WEBVTT - 8. Annihilation 0:00:00.160 --> 0:00:03.240 Missing in Arizona contains graphic depictions of violence and may 0:00:03.279 --> 0:00:07.320 not be suitable for all listeners. This episode also discusses suicide. 0:00:07.600 --> 0:00:10.600 You can reach the National Suicide and Crisis Lifeline at 0:00:10.680 --> 0:00:14.600 nine to eight eight. I want you to run an experiment. 0:00:14.960 --> 0:00:18.959 Go to Google News, type in mankill's family, See what 0:00:19.079 --> 0:00:22.400 comes up. I'm scripting this episode. On May sixth, twenty 0:00:22.440 --> 0:00:25.480 twenty four, two weeks ago, a forty two year old 0:00:25.560 --> 0:00:28.560 named Jonathan Candy shot and killed his thirty nine year 0:00:28.560 --> 0:00:32.440 old wife, Lindsay, and three of their sons, ages eighteen, fourteen, 0:00:32.479 --> 0:00:36.280 and twelve. He then died by suicide. For some reason, 0:00:36.440 --> 0:00:40.080 he didn't kill his youngest son. That boy, ten years old, 0:00:40.240 --> 0:00:43.199 woke up the next morning, found his family dead, and 0:00:43.240 --> 0:00:47.480 called nine one to one. Jonathan Candy was a video engineer. 0:00:47.760 --> 0:00:49.760 He lived in a nice home in a well to do, 0:00:49.880 --> 0:00:53.760 Oklahoma City suburb. Hours before the murders, he even attended 0:00:53.760 --> 0:00:57.360 an NBA game that night, Jonathan and Lindsay had a fight. 0:00:57.680 --> 0:01:01.080 Jonathan shot Lindsay, then went room to room, killing his 0:01:01.200 --> 0:01:05.119 three older sons. According to Koco, a local TV station, 0:01:05.640 --> 0:01:08.760 it's unclear why he didn't kill his youngest son, or 0:01:08.880 --> 0:01:11.760 how that boy either slept through everything or ignored it. 0:01:12.760 --> 0:01:16.160 The Candy and Fisher cases are similar. Everyone was roughly 0:01:16.200 --> 0:01:20.800 the same age, dads, respectable jobs, moms caring for the kids, 0:01:21.160 --> 0:01:25.119 nice suburban homes, late night fights that apparently led to murder, 0:01:25.560 --> 0:01:30.560 no known history of domestic violence. These cases are called familicides, 0:01:30.920 --> 0:01:35.839 or more brutally, family annihilations. They're rare statistically, yet they're 0:01:35.880 --> 0:01:39.240 common enough that by the time this episode airs, you'll 0:01:39.280 --> 0:01:42.240 be able to google man kills family and read about 0:01:42.319 --> 0:01:47.400 yet another tragic, comparable case. This speaks to broader societal patterns. 0:01:47.680 --> 0:01:50.960 We lift up men, push down women, and try to 0:01:51.000 --> 0:01:56.080 subjugate women who don't consent to being controlled, often with violence. Yes, 0:01:56.240 --> 0:01:59.160 in some ways the Candy and Fisher cases stand out 0:01:59.520 --> 0:02:03.480 the Candy Boy survived, Robert Fisher disappeared. But in other 0:02:03.560 --> 0:02:07.160 ways they're not unique at all. They share similarities with 0:02:07.240 --> 0:02:11.120 hundreds of other familicides, and in these similarities we have 0:02:11.160 --> 0:02:14.400 an opportunity not only to learn about Robert Fisher, but 0:02:14.440 --> 0:02:24.040 to save lives from iHeartRadio and Neon thirty three. I'm 0:02:24.120 --> 0:02:28.000 John Walzac and this is Missing in Arizona, the story 0:02:28.040 --> 0:02:30.920 of a man who disappeared after allegedly killing his wife 0:02:30.919 --> 0:02:34.160 and kids, blowing up their suburban home, and escaping into 0:02:34.240 --> 0:02:38.120 the wilderness. Twenty three years later, I'm hunting Robert Fisher, 0:02:38.280 --> 0:02:46.880 and I need your help. It's tough to research familicide 0:02:46.919 --> 0:02:50.560 because so little research has been done. The only experts 0:02:50.600 --> 0:02:54.600 are a few hyper specialized academics scattered around the globe, 0:02:54.760 --> 0:02:59.360 including Neil Webs Based of all places, in Phoenix, Neil 0:02:59.440 --> 0:03:03.280 is director of Arizona State University's Family Violence Center. He 0:03:03.400 --> 0:03:07.560 also has the National Domestic Violence Fatality Review Initiative. I'm 0:03:07.600 --> 0:03:10.640 looking at the Robert Fisher case. I'm sure, as a 0:03:10.840 --> 0:03:14.280 specialist and familicide in Arizona, you're familiar with that case. 0:03:14.600 --> 0:03:15.880 Yeah, I know the Fisher case. 0:03:16.000 --> 0:03:16.240 Yeah. 0:03:16.560 --> 0:03:20.480 Neil wrote a book called Familicidal Hearts the emotional styles 0:03:20.520 --> 0:03:24.120 of two hundred and eleven killers. He divides family annihilators 0:03:24.160 --> 0:03:25.320 into two categories. 