590
00:35:55,400 --> 00:35:58,399
Speaker 1: shot in the head. Thomas was thirty nine, the same

591
00:35:58,400 --> 00:36:02,320
Speaker 1: age as Robert Fisher. His His wife, Estelle, a kindergarten teacher,

592
00:36:02,560 --> 00:36:07,520
Speaker 1: was thirty three. Laura was twelve, Alison eleven. I've only

593
00:36:07,560 --> 00:36:11,640
Speaker 1: ever seen a photo of Laura nineteen seventy one, sixth grade.

594
00:36:12,160 --> 00:36:13,800
Speaker 1: Zoom in in the middle.

595
00:36:14,080 --> 00:36:14,759
Speaker 5: There she is.

596
00:36:15,480 --> 00:36:20,080
Speaker 1: Six kids down stands another girl, Laura's best friend. That

597
00:36:20,200 --> 00:36:24,400
Speaker 1: girl is my mom. The Irvington police chief told reporters

598
00:36:24,440 --> 00:36:27,799
Speaker 1: that the Shafferys were quote a real nice family. The

599
00:36:27,840 --> 00:36:30,680
Speaker 1: business was doing well, so there was no problem there.

600
00:36:31,000 --> 00:36:34,160
Speaker 1: It was just one of those things, Just one of

601
00:36:34,200 --> 00:36:37,799
Speaker 1: those things. And how sad is that? What does it

602
00:36:37,880 --> 00:36:41,840
Speaker 1: say about our society that, yes, familicide is rare, but

603
00:36:42,000 --> 00:36:45,600
Speaker 1: common enough. It impacted my mom. My mom would often

604
00:36:45,640 --> 00:36:48,680
Speaker 1: hang out at Laura's house. She recalls that Laura had

605
00:36:48,760 --> 00:36:52,920
Speaker 1: a round, pretty face with light brown hair, twinkling blue eyes,

606
00:36:53,040 --> 00:36:56,480
Speaker 1: and a beautiful smile. They loved the song band of

607
00:36:56,520 --> 00:37:01,080
Speaker 1: Gold by Frida Payne and seventies fashion any style boots,

608
00:37:01,320 --> 00:37:04,520
Speaker 1: maxie skirts. They were in the same Girl Scout troop.

609
00:37:04,840 --> 00:37:09,360
Speaker 1: Laura's mom, Estelle, was one of their leaders. Thomas, Laura's dad,

610
00:37:09,680 --> 00:37:13,400
Speaker 1: was a tall, stocky man with brown hair. My mom said, quote,

611
00:37:13,520 --> 00:37:16,480
Speaker 1: I always remember him as surly, never seeming to be

612
00:37:16,520 --> 00:37:21,960
Speaker 1: in a good mood. Surprising because Estelle was the opposite, open, nurturing, caring.

613
00:37:22,440 --> 00:37:25,320
Speaker 1: My mom remembers having dinner with the Shafferys right before

614
00:37:25,360 --> 00:37:30,080
Speaker 1: the murders. Thomas barely made eye contact, barely spoke. Laura said,

615
00:37:30,239 --> 00:37:33,160
Speaker 1: don't mind him, That's just the way he is. The

616
00:37:33,239 --> 00:37:35,920
Speaker 1: day of the murders, my mom was home school was

617
00:37:35,960 --> 00:37:39,280
Speaker 1: out for the summer. In a soft spoken, distraught voice,

618
00:37:39,360 --> 00:37:42,759
Speaker 1: my grandfather told her what happened. I then ran outside

619
00:37:42,800 --> 00:37:45,720
Speaker 1: and got on my bike. My mom said, since Laura's

620
00:37:45,719 --> 00:37:48,200
Speaker 1: house was only a few blocks away, I rode over

621
00:37:48,239 --> 00:37:51,680
Speaker 1: there very quickly, but needless to say, was instantly stopped

622
00:37:51,680 --> 00:37:56,600
Speaker 1: by the police. I remember sobbing uncontrollably, suddenly realizing in

623
00:37:56,680 --> 00:38:00,320
Speaker 1: my heart that what my parents said was true. Orial

624
00:38:00,360 --> 00:38:03,279
Speaker 1: service and Mass was held at the Catholic church next

625
00:38:03,280 --> 00:38:07,160
Speaker 1: to our elementary school. I vividly remember seeing the caskets

626
00:38:07,200 --> 00:38:12,440
Speaker 1: by the altar. For many years, my mom couldn't comprehend

