April 15, 2026 • 56 mins
Nowadays, everyone knows lead is toxic. Yet for thousands of years, it was treated as a miracle substance. Ancient Romans used it in everything from water pipes to wine sweetener -- an ubiquity that may well have contributed to the fall of the Empire as the civilization's collective IQ decreased due to lead exposure. And in the U.S., lead was also widespread until relatively recently. There's fascinating -- and disturbing -- speculation about how lead exposure in childhood may have created a spike in crime in the 1960s and 1970s. And, as Ben, Matt and Noel discover in tonight's episode, some experts take the theory one step further: Could lead exposure have created a boom in serial killers?
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A
production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt,
my name is Noel.
Speaker 3 (00:30):
They call me Ben.
Speaker 4 (00:31):
We're joined as always with our super producer Dylan the
Tennessee pal Fagan. Most importantly, you are you.
Speaker 3 (00:38):
You are here.
Speaker 4 (00:39):
That makes this the stuff they don't want you to
know now for all of us tuning in on Netflix,
fellow conspiracy realist, you may notice a couple of things
different in this episode. We've got some different backgrounds. I
am aware that there is a band aid on my face.
We're not going to address it.
Speaker 3 (01:00):
Passed it.
Speaker 5 (01:03):
Was who was it? There was some like dirty South
rapper Nellie Nellie? Sorry, I know it was one of
the why the why guys.
Speaker 2 (01:10):
Therefore the weekend had a bloody nose there for a while.
Speaker 3 (01:14):
That's sure.
Speaker 5 (01:15):
That was an escalation of the band aid as a
as a fashion statement. But I support you, Ben, I
hope you're okay.
Speaker 3 (01:20):
Oh man, right, thank you to get punched.
Speaker 1 (01:26):
Stop.
Speaker 2 (01:26):
Did you have some lead exposure as a kid.
Speaker 5 (01:30):
Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 4 (01:32):
I like about that segue there, Uh, band aid to
a nosebleed. We're talking about an escalation tonight. We're recording
on Monday, April sixth. It is time to get the
lead out.
Speaker 3 (01:47):
Seriously.
Speaker 4 (01:47):
Let's start with a ps A. Don't hang out with
or around lead if you can help it. It was
once a miracle substance are treated as such in the
days of old, and it eventually became linked to all
sorts of horrific stuff, even before modern science could prove
it is massively bad for you. I think today it's
(02:09):
fair for us to say that most everybody accepts the
reality of lead exposure and knows that it can lead
to a range of lifelong debilitating conditions. You know, on
our sister show, Ridiculous History, we actually teased this episode
because we entered into the raging debate about whether or
(02:31):
not lead exposure caused the fall of the Roman Empire.
Speaker 3 (02:35):
We did.
Speaker 5 (02:36):
And y'all, if you're worried about those paint chips used
to eat as a kid, as I was, but you
haven't done any serial killing yet, you're probably in the clear.
Speaker 3 (02:44):
Depending on your age. So right, yes, A healthy ya
for all of us. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (02:52):
I think in this episode where we're not getting into
like does lead make you a serial killer? Right, we're
getting into is led related in some way to serial killing?
Speaker 3 (03:02):
Yeah? Yeah, let's go awry to it.
Speaker 4 (03:04):
There's another debate at play to what we call the
leg crime hypothesis. It's one that's perhaps even more controversial.
It's the subject of tonight's investigation. Did lead exposure is
a way read the headline did lead exposure create America's
serial killer epidemic? We're going to try to keep this
one Pg. Thirteen, but no promises, so listen closely. Here
(03:32):
are the facts. All right, lead, what is it good for?
Absolutely several things to dabble?
Speaker 3 (03:39):
Do you?
Speaker 6 (03:39):
Right?
Speaker 5 (03:40):
Lead is a soft, silvery white, grayish metal number eighty
two on the periodic table. Is it peb yes, yes,
one of those weird ones. Mm hmm, yeah, I guess
what is it like?
Speaker 4 (03:51):
It's Latin yeah, plubium, So it has a low melting point.
This miss serious miracle substance. It's easy to find and
it is extremely malleable. It's also very easy to get
lead out of the ground and into a useful form.
Speaker 5 (04:11):
Right, and thus the prevalence of lead throughout history. It
was just it was like one of those miracle substances
like asbestos h yeah, yeah, or plastic as future historians
will describe our age.
Speaker 4 (04:24):
I mean, it's it's so common and humans have been
familiar with it for such a long time that lead
is even mentioned in the Bible as a reality, not
as like a metaphor.
Speaker 3 (04:35):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (04:35):
And one thing we found on that ridiculous history episode
you mentioned, Ben, is that the Romans actually even used it,
like as a flavoring agent for their wine because it
made it sweet.
Speaker 3 (04:47):
Sweet sweet lead.
Speaker 4 (04:49):
Babylonians used it to create plates that they would put
inscriptions on. The Romans, to your point, no, used it
for everything coins, water pipes for their brilliant aqueduct systems, tablets,
cooking utensils, and as you said why there were also
decorative pigment compounds derived from white lead that were used
(05:13):
as early as two hundred BCE. This has been around
for a while. By the time we get to ancient Rome,
lead is everywhere, and this is where the problem begins because,
in addition to being highly useful, lead is also cartoonishly toxic.
We don't mean toxic in like a wo woo, pseudoscience,
(05:35):
bad vibes.
Speaker 5 (05:36):
Way, we mean Britney spears kind of right, right, Yeah,
we meet it as a neurotoxic.
Speaker 4 (05:41):
If you're exposed to it, you will have serious health issues,
especially if you're exposed to it as a child during
your formative years, causing developmental delays, learning difficulties, a particular
kind of brain damage, damage to the frontal cortex that
can lead to aggression, especially in males, damage to the
(06:04):
nervous system as well.
Speaker 2 (06:05):
And with these toxic effects, it is really unfortunate that
humans decided to make a lot of pipes with lead
pipes that send things like water through them.
Speaker 5 (06:15):
Shout out Flint, Michigan, shout out to our episode Beyond Flint,
the Looming Lead Crisis.
Speaker 2 (06:20):
Well, yeah, and that is one city in the United
States that used lead pipes. Lead pipes were ubiquitous everywhere,
especially in the US and in other places where if
you were drinking water, it was probably going through lead.
Speaker 5 (06:35):
And I mean, now we have tests, you know, if
a house is going to be demolished or there's going
to be renovations or whatever, they test for things like
lead and paint. Because that was also mega mega common.
Speaker 2 (06:44):
I mean, it's so.
Speaker 5 (06:45):
Crazy that you know, we know all of this horrible
stuff now that you think we would have figured out
long before it was used in so many things in
our modern era. I mean, we're talking about this stuff
being used in the Roman Empire, Like, why didn't they
get the memo?
Speaker 2 (07:00):
Well, my only argument would be teflon the invention of
that and how great that was for so long until
we realized what the hell was happening.
Speaker 5 (07:10):
Yeah again, Ben, You're absolutely right, and that's something that's
still everywhere despite what we know about it. So kind
of answered the question. I mean, we're just not that
great at forward thinking when it comes to toxic substances.
Speaker 2 (07:23):
Well, lead pipes were making money, bait, That's what I'm saying.
Speaker 5 (07:25):
As long as they're making that money, then you know,
we'll worry about it down the line.
Speaker 4 (07:29):
And as we are going down the line to the
United States, fellow conspiracy realist, let's continue setting the scene
in Rome.
Speaker 3 (07:37):
So we posit to you.
Speaker 4 (07:39):
That there is a circular pattern here, a bit of
an ru bruce. If not a history repeating case, this
is history rhyming. The dilemma of usefulness versus public health
created what I think is fair to call an ancient
proto conspiracy. People are not dumb throughout history or there
(08:01):
I should say, people are no more smarter than they
were in ancient times. So people way back when suspected
lead was pretty bad news. Early on Romans were aware
of it. There were physicians like Dioskorides who literally wrote
lead makes the mind give way. But lead was economically vital,
(08:23):
so they minimized the downsides. They covered it up. The
Romans many other cultures that followed started reasoning that limited
lead exposure couldn't be that bad. They were thinking of
it as have a little lead as a treat. You know,
a little bit of one cigarette won't kill you. A
little bit of lead in your wine is just good party.
(08:43):
You guys, dabble, do you right?
Speaker 2 (08:45):
I wonder if there is something to that that people
in the upper echelons, the folks that were making money
off of producing lead products back then, saw the effects
of it and then realized, oh, well, if we make
sure the palaces don't have some much lead, and let's say,
the things we're using, we make sure, you know, the
churches or the places of worship, the places where the
(09:07):
elite are going to be hanging out. We won't use
the lead. But if the populace has their mind giving
way a little bit, maybe that's not such a bad thing.
Speaker 4 (09:16):
That's interesting because what we found in Ridiculous History was
that the upper echelons of the socioeconomic pyramid of ancient
Rome were actually more exposed to lead, just simply in
subtle ways that they didn't realize. They were more likely
to have indoor plumbing, they were more likely to use
(09:36):
cutlery that was lead base. They were more likely to
have the fancy wine with lead and decorative artifacts.
Speaker 5 (09:42):
But where whereas yeah, people you know might be using
pottery or riding utensils and things like that.
Speaker 4 (09:48):
But the issue here is they did not differentiate. They
thought lead exposure was one thing, when actually there are
a couple levels. The people they saw getting clearly from
lead were miners, people in smelting operations as posre Pax Murana.
Speaker 3 (10:07):
That's us. That's fine, as we'll keep it that.
Speaker 4 (10:11):
As Pax Romana kicked in and the empire had to
create more and more coins, they were smelting like on
a gad Zooke's scale.
Speaker 5 (10:20):
Well, and what better way to get that really really
serious lead exposure than just inhaling the fumes.
Speaker 2 (10:27):
You know, was lead in the coins.
Speaker 4 (10:29):
Yeah, It's used in smelting operations for silver, So they
were making silver coins and as a result of the
smelting operations, the miners were getting acute exposure to lead.
Speaker 3 (10:43):
And this was something that the wealthy could look at.
Speaker 4 (10:48):
They would look down from their socioeconomic pyramid and they
would say, oh, it's hurting the poors, but we're fine,
without understanding that the entire time lead was accumulating in
their bodies as well. There wasn't an OSHA, there wasn't
an EPA. Nobody was stopping this.
Speaker 5 (11:05):
Well, that goes back to Matt's previous question, I think too,
where they did know, The upper crust did know, but
they just thought they were safer than the folks being
directly exposed to it who were making the stuff in
the mines. But little did they know various other transmission methods,
you know, other than the fumes, you know, for actually
(11:26):
taking lead into the body.
Speaker 4 (11:28):
Yeah, and like we were saying earlier, the upper crust
was probably exposed to more lead anyway. Check out our
series on Ridiculous History. Fast forward to the Middle Ages,
lead is still huge, even though people know it's a problem.
Lead is massive in alchemy, which leads to chemistry. Leaded
type is a huge engine in the emergence of mass printing.
(11:50):
You got the Borgias and the Medici's of the Renaissance.
They loved lead as an effective poison. Actually, we found
in our research that the frame bench had a street
name for lead.
Speaker 5 (12:02):
Oh yeah, Benny talking about Poudre de la soon succession powder.
Speaker 3 (12:08):
Right, Yeah, that's funny.
Speaker 2 (12:10):
But dark leaders kill the person that's that's inconvenient for
your particular version of politics.
Speaker 3 (12:19):
Right, and this is.
Speaker 4 (12:20):
Versatile in its applications led and again and again. This
is the argument we're making in this episode. Throughout history,
different civilizations have made the same devil's bargain, industrial progress
at an astonishing level at the price of public health.
The American colonies, the United States, they were no different.
