July 16, 2025 • 38 mins
Detective Vince Velazquez is a retired Atlanta Police Department homicide investigator with more than 20 years of service. He spent 16 of those years in APD’s elite Homicide Unit, where he helped bring closure to hundreds of families. He’s also the real-life inspiration behind the hit true crime series ATL Homicide. Today, Vince is a speaker, mentor, and advocate for justice who continues to teach, investigate, and fight for victims.
Follow Vince Velazquez on Instagram: @vincevelazquez and don’t miss The Murder Mind Show—Vince’s newest true crime series—premiering July 21st at 6:00 PM ET on YouTube.
👉 Subscribe now: The Murder Mind Show
In this episode of Zone 7, CSI Sheryl McCollum welcomes one of her favorite people on the planet—retired APD Homicide Detective Vince Velazquez. Known for his signature blend of grit, empathy, and straight talk, Vince opens up about what it takes to earn trust on the streets, the lessons from his early jobs (butcher shop included), and the real-life experiences behind ATL Homicide. He and Sheryl dig into long-term cases like the murder of Nacole Smith, the emotional weight of bearing witness to other people’s worst days, and why his new YouTube series The Murder Mind Show is more than just storytelling—it’s a mission. Full of real-life case stories, hard-won wisdom, and no-nonsense truth, this episode is a masterclass in perseverance, purpose, and showing up with heart.
Show Notes:
- (0:00) Welcome to Zone 7 with Vince Velazquez
- (3:30) Respect, effort, and presence—no matter the role
- (8:30) Human connection isn’t optional—it is the job.
- (16:45) Murder Mind: Turning real crime into real change
- (21:00) Nacole Smith’s case: a vow to never let go
- (27:00) What separates a good detective from a great one?
- (29:45 ) “If you want to soar with eagles, don’t hang out with ducks.”
- (34:45) Empathy, dignity, and the detective's creed
- (37:00) “Criminal investigation is a team concept—everyone has a role to play.” — Sgt. Joe Giacalone (Ret.), NYPD
Thanks for listening to another episode! If Zone 7 is part of your weekly routine, show us some love with a rating and review on Apple Podcasts. It helps more folks find the show—and helps us keep telling these stories.
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Sheryl “Mac” McCollum is an Emmy Award winning CSI, a writer for CrimeOnLine, Forensic and Crime Scene Expert for Crime Stories with Nancy Grace, and a CSI for a metro Atlanta Police Department. She is the co-author of the textbook Cold Case: Pathways to Justice. Sheryl is also the founder and director of the Cold Case Investigative Research Institute, a collaboration between universities and colleges that brings researchers, practitioners, students and the criminal justice community together to advance techniques in solving cold cases and assist families and law enforcement with solvability factors for unsolved homicides, missing persons, and kidnapping cases.
Social Links:
- Email: coldcase2004@gmail.com
- Twitter: @ColdCaseTips
- Facebook: @sheryl.mccollum
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:08):
Y'all, I am so excited about tonight. I have got
my buddy, Vince Velasquez here, and let me tell you.
Twenty two years with the Atlanta Homicide he is the
director of security for the Atlanta Hawks. Now y'all know
him from atl Homicide. Y'all have heard and gotten to
(00:30):
know David Quinn. Y'all love him. But let me tell you,
Vince Velaska is baby. You are in for a treat.
I can honestly say this now I'm just talking to y'all.
Y'all know I don't sugarcoat nothing. I don't lie to y'all.
So here's the deal. Yes, he is a good looking man. Okay,
(00:52):
he as handsome as he can be. But when I
tell you he is kinder, then he is good looking.
I'm not kidding. He is one of the most decent
people I have ever known. So it is my honor
to welcome Bence Velasquez to Zone seven.
Speaker 2 (01:13):
What's okay? So I want to meet this guy. Jesus,
thank you.
Speaker 1 (01:21):
Listen, I have held back. You're talking about you have
worked over a thousand murders, you have got so much
to offer people, But there's so much about you. I
will never forget. The news comes on breaking news. There's
a man way up on this gigantic crane. I mean
(01:41):
it's four thousand feet in the air or something ridiculous,
And I'm like, oh no, that's awful, that poor man.
But I mean it's a crane. I ain't trying to
climb that and walk out on that to try to
talk to somebody. You did, and you connected with him.
I mean, that's one of my favorite stories about you.
(02:01):
And that's just one. But you walked out there and
you were just so real and just so yourself. I mean,
I think the first thing you said to him is, hey,
you having a bad day.
Speaker 2 (02:15):
Yeah? Yeah, bad days is our business.
Speaker 1 (02:19):
Bad days is our business. Amen.
Speaker 2 (02:21):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (02:22):
But you are just a remarkable person. And I just
want people to know that because a lot of people
ask me, like, you remember Lauren Conlin, as cute as
she can be, Oh my gosh, she's such a doll.
She wanted to meet you, but she's like, I don't know,
I don't want to bother him. I don't think I
could just walk.
Speaker 2 (02:38):
Up to him.
Speaker 1 (02:38):
And I said, if there is anybody here that you
can just walk up to, it is that man right there.
Speaker 2 (02:45):
Yeah, I am.
Speaker 3 (02:46):
You know, one of the things about me that I
think a lot of people don't know is I have
a range of personalities and have a range of emotion,
so you may and I said that to me.
Speaker 2 (03:02):
I'm a kind person and you know, I treat everybody
with respect. But I know how to read a room,
so uh, you know, I can be funny, I can
be serious, and it just depends on what that situation is.
I just saw Lauren. I was on Vinnie Polo Tan
show the other night and I got a chance to
chat with Lauren a little bit.
Speaker 1 (03:22):
But yep, I love both of them.
Speaker 2 (03:24):
Yeah, great people. And that's that's that's the key to
this whole thing, The key to you know, whatever your
job is, homicide detective, talk show host, baker, barista, lawn
care person, whatever it is, it's interpersonal connection and communication.
That's really what makes people successful. So I learned early
(03:46):
in my life, not just my career, that even when
you're feeling uncomfortable, even when you're having a bad day,
you know, you got to give a little bit more
of yourself to to somebody, because it's not always about you,
you know, at the end of the day, you know,
we want something back, you know, you want some I
don't know. We want people to acknowledge us and recognize
(04:06):
us and maybe even appreciate us. But you know, too
many times I think people walk around and not consider
what the other person needs. So I don't know if
that explains me in a nutshell, but I try to
read the room and just try to, you know, fit
in where I fit in.
Speaker 1 (04:21):
But you know, you do it so naturally. People want
to talk to you. They feel comfortable talking to you.
I think they forget they're talking to police. I think
it's just, oh, that's vents. You know, he's going to
listen to me. He's going to understand me, just like
the young man on the crane. I've seen you do
it at a homicide scene where people are not trying
(04:42):
to talk, but they're talking to you. And you know,
when I look at your background, a lot of people
know Atlanta. You know, homicide Unit, Hat Squad, some people
may know Delta, but not everybody knows your entire background.
And I don't mean just joining the Air Force. You
had a lot of really interesting jobs. You work construction,
(05:04):
you worked for a bullet manufacturer. I mean you were
a butcher, come on now.
Speaker 2 (05:11):
Yeah, I mean, you know, these are you know, these
are jobs I took, and you know, I'm in high
school and I'm just trying to figure it out, you know.
But again, like I don't know that I ever really
had a passion for much, to be honest with you,
growing up, I didn't always want to be a cop.
I didn't always want to be in the military. And
I think I think for me, your circumstance or my
(05:33):
circumstances at the time, dictated what my next steps were.
And then I started to understand and take the advice
of my grandfather. So I was raised by my grandparents.
And this not to sound cliche, but you know, some
advice I got from him. It may sound cliche, but
it really was, no matter what you do, whatever your
(05:55):
job will be, do it to the best of your ability,
whatever it is, you know. And I think that is
totally cliche, but it's absolutely true. And those words always
run clear in my head in anything I did. You know,
did I like some of the jobs I did?
