Speaker 1: Hello, Social Sluts, Welcome back to another episode of Real
Speaker 1: Time Crime. I'm one of your hosts, Leo Lamar, and
Speaker 1: I have with me my wonderful co host Hattie Mellencamp,
Speaker 1: and of course we've got sometimes Dmitri, who you know
Speaker 1: and love sometimes. Today we'll be discussing mother quarantining her
Speaker 1: COVID positive son on the trunk of her car. L
Speaker 1: O l continued investigation regarding the accidental murder on set
Speaker 1: of Alec Baldwin's rust Ahmad Aurbury and rounding it out
Speaker 1: with the death of Robert Durst, before we head over
Speaker 1: to an interview with Joe Burlinger, the director of crime
Speaker 1: scene The Times Square Killer, which is trending on Netflix
Speaker 1: right now. I told you all to watch it. I
Speaker 1: hope you did your homework, and hopefully we can get
Speaker 1: to voice military before we close up for today. But first, Teddy,
Speaker 1: any updates on finding your missing cell phone? Nothing, you guys, Nothing,
Speaker 1: not one from none of you. And you know what,
Speaker 1: I'm disappointed. I feel like a lot of your listeners
Speaker 1: may live an asthmen and may have seen it. And
Speaker 1: but I will tell you one thing that did happen.
Speaker 1: I opened a drawer and I saw a piece of
Speaker 1: the purse. I saw and I was like, but really,
Speaker 1: it was just the piece when you decide to not
Speaker 1: wear it as a Fannie pack, when you decided to
Speaker 1: carry it like this, that that's all it was. And
Speaker 1: that just made you more sad, and it just made
Speaker 1: me more sad that I'm still without and I've now
Speaker 1: had to learn, Look how big this phone is. Though
Speaker 1: it's not bigger than my person, Yeah it's bigger than
Speaker 1: my head. But I'm how's your voice? I don't know
Speaker 1: she's emotional about I'm about the missing Fannie pack. But yeah,
Speaker 1: that's what's been happening. Nothing's been found, but I do
Speaker 1: at least have a regular phone. I had to settle
Speaker 1: on light blue, which is an ideal for a forty
Speaker 1: year old mother. But sometimes you take what you can get,
Speaker 1: and I just can I just say one thing real quick,
Speaker 1: I feel badly. Leah's face lit up when you said
Speaker 1: I opened a drawer and found a pie a piece
Speaker 1: of the fan pack. She literally thought like someone sent
Speaker 1: you a part of it, like a ransom thing, and
Speaker 1: you were like, but it's just an extra part, and
Speaker 1: she was like, we're going to have a real crime
Speaker 1: on our hands, you know what I mean? Just the
Speaker 1: idea of someone taunting Teddy with like a Louis Batons
Speaker 1: liver is someone did taunted me with that. I was like, also,
Speaker 1: who does pieces like? Then I had to look it
Speaker 1: up on Revolve and see why there was a missing piece,
Speaker 1: and I was like, oh, I never took that piece
Speaker 1: to Aspen. It's just devastating, really it is. But all
Speaker 1: of our listeners who were dying for us to move on,
Speaker 1: I say, hey, we got some I say, you haven't
Speaker 1: been without a phone for seven days, and I would
Speaker 1: lose my mind. I mean, my mind is already. Let's
Speaker 1: be fair. Let's be fair. Are you having a coffee
Speaker 1: right now? Sometimes? Yes? What are you drinking? Sure? No,
Speaker 1: it is a it's a coffee, it's it's a it's
Speaker 1: a vodka tonic. I have to be honest. I'm having
Speaker 1: a glass of wine because I just came from my
Speaker 1: other podcast and we were raging. That's not a slap
Speaker 1: in the face. I'm sorry. Yeah, first of all, how
Speaker 1: dare you? I can't help it. Sometimes this is what happens.
Speaker 1: You know what. I'll just say, I appreciate you calling it.
Speaker 1: The other podcast your main. I feel like you're where
Speaker 1: you're playing squeezing where you are the main. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's hard to describe the level of me. I am.
Speaker 1: It's either I'm talking true crime or I'm talking trap
Speaker 1: about housewives. It's it's really hard, which is another crime
Speaker 1: in and of itself. It's a different type. Yeah, speaking
Speaker 1: of a different type of crime, shall we head into
Speaker 1: our hot topics for today? And Lucian, I mean, let's
Speaker 1: just started off with a Texas mother who's charged after
Speaker 1: her fourteen year old son is found in the trunk
Speaker 1: of her car to drive through COVID testing site. She
Speaker 1: claims that he tested positive and needed to be quarantine,
Speaker 1: so she's being faced with endangerment charges. And oh boy.
Speaker 1: Sarah Beam, forty two from the Cypress Fairbanks area near Houston,
Speaker 1: I mean, it's Texas. What do you want us to
Speaker 1: say about it, allegedly packed the team in the trunk
Speaker 1: as she drove to the testing site after he tested
Speaker 1: positive for the virus on January three to get another test.
Speaker 1: They issued a warrant for her arrest on Friday, and
Speaker 1: please say Beam pulled to the giant pulled up to
Speaker 1: the giant tent set up and the Health services director
Speaker 1: at the site hurt a noise in her trunk. Sorry,
Speaker 1: this is what I swear. I'm like, am I reading
Speaker 1: an article from the Onion? But are the same? She
Speaker 1: brought him to get retested. It's not like she knew
Speaker 1: they were gonna have to like test him. He's in
Speaker 1: the trunk. She didn't see anything wrong with this. Well,
Speaker 1: it's because she didn't want to get herself. She didn't
Speaker 1: want to get COVID. Yeah, she said that she was
Speaker 1: protecting herself from the virus. Well, I can tell you
Speaker 1: guys this from personal experience. So yesterday, how's your cough? Leah?
Speaker 1: I muted so people wouldn't have to hear it. I
Speaker 1: saw it though. Um yesterday I get a call. I
Speaker 1: take the kids to the bus. They had to get
Speaker 1: COVID tested at nine am. Um. The day before, I
Speaker 1: get a call it nine thirty on Monday, Hey, um, teddy,
Speaker 1: Mrs sari Abe cruises in the nurse's office. He had
Speaker 1: a headache for a minute, you have to come get him.
Speaker 1: And I was like, he had a headache for a minute,
Speaker 1: and did we lock him in the trunk of the car.
Speaker 1: And honestly, I almost dead. I go, um, does he
Speaker 1: feel sick? Does he have a temperature? And they're like,
Speaker 1: he's logged as an all this so he cannot be
Speaker 1: at school until he gets a negtive COVID test he
Speaker 1: gets in the car. I'm honestly like pedals in the medal, like, Cruise,
Speaker 1: unless you were sick, do not go to the nurse's office. Again,
Speaker 1: He's like, Mom, I really just wanted more water. I
Speaker 1: don't know what you want me to say, but I
Speaker 1: feel the moment of locking your kids in the trunk
Speaker 1: for that. Yeah, this was, um, I feel it. This
Speaker 1: woman locking her kid in the trunk. Well, it's two
Speaker 1: seconds away from hiring an uber to pick him up.
Speaker 1: I was two seconds away from locking Cruise in the
Speaker 1: trunk for going to the nurses office for a second
Speaker 1: of a headache too that he didn't have that. Then
Speaker 1: he the second he got in the car, goes, can
Speaker 1: I go still get a football? No, you just threatened
Speaker 1: to have COVID at school and I have to pay
Speaker 1: two hundred and fifty dollars to get a COVID test
Speaker 1: for you to go back tomorrow. Why don't they have
Speaker 1: COVID tests at school? They do, but they don't have
Speaker 1: the rapids. You can go the next day. Why didn't
Speaker 1: cruise have water? He did have water. He just asked
Speaker 1: his teacher for more water because he had run out.
Speaker 1: And then he said, I'm getting a headache from not
Speaker 1: having water, and then that's considered an ILLNESST so he's dehydrated. Yeah,
Speaker 1: is he turning into a white woman in l A
Speaker 1: pretty much? So you know what, the next time he
Speaker 1: does that, he may end up in my trunk. Hilarious.
Speaker 1: I got. I was like, Okay, we're gonna start off
Speaker 1: with the drive through the woman that that locker sound,
Speaker 1: and we're all gonna think that's ridiculous, and then we'll
Speaker 1: move on to the story. But okay, fine, I wouldn't
Speaker 1: really put him in the trunk unless it was an STV.
Speaker 1: Oh I thought you said okay, SUV. Then it's like
Speaker 1: it goes up. Oh my god, you guys are so
Speaker 1: sensitive today. Came in here. Yeah, I'm sorry, but you
Speaker 1: you came in here hot, being like look at me.
Speaker 1: I just came here from my other podcast, and I
Speaker 1: dressed up for them. I don't dress up for you guys,
Speaker 1: and also do like my new setup. And now we
Speaker 1: feel We're like in the same setup. You thought I
Speaker 1: was in the same setup. Don't you see the basketball?
Speaker 1: Who Okay, I do know that you're I'm sure you're
Speaker 1: a wonderful mother, but what you're doing is you're sitting
Speaker 1: here drinking wine and you're like, oh, my kid needed water,
Speaker 1: screw him, throwing him in the trunk of the I
Speaker 1: guess I can't make jokes today. Fine, No, you can
Speaker 1: just take him to make get another COVID test. Should
Speaker 1: we get into Alec Baldwin speaking of good parenting again?