627
00:38:12,520 --> 00:38:16,440
Speaker 1: what happened. She still can't. The murders were one reason

628
00:38:16,520 --> 00:38:19,560
Speaker 1: she later chose to study family law. She wanted to

629
00:38:19,600 --> 00:38:23,120
Speaker 1: be a judge to watch over children. My point here

630
00:38:23,239 --> 00:38:25,799
Speaker 1: is not that my mom is special. It's that, in

631
00:38:25,840 --> 00:38:30,879
Speaker 1: the context of familicide and more broadly, domestic violence, unfortunately

632
00:38:31,080 --> 00:38:35,319
Speaker 1: she's not. Violence against women and children, and yes, even men,

633
00:38:35,640 --> 00:38:36,880
Speaker 1: is obscenely common.

634
00:38:37,360 --> 00:38:38,400
Speaker 5: It's so common.

635
00:38:38,600 --> 00:38:42,440
Speaker 1: Multiple Robert Fishers have killed their partners. In nineteen eighty

636
00:38:42,600 --> 00:38:45,160
Speaker 1: a Robert Fisher killed his girlfriend in Pennsylvania.

637
00:38:45,560 --> 00:38:46,560
Speaker 5: It's so common.

638
00:38:46,800 --> 00:38:50,840
Speaker 1: Robert William Fisher, Our Robert Fisher isn't even the first

639
00:38:50,920 --> 00:38:54,280
Speaker 1: Robert w. Fisher featured on America's Most Wanted for killing

640
00:38:54,320 --> 00:38:58,080
Speaker 1: his wife. That honor goes to Robert Wayne Fisher, who

641
00:38:58,200 --> 00:39:02,040
Speaker 1: murdered his wife in Louisiana nineteen eighty eight. I want

642
00:39:02,040 --> 00:39:06,120
Speaker 1: to end this episode by speaking to two groups of people. First, men,

643
00:39:06,520 --> 00:39:10,480
Speaker 1: It's not normal or moral, or acceptable or strong to

644
00:39:10,600 --> 00:39:12,480
Speaker 1: abuse or kill women and children.

645
00:39:12,880 --> 00:39:15,160
Speaker 5: It's weak. Please seek help.

646
00:39:15,960 --> 00:39:19,000
Speaker 1: Second women, if you think you can predict when a

647
00:39:19,040 --> 00:39:23,360
Speaker 1: controlling partner might kill you, you're wrong. Mary Jane Longo couldn't

648
00:39:23,360 --> 00:39:26,960
Speaker 1: predict it. Agnes DuPont di Legnez couldn't predict it. Annette

649
00:39:27,000 --> 00:39:30,640
Speaker 1: Bishop couldn't predict it, Mary Fisher couldn't predict it. Estelle

650
00:39:30,680 --> 00:39:32,560
Speaker 1: Shaffrey couldn't predict it, and.

651
00:39:32,560 --> 00:39:33,200
Speaker 5: Neither can you.

652
00:39:33,840 --> 00:39:37,279
Speaker 1: The time to act to seek help is now. It's

653
00:39:37,320 --> 00:39:40,719
Speaker 1: critical to note again that none of these annihilators had

654
00:39:40,800 --> 00:39:45,360
Speaker 1: documented histories of physical abuse. But abuse takes many forms.

655
00:39:45,520 --> 00:39:47,880
Speaker 4: The most common that we think of is physical abuse

656
00:39:48,200 --> 00:39:53,320
Speaker 4: Taylor otelp hitting, shoving, kicking, anything that is causing somebody

657
00:39:53,520 --> 00:39:54,680
Speaker 4: physical harm.

658
00:39:54,760 --> 00:39:57,440
Speaker 3: But that is not at all the full extent of

659
00:39:57,560 --> 00:39:58,360
Speaker 3: domestic violence.

660
00:39:58,520 --> 00:40:03,040
Speaker 4: Some more common ones are economic control. So, oh, I'm

661
00:40:03,120 --> 00:40:05,040
Speaker 4: the sole earner in this house, you don't need to

662
00:40:05,040 --> 00:40:05,719
Speaker 4: work your job.

663
00:40:05,920 --> 00:40:06,920
Speaker 3: I'll take care of you.

664
00:40:07,320 --> 00:40:10,120
Speaker 4: But then that turns into, well, all the money you

665
00:40:10,200 --> 00:40:11,160
Speaker 4: have is my money.