Speaker 1 (06:12):
No?
Speaker 2 (06:13):
You know, was did I in high school? Did I
want to, you know, be carving up meat at the
local bodega? No? Did I want to? When I get
out of the Air Force work for this little company
that you know, manufactured bullets for the army for I
think I was there for three weeks. No, but I
did a great job to the best of my ability.
And I think I've kept that mantra of my career
(06:35):
until I found my passion, and my passion I think
was working homicide cases. But really it's not about so
much the investigation, which I love puzzles. I love, always
loved puzzles. But to your point, it's the people. It's
it's actually being around people, communicating with them and really
(06:55):
getting to the bottom of it and understanding what people need.
And I say that to me mean not just the victims'
families of homicides, but also even the bad guy. And
it may sound a little weird to say that, but
there is a what do they say, come to Jesus meeting.
We've said, We've you said that, we know what it
(07:16):
means where you know, we put all the bullshit aside,
right and we get down to the nuts and bolts
of what we're here for and the only way to
do that And what I learned and David Quinn also
as a master at this my partner in homicide. For
my entire career is that you treat those people as
people with respect and empathy. Now, they could have just
(07:40):
massacred a family, and I'm not giving them any props,
and I'm not giving them any you know, accolades, because
none are deserved. But I have a job to do.
I need, I need to get information from you, and
the only way to do that is to connect on
a humanistic level. Uh. Trust me when I tell you,
I've gotten so many sight eyes when people looking at
(08:02):
me how I'm talking to this guy. But at the
end of the day, I walk out of there and
what I really am working for is justice, right working
for my victim. I'm working for my victim's family, and
I want to present a great case to the District
Attorney's office for a successful prosecution. And if that means
I got to sit there and have lunch and break
bread with this monster, I'm going to dip my fries
(08:25):
in some ketchup and we're going to talk about some
homicide stuff.
Speaker 1 (08:29):
You know. My children hucking Caroline. Oh yeah, And I
just preach to them all the time, similar to your grandfather.
But I tell them, whatever you choose, love it because
you're going to do it longer than you do a
whole lot of other things, and it's important that you
love it, and I think that's when you do it
to the best of your ability. But I also tell them,
(08:52):
whatever road you take is leading you to where you're
supposed to be. And when I look at your path,
whether it's that butcher shop, in that bodega, or making
those bullets for three weeks or in the Air Force
for seven years, all of that led you to that
detective you were when y'all first started ATL homicide. Of
(09:14):
course I loved it. I was immediately hooked. But y'all
were the same people I've always known. You told the
stories like you would legitimately tell them. There was no pretense,
there was no drama, there was no fakeness. And I thought,
you know what, anybody that was ever in an interview
with you saw that guy was real. He treated me respectfully.
(09:41):
But it wasn't a hoax, It wasn't a game, it
wasn't a con hundred percent.
Speaker 2 (09:45):
I think you know, you know, people understand or try
to understand what homicide detectives do by watching TV shows, right,
so you just hit on something that's really important. When
we had the idea to do a show, TV one
is where we landed. But we had other offers. And
(10:05):
the reason why we went with TV one is because
TV one wanted us to be our authentic self. And
I say that to me. Other networks were offered, offering
us these development deals and kind of telling us, well,
you know, we envisioned the show to be a certain way.
(10:25):
When we realized that TV one wanted us to be
who we really are, it was a no brainer because
that's who we are. And with that said, working cases
people on the street, and you know, unfortunately, you know,
the majority of the homicides that Quinn and I investigated
were in impoverished neighborhood you know, marginalized neighborhoods, low income neighborhoods,
(10:53):
and a lot of times it's striped with crime, not
just murder, but other crimes, drugs and assaults and robberies
and burglary. So the folks that live in these communities
are exposed to things that a lot of us that
live in other committees aren't. So they know the streets right.
So the worst thing you could do is when you're
(11:16):
talking to somebody from that community is try to be
something other than your authentic self. They can see through
bullshit a mile away, and if you don't hit that
mark in the first ten seconds of that conversation, you're
not going anywhere. You're done. And I've seen it happen.
I've seen detectives go in there and try to be
(11:37):
this TV cop. You know, it's almost like they took
a training class by growing up watching true crime or
drama TV and thinking this is how I need to be.
And we were like, wait a minute, time out, retract
that statement, Let's go back, let's talk about it. You
need to go in there and you need to try
this again, because who are you right now? Who is
(12:01):
this guy? You know, hands on your hips and you know,
barking out orders like people don't respond to that. So
you know that to your point, I'm me. I was
me before I put a badge on, I was me
after I put a badge on, and I'm still me
after I took the badge off after twenty two years.
Speaker 1 (12:20):
Amen. Absolutely, and you know your background again, all of it.
I think you draw from it, but I think again,
so much of it is fun and that shows too,
like you've got a big fun Puerto Rican family, all
your brothers and cousins and your dad. I mean, y'all
(12:41):
just have a great time. I mean the cigars, the traveling.
Every time I see some of those pictures, I'm like, man,
that hotel was not.
Speaker 2 (12:50):
Ready, not ready for us, not ready.
Speaker 1 (12:53):
But again, if you and I are talking, our families
are very similar. Whether it's a big Puerto Rican family,
big family, We're gonna cook for you, We're gonna make
sure everybody eat something. The music's gonna be too loud,
you know, we're all going to be loud talking at
the same time. Yes, but again, I have seen you
in a situation where you may think vents and this
(13:15):
suspect or vents in this victim's family have nothing in common,
and you find you find that commonality so quick and
it's an amazing thing to watch.
Speaker 2 (13:27):
Yeah, I mean, if you just look, all you really
have to do is I mean we are we are
all separated by not many alleles in the DNA chain
as being humans. I mean, think about it. We all
we all live, we breathe, we have two eyes, two ears,
and those we live. We drive, we go to work,
we have kids, we eat dinner, we do everybody has
(13:49):
so much in common and if you just really think
about that, we have troubles, We have problems with our families.
Sometimes you have marital problems, sometimes you have problems with
your kids. And if you just tap into that stuff
that you know you have in common with somebody, you
can find a way to meet in the middle. And
that's you know, meeting in the middle is the number
(14:10):
one thing you have to do to try to, you know,
connect with somebody and get information. If that's what you're
trying to do is talk about life. You know. One
of the things I would do. I used to teach
interview and interrogations, and I would do an exercise with
the police recruits and first thing I would ask is
what week are you in? And typically I would show
(14:33):
up to teach these recruits around week six or seven.
So imagine being with somebody eight hours a day, five
days a week, or more than eight hours ten hours
a day, five days a week for six or seven weeks.
You should know a lot about the people that you're
with every day for that long. So the exercise would
(14:53):
be I would tell them something personal about my life
or as a child growing up, something personal about my
family that a lot of people may or may not
know typically that they don't know. And you know, I
didn't come from the greatest background. You know, my members
of my family have been dealing with you know, drug abuse,
(15:14):
drug addiction, prison and I share that story. So then
I make each police recruit get up and tell the
class that they've been with for the last six or
seven weeks, their classmates something about them that they don't
think anyone in the class knows, as long as it's legal,
because you made it this far right, Yep, you passed
(15:35):
the polygraph. You're here, so don't talk about anything else.
And you'd be surprised at some of the things that
people would say. X NFL players, classically trained violinists, one
person had a PhD. And this the look of the classmates'
faces when they would share this information. And that tells
me right there that they're not getting to know each other,
(15:58):
they're not connecting on a So I use that as
an example that you have to tap into your personal
life experiences when you're on the street and you're trying
to connect with somebody and you're trying to find that
middle ground. So when you start getting down to the
business of why you're there you can connect and you
(16:18):
can possibly get what you need, and they feel good
about giving you the information and they don't feel tricked.
They don't feel, you know, like you pull a fast
one on them. They actually willingly gave you the information
and they feel good about it, and not because not
always because they feel like they're doing the right thing.
