WEBVTT - Meg Gardiner: UNSUB 0:00:00.480 --> 0:00:05.119 This story contains adult content and language. Listener discretion is advised. 0:00:13.560 --> 0:00:16.239 But I said who is he? And he said he's 0:00:16.239 --> 0:00:18.240 a murderer. And I said why does he kill people? 0:00:18.320 --> 0:00:21.520 And my dad just paused and said he likes it. 0:00:27.800 --> 0:00:31.680 I'm Kate Winkler Dawson, a nonfiction author and journalism professor 0:00:31.720 --> 0:00:34.440 in Austin, Texas. I'm also the co host of the 0:00:34.479 --> 0:00:38.320 podcast Buried Bones on Exactly Right, and throughout my career, 0:00:38.600 --> 0:00:42.360 research for my many audio and book projects has taken 0:00:42.400 --> 0:00:45.640 me around the world. On Wicked Words, I sit down 0:00:45.680 --> 0:00:50.400 with the people I've met along the way, amazing writers, journalists, filmmakers, 0:00:50.440 --> 0:00:54.800 and podcasters who have investigated and reported on notorious true 0:00:54.880 --> 0:00:58.640 crime cases. This is about the choices writers make, both 0:00:58.680 --> 0:01:01.640 good and bad, and it's a deep dive into the 0:01:01.720 --> 0:01:07.800 unpublished details behind their stories. Meg Gardner is a thriller writer, 0:01:08.040 --> 0:01:10.520 a really great one. She has several series, but the 0:01:10.560 --> 0:01:13.199 one I'm most interested in started with a book called 0:01:13.440 --> 0:01:16.559 unsub about a serial killer, and it's based on two 0:01:16.680 --> 0:01:23.280 real serial killers, one of whom she lived very close to. So, 0:01:24.000 --> 0:01:27.560 first of all, for anybody who hasn't read your thriller books, 0:01:27.800 --> 0:01:30.560 give me an overview of what you've done so far, 0:01:30.760 --> 0:01:35.080 how many and what's the premise of different characters you've created. 0:01:35.280 --> 0:01:41.120 I now have seventeen novels published. They're all thrillers. Several series, 0:01:41.200 --> 0:01:45.600 the Evan Delaney series about a freelance journalist in Santa Barbara, 0:01:45.800 --> 0:01:49.640 the Joke Beckett series about a forensic psychiatrist who consults 0:01:49.640 --> 0:01:53.280 for the San Francisco Police Department, several standalones about a 0:01:53.320 --> 0:01:59.200 former thief Skip Tracer, and the Caitlin Hendrick series about 0:01:59.320 --> 0:02:03.880 a young cop who is eventually recruited to the FBI 0:02:03.960 --> 0:02:07.160 to hunt serial predators. Also the book I co authored 0:02:07.200 --> 0:02:10.280 with Michael Mann, Heat Too, which is a big saga 0:02:10.400 --> 0:02:12.359 crime thriller, which I'm very proud of as well. 0:02:12.600 --> 0:02:15.239 Yeah, so was there a book written about Heat originally 0:02:15.240 --> 0:02:16.400 before the movie came out. 0:02:16.440 --> 0:02:21.240 There was not. Heat was original screenplay by Michael Mann 0:02:21.360 --> 0:02:24.760 and he wrote it, directed it, and then he had 0:02:25.160 --> 0:02:28.920 so much material that he still wanted to create in 0:02:28.960 --> 0:02:32.320 that universe. The movie takes place over three weeks, and 0:02:32.880 --> 0:02:36.360 he had written biographies for all the main characters, decades 0:02:36.400 --> 0:02:39.639 of you know, backstory for them, and it always wanted 0:02:39.639 --> 0:02:42.240 to expand the story. So that's what we did. 0:02:42.440 --> 0:02:45.280 Well, I've interviewed boy'd have to say maybe four or 0:02:45.280 --> 0:02:49.040 five fiction authors at this point who have used, you know, 0:02:49.120 --> 0:02:52.040 real true crime stories as a jumping off point. Do 0:02:52.120 --> 0:02:55.080 you think that's pretty common with the folks who were 0:02:55.120 --> 0:02:59.320 in the mystery, you know, thriller espionage kind of genre 0:03:00.200 --> 0:03:02.120 to start somewhere? How do you think a lot of 0:03:02.160 --> 0:03:04.280 people come up with these stories? You do? 0:03:04.320 --> 0:03:06.920 You start with a what if and a big character 0:03:07.040 --> 0:03:09.320 you hope, who's going to deal with that what if? 0:03:09.760 --> 0:03:13.400 And all you have to do is now, like open 0:03:13.440 --> 0:03:17.120 your phone or turn on the news, and ideas are 0:03:17.160 --> 0:03:21.119 not the hard part. It's finding, you know, ideas are everywhere. 