(12:41):
Now we're getting closer to the modern day. If you
go to Jack Lewis, who was writing for the epa
way back in the nineteen eighties, you'll see that lead
mining and smelting started in the American colonies. As soon
as the first colonists settled. People were mining and forging
lead by sixteen twenty one in Virginia. The lead industry
(13:04):
in the United States predates the United States. That's pretty
trippy to think about.
Speaker 2 (13:10):
We needed things to work the land. Why not have
your leaden tools. They'll do you right until they do
your own.
Speaker 5 (13:18):
Not to mention our leaded gasolines, which we will all
knock knock.
Speaker 3 (13:23):
Yeah, shout out to oh.
Speaker 4 (13:25):
I forgot the inventor's name, but yeah, he ruined a
lot of stuff accidentally, and he died by one of
his other inventions. Thomas Midgeley Junior, that's his name, the
guy who made a lead a lead product that would
prevent knocking in automotive engines.
Speaker 3 (13:44):
He died.
Speaker 4 (13:46):
This is such an aside, but folks, he died when
he invented a rope pulleye system to help him get
out of bed, and he got caught in it.
Speaker 5 (13:56):
It was like a horrible mishap, you know, literally, invention's
gone wild.
Speaker 3 (14:02):
What a mouse trap? Way to go? And then Goldberg guest, yes.
Speaker 2 (14:06):
Just so.
Speaker 4 (14:07):
And by the early twentieth centuries, now we're in the
nineteen hundreds, the United States has becolled the world's leading
producer and consumer of refined lead. Uncle Samuel loves his stuff.
Speaker 3 (14:21):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (14:22):
Yeah, not only am I president, I'm also a client.
By nineteen eighty, the US was using one point three
million tons of lead every year. That was an estimated
forty percent of the entire world's supply. And we don't
have to get into the weeds too much, but if
you do a little bit of cocktail math, what you'll
(14:44):
see is this equates to a usage rate of over
five thousand grams of lead per American per year. That
is a rate almost ten times that of ancient Rome.
And as we're recording right now, the effects are still
with this country. Over one hundred and seventy million people
alive today are estimated to have been exposed to dangerously
(15:08):
high lead levels in early childhood.
Speaker 2 (15:11):
Well, yeah, let's talk about one of the primary things.
Lead was used in toys. Lead toys were a big
deal because it was so malleable. You could just make
these easily produced, cheaply produced lead products that came out
as toys.
Speaker 5 (15:27):
We're talking about little figurines, little windup guys and stuff
like that. Like maybe what would have been used ten
might have been used for but this is cheaper than
ten and much more available and.
Speaker 2 (15:38):
You know, we're talking about the difference between having lead
products versus ceramics or pottery and that kind of thing.
The US decided, let's cover the the ceramics in this
lead glaze stuff, so you're eating out of it.
Speaker 5 (15:53):
One thing that lead is still used for today is
in sowder, you know, And a dear friend of mine
who is a stained glass artist uses lead sowder because
it is apparently the most malleable and the best version
of that product that you can use. And so you
do have to be very very careful when you're handling
that stuff, and definitely don't lick your stained glass windows.
Speaker 4 (16:16):
I remember, I remember your friend Thal and I remember
having fascinating conversations about the art of stained glass, and
the lead thing was a.
Speaker 3 (16:25):
Surprise to me as well.
Speaker 4 (16:27):
No, we do have good news for anybody who's feeling
a bit of a bummer about their childhood nostalgia. You know,
I particularly remember toys that smelled awesome, But they smelled
awesome because they were VOCs volatile organic compounds and also
hot plastic exposed to heat off, gassing. All that, all
(16:50):
the good stuff, all the slow jazz.
Speaker 6 (16:52):
Dude, even going fishing, the little sinkers they used to
use for fishing, was so cheap to make them out
of lead. All right, Yeah, so you're just going out there,
just setting your line and everything and.
Speaker 2 (17:04):
Then just playing with lead, and then every time you
open up your tackle box, just lead in there is.
Speaker 4 (17:12):
And the good news is because we want to have
some good news at the top. Eventually Uncle Sam gets
his stuff together and passes wide ranging regulations to lessen
lead exposure, and today everybody acknowledges that lead exposure, especially
in childhood, connects to serious cognitive hazards lower IQ, aggression, psychopathy.
Speaker 3 (17:37):
And so on.
Speaker 4 (17:38):
There's a great interview we'll get to a little bit
later from a place called The Grist, where they point
out that in kids, specifically in human children, lead can
lead to behavior that's been described as cruel, impulsive, or
crazy like. It's also been linked to a loss in
brain volume as someone becomes an adult, particularly in men.
(18:02):
But these realizations that Uncle Sam finally acknowledges, because they
knew about it for decades. When they finally acknowledge it,
it comes far after reparable intergenerational damage has already occurred.
That takes us to tonight's theory. It's tough to Just
(18:22):
like antient rome, it's tough to figure out the exact
moments this kind of exposure manifest in a given society
or civilization. Because there's so many people in communities evolved,
it's even more difficult to figure out the ramifications. But
just last year twenty twenty five, a Pulitzer Prize winning
(18:44):
author named Caroline Fraser rocked the world when she claimed
that widespread lead poisoning in the United States didn't just
cause medical issues. She asked, what if all the leaded gas,
and the smelting plants and all these other vectors weren't
just making industry possible. What if led exposure also created
(19:06):
serial killers.
Speaker 3 (19:12):
Here's where it gets crazy.
Speaker 4 (19:15):
It sounds nuts, right, but I think we can agree
after we've all looked into this, there is some persuasive
sand to this argument. Again, people in the ancient past
biologically identical to people of the modern day, minus the microplastics.
No population has at this point evolved any sort of
immunity to the effects of lead poisoning. So the gist
(19:39):
of the theory is, what if notorious serial killers who
spent time in areas of contamination, specifically the Pacific Northwest
were made into killers because of environmental contamination. That's what
Fraser is writing about in her book Murderland and Bloodlust
(20:01):
in the Time of serial Killers.
Speaker 5 (20:02):
Because we certainly do, at least to my memory, have
a concentration of these high profile serial killer cases in
that region.
Speaker 3 (20:11):
Oh one hundred percent.
Speaker 2 (20:12):
Well.
Speaker 4 (20:12):
Yeah, the book, which is a must read, by the way,
check it out, folks. The book focuses a lot or
spends a lot of time on the serial murderer Ted Bundy.
But Bundy, to your point, there was one of at
least like six or more serial killers active in Washington
in nineteen seventy four alone. Also in nineteen seventy four,
(20:37):
Washington's murder rate rose by thirty percent. That's more than
thrice the rate of the rest of the country.
Speaker 3 (20:44):
Something was happening.
Speaker 5 (20:45):
Yeah, And Fraser takes a scientific approach to this concept
and really digs deep, and she found a pattern through
her research, a pattern showing that a lot of the
folks who later became serial killers grew up near these
toxic plumes that were generated by industrial operations. We are
specifically talking about these substances sulfur dioxide, arsenic and daint
(21:10):
ding dang lead emanating from the smoke stacks of smelting factories,
specifically one in Rustin outside of Tacoma there in Washington State.
Speaker 4 (21:21):
Let, which is part of why locals in the area
at the time had a phrase describing the smell. They
called it the aroma of Tacoma.
Speaker 2 (21:32):
That's cut.
Speaker 5 (21:33):
That's good branding. Maybe not for the best you know, product,
but yeah.
Speaker 2 (21:36):
There's an aroma of like the coming Georgia area and
some of these northern towns just paper mills just north well, no,
it wasn't paper mills, plant farms there you go, chicken processingham,
shaking farms, excrement, and then the blood and inns and
all the nastiness of all those Yeah, paper mills smell.
Speaker 4 (21:56):
Yeah, you go south of Atlanta, you'll also run into
dog food factories, which have a very particular smell that
insists upon itself.
Speaker 2 (22:07):
The travel through the Midwest, and it's just Kalman Kalman.
Speaker 4 (22:12):
I don't think kalmanure smells that bad. That quote's going
to be fraying out of context.
Speaker 3 (22:17):
Yeah right, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, put that on the book.
Speaker 4 (22:20):
Jack April twenty six, kalmaneure I don't think it smells
that bad.
Speaker 2 (22:25):
I don't know what you're all talking about.
Speaker 3 (22:26):
Okay, horse maneure. Not all manure is terrible anyway. Uh
there is a oh.
Speaker 4 (22:33):
We should do an episode on fertilizer too, anyway. Uh
there is a yeah, yes, sir, there it's hot. There
is a smelting company a particular interest to Fraser in
this book. It is called the American Smelting and Refining Company,
or a SARCO for short sa r COO. Shout out
(22:55):
to the google.
Speaker 3 (22:56):
Heims, the Guggenheim, Guggenheims. Yeah, the gougendtheim Gougendtheims.
Speaker 4 (23:00):
This is part of how they made so much money.
They acquired a SARCO or controlling shares of it. So
going back to the point we made at the top
about the profit motive, right, this devilish bargain. We know
that in nineteen seventy four the officials kind of the
(23:22):
c suite of a sarco's Bunker Hill smelter over in Kellogg, Idaho,
they did a little bit of a calculation internally and
they said, Okay, if we accidentally, not on purpose, somehow
poisons say five hundred children with lead, then we will
(23:43):
have a legal liability of six to seven million dollars.
Speaker 5 (23:48):
This reminds me of the calculation that Edward Norton's character
makes and Fight Club when he's talking about like if
X and Y add up to something is more than
the price of a recall, like talking about people literally
getting burned alive in you know, automotive accidents, then we
don't do a recall, right, cost of doing business.
Speaker 2 (24:06):
So if they're legal liabilities six to seven million, how
much are they going to make?
Speaker 4 (24:10):
That's the pickle of it, right, that's the badger in
the bag, because the other side of the equation is
they said, if we increase lead production, we're going to
make ten to eleven million dollars. So in nineteen seventy four,
money when a million was way more impressive than it
is now. So they definitely had the same profit motive
(24:32):
as the plutocrats of ancient Rome. These are the modern plutocrats,
the modern oligarchs. Arguably. At the same year, though, guys, folks,
friends and neighbors. The same year, researchers found that that
rust and smelter you mentioned earlier, NOL was pumping twenty
(24:53):
five pounds of lead dust and fifty eight pounds of
arsenic into the air every single so times that by
twenty four times that, by all the days in the year, Well,
that's a lot of lead. Might say it's too much
lead because it's in the air another devil's bargain.
Speaker 2 (25:12):
Still sitting here wondering about that. Yeah, I'm I'm thinking
about what that equates to in parts per billion or something.
You know, when we think about stuff that gets dumped
into the ocean, and then you know, even environmental regulators
are like, oh, it's only like zero point oh four
parts per billion, or it's only one hundred and fifty
parts per billion, so it's not a big deal. Just
(25:35):
what that equates to, and then how much that can
actually affect a human being and even the animals in
the surrounding area.
Speaker 5 (25:42):
Guys, I'm so sorry, I got a phone call about
a doctor's appointment thing. But are we talking about like
allowable limits like as they exist today, Like is there.
Speaker 3 (25:50):
An easy and cereal That's what I'm saying.
Speaker 5 (25:52):
Yeah, I gotta wonder because we certainly know and talking
about this, that no amount of lead exposure is quote
unquote good, but it being such a part of our
history and existing, you know, and as part of infrastructure
and old things, there must be some official record or
number that we are okay with.