Speaker 1: Hot on the Segway. All right, We're ready for it.
Speaker 1: Following reports that actor Alec Baldwin's cell phone had not
Speaker 1: yet been turned over to officials investigating the fatal shooting
Speaker 1: on the Rust film set, weeks after a search warant
Speaker 1: was granted, Alex said on Saturday that any suggestion that
Speaker 1: he was not complying with law enforcement was in fact
Speaker 1: a lie. The police in Santa Fe, New Mexico, obtain
Speaker 1: a search warrant more than three three weeks ago, granting
Speaker 1: it access to information on Mr Baldwin's phone related to
Speaker 1: the October shooting, during which a gun that Alec was
Speaker 1: rehearsing with fire to live round, killing the movie cinematographer
Speaker 1: and wounding its director. Filming himself from the driver's seat
Speaker 1: of a parked car, Alex said that the process for
Speaker 1: recovering information from his phone takes time and involved the
Speaker 1: authorities in New Mexico coordinating with the authorities where he
Speaker 1: lives a k New York. Someone from another state can't
Speaker 1: come to you and say give me your cell phone,
Speaker 1: Alex said in the video, adding that they have to
Speaker 1: specify exactly what they want. They can't just go through
Speaker 1: your phone and take, you know, your photos or your
Speaker 1: love letters to your wife or what have you. According
Speaker 1: to an afidavit filed in the application for the search
Speaker 1: warrant granted by a judge in New Mexico in December sixteenth,
Speaker 1: Detective Alexander Hancock asked Mr Baldwin and his lawyer on
Speaker 1: the day of the fail shooting to hand over his phone,
Speaker 1: but was told to obtain a warrant. When the search
Speaker 1: warrant for Mr Baldwin's phone was granted, officials in Santa
Speaker 1: Fe requested help from the sheriff office in Suvolk County
Speaker 1: and New York, where Mr Baldwin was and has a home. Apparently,
Speaker 1: they said that the crust the request had been forwarded
Speaker 1: to the county's district attorney's office to work out the
Speaker 1: differences and laws between the two states. Okay, so why
Speaker 1: do you guys think that this investigation is lower than usual?
Speaker 1: Do you think Alex Alec is I think the part
Speaker 1: of the problem is Hilaria You mean Hillary? Well, all
Speaker 1: I know is that Hilaria Baldwin's Instagram is something that
Speaker 1: I go deep down. I can't turn it off, like
Speaker 1: I I need to understand so many dynamics in regards
Speaker 1: to her. Like I'm watching it, I'm like, are we
Speaker 1: really going to believe that she has seven DTYO kids?
Speaker 1: Was zero help? She's constantly breastfeeding. There's no there's all
Speaker 1: of it. And then I read and something that said
Speaker 1: as Alec Baldwin struggling because of his wife Laria, And
Speaker 1: and now I don't know what do you guys think.
Speaker 1: I feel like this case is just I think it's
Speaker 1: I actually don't feel like it's moving slower than the normal.
Speaker 1: I think most cases take a while. I think we're
Speaker 1: just looking into it and waiting for some like juicy
Speaker 1: headlines or something, and they're just not there. You think
Speaker 1: this was just an accident. I mean, it's possible. But
Speaker 1: either way, this little stuff is coming out like, oh,
Speaker 1: he's not complying with the cell phone. To me, that's
Speaker 1: just I think that's the media trying to spin a
Speaker 1: narrative allege. I think that there's just no story and
Speaker 1: they're trying to make a story out of it. But
Speaker 1: you know, it seems like a terrible tragedy and horrible
Speaker 1: accident and maybe no one I don't know. I don't
Speaker 1: know if they're trying to figure out who, if someone
Speaker 1: should go to jail for this. Um. I mean, there
Speaker 1: was a live round in the gun, and there should
Speaker 1: never be a live round, so someone is responsible for that,
Speaker 1: and I don't know what the judicial system will say,
Speaker 1: but I don't I don't know. I don't know what
Speaker 1: they're trying to figure out with Alex Boon. I mean,
Speaker 1: I think they're trying to see how much he knew.
Speaker 1: But either way, I just don't see that he's at fault.
Speaker 1: I just in my mind, I just don't think he
Speaker 1: had all the information. From what I have heard in
Speaker 1: regards to Alec Baldwin, I don't think he's the type
Speaker 1: of person that you want to give all the information to.
Speaker 1: I don't think he's that easy going type that you're like,
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna vent to you or tell you what's
Speaker 1: going on. I think he's more that you you shield
Speaker 1: if things are going wrong. I hope that people speak
Speaker 1: about me like this. One day. It was the way
Speaker 1: I was speaking of positive Yeah. I wouldn't be left
Speaker 1: out of all information, you know. I just I feel
Speaker 1: like ignorance is bliss um. But guests, who's in the
Speaker 1: waiting room? I'm so excited, And shall we do a
Speaker 1: little intro and then bring him in or yeah, that's
Speaker 1: all you? I'm why don't we take a quick break
Speaker 1: and regroup? And thanks Dmitri for knowing what we need sometimes.
Speaker 1: Thank you sum Sommy, and welcome back to real time Crime.
Speaker 1: We have with us my friend Joe Burlinger, who is
Speaker 1: the director of Crime Scene, The Times Square Killer, which
Speaker 1: is trending on Netflix. If you don't know Joe, he
Speaker 1: is a filmmaker and producer particularly focused on true crime documentaries.
Speaker 1: Joe's films and docuseries draw massive attention to social justice
Speaker 1: issues in the United States and abroad. In such films
Speaker 1: as Brothers Keeper, Paradise Laws, The Child Murders at robin
Speaker 1: Hood Hills, Crude White, United States of America Versus James J. Boulger,
Speaker 1: and Intend to Destroy, Death, Denial and Depiction. He's also
Speaker 1: best known for the film series Paradise Lost, which documents
Speaker 1: the murder trial and the subsequent legal battles of the
Speaker 1: three Arkansas teenagers Damien Eccles, Jason Baldwin and Jessie mus
Speaker 1: Kelly Jr. Convicted of murder. The film series brought mainstream
Speaker 1: attention to this case, and a ton of celebrities took
Speaker 1: up the case of getting these young men out of
Speaker 1: prison and getting Ecles off of death row. The mainstream
Speaker 1: attention brought on by the documentary series allowed for a
Speaker 1: well finance legal team to investigate every lead on the case.
Speaker 1: He's also spearheaded and directed to twenty nineteen projects centered
Speaker 1: on the infamous serial killer Ted Bundy, the Netflix docuseries
Speaker 1: Conversations with the Killer, the Ted Bunny Tapes, and the
Speaker 1: drama film Extremely Wicked, Shocking, the Evil and Vile starring
Speaker 1: Zac Efron, And then, finally, in collaboration with journalist Greg Milner,
Speaker 1: Joe wrote the book Metallica. The Monster lives about his
Speaker 1: early career, accomplishments and challenges forging his path in the
Speaker 1: world of film. This book is centered around the filming
Speaker 1: of Metallica Some Kind of Monster, and Joe is a
Speaker 1: dear friend of mine from back in my days in
Speaker 1: New York and a very very honored and excited to
Speaker 1: have him here. And hello, Joe Lea, how are you? Joe?
Speaker 1: I'm great? How are you? Were so excited you're here? Here,
Speaker 1: Joe are We're so fabulous? How are you? I'm good,
Speaker 1: I'm good. Great to see. Joe and I have known
Speaker 1: each other for I don't want to say by almost
Speaker 1: a decade now. More than that, perhaps I'm trying to
Speaker 1: pretend him twenty How did you guys? Mean that's how
Speaker 1: about all of you you've seen? When I'm first at you,
Speaker 1: Oh my god, thank you so much. It was only
Speaker 1: a couple of years off. We met at Radical Media
Speaker 1: many months ago in New York City, and I can't
Speaker 1: even remember at that time which project you were working on,
Speaker 1: because so many more have come out since then, but
Speaker 1: I think it was around actually Paradise Loss, it might
Speaker 1: have been, And I mean, that's probably one of the
Speaker 1: most iconic projects to ever come out. Uh, I guess
Speaker 1: I have to agree with you. I mean, you did
Speaker 1: get someone off of death Row. I do think Paradise Lost,
Speaker 1: does you know? Is up there in the annals of
Speaker 1: true crime. Um, But I'll let you say that, not me.
Speaker 1: It's perfect. And when you were not here, I already
Speaker 1: gave you a beautiful introduction listing all of your credits
Speaker 1: and all that you've really contributed to since thatt to
Speaker 1: Society and we know that you know you were a
Speaker 1: true crime aficionado, but your career also spans more than
Speaker 1: just true crime, and we'll get into that a little bit.
Speaker 1: But we are here today to talk about your new
Speaker 1: documentary that's trending on Netflix, Crime Scene, The Times Square Killer.
Speaker 1: I watched every episode obsessively, already posted about an Instagram,
Speaker 1: told everyone to watch it. I absolutely loved it. It's
Speaker 1: a three part limited series on Netflix right now. By
Speaker 1: the way, for all of you that haven't watched it,
Speaker 1: do your homework before listening and then come back to
Speaker 1: this episode just in case you don't want any you know, spoilers.