0:03:21.120 --> 0:03:24.840 They're just soaked into the atmosphere. And the trick is 0:03:24.919 --> 0:03:28.280 to turn that into a compelling narrative, spin it out. 0:03:28.440 --> 0:03:35.120 But if you write thrillers crime, certainly the infamous cases 0:03:35.240 --> 0:03:38.520 that have kept us and the country at the world 0:03:38.720 --> 0:03:44.360 wrapped for years, decades, centuries, now, how many years have 0:03:44.400 --> 0:03:48.640 people been fascinated with Jack the Ripper? Then using that 0:03:48.760 --> 0:03:53.920 as a spark to anchor an event, to certainly anchor 0:03:53.960 --> 0:03:58.880 the emotional tone of the story becomes enticing. 0:03:59.440 --> 0:04:01.280 And you know, I was going to ask before we 0:04:01.320 --> 0:04:05.520 get into what inspired unsub which is frankly the best 0:04:05.560 --> 0:04:08.680 title ever. Like you, so you know, before we get 0:04:08.720 --> 0:04:13.400 into that, talk to me about your research, because if 0:04:13.440 --> 0:04:16.880 you are a mystery or a thriller writer who is 0:04:17.040 --> 0:04:20.280 using true crime as a jumping off point, that has 0:04:20.320 --> 0:04:22.880 to be part of your research. You're not interviewing a 0:04:22.880 --> 0:04:25.200 serial killer in prison, but you know you have to 0:04:25.200 --> 0:04:26.440 get into this person's head. 0:04:26.520 --> 0:04:29.000 Is that why true crime is enticing? 0:04:29.080 --> 0:04:31.600 As far as like an inspiration or a place where 0:04:31.640 --> 0:04:34.560 you go where you can read real interviews with these folks. 0:04:34.720 --> 0:04:38.160 It can be. I think who knows where research starts 0:04:38.360 --> 0:04:41.039 and ends. I think it starts with the collision of 0:04:41.880 --> 0:04:44.799 the characters in real life as well as on the page. 0:04:44.920 --> 0:04:50.320 Every crime arises from physically. If it's murder, it arises 0:04:50.360 --> 0:04:54.920 from physically the collision of the perpetrator and the victim. 0:04:55.520 --> 0:04:59.240 So thinking about who they are, where they are, how 0:04:59.279 --> 0:05:03.480 they came to be together, that becomes definitely part of 0:05:02.839 --> 0:05:07.279 the what and the why about how you're creating this story. 0:05:07.640 --> 0:05:12.440 And research. I mean, you know, research can be this glorious, 0:05:12.800 --> 0:05:17.640 bottomless rabbit hole that we can just wrap ourselves around in, 0:05:17.720 --> 0:05:20.560 like it's a big cozy quilt that we can never 0:05:20.600 --> 0:05:21.200 want to leave. 0:05:22.560 --> 0:05:25.160 Sometimes I find it awful, but yes I'm glad. Other 0:05:25.200 --> 0:05:28.080 people it just depends. It's awful if I can't find 0:05:28.080 --> 0:05:30.520 what I'm looking for, it's wonderful and everything you described 0:05:30.760 --> 0:05:31.640 if it's all right there. 0:05:31.680 --> 0:05:34.000 But with true crime, you have a lot right there. 0:05:34.040 --> 0:05:34.760 I mean, you've got. 0:05:34.640 --> 0:05:37.960 Trial transcripts in some of these cases, great newspaper interviews, 0:05:37.960 --> 0:05:38.600 that kind of thing. 0:05:38.960 --> 0:05:41.880 Trial transcripts haven't been that important to me for the 0:05:42.240 --> 0:05:48.920 books I've written, but news stories books written by investigators. Nowadays, 0:05:49.120 --> 0:05:52.880 websites where you can look up infamous unsolved cases are 0:05:52.920 --> 0:05:57.280 now solved cases where everybody in the world has created 0:05:57.320 --> 0:06:01.760 their own screen name and offers their own take on everything. 