And here's the thing, right you're sitting down, it's because
(16:40):
they like you. That's it. They like who you are
as a person. It's that simple.
Speaker 1 (16:50):
Tell us what is going on. July twenty first, honey,
at six o'clock.
Speaker 2 (16:55):
My producer and I have been working on a treat.
So we have a new YouTube true crime show coming
out July twenty first at six pm dropping on YouTube,
and it's called murder Man. That's the name of the show,
Murderman with Vince Sblaskaz. And what we are doing is
I am talking about my homicide cases in narration form
(17:19):
with high end graphics, real police audio, real police video,
and behind the scenes information that the public typically doesn't
get to hear or see, and a total information that
you don't see on real true crime shows. How I
felt really scary moments when I'm dealing with suspects. There's
(17:40):
one case in particular where I literally thought the suspect
as he was chopping greens talking to him in his kitchen,
froze and I thought he was going to turn around
with the knife and come at me. And I literally
was putting my hand on my gun, and I think
he contemplated suicide by cops. So things like that that
people don't get to hear or see, and it's phenomenal.
(18:03):
Each episode is, you know, fifteen to twenty minutes long,
and we're gonna take the viewers from the beginning of
when I caught the case. Every week we'll have another
episode picking up from the last week's episode all the
way till we finished, typically around eight to ten episodes,
and then we're gonna reboot this for another case. So,
you know, July twenty first, six pm, first episode drops
(18:26):
murder Man show.
Speaker 1 (18:27):
That's gonna be so good. So let me just make
sure I'm clear when you dropped the first one. The
first episode is one case that goes eight episodes.
Speaker 2 (18:37):
Right, So will we're gon we're gonna give a treat
for the first few weeks. We're gonna drop two or
three episodes a week just to get this ball rolling.
But when you listen to listen and see the first episode,
it's gonna start off with when I get the call
and I show up at the crime scene, and then
the next episode is going to be where I left
off last time. So we're gonna leave you with Okay.
(18:59):
On the next episode, what you're going to hear or
see is ME now speaking to the wife, and we're
going to talk about what happened next. So each episode
picks up and sequenced in the investigation, just like I
worked the case all the way to the conclusion of
who the bad guy is and what happened to him.
Speaker 1 (19:19):
Vince, this sounds incredible, and I think not only is
it going to be something that people gravitate to to
watch you in your element, just utilizing all of your expertise,
but it's also going to be a good training mechanism
because once again you're telling the truth.
Speaker 2 (19:37):
These are facts. This is not fiction. This is completely factual.
This is exactly what happened, and this comes the storyline
comes straight from my report. We crafted this show that
every case that you're going to see on The murder
Man Show is going to be really right from my
(19:59):
could be one hundred and fifty page report from the
investigation that I did from the minute I got to
the scene and so I put cuffs on the bad guy.
So it's almost like you're riding along with me as
my partner as I investigate this case. On TV, you
get to see everything I do. So even as a detective,
a junior detective, watching is they may learn a few things.
(20:22):
I'm not the smartest man in the world, but I'm
not dumb either, So there's some things in here that
I think it's going to be truly amazing, and I
think you like anything I've ever done. Four seasons of
ATL Homicide and one season of Deadly Case File, we
were victim based and victim advocacy was number one, So
(20:45):
this show is no different. We are all about the victim.
We want to make sure that we represent the victims
in this case because truly, this is a story about
what happened to them. And then I'm just in the
background trying to figure it out.
Speaker 1 (21:00):
And y'all, he's not given a line. Let me tell
you something. There was a case Nicole Smith, and it
was a case that stayed with Vince, aided him, bothered him,
He kept Nicole's picture on his desk at the Atlanta
Police Department, and he moved that picture to his desk
in his home office when he retired, and I heard
(21:22):
him say, and I quote, I will come back and
work this case for free.
Speaker 2 (21:28):
That's that one case that every detective has that you know,
it just stays with you, you know, I it's not
a burden. It was an honor to be part of
that case and get to meet Nicole's mom and you know,
connect with her over the years. I picked that case
up as a cold case in two thousand and two
(21:48):
just to put it in context, and worked it even
into retirement. I left it. Yeah, when I retired in
twenty seventeen, I left it in good hands with very
very skilled and smart detective Scott Demester, who took this
case and used modern technology to help solve the case.
(22:10):
And then partly because of some of the things that
you know, we did before I retired, I came back
after retirement just to be part of just to be
part of the family, Like I was there with Nicole's
mom and the rape victim, not as a detective who
really solved the case, but just who worked on this
(22:32):
case for over a decade in support of the family.
You know, I was invited to attend the press conference
and I felt truly honored. And I wasn't there representing
the police department. I'm a civilian, was a civilian when
this case got solved. But I was just there in
support of the family.
Speaker 1 (22:48):
I don't know if you remember, but you and Shei
la Ross came to the college in two thousand and
seven and you had the composite and y'all were like,
it's students. Would they could blanket the city putting these everywhere?
And that's when we first got just hooked, like we've
(23:10):
got to help them in any way possible. Sheila even
had T shirts made with his face on them. And
then years later I got Kelly Lawson with a GBI
to do a age progression. Thence when y'all had the
press conference and his name was put out there, we
(23:32):
found a photograph. It is unbelievable, those two pictures side
by side.
Speaker 2 (23:39):
Oh, I've seen them. It's it's it gives me goosebumps
just thinking about it.
Speaker 1 (23:44):
Yeah, remember I sent it to you before we put
it out, and you were like, that's him, that's him.
There's no way people aren't gonna know him.
Speaker 2 (23:52):
To this day like we hadn't. We've had no other
case like this. This, this would be in this was
hiding in plain sight. And have always said that. I said,
you know, unfortunately, you know, for the people listening, just
so you understand, this suspect died four months before we
(24:12):
identified him through DNA, So although we solved the case,
justice really wasn't served. There was no day in court.
But I always used to wonder had I encountered him somewhere?
I always felt he was in the Metro area. Did
I run into him that? You know this clearly we
did so much press on this case. My face was
(24:35):
out there. I had been on the news. So I
always wondered, I don't know who you are, but you
probably know who I am. And I wondered, have we
ever crossed paths? And you would have The suspect would
have been the only one to know that, and that
likely could have been the case. We'll never know, obviously,
because he passed away.
Speaker 1 (24:56):
You know, her mom, Aquanella said something to me one
time that just knocked me out. She said, Cheryl, I'm
afraid to date because I don't know who he is,
and is he asking me out because he killed Nicole
and wants to have some sick, twisted date with me.
(25:19):
That was just not only horrifying, but it's something I
had never thought about.
Speaker 2 (25:25):
God, that's the Cole's mom has been through so much,
Like it's I can't we don't have enough time on
this show to talk about how much that woman, who's
in my opinion, assault of the earth has been through.
But you know, that's that's real trauma. Like, you know,
not just to lose your daughter, but to not have
(25:48):
any answers, Like you know, the worst thing can happen
is a parent losing a child under any circumstance, but
much less homicide, and then you have no resolution. You
don't know why it happened, You don't know who did it,
you don't know how it could have happened. How we
as a community didn't figure this out. Because you know,
one of the things I used to say when I
(26:08):
would do press conferences is say that Nicole obviously was
Aquanella's daughter, but she was all of our daughter. She
represented everybody in this community, right, you know, especially her age.
So I wanted to make sure that people understood that, like,
take this serious. Like, it's not just Aquinella's problem, it's
(26:29):
our problem. It's our community's problem.
Speaker 1 (26:32):
Because y'all have children out there and there's a killer
walking around.
Speaker 2 (26:37):
Yeah, and obviously we know from the history of this
case that he offended again. He raped a thirteen year
old girl in East Point nine years later, so you know,
he was a predator, and you know, had he not died,
it would have been just a matter of time before
he struck again. I'm sure of it.