Speaker 4 (26:12):
It has shifted over time, and thankfully it is usually
trended downward. So scientists and researchers who don't get bought
out by the conspiracy inevitably come back and say, at
previous levels a little too high, it's a little too
much lead. But here's why we're mentioning conspiracies because Fraser
(26:34):
in her book, along with other researchers, they have discovered
what does appear to be a series of very genuine
industrial conspiracies. Time and time again, big companies and corporations
practice regulatory capture. They downplay, they explain away, they rationalize,
(26:54):
or they street cover up the environmental consequences of lead
in the environment. And of course, you know see United States,
we're to roll the dice nation. Public health cover ups
are nothing new and they're not uncommon. Shout out to
his bestos, as we said earlier. But the question then becomes,
is it a bit of a leap cognitively to go
(27:18):
from industrial conspiracy to a serial killer Golden age? I'd
say to understand that connection, we have to explore more
of the science, and we have to look at the
patterns that Fraser herself discovered. And to be clear, Fraser
is not arguing that LED exposure alone creates serial killers.
(27:39):
She explicitly says she is not equating correlation to causation,
but she is saying there may be a link.
Speaker 2 (27:48):
Yeah, Because one thing we've learned through all these true
crime shows we've done over the years is that each
one of these especially highly notable serial killers that have
been studied have a very specific set of societal circumstances.
You know, not just chemicals that they're exposed to or
anything like that. We know that family stuff, stuff they
(28:09):
went through as children especially, ends up working heavily into
the things that they end up being into. They like
that really nasty stuff. So it must be some combination, right.
Speaker 4 (28:21):
If we go to the author herself, she sums it
up this way, so we'll share a bit of her writing.
Recipes for making a serial killer may vary, including such
ingredients as poverty, crude forceps, deliveries, poor diet, physical and
sexual abuse, brain damage, and neglect. Many horrors play a
role in warping these tortured souls. But what happens if
(28:45):
we had a light dusting from the periodic table on
top of all that.
Speaker 5 (28:49):
Trauma, just a sprinkle, just a little topper, just a
little top as a tree.
Speaker 2 (28:54):
Well, the thought here then is that that would cause
brain trauma. And we know down the lad line that
having what is it chronic encephalopathy and some of these ctees,
some of these other things can lead to changes in
impulse control and some of the things that we associate
with serial killers and activity of just losing it and
(29:17):
killing somebody, or even having the ability, you know, in
mentally to just take somebody out like that rather than
consider all of the consequences and you know that another
human is alive. Mm hmm. I can imagine those four steps,
being as crude as that method was, could lead to
a brain a version of brain damage that could lead
to that kind of thing.
Speaker 4 (29:38):
Yeah, traumatic brain injury. If you want to, if you
want an extreme case of how messing with the brain
can alter personality, look no further than the real life
parable of Phineas Gage.
Speaker 3 (29:52):
Remember that guy.
Speaker 5 (29:53):
As the guy that got the spike through the head
right m.
Speaker 4 (29:55):
Hm, complete and survived and it completely changed him as
a person. We also know there are many cases documented
proven of children who received traumatic brain injuries during a
formative period and later became serial murderers. So the forceps
can cause brain damage, but also multiple other knocks to
(30:18):
the head can create the same effects. What we're saying is,
and I love this point, there are so many other
factors at play. So Fraser is not saying that lead
is the only thing that matters. Fraser is pointing out
that it should be a factor in the conversation.
Speaker 2 (30:37):
What are we saying or what does the author say
the lead exposure? Like, what effect does it have if
it was just another contributing factor?
Speaker 3 (30:46):
Right?
Speaker 4 (30:46):
Again, it would go back to the proven science that
we have regarding lead exposure and children in general and
human children in general, specifically the prefrontal cortex damage, and
also a strong link between crime in general and lead.
This is something we can't wait to introduce to you folks.
(31:07):
As a matter of fact, why don't we expose everybody
to some ads and then get into it. We're back,
all right, We're gonna get into this deeper, all right,
murder Land. The book mainly focuses on events in Washington State. Now,
(31:27):
we do know that Fraser grew up in the area
near Tacoma. But that is not This is not an
author making a thing about themselves. This is a very
well researched book. She looks at the Washington Department of
a Cology's map of lead and arsenic contamination, and there
she sees four plumes, the fallout from the Tacoma smelter
(31:51):
we mentioned earlier, another smelter plume in Everett, these orchard
lands in central Washington, they weren't smelt operations, but all
those orchards were sprayed with lead arsenate or arsenate as
a pesticide. And then the fourth wind that she focuses
on is an isolated cleanup site on the Upper Columbia River.
Speaker 2 (32:16):
Interesting, so we're saying, like with that, with the orchard area,
pesticize or sprayed on, let's say those apples whatever they're
you know, creating their growing there. Then people consumed those
in the surrounding area. Possibly I think she was groundwater continuely, Yeah,
I think she's more talking about lead's tremendous ability to
leach into things and the people who lived around the orchard,
(32:40):
would you know, because pesticide knows no fence, right, it
knows no real borders, so it drifted around the surrounding area.
She also, okay, so she's got these fore plumes, and
then she says, all of these areas quote hosted the
activities of one or more cereal assaulters or murderers. And
(33:00):
this is where we get to things like the Pacific
Northwest Cluster. She talks about Bundy and Gary Ridgeway. Both
of these guys grew up in or around Washington State,
which was heavily polluted by that smelter and Ta Coma
at the time. But then to what we're talking about.
She looks at all possible vectors of lead exposure and
(33:22):
she sees people like Richard Ramirez or i should say
monsters like Ramirez the Nights Talker. He grew up next
to a smoke stack also from Asarco in El Paso, Texas.
Or David Berkowitz. To know your point about paint chips,
this guy lived at a house with peeling lead paint.
You don't have to eat the chips. Spoiler, folks, if
(33:45):
the lead paint is peeling, you're still getting your lead.
Speaker 3 (33:48):
Man.
Speaker 2 (33:49):
Yeah, it's really interesting. I'm just I'm imagining how many
people didn't become serial killers that were directly exposed to
these smoke stacks and stuff.
Speaker 5 (33:58):
That's the interesting part, right is this core? Is this
causation or is this just kind of correlate. I don't know,
like it's we're gonna get to that. I mean, this
is definitely something that you know, the the research here considered, right.
Speaker 2 (34:14):
Well, for sure, it's feeling more like some kind of
I don't know, you know, not a full on reason
for it to occur, But like that, I'm trying to imagine,
like a key, if you've experienced some of these other things,
especially as a child, that would lead towards serial killing,
then you've also got this one little extra piece that
just fits perfectly in there to help you along the way.
Speaker 4 (34:33):
I favor that comparison. I also like to think of
it similar to asking what makes a car?
Speaker 3 (34:40):
You know what I mean?
Speaker 4 (34:41):
You can't say that tires are the reason cars exist,
But you can't say that steering wheels, or headlights or
even an engine alone makes a car. So it's a
combination of factors, you know. And Freezer is also quick
to point out that this speculation is not arriving out
(35:02):
of the blue like our Palell Zoe was saying about
different NLP techniques. It's not a story of a sudden
revelation with somebody walking by the beach and thinking, why
do my eyes move that way? Instead, this is a
natural extension of something called the lead crime hypothesis. If
you're a longtime listener of conspiracy stuff, then you have
(35:22):
probably heard this idea before. It's the suggestion that widespread
environmental lead exposure, particularly in the United States from let
a gas, caused a surge in violent crime and crime
rates later declined as lead was phased out. So imagine
(35:44):
increased lead exposure from the nineteen forties to the nineteen seventies,
when everybody was still really hot about lead. Imagine if
you did a timeline, which these researchers have, and you
looked at how people exposed to lead in childhood, how
they behaved when they grew up. And these researchers have
(36:04):
found a sharp rise in violent crime and murder rates
in the nineteen seventies, the eighties, and early nineteen nineties,
because again Uncle Sam didn't start getting the lead out
of the gas until nineteen seventy five, and that process
was only finalized in the mid nineteen nineties. History is
(36:25):
so much closer than it looks in the rear view mirror.
Speaker 2 (36:28):
I blame Nixon and Reaganomics, but you know, I guess
it could be lead.
Speaker 3 (36:31):
Yeh.
Speaker 4 (36:34):
I thought you were saying you blamed them for taking
the lead out of gas.
Speaker 3 (36:38):
Sorry. Man, the party got so much labor.
Speaker 5 (36:40):
I mean it made it taste so much better.
Speaker 3 (36:43):
That's rue, right, could.
Speaker 2 (36:44):
Blame them for the crime wave because they made things
so terrible for lower class human beings.
Speaker 4 (36:50):
It's cool there's a drug there's a war on drugs, right,
and we can militarize the police.
Speaker 3 (36:55):
I mean that didn't poll well.
Speaker 4 (36:58):
We didn't pull well, which was a to me too, nol.
I mean we we saw lower blood levels in children
as these regulations kicked in, and we also saw two
decades later a significant drop in crime rates. So causation,
I don't know. Correlation definitely, it seems like a very
(37:21):
if not conclusive. It seems like a very meaty red string.
You know that's a weird phrase out.
Speaker 2 (37:29):
Yeah, yeah, it does like line up with just these
periods of deregulation and corporate interests become the most powerful
and important thing, you know, in Congress and the EPA
kind of takes a back seat when we go through
these waves that we're going through right now, like heavy
(37:50):
right now, and we're gonna have these crazy health effects
because it makes more sense for the company, like we
talked about in the very first segment of this, the
company that's they're only going to make what three to
five million dollars more than they have to pay and
they know that.
Speaker 5 (38:06):
Well, and that de regislation to do it, combined with
lack of access to good healthcare, really does make it
a tax on the poor in terms of like the
health effects and very similar to what we were talking
about back in the Roman Empire. And how how crazy
it is This lad stuck around for so long because
the calculation was about allowable limits that would mainly affect
(38:28):
people of less means.
Speaker 4 (38:30):
Yeah, an attack and attacks at the same time. This
we also should mention this theory so far is largely
focusing on the United States. It's a very United States
thing to do, but data from multiple other countries appears
to indicate a similar relationship between led consumption and violent crimes.
(38:53):
So really, Frasier and other proponents are proposing an addendum
to this long standing concept and they're focusing on a
specific genre of crime. It's chilling in its plausibility. It's
also we have to be fair. It's not to say
there are not some issues with the theory, and these
(39:13):
are issues we should acknowledge.
Speaker 3 (39:16):
Guys.
Speaker 4 (39:16):
The main one that always makes me sound like a
broken record is the great pickle of any investigation, of
research or study of serial killers. We only know the
ones who get caught right.
Speaker 2 (39:31):
Right, True, we have no idea where the Zodiac grew up,
and maybe he was in Tacoma and then just moved
to San Francisco later.
Speaker 5 (39:38):
On, but still, I mean regional. It definitely was in
the zone.
Speaker 4 (39:42):
We also know that our sample size therefore is limited.
As a result, it's possibly not as accurate as we
would like to think. I mean, they're definitely serial killers
who got away. Check out our three episodes series on that. Secondly,
you know the Freezer, by necessity is focusing on specific
(40:03):
regions and specific murderers all in the US, not every
documented serial killer case across the planet. That's I think
that is more than reasonable. But we also have to
have some space here and acknowledge that further research across
larger data sets might uncover other factors or other variables.
Speaker 3 (40:25):
So it's quite possible.
Speaker 4 (40:27):
That there is some other environmental contaminant that could twist
your brain and put you on the path towards serial murder,
and it just hasn't been researched the same way that
lead was, maybe because it's not as ubiquitous.
Speaker 2 (40:41):
What if it's putting raisins in your brand cereal?
Speaker 5 (40:44):
Stop it, don't even get me started out there.
Speaker 2 (40:48):
But let's see if there's a correlation.
Speaker 4 (40:50):
Let's see, well, I mean, raisin brand number one, cereal
number one, breakfast, breakfast treat for serial killers.
Speaker 2 (41:00):
Also, it's still my favorite.
Speaker 5 (41:01):
It's too hard, but the ridiculous history episode and a
lot of the research around the Roman Empire collapsed. At
the end of the day, it was just another factor.