0:06:01.839 --> 0:06:05.400 And sometimes that's just like the worst subreddit ever. And 0:06:05.480 --> 0:06:12.960 sometimes it's extremely helpful and inspiring as far as like 0:06:13.000 --> 0:06:16.520 the dedication that people have, and it's more helpful when 0:06:16.960 --> 0:06:20.520 professionals have contributed to it, and sometimes you will all 0:06:20.560 --> 0:06:23.440 be talking. I think about some of the sites I 0:06:23.480 --> 0:06:26.800 came across where retired police officers who had worked on 0:06:26.880 --> 0:06:29.640 some cases could not let it go even though they 0:06:29.640 --> 0:06:32.040 were no longer with the department, and they would they 0:06:32.040 --> 0:06:35.320 would contribute to sites like this, and that was fascinating 0:06:35.400 --> 0:06:37.880 not only for their insights, but to see the emotional 0:06:38.120 --> 0:06:40.840 total it had taken on them and how invested they 0:06:40.880 --> 0:06:43.880 still were in trying to solve the case and to 0:06:44.200 --> 0:06:47.440 work for the victims and their families. So that becomes 0:06:47.480 --> 0:06:51.160 as interesting sometimes as figuring out some tricky little clue, 0:06:51.400 --> 0:06:53.920 like what kind of forensic evidence you can find on 0:06:53.960 --> 0:06:56.560 a shovel. Because what we're doing when we write fiction 0:06:56.880 --> 0:07:01.560 is we want to take readers on a journey, an 0:07:01.600 --> 0:07:04.960 emotional journey, a roller coaster, and do what we can't 0:07:04.960 --> 0:07:08.000 do in real life, which is bring them back safely 0:07:08.120 --> 0:07:08.600 at the end. 0:07:08.839 --> 0:07:11.880 That's a good way to say it. Okay, so let's start. 0:07:12.000 --> 0:07:14.280 Just tell me a little bit about Unsubbed. Was this 0:07:14.360 --> 0:07:16.360 the first book for you? I can't remember. 0:07:16.560 --> 0:07:20.720 Unsub was not the first novel I wrote. It was 0:07:20.800 --> 0:07:24.880 the first novel I wrote featuring a character who was 0:07:25.040 --> 0:07:28.480 a law enforcement professional, and we can examine why I 0:07:28.480 --> 0:07:32.200 had always avoided doing that until then. It was it 0:07:32.240 --> 0:07:35.640 was I think my eleventh novel was unsub and I'd 0:07:35.640 --> 0:07:38.200 always had somebody who was maybe on the fringes of 0:07:38.320 --> 0:07:41.640 law enforcement or investigating law enforcement someone who consulted for 0:07:41.720 --> 0:07:43.480 them or was running from the law. 0:07:43.600 --> 0:07:47.400 So my friend calls that cop adjacent, cop adjacent. 0:07:48.040 --> 0:07:49.920 So so I'll say, you can look at me and 0:07:49.960 --> 0:07:52.520 say that I have something to something going on with authority, 0:07:52.600 --> 0:07:54.240 or you can say that did I really want to 0:07:54.280 --> 0:07:56.960 just avoid the research it took to find out, you 0:07:57.000 --> 0:07:59.840 know what duty weapons did this Alameda County Sheriff's Department. 0:08:00.120 --> 0:08:03.320 She to its officers and to find out what really 0:08:03.400 --> 0:08:06.400 was required of someone in all the affidavits they had 0:08:06.400 --> 0:08:10.040 to file when they after arrest and everything like that. 0:08:10.680 --> 0:08:14.080 So I realized, if I was going to write about 0:08:14.120 --> 0:08:18.520 an infamous series of murders, that having someone who had 0:08:18.520 --> 0:08:22.280 a badge and arrest authority was probably a good way 0:08:22.320 --> 0:08:22.600 to go. 0:08:22.920 --> 0:08:25.880 Tell me the premise of UNSEB. You've got Caitlin Hendricks, 0:08:25.920 --> 0:08:27.720 and she's what type of officer? 0:08:27.800 --> 0:08:30.480 Is she a detective or where is she? Caitlyn Hendricks 0:08:30.480 --> 0:08:34.320 when UNTEP opens is a baby detective. She's actually working narcotics. 