Speaker 1 (26:57):
I agree completely. You know, you lived it. You were
just the epitome of what a homicide detective should be.
You were successful, you were well known. What made you
want to move into the true crime space.
Speaker 2 (27:15):
It's a great question, and I've been asked that often.
One of the things that has always been important to me,
and we kind of touched on this in the beginning
of our conversation, is how law enforcement is portrayed, what
I experienced, what my expectations were when I became a detective,
and what I learned that it really should be, and
(27:39):
what we see on TV. And sometimes those roads don't
always intersect. So one of the things that was very
important to me and David Coyn when we started Our
quest to do a show, and starting with ATL Homicide,
is to not just honor and showcase these wonderful people
(28:00):
who were taken from us way too soon as victims
of homicide in their families, but to also show other
detectives that may see to show how you could get better.
We're not the best, and I'm sure there's many detectives
out there way better than us. And it's not about
a skill set, it's about how you treat people. You
(28:23):
saw what happened in the summer of twenty twenty to
be a cop in the summer of twenty twenty, it
was the scarlet letter. That's what the badge represented. But
we wanted to show a different side of law enforcement.
We wanted to show that you could do this job,
be respectful, be empathetic, still connect with the community, still
(28:45):
care about the community that you live in, and solve
cases and earn a living and support your family, all
those things congruently working together versus what you see on
TV when they're like knocking on the door yelling at people. Right,
and I'm not just talking about drama shows. I'm talking
about other true crime shows that I won't mention the names,
(29:08):
but you know what I'm talking about. Of course, open
this damn door. You better open this door. You're going
to jail like all those type of scenarios. That's not
who we were, right, and that's not who we represented.
We didn't represent the city that way. We didn't represent
our families that way. We didn't represent the police department,
(29:28):
or didn't represent our community that way. We were who
we were, and that's what we brought to the table.
So that was important to get into the true crime
space and show that, hey, things are not exactly they
don't have to be what you see on TV. We
want to show you a different way of doing things.
Speaker 1 (29:47):
And you know that's something you've always lived again when
you came to the college. For me, all of my
students were the first folks in their family to ever
go to college. These were inner city kids, not a
lot of money, no resources, no scholarship, but they had
access to people like you who not only came and said, look,
(30:10):
let's talk about this case and you would just sit
on the table and talk to them, just let's walk
it through. Tell me what you think, and I'll never
forget the Seandra Levy case. Oh came and they were
all freaked out about that scream. The scream, the scream,
and you said to them, hey, people scream. Sometimes it
(30:31):
could be a bridal party at a hand. Sometimes it
could be a kid trying to scare a friend. It
doesn't always lead to something violent, you know. And I
remember their faces. And then the other thing that I
remember is when y'all, this is the first time i'd
ever heard this term, y'all talked about the side check.
(30:52):
Oh yeah, so I got some information there, and you
were just so real with them because you were like,
if this man has had this many a face, why
is he worried about this girl? He's not, she's one.
More So, you were always just such a good, you know,
person to guide them, to tell them the truth, to
(31:13):
give them advice. But they left there well, Detective Alaskaz said.
Detective Alaskaz said, you know, it didn't matter what Cheryl
McCollum or anybody else said. They had year backing. And
that to me in that small community. You're talking now
some of those students. I've got one that's a captain
(31:34):
with the CAB, one that's a tsa high ranking person,
somebody that is not an agent, but it's with the
FBI Probation parole, Sheriff's department, police department one in Union
City that is on track to be chief. So you
are part of all of those careers because you believed
(31:57):
in them, and that elevated the way they saw themselves.
Like I can do this, He's telling me. I just
had a great idea on an unsolved case.
Speaker 2 (32:07):
Yeah exactly. And you let me just rewind something you said.
You know, you said that they had access to me. Well,
this The only reason they had access to me is
because I had access to you. Meaning you have you
not been who you were and still are, I probably
wouldn't have been there. So it's all full circle. It's
(32:29):
all full circle, yes, right, and it's and it's ironically
I've ran into so many of your students, so many
they're like, Detective Blaskis, you may not remember me because
I thought, you know, I spoke at several of your classes,
so I didn't remember all of them. You spoke at
at a course with Cheryl McCollum, and I was like, oh, yeah,
(32:50):
I used to do that quite a bit. Tell me
what you're doing now and to your point, like just
so much success. So that's a testament to you who
you are, Cerah. So like we connected, you and I
connected a long time ago and you were doing great
things like you were doing. So we Quinn and I,
you know, we think out of the box. We did
think outside the box. You have always been the same
(33:11):
type of person to even you know, absent of what
your police career, was still doing things like that. So again,
all of those roads connect. And you know that's when
you say tapping into a network. And if you teach
anybody anything, that's what you should learn. It's who is
your network? You know what I mean? Like I may
(33:33):
get this wrong when I say this, but there's a
saying and has something to do with flying with eagles.
If you want to store with eagles, right, you know,
don't hang out with you know, ducks. That's probably that's
probably not the right.
Speaker 1 (33:44):
That's good.
Speaker 2 (33:45):
Probably probably got that wrong, but you know what I mean, right?
So uh? And it all, it all, it all comes
home to roost. Everything pays off in the end. It's
the connections you make, your resources, your network, your information
that you may need that make you successful. And that's
why you're successful. So I'm proud to know that. I'm
(34:07):
proud to know you.
Speaker 1 (34:08):
Well, I appreciate that. But you know, when Nancy Grace
was kind of pushing me to do a podcast, the
first thing I thought is, well, if I'm going to
do it, I know what I'm going to call it,
and that's Zone seven. Because you remember back in the day,
that's what we called Manual's tavern. That's right, because that's
where you went. You sat with people that you trusted,
(34:29):
that you loved and respected, and that's where you really
learned the job. You learn the truth. You got somebody
that'll pull you aside to say, hey, you kind of
went in their sideways. Don't do that again. Don't stand
in front of that door. You're gonna get shot. Don't
talk to her any kind of way. She may be
a prostitute, but she's got good information and she can
keep you safe.
Speaker 2 (34:50):
That's right. They're people too.
Speaker 1 (34:52):
They are people. Oh my gosh, some of the best people.
I mean, they have had a difficult road, or they
wouldn't be doing what they're doing.
Speaker 2 (35:00):
Oh, there's not I don't think there's any prostitute. Well,
I would say very few prostitutes that want to be
doing that correct, right, they do what they have to do.
I'm not. I'm not justifying either to support a drug habit,
either to support themselves or their children, whatever it is.
But there's still people. They still have the right to
(35:21):
complain about shit. They still have the right to not
like you. They still have the right to, you know,
think that you're a total asshole, right because think about this.
You may be a prostitute, but this cop that's talking
to her on the street is probably the biggest asshole
to everybody that knows him. Now, who's the worst person here?
(35:42):
Who would you who would you want to be around
if you really broke it down?
Speaker 1 (35:46):
And I'll tell you, Like, just so people understand, when
the Olympic Park bombing happen, who did we go get
information from? Have y'all seen a car? Has anybody said anything?
Has anybody wanted you to do something unusual that frightened you?
They literally had the polls of the street.
Speaker 2 (36:07):
One hundred percent, like some of my best informants. Listen,
you know, I don't condone that, but I don't I
don't judge them for it either, But I would say
a good percentage of my homicides were solved because of
prostitutes and drug addicts. That's right, you know, and they
(36:27):
have information. And again it goes back to how you
speak to them. You know, if you meet them in
the middle and understand and are empathetic to who they
are as human beings and whatever struggles they're going through,
they really want to help. But what they don't want
to be is disrespected. They don't want to be treated,
you know, like second class citizens. They want to be
(36:49):
talked to with respect, right, with dignity and empathy.
Speaker 1 (36:54):
Everybody wants the same thing. Yeah, I want somebody to
hear me, get it, tell me they're sorry, tell me
I did something great. I mean, that's all. That's it.