But it wasn't like the only factor. You know, there
were a lot of other elements at play, as there
are in human developments. You know, there's nature, there's nurture,
there's so many things. It's difficult to blame lead entirely
(41:23):
on the quote unquote serial killer epidemic.
Speaker 4 (41:25):
That being said, we did have a lot of fun
speculating that that room fell because the leaders were exposed
to more lead than the public, and they were getting
dumber and dumber and dumber every generation as a result.
So eventually no one was at the wheel or no
one qualified.
Speaker 2 (41:45):
Guys, that's graze. Nineteen twenty five, Skinner's manufacturing company starts
Raisin brand. It isn't until the nineteen forties that Kellogg's
gets in the game with their raisin brand. Kids grown
up in the nineteen forties, because talking about like nineteen seventies,
right with the serial killers, like thirty years old after
(42:05):
starting to eat raisin bran as a kid.
Speaker 5 (42:08):
I think it's more rape nuts issue, Matt. I think
it's more of a grape nuts issue.
Speaker 3 (42:12):
I do think that that's We're not kidding Kellogg's.
Speaker 4 (42:16):
We know what you do, and you do too, kellogg
you know, so we also we look. I gotta pause
there because I love that. I love that. Aside, it
shows us the danger of correlation and confusing it with causation.
Speaker 1 (42:34):
Right.
Speaker 4 (42:34):
You could also say, I mean, war is a terrible example,
but you could pick any industrial product and you could
build a timeline around it to argue whatever you want
it if you're arguing in bad faith. But here, unlike
cereal jokes here. The thing with lead is.
Speaker 3 (42:54):
That we know the science. We know it's bad.
Speaker 4 (42:58):
We also, despite our limitations and conveats, we know a
bit about what leads to serial murderers and s r
il as these do check it, please do check out
our previous episodes.
Speaker 3 (43:16):
And it's weird because.
Speaker 4 (43:17):
Since there are so many unique combinations or ways for
these various factors to combine and the creation of these monsters,
there are tons of possibilities, and not every factor is
applicable to every case. So childhood abuse is not always
a factor for a serial murderer, So let exposure may
(43:39):
not be a factor for every single documented serial killer.
And the other thing about this and we're not criticizing
or deriding this theory at all, We're just pointing out
the issues. Another big thing that we have talked about
at length on this show and other shows is the
projected decline in serial killers. Is a very strong argument
(44:03):
that the decline is not necessarily due to environmental regulation.
It might just primarily be due to the fact that
technology is way better at tracking people and stopping folks.
Law enforcement, due to the War on drugs, and due
to you know, things like nine to eleven. They have
more resources in funding than ever before, and surveillance is
(44:26):
way more sophisticated. Just like how cell phones would wreck
most episodes of Seinfeld, cell phones and mobile technology have
absolutely wrecked the plans of a lot of criminals. You're
easier to track, it's tougher to get away.
Speaker 2 (44:42):
And we're all more easily stupefied. Right, so we don't
even care about serial killing anymore. We've got things to
do on our phone.
Speaker 3 (44:50):
Gosh, yeah, darn it. I know the moon is right
and it's time for me to feed, but I've got it.
Keep scrolling Reddit.
Speaker 2 (45:01):
These YouTube videos keep coming.
Speaker 3 (45:05):
Dang it, this was the perfect night, all right, I'll
wait for this.
Speaker 2 (45:09):
What should I do? What?
Speaker 3 (45:13):
What is that?
Speaker 2 (45:14):
A new season of Top Chef? Let's go, guys.
Speaker 4 (45:18):
If it was just regular Saturday Night Live in the US,
I'd be out there doing my murderous job that the
devil gave me. However, now there's snl UK and it's
like who has the time, So.
Speaker 2 (45:34):
It's a it's weird, but I do feel like that
kind of distraction and like immersion into digital life probably
has taken some people out or out of the realm
of doing things in the in the physical yes, and
now just doing them in a digital way, and they're
(45:55):
probably just as messed up and crazy. It's just you're
not doing it to a real person in real time.
Now there's this muddled version of it that occurs, you know,
through a computer and over your internet.
Speaker 4 (46:07):
Right, And the question is, on a on a very
basic level, does your brain know the difference?
Speaker 3 (46:14):
Right?
Speaker 4 (46:14):
And that's that's an episode for another day. That's a
that's a badger that scientist as still trying to figure out.
But as an aside, you know what that reminds me of.
I've been recently replaying a video game called Boulder's Gate
and it made me think of the evolution of these
sorts of simulated realities, which is all a game ever,
(46:35):
is uh? There was something that happened with video games
far before Bolder's Gate three, which is awesome, wherein the
player got the agency to be a bad guy, and
I realized this might cause a little bit of a
shift in behavior for formative minds playing these games, Like
(46:57):
if you can choose to be the absolute evil villain
of a thing and be put in these simulated scenarios
where you do absolutely beat me here villain is then
does that affect the way you see the rest of
the world.
Speaker 3 (47:12):
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (47:13):
That's why people were so up in arms when Grand
Theft Auto three came out, Like seriously, it was such
a big deal because, at least to my experience, for
the first time, you're you are playing this role of
somebody who was just in the underworld doing anything you
want to do, and a lot of it was nefarious stuff,
mostly killing people.
Speaker 5 (47:32):
Yeah, it was a bit of a moral panic around that.
I mean, the fact, especially that it was something that
kids had access to, not to mention the larger debate
around you know, video games and violent movies.
Speaker 3 (47:44):
And heavy metal dog exactly.
Speaker 4 (47:48):
Yeah, I guess for me it's it's the question is
should we reassess that outside of the bout or the
hyperbole and reactive stuff like a moral panic, should we
re assess that as these simulated realities grow more complex,
as they grow more sophisticated and cleave ever closer to
(48:08):
the analogue world. The story for another day, humanity in
society is not ready for the technology it has created
or is creating. But I think we can acknowledge right
now that it is all things being equal, it is
tougher for criminals to get away, and it's plausible to
(48:28):
imagine that as a result, at least a few would
be serial murderers were apprehended well before their pattern escalated, because, guys,
as we know from other shows and investigations we've done
outside of stuff they don't want you to know, a
lot of times people who are serial killers were people
(48:49):
who are on the way to that kind of escalating pattern.
A lot of times when they get apprehended, it's for
something else, and then the pieces start to come together. Right,
got caught shoplifting right now, you're Leonard Lake and Charles
ng You got caught with a bad parking ticket, et cetera,
et cetera.
Speaker 2 (49:07):
Do you, guys notice that most caught serial killers aren't
very wealthy? Yes, you ever noticed that?
Speaker 3 (49:15):
And not super intelligent outside of Kemper.
Speaker 2 (49:19):
Do you wonder if maybe there are some super wealthy
serial killers out there didn't get.
Speaker 3 (49:25):
Caught because they had the cover. I think about it
all the time.
Speaker 2 (49:29):
Also got a huge property somewhere Zora ranch, Yeah, big
ass basements nobody around.
Speaker 3 (49:37):
You've also got a staff, right, or you've got a
trusted cadre you have resources and infrastructure to help you.
I think about that all the time.
Speaker 4 (49:45):
We're talking about that, and are serial killers that got away?
Speaker 3 (49:49):
Series two?
Speaker 4 (49:50):
You know, like, it's not implausible, even now in a
great surveillance state, it's not implausible for someone to say.
Speaker 3 (49:58):
What's the example used.
Speaker 4 (50:00):
I don't have to kill every time the moon is
in a certain phase. All I have to do is
travel a lot for work, and once or twice a year,
not every convention, but once or twice a year during
a convention in a big crowded city, I find a
homeless person that can happen, that probably has happened, that
(50:21):
probably is happening.
Speaker 5 (50:23):
There's a pretty excellent or you know whatever, access may
be the wrong word depiction of this in a later
season of the British TV series Luther, about like an
incredibly wealthy surgeon who is an incredibly.
Speaker 2 (50:39):
Efficient and diabological serial killer. It's two of my favorite actors.
I think that you're talking about there and all that
doctor and then interest.
Speaker 4 (50:47):
You griselba, Yeah, I got robbed? Should have been James
Bond I said it.
Speaker 3 (50:51):
Also.
Speaker 4 (50:52):
I want to point out the excellent television adaptation of Hannibal.
Do check that out. If you want to see different
and imagined varieties of serial killers, still go back to
Fraser and the thesis or the argument of tonight's episode.
We see that despite the caveats we have enumerated, this
(51:13):
theory of lead and crime is built on pretty solid science.
It is inarguable that lead has dangerous cognitive effects. That
takes us to the next point hashtag no Dennis Reynolds
think about the implication. You know, it's pretty far reaching.
If exposure to lead and other toxic chemicals really does
(51:34):
contribute to the creation of serial killers, then researchers have
another crucial data point in the toolkit to understanding more about.
Speaker 3 (51:42):
Them well, and also is an interesting thing to think about.
Speaker 5 (51:45):
As you know, things like lead have more or less
been removed at least far lessened in our environments. Is
there any coincidence that we haven't really seen any high
profile serial killers like new Onesking.
Speaker 4 (52:01):
Yeah, exactly, that's well put in. Secondly, more chilling. As
we alluded to earlier, this also indicates that there could
be other forms of environmental contamination that have similar wide
ranging effects on public health, so we might not yet
know the full intergenerational consequences of exposure to certain microplastics,
(52:24):
but speculation like this regarding lead exposure gives us a
powerful tool for imagining and detecting those effects. We started
with some good news, and we'll wrap it up with
some good news. A lot of these plants are being closed.
There are, or there were up until recently, some big
deal clean up initiatives, you know, super fun sites, stuff
(52:47):
like that. So the public good is getting back into
the narrative and back in the story. And you know,
better late than never, right said Realm.
Speaker 2 (53:00):
That's gonna say as we deregulate everything and we throw
out rules that we're supposed to prevent us from doing
certain offshore drilling, you know, to prevent the mass die
offs of more species. But that's happening right now, and
those regulations are being shredded, as as well as just
horrific other things about chemicals and the exposures we're going
(53:23):
to have in the next decade because of changes to
the laws that are happening right now. I am sorry
to be a downer again, Ben, that is good news
what you're saying. I am just I'm just seeing that
we're in the midst of another one of these things
like the nineteen.
Speaker 4 (53:41):
Seventies, and do check out our Ridiculous History episode. Check
out our series on Uncaught serial Killers. Also check out
Beyond Flint the Looming Led Crisis, which we did a
little while back and still holds up on a re listen.
We want to hear your thoughts on this, fellow conspiracy.
Is this Led serial killer theory overblown? We don't think so,
(54:05):
and I want to applaud Caroline Fraser for taking pains
to explicitly state that just as Led was not the
sole reason for the fall of Rome, it isn't the
sole factor in the creation of killers, but it does
appear to be a factor in crime. It's definitely a
huge factor in public health crises, and for decades and
(54:26):
decades that was the stuff those big corporations didn't want
you to know. We'd love to hear your thoughts. Thank
you for tuning in. Join us for upcoming episodes in
the future. In the meanwhile, you can hit us up
right now on the lines. Should thou sip the social meds,
you can give us a phone call, and you can
(54:46):
always send us an email m hmm.
Speaker 5 (54:48):
If you do find yourself on the lines, you can
reach out to us at the handles Conspiracy Stuff or
Conspiracy Stuff Show, depending on which social mead flavor is
your favorite. And there's also another way.
Speaker 2 (55:00):
Yes, you can give us a call. Our number is
one eight three three std WYTK. When you call in,
give yourself a cool nickname and let us know if
we can use your name and message on one of
our listener mail episodes you'll find in the audio feed
of this show. If you want to send us an email,
you can do that.