0:08:34.320 --> 0:08:37.240 She's been a detective for all of six months and 0:08:37.640 --> 0:08:41.720 barely out of uniform, and she finds herself hunting an 0:08:41.720 --> 0:08:46.360 infamous serial killer who starts murdering again after being dormant 0:08:46.400 --> 0:08:51.040 for twenty years. She finds out that this killer, the prophet, 0:08:51.200 --> 0:08:54.920 has begun committing more murders, and this is a killer 0:08:54.960 --> 0:08:59.520 who haunted her childhood, terrorized the Bay area, and really 0:09:00.120 --> 0:09:04.480 destroyed her family. Because her father was the homicide detective 0:09:04.559 --> 0:09:09.080 who handled the initial case and failed to uncover the 0:09:09.080 --> 0:09:13.240 identity of the UNSUB which stands for unknown subject that 0:09:13.480 --> 0:09:17.400 is FBI LINGO for the unknown perpetrator and a real 0:09:17.440 --> 0:09:20.480 life who'd done it, Mack Hendricks. Her dad could not 0:09:20.600 --> 0:09:23.760 break the case. The case broke him, broke up the family, 0:09:24.000 --> 0:09:27.640 led him to the brink of taking his own life. 0:09:27.760 --> 0:09:30.800 You know, this killer had sent the cops and the 0:09:31.320 --> 0:09:36.559 press weird puzzles, taunting messages. And now I thought, Okay, 0:09:36.559 --> 0:09:39.240 if a killer came back after twenty years, what would 0:09:39.240 --> 0:09:41.520 be a way to tell the story? And I thought, okay, 0:09:42.280 --> 0:09:46.880 let's really, let's sink our fangs into having the detective 0:09:46.920 --> 0:09:49.680 who's now really got to try to put her skates 0:09:49.720 --> 0:09:52.480 on and learn how to do this be the daughter 0:09:52.640 --> 0:09:55.640 of the guy who had taken it on the first place, 0:09:55.679 --> 0:09:58.320 and of course that's haunted her family. She feels a 0:09:58.400 --> 0:10:02.439 sense of responsibility, a sense of faith, failure. She's knew 0:10:02.480 --> 0:10:05.400 she was kind of destined to be a cop because 0:10:05.520 --> 0:10:08.800 it was in her family's bones, but she does not 0:10:08.960 --> 0:10:11.920 want to let what happened to her father happened to her. 0:10:11.960 --> 0:10:14.920 She tries to say she's going to rigidly separate herself 0:10:14.960 --> 0:10:17.600 from the job, that when she comes home the batch 0:10:17.720 --> 0:10:20.079 goes off. She's relentless, but she does not want to 0:10:20.120 --> 0:10:24.400 become obsessed. And of course her dad warns her away 0:10:24.400 --> 0:10:28.520 from this case uselessly because she's determined to pursue this killer. 0:10:28.720 --> 0:10:32.280 And things start escalating. I don't know spoilers, but things 0:10:32.559 --> 0:10:37.199 escalate and percolate, and things start swirling closer and closer 0:10:37.240 --> 0:10:40.120 to her and the people she cares about. 0:10:43.160 --> 0:10:48.440 What infamous case became the kernel for this because you know, 0:10:48.640 --> 0:10:52.080 I'm curious of if it evolved as you started writing it, 0:10:52.320 --> 0:10:54.560 or did you stick with whatever this case is. 0:10:54.960 --> 0:10:59.400 The zodiac really was the initial spark for this case. 0:10:59.440 --> 0:11:03.960 I did grow up in California and recall as a 0:11:04.200 --> 0:11:09.080 small child seeing the daily newspaper and there was a 0:11:09.520 --> 0:11:14.160 police drawing on the front page of a figure with 0:11:14.320 --> 0:11:18.320 a hood over his head with a bizarre symbol on 0:11:18.400 --> 0:11:22.640 the front, and I recall asking my parents what's that? 0:11:22.920 --> 0:11:26.520 Who's that? And they said that's the zodiac, and I 0:11:26.520 --> 0:11:28.880 could kind of in my memory my mom was sort 0:11:28.920 --> 0:11:31.720 of waving my dad off in the background, kind of 0:11:31.760 --> 0:11:33.960 like let's throw this paper away. But I said who 0:11:34.080 --> 0:11:36.920 is he? And he said he's a murderer, And I said, 0:11:36.920 --> 0:11:39.840 why does he kill people? I was probably going into 0:11:40.280 --> 0:11:42.720 first grade and Catholic school, where we knew that there 0:11:42.720 --> 0:11:45.440 were always, you know, deadly sins that drove people to kill, 0:11:45.600 --> 0:11:50.000 like greed less, anger, hatred, and my dad just paused 0:11:50.000 --> 0:11:53.760 and said he likes it. And that totally threw me. 0:11:53.800 --> 0:11:56.240 I could not conceive of why someone would like to 0:11:56.760 --> 0:11:59.880 kill people, and it really threw me for a loop. 0:12:00.080 --> 0:12:01.920 And I don't know that I ever slept with my 0:12:02.320 --> 0:12:06.520 windows open again for a very long time. But of course, 0:12:06.559 --> 0:12:10.920 the zodiac has never been identified. And I went away 0:12:11.600 --> 0:12:16.240 stopped killing, supposedly, and at some point later I thought, Okay, 0:12:16.400 --> 0:12:20.400 if he could set down his murderous impulses for a 0:12:20.440 --> 0:12:23.559 while at his own choosing, what's to stop him from 0:12:23.800 --> 0:12:26.439 picking it up again at a moment of his choosing. 