It ain't hard'all. Well, listen, I could talk to you
all day, all night, and all the next day. I
just adore you, I respect you. I just appreciate who
(37:14):
you are and who you have been, not just for
my children, but all my children.
Speaker 2 (37:20):
Well, that means so much. I can't tell you how
much that means to men. The fact that I know
your kids as long as I've known them and follow
them and your success their success tells you like I'm
family too. I feel like you're part of my family.
Speaker 1 (37:33):
Oh, straight up family, no doubt, no doubt.
Speaker 2 (37:37):
I'm very just glad to know you and like again,
like you know, I get asked to do quite a
few podcasts. I don't always do them, Like you know,
if I don't know who you are, and or if
I listen and I just don't feel like you're somebody
that aligns with me, I'm not going to do it.
This was a no brainer. I'm like, what are you
kidding me? Like what can we do it right now?
Like I don't care what I'm doing, Let's tumble the phone.
(37:59):
I'm ready to.
Speaker 1 (38:00):
Well, it ain't gonna be the last one. So listen, y'all.
July twenty first, at six o'clock, do not miss murder
Man Fence. Thank you so much.
Speaker 2 (38:10):
It's my absolute pleasure.
Speaker 1 (38:12):
Shay y'all. I'm going to end Zone seven the way
that I always do with a quote. Criminal investigation is
a team concept. Everybody has a role to play. Sergeant
Joe Jackalone, NYPD retired. I'm Cheryl McCollum, and this is
(38:35):
Zone seven.
Y'all, I am so excited about tonight. I have got
my buddy, Vince Velasquez here, and let me tell you.
Twenty two years with the Atlanta Homicide he is the
director of security for the Atlanta Hawks. Now y'all know
him from atl Homicide. Y'all have heard and gotten to
(00:30):
know David Quinn. Y'all love him. But let me tell you,
Vince Velaska is baby. You are in for a treat.
I can honestly say this now I'm just talking to y'all.
Y'all know I don't sugarcoat nothing. I don't lie to y'all.
So here's the deal. Yes, he is a good looking man. Okay,
(00:52):
he as handsome as he can be. But when I
tell you he is kinder, then he is good looking.
I'm not kidding. He is one of the most decent
people I have ever known. So it is my honor
to welcome Bence Velasquez to Zone seven.
Speaker 2 (01:13):
What's okay? So I want to meet this guy. Jesus,
thank you.
Speaker 1 (01:21):
Listen, I have held back. You're talking about you have
worked over a thousand murders, you have got so much
to offer people, But there's so much about you. I
will never forget. The news comes on breaking news. There's
a man way up on this gigantic crane. I mean
(01:41):
it's four thousand feet in the air or something ridiculous,
And I'm like, oh no, that's awful, that poor man.
But I mean it's a crane. I ain't trying to
climb that and walk out on that to try to
talk to somebody. You did, and you connected with him.
I mean, that's one of my favorite stories about you.
(02:01):
And that's just one. But you walked out there and
you were just so real and just so yourself. I mean,
I think the first thing you said to him is, hey,
you having a bad day.
Speaker 2 (02:15):
Yeah? Yeah, bad days is our business.
Speaker 1 (02:19):
Bad days is our business. Amen.
Speaker 2 (02:21):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (02:22):
But you are just a remarkable person. And I just
want people to know that because a lot of people
ask me, like, you remember Lauren Conlin, as cute as
she can be, Oh my gosh, she's such a doll.
She wanted to meet you, but she's like, I don't know,
I don't want to bother him. I don't think I
could just walk.
Speaker 2 (02:38):
Up to him.
Speaker 1 (02:38):
And I said, if there is anybody here that you
can just walk up to, it is that man right there.
Speaker 2 (02:45):
Yeah, I am.
Speaker 3 (02:46):
You know, one of the things about me that I
think a lot of people don't know is I have
a range of personalities and have a range of emotion,
so you may and I said that to me.
Speaker 2 (03:02):
I'm a kind person and you know, I treat everybody
with respect. But I know how to read a room,
so uh, you know, I can be funny, I can
be serious, and it just depends on what that situation is.
I just saw Lauren. I was on Vinnie Polo Tan
show the other night and I got a chance to
chat with Lauren a little bit.
Speaker 1 (03:22):
But yep, I love both of them.
Speaker 2 (03:24):
Yeah, great people. And that's that's that's the key to
this whole thing, The key to you know, whatever your
job is, homicide detective, talk show host, baker, barista, lawn
care person, whatever it is, it's interpersonal connection and communication.
That's really what makes people successful. So I learned early
(03:46):
in my life, not just my career, that even when
you're feeling uncomfortable, even when you're having a bad day,
you know, you got to give a little bit more
of yourself to to somebody, because it's not always about you,
you know, at the end of the day, you know,
we want something back, you know, you want some I
don't know. We want people to acknowledge us and recognize
(04:06):
us and maybe even appreciate us. But you know, too
many times I think people walk around and not consider
what the other person needs. So I don't know if
that explains me in a nutshell, but I try to
read the room and just try to, you know, fit
in where I fit in.
Speaker 1 (04:21):
But you know, you do it so naturally. People want
to talk to you. They feel comfortable talking to you.
I think they forget they're talking to police. I think
it's just, oh, that's vents. You know, he's going to
listen to me. He's going to understand me, just like
the young man on the crane. I've seen you do
it at a homicide scene where people are not trying
(04:42):
to talk, but they're talking to you. And you know,
when I look at your background, a lot of people
know Atlanta. You know, homicide Unit, Hat Squad, some people
may know Delta, but not everybody knows your entire background.
And I don't mean just joining the Air Force. You
had a lot of really interesting jobs. You work construction,
(05:04):
you worked for a bullet manufacturer. I mean you were
a butcher, come on now.
Speaker 2 (05:11):
Yeah, I mean, you know, these are you know, these
are jobs I took, and you know, I'm in high
school and I'm just trying to figure it out, you know.
But again, like I don't know that I ever really
had a passion for much, to be honest with you,
growing up, I didn't always want to be a cop.
I didn't always want to be in the military. And
I think I think for me, your circumstance or my
(05:33):
circumstances at the time, dictated what my next steps were.
And then I started to understand and take the advice
of my grandfather. So I was raised by my grandparents.
And this not to sound cliche, but you know, some
advice I got from him. It may sound cliche, but
it really was, no matter what you do, whatever your
(05:55):
job will be, do it to the best of your ability,
whatever it is, you know. And I think that is
totally cliche, but it's absolutely true. And those words always
run clear in my head in anything I did. You know,
did I like some of the jobs I did?
Speaker 1 (06:12):
No?
Speaker 2 (06:13):
You know, was did I in high school? Did I
want to, you know, be carving up meat at the
local bodega? No? Did I want to? When I get
out of the Air Force work for this little company
that you know, manufactured bullets for the army for I
think I was there for three weeks. No, but I
did a great job to the best of my ability.
And I think I've kept that mantra of my career
(06:35):
until I found my passion, and my passion I think
was working homicide cases. But really it's not about so
much the investigation, which I love puzzles. I love, always
loved puzzles. But to your point, it's the people. It's
it's actually being around people, communicating with them and really
(06:55):
getting to the bottom of it and understanding what people need.
And I say that to me mean not just the victims'
families of homicides, but also even the bad guy. And
it may sound a little weird to say that, but
there is a what do they say, come to Jesus meeting.
We've said, We've you said that, we know what it
(07:16):
means where you know, we put all the bullshit aside,
right and we get down to the nuts and bolts
of what we're here for and the only way to
do that And what I learned and David Quinn also
as a master at this my partner in homicide. For
my entire career is that you treat those people as
people with respect and empathy. Now, they could have just
(07:40):
massacred a family, and I'm not giving them any props,
and I'm not giving them any you know, accolades, because
none are deserved. But I have a job to do.
