In this episode of Zone 7, CSI Sheryl McCollum welcomes back Dr. Katherine Ramsland and Tracy Ullman to discuss the release of their documentary The Serial Killer’s Apprentice. This two-hour film revisits the chilling case of Elmer Wayne Henley Jr. and Dean Corll, blending archival footage, exclusive interviews, and rare audio recordings.
Dr. Ramsland and Ullman share behind-the-scenes insights on producing the documentary. They reveal what has surfaced since the book’s release, and why this case, rooted in grooming, complicity, and trafficking, continues to offer powerful lessons today.
Resources:
- Zone 7 Part I The Serial Killer's Apprentice | The Story of Elmer Wayne Henley Jr.
- Zone 7 Part II How to Prevent Young People From Falling Victim to Predatory Criminals
- The Serial Killer's Apprentice
- How to Catch a Killer
- The Mind of a Murderer: A Glimpse into the Darkest Corners of the Human Psyche, from a Leading Forensic Psychiatrist
- John Wayne Gacy: Devil in Disguise
- The Serial Killer’s Apprentice documentary is now streaming on HBO Max
- (Originally aired on Investigation Discovery (ID) on August 17, 2025)
Highlights:
- (0:00) Sheryl kicks off Zone 7 with Dr. Katherine Ramsland and Tracy Ullman, introducing The Serial Killer’s Apprentice documentary
- (2:00) How the documentary expands on the book with new interviews, archival footage, and Henley’s own voice
- (4:00) Condensing the sprawling Dean Corll case into a two-hour film without losing depth
- (8:45) “Corll picked two adolescent boys to do his dirty work for him.” – Dr. Ramsland on how predators groom children into crimes
- (11:00) The purpose of the documentary: helping parents, teachers, and kids recognize signs of grooming and recruitment
- (12:45) The Devil’s Den murders and how predators hide in plain sight
- (17:15) Henley’s cries for help that were ignored, and how the film reframes him as both victim and accomplice
- (22:15) Tracy Ullman urges viewers to move beyond the old “fixed villain” narrative, while Henley confronts the reality of being part of a trafficking network and how it reshaped his view of guilt and remorse
- (32:00) Henley’s evolving understanding of his role, his remorse, and why the full truth behind these crimes may still be unfolding
- (36:45) Sheryl closes with a quote from A Darker Shade of Magic: “Some people steal to stay alive. Some people steal to feel alive.”
Thanks for tuning in to Zone 7. If you are enjoying the podcast, please leave a rating and review. Your support helps us continue to educate, investigate, and advocate.
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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 co-author of the textbook Cold Case: Pathways to Justice. She is the founder and director of the Cold Case Investigative Research Institute, a national collaboration that advances techniques for solving cold cases and assists families and law enforcement with unsolved homicides, missing persons, and kidnappings.
Dr. Katherine Ramsland is a professor of forensic psychology at DeSales University and the author of numerous books and articles. Her works include How to Catch a Killer, The Mind of a Murderer, and The Serial Killer’s Apprentice. She is also a frequent contributor to crime documentaries and television shows, where she shares her expertise on serial killers, criminal behavior, and the psychology of predators.
Tracy Ullman is a writer, producer, and investigative journalist who specializes in true crime storytelling and victim advocacy. She co-authored The Serial Killer’s Apprentice with Dr. Katherine Ramsland and has conducted research into John Wayne Gacy and sex trafficking networks. She also served as an executive producer on The Serial Killer’s Apprentice docu
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:08):
Y'all, they are back, and we are so fortunate. Renowned
criminologist doctor Catherine Ramslin and executive producer Tracy Olman are
here tonight and they've got big news that I am
so excited to share with all of y'all. Doctor Ramslin, welcome, welcome,
(00:29):
and will you tell us what's happening.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
Well, it's great to be back here. The last time
we were here, we had Queen Henley with us as well.
We did a couple with him and that was based
on a book that we had written about his case.
And now we have the documentary version of it, a
two hour documentary on the ID Network on August seventeenth,
(00:56):
Sunday night, so nine to eleven East Time, and we're
hoping that people will really respond to that. There there's
more in it than was in the book because there
are people interviewed for the documentary that we're not part
of the book, So there is yet more really to
discover for anyone who has read it and those who haven't.
(01:21):
It's it's quite a case and it's disturbing, shocking, but
so relevant for today.
Speaker 1 (01:30):
When I first learned about it, I got real excited.
I figured there would be some people that weren't in
the book. But anytime you can watch the person talk
and that includes you, doctor, you know, you get to me.
I get so much more from it, like I can
you know, hear the way you you know, present it
(01:51):
and you know that kind of thing. You know what
I'm talking about it.