Speaker 1: But this documentary examines the notorious case of Richard Cottingham.
Speaker 1: Also known as the Torso Killer, who claimed to have raped, slaughtered,
Speaker 1: and mutilated more than a hundred women between nineteen sixty
Speaker 1: seven and night. So, um, I know that we all
Speaker 1: watched it, we all loved it, we all binged it. Joe,
Speaker 1: fabulous work. Yet again, as always, can I say, I know,
Speaker 1: I know this is what you do as a director,
Speaker 1: but I really enjoyed you took me back to that time.
Speaker 1: It's one thing sometimes you're just watching something You're like, Okay,
Speaker 1: I'm trying to piece together, but knowing time square the
Speaker 1: way time squares now is not that So you really
Speaker 1: brought me back to I'm gonna stop short of saying
Speaker 1: I felt like a sex worker in Time Square, but
Speaker 1: I felt like I was in that time and I
Speaker 1: thought that was fantastic and I thought it really I
Speaker 1: appreciate that. I'm glad. I'm glad you felt that way
Speaker 1: because that was really an important, you know mission. And
Speaker 1: you know, first of all, the series is about how
Speaker 1: a location. It's not just the story of Cottingham, uh,
Speaker 1: it's the story of the whole series is rooted in
Speaker 1: how does the location and a in a particular time
Speaker 1: period and societal values contribute to a crime. So season
Speaker 1: one we did Cecil Hotel in Los Angeles, talked about
Speaker 1: the homelessness problem and all sorts of l A policies
Speaker 1: that drove people to create this skid row in l A,
Speaker 1: which contributed to the perception of crime at the Cecil
Speaker 1: and this and for this season actually Time Square in
Speaker 1: the seventies. I remember, I was a teenager. My first
Speaker 1: love before before movies, was actually magic, doing magic tricks.
Speaker 1: And there was a magic a very famous magic store
Speaker 1: in Times Square called Lu Tannin's, which is still a
Speaker 1: very famous magic store. But they moved to the uh
Speaker 1: they moved more downtown, but they were in the heart
Speaker 1: of Times Square at the time. I was, you know,
Speaker 1: a teenager, and it's like a totally different world on
Speaker 1: so many levels. The fact that my parents would allow
Speaker 1: me to take the train from the suburbs, which I did,
Speaker 1: and you get off the Grand Central you walk, you know,
Speaker 1: four or five blocks from Grand Central to Times Square
Speaker 1: as a teenager, you know, I just remember vividly, just
Speaker 1: you know, walking, you know, looking in the windows of
Speaker 1: Times Square, of the sex joints, you know, as a
Speaker 1: fourteen or fifteen year old looking at things you're not
Speaker 1: supposed to look at and being simultaneously you know, titillated,
Speaker 1: I will admit, and also like scared to death with
Speaker 1: my wallet in my front pocket and like, you know,
Speaker 1: you're taking your life into your hands. Uh, you know
Speaker 1: when you went into Times Square. And in fact, the
Speaker 1: whole idea to do the series is I took my
Speaker 1: daughter cut to twenty nineteen, and I took my twenty
Speaker 1: year old daughter to Hamilton's over the holidays in December
Speaker 1: of twenty nine, before we knew of COVID. What a
Speaker 1: different time, you know, not not too long ago, but
Speaker 1: it seems like, you know, a long time ago. And
Speaker 1: we you know, we went to a mattenee of Hamilton's
Speaker 1: and then kind of came out at you know, dinner
Speaker 1: time Times Square, the lights, the action, the you know,
Speaker 1: Disney logos. And I said to my daughter, and I
Speaker 1: just seeing my daughter's face, how excited she was to
Speaker 1: be in Time Square during the holidays. And I said,
Speaker 1: you know, when I was you know, your age, and
Speaker 1: I went into Time Square, you would be taking your
Speaker 1: life into your hands. And then all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: I'm like, oh, because we had been talking with Netflix
Speaker 1: about what's a good idea for season two. I'm like, yes,
Speaker 1: Time Square in the seventies would be it would be
Speaker 1: great because, you know, not for gratuitous reasons. It's it's
Speaker 1: just a particular time and place that all of these
Speaker 1: forces came together to create this horrible legacy of predatory
Speaker 1: behavior that you know, and unnoticed and people just didn't care,
Speaker 1: you know, And that is an issue still today that
Speaker 1: sex workers are neglected. Crimes against sex workers are treated
Speaker 1: differently than than crimes against other people. And you know,
Speaker 1: that's that's a problem. Everyone deserves justice, and whether it's
Speaker 1: saying a little who I did a series about a
Speaker 1: year and a half ago who killed with impunity because
Speaker 1: he for forty years because he preyed upon uh, women
Speaker 1: of color who were sex workers, or Richard Cottingham, it's
Speaker 1: you know, it's just just nobody seemed to care. Now. No.
Speaker 1: I know why I connected with this because I grew
Speaker 1: up taking the train into New York from arriving at
Speaker 1: Grand Central and I had the same type of thing
Speaker 1: the memories of Times Square like that. Do you I
Speaker 1: just was curious, do you feel like they thought? I know.
Speaker 1: It's also there's some just kickiness to it to some
Speaker 1: statistics stuff. Do you think people thought if I kill
Speaker 1: because I know the l a strangler and all that
Speaker 1: that was sex workers? All was it just I can
Speaker 1: get away with this because nobody gives ship. I think
Speaker 1: that's you know, Cottingham started off. You know, we later
Speaker 1: learned Cottingham started off not killing sex workers, but younger
Speaker 1: teenage girls and a cup and a nurse who was
Speaker 1: not a teenage girl. You know. His early killings were
Speaker 1: in and around his hometown in New Jersey, across the river,
Speaker 1: and and those prompted investigations and things started heating up.
Speaker 1: And I think it was it was a big part
Speaker 1: of the reason that he then shifted his attention to
Speaker 1: Times Square. You know, he worked at Blue Cross and
Speaker 1: Blue Shield, which was on Third Avenue and not too
Speaker 1: far from Times Square, and he just realized that he
Speaker 1: could get away with us, you know, and you know, honestly,
Speaker 1: particularly in Los Angeles, you know, police were famous in
Speaker 1: this time period if if a sex worker was found
Speaker 1: in a dumpster or in a back alley murdered, they
Speaker 1: would literally classify it as as no human involved, you know,
Speaker 1: the phrase they use because it wasn't worth. What that
Speaker 1: meant was We're not going to put our resources into
Speaker 1: this murder because it's a sex worker and who cares?
Speaker 1: So um, it was a troubling trend, and you know
Speaker 1: it's gotten better, but it's you know, there's still such
Speaker 1: a stigma against sex work in general, and a stigma
Speaker 1: against murders of sex workers. You know. It's so interesting
Speaker 1: by the way that Times Square is a character in
Speaker 1: the documentary. And I remember growing up in New York
Speaker 1: and it was a Broadway playground when I was a kid.
Speaker 1: But when I was a kid, going south of St.
Speaker 1: Mark's was terrified m and I remember you could buy
Speaker 1: a fake I D on the street for twenty bucks
Speaker 1: and you would see people shooting up on the street,
Speaker 1: just crusties or whatever people would call them, in the
Speaker 1: park nearby, shooting up. Now it's not like that either.
Speaker 1: And then by the time I was working a radical,
Speaker 1: you know, St. Mark's had kind of become a play ground,
Speaker 1: and then the gentrification moved down and I would go
Speaker 1: to Bushwick and I would feel the same way where
Speaker 1: I would feel, oh God, it's so dangerous here. And
Speaker 1: it's interesting to see how all of these areas keep
Speaker 1: getting gentrified as the city. I would say grows up. Yeah,
Speaker 1: well it's well, Manhattan has become a place for mainly
Speaker 1: the wealthy, and you know, people who aren't don't have means,
Speaker 1: have been pushed out of Manhattan. I mean that's not completely.
Speaker 1: You know, there are obviously middle class people in Manhattan,
Speaker 1: but generally it's become an island of the wealthy, you know,
Speaker 1: the international wealthy, and the crime gets put pushed, pushed
Speaker 1: to the outer boroughs. The question I had when I
Speaker 1: was watching it and watching Cottingham, how do you think
Speaker 1: that somebody like him is able to maintain a regular
Speaker 1: household and being married and have a family and live
Speaker 1: this completely other life, Like how are you able to
Speaker 1: live both ways? Like how can you trick your wife?
Speaker 1: How can you trick your friends? How can you trick
Speaker 1: your employee, like the people that you work with? Yeah,
Speaker 1: now that's that's what you hit the nail on the head.
Speaker 1: That's that's the question I'm obsessed with, you know, And
Speaker 1: it's it's whenever I do a serial killer show, some
Speaker 1: people say, why are you giving him a platform? Why
Speaker 1: you give you know, there's there is some pushback today
Speaker 1: on doing shows like this, But the reason I keep
Speaker 1: returning to this subject, is it just first of all
Speaker 1: as a as a cautionary tale to people that these
Speaker 1: people exist. But more importantly, you know, we we uh,
Speaker 1: we want to think that people who do evil are
Speaker 1: evil all the time, that they're that that you know,
Speaker 1: like in you know, Buffalo Bill and Silence of the Lambs,
Speaker 1: that they just look creepy in the moment you see them,
Speaker 1: you know, to protect yourself because they present as evil.