I need, I need to get information from you, and
the only way to do that is to connect on
a humanistic level. Uh. Trust me when I tell you,
I've gotten so many sight eyes when people looking at
(08:02):
me how I'm talking to this guy. But at the
end of the day, I walk out of there and
what I really am working for is justice, right working
for my victim. I'm working for my victim's family, and
I want to present a great case to the District
Attorney's office for a successful prosecution. And if that means
I got to sit there and have lunch and break
bread with this monster, I'm going to dip my fries
(08:25):
in some ketchup and we're going to talk about some
homicide stuff.
Speaker 1 (08:29):
You know. My children hucking Caroline. Oh yeah, And I
just preach to them all the time, similar to your grandfather.
But I tell them, whatever you choose, love it because
you're going to do it longer than you do a
whole lot of other things, and it's important that you
love it, and I think that's when you do it
to the best of your ability. But I also tell them,
(08:52):
whatever road you take is leading you to where you're
supposed to be. And when I look at your path,
whether it's that butcher shop, in that bodega, or making
those bullets for three weeks or in the Air Force
for seven years, all of that led you to that
detective you were when y'all first started ATL homicide. Of
(09:14):
course I loved it. I was immediately hooked. But y'all
were the same people I've always known. You told the
stories like you would legitimately tell them. There was no pretense,
there was no drama, there was no fakeness. And I thought,
you know what, anybody that was ever in an interview
with you saw that guy was real. He treated me respectfully.
(09:41):
But it wasn't a hoax, It wasn't a game, it
wasn't a con hundred percent.
Speaker 2 (09:45):
I think you know, you know, people understand or try
to understand what homicide detectives do by watching TV shows, right,
so you just hit on something that's really important. When
we had the idea to do a show, TV one
is where we landed. But we had other offers. And
(10:05):
the reason why we went with TV one is because
TV one wanted us to be our authentic self. And
I say that to me. Other networks were offered, offering
us these development deals and kind of telling us, well,
you know, we envisioned the show to be a certain way.
(10:25):
When we realized that TV one wanted us to be
who we really are, it was a no brainer because
that's who we are. And with that said, working cases
people on the street, and you know, unfortunately, you know,
the majority of the homicides that Quinn and I investigated
were in impoverished neighborhood you know, marginalized neighborhoods, low income neighborhoods,
(10:53):
and a lot of times it's striped with crime, not
just murder, but other crimes, drugs and assaults and robberies
and burglary. So the folks that live in these communities
are exposed to things that a lot of us that
live in other committees aren't. So they know the streets right.
So the worst thing you could do is when you're
(11:16):
talking to somebody from that community is try to be
something other than your authentic self. They can see through
bullshit a mile away, and if you don't hit that
mark in the first ten seconds of that conversation, you're
not going anywhere. You're done. And I've seen it happen.
I've seen detectives go in there and try to be
(11:37):
this TV cop. You know, it's almost like they took
a training class by growing up watching true crime or
drama TV and thinking this is how I need to be.
And we were like, wait a minute, time out, retract
that statement, Let's go back, let's talk about it. You
need to go in there and you need to try
this again, because who are you right now? Who is
(12:01):
this guy? You know, hands on your hips and you know,
barking out orders like people don't respond to that. So
you know that to your point, I'm me. I was
me before I put a badge on, I was me
after I put a badge on, and I'm still me
after I took the badge off after twenty two years.
Speaker 1 (12:20):
Amen. Absolutely, and you know your background again, all of it.
I think you draw from it, but I think again,
so much of it is fun and that shows too,
like you've got a big fun Puerto Rican family, all
your brothers and cousins and your dad. I mean, y'all
(12:41):
just have a great time. I mean the cigars, the traveling.
Every time I see some of those pictures, I'm like, man,
that hotel was not.
Speaker 2 (12:50):
Ready, not ready for us, not ready.
Speaker 1 (12:53):
But again, if you and I are talking, our families
are very similar. Whether it's a big Puerto Rican family,
big family, We're gonna cook for you, We're gonna make
sure everybody eat something. The music's gonna be too loud,
you know, we're all going to be loud talking at
the same time. Yes, but again, I have seen you
in a situation where you may think vents and this
(13:15):
suspect or vents in this victim's family have nothing in common,
and you find you find that commonality so quick and
it's an amazing thing to watch.
Speaker 2 (13:27):
Yeah, I mean, if you just look, all you really
have to do is I mean we are we are
all separated by not many alleles in the DNA chain
as being humans. I mean, think about it. We all
we all live, we breathe, we have two eyes, two ears,
and those we live. We drive, we go to work,
we have kids, we eat dinner, we do everybody has
(13:49):
so much in common and if you just really think
about that, we have troubles, We have problems with our families.
Sometimes you have marital problems, sometimes you have problems with
your kids. And if you just tap into that stuff
that you know you have in common with somebody, you
can find a way to meet in the middle. And
that's you know, meeting in the middle is the number
(14:10):
one thing you have to do to try to, you know,
connect with somebody and get information. If that's what you're
trying to do is talk about life. You know. One
of the things I would do. I used to teach
interview and interrogations, and I would do an exercise with
the police recruits and first thing I would ask is
what week are you in? And typically I would show
(14:33):
up to teach these recruits around week six or seven.
So imagine being with somebody eight hours a day, five
days a week, or more than eight hours ten hours
a day, five days a week for six or seven weeks.
You should know a lot about the people that you're
with every day for that long. So the exercise would
(14:53):
be I would tell them something personal about my life
or as a child growing up, something personal about my
family that a lot of people may or may not
know typically that they don't know. And you know, I
didn't come from the greatest background. You know, my members
of my family have been dealing with you know, drug abuse,
(15:14):
drug addiction, prison and I share that story. So then
I make each police recruit get up and tell the
class that they've been with for the last six or
seven weeks, their classmates something about them that they don't
think anyone in the class knows, as long as it's legal,
because you made it this far right, Yep, you passed
(15:35):
the polygraph. You're here, so don't talk about anything else.
And you'd be surprised at some of the things that
people would say. X NFL players, classically trained violinists, one
person had a PhD. And this the look of the classmates'
faces when they would share this information. And that tells
me right there that they're not getting to know each other,
(15:58):
they're not connecting on a So I use that as
an example that you have to tap into your personal
life experiences when you're on the street and you're trying
to connect with somebody and you're trying to find that
middle ground. So when you start getting down to the
business of why you're there you can connect and you
(16:18):
can possibly get what you need, and they feel good
about giving you the information and they don't feel tricked.
They don't feel, you know, like you pull a fast
one on them. They actually willingly gave you the information
and they feel good about it, and not because not
always because they feel like they're doing the right thing.
And here's the thing, right you're sitting down, it's because
(16:40):
they like you. That's it. They like who you are
as a person. It's that simple.
Speaker 1 (16:50):
Tell us what is going on. July twenty first, honey,
at six o'clock.
Speaker 2 (16:55):
My producer and I have been working on a treat.
So we have a new YouTube true crime show coming
out July twenty first at six pm dropping on YouTube,
and it's called murder Man. That's the name of the show,
Murderman with Vince Sblaskaz. And what we are doing is
I am talking about my homicide cases in narration form
(17:19):
with high end graphics, real police audio, real police video,
and behind the scenes information that the public typically doesn't
get to hear or see, and a total information that
you don't see on real true crime shows. How I
felt really scary moments when I'm dealing with suspects. There's
(17:40):
one case in particular where I literally thought the suspect
as he was chopping greens talking to him in his kitchen,
froze and I thought he was going to turn around
with the knife and come at me. And I literally
was putting my hand on my gun, and I think
he contemplated suicide by cops. So things like that that
people don't get to hear or see, and it's phenomenal.
(18:03):
Each episode is, you know, fifteen to twenty minutes long,
and we're gonna take the viewers from the beginning of
when I caught the case. Every week we'll have another
episode picking up from the last week's episode all the
way till we finished, typically around eight to ten episodes,
and then we're gonna reboot this for another case. So,
you know, July twenty first, six pm, first episode drops
(18:26):
murder Man show.