0:03:26.440 --> 0:03:31.880 Vivid coercive, the sort of classic angry batterer who's bullying 0:03:32.200 --> 0:03:34.920 but vulnerable and dependent at the same time. 0:03:35.280 --> 0:03:39.440 This annihilator is the stereotypical wife beater, motivated by shame 0:03:39.560 --> 0:03:43.119 and anger. He's obsessed with being a man, but he's 0:03:43.160 --> 0:03:47.360 really a bully. He hides, interfeares of abandonment, weak, with 0:03:47.520 --> 0:03:52.480 outer spasms of violence strong to him. Masculinity is control 0:03:52.640 --> 0:03:54.200 and control is violence. 0:03:54.400 --> 0:03:56.440 These men, when you really look at their lives, they're 0:03:56.480 --> 0:03:59.560 not that powerful, they're not that in control. In fact, 0:03:59.600 --> 0:04:01.720 they kill when they're out of control and their power 0:04:01.760 --> 0:04:02.200 is ebbing. 0:04:02.560 --> 0:04:06.320 About fifty percent of annihilators fit the livid course of subtype. 0:04:06.480 --> 0:04:10.960 On the other end, civil repeatable. These are offenders where 0:04:11.000 --> 0:04:14.520 I could find no prior history of domestic violence. They 0:04:14.520 --> 0:04:18.000 were often respectable members of the community. There's often a 0:04:18.000 --> 0:04:22.839 lot of surprise expressed about the killing. The killings often 0:04:22.880 --> 0:04:27.240 were done not necessarily in the heat of rage, but 0:04:27.440 --> 0:04:31.839 as part of the unfolding of very uncomfortable circumstances like, 0:04:31.880 --> 0:04:34.640 for example, foreclosure on a mortgage, loss of a job, 0:04:34.880 --> 0:04:40.279 some grand ignominious end, perhaps saving the family from destitution, 0:04:40.480 --> 0:04:43.239 thinking that you're doing people of favor. Some people refer 0:04:43.279 --> 0:04:46.120 to this as misguided ultruism. There's a strong sense of 0:04:46.320 --> 0:04:49.600 entitlement there. There's a strong sense of narcissism there. Often 0:04:49.600 --> 0:04:54.760 there's a lot of repression, depression, suicidality, often very much masked, 0:04:54.880 --> 0:04:57.160 and they would probably number a third and then there 0:04:57.200 --> 0:05:00.760 was the remainder. Twenty percent of cases that rattled both 0:05:00.800 --> 0:05:03.919 I call those contradictory cases, and it was difficult to 0:05:03.920 --> 0:05:04.800 classify them. 0:05:05.080 --> 0:05:08.120 This is probably where Robert Fisher falls in the middle. 0:05:08.920 --> 0:05:12.120 Civil reputable, a church going man who works at a hospital, 0:05:12.400 --> 0:05:15.880 no known history of domestic violence. His life spirals out 0:05:15.880 --> 0:05:18.800 of control. He'd rather kill his family than see it 0:05:18.839 --> 0:05:22.040 break apart like his did when he was fifteen. His 0:05:22.160 --> 0:05:26.400 parents had an acrimonious divorce, which impacted him severely. The 0:05:26.440 --> 0:05:29.640 boy whose world is destroyed becomes as a man, the 0:05:29.720 --> 0:05:34.080 destroyer of worlds. This blends into the other subtype, livid 0:05:34.120 --> 0:05:39.240 course of hyper masculine me man very controlling. One example, 0:05:39.600 --> 0:05:43.000 Robert fixated on Mary's weight. A family friend told me 0:05:43.200 --> 0:05:46.200 Robert quote was not going to have a fat wife 0:05:46.279 --> 0:05:50.040 or kids. Mary would hide cookies around the house. Another 0:05:50.120 --> 0:05:53.000 friend said, quote, he would make her go out and walk, 0:05:53.240 --> 0:05:55.400 then he would lock the door and he wouldn't let 0:05:55.400 --> 0:05:57.560 her in if he didn't think it was long enough. 0:05:57.720 --> 0:05:59.799 He was like, you need to do a double walk. 0:06:00.720 --> 0:06:02.919 A final example, the salt incident. 