Speaker 1: Crime Stories with Nancy Grace.
Speaker 2: The Death Row Club. Let that sink in the Death
Speaker 2: Row Club. I'm Nancy Grace. This is Crime Stories. I
Speaker 2: want to thank you for being with us The Death
Speaker 2: Row Club. Is it real or is it just a
Speaker 2: book by Victoria Visquez? Now this is a book of fiction.
Speaker 2: In my world, I deal with real serial killers like
Speaker 2: Ted Bundy.
Speaker 3: I still have a sense of disbelief that this man
Speaker 3: that I loved and that was seemed to be such
Speaker 3: a great guy could go out and do such horrific things.
Speaker 3: It's just so hard to accept.
Speaker 4: I'm sure you've asked yourself, why not me?
Speaker 3: Completely? And I hate to even say this because it
Speaker 3: makes him sound normal, But I do think he loved.
Speaker 5: His I heard a story told by one of his attorneys.
Speaker 5: He said Ted told him that he would play games
Speaker 5: with mice, then he would let some of them live
Speaker 5: and make some of them die. And to me, that's us.
Speaker 2: That from our friends at ABC. Isn't he charming? Well
Speaker 2: he's having supper with Satan? Now, how many victims did
Speaker 2: he have? I don't think we really have an accurate
Speaker 2: body count, which leads me to another real life serial killer.
Speaker 2: Let's just go with Israel Keys.
Speaker 6: I had that place that there staked out one actually
Speaker 6: two or three knights.
Speaker 7: And then I had a park.
Speaker 6: A couple of parks here in town, so I could
Speaker 6: ride my bike to and those staked out. And yeah,
Speaker 6: but there's there's still a couple of gallons during a
Speaker 6: shovel steps to do.
Speaker 7: Back when I was smart, I would.
Speaker 6: Do it.
Speaker 7: I would let them come to me. Interesting this remote area,
Speaker 7: ye kind of go to a remote area that's.
Speaker 8: Not anywhere near where you live, but that other.
Speaker 7: People go to as well. You might not get exactly
Speaker 7: what You're not much to choose from in the manner
Speaker 7: of speaking.
Speaker 6: But there's also no witnesses really originally fields around.
Speaker 2: So as a matter of fact, and we think his
Speaker 2: last victim's murder, that would be Samantha Koenig, a beautiful
Speaker 2: young Alaska barista who was kidnapped from her coffee stand.
Speaker 2: He actually sewed her eyes open applied makeup. This is
Speaker 2: of course, after sex assaulting her for hours and hours
Speaker 2: and hours, turning up the music really loudly so no
Speaker 2: one would hear her screaming. He sows her eyes open,
Speaker 2: covers her in makeup, and takes a blurry photo and
Speaker 2: actually asks for ransom. That's Issuel keys killed kits all
Speaker 2: around the country. He specifically liked to hunt at parks,
Speaker 2: at RV camps, at camping sites. Animal I don't have
Speaker 2: to think really hard to come up with BTK buying
Speaker 2: torture kill the dogcatcher Dennis Raider.
Speaker 9: I was willing to have a sexual fantasy, so I
Speaker 9: brought my hit kit and low and behold, her car
Speaker 9: was there. I thought, geez, she's not supposed to be home.
Speaker 9: So I very carefully snuck into the house kind of
Speaker 9: like a cat burglar, and after checking the house, she
Speaker 9: wasn't there. So about that time the doors rattled, so
Speaker 9: I went back to one of the bedrooms and hiding
Speaker 9: back there in one of the bedrooms, I waited till
Speaker 9: wee hours in the morning, and then proceeded to sneak
Speaker 9: into her bedroom and lit the lights on what looked
Speaker 9: like I think the bathroom lights. I just studied want
Speaker 9: to flip her lights on, and she screamed, and I
Speaker 9: jumped on the bed and strangled her. Manually.
Speaker 2: That from our friends at k w C H and
Speaker 2: then of course let me just throw in for good measure.
Speaker 2: Brian Coburgerer who murdered for beautiful young Idaho Stevens. I
Speaker 2: will never forget this nine one one call.
Speaker 7: Tell me exactly what's going on.
Speaker 10: One of our one of the roommates.
Speaker 3: Who's passed out and she's drunk, class and short wa yup?
Speaker 2: Okay, Oh and they saw some man in their house
Speaker 2: house nice.
Speaker 10: Yeah, are you in the patient?
Speaker 11: Okay?
Speaker 12: I need someone to keep the phone not passing it around.
Speaker 10: Can I just tell you what happened? Very much? What
Speaker 10: is going on currently?
Speaker 8: Is someone passed out right now?
Speaker 10: I don't really know what pretty much? Victorian?
Speaker 8: Okay, I need to know what's.
Speaker 10: Going on right now. If someone is passed out, can
Speaker 10: you find.