Speaker 2 (01:54):
I do, and you know, obviously I'm interviewed on it.
But also we have some excerpts from the many hours
of taping that I did when I was talking to Wayne,
So you have footage from the nineteen seventies when all
this happened. You have Wayne talking on tape to me,
(02:15):
you have me talking about the case, you have other
experts talking about the case. So it really is a
different experience than reading the book, though it's the same story.
Speaker 1 (02:27):
And Tracy, I mean, obviously you and doctor Ramslt are
not strangers to TV, and you have even been the
executive producer own a documentary, so this is familiar ground
for you, right right.
Speaker 3 (02:41):
It was a pleasure to make this, and you know,
Catherine and I partnered on the book, but we also
worked very much hand in hand on the documentary because
she was so essential to giving context to this story.
Speaker 1 (02:58):
Of course, you know the first thing I thought about was, man,
that might be a little difficult to take this masterpiece
that y'all have done and then put it in live form.
But then I thought, that's what doctor Ramslin does all
the time.
Speaker 3 (03:13):
She takes it on.
Speaker 1 (03:14):
That's what you do all the time. You take a
textbook and you bring it to life. And you know,
Tracy the same for you. You take material, you take information,
and you put it in film form. So I am
so excited August seventeenth, I cannot wait. But I have
this question now, doctor Ramslin, were there components that you
(03:37):
found difficult to take a chapter and then flip it
into like a SoundBite. Was there anything that was a
challenge for you.
Speaker 2 (03:46):
I think it was that I knew we're going to
take a really large story and condense it down to
two hours, so right off the bat, that's challenging. And
then of course you want to figure out what is
really essential to get across in this story and who
else are they going to be using to peace in.
(04:10):
So for me, it was simply telling the story as
I know it, you know, and reaching back to the
nineteen seventies when the Dean Coral story happened, when these
murders happened, and to be able to talk about it
in the clinical way that I typically have. Wild viewers
(04:30):
are watching these really horrendous images, because you do get
footage of them digging up some of the bodies and
going into Dean Coral's house and seeing what the torture
implements that were in there. Seeing Wayne Henley as a
seventeen year old kid, the skinny guy talking to weeping
(04:52):
on the phone as he's talking to his mother. So
I think trying to get all that into a two
hour show was challenging, but it worked well. I think
I watched it a couple of times and I really
enjoy the sort of way it's been packaged.
Speaker 1 (05:11):
Well, you know, Tracy, I'm Southern, so I love a
good story, and it's hard for me to condense anything.
Speaker 3 (05:19):
I mean.
Speaker 1 (05:21):
And somebody says, do you want ice cream? I don't
want to just say yes or no. I want to
tell them all the reason's. Like, you know, when I
was a child, I loved you know what I mean.
So when I think of this book, there is a
global picture that even when I was reading it, I thought, man,
(05:41):
there is so much more that they're going to be
able to connect from that book. It's not just Dean Coral.
It's not There's a lot more if you look at
crime in general, if you look at the way crime
is committed, and I'm one of those people. If you
take a theft or you take a murder, you can
(06:03):
dissect both and get to the same motive.
Speaker 3 (06:07):
Yeah, I mean, you know, when we wrote the book together,
Katherine really took the lead. My strength was that I
had known Wayne for a few years before we connected Catherine,
and then I was very much into the sex trafficking
aspect of this story and uncovering that. So when we
(06:30):
finally had to sit down with a team that included
members of Dick Wolf Entertainment and ITV America, they hired
in a what's called a showrunner, somebody who was going
to give a look and feel to this story. His
name was Alexis Robi, and then they also had a producer,
(06:53):
Zoe Vach, and all of us did about five different
jobs as we went through what we could possibly do
with a small budget, a relatively small budget, and you know,
in the end, it was pretty incredible the amount of
archive that we had to show what literally happened. And
(07:18):
then we put in the recordings of Wayne. We had
a way of scrubbing through those by having them artificially
intelligenced and transcribed that way, and once we were looking
through those things, we were able to discern, Okay, this
is going to be relevant to what we're talking about here.
(07:40):
This is how we're going to show the grooming that
went on. And once that cut was put together, then
we had doctor Ramsland come back in and she was
basically on a set where we kind of old her
talking with Elma Wayne Henley. But there's a little bit
(08:04):
of fakery that goes on that way. And once you
have the story put together with all those different components,
it really brings you back into the early nineteen seventies
in Houston and in America, and it really gives the
(08:25):
context of we were a country that we were changed
by these murders, and we didn't really know why or
how until you know, we really you know, doctor Ramslin
and I dug into this, and I think now it's
much more obvious what those changes ended up being.