0:06:03.160 --> 0:06:04.640 We went camping with them one time. 0:06:04.760 --> 0:06:07.240 Fits your family friend John rode In, is there a 0:06:07.320 --> 0:06:07.919 night to cook. 0:06:08.120 --> 0:06:11.120 They cook try tip steak, and she forgot the salt 0:06:11.160 --> 0:06:12.640 and he would not let that go. 0:06:12.760 --> 0:06:15.160 You just like nagging her for the whole night. 0:06:15.440 --> 0:06:17.839 John's wife Mary Beth, and we had salt. 0:06:17.960 --> 0:06:20.039 Well, forgetting salt was like, what a jerk. 0:06:21.120 --> 0:06:23.360 He could be a jerk and she wouldn't fight with him. 0:06:23.800 --> 0:06:26.800 She was very controlled by him. I remember once I 0:06:26.880 --> 0:06:29.279 drove from our house in Skoyspell to the Pavilions and 0:06:29.320 --> 0:06:31.719 then went later with her to dinner that night. She's like, 0:06:31.760 --> 0:06:33.880 I can't believe that John lets you drive there twice 0:06:33.920 --> 0:06:37.360 in one day. Like okay, I never even thought about that. 0:06:37.680 --> 0:06:40.600 He controls where you drive, how far you drive, how 0:06:40.680 --> 0:06:43.360 much you eat, like Mary, how many pieces of pizza? 0:06:43.360 --> 0:06:47.280 Is that just very controlling, but she put up with it. 0:06:48.279 --> 0:06:52.160 My second femalo side expert is David Wilson. David is British, 0:06:52.240 --> 0:06:55.120 which seems random to say, but it's relevant. I'll tell 0:06:55.120 --> 0:06:58.200 you why in a minute we chat by zoom. David 0:06:58.279 --> 0:07:01.680 takes great delight when I use in American phrases like. 0:07:01.800 --> 0:07:04.000 On the lamb. I love that I went to school 0:07:04.000 --> 0:07:05.640 in North Carolina and. 0:07:05.560 --> 0:07:09.080 I always you know, I'm from North Carolina. 0:07:09.720 --> 0:07:12.000 Oh, while I was at Chapel Hill. 0:07:12.320 --> 0:07:14.720 I grew up in Carry, North Carolina, right near Chapel Hell. 0:07:15.080 --> 0:07:19.000 Oh wonderful. I have such fond memories and we're speaking 0:07:19.040 --> 0:07:21.880 at such a sad time about Carolina, aren't we? In 0:07:21.920 --> 0:07:24.560 Because of the murder a couple of days ago. 0:07:24.720 --> 0:07:28.200 It was literally yesterday. On August twenty eighth, twenty twenty three, 0:07:28.480 --> 0:07:32.000 a grad student shot and killed a chemistry professor at UNC. 0:07:32.680 --> 0:07:35.640 This is where the UK angle comes in. David co 0:07:35.760 --> 0:07:39.200 authored a seminole paper called A Taxonomy of Male British 0:07:39.200 --> 0:07:44.080 Family Annihilators. He studied fifty nine British annihilators. I didn't 0:07:44.120 --> 0:07:47.080 consider that important. I didn't even think about it before 0:07:47.120 --> 0:07:48.679 we spoke, but it matters. 0:07:49.000 --> 0:07:53.520 Gaining access to guns in Britain is very difficult. As 0:07:53.560 --> 0:07:57.080 a result of the dun Blaine massacre of those school 0:07:57.200 --> 0:07:59.920 children in Scotland on. 0:08:00.080 --> 0:08:03.240 March thirteenth, nineteen ninety six, a forty three year old 0:08:03.280 --> 0:08:07.120 man killed sixteen five year olds, their teacher and himself. 0:08:07.440 --> 0:08:09.840 The massacre led to a handgun ban in most of 0:08:09.880 --> 0:08:13.400 the UK. I want you to run another experiment. Go 0:08:13.440 --> 0:08:17.160 to Google news, type in school shooting. See what comes 0:08:17.240 --> 0:08:20.680 up again. I'm scripting this. On May sixth, twenty twenty four. 0:08:21.240 --> 0:08:23.480 Three days ago, a bullet hit a girl at a 0:08:23.560 --> 0:08:26.920 high school in DC. Five days ago, police shot and 0:08:27.000 --> 0:08:29.520 killed a boy with a pellet gun outside of middle 0:08:29.520 --> 0:08:32.800 school in Wisconsin. Twelve days ago, a boy shot and 0:08:32.880 --> 0:08:36.440 killed another boy at a high school in Texas. This 0:08:36.600 --> 0:08:39.880 is our society. That's not a comment on gun control. 