Speaker 13: That out y'all.
Speaker 10: I'll come come on with musical check what we have
Speaker 10: to put she's not waking up?
Speaker 7: Okay, one moment.
Speaker 10: I'm getting help started that way, we'll give me.
Speaker 2: The list goes on and on. The Death Row Club
Speaker 2: Victoria us guess joining us. First question?
Speaker 14: Why so, First of all, thank you so much for
Speaker 14: having me, Nancy. I was fascinated by the idea of
Speaker 14: being linked to a family member and living under kind
Speaker 14: of the pall of what they've done. Well, I personally
Speaker 14: do not have any family members who are serial killers.
Speaker 14: This was in some way inspired.
Speaker 2: By hold on, Nelly, you sure you sure you know?
Speaker 2: Don't have a found when they are relative it's a
Speaker 2: serial I'm so not kidding right now. I want you
Speaker 2: to listen to this.
Speaker 15: And there's a knock on my door and he said
Speaker 15: he was the FBI. And then he says, your dad
Speaker 15: has been arrested as BTK and I was like, I
Speaker 15: think I'm going to pass out. I think reality was
Speaker 15: starting to creep in and I felt my stomach just
Speaker 15: twist realizing it could be true.
Speaker 2: Got from our friends at ABC, Dennis Radar just evil,
Speaker 2: evil incarnate. That's his daughter who is amazing and living
Speaker 2: with exactly what Victoria Visquez is writing about. And this book,
Speaker 2: I got to tell you, is amazing. I'm giving her
Speaker 2: a hard time, like, why would you want to write
Speaker 2: about a serial killer. They're odious, they're horrible, they're the devil.
Speaker 2: But what you're writing about, Victoria, I understood, is about
Speaker 2: family that can't believe it, they're suspicious and what it
Speaker 2: does to them. And you know a lot of people, Victoria,
Speaker 2: they're like, hey, that's the daughter of a serial killer
Speaker 2: screw her. But these family members are innocent. They're innocent,
Speaker 2: and then their whole world is just shattered when they
Speaker 2: find out they've been living with evil. Okay, where'd you
Speaker 2: get the idea?
Speaker 14: So this was in part inspired by something that happened
Speaker 14: to me when I was in high school. I had
Speaker 14: a teacher that I was very, very close with, but
Speaker 14: then two years after I graduated, it was revealed that
Speaker 14: he was a dangerous sexual predator. He was arrested in
Speaker 14: a car with a fifteen year old student, and when
Speaker 14: I found out, I was completely blindsided. I had appsbsolutely
Speaker 14: no idea. Again, we were so close. He inspired me
Speaker 14: to want to become a teacher myself, and all I
Speaker 14: could think was, if I was so caught out by
Speaker 14: my teacher turning out to be a predator, then what
Speaker 14: must it be like when the police come knocking on
Speaker 14: your door telling you about all of the women that
Speaker 14: your father has murdered?
Speaker 2: Oh my stars, Oh my stars, you know what you're
Speaker 2: reminding me of. You reminded me of a murder case
Speaker 2: I prosecuted, and one of my star witnesses. I had
Speaker 2: no eyewitness to the murder. And you're about to hear,
Speaker 2: I had to dig the bottom of the barrel. But
Speaker 2: you got to take your witnesses as you find them.
Speaker 2: I found a witness, not an eyewitness, but that could
Speaker 2: help me in the timeline, who was a convicted rapist.
Speaker 2: Now his story was very different than what the record reflected.
Speaker 2: But I had to drive all around Atlanta with this
Speaker 2: guy in my beat up Honda day and night, might
Speaker 2: trying to take pictures him to show me where this happened,
Speaker 2: where that happened. And he testified, And there were times
Speaker 2: in the car Victoria of us guess, oh you know, Glad,
Speaker 2: I go, I can't believe this guy is convicted rapest.
Speaker 2: It was hard to take in, but I knew it
Speaker 2: to be true. Okay, So that's where you got the idea.
Speaker 14: Yeah, absolutely, And I think that just what you're saying. Nicola,
Speaker 14: the main character in the novel, even after her father's arrested,
Speaker 14: even after she knows that her father murdered five women,
Speaker 14: including her best friend from college, she still loves him.
Speaker 14: That's not something you can just, you know, turn off
Speaker 14: that easily. I mean, I still after my teacher was arrested,
Speaker 14: I still have, you know, fond thoughts about him despite
Speaker 14: the fact that I know he has done disgusting things.
Speaker 14: It's hard to flip that switch mentally and be like,
Speaker 14: this person who was so important to me is actually
Speaker 14: like you're saying, is sick as a predator? Is you know,
Speaker 14: a disgusting human being.
Speaker 8: It's hard.
Speaker 2: Okay, I'm gonna have to go to a shrink right
Speaker 2: now because you're scaring everybody in the studio by saying
Speaker 2: I know that he's a child predator, but I still
Speaker 2: like him.