Speaker 1 (18:27):
That's gonna be so good. So let me just make
sure I'm clear when you dropped the first one. The
first episode is one case that goes eight episodes.
Speaker 2 (18:37):
Right, So will we're gon we're gonna give a treat
for the first few weeks. We're gonna drop two or
three episodes a week just to get this ball rolling.
But when you listen to listen and see the first episode,
it's gonna start off with when I get the call
and I show up at the crime scene, and then
the next episode is going to be where I left
off last time. So we're gonna leave you with Okay.
(18:59):
On the next episode, what you're going to hear or
see is ME now speaking to the wife, and we're
going to talk about what happened next. So each episode
picks up and sequenced in the investigation, just like I
worked the case all the way to the conclusion of
who the bad guy is and what happened to him.
Speaker 1 (19:19):
Vince, this sounds incredible, and I think not only is
it going to be something that people gravitate to to
watch you in your element, just utilizing all of your expertise,
but it's also going to be a good training mechanism
because once again you're telling the truth.
Speaker 2 (19:37):
These are facts. This is not fiction. This is completely factual.
This is exactly what happened, and this comes the storyline
comes straight from my report. We crafted this show that
every case that you're going to see on The murder
Man Show is going to be really right from my
(19:59):
could be one hundred and fifty page report from the
investigation that I did from the minute I got to
the scene and so I put cuffs on the bad guy.
So it's almost like you're riding along with me as
my partner as I investigate this case. On TV, you
get to see everything I do. So even as a detective,
a junior detective, watching is they may learn a few things.
(20:22):
I'm not the smartest man in the world, but I'm
not dumb either, So there's some things in here that
I think it's going to be truly amazing, and I
think you like anything I've ever done. Four seasons of
ATL Homicide and one season of Deadly Case File, we
were victim based and victim advocacy was number one, So
(20:45):
this show is no different. We are all about the victim.
We want to make sure that we represent the victims
in this case because truly, this is a story about
what happened to them. And then I'm just in the
background trying to figure it out.
Speaker 1 (21:00):
And y'all, he's not given a line. Let me tell
you something. There was a case Nicole Smith, and it
was a case that stayed with Vince, aided him, bothered him,
He kept Nicole's picture on his desk at the Atlanta
Police Department, and he moved that picture to his desk
in his home office when he retired, and I heard
(21:22):
him say, and I quote, I will come back and
work this case for free.
Speaker 2 (21:28):
That's that one case that every detective has that you know,
it just stays with you, you know, I it's not
a burden. It was an honor to be part of
that case and get to meet Nicole's mom and you know,
connect with her over the years. I picked that case
up as a cold case in two thousand and two
(21:48):
just to put it in context, and worked it even
into retirement. I left it. Yeah, when I retired in
twenty seventeen, I left it in good hands with very
very skilled and smart detective Scott Demester, who took this
case and used modern technology to help solve the case.
(22:10):
And then partly because of some of the things that
you know, we did before I retired, I came back
after retirement just to be part of just to be
part of the family, Like I was there with Nicole's
mom and the rape victim, not as a detective who
really solved the case, but just who worked on this
(22:32):
case for over a decade in support of the family.
You know, I was invited to attend the press conference
and I felt truly honored. And I wasn't there representing
the police department. I'm a civilian, was a civilian when
this case got solved. But I was just there in
support of the family.
Speaker 1 (22:48):
I don't know if you remember, but you and Shei
la Ross came to the college in two thousand and
seven and you had the composite and y'all were like,
it's students. Would they could blanket the city putting these everywhere?
And that's when we first got just hooked, like we've
(23:10):
got to help them in any way possible. Sheila even
had T shirts made with his face on them. And
then years later I got Kelly Lawson with a GBI
to do a age progression. Thence when y'all had the
press conference and his name was put out there, we
(23:32):
found a photograph. It is unbelievable, those two pictures side
by side.
Speaker 2 (23:39):
Oh, I've seen them. It's it's it gives me goosebumps
just thinking about it.
Speaker 1 (23:44):
Yeah, remember I sent it to you before we put
it out, and you were like, that's him, that's him.
There's no way people aren't gonna know him.
Speaker 2 (23:52):
To this day like we hadn't. We've had no other
case like this. This, this would be in this was
hiding in plain sight. And have always said that. I said,
you know, unfortunately, you know, for the people listening, just
so you understand, this suspect died four months before we
(24:12):
identified him through DNA, So although we solved the case,
justice really wasn't served. There was no day in court.
But I always used to wonder had I encountered him somewhere?
I always felt he was in the Metro area. Did
I run into him that? You know this clearly we
did so much press on this case. My face was
(24:35):
out there. I had been on the news. So I
always wondered, I don't know who you are, but you
probably know who I am. And I wondered, have we
ever crossed paths? And you would have The suspect would
have been the only one to know that, and that
likely could have been the case. We'll never know, obviously,
because he passed away.
Speaker 1 (24:56):
You know, her mom, Aquanella said something to me one
time that just knocked me out. She said, Cheryl, I'm
afraid to date because I don't know who he is,
and is he asking me out because he killed Nicole
and wants to have some sick, twisted date with me.
(25:19):
That was just not only horrifying, but it's something I
had never thought about.
Speaker 2 (25:25):
God, that's the Cole's mom has been through so much,
Like it's I can't we don't have enough time on
this show to talk about how much that woman, who's
in my opinion, assault of the earth has been through.
But you know, that's that's real trauma. Like, you know,
not just to lose your daughter, but to not have
(25:48):
any answers, Like you know, the worst thing can happen
is a parent losing a child under any circumstance, but
much less homicide, and then you have no resolution. You
don't know why it happened, You don't know who did it,
you don't know how it could have happened. How we
as a community didn't figure this out. Because you know,
one of the things I used to say when I
(26:08):
would do press conferences is say that Nicole obviously was
Aquanella's daughter, but she was all of our daughter. She
represented everybody in this community, right, you know, especially her age.
So I wanted to make sure that people understood that, like,
take this serious. Like, it's not just Aquinella's problem, it's
(26:29):
our problem. It's our community's problem.
Speaker 1 (26:32):
Because y'all have children out there and there's a killer
walking around.
Speaker 2 (26:37):
Yeah, and obviously we know from the history of this
case that he offended again. He raped a thirteen year
old girl in East Point nine years later, so you know,
he was a predator, and you know, had he not died,
it would have been just a matter of time before
he struck again. I'm sure of it.
Speaker 1 (26:57):
I agree completely. You know, you lived it. You were
just the epitome of what a homicide detective should be.
You were successful, you were well known. What made you
want to move into the true crime space.
Speaker 2 (27:15):
It's a great question, and I've been asked that often.
One of the things that has always been important to me,
and we kind of touched on this in the beginning
of our conversation, is how law enforcement is portrayed, what
I experienced, what my expectations were when I became a detective,
and what I learned that it really should be, and
(27:39):
what we see on TV. And sometimes those roads don't
always intersect. So one of the things that was very
important to me and David Coyn when we started Our
quest to do a show, and starting with ATL Homicide,
is to not just honor and showcase these wonderful people
(28:00):
who were taken from us way too soon as victims
of homicide in their families, but to also show other
detectives that may see to show how you could get better.
We're not the best, and I'm sure there's many detectives
out there way better than us. And it's not about
a skill set, it's about how you treat people. You
(28:23):
saw what happened in the summer of twenty twenty to
be a cop in the summer of twenty twenty, it
was the scarlet letter. That's what the badge represented. But
we wanted to show a different side of law enforcement.
We wanted to show that you could do this job,
be respectful, be empathetic, still connect with the community, still
(28:45):
care about the community that you live in, and solve
cases and earn a living and support your family, all
those things congruently working together versus what you see on
TV when they're like knocking on the door yelling at people. Right,
and I'm not just talking about drama shows. I'm talking
about other true crime shows that I won't mention the names,
(29:08):
but you know what I'm talking about. Of course, open
this damn door. You better open this door. You're going
to jail like all those type of scenarios. That's not
who we were, right, and that's not who we represented.