666
00:40:11,400 --> 00:40:15,000
Speaker 3: No, you can't go spend that money. People start to restrict.

667
00:40:14,400 --> 00:40:17,840
Speaker 4: Their financial independence and it forces them to be dependent

668
00:40:17,880 --> 00:40:19,799
Speaker 4: on their spouse, making it harder for them to leave.

669
00:40:20,120 --> 00:40:21,080
Speaker 3: Emotional abuse.

670
00:40:21,560 --> 00:40:24,320
Speaker 4: This is widely ranging, but a lot of times it

671
00:40:24,760 --> 00:40:27,440
Speaker 4: is in the form of blaming. The offender blames their

672
00:40:27,480 --> 00:40:30,719
Speaker 4: spouse for all of their problems, and that spouse comes

673
00:40:30,719 --> 00:40:34,280
Speaker 4: to believe that they are worth nothing, that their entire

674
00:40:34,400 --> 00:40:37,920
Speaker 4: worth is in their partner, and again this prevents them

675
00:40:37,920 --> 00:40:42,040
Speaker 4: from leaving. Another really really big one is isolation, and

676
00:40:42,080 --> 00:40:45,320
Speaker 4: I think this is one that's probably not recognized as widely,

677
00:40:45,680 --> 00:40:49,360
Speaker 4: is that these offenders tend to saw off their spouse

678
00:40:49,440 --> 00:40:52,360
Speaker 4: from all their other support systems so that the only

679
00:40:52,440 --> 00:40:55,640
Speaker 4: form of support they have is the offender. That way,

680
00:40:55,640 --> 00:40:57,759
Speaker 4: they can't leave because they have no one else to

681
00:40:57,840 --> 00:41:01,880
Speaker 4: go to. It can also be verbal calling them horrible names,

682
00:41:02,080 --> 00:41:05,960
Speaker 4: can be sexual in the form of porgion or abuse

683
00:41:06,040 --> 00:41:08,880
Speaker 4: or rape, and then social kind of leads into that

684
00:41:08,960 --> 00:41:13,920
Speaker 4: isolation territory, so things like stalking, physically restraining a person,

685
00:41:14,280 --> 00:41:18,280
Speaker 4: controlling their sexual behaviors, what they wear, making violent threats,

686
00:41:18,520 --> 00:41:22,160
Speaker 4: and not allowing them to leave to divorce them, or

687
00:41:22,200 --> 00:41:22,880
Speaker 4: all forms.

688
00:41:22,640 --> 00:41:23,560
Speaker 3: Of domestic healths.

689
00:41:23,960 --> 00:41:27,759
Speaker 1: Circling back to Robert Fisher, Taylor thinks he's alive. It's

690
00:41:27,800 --> 00:41:29,840
Speaker 1: interesting to think that he could have another family.

691
00:41:30,040 --> 00:41:33,160
Speaker 3: He absolutely could and probably does. To be honest, what

692
00:41:33,200 --> 00:41:35,839
Speaker 3: makes you say that? Because everything is about him.

693
00:41:36,040 --> 00:41:38,799
Speaker 4: If that first family didn't meet his needs, he's going

694
00:41:38,840 --> 00:41:41,520
Speaker 4: to shed that family and go find one. He does so,

695
00:41:41,719 --> 00:41:44,440
Speaker 4: maybe a wife who in his mind, is more subservient,

696
00:41:44,680 --> 00:41:49,120
Speaker 4: children who are more obedient, a family who's more financially successful,

697
00:41:49,440 --> 00:41:52,600
Speaker 4: just going and recreating what he wants his self image

698
00:41:52,640 --> 00:41:52,840
Speaker 4: to be.

699
00:41:54,000 --> 00:41:57,320
Speaker 1: If Robert Fisher is alive, if he has a new family,

700
00:41:57,560 --> 00:42:01,359
Speaker 1: they're in danger. So women and men not sure about

701
00:42:01,440 --> 00:42:04,840
Speaker 1: Robert's sexuality, look at your partner if you were born

702
00:42:04,960 --> 00:42:06,440
Speaker 1: after April two thousand and one.

703
00:42:06,600 --> 00:42:07,400
Speaker 5: Look at your dad.