Speaker 1: Crime Stories with Nancy Grace.
Speaker 2: Doctor Rachel Toles helped me. Doctor Toles clinical forensic psychologist,
Speaker 2: author of a brand new book coming out, Inventing the Psychopath. Ooh,
Speaker 2: that's a great title, How a convenient myth makes the
Speaker 2: world more dangerous? Okay, Doctor Rachel Toles fits in exactly
Speaker 2: with what Victoria is saying. And I'm not saying she's wrong.
Speaker 2: I'm saying that phenomena is scary, and I live through
Speaker 2: that in court, particularicularly in child sex abuse cases, because
Speaker 2: the family, the wife, they're like, oh, no, that's not true,
Speaker 2: that didn't happen. He would never he did, and I
Speaker 2: proved it and the family would be furious. I'll get
Speaker 2: my tires, slashed my door at my house, kicked in
Speaker 2: my mailbox, knocked over, because no body would believe it.
Speaker 2: Is it a matter of they can't believe it? Because
Speaker 2: that's giz. She's super smart. This book is amazing, the
Speaker 2: Death Row Club. But she still can't take in that
Speaker 2: that teacher is a pervert that prayed on children because
Speaker 2: that was not her experience with him. What is that phenomenon,
Speaker 2: doctor Rachel.
Speaker 16: Well, it's obviously really complicated for a lot of reasons.
Speaker 16: I mean, human beings are complicated. So I think that,
Speaker 16: for example, when we get to the murder, that suddenly
Speaker 16: defines the entire person. So everything that came before murders
Speaker 16: is just gone. And I think when you mentioned this
Speaker 16: guy was a pervert, this teacher, those are absolutely things
Speaker 16: he did. They were despicable, and those are real things
Speaker 16: and those are a part of him. But I think
Speaker 16: where we as a society and the culture where we
Speaker 16: go is that we the minute we find out of
Speaker 16: a despicable act, we define the entire person by that act.
Speaker 16: And that doesn't mean there's no excuse for these actions.
Speaker 16: So that's absolutely not what I'm saying. But what I
Speaker 16: am saying is there's also other parts of a human
Speaker 16: being that are real. For example, I mean here we're
Speaker 16: talking about somebody who's saying, well, I still love my
Speaker 16: father or I still care for my teacher, and that's
Speaker 16: very real and that doesn't go away. And so then
Speaker 16: it's a matter of being able, as a daughter or
Speaker 16: a person who loves somebody to hold two different people
Speaker 16: in your mind, and you have to compartmentalize. And that's
Speaker 16: really what we're talking about here. So there's a couple
Speaker 16: of things. There's the person who murders, and that's the
Speaker 16: other thing. It's like, how does a daughter wrap her
Speaker 16: head around the fact that did my father really love me?
Speaker 16: And maybe no, yes, my father really loved me. He
Speaker 16: was capable of love, and he was capable of doing
Speaker 16: this despicable thing. So there's that element to it. But
Speaker 16: then there's of course the compartmentalization. How does a human being,
Speaker 16: how are they able to love their daughters or their
Speaker 16: wives and then go out at night and murder sex
Speaker 16: workers or people who they deem as less human. And
Speaker 16: that's what I think we need to be looking at here.
Speaker 2: Detor Tolls, in addition to being a clinical and forensic
Speaker 2: psychologist and author of a new book. I think he
Speaker 2: may be clairvoyant, because I was just about to bring
Speaker 2: up Rex Heureman, who is Lucifer? Before I show him,
Speaker 2: Let's look at his many many victims. They went through
Speaker 2: unimaginable suffering torture in his underground torture chamber that his
Speaker 2: wife never noticed, and he, by the way, has made
Speaker 2: at least one million dollars reportedly. Hey, let me see
Speaker 2: us guests while I'm talking about human These are real
Speaker 2: serial killers. Okay. His wife didn't notice the underground sex
Speaker 2: and murder dungeon in her home, and she's reportedly made
Speaker 2: a million dollar sum for a documentary with quotes about
Speaker 2: her life and the trial and so forth. Asa Ullerup
Speaker 2: is her name. I don't know about her, but I
Speaker 2: have no doubt that his children had no idea that
Speaker 2: Hureman was a serial killer and are likely going through
Speaker 2: what you're talking about. And I'm not saying it's wrong.
Speaker 2: I'm saying it's It's bizarre and hard to understand, but
Speaker 2: is real. Okay, listen, do you want to stand up.
Speaker 11: By cleaning guilty to a charge that's the same as
Speaker 11: you from the God trial and the found guilty of
Speaker 11: that charge, yes, do you want to stand up by cleaning?
Speaker 11: Guilty of waving a number of very important rents.