Speaker 4 (55:15):
We are the entities that read each piece of correspondence
we receive. Be well aware, yet unafraid. Sometimes the void
rights back. We cannot one hundred percent guarantee that you
will not be exposed to lead by participating in the conversation,
but we can one hundred percent guarantee that we will
send you a random fact, and you can send us
(55:38):
one as well, so we'll see you either a fight
club or out here in the dark. Conspiracy diheartradio dot com.
Speaker 2 (56:04):
Stuff They Don't Want You to Know is a production
of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
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From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
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production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt,
my name is Noel.
Speaker 3 (00:30):
They call me Ben.
Speaker 4 (00:31):
We're joined as always with our super producer Dylan the
Tennessee pal Fagan. Most importantly, you are you.
Speaker 3 (00:38):
You are here.
Speaker 4 (00:39):
That makes this the stuff they don't want you to
know now for all of us tuning in on Netflix,
fellow conspiracy realist, you may notice a couple of things
different in this episode. We've got some different backgrounds. I
am aware that there is a band aid on my face.
We're not going to address it.
Speaker 3 (01:00):
Passed it.
Speaker 5 (01:03):
Was who was it? There was some like dirty South
rapper Nellie Nellie? Sorry, I know it was one of
the why the why guys.
Speaker 2 (01:10):
Therefore the weekend had a bloody nose there for a while.
Speaker 3 (01:14):
That's sure.
Speaker 5 (01:15):
That was an escalation of the band aid as a
as a fashion statement. But I support you, Ben, I
hope you're okay.
Speaker 3 (01:20):
Oh man, right, thank you to get punched.
Speaker 1 (01:26):
Stop.
Speaker 2 (01:26):
Did you have some lead exposure as a kid.
Speaker 5 (01:30):
Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 4 (01:32):
I like about that segue there, Uh, band aid to
a nosebleed. We're talking about an escalation tonight. We're recording
on Monday, April sixth. It is time to get the
lead out.
Speaker 3 (01:47):
Seriously.
Speaker 4 (01:47):
Let's start with a ps A. Don't hang out with
or around lead if you can help it. It was
once a miracle substance are treated as such in the
days of old, and it eventually became linked to all
sorts of horrific stuff, even before modern science could prove
it is massively bad for you. I think today it's
(02:09):
fair for us to say that most everybody accepts the
reality of lead exposure and knows that it can lead
to a range of lifelong debilitating conditions. You know, on
our sister show, Ridiculous History, we actually teased this episode
because we entered into the raging debate about whether or
(02:31):
not lead exposure caused the fall of the Roman Empire.
Speaker 3 (02:35):
We did.
Speaker 5 (02:36):
And y'all, if you're worried about those paint chips used
to eat as a kid, as I was, but you
haven't done any serial killing yet, you're probably in the clear.
Speaker 3 (02:44):
Depending on your age. So right, yes, A healthy ya
for all of us. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (02:52):
I think in this episode where we're not getting into
like does lead make you a serial killer? Right, we're
getting into is led related in some way to serial killing?
Speaker 3 (03:02):
Yeah? Yeah, let's go awry to it.
Speaker 4 (03:04):
There's another debate at play to what we call the
leg crime hypothesis. It's one that's perhaps even more controversial.
It's the subject of tonight's investigation. Did lead exposure is
a way read the headline did lead exposure create America's
serial killer epidemic? We're going to try to keep this
one Pg. Thirteen, but no promises, so listen closely. Here
(03:32):
are the facts. All right, lead, what is it good for?
Absolutely several things to dabble?
Speaker 3 (03:39):
Do you?
Speaker 6 (03:39):
Right?
Speaker 5 (03:40):
Lead is a soft, silvery white, grayish metal number eighty
two on the periodic table. Is it peb yes, yes,
one of those weird ones. Mm hmm, yeah, I guess
what is it like?
Speaker 4 (03:51):
It's Latin yeah, plubium, So it has a low melting point.
This miss serious miracle substance. It's easy to find and
it is extremely malleable. It's also very easy to get
lead out of the ground and into a useful form.
Speaker 5 (04:11):
Right, and thus the prevalence of lead throughout history. It
was just it was like one of those miracle substances
like asbestos h yeah, yeah, or plastic as future historians
will describe our age.
Speaker 4 (04:24):
I mean, it's it's so common and humans have been
familiar with it for such a long time that lead
is even mentioned in the Bible as a reality, not
as like a metaphor.
Speaker 3 (04:35):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (04:35):
And one thing we found on that ridiculous history episode
you mentioned, Ben, is that the Romans actually even used it,
like as a flavoring agent for their wine because it
made it sweet.
Speaker 3 (04:47):
Sweet sweet lead.
Speaker 4 (04:49):
Babylonians used it to create plates that they would put
inscriptions on. The Romans, to your point, no, used it
for everything coins, water pipes for their brilliant aqueduct systems, tablets,
cooking utensils, and as you said why there were also
decorative pigment compounds derived from white lead that were used
(05:13):
as early as two hundred BCE. This has been around
for a while. By the time we get to ancient Rome,
lead is everywhere, and this is where the problem begins because,
in addition to being highly useful, lead is also cartoonishly toxic.
We don't mean toxic in like a wo woo, pseudoscience,
(05:35):
bad vibes.
Speaker 5 (05:36):
Way, we mean Britney spears kind of right, right, Yeah,
we meet it as a neurotoxic.
Speaker 4 (05:41):
If you're exposed to it, you will have serious health issues,
especially if you're exposed to it as a child during
your formative years, causing developmental delays, learning difficulties, a particular
kind of brain damage, damage to the frontal cortex that
can lead to aggression, especially in males, damage to the
(06:04):
nervous system as well.
Speaker 2 (06:05):
And with these toxic effects, it is really unfortunate that
humans decided to make a lot of pipes with lead
pipes that send things like water through them.
Speaker 5 (06:15):
Shout out Flint, Michigan, shout out to our episode Beyond Flint,
the Looming Lead Crisis.
Speaker 2 (06:20):
Well, yeah, and that is one city in the United
States that used lead pipes. Lead pipes were ubiquitous everywhere,
especially in the US and in other places where if
you were drinking water, it was probably going through lead.
Speaker 5 (06:35):
And I mean, now we have tests, you know, if
a house is going to be demolished or there's going
to be renovations or whatever, they test for things like
lead and paint. Because that was also mega mega common.
Speaker 2 (06:44):
I mean, it's so.
Speaker 5 (06:45):
Crazy that you know, we know all of this horrible
stuff now that you think we would have figured out
long before it was used in so many things in
our modern era. I mean, we're talking about this stuff
being used in the Roman Empire, Like, why didn't they
get the memo?
Speaker 2 (07:00):
Well, my only argument would be teflon the invention of
that and how great that was for so long until
we realized what the hell was happening.
Speaker 5 (07:10):
Yeah again, Ben, You're absolutely right, and that's something that's
still everywhere despite what we know about it. So kind
of answered the question. I mean, we're just not that
great at forward thinking when it comes to toxic substances.
Speaker 2 (07:23):
Well, lead pipes were making money, bait, That's what I'm saying.
Speaker 5 (07:25):
As long as they're making that money, then you know,
we'll worry about it down the line.
Speaker 4 (07:29):
And as we are going down the line to the
United States, fellow conspiracy realist, let's continue setting the scene
in Rome.
Speaker 3 (07:37):
So we posit to you.
Speaker 4 (07:39):
That there is a circular pattern here, a bit of
an ru bruce. If not a history repeating case, this
is history rhyming. The dilemma of usefulness versus public health
created what I think is fair to call an ancient
proto conspiracy. People are not dumb throughout history or there
(08:01):
I should say, people are no more smarter than they
were in ancient times. So people way back when suspected
lead was pretty bad news. Early on Romans were aware
of it. There were physicians like Dioskorides who literally wrote
lead makes the mind give way. But lead was economically vital,
(08:23):
so they minimized the downsides. They covered it up. The
Romans many other cultures that followed started reasoning that limited
lead exposure couldn't be that bad. They were thinking of
it as have a little lead as a treat. You know,
a little bit of one cigarette won't kill you. A
little bit of lead in your wine is just good party.
(08:43):
You guys, dabble, do you right?
Speaker 2 (08:45):
I wonder if there is something to that that people
in the upper echelons, the folks that were making money
off of producing lead products back then, saw the effects
of it and then realized, oh, well, if we make
sure the palaces don't have some much lead, and let's say,
the things we're using, we make sure, you know, the
churches or the places of worship, the places where the
(09:07):
elite are going to be hanging out. We won't use
the lead. But if the populace has their mind giving
way a little bit, maybe that's not such a bad thing.
Speaker 4 (09:16):
That's interesting because what we found in Ridiculous History was
that the upper echelons of the socioeconomic pyramid of ancient
Rome were actually more exposed to lead, just simply in
subtle ways that they didn't realize. They were more likely
to have indoor plumbing, they were more likely to use
(09:36):
cutlery that was lead base. They were more likely to
have the fancy wine with lead and decorative artifacts.
Speaker 5 (09:42):
But where whereas yeah, people you know might be using
pottery or riding utensils and things like that.
Speaker 4 (09:48):
But the issue here is they did not differentiate. They
thought lead exposure was one thing, when actually there are
a couple levels. The people they saw getting clearly from
lead were miners, people in smelting operations as posre Pax Murana.
Speaker 3 (10:07):
That's us. That's fine, as we'll keep it that.
Speaker 4 (10:11):
As Pax Romana kicked in and the empire had to
create more and more coins, they were smelting like on
a gad Zooke's scale.
Speaker 5 (10:20):
Well, and what better way to get that really really
serious lead exposure than just inhaling the fumes.
Speaker 2 (10:27):
You know, was lead in the coins.
Speaker 4 (10:29):
Yeah, It's used in smelting operations for silver, So they
were making silver coins and as a result of the
smelting operations, the miners were getting acute exposure to lead.
Speaker 3 (10:43):
And this was something that the wealthy could look at.
Speaker 4 (10:48):
They would look down from their socioeconomic pyramid and they
would say, oh, it's hurting the poors, but we're fine,
without understanding that the entire time lead was accumulating in
their bodies as well. There wasn't an OSHA, there wasn't
an EPA. Nobody was stopping this.
Speaker 5 (11:05):
Well, that goes back to Matt's previous question, I think too,
where they did know, The upper crust did know, but
they just thought they were safer than the folks being
directly exposed to it who were making the stuff in
the mines. But little did they know various other transmission methods,
you know, other than the fumes, you know, for actually
(11:26):
taking lead into the body.
Speaker 4 (11:28):
Yeah, and like we were saying earlier, the upper crust
was probably exposed to more lead anyway. Check out our
series on Ridiculous History. Fast forward to the Middle Ages,
lead is still huge, even though people know it's a problem.
Lead is massive in alchemy, which leads to chemistry. Leaded
type is a huge engine in the emergence of mass printing.
(11:50):
You got the Borgias and the Medici's of the Renaissance.
They loved lead as an effective poison. Actually, we found
in our research that the frame bench had a street
name for lead.
Speaker 5 (12:02):
Oh yeah, Benny talking about Poudre de la soon succession powder.
Speaker 3 (12:08):
Right, Yeah, that's funny.
Speaker 2 (12:10):
But dark leaders kill the person that's that's inconvenient for
your particular version of politics.
Speaker 3 (12:19):
Right, and this is.
Speaker 4 (12:20):
Versatile in its applications led and again and again. This
is the argument we're making in this episode. Throughout history,
different civilizations have made the same devil's bargain, industrial progress
at an astonishing level at the price of public health.
The American colonies, the United States, they were no different.
(12:41):
Now we're getting closer to the modern day. If you
go to Jack Lewis, who was writing for the epa
way back in the nineteen eighties, you'll see that lead
mining and smelting started in the American colonies. As soon
as the first colonists settled. People were mining and forging
lead by sixteen twenty one in Virginia. The lead industry
(13:04):
in the United States predates the United States. That's pretty
trippy to think about.