0:12:26.880 --> 0:12:29.880 And that was the genesis for unsub which, of course 0:12:29.920 --> 0:12:33.120 the zodiac has become this I don't want to say iconic, 0:12:33.240 --> 0:12:37.120 but notorious case, partly because that killer has never been 0:12:37.200 --> 0:12:43.120 officially identified and did taunt the media. The police was 0:12:43.600 --> 0:12:49.600 very much narcissistically interested in keeping himself in the public 0:12:49.679 --> 0:12:54.760 eye with these bizarre cryptographic puzzles and letters to the 0:12:54.800 --> 0:12:58.160 San Francisco Examiner in San Francisco Chronicle, and the bizarre 0:12:58.200 --> 0:13:01.280 symbolism which makes which always people out to think that well, 0:13:01.280 --> 0:13:03.240 what is you know, what is there? Is there some 0:13:03.400 --> 0:13:06.080 kind of a cult thing going on? But the zodiac 0:13:06.240 --> 0:13:11.000 was just genuinely terrifying. So if it scares me, I 0:13:11.000 --> 0:13:13.800 think it might scare an interest readers as well. And 0:13:13.880 --> 0:13:17.720 I used that as the ground for the killer in 0:13:18.000 --> 0:13:23.600 unsept the prophet who left cryptic messages and bizarre symbols, 0:13:23.679 --> 0:13:29.360 the ancient symbol for mercury sometimes carved into a victim's flesh. 0:13:29.960 --> 0:13:33.920 And yes, I know you're you're making a face there, 0:13:34.000 --> 0:13:36.600 But honestly, I did not want this book to be 0:13:37.360 --> 0:13:40.200 grim and dark. I wanted it to be compelling and 0:13:40.240 --> 0:13:43.319 fascinating and to have readers want to know as much 0:13:43.360 --> 0:13:45.960 as I did, what is really behind these crimes? Is 0:13:46.000 --> 0:13:50.679 there anything beyond someone who's psychotic and there is in 0:13:50.720 --> 0:13:51.280 the story. 0:13:51.480 --> 0:13:54.080 I remember somebody telling me, you know, we were talking 0:13:54.080 --> 0:13:57.319 about plots and mysteries or thrillers, and you know kind 0:13:57.360 --> 0:14:00.440 of like, well, someone being psychotic, isn't it enough of 0:14:00.679 --> 0:14:02.640 there has to be another reason? And I thought, now, 0:14:02.840 --> 0:14:05.080 being psychotic is enough of a reason to do this. 0:14:05.240 --> 0:14:08.120 I don't think you have to search around, you know, 0:14:08.240 --> 0:14:11.680 dig around too much in somebody's psyche to just say, well, 0:14:11.800 --> 0:14:15.280 you know, personality disorder or whatever else there was, So 0:14:15.840 --> 0:14:19.480 do you think that zodiac? And remembering this as a child, 0:14:19.520 --> 0:14:20.920 I don't want to put words in your mouth here. 0:14:21.120 --> 0:14:24.280 Was that one of the contributors for you to want 0:14:24.280 --> 0:14:27.800 to go down the road in general of telling, you know, 0:14:28.000 --> 0:14:29.240 thriller type stories. 0:14:29.440 --> 0:14:35.320 Undoubtedly, I certainly never interrogated myself about that. But I 0:14:35.400 --> 0:14:39.000 always enjoyed thrillers. I know, like a lot of people, 0:14:39.360 --> 0:14:41.680 the fact that in fiction we can make things turn 0:14:41.720 --> 0:14:45.000 out the way we want is part of the appeal 0:14:45.160 --> 0:14:50.280 of writing it, as well as making readers tear their 0:14:50.280 --> 0:14:53.360 hair out or you know, bite their fingernails or just 0:14:53.440 --> 0:14:57.520 keep flipping the pages. But I definitely like the idea 0:14:57.560 --> 0:15:00.960 that I would have