Speaker 12: Rex Yeerman will be held responsible for the nineteen ninety
Speaker 12: three murder of Sondra Castia, the nineteen ninety six murder
Speaker 12: of Karen Vergata, the two thousand murder of Valerie Mack,
Speaker 12: the two thousand and three murder of Jessica Taylor, the
Speaker 12: two thousand and seven murder of Maureen brainer Barnes, the
Speaker 12: two thousand and nine murder of Melissa Bartholemy, the June
Speaker 12: two thousand and nine murder of Megan Waterman, and the
Speaker 12: September twenty ten murder of Ms Costello.
Speaker 17: The girl runs out of the house naked and is
Speaker 17: running in front of the garage. And now the witness says, hey,
Speaker 17: shouldn't we be taking her? Something's wrong here, and the
Speaker 17: driver tells her no, They're just playing a game.
Speaker 9: Leave it.
Speaker 11: The Go Go Beach task for searches more than three
Speaker 11: hundred and fifty electronic devices before finding the blueprint document
Speaker 11: on a hard drive in the basement of human's home.
Speaker 11: The document includes a checklist of supplies like ropes, saws,
Speaker 11: and surgical drapes. Another checklist includes tasks to complete before, during,
Speaker 11: and after the killings, as well as practical lessons for
Speaker 11: next time.
Speaker 2: Along the lines of what the Victoria of A. Squez
Speaker 2: is writing about in this amazing book, The Death Row Club.
Speaker 2: They say fresh and unforgettable. Okay, it's definitely unforgettable. I
Speaker 2: agree with that. But another real life example of this
Speaker 2: a woman joining us right now, her name Francine Bardol,
Speaker 2: who knew Ted Bundy very well. And actually brace yourselves,
Speaker 2: because normally I would be trying to accuse her of
Speaker 2: child neglect. Her son in Bundy's girlfriend son. Her son
Speaker 2: and Bundy's girlfriend's son were best friends. Bundy would take
Speaker 2: the two boys to movies and the pool. Ted Bundy
Speaker 2: taking your child to movies and a pool party. She's
Speaker 2: also with cold case solutions and resources. Frank saye, I mean,
Speaker 2: do you ever just want to go? What was I thinking?
Speaker 2: But how could you know?
Speaker 8: I didn't know?
Speaker 10: He was very.
Speaker 8: Smart, He presented himself well. He was very good with
Speaker 8: the kids. He was he really was really good with them.
Speaker 8: And he used to sit when he come home to
Speaker 8: pick up Josh because I was pretending Josh. We'd sit
Speaker 8: and talk for a long time. He would talk about
Speaker 8: law school. I was interested in law school. He was
Speaker 8: very a stute, very good listener, and he was handsome
Speaker 8: and he was endearing. And I remember myself, well, you think.
Speaker 2: He's handsome, but because he looks like a demon to me.
Speaker 8: He didn't.
Speaker 2: I've interviewed I believe every living victim of Ted Bundy's
Speaker 2: and the stories they have told me on and off
Speaker 2: air are blood curling. You do know he had sex
Speaker 2: with a woman's skull, right, Oh?
Speaker 8: Absolutely, I do know all about him.
Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, And you do know that after he would
Speaker 2: kill the victims, he would bathe their bodies and do
Speaker 2: their hair and put makeup on them. Yes, I do, okay,
Speaker 2: just making sure you knew that. Okay, tell me a
Speaker 2: bundee story.
Speaker 8: Well, he would take my son and josh swimming. He
Speaker 8: went to law school at the University of Utah, and
Speaker 8: they allowed them access to the Fort Douglas swimming pool.
Speaker 8: And my son was I think he's six maybe as
Speaker 8: I was recalling it, and Joshua was about the same age,
Speaker 8: and he'd take them swimming and they like going swimming.
Speaker 8: I mean, not everybody had a swimming pool back in
Speaker 8: those days, and that was in like seventy four, and
Speaker 8: so they'd go and then one day my son came
Speaker 8: home and he said, I don't want to go swimming
Speaker 8: with Ted anymore. And of course I was kind of concerned,
Speaker 8: thinking maybe Ted had touched him or been inappropriate with him,
Speaker 8: and I said, well why not, and he goes, well,
Speaker 8: he keeps playing this game called Shark and he keeps
Speaker 8: biting me. And as you know, that's how Ted was
Speaker 8: convicted based on his bike marks.
Speaker 1: And so.