0:08:40.160 --> 0:08:44.200 It's a statement of fact. This is our society. This 0:08:44.360 --> 0:08:47.720 is America twenty twenty four. And this is why I 0:08:47.840 --> 0:08:51.240 have to highlight that David is British, because easy access 0:08:51.280 --> 0:08:54.600 to guns means that while in many ways his findings 0:08:54.600 --> 0:08:58.040 on femili side are universal, in some ways they're unique 0:08:58.080 --> 0:09:01.400 to the UK. For example, only six of the fifty 0:09:01.520 --> 0:09:05.360 nine annihilators David studied used guns. The five most common 0:09:05.400 --> 0:09:11.439 methods were stabbing nineteen, carbon monoxide poisoning nine, strangulation eight, 0:09:11.679 --> 0:09:17.560 bludgeoning seven, fire seven, and then guns six. Most common 0:09:17.640 --> 0:09:21.720 day of the week Sunday, most common month August. Most 0:09:21.720 --> 0:09:27.160 common locations home thirty four, country lane ten, beauty spot 0:09:27.480 --> 0:09:32.760 six other nine. Most annihilators had jobs. Fifty five percent 0:09:32.800 --> 0:09:35.800 were thirty to thirty nine years old. Eighty four percent 0:09:35.800 --> 0:09:39.080 of victims were under the age of ten. Sixty six 0:09:39.120 --> 0:09:42.440 percent of cases were triggered by family breakdown, meaning the 0:09:42.480 --> 0:09:45.760 family broke up or was about to break up. How 0:09:45.800 --> 0:09:48.840 do the fissures fit in here? Robert was thirty nine 0:09:49.040 --> 0:09:52.600 normal employed normal. He killed Mary and the kids at 0:09:52.640 --> 0:09:57.440 home normal by slitting their throats abnormal, and shooting Mary abnormal. 0:09:57.679 --> 0:10:01.880 For the UK, Bobby was ten and Brittany was twelve abnormal. 0:10:01.920 --> 0:10:03.240 The murders were likely. 0:10:03.000 --> 0:10:07.239 Triggered by family breakdown normal and took place in April abnormal, 0:10:07.360 --> 0:10:11.080 on a Monday or Tuesday abnormal. You might ask, why 0:10:11.080 --> 0:10:13.839 does the day or month matter, Well, think about it. 0:10:14.160 --> 0:10:18.080 The most common month August, the most common day Sunday, 0:10:18.559 --> 0:10:20.120 the summer, the weekend. 0:10:20.640 --> 0:10:25.040 Lots of fathers would gain access to their children, especially 0:10:25.240 --> 0:10:30.079 during school holidays, when they had access arrangements. After they 0:10:30.080 --> 0:10:33.120 had perhaps left the family home. They would take the 0:10:33.200 --> 0:10:36.640 children as if they were going to spend some time 0:10:36.679 --> 0:10:40.640 at his home or say at a picnic area, but 0:10:40.760 --> 0:10:43.280 he would rig the car so that they would all 0:10:43.360 --> 0:10:46.240 die through carbon monoxide poisoning. 0:10:47.000 --> 0:10:52.920 David's paper separates annihilators into four categories, disappointed, anomic, paranoid, 0:10:53.120 --> 0:10:57.800 and self righteous, disappointed, believes that the family has let 0:10:57.880 --> 0:11:01.559 him down, that they've failed, either actively or passively, from 0:11:01.640 --> 0:11:04.720 fulfilling his view of what a family should be. Sees 0:11:04.760 --> 0:11:08.920 family as simply an extension of his own needs, desires, hopes. 0:11:08.640 --> 0:11:09.640 And aspirations. 0:11:10.760 --> 0:11:14.360 Anomic has lost the source of the family's income or 0:11:14.480 --> 0:11:18.320 is facing the threat of bankruptcy. Oversocialized into a belief 0:11:18.360 --> 0:11:20.720 that consumption determines quality. 0:11:20.320 --> 0:11:22.880 Of life, paranoid. 0:11:22.760 --> 0:11:26.120 Annihilator believes that an external threat, which may be real 0:11:26.320 --> 0:11:29.800 or imagined, such as from social services whom he believes 0:11:29.840 --> 0:11:33.079 will take his children into care, will destroy his family. 0:11:33.400 --> 0:11:36.200 In his own mind, killing his family is a way 0:11:36.240 --> 0:11:40.800 of protecting them from that threat. Self righteous seeks to 0:11:40.840 --> 0:11:44.440 blame his partner or ex partner for the annihilation. Will 0:11:44.440 --> 0:11:48.760 have often been controlling, slash possessive in the past, narcissistic 0:11:48.880 --> 0:11:51.719 and dramatic, both in the method by which the annihilation 0:11:51.840 --> 0:11:55.079 takes place and in his statements prior to the murders. 