Speaker 1: But that but the having done true crime to thirty
Speaker 1: years and done real cases, you know, generally speaking, whether
Speaker 1: it's you know, a pedophilic priest or Bernie made Off
Speaker 1: or Richard Cottingham, the people who do evil in this
Speaker 1: world are generally people that you least expect and most
Speaker 1: often trust. And that's the disturbing thing because they get
Speaker 1: off on that, right, they get off on it. And
Speaker 1: also from a you know, from a just warning people
Speaker 1: out there, like you know, just because somebody seems trustworthy,
Speaker 1: you know, there's a certain threashold you should you know,
Speaker 1: not give give your trust to people, you know, which
Speaker 1: I know is a is a down message. But you know,
Speaker 1: when I decided to do the Bundy stuff, you know,
Speaker 1: I did Bundy both the movie with zac Efron and
Speaker 1: the unscripted conversations with the Killer on Netflix. And when
Speaker 1: the opportunity first was presented me to me to do
Speaker 1: the Bundy tapes because the author of the book that
Speaker 1: the tapes were based on reached out and said, Hey,
Speaker 1: I have these tapes from thirty years ago. Do you
Speaker 1: think there's something here? And I thought to myself, well, God,
Speaker 1: Bundy is such a well known story. Everybody knows the
Speaker 1: story of Bundy. But I was sitting around dinner with
Speaker 1: my two daughters, my college aged daughters, who were home
Speaker 1: for vacation, and I asked him, you know who Ted
Speaker 1: Bundy is? And both both of my daughters are incredibly
Speaker 1: bright women at the time, one was going to Columbia,
Speaker 1: one was just starting at M I t s you know,
Speaker 1: smart kids. And I know that sounds like I'm not
Speaker 1: just coming from a bob but but but neither one
Speaker 1: of them knew who Ted Bundy was. And I said, really, well,
Speaker 1: ask some of your friends. And like the feedback I
Speaker 1: got from twenty year olds twenty two year olds was
Speaker 1: we don't know who Ted Bundy is or wasn't he
Speaker 1: a serial killer or whatever? And that encouraged me to like, well,
Speaker 1: now it's time to retell his story because you can
Speaker 1: never tell the story of this man enough as a
Speaker 1: cautionary tale that just because somebody looks and acts trustworthy
Speaker 1: doesn't mean you should trust them. And that's that's the
Speaker 1: thing that Bob goles my mind is, you know, is
Speaker 1: how people can you know, be that deceptive? And have
Speaker 1: you know Bundy had a girl. I mean, the whole
Speaker 1: movie was, you know, extremely wicked, was through the eyes
Speaker 1: of Lily Collins, who was the girlfriend. And she believed
Speaker 1: in Bundy for years because he was such a wonderful
Speaker 1: father and it's not surrogate father to her daughter and
Speaker 1: a wonderful boyfriend. Uh. And you know, so how people
Speaker 1: do these things is incredible. But you know, you can
Speaker 1: take that a step further. How do you know climate
Speaker 1: denying oil executives go to bed at night, you know,
Speaker 1: you know, perpetrating the system that's killing the planet apparently
Speaker 1: relatively exactly. So like like people's ability to compartmentalize and
Speaker 1: still think they're good people, uh, you know is part
Speaker 1: of human nature. But when it comes to doing the
Speaker 1: things that these particular monsters do and then having a
Speaker 1: normal home life is mind boggling. The other reason I
Speaker 1: wanted to do Cottingham is and you know, obviously many
Speaker 1: crime aficionados know his name, but for the most part,
Speaker 1: most people don't know who Richard Cottingham is. Everyone knows
Speaker 1: who Bundy is, everyone knows who Gaycy is. Who knows
Speaker 1: who dam Or is um, you know, but Cottingham is
Speaker 1: not on that list. And yet he might have killed
Speaker 1: over a hundred women in a horrifying way. And why
Speaker 1: don't we know him because he killed sex workers and
Speaker 1: nobody seems to carry sex workers as victims. Well, and
Speaker 1: I think that's what's nice about you know, you said
Speaker 1: that people sometimes say, why are you giving this person
Speaker 1: a platform? It is that What you also do is
Speaker 1: you take these victims and you explain who they were,
Speaker 1: and you you know, you you hear from one of
Speaker 1: their kids and you and so you actually humanize them
Speaker 1: and you're not leaving them behind. Is just somebody that
Speaker 1: didn't matter to society quote unquote that just got killed
Speaker 1: and all the focuses on the killer. You kind of,
Speaker 1: you know, you bring these people in life and you
Speaker 1: realize these were real people, regardless of what they did
Speaker 1: for a living. They did it for certain reasons, which
Speaker 1: is what the life that they had, but it doesn't
Speaker 1: mean that they should just be, you know, just a
Speaker 1: nameless person in a in a story. And Joe just
Speaker 1: as zoom out for a second, because clearly we're not
Speaker 1: just going to be talking about crime scene. We've already
Speaker 1: started covering other cases that you've covered, and we talked
Speaker 1: about the Cecil Hotel on here and I'm personally obsessed
Speaker 1: with the Elite Lam. I still think it's the Elevator game.
Speaker 1: But other than that, I just want to say, you know,
Speaker 1: Joe as one of the most brilliant and prolific documentarians
Speaker 1: of our generation and creating art that actually has purpose
Speaker 1: and winning many Emmy's. You know, your work spans so
Speaker 1: many cases. You covered the West Memphis three, you got
Speaker 1: Damian Eccles off of Death Row. You know your art
Speaker 1: how a function and that's I would say, almost rare
Speaker 1: these days. And so we are really honored that you
Speaker 1: are coming here today on Real Time Crime with me
Speaker 1: and Teddy and Dmitri to talk about all things true
Speaker 1: crime at this moment. And I just wanted to zoom
Speaker 1: out a little because your brain is so interesting to
Speaker 1: me and I know that you don't just do true crime,
Speaker 1: but we're just so curious about your interest in filmmaking
Speaker 1: and how you got started and if this was something
Speaker 1: you always wanted to do. Interesting. First of all, thank
Speaker 1: you for all those compliments. Much appreciated kind of you.
Speaker 1: You know, I have to say a lot of people
Speaker 1: were involved in getting Damian Echoes out of prison. I mean,
Speaker 1: the films were definitely a catalyst, but there was a
Speaker 1: lot of a lot of great minds at work to
Speaker 1: make that happen. Um. You know, it's interesting. I came
Speaker 1: to filmmaking very late. I was always uh, you know,
Speaker 1: in college. Honestly, I didn't know what I wanted to do. Um.
Speaker 1: I was a language made or and I was particularly
Speaker 1: became through my studies, not because of any home connection.
Speaker 1: I became fluent in German and I was as a
Speaker 1: and I mean the reason I became fluent with German
Speaker 1: is I was obsessed with the Holocaust, you know. But
Speaker 1: we were not Jewish at home. We had no Jewish
Speaker 1: traditions at home. Really, I mean we were Jewish, but
Speaker 1: not observant. I was, you know, I'm a fifth generation German,
Speaker 1: but no German was spoken at home. Um, you know,
Speaker 1: like my great great great grandfather came over from Germany
Speaker 1: long before the Holocaust. But I was exposed in my
Speaker 1: teens to the Holocaust liberation footage of the camps, and
Speaker 1: it's just it's just, you know, it's just it spoke
Speaker 1: to me deeply, and it caused me to want to
Speaker 1: learn German in high school because I wanted to have
Speaker 1: a more deeper understanding of that kind of horror and
Speaker 1: have something like that could happen And was there something
Speaker 1: particularly wrong with Germans versus is there a larger way
Speaker 1: to look at this, which so by the time I
Speaker 1: got to college, I ended up majoring in languages and
Speaker 1: German was my main language that I spoke fluently. Again,
Speaker 1: out of studies, no one spoke German at home, and
Speaker 1: so I kind of stumbled my way into a job
Speaker 1: at Ogilvie and Mayther, which is a big New York
Speaker 1: ad agency or international ad agency that had an office
Speaker 1: in Frankfort and needed a young American guy who or
Speaker 1: gal but it was me spoke multiple languages. So I
Speaker 1: found myself I kind of you know, bluffed my way
Speaker 1: into a job as a junior producer in Frankfurt, Germany
Speaker 1: in the mid eighties, and the first time I was
Speaker 1: ever on a TV set or film set was was
Speaker 1: a Nest Cafe commercial being shot in Germany. Uh. And
Speaker 1: that's when, you know, just being around production, that's when
Speaker 1: the light bulb went off, Oh, I think I want
Speaker 1: to get into this film thing, not this language thing.
Speaker 1: My only all in college was to figure out how
Speaker 1: to go to Europe and be paid to speak languages
Speaker 1: I mean, and it resulted in this job with Ogilvie.