Speaker 8: As I think about it now, it was totally surprising
Speaker 8: because the boys loved going with him, and he was
Speaker 8: always good with them, but had no idea my son
Speaker 8: was going to be an appetizer. And then there were
Speaker 8: times when he take him to the movies. That driving
Speaker 8: movies were big back then, and he took them to
Speaker 8: the movies and he'd leave and he'd tell the boys,
Speaker 8: I'm going to the snack bar, but I'll be back,
Speaker 8: you know, you guys wait, and he wouldn't come back,
Speaker 8: and so they'd get the movie, get over and they
Speaker 8: go out looking for him, and my son Larry said
Speaker 8: that he'd see that he saw Ted standing by the
Speaker 8: women's restroom door watching the women leaving, and he thought
Speaker 8: that he was just young, he was just little. He
Speaker 8: couldn't understand why he wasn't at the snack bar getting candy,
Speaker 8: and so that was kind of concerning. And the other
Speaker 8: thing that kind of bothered me, But I didn't give
Speaker 8: it much thought because I babysat jaw His mom, who
Speaker 8: Ted was living with, asked if I could tend Josh
Speaker 8: well her and Ted would go waterskiing, and I of
Speaker 8: course say yes, and that was just fine. But she'd
Speaker 8: sometimes call and say, oh, never mind, he didn't come
Speaker 8: home last night, and we're not going and he takes
Speaker 8: off sometimes and he doesn't come home for a while,
Speaker 8: and she was speculating perhaps it was because he'd go
Speaker 8: visit his mother or just do something that was normal,
Speaker 8: you know, for him to do that sort of thing.
Speaker 8: And I didn't think a lot about it, I you know,
Speaker 8: because I didn't give it a lot of thought. But
Speaker 8: I do recall one time she had to work a
Speaker 8: little bit later she asked me if I could bring
Speaker 8: Josh back home and Ted was there and drop him
Speaker 8: off because she's going to be later. So I did
Speaker 8: take him home, and I remember knocking and knocking on
Speaker 8: the door. He didn't answer the door, and I thought,
Speaker 8: I wonder if he's really home or not. And all
Speaker 8: of a sudden I saw the He just peeked out
Speaker 8: of the curtains, just a peeking, and then he opened
Speaker 8: the door and it was pitch dark in the house.
Speaker 8: And that was the first time I felt really uneasy.
Speaker 8: Was I didn't feel good about how the house was
Speaker 8: so dark and leaving Josh there. But Josh acted like,
Speaker 8: you know, not a big deal, and that bothered me.
Speaker 8: And then later on Larry would say, that's my son,
Speaker 8: and he'd say, you know, sometimes when Ted would get
Speaker 8: home after a weekend, he would want it to be
Speaker 8: totally quiet. He didn't want any noise. The house was
Speaker 8: just really, you know, kind of it wasn't all it
Speaker 8: was kind of dark, and he would want his food
Speaker 8: delivered to his door, so Leslie would, that was the
Speaker 8: girl he was living with, would take the food to
Speaker 8: the door, the bedroom door where Ted was staying, as
Speaker 8: you leave it there, and he'd eat it. And he
Speaker 8: was like that for a couple of days. So those
Speaker 8: were kind of strange things, you know, But honestly, there
Speaker 8: was nothing I could think about. There was one thing
Speaker 8: that was a little strange. My son got mad because
Speaker 8: he had to do some chores and so he ran
Speaker 8: away from home. He's six, maybe seven, and I couldn't
Speaker 8: find him, and Ted offered to help find him, and
Speaker 8: Ted did find him and my son. You know, he
Speaker 8: kind of got on my son about doing that, and
Speaker 8: he took my son's bike. He had a little bike,
Speaker 8: and he took it out of his trunk of the car.
Speaker 8: And in a Volkswagen, the trunk is in the front,
Speaker 8: and he walked around to let my son out of
Speaker 8: the car. But I remember my son said, oh, he
Speaker 8: couldn't get out of the car by himself because the
Speaker 8: door handle was missing. So I didn't know anything about
Speaker 8: this kind of thing. I thought, well, you know, it
Speaker 8: wasn't you know, not a big deal, I guess, But yeah,
Speaker 8: he would remove the door handles so he viclins could
Speaker 8: not escape.
Speaker 2: Two Day Back Crime Stories investigator reporter the ruses Ted Bundy. Well,
Speaker 2: all of the serial killers used to snare their victims
Speaker 2: were very often very intricate. Ted Bundy would use a
Speaker 2: fake sling or cast to approach women and act like
Speaker 2: he was disabled because of the injury, then use that
Speaker 2: cast or sling on them to quiet them. As you
Speaker 2: just heard from Francine Bardole in some of his earlier victims,
Speaker 2: he would approach them in that VW. They got in,
Speaker 2: but they couldn't get out. And that is exactly what
Speaker 2: her little son was describing.
Speaker 11: It's so shocking to hear her describe that her son
Speaker 11: was in a trap vehicle, a vehicle that Ted Bundy
Speaker 11: used to trap his quarry and to keep them there.
Speaker 11: I was thinking you were talking about Ted Bundy with
Speaker 11: his arm in the sling. I was thinking of Janis Ott.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 11: He asked her to help him put you know, his
Speaker 11: wrapped on the top of the car, you know, because
Speaker 11: he couldn't get it on top of the bug.
Speaker 10: And next thing you.