704
00:42:07,800 --> 00:42:11,200
Speaker 1: If you think he's Robert Fisher, contact law enforcement in

705
00:42:11,239 --> 00:42:16,000
Speaker 1: a safe and urgent manner. Neil Websdale, the expert in Phoenix,

706
00:42:16,239 --> 00:42:19,520
Speaker 1: also thinks it's likely that Robert Fisher is alive. But

707
00:42:19,640 --> 00:42:22,640
Speaker 1: this is about so much more than Fisher. Like me,

708
00:42:23,200 --> 00:42:27,560
Speaker 1: Neil sees familicide, particularly in an American context, as an

709
00:42:27,600 --> 00:42:31,200
Speaker 1: indictment of a six society. I want to emphasize that

710
00:42:31,280 --> 00:42:35,000
Speaker 1: this is not isolated to one political tribe, the Red killers,

711
00:42:35,120 --> 00:42:40,399
Speaker 1: the Blue killers. Familicide is bipartisan. Domestic violence is bipartisan

712
00:42:40,920 --> 00:42:43,759
Speaker 1: violence is the bipartisan glue that binds us.

713
00:42:44,000 --> 00:42:47,120
Speaker 2: What we're dealing with here is a society that wants

714
00:42:47,160 --> 00:42:50,960
Speaker 2: a reason, is a society that wants to exhibit shock

715
00:42:51,040 --> 00:42:54,480
Speaker 2: at these horrors. But it's the same society that is

716
00:42:54,760 --> 00:42:59,040
Speaker 2: in many ways alienated, the society that could be You know,

717
00:42:59,080 --> 00:43:00,840
Speaker 2: I should be careful what is say say here, But

718
00:43:01,120 --> 00:43:04,080
Speaker 2: it's the only society on Earth that's dropped nuclear weapons

719
00:43:04,080 --> 00:43:08,080
Speaker 2: on another country. We live with various abominations. When you

720
00:43:08,080 --> 00:43:10,680
Speaker 2: look at the treatment of Native people's, when you look

721
00:43:10,719 --> 00:43:14,120
Speaker 2: at American history, the blood is in the soil. It's here.

722
00:43:14,440 --> 00:43:18,080
Speaker 2: So I think, yes, you're looking at the haunting presence

723
00:43:18,080 --> 00:43:21,319
Speaker 2: of the inexplicable with these cases. And when people say

724
00:43:21,360 --> 00:43:24,719
Speaker 2: they can't understand, none of us can understand. But we

725
00:43:24,800 --> 00:43:28,000
Speaker 2: should realize that there but for the grace of whatever,

726
00:43:28,320 --> 00:43:31,440
Speaker 2: there but for fortune, go you and I.

727
00:43:31,440 --> 00:43:35,400
Speaker 1: If you're experiencing or at risk of abuse, please call

728
00:43:35,520 --> 00:43:39,520
Speaker 1: the National Domestic Violence Hotline at one eight hundred seven

729
00:43:39,640 --> 00:43:42,839
Speaker 1: nine to nine safe. That's one eight hundred seven ninety

730
00:43:42,920 --> 00:43:47,759
Speaker 1: nine seven two three three. Next time I'm missing In Arizona.

731
00:43:48,000 --> 00:43:50,920
Speaker 7: He made the trip to go talk to these survivalist

732
00:43:51,000 --> 00:43:52,320
Speaker 7: people and it was right before.

733
00:43:54,680 --> 00:43:57,040
Speaker 1: You can reach us by phone at one eight three

734
00:43:57,160 --> 00:44:00,920
Speaker 1: three new tips That's one eight three three six three

735
00:44:01,080 --> 00:44:04,480
Speaker 1: nine eight four seven seven, by email at tips at

736
00:44:04,480 --> 00:44:09,640
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737
00:44:09,760 --> 00:44:13,280
Speaker 1: Neon thirty three dot com, or on Twitter at John Wallzac,

738
00:44:13,520 --> 00:44:18,440
Speaker 1: j O n w A. L. Czak. Paul Decan is

739
00:44:18,440 --> 00:44:22,120
Speaker 1: our executive producer, Chris Brown is our supervising producer. Hannah

740
00:44:22,200 --> 00:44:25,320
Speaker 1: Rose Snyder is our producer. Paul Gemperlin is our researcher.

741
00:44:25,440 --> 00:44:28,040
Speaker 1: Ben Bollen is a consulting producer, and I'm your host

742
00:44:28,120 --> 00:44:31,600
Speaker 1: and executive producer John Wallzac. Header titles voiced by me

743
00:44:31,840 --> 00:44:35,600
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744
00:44:35,840 --> 00:44:39,000
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745
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746
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748
00:44:48,320 --> 00:44:50,840
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