characters who are in who are 0:15:01.280 --> 0:15:05.240 put to the test, who are put in jeopardy and 0:15:05.440 --> 0:15:08.560 have to help each other out, have to find out 0:15:08.560 --> 0:15:12.120 what's going wrong. And in a thriller, it's not usually 0:15:12.280 --> 0:15:15.040 that there's a body on the floor who you're trying 0:15:15.080 --> 0:15:18.040 to identify who killed them. It's that's maybe a body 0:15:18.040 --> 0:15:20.760 set the floor, which is the sign that something worse 0:15:20.880 --> 0:15:21.800 is coming down the. 0:15:21.800 --> 0:15:24.840 Road to whoever this is a character in your book, 0:15:25.280 --> 0:15:27.640 is gonna happen to you probably or someone you love. 0:15:28.120 --> 0:15:33.640 Yeah, exactly, So I found it a lot more. Come on, 0:15:33.720 --> 0:15:37.320 It's fun to write stuff where people really have to 0:15:37.400 --> 0:15:41.520 dig deep against the stakes or life and death and 0:15:41.680 --> 0:15:43.840 you want to see them rise to the occasion or 0:15:43.880 --> 0:15:47.560 die trying. And that's that's why I like to write it. 0:15:47.560 --> 0:15:50.440 I was also really terrible at attempting to write romance 0:15:50.520 --> 0:15:53.320 or science fiction, so you know, like those stories. You 0:15:53.360 --> 0:15:56.000 attempted both of those when I was very young. I did, 0:15:56.080 --> 0:15:59.080 and you know, it's like sucked harder than a vacuum cleaner, 0:15:59.120 --> 0:16:00.560 So like, let me find something else. 0:16:00.680 --> 0:16:03.360 I wouldn't even know how to approach either of those things. 0:16:04.360 --> 0:16:07.200 Well, okay, so let's talk about zodiac as an inspiration 0:16:07.960 --> 0:16:10.920 for fiction, because This is an interesting way of looking 0:16:10.920 --> 0:16:13.160 at it for me, because you know, if I had 0:16:13.160 --> 0:16:15.560 somebody who had written a book about Zodiac, or if 0:16:15.600 --> 0:16:18.160 I interviewed, you know, Paul Holes from the Golden State 0:16:18.240 --> 0:16:22.560 killer case. If I interviewed Paul about Zodiac, which is 0:16:22.600 --> 0:16:25.840 a case that he's been active in, he would give 0:16:25.840 --> 0:16:28.080 me a play by play. He would talk about the 0:16:28.120 --> 0:16:33.040 way that what Zodiac wore according to survivors, what exactly happened, 0:16:33.080 --> 0:16:35.400 what the settings were, and all of that stuff. It 0:16:35.440 --> 0:16:39.760 would be very methodical and it's scientific because that's that's 0:16:39.800 --> 0:16:41.840 who he is and that's what an author would would 0:16:41.920 --> 0:16:43.760 explain that too. So your point of view is a 0:16:43.800 --> 0:16:47.760 little different because you're somebody who's living in that time period, 0:16:47.920 --> 0:16:51.560 through that experience. So tell me, you know, we've talked 0:16:51.560 --> 0:16:54.760 about the symbolism that he you know, and the taunting, 0:16:54.880 --> 0:16:56.760 and he's got kind of all of the Jack the 0:16:56.800 --> 0:16:57.720 Ripper hallmarks. 0:16:57.800 --> 0:16:59.440 I think the brutality part of it. 0:17:00.040 --> 0:17:02.400 What are the things that you can pick out from 0:17:02.640 --> 0:17:07.400 what you remember, either the emotion or the scene kind 0:17:07.440 --> 0:17:09.639 of lover's lane, but not really, I mean, you know, 0:17:09.680 --> 0:17:11.119 what are the things that you pick out that just 0:17:11.160 --> 0:17:16.000 go man, that is exactly the setup for a good 0:17:16.400 --> 0:17:19.240 thriller minus the serial killer. I mean, what are the 0:17:19.240 --> 0:17:21.200 things around you that just kind of go, oh my gosh, 0:17:21.200 --> 0:17:22.080 this gives me the chills. 0:17:22.119 --> 0:17:24.720 I need to write it down. Well, a guy coming 0:17:24.800 --> 0:17:27.720 out of the out of the woods, wearing a hood, 0:17:27.840 --> 0:17:31.480 carrying a knife at a lover's lane. That's the instant 0:17:31.560 --> 0:17:36.040 flip of the situation from a beautiful afternoon by Lake 0:17:36.080 --> 0:17:41.720 barry Essa to absolute terror and realizing your life, your 0:17:41.760 --> 0:17:46.520 world has either completely changed permanently or is at an end. 0:17:46.960 --> 0:17:49.320 That was part of it the killing in San Francisco. 