Speaker 11: Know, she was gone. He had his arm in a sling.
Speaker 11: He's crutches too, Nancy, and would just find any means
Speaker 11: necessary to get that person, the victim, in the car.
Speaker 11: And once they were in the car, that was it.
Speaker 7: You know.
Speaker 11: It was the fact I got chill bumps when she
Speaker 11: said that the handle was missing on the inside. You know,
Speaker 11: he oftentimes took the front seat, passenger seat out of
Speaker 11: that bug to be able to control the victim. Even
Speaker 11: more so, the whole idea is just shocking to me.
Speaker 11: I can't imagine what she goes through thinking about her
Speaker 11: son being in the physical location where victims spent their
Speaker 11: last living moments.
Speaker 2: And that's right, Dave Matt. When police pulled him over
Speaker 2: in Utah, they found handcuffs, ice pick, crowbar, garbage bags,
Speaker 2: ski mask in the VW. He often drove a VW,
Speaker 2: modifying it in multiple ways to make it easier for
Speaker 2: him to snare and murder his victims. Straight back out
Speaker 2: to Victoria Vesquez, Victoria, we're talking about real life serial killers.
Speaker 2: I want to talk about your book, which is really fantastic.
Speaker 2: Now your premise is about you, said Nicola. I wish
Speaker 2: you hadn't said that, because when I read your book,
Speaker 2: I called her in my mind Nicola, and you gave
Speaker 2: me a flashback to when I read every single Harry
Speaker 2: Potter book to the children when they were a little
Speaker 2: out loud, and I thought it was Hermiani, and then
Speaker 2: I found out it was Hermione. It ruined every thing. Okay,
Speaker 2: so you just said Nicola, Okay, go ahead, tell me
Speaker 2: all about Nicola.
Speaker 14: First of all, it's not just you, Nancy. I have
Speaker 14: met many people who call her Nicola, So not just you.
Speaker 14: So Nicola is a elementary school teacher, kind of similar
Speaker 14: to me. I teach middle uh and high school. And
Speaker 14: she lives in a very small town in upstate New York,
Speaker 14: a town where everybody knows everybody. Her father owns the
Speaker 14: hardware store. He's really loved in the community. Everybody trusts him.
Speaker 14: And then one day a true crime show comes to
Speaker 14: town called to Catch a Killer. And in this true
Speaker 14: crime show, a woman who is a criminal defense attorney
Speaker 14: turned reality TV show host. She is trying to catch
Speaker 14: the Elegant Creek Ripper, who is the killer that terrorized
Speaker 14: their small town for so long, and she's doing it
Speaker 14: with the assistance of her father, Tom Woods, who is
Speaker 14: a convicted serial killer on death row. And so they
Speaker 14: managed to catch the Elegant Creek Ripper, who is Nikola's father,
Speaker 14: and that is where Nichola's problems begin. She is shunned
Speaker 14: by her community, she has fired from her job, the
Speaker 14: bank is threatening to foreclose on her house. When she
Speaker 14: receives an invitation to the Death Row Club, which is
Speaker 14: a secret retreat for the adult children of serial killers.
Speaker 14: And at first this seems like the solution to all
Speaker 14: her problems. Finally she is going to be surrounded by
Speaker 14: people just like her who can understand what she's going through.
Speaker 14: But then a stranger appears on their doorstep and a
Speaker 14: member goes missing, and they are left to wonder could
Speaker 14: one of them be following in their family's footsteps.
Speaker 2: Okay, wait a minute, wit a minute, a minute, because
Speaker 2: you made my mind go off to Murders Only in
Speaker 2: the Building, you know, with Martin Shore and Steve Martin
Speaker 2: and Selena Gomez. Selena Gomez, as you know, kind of
Speaker 2: like leads this podcast and they end up solving true crimes.
Speaker 2: It's amazing. And I've had a lot of bonding time
Speaker 2: with my son watching Murders Only in the Building. Okay, wait,
Speaker 2: what does that say, you watch murders in only in
Speaker 2: the building. My daughter and I watch Dexter. Okay, I
Speaker 2: need to rethink my children's program me in our home.
Speaker 2: But so that premise is, it's the adult daughter Nicola Fisher.
Speaker 2: Dad owns a hardware store, small community. A lot of
Speaker 2: us can identify with that, and then he is added
Speaker 2: as a notorious serial killer. Then she gets hooked up
Speaker 2: with a podcaster, tell me that part again.
Speaker 14: Yeah, so the podcaster is the one who ultimately is
Speaker 14: responsible for her father's arrest, which is terrible because Nicola
Speaker 14: thought that this girl was her friend and they were
Speaker 14: like working together, and then it turns out no, she
Speaker 14: was actually after her dad. She suspected that Nikola's dad
Speaker 14: was the killer all along. So Nicola feels betrayed. So yeah,
Speaker 14: and then she gets this invitation and of course who
Speaker 14: is at the retreat but this podcast or this true
Speaker 14: crime host Greer, So she has to figure out if
Speaker 14: she can trust Greer.