Speaker 2 (13:10):
We needed things to work the land. Why not have
your leaden tools. They'll do you right until they do
your own.
Speaker 5 (13:18):
Not to mention our leaded gasolines, which we will all
knock knock.
Speaker 3 (13:23):
Yeah, shout out to oh.
Speaker 4 (13:25):
I forgot the inventor's name, but yeah, he ruined a
lot of stuff accidentally, and he died by one of
his other inventions. Thomas Midgeley Junior, that's his name, the
guy who made a lead a lead product that would
prevent knocking in automotive engines.
Speaker 3 (13:44):
He died.
Speaker 4 (13:46):
This is such an aside, but folks, he died when
he invented a rope pulleye system to help him get
out of bed, and he got caught in it.
Speaker 5 (13:56):
It was like a horrible mishap, you know, literally, invention's
gone wild.
Speaker 3 (14:02):
What a mouse trap? Way to go? And then Goldberg guest, yes.
Speaker 2 (14:06):
Just so.
Speaker 4 (14:07):
And by the early twentieth centuries, now we're in the
nineteen hundreds, the United States has becolled the world's leading
producer and consumer of refined lead. Uncle Samuel loves his stuff.
Speaker 3 (14:21):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (14:22):
Yeah, not only am I president, I'm also a client.
By nineteen eighty, the US was using one point three
million tons of lead every year. That was an estimated
forty percent of the entire world's supply. And we don't
have to get into the weeds too much, but if
you do a little bit of cocktail math, what you'll
(14:44):
see is this equates to a usage rate of over
five thousand grams of lead per American per year. That
is a rate almost ten times that of ancient Rome.
And as we're recording right now, the effects are still
with this country. Over one hundred and seventy million people
alive today are estimated to have been exposed to dangerously
(15:08):
high lead levels in early childhood.
Speaker 2 (15:11):
Well, yeah, let's talk about one of the primary things.
Lead was used in toys. Lead toys were a big
deal because it was so malleable. You could just make
these easily produced, cheaply produced lead products that came out
as toys.
Speaker 5 (15:27):
We're talking about little figurines, little windup guys and stuff
like that. Like maybe what would have been used ten
might have been used for but this is cheaper than
ten and much more available and.
Speaker 2 (15:38):
You know, we're talking about the difference between having lead
products versus ceramics or pottery and that kind of thing.
The US decided, let's cover the the ceramics in this
lead glaze stuff, so you're eating out of it.
Speaker 5 (15:53):
One thing that lead is still used for today is
in sowder, you know, And a dear friend of mine
who is a stained glass artist uses lead sowder because
it is apparently the most malleable and the best version
of that product that you can use. And so you
do have to be very very careful when you're handling
that stuff, and definitely don't lick your stained glass windows.
Speaker 4 (16:16):
I remember, I remember your friend Thal and I remember
having fascinating conversations about the art of stained glass, and
the lead thing was a.
Speaker 3 (16:25):
Surprise to me as well.
Speaker 4 (16:27):
No, we do have good news for anybody who's feeling
a bit of a bummer about their childhood nostalgia. You know,
I particularly remember toys that smelled awesome, But they smelled
awesome because they were VOCs volatile organic compounds and also
hot plastic exposed to heat off, gassing. All that, all
(16:50):
the good stuff, all the slow jazz.
Speaker 6 (16:52):
Dude, even going fishing, the little sinkers they used to
use for fishing, was so cheap to make them out
of lead. All right, Yeah, so you're just going out there,
just setting your line and everything and.
Speaker 2 (17:04):
Then just playing with lead, and then every time you
open up your tackle box, just lead in there is.
Speaker 4 (17:12):
And the good news is because we want to have
some good news at the top. Eventually Uncle Sam gets
his stuff together and passes wide ranging regulations to lessen
lead exposure, and today everybody acknowledges that lead exposure, especially
in childhood, connects to serious cognitive hazards lower IQ, aggression, psychopathy.
Speaker 3 (17:37):
And so on.
Speaker 4 (17:38):
There's a great interview we'll get to a little bit
later from a place called The Grist, where they point
out that in kids, specifically in human children, lead can
lead to behavior that's been described as cruel, impulsive, or
crazy like. It's also been linked to a loss in
brain volume as someone becomes an adult, particularly in men.
(18:02):
But these realizations that Uncle Sam finally acknowledges, because they
knew about it for decades. When they finally acknowledge it,
it comes far after reparable intergenerational damage has already occurred.
That takes us to tonight's theory. It's tough to Just
(18:22):
like antient rome, it's tough to figure out the exact
moments this kind of exposure manifest in a given society
or civilization. Because there's so many people in communities evolved,
it's even more difficult to figure out the ramifications. But
just last year twenty twenty five, a Pulitzer Prize winning
(18:44):
author named Caroline Fraser rocked the world when she claimed
that widespread lead poisoning in the United States didn't just
cause medical issues. She asked, what if all the leaded gas,
and the smelting plants and all these other vectors weren't
just making industry possible. What if led exposure also created
(19:06):
serial killers.
Speaker 3 (19:12):
Here's where it gets crazy.
Speaker 4 (19:15):
It sounds nuts, right, but I think we can agree
after we've all looked into this, there is some persuasive
sand to this argument. Again, people in the ancient past
biologically identical to people of the modern day, minus the microplastics.
No population has at this point evolved any sort of
immunity to the effects of lead poisoning. So the gist
(19:39):
of the theory is, what if notorious serial killers who
spent time in areas of contamination, specifically the Pacific Northwest
were made into killers because of environmental contamination. That's what
Fraser is writing about in her book Murderland and Bloodlust
(20:01):
in the Time of serial Killers.
Speaker 5 (20:02):
Because we certainly do, at least to my memory, have
a concentration of these high profile serial killer cases in
that region.
Speaker 3 (20:11):
Oh one hundred percent.
Speaker 2 (20:12):
Well.
Speaker 4 (20:12):
Yeah, the book, which is a must read, by the way,
check it out, folks. The book focuses a lot or
spends a lot of time on the serial murderer Ted Bundy.
But Bundy, to your point, there was one of at
least like six or more serial killers active in Washington
in nineteen seventy four alone. Also in nineteen seventy four,
(20:37):
Washington's murder rate rose by thirty percent. That's more than
thrice the rate of the rest of the country.
Speaker 3 (20:44):
Something was happening.
Speaker 5 (20:45):
Yeah, And Fraser takes a scientific approach to this concept
and really digs deep, and she found a pattern through
her research, a pattern showing that a lot of the
folks who later became serial killers grew up near these
toxic plumes that were generated by industrial operations. We are
specifically talking about these substances sulfur dioxide, arsenic and daint
(21:10):
ding dang lead emanating from the smoke stacks of smelting factories,
specifically one in Rustin outside of Tacoma there in Washington State.
Speaker 4 (21:21):
Let, which is part of why locals in the area
at the time had a phrase describing the smell. They
called it the aroma of Tacoma.
Speaker 2 (21:32):
That's cut.
Speaker 5 (21:33):
That's good branding. Maybe not for the best you know, product,
but yeah.
Speaker 2 (21:36):
There's an aroma of like the coming Georgia area and
some of these northern towns just paper mills just north well, no,
it wasn't paper mills, plant farms there you go, chicken processingham,
shaking farms, excrement, and then the blood and inns and
all the nastiness of all those Yeah, paper mills smell.
Speaker 4 (21:56):
Yeah, you go south of Atlanta, you'll also run into
dog food factories, which have a very particular smell that
insists upon itself.
Speaker 2 (22:07):
The travel through the Midwest, and it's just Kalman Kalman.
Speaker 4 (22:12):
I don't think kalmanure smells that bad. That quote's going
to be fraying out of context.
Speaker 3 (22:17):
Yeah right, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, put that on the book.
Speaker 4 (22:20):
Jack April twenty six, kalmaneure I don't think it smells
that bad.
Speaker 2 (22:25):
I don't know what you're all talking about.
Speaker 3 (22:26):
Okay, horse maneure. Not all manure is terrible anyway. Uh
there is a oh.
Speaker 4 (22:33):
We should do an episode on fertilizer too, anyway. Uh
there is a yeah, yes, sir, there it's hot. There
is a smelting company a particular interest to Fraser in
this book. It is called the American Smelting and Refining Company,
or a SARCO for short sa r COO. Shout out
(22:55):
to the google.
Speaker 3 (22:56):
Heims, the Guggenheim, Guggenheims. Yeah, the gougendtheim Gougendtheims.
Speaker 4 (23:00):
This is part of how they made so much money.
They acquired a SARCO or controlling shares of it. So
going back to the point we made at the top
about the profit motive, right, this devilish bargain. We know
that in nineteen seventy four the officials kind of the
(23:22):
c suite of a sarco's Bunker Hill smelter over in Kellogg, Idaho,
they did a little bit of a calculation internally and
they said, Okay, if we accidentally, not on purpose, somehow
poisons say five hundred children with lead, then we will
(23:43):
have a legal liability of six to seven million dollars.
Speaker 5 (23:48):
This reminds me of the calculation that Edward Norton's character
makes and Fight Club when he's talking about like if
X and Y add up to something is more than
the price of a recall, like talking about people literally
getting burned alive in you know, automotive accidents, then we
don't do a recall, right, cost of doing business.
Speaker 2 (24:06):
So if they're legal liabilities six to seven million, how
much are they going to make?
Speaker 4 (24:10):
That's the pickle of it, right, that's the badger in
the bag, because the other side of the equation is
they said, if we increase lead production, we're going to
make ten to eleven million dollars. So in nineteen seventy four,
money when a million was way more impressive than it
is now. So they definitely had the same profit motive
(24:32):
as the plutocrats of ancient Rome. These are the modern plutocrats,
the modern oligarchs. Arguably. At the same year, though, guys, folks,
friends and neighbors. The same year, researchers found that that
rust and smelter you mentioned earlier, NOL was pumping twenty
(24:53):
five pounds of lead dust and fifty eight pounds of
arsenic into the air every single so times that by
twenty four times that, by all the days in the year, Well,
that's a lot of lead. Might say it's too much
lead because it's in the air another devil's bargain.
Speaker 2 (25:12):
Still sitting here wondering about that. Yeah, I'm I'm thinking
about what that equates to in parts per billion or something.
You know, when we think about stuff that gets dumped
into the ocean, and then you know, even environmental regulators
are like, oh, it's only like zero point oh four
parts per billion, or it's only one hundred and fifty
parts per billion, so it's not a big deal. Just
(25:35):
what that equates to, and then how much that can
actually affect a human being and even the animals in
the surrounding area.
Speaker 5 (25:42):
Guys, I'm so sorry, I got a phone call about
a doctor's appointment thing. But are we talking about like
allowable limits like as they exist today, Like is there.
Speaker 3 (25:50):
An easy and cereal That's what I'm saying.
Speaker 5 (25:52):
Yeah, I gotta wonder because we certainly know and talking
about this, that no amount of lead exposure is quote
unquote good, but it being such a part of our
history and existing, you know, and as part of infrastructure
and old things, there must be some official record or
number that we are okay with.
Speaker 4 (26:12):
It has shifted over time, and thankfully it is usually
trended downward. So scientists and researchers who don't get bought
out by the conspiracy inevitably come back and say, at
previous levels a little too high, it's a little too
much lead. But here's why we're mentioning conspiracies because Fraser
(26:34):
in her book, along with other researchers, they have discovered
what does appear to be a series of very genuine
industrial conspiracies. Time and time again, big companies and corporations
practice regulatory capture. They downplay, they explain away, they rationalize,
(26:54):
or they street cover up the environmental consequences of lead
in the environment. And of course, you know see United States,
we're to roll the dice nation. Public health cover ups
are nothing new and they're not uncommon. Shout out to
his bestos, as we said earlier. But the question then becomes,
is it a bit of a leap cognitively to go
(27:18):
from industrial conspiracy to a serial killer Golden age? I'd
say to understand that connection, we have to explore more
of the science, and we have to look at the
patterns that Fraser herself discovered. And to be clear, Fraser
is not arguing that LED exposure alone creates serial killers.