0:11:55.480 --> 0:11:59.640 I was always amazed by how performative the family annihilators 0:11:59.720 --> 0:12:03.920 in our study, where these are very dramatic events, and 0:12:04.000 --> 0:12:09.280 it reveals the underlying need for the hegemonic masculinity of 0:12:09.320 --> 0:12:13.200 the annihilator to be able to demonstrate, even in the 0:12:13.320 --> 0:12:18.240 moment when lives are being taken, that he's still the man. 0:12:18.679 --> 0:12:22.800 This squarely fits Fisher. A family killed their throats, cut, 0:12:23.080 --> 0:12:26.280 a wife shot in the head, a house raped to explode. 0:12:26.640 --> 0:12:30.640 Robert the man is really Robert. The drama Queen David 0:12:30.679 --> 0:12:34.960 repeatedly mentions a similar annihilator named Christopher Foster. In two 0:12:34.960 --> 0:12:37.679 thousand and eight, Foster, a fifty year old British man, 0:12:37.920 --> 0:12:41.079 shot and killed his wife and daughter, their dogs and horses, 0:12:41.280 --> 0:12:44.040 burned down their house, and died by suicide. 0:12:44.200 --> 0:12:48.439 What unites all of the family annihilators, whether you're talking 0:12:48.480 --> 0:12:51.800 about Robert Fisher or whether we're talking about Christopher Foster, 0:12:52.320 --> 0:12:56.280 is an idea of the performance of masculinity and how 0:12:56.320 --> 0:13:00.560 they have total control over their family as they see it, 0:13:00.960 --> 0:13:05.079 to do as they would please with those people within 0:13:05.240 --> 0:13:10.080 their family. They do not see their family members, their partner, 0:13:10.240 --> 0:13:15.959 their children as sentient beings, but almost as possessions, almost 0:13:15.960 --> 0:13:19.760 as if they're just like the TV or some kind 0:13:19.800 --> 0:13:25.240 of r They are simply reduced to being objects that 0:13:25.320 --> 0:13:29.839 can be used for whatever purpose the family annihilator would 0:13:29.880 --> 0:13:31.000 like to use them for. 0:13:55.800 --> 0:13:58.840 I've tried to paint Robert Fisher not as a simplistic demon, 0:13:59.040 --> 0:14:01.920 but as a complex man, in part to highlight that 0:14:01.960 --> 0:14:05.680 there's no universal portrait of evil. Evil often sees you 0:14:06.000 --> 0:14:09.200 before you see it. By the time you know someone's evil, 0:14:09.400 --> 0:14:12.120 it might be too late to save yourself. Evil can 0:14:12.160 --> 0:14:15.560 lie dormant in a civil shell, then explode outward with 0:14:15.640 --> 0:14:16.400 sudden force. 0:14:16.800 --> 0:14:20.840 It would be really easy if violent men, if murderers 0:14:20.960 --> 0:14:25.240 and serial murderers or family annihilators had horns on their 0:14:25.320 --> 0:14:28.720 head and a long pointed tail, we could point to 0:14:28.760 --> 0:14:32.440 them and say that's the killer. Avoid them. It doesn't 0:14:32.600 --> 0:14:36.880 work like that. There is a Hollywood trope that somebody 0:14:37.480 --> 0:14:42.280 like a Fisher, or serial killers or mass murderers more generally, 0:14:42.760 --> 0:14:47.280 will be some kind of dysfunctional loner who is clearly 0:14:47.360 --> 0:14:51.960 not socialized within his peer group or within the community 0:14:52.080 --> 0:14:56.200 in which he lives or operates. However, that's not the case. 0:14:56.520 --> 0:15:01.800 Whether we're talking about serial murderers or family annihilators. These 0:15:02.040 --> 0:15:07.280 men are often incredibly successful and well socialized within the 0:15:07.360 --> 0:15:12.200 group or neighborhood. They are seen as trustworthy and you know, John, 0:15:12.320 --> 0:15:15.240 whether we're talking about the United States or in Britain, 0:15:15.320 --> 0:15:18.240 And if I just think about serial murder for a second, 0:15:18.880 --> 0:15:23.600 our most prolific serial killer in Britain was a respected 0:15:23.840 --> 0:15:30.600 old fashioned general practitioner at GP, doctor Harold Shipman, who 0:15:30.760 --> 0:15:34.080 kills two hundred and fifteen, perhaps as many as two 0:15:34.240 --> 0:15:38.840 hundred and sixty of mostly older women patients that he 0:15:39.120 --> 0:15:44.080 had within his general practice. When he was first arrested, 0:15:44.400 --> 0:15:49.400 the other patients in his practice were so annoyed that 0:15:49.840 --> 0:15:53.720 Shipmen had been arrested they set up a fund to 0:15:53.800 --> 0:15:57.960 pay for his legal expenses, a fighting fund. So you know, 0:15:58.040 --> 0:16:01.280 here were somebody who was respected within the community. And 0:16:01.360 --> 0:16:04.680 if I think about the United States, your most prolific 0:16:04.760 --> 0:16:08.520 serial killer was a nurse, Charles Cullin. 