Speaker 1: Again or if they are enemies.
Speaker 14: So you have a little bit of tension there too.
Speaker 1: Crime Stores with Nancy Grace.
Speaker 2: This is an amazingly intricate plot, but it just flows
Speaker 2: so quickly. You just go from page to page because
Speaker 2: you want to know what happens. And I'm not going
Speaker 2: to give away the end. But Chris mcdona joining us.
Speaker 2: Chris McDonough veteran homicide detective with over three one hundred
Speaker 2: homicide investigations under his belt, working at and advocating for
Speaker 2: the Cold Case Foundation. He is the star this where
Speaker 2: I found him of the interview room on YouTube. Can
Speaker 2: we talk about Joseph DiAngelo, the Golden State Killer, for
Speaker 2: just one moment. First of all, listen to this.
Speaker 18: Listened all your statements, each one of them, And I'm
Speaker 18: really sorry everyone I've heard.
Speaker 4: My safety was shattered as a masked man DiAngelo, yielding
Speaker 4: a knife, told me he would kill me if I
Speaker 4: didn't do what he demanded. As I lay helpless or
Speaker 4: sat tied, gagged, blindfolded and naked in the cold December night,
Speaker 4: waiting for what unthinkable act he would violate me with. Next,
Speaker 4: he tormented me, and he told me over and over
Speaker 4: again he would kill me, and I believed him. At
Speaker 4: three different times that night I thought I was going
Speaker 4: to die.
Speaker 2: That from our friends at ABC and KXTV, you know,
Speaker 2: no one within his circle suspected. The Golden State Killer
Speaker 2: was Joseph DiAngelo, a former cop, as I recall at
Speaker 2: Oxford PD and another PD. He was actually on the
Speaker 2: police force, and he was so normal that when they
Speaker 2: came to arrest him, as I recall, he went white.
Speaker 2: I've got arrest in the oven. So the dichotomy of
Speaker 2: the normal seat, the seeming normalcy that Victoria Vesquez is
Speaker 2: describing when it's really a serial killer. Have you ever
Speaker 2: experienced that dichotomy.
Speaker 13: Well, Nancy, this is why this is so fascinating, with
Speaker 13: these types of personalities that are the doc was talking about.
Speaker 13: There's so many compartments, but the first three are you know,
Speaker 13: our private life, our secret life, and our public persona
Speaker 13: that is projected. And I did an interview with Wessey
Speaker 13: Allen Dodd in nineteen ninety two, who is on death row,
Speaker 13: and before the interview, he had sent me a letter
Speaker 13: and I have that letter actually right behind me in
Speaker 13: the you know, the shelf here. Long story short, it's
Speaker 13: Christmas Eve and he's writing me a letter about our
Speaker 13: upcoming visit. And he signs off by saying happy Holidays.
Speaker 13: And this is a gentleman. You know, this is obviously
Speaker 13: a monster. And that's what I love about Francine. I mean,
Speaker 13: she just told us a story about, you know, having
Speaker 13: a interaction with Ted Bundy. Yet that inspired her ultimately
Speaker 13: become to become a very famous forensic scientist, which you
Speaker 13: know about her background. But that's who they have to
Speaker 13: convince first, their families. They have to convince their friends
Speaker 13: and their neighbors around them like chameleons, and that way
Speaker 13: they can blend in and do what they need to
Speaker 13: do in that other compartment.
Speaker 2: Back to friend saying Bordaul, speaking of what you do
Speaker 2: with your life after this incident, like your life after
Speaker 2: you realize you unwittingly let Ted Bundy be around your
Speaker 2: baby with no idea. He was that cunning and that charming,
Speaker 2: And it wasn't just you he fooled. He fooled everybody
Speaker 2: around him. Everyone, but you go on. You're with cold
Speaker 2: case solutions and resources, you're a DNA expert, you're a
Speaker 2: crime scene investigator and a forensic specialist. Did that metamorphosis
Speaker 2: have anything to do with Buddy?
Speaker 8: I think to some extent it did, because I remember
Speaker 8: as I was growing up, you know, a serial killer
Speaker 8: looked like a serial killer, you thought, and this is
Speaker 8: not what Ted looked like. Not only that, but Utah
Speaker 8: is where he was at, is a Mormon community. It's
Speaker 8: a Mormon state. And he got baptized in the Mormon church.
Speaker 8: That made him endearing. He also got involved with politics
Speaker 8: that made him credible. He was going to law school.