Speaker 1: And then around the same time, Jim Jarmusch is Stranger
Speaker 1: Than Paradise was. I saw it in a cinema in
Speaker 1: Germany and as I was thinking about, oh, I want
Speaker 1: to be a filmmaker, um, and that it's just all
Speaker 1: kind of congealed. And then I was sent back to
Speaker 1: New York figuring back with Ogilvie, working on advertisements on
Speaker 1: American on the American Express account, and I was thinking,
Speaker 1: how do I get how do I get out of
Speaker 1: advertising and into film? You know, this is a really
Speaker 1: long answer, you know, but that's the origin story. Um.
Speaker 1: And so uh, the irony of becoming a noted documentarian is,
Speaker 1: you know, I come back to New York. I'm I'm
Speaker 1: I'm a junior producer producer, this time working on American
Speaker 1: Express campaign. And for this part cular campaign, the agency
Speaker 1: and the client decided they wanted like a more real
Speaker 1: people documentary style commercial and unscripted commercial, which was new
Speaker 1: at the time. Now it's very commonplace, and so the
Speaker 1: you know, we had the idea to hire the Mazel Brothers,
Speaker 1: you know, seminal documentarians to shoot this real people American
Speaker 1: Express commercial and I kind of hit it off with
Speaker 1: David Mazel's who was the brother who died short a
Speaker 1: few years later. But they were looking to be called
Speaker 1: more to do commercials because you know, documentaries and those
Speaker 1: and those those days weren't very profitable, and so doing
Speaker 1: more commercials to supplement their income was an idea that
Speaker 1: they were liked, and they thought somebody like me could
Speaker 1: help them get more commercial So I joined the Mazel Brothers,
Speaker 1: you know, the seminal documentarians, who did give me shelter
Speaker 1: and great garden salesman like classics of the genre. So
Speaker 1: they hired me to be their executive producer of commercials,
Speaker 1: which was really just a glorified sales job where I
Speaker 1: would go to ad agencies and show them they're real
Speaker 1: and say, hey, you do really do more real people commercials.
Speaker 1: And that's where I got my documentary education, and then
Speaker 1: you know, eventually I made it. I decided I wanted
Speaker 1: to take my try my hand at a documentary. And
Speaker 1: my actually, my first documentary was was very comedic Lea
Speaker 1: and you would have enjoyed it. In particular called the
Speaker 1: Outrageous Taxi Stories, and I interviewed cappies to fell the
Speaker 1: most outrageous whatever happened to see that whatever happened in
Speaker 1: their caves, and that got you know, some attention and
Speaker 1: went to some film festivals, and then that's where I
Speaker 1: met Bruce Snowsky, who was my filmmaking partner for many
Speaker 1: years because he was an editor at Nasals. And then
Speaker 1: he and I were looking for a verite doc because
Speaker 1: you know, there's there's a lot of exceptions to the rule.
Speaker 1: You know, people like Barbara Copple and whatnot. But during
Speaker 1: the eighties, you know, document you like pure cinema. Verite
Speaker 1: documentaries as an art was kind of dying out, and
Speaker 1: documentaries were very kind of no no offense. I love
Speaker 1: Ken Burns, but documentaries were very kind of talking head
Speaker 1: PBSC kind of things, and these these great adventures of
Speaker 1: following a story as they're unfolding was kind of not
Speaker 1: that popular in the eighties, and so Bruce and I said,
Speaker 1: let's find a story and do a classic, you know,
Speaker 1: verite film, and that's how Brothers Keeper was born. And
Speaker 1: then I was on my way. And you know, we
Speaker 1: gambled everything a dozen credit cards, second mortgages on homes
Speaker 1: and gambled literally everything to get Brothers Keeper in the
Speaker 1: can and luckily it was invited to Sundance and we
Speaker 1: want a prize, and then we had a career. But
Speaker 1: the irony at that period where I was like, I
Speaker 1: want to get into film. I don't want to work
Speaker 1: in advertising. You know, if I if we had hired
Speaker 1: Ridley Scott. It wasn't like I had a particular interest
Speaker 1: in documentaries, but if we had hired Ridley Scott to
Speaker 1: shoot the American Express commercial, and if I had happened
Speaker 1: to have hit it off with Ridley Scott or whomever,
Speaker 1: I could have easily have gone in that direction. So
Speaker 1: there's there's a certain amount of you know, serendipity to
Speaker 1: my career. But when I look back, now, you know,
Speaker 1: everything happens for a reason. And I think that this genre,
Speaker 1: this style of filmmaking. You know, I've done both, but
Speaker 1: I'll never not be a documentarian because I just it's
Speaker 1: I can say this now. I've been doing it long enough.
Speaker 1: It's just been like this incredible adventure, you know, where
Speaker 1: you get to drop into people's lives, whether it's a
Speaker 1: week or a year or three years or whatever, and
Speaker 1: just you get to witness things you wouldn't normally ever experience.
Speaker 1: And so I'm really glad it turned out this way.
Speaker 1: But it's just kind of funny that was never the intention.
Speaker 1: It's not like, you know, I was twelve and running
Speaker 1: around with a Super eight camera and wanting to make films.
Speaker 1: You know, do you have like a favorite story or
Speaker 1: a case that you loved researching that you still can't
Speaker 1: get out of your mind that you still want answers
Speaker 1: on Um, that's a good question. I would answer it
Speaker 1: differently because anytime I can promote this idea I want
Speaker 1: to is you know, I did a show about a
Speaker 1: guy named Richard Glossip who's in on Oklahoma's death row,
Speaker 1: who is so innocent, And you know, I did a
Speaker 1: multipart series called Killing Richard Glossip and this guy is
Speaker 1: that you know, he's They literally sent him to the
Speaker 1: death chamber three times, and they halted the execution, you know,
Speaker 1: sometimes within minutes of the execution, once because uh, there
Speaker 1: was a stay, once because they had twice actually because
Speaker 1: they had the wrong chemicals. You know, they literally had
Speaker 1: the portal in his arm and they were ready to press,
Speaker 1: you know, kill uh, and they realized they had the
Speaker 1: wrong chemicals and they stopped the execution. And then because
Speaker 1: of all that mishaps with Oklahoma executions, this and some
Speaker 1: other incidents where they literally had the wrong ingredients, which
Speaker 1: in a horrifying you know, could you imagine being you know,
Speaker 1: on a gurney and rolled in to be killed and
Speaker 1: you know they stop it right, you know, like seconds before, Um,
Speaker 1: what are the ingredients they have? I'm like, what are
Speaker 1: they putting? Like rosemary and time in there? Like what's happening? Well,
Speaker 1: they use a cocktail of three chemicals. One of those
Speaker 1: chemicals is supposed to be potassium chloride, but instead they
Speaker 1: use potassium acetate and all the time that just creates
Speaker 1: incredible pain and suffering in the person who is being executed.
Speaker 1: Actually killed somebody before glossip with the wrong chemicals, and
Speaker 1: then they were about to do it again with clossip
Speaker 1: when they suddenly stopped the execution. So not only is
Speaker 1: this guy innocent, uh, you know, and if you looked
Speaker 1: into the case details itself, which is so mind boggling
Speaker 1: that this guy ever could have been put on death row. Uh,
Speaker 1: he's been sent to the death chamber not once, but
Speaker 1: three times. And the third time they almost to use
Speaker 1: the wrong chemicals. I mean, so disturbing that that can
Speaker 1: even happen. I think the question is like, what's worse
Speaker 1: than death? Yeah, I think worse than death is surviving
Speaker 1: and knowing you're the worst human ever. In Oklahoma, in Oklahoma,
Speaker 1: they have a procedure where you know, there's two levels
Speaker 1: of death row. There's like the nicer part of death
Speaker 1: row in quotation marks because it ain't nice UM where
Speaker 1: if you're if your execution is still far off, that's
Speaker 1: your you're in general population. But thirty five days before
Speaker 1: you're executed, they take you to a different level where
Speaker 1: and they progressively move you closer and closer to UM
Speaker 1: to the actual execution chamber. Uh. And lights are on
Speaker 1: seven your mattresses like half an inch thick on the floor,
Speaker 1: so basically want to wear you out so that you
Speaker 1: just accept death. So poor Richard Glossop um, you know,
Speaker 1: went through this three times. And because of the mishap
Speaker 1: with using wrong the wrong ingredients for the lethal injection,
Speaker 1: Oklahoma for several years has had a moratorium on executions,
Speaker 1: but now it's been reinstated. Executions are starting again in Oklahoma.
Speaker 1: And this guy, Richard Glossop, is you know, high on
Speaker 1: the list to be executed. So that story haunts me
Speaker 1: because I feel like I've done everything i can, both
Speaker 1: filmically and otherwise to help promote the case. And here's
Speaker 1: a guy who's so clearly innocent that you know, has
Speaker 1: a good chance of being executed, which happens way too
Speaker 1: often in this country, which is why we shouldn't have
Speaker 1: a death penalty. But that's probably a subject for another day.
Speaker 1: I have to ask one more question. I'm obsessed. Why
Speaker 1: are women obsessed with marrying serial killers? On Beth Roum.