0:16:08.840 --> 0:16:11.560 Can I stop you real quick. I was born on 0:16:11.720 --> 0:16:16.440 September eighth, nineteen eighty eight, in Saint Barnabas Hospital in Livingston, 0:16:16.480 --> 0:16:20.040 New Jersey. That is the hospital where Charles Colin worked, 0:16:20.120 --> 0:16:23.520 and he was actively working as a nurse when my 0:16:23.560 --> 0:16:25.440 brother and I were both born there. I was born 0:16:25.480 --> 0:16:27.520 in eighty eight, my brother was born in nineteen ninety one. 0:16:27.880 --> 0:16:31.480 So the hospital where I was born in Livingston, New Jersey, 0:16:31.480 --> 0:16:35.680 Saint Barnabas is exactly where the most prolific serial killer 0:16:35.680 --> 0:16:38.720 in American history was working at the time I was born. 0:16:38.880 --> 0:16:41.360 This is why you are so fascinated with true crime. 0:16:41.640 --> 0:16:46.200 I absolutely guarantee, and I often say John, that an 0:16:46.280 --> 0:16:51.400 interest in true crime is not just normal, it's necessary 0:16:51.760 --> 0:16:55.200 because if we understand the circumstances and which we are 0:16:55.440 --> 0:16:59.400 likely to face violence, we can avoid them. And there's 0:16:59.440 --> 0:17:04.640 a speed. As a specie, human beings have evolved because 0:17:04.680 --> 0:17:09.680 we solved mysteries, and why people kill is a mystery, 0:17:09.960 --> 0:17:14.240 and we want to understand that phenomenon better. And that's 0:17:14.280 --> 0:17:17.480 why it's normal and necessary to have the kind of 0:17:17.480 --> 0:17:20.840 interest that you've got and to do the kinds of 0:17:20.920 --> 0:17:22.560 podcasts that you want to make. 0:17:22.880 --> 0:17:25.399 So I said, my brother was born in nineteen ninety one. Well, 0:17:25.520 --> 0:17:27.439 my family at the time lived in a town in 0:17:27.480 --> 0:17:31.280 New Jersey called Sayerville, New Jersey. And there's a famous 0:17:31.320 --> 0:17:34.680 case nine days after my brother was born, where this 0:17:34.760 --> 0:17:37.840 little boy disappeared from a carnival. His body was found, 0:17:37.880 --> 0:17:40.360 but for many years they didn't arrest anyone. They later 0:17:40.480 --> 0:17:44.720 arrested the mother. Five year old Timothy Wilsey disappeared from 0:17:44.760 --> 0:17:47.920 a carnival in Sayerville, New Jersey on May twenty fifth, 0:17:48.040 --> 0:17:51.320 nineteen ninety one. I was two at the time, living 0:17:51.320 --> 0:17:54.880 a mile away. Police found Tim's remains in a marsh. 0:17:55.280 --> 0:17:58.360 His mother was later arrested, convicted of murder, and sent 0:17:58.400 --> 0:18:01.880 to prison. Then in twenty one, in a shocking four 0:18:01.880 --> 0:18:04.840 to three vote, the state Supreme Court set her free. 0:18:05.359 --> 0:18:06.080 While not a. 0:18:06.000 --> 0:18:09.760 Family annihilation, the wilty case was high profile for an 0:18:09.800 --> 0:18:14.000 obvious reason. The accused killer was Tim's mom. We can 0:18:14.040 --> 0:18:17.480 barely process these crimes when committed by a father, let 0:18:17.520 --> 0:18:20.679 alone a mother. How can a father kill his kids? 0:18:21.119 --> 0:18:25.200 How can a mother? Female annihilators exist, but they're rare. 0:18:25.760 --> 0:18:28.080 I wish I could tell you more, but believe it 0:18:28.200 --> 0:18:31.280 or not, no one keeps statistics. I can't go to 0:18:31.440 --> 0:18:35.800 FBI dot gov and search annihilation data. There is none, which, 0:18:35.880 --> 0:18:38.880 by the way, from a policy perspective, seems like low 0:18:38.920 --> 0:18:43.960 hanging fruit. We should track this stuff at a federal level. Regardless. 