Speaker 8: I mean, there was all these things. And this is
Speaker 8: what serial killers, I believe, do is they try to
Speaker 8: fit in as best they can and look his benign
Speaker 8: him as they possibly can. And I remember thinking about
Speaker 8: when this happened. It was very shocking to me because yeah,
Speaker 8: when they broke the news that they had pulled him
Speaker 8: over in the Volkswagen and they said Theodore Bundy, I
Speaker 8: didn't that didn't click with me. And I looked at
Speaker 8: the screen and I said, oh my god, that's Ted.
Speaker 8: Shocked me. Even Leslie shocked her. She got out real fast.
Speaker 8: And then I got thinking about how are they going
Speaker 8: to catch him, What's going to happen. And as time
Speaker 8: went on and I started learning about evidence, and I
Speaker 8: started learning about DNA, and I looked at some of
Speaker 8: the photographs from the Sorority ceilings. I thought, there is
Speaker 8: so much, so much evidence there that has such great
Speaker 8: DNA on it. It's too bad DNA wasn't, you know,
Speaker 8: around at the time. And because there there was just
Speaker 8: so much stuff that you could have gotten things from.
Speaker 8: And I really became interested in. What I do is
Speaker 8: I extract the biological material from items of evidence so
Speaker 8: that it could be DNA tested, and I sent it
Speaker 8: off to forensic collabs to do that. My specialty is
Speaker 8: getting the DNA out and every item is so unique
Speaker 8: and it's really interesting. It's kind of like where I'm
Speaker 8: going to focus on, and I like to look at
Speaker 8: the pictures of the crime scene, and I can see
Speaker 8: at the crime scene, this would be a really great
Speaker 8: item of evidence. And as I looked at the pictures
Speaker 8: of DNA or of evidence from Ted Bundy's stuff, the way,
Speaker 8: that was a gold mine. It really was, And that's
Speaker 8: I think it did. You know, I wanted to go
Speaker 8: to law school, but I kind of went a different
Speaker 8: way and got into working in the criminal justice system.
Speaker 8: I've gone just about every way through the criminal justice
Speaker 8: system there is, and I ended up doing what I'm
Speaker 8: doing now.
Speaker 2: Friend, Saint Barnault, the Lord called you in a different direction,
Speaker 2: Thank goodness, Chris mcdonna. Was there any event in your
Speaker 2: life the way Vesquiez describes what happened to Nicola and
Speaker 2: the Death Row Club that turned you toward becoming a
Speaker 2: homicide detective?
Speaker 13: Yeah, Actually there was Nancy like you, not to the
Speaker 13: extreme that you've had to experience. But my then three
Speaker 13: year old son was almost kidnapped sidewalk out in front
Speaker 13: of our house, and I witnessed the door of that
Speaker 13: vehicle open and I chased after that suspect long story short,
Speaker 13: I wasn't smart enough back then to get the license
Speaker 13: plate of the vehicle. But I made a deal with God.
Speaker 13: I said, if you let me, you know, hunt these
Speaker 13: people down, I will do it for the rest of
Speaker 13: my life. And here I am, forty four years later,
Speaker 13: still talking about predatorial behavior.
Speaker 2: You know, Chris mcdona, as long as I have known you,
Speaker 2: I did not know that about you.
Speaker 13: Yeah, that was my foundation. That was nineteen eighty one
Speaker 13: and eighty two when I've gotten law enfortunately, and.
Speaker 2: You're still doing it. You know, occasionally I get, you know,
Speaker 2: extremely weary with the crush of murder and mayhem and
Speaker 2: just pure hate that many of our cases involve. But
Speaker 2: I remember what I get like that. I remember Keith
Speaker 2: and those big blue eyes, my fiance that was murdered,
Speaker 2: and I feel like I can't quit. Victoria Usquez, your book,
Speaker 2: at times lighthearted, The Death Row Club is really striking
Speaker 2: a chord, as you can see tonight. I hope that
Speaker 2: Nikola get on like McDonough, like Francine and so many
Speaker 2: others to do amazing things. Translation, you got to write
Speaker 2: a sequel, guys, if you haven't already read it. The
Speaker 2: Death Row Club it's amazing and for those of us
Speaker 2: in our business, it hits on so many different levels.
Speaker 2: The Death Row Club by Victoria Vasquez, it's a psychological thriller,
Speaker 2: and I mean that in the best sense. Thank you,
Speaker 2: Victoria and to my awesome and amazing panel. Tonight, we stop,
Speaker 2: as we always do, to remember an American hero Officer,
Speaker 2: Dominic Francis Bluffton, PD, Ohio, killed in the line of
Speaker 2: duty after devoting nearly twenty years of his life to
Speaker 2: protecting and serving, leaving behind wife Ricky and two children,
Speaker 2: Blake and Taylor. American hero Officer Dominic Francis. Thank you
Speaker 2: to our guests, but especially to you for being with
Speaker 2: us tonight. You see Grace signing off for tonight, but
Speaker 2: I'll see you tomorrow night, God willing, and until then,
Speaker 2: good night for him.