0:17:49.320 --> 0:17:52.280 As far as Zodiac of the cab driver you know 0:17:52.440 --> 0:17:54.520 to stop signed late at night, there are a number 0:17:54.560 --> 0:17:59.480 of police drawings of the zodiac, and the most famous 0:17:59.520 --> 0:18:04.280 ones were given by patrol officers from the San Francisco 0:18:04.400 --> 0:18:09.720 Police Department who saw him walking away from the murder 0:18:09.840 --> 0:18:12.360 scene and did not know it at the time that 0:18:12.359 --> 0:18:14.840 that was who they were looking at. And it was 0:18:14.880 --> 0:18:18.440 only later that everybody put two and two and two 0:18:18.520 --> 0:18:21.679 together and realized that the man that these two officers 0:18:21.680 --> 0:18:25.160 who were rushing to the scene, this person they had 0:18:25.200 --> 0:18:30.960 seen strolling away, had to have been the killer. So 0:18:31.840 --> 0:18:34.760 the fact of how close they came, how calm the 0:18:34.840 --> 0:18:40.359 killer was, how it was this terrible missed chance to 0:18:40.480 --> 0:18:45.800 stop something that was just spreading poor throughout the entire region. 0:18:46.480 --> 0:18:48.720 That's kind of like, would you do the same now? 0:18:49.320 --> 0:18:51.280 How could you set that up in a story? How 0:18:51.320 --> 0:18:54.760 could you turn that into even more suspense and drama 0:18:55.359 --> 0:18:58.480 and catharsis if you need it. 0:19:01.200 --> 0:19:04.280 As I said, what's kind of different about writing the 0:19:04.320 --> 0:19:06.840 fictionalized angle of this is you do have to get 0:19:06.880 --> 0:19:10.680 into the emotions of the victims, and the setup has 0:19:10.720 --> 0:19:12.919 to be compelling. In any good mystery, you have to 0:19:12.960 --> 0:19:14.720 have you have to get in the heads of the 0:19:14.760 --> 0:19:17.280 victims and survivors and the killer were at the same time. 0:19:17.320 --> 0:19:19.800 I think in order for us to care about those characters, right, 0:19:20.000 --> 0:19:20.240 you do. 0:19:20.400 --> 0:19:22.560 Sometimes you do not necessarily need to get into the 0:19:22.600 --> 0:19:26.600 killer's head, and a lot of books don't. Famously, Thomas 0:19:26.600 --> 0:19:28.679 Harris is the Silence of the Lambs is never in 0:19:28.800 --> 0:19:31.639 Hannibal Elect's point of view, but we feel like we 0:19:32.080 --> 0:19:35.240 know him. But getting into their point of view and 0:19:35.560 --> 0:19:38.520 getting readers to care about these characters, and because they 0:19:38.800 --> 0:19:42.280 become real people to us when we write. They're characters, 0:19:42.359 --> 0:19:45.639 but we feel like they're actual humans. You know, you 0:19:45.640 --> 0:19:49.360 can make readers interested in a story by raising their curiosity. 0:19:49.520 --> 0:19:55.280 And that's the puzzles, the cryptograms, the weird messages that 0:19:55.400 --> 0:19:59.000 the profit and unsub sense to leaves for the police 0:19:59.000 --> 0:20:02.480 to find that that becomes like the readers trying to 0:20:02.480 --> 0:20:05.359 see can we figure it out before the police do. 0:20:06.040 --> 0:20:09.680 But if you can make the characters people that readers 0:20:09.800 --> 0:20:14.280 care about, then that makes it a much richer story. 