0:18:44.080 --> 0:18:49.719 Familicide is undeniably overwhelmingly a male phenomenon. David tells me 0:18:49.760 --> 0:18:53.960 something surprising. In the not so distant past, judges sometimes 0:18:54.000 --> 0:18:55.600 went easy on killer dads. 0:18:55.840 --> 0:18:58.000 There was one particular case where the judge says, I 0:18:58.040 --> 0:19:01.919 think you suffered enough, and gay from a suspended sentence. 0:19:02.440 --> 0:19:04.399 It was unbelievable. 0:19:04.960 --> 0:19:08.480 Now I have two more critical questions for David. One 0:19:08.920 --> 0:19:12.359 what can his research tell us about premeditation? And two 0:19:12.720 --> 0:19:15.480 what can it tell us about suicide? How likely is 0:19:15.520 --> 0:19:18.600 it that Robert Fisher planned the murders in advance? And 0:19:18.840 --> 0:19:21.719 how likely is it that he died by suicide? How 0:19:21.800 --> 0:19:25.760 common was it in family annihilations that the family annihilator 0:19:25.800 --> 0:19:29.720 premeditated and planned the annihilation versus day in the popular 0:19:29.760 --> 0:19:34.359 imagination snapped because I think people have trouble understanding how 0:19:34.400 --> 0:19:35.199 somebody could do this. 0:19:35.600 --> 0:19:40.879 None of the family annihilator that I studied ever snapped. 0:19:41.400 --> 0:19:45.760 They all had planned to a greater or lesser extent. 0:19:45.920 --> 0:19:52.440 All of the family annihilations were a consequence of circumstances 0:19:52.520 --> 0:19:56.359 within the family that he felt he was no longer 0:19:56.440 --> 0:20:00.520 able to control. So you can talk about premeditation in 0:20:00.600 --> 0:20:03.960 a very kind of you know, like he had gasoline 0:20:04.040 --> 0:20:05.960 that he was going to burn the house, doarn he 0:20:06.000 --> 0:20:09.879 had bought that specially, he had thought about when the 0:20:09.960 --> 0:20:13.080 children were going to be home. He had premeditated to 0:20:13.119 --> 0:20:16.119 the extent of thinking in which order would he kill 0:20:16.320 --> 0:20:17.000 the children. 0:20:17.359 --> 0:20:21.240 Every single annihilator, David studied. Fifty nine out of fifty 0:20:21.320 --> 0:20:26.159 nine showed evidence of premeditation, a finding supported by Neil Websdale, 0:20:26.320 --> 0:20:30.840 who splits annihilators into two groups, livid, coursive and civil reputable. 0:20:31.040 --> 0:20:34.880 Premeditation was a strong element in both sets of cases. 0:20:35.119 --> 0:20:38.440 It was particularly strong in the civil reputable cases where 0:20:38.440 --> 0:20:41.600 people planned it out very carefully and clearly. The Fisher 0:20:41.600 --> 0:20:44.440 case is an example where there was considerable planning. 0:20:45.160 --> 0:20:48.600 My third and final expert is Taylor Oatal. Taylor is 0:20:48.640 --> 0:20:51.640 a PhD student at the State University of New York 0:20:51.680 --> 0:20:54.480 at Albany. She spent a year and a half studying 0:20:54.520 --> 0:20:57.960 thirty nine familicides that occurred in the US between twenty 0:20:58.160 --> 0:20:59.280 nine and twenty nineteen. 0:21:00.000 --> 0:21:04.560 The overwhelming majority of family sides are premeditated, even if 0:21:04.600 --> 0:21:07.600 it's not the full family unit. This is a trend 0:21:07.640 --> 0:21:10.640 I've seen in multiple cases is that they will plan 0:21:10.720 --> 0:21:13.320 on killing the spouse right and now they have this 0:21:13.400 --> 0:21:17.040 realization that they've killed the mother of their children. They 0:21:17.080 --> 0:21:19.520 are now a single parent. They don't want that burden, 0:21:19.680 --> 0:21:21.159 so they follow up and kill their children. 0:21:21.800 --> 0:21:26.040 It's important that all three experts, Taylor, David, and Neil 0:21:26.320 --> 0:21:30.639 say familicide is almost always premeditated, because in the Fisher case, 0:21:30.800 --> 0:21:34.359 police have so far made public very little evidence, if any, 0:21:34.640 --> 0:21:37.600 that Robert planned the murders in advance. They note that 0:21:37.640 --> 0:21:40.879 he changed his oil two days before the murders, so what? 0:21:41.400 --> 0:21:44.040 And that he bought water purification supplies the night of 0:21:44.119 --> 0:21:47.080 the murders. Again, so what? He was going to go 0:21:47.160 --> 0:21:51.320 camping that weekend? Well, they say he always used bottled water. 