Speaker 1: Why you talking about me like that? Teddy? I mean,
Speaker 1: and Lea just trying to tow around it, like also
Speaker 1: a co host on the podcast, but like I need
Speaker 1: to understand, Like when you talked about Ted Bundy or
Speaker 1: any of like you see so many beautiful women they're
Speaker 1: supporting these men who have the usually become pen pals
Speaker 1: with them, right, and then they why, I don't know,
Speaker 1: people like to look danger in the eye. It's uh,
Speaker 1: I don't have an answer for it. It is. It
Speaker 1: is a bizarre, bizarre phenomenon. You know, there are you know,
Speaker 1: you should distinguish those between women who believe in the
Speaker 1: innocence of somebody who's on You know, do you think
Speaker 1: people actually believe that Ted Bundy was innocent? No, I don't,
Speaker 1: but I'm just you know, uh, but he was handsome,
Speaker 1: according to Lea. Want to make sure people don't confuse
Speaker 1: it with Damian Echols and his situation because Lori Davis
Speaker 1: was an incredible person. When I said before that you know,
Speaker 1: it wasn't just the Elms that got him out of prison.
Speaker 1: It's somebody like Lorie, which is a fascinating story. I mean,
Speaker 1: Paradise Lost was planning was having Paradise Lost in nineties
Speaker 1: six premiered at Sundance. Uh so that yeah, so it
Speaker 1: was right, and you know, people were just obsessed with
Speaker 1: that film. The Q and A s were like insane.
Speaker 1: Everyone's stay, you know, you know, it's a film that
Speaker 1: has people's attentions when literally everyone stays for the Q
Speaker 1: and A. So it was that kind of a premiere
Speaker 1: at Sundance, and then the second set of screenings was
Speaker 1: there used to be a festival, maybe they still have it,
Speaker 1: but I can't remember. But it's called New Directors, New Films,
Speaker 1: which was a joint festival between Museum of Modern Art
Speaker 1: and the Film Society of Lincoln Center jointly presented New Directors,
Speaker 1: New Films, and so Paradise Lost had a big screening
Speaker 1: at Alice tully hall Um four or maybe it was
Speaker 1: a Museum of Modern Art. I forget, but uh, there
Speaker 1: was a big screening and at the end of the screening,
Speaker 1: everybody he stayed. It was a packed house. Everybody stayed.
Speaker 1: People follow follow us out because they don't want the
Speaker 1: Q and A to end. And there was one woman
Speaker 1: who kept asking me questions and you know, literally following
Speaker 1: me down to the you know, people are falling back,
Speaker 1: drifting away, but this one woman continued walking with us,
Speaker 1: and I did have to go. So I said, here's
Speaker 1: my number, call me ill. I can tell you more,
Speaker 1: but I have to go, and she followed up, she
Speaker 1: called me. It turns out to be this woman Laurie Davis,
Speaker 1: who literally, by watching the film just became so fixated
Speaker 1: with the injustice that was being presented on the screen
Speaker 1: that she started corresponding with Damien Um. They fell in love.
Speaker 1: She went down to visit him. They She then gave
Speaker 1: up her life in New York, moved to Arkansas and
Speaker 1: became his biggest advocate and eventually got him out of
Speaker 1: prison along with you know, obvious she was the most
Speaker 1: she was, you know, a key person and getting him
Speaker 1: out of prison. The films obviously helped because the film's
Speaker 1: cattle eyes people like her Um and they're still together,
Speaker 1: married and out of prison. And you know, so I,
Speaker 1: you know, I just wanted to make sure people weren't
Speaker 1: The reason I was, you know, saying what I said
Speaker 1: is I don't want her lumped into the people who
Speaker 1: like fall in love with criminals. And you know, no,
Speaker 1: I was mainly thinking, like Robert Durst, Ted Bundy, like, yeah,
Speaker 1: that is inexplicable to me. You know, but you know,
Speaker 1: how is it that people think that, you know, Biden
Speaker 1: lost the election, so, you know, people a wacky things
Speaker 1: in this world. You know. It's it's also weird that
Speaker 1: people who don't commit the crimes, we'll say that they
Speaker 1: are the murderer. Yeah, what is the logic behind that?
Speaker 1: That also has never made sense to me. Is that
Speaker 1: wanting fame? Yeah, people want attention, you know, I mean
Speaker 1: we Yeah, me too. I just post a bikini photo
Speaker 1: on Instagram like normal people. Yeah me too. I know
Speaker 1: I like it, But then you always deleted after because
Speaker 1: something like that was because then the guy finally text
Speaker 1: me back, and I feel comfortable baking it down. But
Speaker 1: you know, it's just a cry for help, Joe. I'm
Speaker 1: sure this is the most scattered interview you've ever had.
Speaker 1: We have a million questions for you, you know. I
Speaker 1: also thought it was interesting not to go back to
Speaker 1: um the story in Oklahoma. But it's interesting that there
Speaker 1: were so many errors with him on death row and
Speaker 1: you're saying that he's innocent, and you also said that
Speaker 1: there are no mistakes and everything happens for a reason.
Speaker 1: So it seems as if maybe it's like the universe
Speaker 1: is conspiring to help this man get off death row.
Speaker 1: Could be I mean, look, I don't think everything happens
Speaker 1: for a reason. I think in the arc of one's career,
Speaker 1: or you know, how you choose to look at things,
Speaker 1: you know, looking back now, I think things in my
Speaker 1: life happened for a reason, and I'm happy the way
Speaker 1: they But certainly there's a ton of injustice out there
Speaker 1: that doesn't happen for well, it does happen for a reason,
Speaker 1: you know, misguided policies, corrupt politicians, you know. Um, but
Speaker 1: Richard Glass of situation is quite dire. So I, you know,
Speaker 1: anyone who cares about justice should look into that, look
Speaker 1: in at that. Have you been following the Galane Maxwell
Speaker 1: case at all? I have, you know, uh, since you know,
Speaker 1: we made a show about Jeffrey Epstein for Netflix called
Speaker 1: Filthy rich Oh you did that show too. It was
Speaker 1: an executive producer and I wasn't the director all of that.
Speaker 1: He did only best friends. Yeah, question, but I felt
Speaker 1: like it was a fine question. Joe, Joe felt fine
Speaker 1: about it. Dmitri's jealous, that's all that's happening. So, in
Speaker 1: your opinion, do you think there's going to be a
Speaker 1: mistrial with glene Um. It's certainly troubling, but I think
Speaker 1: they're just putting everything on the record for an appeal.
Speaker 1: I think it would be highly unusual for there to
Speaker 1: be a mistrial. I think it's in the realm of possibility,
Speaker 1: but I think it's low. I think they're just kind
Speaker 1: of you know, they need to do this and posture
Speaker 1: for an appeal. Um. Do I think it's potentially reversible
Speaker 1: on appeal. I think that's the bigger fear. I don't think.
Speaker 1: I think the chance of a mistrial is low, but
Speaker 1: I think the chance of reversal on appeal because of
Speaker 1: this and how it unfolded, I think there is a
Speaker 1: there is a decent chance of that. Have you ever
Speaker 1: met her? I have not. Do you think she um
Speaker 1: cooperates and releases some names at some point? Um? Hard
Speaker 1: to say, you know, hard to say. I think if
Speaker 1: I think if that were you know, I think if
Speaker 1: she was inclined to do that, um, it would have
Speaker 1: happened already. Yeah. I don't think she's going to either.
Speaker 1: I don't think so either. I think she wants to survive.
Speaker 1: So we'll see. You know, Joe, I know we don't
Speaker 1: have that much more time with you, So let's bring
Speaker 1: it back to crime scene, which I'm still blown away
Speaker 1: by Richard Cottingham talking about the fact that he had
Speaker 1: over eighty perfect murders. He could be exaggerating by the way.
Speaker 1: I mean, he definitely had more than he's been charged with,
Speaker 1: and there is an ongoing task force, UM that is
Speaker 1: seeking to identify more victims. Um. You know, could be
Speaker 1: an exaggeration, you know, but it certainly is enough that
Speaker 1: it should be deeply disturbing that he was allowed to
Speaker 1: kill with impunity for so many years. Do you think
Speaker 1: that there's a part of him that wanted to get caught?
Speaker 1: You know, that is a good question, and with some yes,
Speaker 1: you know, Dahmer's activities escalate it and escalated, and uh,
Speaker 1: he became sloppier and sloppier, and many experts believe that,
Speaker 1: you know, it was a cry for help. But cutting
Speaker 1: him was so cold and calculating and had such a
Speaker 1: double life that I actually don't think he wanted to
Speaker 1: get caught. I mean, that's just pure speculation. But um,
Speaker 1: I don't think so, but often they do. I Mean,
Speaker 1: it's so wild, just just him walking around Times Square
Speaker 1: with women's severed heads and hands and bags, saying that
Speaker 1: he's going to go grab a bite, and the cops
Speaker 1: never stopping him. I mean, the amount, but I can't
Speaker 1: even fathom what type of person you have to be
Speaker 1: do anything close to that. I mean, it's boggling my
Speaker 1: mind just thinking about it. Yeah. Yeah, and that bad thing.
Speaker 1: You know, I debated putting it in the show because
Speaker 1: it's so gruesome, but you know, to me, it's it
Speaker 1: was a symbol for the disregard and you know how
Speaker 1: easily he could have been caught. And also the era,
Speaker 1: you know, police departments didn't communicate with each other. Forensic
Speaker 1: you know, pathology and evidence was not what it is today.