0:20:14.880 --> 0:20:18.920 And you mentioned a Golden State killer, and I will 0:20:18.920 --> 0:20:23.280 say that I can segue a little bit toward that. 0:20:24.000 --> 0:20:29.560 It became a case that also influenced on Sub quite 0:20:29.600 --> 0:20:31.679 a bit, and a lot of that had to do 0:20:31.880 --> 0:20:36.640 with the victims and finding out a lot about them. 0:20:36.880 --> 0:20:40.720 For a reason that I never in a million years 0:20:40.720 --> 0:20:45.760 suspected when I started writing on SUB. There had been 0:20:46.240 --> 0:20:49.639 two double murders in the neighborhood where I grew up. 0:20:50.040 --> 0:20:53.959 Wait where were you? Galada, California, oh Okay, December nineteen 0:20:54.400 --> 0:20:59.560 seventy nine and July nineteen eighty one, two couples were 0:21:00.080 --> 0:21:05.520 or slaughtered at home and the city was just baffled 0:21:05.760 --> 0:21:10.679 and unsettled. And I remember my parents mentioning it with 0:21:10.720 --> 0:21:14.520 sort of a gallows humor. Kind of like trying to 0:21:14.560 --> 0:21:17.160 calm the kids down, like, you don't need to worry 0:21:17.160 --> 0:21:19.040 about us, because you know what people are saying. These 0:21:19.080 --> 0:21:21.560 were couples who weren't married, so you know your mom 0:21:21.600 --> 0:21:24.919 and I have been hitched for decades. Don't even worry 0:21:24.960 --> 0:21:27.879 nobody's going to come after us. Is this a Catholic thing? Again? 0:21:28.080 --> 0:21:30.880 That could be. Now, this isn't my parents trying to say, now, 0:21:30.960 --> 0:21:35.440 don't worry about us. Whoever this guy is, nobody would 0:21:35.520 --> 0:21:38.800 ever come after us. And those cases were never solved. 0:21:39.119 --> 0:21:44.320 And it was when I was writing unsub that I 0:21:44.680 --> 0:21:47.800 just by chance took a look at one of the 0:21:47.800 --> 0:21:51.280 local Santa Barbara newspapers and there was a story saying 0:21:51.640 --> 0:21:57.560 Sheriff's office seeks information about these killings. Now this was, 0:21:57.600 --> 0:22:00.199 you know, decades later, and it said these killings have 0:22:00.320 --> 0:22:03.560 now been tied to what was then being called the 0:22:03.600 --> 0:22:09.679 original Nightstalker, East Aria rapist, Original night Stalker. And this 0:22:09.840 --> 0:22:14.800 came like a bolt of lightning, and I just could 0:22:14.880 --> 0:22:17.800 not believe it initially. And they were saying they at 0:22:17.800 --> 0:22:20.760 that time they thought perhaps they had potential evidence that 0:22:21.480 --> 0:22:24.199 the killer might have been a construction worker who was 0:22:24.320 --> 0:22:27.439 building a strip mall near the killings at the time, 0:22:27.960 --> 0:22:30.840 and I just remember sitting there staring at it and 0:22:30.920 --> 0:22:36.720 my head just throbbing because both of those double murders 0:22:37.080 --> 0:22:41.479 were within walking distance of my parents' house. It was 0:22:42.080 --> 0:22:43.440 less than a quarter of a mile away. 0:22:43.600 --> 0:22:45.240 And they were still around. Were they still alive? 0:22:45.280 --> 0:22:47.400 Oh? Yeah, they were still around. I knew my brother 0:22:47.440 --> 0:22:49.200 and sister had been living at home at the time. 0:22:50.240 --> 0:22:54.119 It just threw men. And then when I went to 0:22:54.240 --> 0:22:58.879 visit my family, I was standing in the kitchen of 0:22:58.880 --> 0:23:01.879 my brother's new house out the window, and I realized 0:23:01.880 --> 0:23:04.600 that one of the crime scenes was right across the street. 0:23:04.800 --> 0:23:08.080 Oh gosh. At the time, he didn't know, and I 0:23:08.160 --> 0:23:12.639 just remember like standing there like a statue, thinking should 0:23:12.680 --> 0:23:17.600 I say anything to him about this? The first thing 0:23:17.640 --> 0:23:20.159 that horrified me was I remembered the murders, but I 0:23:20.200 --> 0:23:23.399 could not initially remember the names of the victims. And 0:23:23.440 --> 0:23:27.880 of course now it's impossible to forget doctor Offerman and 0:23:28.280 --> 0:23:33.360 doctor Manning and Shear Domingo and Gregory Sanchez. And then 0:23:33.440 --> 0:23:39.200 to realize that there was this statewide rampage of murders 0:23:39.240 --> 0:23:42.399 that had come within it felt like a breath of 0:23:43.520 --> 0:23:46.120 my parents' house and it turns out I think it 0:23:46.160 --> 0:23:49.800 really did that it became it became, it did become 0:23:49.800 --> 0:23:53.000 an obsession. So I did tell my brother. We ended 0:23:53.080 --> 0:23:55.119