0:21:51.760 --> 0:21:54.960 He never purified it with tablets or pumps. But I 0:21:55.080 --> 0:21:58.320 found a likely explanation for this in a police file. 0:21:59.040 --> 0:22:01.760 A few days before the murders, Robert and a neighbor 0:22:01.840 --> 0:22:05.119 watched a TV show called Eco Challenge, which featured a 0:22:05.119 --> 0:22:09.639 segment on water purification, which intrigued Robert. Well, police say, 0:22:09.800 --> 0:22:12.800 what about the ATM Robert took out two hundred and 0:22:12.800 --> 0:22:15.080 eighty dollars right before the murders. 0:22:15.119 --> 0:22:16.199 Again, so what. 0:22:16.960 --> 0:22:19.600 The only evidence that made sense to me were the 0:22:19.640 --> 0:22:23.320 poor patterns proving that a liquid accelerant was used, which 0:22:23.359 --> 0:22:26.639 would indicate the arsonists stocked it up in advance. But 0:22:26.800 --> 0:22:31.160 in episode three we debunked this. Poor patterns are junk science. 0:22:31.600 --> 0:22:35.440 Not to mention, neither arsen dogs nor lab tests detected 0:22:35.520 --> 0:22:39.320 any liquid accelerant. My point here is not that Robert 0:22:39.359 --> 0:22:42.840 didn't premeditate the murders. I think he did. I'll make 0:22:42.880 --> 0:22:45.560 that case in a later episode. My point is that 0:22:45.680 --> 0:22:50.119 everything cited so far publicly as evidence of premeditation is 0:22:50.200 --> 0:22:54.120 in fact garbage. So that's why the academic angle is important. 0:22:54.400 --> 0:22:57.800 If Fisher's caught and there's a trial, prosecutors will likely 0:22:57.880 --> 0:23:00.359 call some of the same experts I've interview you'd end 0:23:00.400 --> 0:23:03.879 this episode, who found that the vast majority of annihilators 0:23:04.160 --> 0:23:08.520 did in fact premeditate their crimes. Finally, let me say 0:23:08.520 --> 0:23:11.640 this to law enforcement. If you have any better evidence, 0:23:11.760 --> 0:23:14.800 I recommend you make it public asap. There are people 0:23:14.800 --> 0:23:17.119 who know stuff, and they don't want to talk to 0:23:17.160 --> 0:23:20.520 you because they still don't believe Robert did this, or 0:23:20.640 --> 0:23:23.399 if they do, they think he snapped, not that it 0:23:23.440 --> 0:23:26.560 was a cold blooded, premeditated crime. If you want to 0:23:26.600 --> 0:23:30.240 squeeze out new leads, show these folks they're wrong. There's 0:23:30.320 --> 0:23:32.960 no point in saving evidence for a trial that's never 0:23:33.000 --> 0:23:44.640 going to happen. You got to catch him first. If 0:23:44.680 --> 0:23:47.800 you like this show, please download our first two seasons, 0:23:47.920 --> 0:23:50.880 Missing in Alaska and Missing on nine to eleven for updates, 0:23:51.000 --> 0:23:53.480 visit meon thirty three dot com or follow me on 0:23:53.520 --> 0:24:15.719 Twitter at John waalzac jo n Walczak. Thanks for listening. Now, 0:24:15.840 --> 0:24:19.920 the key question Robert Fischer's fate. What happened to him? 0:24:20.200 --> 0:24:23.040 Did he die by suicide in the wilderness? Did he 0:24:23.240 --> 0:24:26.960 escape in the absence of evidence? What can research tell us? 0:24:27.080 --> 0:24:29.359 It wouldn't surprise me if he was alive at all. 0:24:29.440 --> 0:24:31.520 It looked like that was a well planned. 0:24:31.160 --> 0:24:32.760 Exit, Neil Websdale. 0:24:32.800 --> 0:24:35.280 He knew what he was doing, He planned it. The 0:24:35.320 --> 0:24:36.680 exit strategy was there. 0:24:37.600 --> 0:24:40.360 The idea that someone can kill their children and not 0:24:40.480 --> 0:24:43.880 die by suicide is tough to process. When I ask 0:24:44.000 --> 0:24:47.240 people who think Fisher died why they think that, they 0:24:47.280 --> 0:24:51.040 inevitably asked me a question, how could he live with himself? 0:24:52.119 --> 0:24:55.720