We didn't represent the city that way. We didn't represent
our families that way. We didn't represent the police department,
(29:28):
or didn't represent our community that way. We were who
we were, and that's what we brought to the table.
So that was important to get into the true crime
space and show that, hey, things are not exactly they
don't have to be what you see on TV. We
want to show you a different way of doing things.
Speaker 1 (29:47):
And you know that's something you've always lived again when
you came to the college. For me, all of my
students were the first folks in their family to ever
go to college. These were inner city kids, not a
lot of money, no resources, no scholarship, but they had
access to people like you who not only came and said, look,
(30:10):
let's talk about this case and you would just sit
on the table and talk to them, just let's walk
it through. Tell me what you think, and I'll never
forget the Seandra Levy case. Oh came and they were
all freaked out about that scream. The scream, the scream,
and you said to them, hey, people scream. Sometimes it
(30:31):
could be a bridal party at a hand. Sometimes it
could be a kid trying to scare a friend. It
doesn't always lead to something violent, you know. And I
remember their faces. And then the other thing that I
remember is when y'all, this is the first time i'd
ever heard this term, y'all talked about the side check.
(30:52):
Oh yeah, so I got some information there, and you
were just so real with them because you were like,
if this man has had this many a face, why
is he worried about this girl? He's not, she's one.
More So, you were always just such a good, you know,
person to guide them, to tell them the truth, to
(31:13):
give them advice. But they left there well, Detective Alaskaz said.
Detective Alaskaz said, you know, it didn't matter what Cheryl
McCollum or anybody else said. They had year backing. And
that to me in that small community. You're talking now
some of those students. I've got one that's a captain
(31:34):
with the CAB, one that's a tsa high ranking person,
somebody that is not an agent, but it's with the
FBI Probation parole, Sheriff's department, police department one in Union
City that is on track to be chief. So you
are part of all of those careers because you believed
(31:57):
in them, and that elevated the way they saw themselves.
Like I can do this, He's telling me. I just
had a great idea on an unsolved case.
Speaker 2 (32:07):
Yeah exactly. And you let me just rewind something you said.
You know, you said that they had access to me. Well,
this The only reason they had access to me is
because I had access to you. Meaning you have you
not been who you were and still are, I probably
wouldn't have been there. So it's all full circle. It's
(32:29):
all full circle, yes, right, and it's and it's ironically
I've ran into so many of your students, so many
they're like, Detective Blaskis, you may not remember me because
I thought, you know, I spoke at several of your classes,
so I didn't remember all of them. You spoke at
at a course with Cheryl McCollum, and I was like, oh, yeah,
(32:50):
I used to do that quite a bit. Tell me
what you're doing now and to your point, like just
so much success. So that's a testament to you who
you are, Cerah. So like we connected, you and I
connected a long time ago and you were doing great
things like you were doing. So we Quinn and I,
you know, we think out of the box. We did
think outside the box. You have always been the same
(33:11):
type of person to even you know, absent of what
your police career, was still doing things like that. So again,
all of those roads connect. And you know that's when
you say tapping into a network. And if you teach
anybody anything, that's what you should learn. It's who is
your network? You know what I mean? Like I may
(33:33):
get this wrong when I say this, but there's a
saying and has something to do with flying with eagles.
If you want to store with eagles, right, you know,
don't hang out with you know, ducks. That's probably that's
probably not the right.
Speaker 1 (33:44):
That's good.
Speaker 2 (33:45):
Probably probably got that wrong, but you know what I mean, right?
So uh? And it all, it all, it all comes
home to roost. Everything pays off in the end. It's
the connections you make, your resources, your network, your information
that you may need that make you successful. And that's
why you're successful. So I'm proud to know that. I'm
(34:07):
proud to know you.
Speaker 1 (34:08):
Well, I appreciate that. But you know, when Nancy Grace
was kind of pushing me to do a podcast, the
first thing I thought is, well, if I'm going to
do it, I know what I'm going to call it,
and that's Zone seven. Because you remember back in the day,
that's what we called Manual's tavern. That's right, because that's
where you went. You sat with people that you trusted,
(34:29):
that you loved and respected, and that's where you really
learned the job. You learn the truth. You got somebody
that'll pull you aside to say, hey, you kind of
went in their sideways. Don't do that again. Don't stand
in front of that door. You're gonna get shot. Don't
talk to her any kind of way. She may be
a prostitute, but she's got good information and she can
keep you safe.
Speaker 2 (34:50):
That's right. They're people too.
Speaker 1 (34:52):
They are people. Oh my gosh, some of the best people.
I mean, they have had a difficult road, or they
wouldn't be doing what they're doing.
Speaker 2 (35:00):
Oh, there's not I don't think there's any prostitute. Well,
I would say very few prostitutes that want to be
doing that correct, right, they do what they have to do.
I'm not. I'm not justifying either to support a drug habit,
either to support themselves or their children, whatever it is.
But there's still people. They still have the right to
(35:21):
complain about shit. They still have the right to not
like you. They still have the right to, you know,
think that you're a total asshole, right because think about this.
You may be a prostitute, but this cop that's talking
to her on the street is probably the biggest asshole
to everybody that knows him. Now, who's the worst person here?
(35:42):
Who would you who would you want to be around
if you really broke it down?
Speaker 1 (35:46):
And I'll tell you, Like, just so people understand, when
the Olympic Park bombing happen, who did we go get
information from? Have y'all seen a car? Has anybody said anything?
Has anybody wanted you to do something unusual that frightened you?
They literally had the polls of the street.
Speaker 2 (36:07):
One hundred percent, like some of my best informants. Listen,
you know, I don't condone that, but I don't I
don't judge them for it either, But I would say
a good percentage of my homicides were solved because of
prostitutes and drug addicts. That's right, you know, and they
(36:27):
have information. And again it goes back to how you
speak to them. You know, if you meet them in
the middle and understand and are empathetic to who they
are as human beings and whatever struggles they're going through,
they really want to help. But what they don't want
to be is disrespected. They don't want to be treated,
you know, like second class citizens. They want to be
(36:49):
talked to with respect, right, with dignity and empathy.
Speaker 1 (36:54):
Everybody wants the same thing. Yeah, I want somebody to
hear me, get it, tell me they're sorry, tell me
I did something great. I mean, that's all. That's it.
It ain't hard'all. Well, listen, I could talk to you
all day, all night, and all the next day. I
just adore you, I respect you. I just appreciate who
(37:14):
you are and who you have been, not just for
my children, but all my children.
Speaker 2 (37:20):
Well, that means so much. I can't tell you how
much that means to men. The fact that I know
your kids as long as I've known them and follow
them and your success their success tells you like I'm
family too. I feel like you're part of my family.
Speaker 1 (37:33):
Oh, straight up family, no doubt, no doubt.
Speaker 2 (37:37):
I'm very just glad to know you and like again,
like you know, I get asked to do quite a
few podcasts. I don't always do them, Like you know,
if I don't know who you are, and or if
I listen and I just don't feel like you're somebody
that aligns with me, I'm not going to do it.
This was a no brainer. I'm like, what are you
kidding me? Like what can we do it right now?
Like I don't care what I'm doing, Let's tumble the phone.
(37:59):
I'm ready to.
Speaker 1 (38:00):
Well, it ain't gonna be the last one. So listen, y'all.
July twenty first, at six o'clock, do not miss murder
Man Fence. Thank you so much.
Speaker 2 (38:10):
It's my absolute pleasure.
Speaker 1 (38:12):
Shay y'all. I'm going to end Zone seven the way
that I always do with a quote. Criminal investigation is
a team concept. Everybody has a role to play. Sergeant
Joe Jackalone, NYPD retired. I'm Cheryl McCollum, and this is
(38:35):
Zone seven.
Host
Sheryl McCollum
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