Speaker 1: DNA technology didn't exist. Um, and here you have serial
Speaker 1: killings right across the river in New Jersey and serial
Speaker 1: killings in New York, and nobody's connecting the dots. And
Speaker 1: you know, it's a very different era. It's why that
Speaker 1: particular period, you know, was so you know, we we
Speaker 1: perversely call it the Golden Age of serial killers because
Speaker 1: from like nineteen sixty nine with Charles Manson too, you
Speaker 1: know Dahmer who was convicted in the nineties, you know,
Speaker 1: there was you know that there was just a significant
Speaker 1: number of killers who just weren't caught and or took
Speaker 1: took too long a time to be caught. Um. And
Speaker 1: in this particular case, there was such indifference by the
Speaker 1: police that you know, like you know, it's time square
Speaker 1: or like whatever, you know, which I just find so troubling.
Speaker 1: And I know we're out of time, but I have
Speaker 1: one last question. Have you ever come across a killer
Speaker 1: or a serial killer who didn't have a troubling childhood? Um? Well, interestingly,
Speaker 1: Cottingham claims that his childhood was normal, you know, and
Speaker 1: he doesn't seem to have that much of a troubling childhood,
Speaker 1: which is interesting, which is why I think he You know,
Speaker 1: there are a lot of reasons why he is uniquely
Speaker 1: disturbing to me. But generally speaking, Um, you know, Sam
Speaker 1: little was his mother tried to abort him, right, I
Speaker 1: mean literally same you know, get a grip, dude. You
Speaker 1: know his father was, I tried to put crews in
Speaker 1: the trunk. I don't think he heard that part of
Speaker 1: the story context. No, I mean, dam Dahmer's childhood was
Speaker 1: actually pretty good, except his parents fought a lot. But
Speaker 1: my parents fought a lot too, So, um, he wasn't
Speaker 1: really abused. And you know, Bundy claims that he had
Speaker 1: the perfect childhood, but you know, people have said otherwise.
Speaker 1: But Robert durs had a really disturbing childhood. So you
Speaker 1: don't think it's like a nature versus nurture. It's it's
Speaker 1: just you. You are you aren't I think? So. Look,
Speaker 1: I mean honestly, I had a rough childhood, you know,
Speaker 1: not to get too deep into it, especially since it's
Speaker 1: the last question. Well I have one more after this,
Speaker 1: so go, so go for it. I mean, honestly, I
Speaker 1: had a tough childhood, you know. And oh my five
Speaker 1: thirty lights pop. Your hair looks magnificent. It's glowing now
Speaker 1: on the time. I'm sorry, But look, I had a
Speaker 1: tough childhood. And you know I've I've looked into the
Speaker 1: dark side filmically to exercise my demons, you know. So
Speaker 1: I don't you know, I don't think. I think you
Speaker 1: are born that way, you know, and and certain you
Speaker 1: know environmental issues can trigger it. But look, I think
Speaker 1: bad parenting was has all sorts of horrible consequences. You know.
Speaker 1: Not you know, not everyone becomes a serial killer, but
Speaker 1: bad parenting has horrible, horrible consequences for people. Um, but
Speaker 1: I don't think, I mean, I agree with that. I
Speaker 1: turned into a comedian. That's one of the worst things
Speaker 1: a parent can do to a kid, you know. Um,
Speaker 1: but I lost my train of thought because and this
Speaker 1: is and this is exactly bad parents that you know,
Speaker 1: bad parenting does result in a lot of bad things,
Speaker 1: you know, um that we spend our lives working our
Speaker 1: way through. But I don't think bad parenting produces a
Speaker 1: serial killer. I think that is just you know, whether
Speaker 1: that is just some deeply inexplicable dark side of the
Speaker 1: human condition that I don't think you can blame on
Speaker 1: bad parenting skills. You know, I would think bad parenting
Speaker 1: can can result to disregard for other people's feelings or consequence.
Speaker 1: But I think that's I agree, there's a whole other
Speaker 1: leap to do something like that, and I think there's
Speaker 1: got to be more to it than just and the
Speaker 1: and it's you know, there's different reasons, you know, dahm Er,
Speaker 1: you know, he sought companionship, like he just wanted to
Speaker 1: lay with people and have them not leave him. And
Speaker 1: that was his psychological profile for why he did what
Speaker 1: he did, like he you know, he you know, obviously
Speaker 1: what he did was brutal, and I'm not defending it
Speaker 1: in any way, but you know, of all the serial killers,
Speaker 1: you know he had, you know, these reasons that were
Speaker 1: born out of just a deep loneliness, whereas somebody like
Speaker 1: Richard Cottingham, you know, was wanted to enjoyed giving pain
Speaker 1: to people. You know, Dahmer would slip his victims sleeping
Speaker 1: pill um and wait till they were totally asleep and
Speaker 1: unconscious before he you know, killed them and did terrible
Speaker 1: things to them. Again, there's no justification for any of
Speaker 1: this behavior. But different, different serial killers have different motivations.
Speaker 1: And Cottingham just enjoyed the pure torture and control of women, um,
Speaker 1: as did Bundy, you know. So different serial killers have
Speaker 1: different reasons for why they do what they do. So
Speaker 1: it's hard, it's hard to generalize, you know, cutting him
Speaker 1: gave women sedatives to right, he did, yes, But but
Speaker 1: when they awakened, they participated it in the torture. Right.
Speaker 1: Oh god, Well, anyone who hasn't seen it yet, we
Speaker 1: didn't give away all the details. Trust me, you need
Speaker 1: to go watch it. It is binge worthy. It will
Speaker 1: happen whether you want to or not. You won't be
Speaker 1: able to stop yourself. That's what happened to me. Thank you, Joe,
Speaker 1: And just another night glued to my television. My husband
Speaker 1: gets home from work and I'm like, he's like, you
Speaker 1: have problems. I'm like, it's work, honey, it's work. It's
Speaker 1: a good thing. It's only three episodes. It's easy to finish.
Speaker 1: I was upset, honestly, I was like, what do you
Speaker 1: mean it's over? But also before we let you go,
Speaker 1: I've got to just quick quick questions. One is, what
Speaker 1: do you really think happened at the Cecil Hotel to
Speaker 1: Elisa Lamb? And why is it that she got lost
Speaker 1: in the elevator game? I can get out with you,
Speaker 1: We'll never get down with Elsa Lamb. I think it was,
Speaker 1: as the show strongly suggests, it was a sad, tragic accident.
Speaker 1: I know that's I know that's unsatisfying, but that's not
Speaker 1: as fun Joe. Okay, but so so mine was like,
Speaker 1: so I'm gonna ask something else that I can get right,
Speaker 1: just to get the answer. I know. Okay, So, Joe,
Speaker 1: before we wrap up with you for today, you know,
Speaker 1: we've been so honored to have such a genius mind
Speaker 1: discuss true crime with us and many other aspects of life.
Speaker 1: And I'm personally very happy that you came on today.
Speaker 1: I've been looking forward to this for a while. I'm
Speaker 1: so glad you're here. I just wanted to see if
Speaker 1: you had any final thoughts or anything that you wanted
Speaker 1: to let people know. UM, any project that you have
Speaker 1: coming out, that you're excited about, anything that's next for
Speaker 1: you on the horizon, just anything at all. I would
Speaker 1: love for you to give us your final thoughts. Well,
Speaker 1: first of all, it's been quite a thrill to be
Speaker 1: on the show. We've known each other for a long time,
Speaker 1: so it's really I'm really glad to do this. UM.
Speaker 1: I think you guys asked great questions, so I think
Speaker 1: I kind of said everything there is to say about
Speaker 1: about the Cecil Hotel and no, and you know, I
Speaker 1: generally don't talk about stuff that's coming up, in part
Speaker 1: because the networks say you can't talk about it until.
Speaker 1: But luckily the thing I'm about to start has already
Speaker 1: been announced, which is unusual that we've announced it. But
Speaker 1: I'm doing the definitive Bernie made Off story. We gotta
Speaker 1: have you back on the podcasting a four parties know,
Speaker 1: did you know anything? You'll have to wait and say now, Joe,
Speaker 1: we need info when you come back to talk about that.
Speaker 1: We promised no Cecil hotel. We're We're in a cool
Speaker 1: way and I'm very excited about it. So that's I'm
Speaker 1: actually in prep now. When we start shooting in a
Speaker 1: couple of weeks. You need an insider info. I know nothing,
Speaker 1: but I'll pretend. I mean, we need a group text show.
Speaker 1: We need a group text And is there anything that, um,
Speaker 1: you know, any other projects maybe that are not documentaries
Speaker 1: or anything else that you wanted to speak on. I
Speaker 1: have a couple of scripted things, you know. I enjoy
Speaker 1: finally being at a place where, you know, I can
Speaker 1: move between both worlds and occasionally do a scripted project
Speaker 1: in between the documentaries. Although the documentary stuff is you know,
Speaker 1: is where my heart is and you know you know so.
Speaker 1: But I got a scripted thing coming down the bike,
Speaker 1: but I can't say what. Everything's coming in Hot for Joe,
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, oh super hot. I mean, Joe, you're super multitalented.