(27:39):
She explicitly says she is not equating correlation to causation,
but she is saying there may be a link.
Speaker 2 (27:48):
Yeah, Because one thing we've learned through all these true
crime shows we've done over the years is that each
one of these especially highly notable serial killers that have
been studied have a very specific set of societal circumstances.
You know, not just chemicals that they're exposed to or
anything like that. We know that family stuff, stuff they
(28:09):
went through as children especially, ends up working heavily into
the things that they end up being into. They like
that really nasty stuff. So it must be some combination, right.
Speaker 4 (28:21):
If we go to the author herself, she sums it
up this way, so we'll share a bit of her writing.
Recipes for making a serial killer may vary, including such
ingredients as poverty, crude forceps, deliveries, poor diet, physical and
sexual abuse, brain damage, and neglect. Many horrors play a
role in warping these tortured souls. But what happens if
(28:45):
we had a light dusting from the periodic table on
top of all that.
Speaker 5 (28:49):
Trauma, just a sprinkle, just a little topper, just a
little top as a tree.
Speaker 2 (28:54):
Well, the thought here then is that that would cause
brain trauma. And we know down the lad line that
having what is it chronic encephalopathy and some of these ctees,
some of these other things can lead to changes in
impulse control and some of the things that we associate
with serial killers and activity of just losing it and
(29:17):
killing somebody, or even having the ability, you know, in
mentally to just take somebody out like that rather than
consider all of the consequences and you know that another
human is alive. Mm hmm. I can imagine those four steps,
being as crude as that method was, could lead to
a brain a version of brain damage that could lead
to that kind of thing.
Speaker 4 (29:38):
Yeah, traumatic brain injury. If you want to, if you
want an extreme case of how messing with the brain
can alter personality, look no further than the real life
parable of Phineas Gage.
Speaker 3 (29:52):
Remember that guy.
Speaker 5 (29:53):
As the guy that got the spike through the head
right m.
Speaker 4 (29:55):
Hm, complete and survived and it completely changed him as
a person. We also know there are many cases documented
proven of children who received traumatic brain injuries during a
formative period and later became serial murderers. So the forceps
can cause brain damage, but also multiple other knocks to
(30:18):
the head can create the same effects. What we're saying is,
and I love this point, there are so many other
factors at play. So Fraser is not saying that lead
is the only thing that matters. Fraser is pointing out
that it should be a factor in the conversation.
Speaker 2 (30:37):
What are we saying or what does the author say
the lead exposure? Like, what effect does it have if
it was just another contributing factor?
Speaker 3 (30:46):
Right?
Speaker 4 (30:46):
Again, it would go back to the proven science that
we have regarding lead exposure and children in general and
human children in general, specifically the prefrontal cortex damage, and
also a strong link between crime in general and lead.
This is something we can't wait to introduce to you folks.
(31:07):
As a matter of fact, why don't we expose everybody
to some ads and then get into it. We're back,
all right, We're gonna get into this deeper, all right,
murder Land. The book mainly focuses on events in Washington State. Now,
(31:27):
we do know that Fraser grew up in the area
near Tacoma. But that is not This is not an
author making a thing about themselves. This is a very
well researched book. She looks at the Washington Department of
a Cology's map of lead and arsenic contamination, and there
she sees four plumes, the fallout from the Tacoma smelter
(31:51):
we mentioned earlier, another smelter plume in Everett, these orchard
lands in central Washington, they weren't smelt operations, but all
those orchards were sprayed with lead arsenate or arsenate as
a pesticide. And then the fourth wind that she focuses
on is an isolated cleanup site on the Upper Columbia River.
Speaker 2 (32:16):
Interesting, so we're saying, like with that, with the orchard area,
pesticize or sprayed on, let's say those apples whatever they're
you know, creating their growing there. Then people consumed those
in the surrounding area. Possibly I think she was groundwater continuely, Yeah,
I think she's more talking about lead's tremendous ability to
leach into things and the people who lived around the orchard,
(32:40):
would you know, because pesticide knows no fence, right, it
knows no real borders, so it drifted around the surrounding area.
She also, okay, so she's got these fore plumes, and
then she says, all of these areas quote hosted the
activities of one or more cereal assaulters or murderers. And
(33:00):
this is where we get to things like the Pacific
Northwest Cluster. She talks about Bundy and Gary Ridgeway. Both
of these guys grew up in or around Washington State,
which was heavily polluted by that smelter and Ta Coma
at the time. But then to what we're talking about.
She looks at all possible vectors of lead exposure and
(33:22):
she sees people like Richard Ramirez or i should say
monsters like Ramirez the Nights Talker. He grew up next
to a smoke stack also from Asarco in El Paso, Texas.
Or David Berkowitz. To know your point about paint chips,
this guy lived at a house with peeling lead paint.
You don't have to eat the chips. Spoiler, folks, if
(33:45):
the lead paint is peeling, you're still getting your lead.
Speaker 3 (33:48):
Man.
Speaker 2 (33:49):
Yeah, it's really interesting. I'm just I'm imagining how many
people didn't become serial killers that were directly exposed to
these smoke stacks and stuff.
Speaker 5 (33:58):
That's the interesting part, right is this core? Is this
causation or is this just kind of correlate. I don't know,
like it's we're gonna get to that. I mean, this
is definitely something that you know, the the research here considered, right.
Speaker 2 (34:14):
Well, for sure, it's feeling more like some kind of
I don't know, you know, not a full on reason
for it to occur, But like that, I'm trying to imagine,
like a key, if you've experienced some of these other things,
especially as a child, that would lead towards serial killing,
then you've also got this one little extra piece that
just fits perfectly in there to help you along the way.
Speaker 4 (34:33):
I favor that comparison. I also like to think of
it similar to asking what makes a car?
Speaker 3 (34:40):
You know what I mean?
Speaker 4 (34:41):
You can't say that tires are the reason cars exist,
But you can't say that steering wheels, or headlights or
even an engine alone makes a car. So it's a
combination of factors, you know. And Freezer is also quick
to point out that this speculation is not arriving out
(35:02):
of the blue like our Palell Zoe was saying about
different NLP techniques. It's not a story of a sudden
revelation with somebody walking by the beach and thinking, why
do my eyes move that way? Instead, this is a
natural extension of something called the lead crime hypothesis. If
you're a longtime listener of conspiracy stuff, then you have
(35:22):
probably heard this idea before. It's the suggestion that widespread
environmental lead exposure, particularly in the United States from let
a gas, caused a surge in violent crime and crime
rates later declined as lead was phased out. So imagine
(35:44):
increased lead exposure from the nineteen forties to the nineteen seventies,
when everybody was still really hot about lead. Imagine if
you did a timeline, which these researchers have, and you
looked at how people exposed to lead in childhood, how
they behaved when they grew up. And these researchers have
(36:04):
found a sharp rise in violent crime and murder rates
in the nineteen seventies, the eighties, and early nineteen nineties,
because again Uncle Sam didn't start getting the lead out
of the gas until nineteen seventy five, and that process
was only finalized in the mid nineteen nineties. History is
(36:25):
so much closer than it looks in the rear view mirror.
Speaker 2 (36:28):
I blame Nixon and Reaganomics, but you know, I guess
it could be lead.
Speaker 3 (36:31):
Yeh.
Speaker 4 (36:34):
I thought you were saying you blamed them for taking
the lead out of gas.
Speaker 3 (36:38):
Sorry. Man, the party got so much labor.
Speaker 5 (36:40):
I mean it made it taste so much better.
Speaker 3 (36:43):
That's rue, right, could.
Speaker 2 (36:44):
Blame them for the crime wave because they made things
so terrible for lower class human beings.
Speaker 4 (36:50):
It's cool there's a drug there's a war on drugs, right,
and we can militarize the police.
Speaker 3 (36:55):
I mean that didn't poll well.
Speaker 4 (36:58):
We didn't pull well, which was a to me too, nol.
I mean we we saw lower blood levels in children
as these regulations kicked in, and we also saw two
decades later a significant drop in crime rates. So causation,
I don't know. Correlation definitely, it seems like a very
(37:21):
if not conclusive. It seems like a very meaty red string.
You know that's a weird phrase out.
Speaker 2 (37:29):
Yeah, yeah, it does like line up with just these
periods of deregulation and corporate interests become the most powerful
and important thing, you know, in Congress and the EPA
kind of takes a back seat when we go through
these waves that we're going through right now, like heavy
(37:50):
right now, and we're gonna have these crazy health effects
because it makes more sense for the company, like we
talked about in the very first segment of this, the
company that's they're only going to make what three to
five million dollars more than they have to pay and
they know that.
Speaker 5 (38:06):
Well, and that de regislation to do it, combined with
lack of access to good healthcare, really does make it
a tax on the poor in terms of like the
health effects and very similar to what we were talking
about back in the Roman Empire. And how how crazy
it is This lad stuck around for so long because
the calculation was about allowable limits that would mainly affect
(38:28):
people of less means.
Speaker 4 (38:30):
Yeah, an attack and attacks at the same time. This
we also should mention this theory so far is largely
focusing on the United States. It's a very United States
thing to do, but data from multiple other countries appears
to indicate a similar relationship between led consumption and violent crimes.
(38:53):
So really, Frasier and other proponents are proposing an addendum
to this long standing concept and they're focusing on a
specific genre of crime. It's chilling in its plausibility. It's
also we have to be fair. It's not to say
there are not some issues with the theory, and these
(39:13):
are issues we should acknowledge.
Speaker 3 (39:16):
Guys.
Speaker 4 (39:16):
The main one that always makes me sound like a
broken record is the great pickle of any investigation, of
research or study of serial killers. We only know the
ones who get caught right.
Speaker 2 (39:31):
Right, True, we have no idea where the Zodiac grew up,
and maybe he was in Tacoma and then just moved
to San Francisco later.
Speaker 5 (39:38):
On, but still, I mean regional. It definitely was in
the zone.
Speaker 4 (39:42):
We also know that our sample size therefore is limited.
As a result, it's possibly not as accurate as we
would like to think. I mean, they're definitely serial killers
who got away. Check out our three episodes series on that. Secondly,
you know the Freezer, by necessity is focusing on specific
(40:03):
regions and specific murderers all in the US, not every
documented serial killer case across the planet. That's I think
that is more than reasonable. But we also have to
have some space here and acknowledge that further research across
larger data sets might uncover other factors or other variables.
Speaker 3 (40:25):
So it's quite possible.
Speaker 4 (40:27):
That there is some other environmental contaminant that could twist
your brain and put you on the path towards serial murder,
and it just hasn't been researched the same way that
lead was, maybe because it's not as ubiquitous.
Speaker 2 (40:41):
What if it's putting raisins in your brand cereal?
Speaker 5 (40:44):
Stop it, don't even get me started out there.
Speaker 2 (40:48):
But let's see if there's a correlation.
Speaker 4 (40:50):
Let's see, well, I mean, raisin brand number one, cereal
number one, breakfast, breakfast treat for serial killers.
Speaker 2 (41:00):
Also, it's still my favorite.
Speaker 5 (41:01):
It's too hard, but the ridiculous history episode and a
lot of the research around the Roman Empire collapsed. At
the end of the day, it was just another factor.
But it wasn't like the only factor. You know, there
were a lot of other elements at play, as there
are in human developments. You know, there's nature, there's nurture,
there's so many things. It's difficult to blame lead entirely
(41:23):
on the quote unquote serial killer epidemic.
Speaker 4 (41:25):
That being said, we did have a lot of fun
speculating that that room fell because the leaders were exposed
to more lead than the public, and they were getting
dumber and dumber and dumber every generation as a result.