Speaker 1: I'm excited to watch and support anything you create with
Speaker 1: that brain of yours and Dmitri Teddy, any final thoughts
Speaker 1: for Joe. No, we're just so grateful that you're here.
Speaker 1: You showed up for us and gave us all the juice,
Speaker 1: and now I'm going to really wait with like, I
Speaker 1: need to know everything about Bernie made off, no idea.
Speaker 1: You have got lots of new info that hasn't been
Speaker 1: shared before, so it's going to be a good one.
Speaker 1: And no and no serial killers. You know, I need
Speaker 1: a little right from the serial killer thing. Money scandal
Speaker 1: is just as good to me as killing so hot. Also,
Speaker 1: do I have a problem, like why am I obsessed
Speaker 1: with killers and money scandal? What does that mean about?
Speaker 1: Don't I don't know if you noticed, but true crime
Speaker 1: seems to be very popular these days. Why do you guys?
Speaker 1: Through crime is so popular because it's an escape from
Speaker 1: my own life and I've been doing that. I've been
Speaker 1: doing the same thing for thirty years, and now all
Speaker 1: of a sudden, it's like, you know, very popular. So
Speaker 1: I'm just curious. And documentaries have never been more popular.
Speaker 1: Look when I started in this business, you know, when
Speaker 1: we shot Brothers Keeper in nineteen nineties, when we first
Speaker 1: started shooting it, Uh god, I was like twenty seven
Speaker 1: years old. I can't believe it. Um something like that.
Speaker 1: But if you didn't sell your documentary to PBS or HBO,
Speaker 1: you weren't making a documentary. There was no such thing
Speaker 1: as doc series. Uh, you know, we ended up self
Speaker 1: just even though it went to Sundance and won a prize,
Speaker 1: as nobody wanted to distribute Brothers Keeper, so we ended
Speaker 1: up doing it ourselves, Like we had a handful of
Speaker 1: millimeter released prints and went from theater to theater, you know,
Speaker 1: doing it ourselves. And you know, if four hundred people
Speaker 1: saw our movie on a weekend, Bruce Snovsky and I
Speaker 1: would high five each other, like, oh my god, we
Speaker 1: died and went to heaven. Four hundred people saw a movie,
Speaker 1: and today something pops on Netflix and you know, twenty
Speaker 1: million people see it in the first couple of weeks.
Speaker 1: It's like insane. Well, I know, I know we have
Speaker 1: to go, but what project are you most proud of?
Speaker 1: I would have to say, Well, I guess I have
Speaker 1: to say Paradise Lost. I mean, all documentarians dream of
Speaker 1: having some kind of impact on their subjects, um to
Speaker 1: tangibly actually have participated in helping to get somebody out
Speaker 1: of prison, three people out of prison, one on death row.
Speaker 1: You know, that's that doesn't happen very often. So I
Speaker 1: feel great about that. And we were. You know, all
Speaker 1: the when we went down to make Paradise Lost, we
Speaker 1: thought we were making a you know, a kid's killing
Speaker 1: kids film. That's what HBO assigned us to do. All
Speaker 1: the press was these guys are are killers, and so
Speaker 1: we went down expecting to be making a kid's killing
Speaker 1: kids film, and all the press, all the local press
Speaker 1: down there. It's a very different world, no internet whatever.
Speaker 1: So local press actually was very important, you know, in
Speaker 1: a market, to influence people's opinion. And the local press
Speaker 1: was utterly convinced of their guilt and helped feed and
Speaker 1: pollute the jurors, the jurors with that false narrative. And
Speaker 1: we were the only ones who said, hey, something's not
Speaker 1: right here, you know. So I think I'm proud that
Speaker 1: we had we didn't. You know. I remember calling up HBO,
Speaker 1: the executive sheil and Evans, who assigned the film to us, UM,
Speaker 1: because she just sent an art of Ay, these two
Speaker 1: kids had just been arrested for these devil worshiping murders.
Speaker 1: Go look, go look into it. And so, you know,
Speaker 1: we had no reason to not think they were not guilty.
Speaker 1: There's no reason to think they weren't guilty. Um and
Speaker 1: about too, probably about two or three months into it,
Speaker 1: you know. I actually I was interviewing Jason Baldwin, one
Speaker 1: of the West Memphish three, and I was looking at
Speaker 1: his tiny little wrists during the interview, and he was
Speaker 1: declaring his innocence, and I was thinking about how small
Speaker 1: his risks are and trying to imagine him holding a
Speaker 1: ten inch errated hunting knife, which is what the prosecution
Speaker 1: was alleging, and that he had castrated this eight year
Speaker 1: old boy and done all these terrible knife wounds. And
Speaker 1: I just had this epiphany that something's not right here.
Speaker 1: I don't think this guy is guilty. And I remember
Speaker 1: calling up the executive at HBO, Sheil and Evans, who
Speaker 1: is well known in our business, half expecting her to
Speaker 1: tell us to come home, because I was telling her, no,
Speaker 1: this is not a kid's killing kids film. I think
Speaker 1: they got the wrong people. And this is six months
Speaker 1: before the trial. Um, and I you know, I half
Speaker 1: expected her to cancel the film, you know, and she said, no, no,
Speaker 1: stick with it. Then that sound is more interesting. So
Speaker 1: I guess I'm proud of that film. To answer your question,
Speaker 1: because with all the media hype and our mission to
Speaker 1: tell that same story. We have some clarity and realize
Speaker 1: these guys, you know, before the trial, uh, we thought
Speaker 1: these guys were probably innocent. Yeah, So you're the coolest.
Speaker 1: I thank you so much. Yeah. And and right before
Speaker 1: you came on, I gave your CVS received long list
Speaker 1: of credits to everyone. So do your homework. People, go
Speaker 1: on IMDb hunt down Joe. Watch all of his films.
Speaker 1: They're so impactful and special and important. And if you
Speaker 1: haven't already been watched Crime Scene, the Times Square Killer,
Speaker 1: it's on Netflix right now. It's trending. We all already
Speaker 1: watched it, we all already loved it, and you heard
Speaker 1: us talk a little bit about it today, but you
Speaker 1: should watch it to get into the nitty gritty and
Speaker 1: find out all the details on the case. Joe, it
Speaker 1: has been an honor, a pleasure of delight. Thank you
Speaker 1: so much for coming on to Real Time Crime today
Speaker 1: with us. Thank you for having me and happy to
Speaker 1: come back anytime. Well, thank you what you wish for. Yes,
Speaker 1: thank you. I'm gonna go watch everything else that I
Speaker 1: haven't seen on your resume, and hopefully about that time
Speaker 1: the Bernie Maid off stories out. We love you. Reliah
Speaker 1: should have been my agents. And where can people find
Speaker 1: you on the internet. Joe Berlinger Films. That's your Instagram. Yes,
Speaker 1: I don't do Facebook, you never have and I'm glad um.
Speaker 1: But Instagram is Joe Browning Films or Twitter. It is
Speaker 1: just at Joe Browning. So now I'm going to slide
Speaker 1: into your d m s about all the murders, so
Speaker 1: just ignore it if you don't want to hear from me.
Speaker 1: All I'm not going to do a story about your
Speaker 1: Fannie pack missing. That's a story for another day. Fine, fine,
Speaker 1: all right, thank you so much. I love you, Joe.
Speaker 1: Thank you. Bye h wow. Okay, so not to brag,
Speaker 1: but this was my favorite episode of Real time crime
Speaker 1: so far thanks to Joe Burlinger. Love him. Even though
Speaker 1: he asked you for lunch and not me, I mean, sorry, Teddy,
Speaker 1: but I think he was. I mean, obviously he was
Speaker 1: like I if I go to lunch with Leah, I'm
Speaker 1: hoping he's gonna bring something she's gonna bring sometimes. And Teddy, well,
Speaker 1: he did hear that I had a troubled childhood, so
Speaker 1: he's interested to pick my brain and see if I
Speaker 1: am that subject of this documentary. We all had troubled
Speaker 1: childhoods there right now, Leah, that's why we're obsessed. I know. Okay, well,
Speaker 1: this has been an incredible episode of real time crime.
Speaker 1: Sorry we didn't get to all the hot topics today,
Speaker 1: you guys, but I think we can all agree this
Speaker 1: episode worked out way better this way. God, I love
Speaker 1: talking to Joe. We could have interviewed him for like
Speaker 1: nine hour straight. The has been another episode of real
Speaker 1: time crime. I've been Lea Lamar and Teddy Meling cap
Speaker 1: I paused always, I always, there's never not a pause
Speaker 1: and sometimes Dmitri and guys, if you've got any sort
Speaker 1: of question, comment, concerned case you think we should look
Speaker 1: into or thoughts, give us a call, leave us a
Speaker 1: voicemail at eight six six one crime that's eight six
Speaker 1: six two one two seven four six three, eight six
Speaker 1: six twenty one camp eight six six to any one
Speaker 1: crime that's eight six six two one two seven four
Speaker 1: or six three. We promise we will actually get to
Speaker 1: one of the voicemails next episode. Okay, love you guys.
Speaker 1: It's real time Crome, real time, I mean, is it
Speaker 1: actually real time? Just the thing we say, the thing
Speaker 1: we say? Got it? Okay, see you next week for
Speaker 1: more real time only on I Heart Radio,