So eventually no one was at the wheel or no
one qualified.
Speaker 2 (41:45):
Guys, that's graze. Nineteen twenty five, Skinner's manufacturing company starts
Raisin brand. It isn't until the nineteen forties that Kellogg's
gets in the game with their raisin brand. Kids grown
up in the nineteen forties, because talking about like nineteen seventies,
right with the serial killers, like thirty years old after
(42:05):
starting to eat raisin bran as a kid.
Speaker 5 (42:08):
I think it's more rape nuts issue, Matt. I think
it's more of a grape nuts issue.
Speaker 3 (42:12):
I do think that that's We're not kidding Kellogg's.
Speaker 4 (42:16):
We know what you do, and you do too, kellogg
you know, so we also we look. I gotta pause
there because I love that. I love that. Aside, it
shows us the danger of correlation and confusing it with causation.
Speaker 1 (42:34):
Right.
Speaker 4 (42:34):
You could also say, I mean, war is a terrible example,
but you could pick any industrial product and you could
build a timeline around it to argue whatever you want
it if you're arguing in bad faith. But here, unlike
cereal jokes here. The thing with lead is.
Speaker 3 (42:54):
That we know the science. We know it's bad.
Speaker 4 (42:58):
We also, despite our limitations and conveats, we know a
bit about what leads to serial murderers and s r
il as these do check it, please do check out
our previous episodes.
Speaker 3 (43:16):
And it's weird because.
Speaker 4 (43:17):
Since there are so many unique combinations or ways for
these various factors to combine and the creation of these monsters,
there are tons of possibilities, and not every factor is
applicable to every case. So childhood abuse is not always
a factor for a serial murderer, So let exposure may
(43:39):
not be a factor for every single documented serial killer.
And the other thing about this and we're not criticizing
or deriding this theory at all, We're just pointing out
the issues. Another big thing that we have talked about
at length on this show and other shows is the
projected decline in serial killers. Is a very strong argument
(44:03):
that the decline is not necessarily due to environmental regulation.
It might just primarily be due to the fact that
technology is way better at tracking people and stopping folks.
Law enforcement, due to the War on drugs, and due
to you know, things like nine to eleven. They have
more resources in funding than ever before, and surveillance is
(44:26):
way more sophisticated. Just like how cell phones would wreck
most episodes of Seinfeld, cell phones and mobile technology have
absolutely wrecked the plans of a lot of criminals. You're
easier to track, it's tougher to get away.
Speaker 2 (44:42):
And we're all more easily stupefied. Right, so we don't
even care about serial killing anymore. We've got things to
do on our phone.
Speaker 3 (44:50):
Gosh, yeah, darn it. I know the moon is right
and it's time for me to feed, but I've got it.
Keep scrolling Reddit.
Speaker 2 (45:01):
These YouTube videos keep coming.
Speaker 3 (45:05):
Dang it, this was the perfect night, all right, I'll
wait for this.
Speaker 2 (45:09):
What should I do? What?
Speaker 3 (45:13):
What is that?
Speaker 2 (45:14):
A new season of Top Chef? Let's go, guys.
Speaker 4 (45:18):
If it was just regular Saturday Night Live in the US,
I'd be out there doing my murderous job that the
devil gave me. However, now there's snl UK and it's
like who has the time, So.
Speaker 2 (45:34):
It's a it's weird, but I do feel like that
kind of distraction and like immersion into digital life probably
has taken some people out or out of the realm
of doing things in the in the physical yes, and
now just doing them in a digital way, and they're
(45:55):
probably just as messed up and crazy. It's just you're
not doing it to a real person in real time.
Now there's this muddled version of it that occurs, you know,
through a computer and over your internet.
Speaker 4 (46:07):
Right, And the question is, on a on a very
basic level, does your brain know the difference?
Speaker 3 (46:14):
Right?
Speaker 4 (46:14):
And that's that's an episode for another day. That's a
that's a badger that scientist as still trying to figure out.
But as an aside, you know what that reminds me of.
I've been recently replaying a video game called Boulder's Gate
and it made me think of the evolution of these
sorts of simulated realities, which is all a game ever,
(46:35):
is uh? There was something that happened with video games
far before Bolder's Gate three, which is awesome, wherein the
player got the agency to be a bad guy, and
I realized this might cause a little bit of a
shift in behavior for formative minds playing these games, Like
(46:57):
if you can choose to be the absolute evil villain
of a thing and be put in these simulated scenarios
where you do absolutely beat me here villain is then
does that affect the way you see the rest of
the world.
Speaker 3 (47:12):
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (47:13):
That's why people were so up in arms when Grand
Theft Auto three came out, Like seriously, it was such
a big deal because, at least to my experience, for
the first time, you're you are playing this role of
somebody who was just in the underworld doing anything you
want to do, and a lot of it was nefarious stuff,
mostly killing people.
Speaker 5 (47:32):
Yeah, it was a bit of a moral panic around that.
I mean, the fact, especially that it was something that
kids had access to, not to mention the larger debate
around you know, video games and violent movies.
Speaker 3 (47:44):
And heavy metal dog exactly.
Speaker 4 (47:48):
Yeah, I guess for me it's it's the question is
should we reassess that outside of the bout or the
hyperbole and reactive stuff like a moral panic, should we
re assess that as these simulated realities grow more complex,
as they grow more sophisticated and cleave ever closer to
(48:08):
the analogue world. The story for another day, humanity in
society is not ready for the technology it has created
or is creating. But I think we can acknowledge right
now that it is all things being equal, it is
tougher for criminals to get away, and it's plausible to
(48:28):
imagine that as a result, at least a few would
be serial murderers were apprehended well before their pattern escalated, because, guys,
as we know from other shows and investigations we've done
outside of stuff they don't want you to know, a
lot of times people who are serial killers were people
(48:49):
who are on the way to that kind of escalating pattern.
A lot of times when they get apprehended, it's for
something else, and then the pieces start to come together. Right,
got caught shoplifting right now, you're Leonard Lake and Charles
ng You got caught with a bad parking ticket, et cetera,
et cetera.
Speaker 2 (49:07):
Do you, guys notice that most caught serial killers aren't
very wealthy? Yes, you ever noticed that?
Speaker 3 (49:15):
And not super intelligent outside of Kemper.
Speaker 2 (49:19):
Do you wonder if maybe there are some super wealthy
serial killers out there didn't get.
Speaker 3 (49:25):
Caught because they had the cover. I think about it
all the time.
Speaker 2 (49:29):
Also got a huge property somewhere Zora ranch, Yeah, big
ass basements nobody around.
Speaker 3 (49:37):
You've also got a staff, right, or you've got a
trusted cadre you have resources and infrastructure to help you.
I think about that all the time.
Speaker 4 (49:45):
We're talking about that, and are serial killers that got away?
Speaker 3 (49:49):
Series two?
Speaker 4 (49:50):
You know, like, it's not implausible, even now in a
great surveillance state, it's not implausible for someone to say.
Speaker 3 (49:58):
What's the example used.
Speaker 4 (50:00):
I don't have to kill every time the moon is
in a certain phase. All I have to do is
travel a lot for work, and once or twice a year,
not every convention, but once or twice a year during
a convention in a big crowded city, I find a
homeless person that can happen, that probably has happened, that
(50:21):
probably is happening.
Speaker 5 (50:23):
There's a pretty excellent or you know whatever, access may
be the wrong word depiction of this in a later
season of the British TV series Luther, about like an
incredibly wealthy surgeon who is an incredibly.
Speaker 2 (50:39):
Efficient and diabological serial killer. It's two of my favorite actors.
I think that you're talking about there and all that
doctor and then interest.
Speaker 4 (50:47):
You griselba, Yeah, I got robbed? Should have been James
Bond I said it.
Speaker 3 (50:51):
Also.
Speaker 4 (50:52):
I want to point out the excellent television adaptation of Hannibal.
Do check that out. If you want to see different
and imagined varieties of serial killers, still go back to
Fraser and the thesis or the argument of tonight's episode.
We see that despite the caveats we have enumerated, this
(51:13):
theory of lead and crime is built on pretty solid science.
It is inarguable that lead has dangerous cognitive effects. That
takes us to the next point hashtag no Dennis Reynolds
think about the implication. You know, it's pretty far reaching.
If exposure to lead and other toxic chemicals really does
(51:34):
contribute to the creation of serial killers, then researchers have
another crucial data point in the toolkit to understanding more about.
Speaker 3 (51:42):
Them well, and also is an interesting thing to think about.
Speaker 5 (51:45):
As you know, things like lead have more or less
been removed at least far lessened in our environments. Is
there any coincidence that we haven't really seen any high
profile serial killers like new Onesking.
Speaker 4 (52:01):
Yeah, exactly, that's well put in. Secondly, more chilling. As
we alluded to earlier, this also indicates that there could
be other forms of environmental contamination that have similar wide
ranging effects on public health, so we might not yet
know the full intergenerational consequences of exposure to certain microplastics,
(52:24):
but speculation like this regarding lead exposure gives us a
powerful tool for imagining and detecting those effects. We started
with some good news, and we'll wrap it up with
some good news. A lot of these plants are being closed.
There are, or there were up until recently, some big
deal clean up initiatives, you know, super fun sites, stuff
(52:47):
like that. So the public good is getting back into
the narrative and back in the story. And you know,
better late than never, right said Realm.
Speaker 2 (53:00):
That's gonna say as we deregulate everything and we throw
out rules that we're supposed to prevent us from doing
certain offshore drilling, you know, to prevent the mass die
offs of more species. But that's happening right now, and
those regulations are being shredded, as as well as just
horrific other things about chemicals and the exposures we're going
(53:23):
to have in the next decade because of changes to
the laws that are happening right now. I am sorry
to be a downer again, Ben, that is good news
what you're saying. I am just I'm just seeing that
we're in the midst of another one of these things
like the nineteen.
Speaker 4 (53:41):
Seventies, and do check out our Ridiculous History episode. Check
out our series on Uncaught serial Killers. Also check out
Beyond Flint the Looming Led Crisis, which we did a
little while back and still holds up on a re listen.
We want to hear your thoughts on this, fellow conspiracy.
Is this Led serial killer theory overblown? We don't think so,
(54:05):
and I want to applaud Caroline Fraser for taking pains
to explicitly state that just as Led was not the
sole reason for the fall of Rome, it isn't the
sole factor in the creation of killers, but it does
appear to be a factor in crime. It's definitely a
huge factor in public health crises, and for decades and
(54:26):
decades that was the stuff those big corporations didn't want
you to know. We'd love to hear your thoughts. Thank
you for tuning in. Join us for upcoming episodes in
the future. In the meanwhile, you can hit us up
right now on the lines. Should thou sip the social meds,
you can give us a phone call, and you can
(54:46):
always send us an email m hmm.
Speaker 5 (54:48):
If you do find yourself on the lines, you can
reach out to us at the handles Conspiracy Stuff or
Conspiracy Stuff Show, depending on which social mead flavor is
your favorite. And there's also another way.
Speaker 2 (55:00):
Yes, you can give us a call. Our number is
one eight three three std WYTK. When you call in,
give yourself a cool nickname and let us know if
we can use your name and message on one of
our listener mail episodes you'll find in the audio feed
of this show. If you want to send us an email,
you can do that.
Speaker 4 (55:15):
We are the entities that read each piece of correspondence
we receive. Be well aware, yet unafraid. Sometimes the void
rights back. We cannot one hundred percent guarantee that you
will not be exposed to lead by participating in the conversation,
but we can one hundred percent guarantee that we will
send you a random fact, and you can send us
(55:38):
one as well, so we'll see you either a fight
club or out here in the dark. Conspiracy diheartradio dot com.
Speaker 2 (56:04):
Stuff They Don't Want You to Know is a production
of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
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