Speaker 1 (08:45):
And I think that's the global picture that interests me
so much, because it's not just murder like serial killer, absolutely,
but when you're talking about the grooming and the sex trafficking.
Those are elements that a lot of people do not
realize are so ingrained in some of these cases.
Speaker 2 (09:04):
And that's partly the takeaway from the book and the
documentary is to recognize that this isn't something deep in
the past, you know, fifty years ago. This is about
kids today just as much and even more so, because
they're more vulnerable than they were back in the seventies.
(09:24):
And it's not just vulnerable to predators looking for prey.
These are predators are looking for partners. They're looking to
groom kids to help them. That's essentially what we're talking
about is an adult Dean Coral, picked two adolescent boys
to do his dirty work for him by leveraging them
(09:47):
and more or less trapping them by using things that
matter to them until they were in too deep to
get out. And this is the thing that kids face today.
There are all kinds of sophistications, predators on the internet
looking for vulnerable kids to bring into the criminal enterprise
(10:08):
they have, and we're seeing that right now with all
the Epstein stuff, that kids can be recruited to recruit
other kids and on it goes. It's pretty horrifying, and
we want people to understand what are the signals and
what should they be doing when kids say they need help?
Speaker 1 (10:27):
And doctor, that's something you have said, and I'm quoting here,
there were hard lessons to learn to help us navigate
today's world. That's what you're talking about, Yes, very much.
You know there's a meme out there that it says
something to the fact that it used to be you
had to protect your child from one person. Well, now
(10:49):
the whole world has access to your child.
Speaker 2 (10:51):
And even some of their own associates. Other kids might
be on something sure, finding ways to exploit their trust.
Speaker 1 (11:03):
So, Tracy, I think the ultimate goal that y'all are
trying to do with this documentary would be what how
would you condense it?
Speaker 3 (11:10):
I think that it is very relevant for doctor Ramsland
to mention Jeffrey Epstein in this instance because we have
this staring us in the face right now as a
societal issue, and the modus operendi is the same across
the board. When you talk about John wayn Gacy, when
(11:31):
you talk about Dean Coral, Jeffrey Epstein learned ways of
operating that are directly related to these men. And when
you think about them operating, They cannot operate successfully without
others empowering them, other people empower clearing the way so
(11:53):
that they don't get arrested, so that they do have
access to other victims as well as other people that
will be paying for their services. And so, you know,
doctor Ramsland and I were discussing earlier, we don't know
half as much as we should about the Jeffrey Epstein
(12:14):
case because with everything else being comparable to these other cases,
is there any form of pornography that surrounds this case?
Are there any murders that surround this case? These are
questions that have not yet been answered. They haven't been asked, really,
(12:35):
And so when you have a modus operendi that's copied
over and over again, what elements have people copied? And
you know, we're just trying to give an example of
what's possible as part of this story.
Speaker 1 (12:49):
And you know, doctor Tryes, it brings up a great point.
The young man that just murdered the mom and dad
that we're walking with the two little girls in the
state park. One of the first things I said is
he will have pornography on all of his devices. Child
pornography specifically. I think the children were his target. I
(13:12):
think those parents probably thought were together, we're in a
state park. We could not be safer.
Speaker 2 (13:18):
That, yeah, And I don't want to make it seem
as if every place in the world is dangerous. But
on the other hand, predators look specifically for places that
people feel safe and pose as people who seem safe.
He was a teacher, He was an ordinary looking guy
(13:38):
aside from the strange hair, but he was an ordinary
looking guy. And so they really want people to be
off guard, to not see them coming, and they play
a long game. Quite often, they will brewm a whole neighborhood,
whole town, a whole city to believe certain things about
(14:01):
them so that they can operate under the radar. And
I think, you know, we don't know that much yet
about his motivation and background. I know some things, but
I think as it's going to come out, you know,
you're probably right that he was certainly out there targeting
possibly those kids. But yeah, he was a dangerous individual
(14:25):
who found a seemingly safe place to operate.
Speaker 1 (14:33):
Tracy, when you're looking at the documentary and y'all have
added people that are not in the book and the
interviews so you're going to have information that's maybe new
to y'all. How did y'all craft that if it was
something that y'all were not privy to before.
Speaker 3 (14:50):
I think the thing we wanted to do was to
get everyone back into Houston in the early nineteen seventies.
We did not want to say, Okay, we've got all
of this noise going on, with fifty years having passed
from this case, we want to bring you back into
Elma Wayne Henley's world. And so one of his best
(15:12):
friends at the time, Angela Michaels, she, you know, was
able to talk about what a good person this was.
We were able to talk about them going to concerts,
what an average individual this person was, and so to
(15:33):
think about Emmayne Henley before all this becomes publicized, you
start to see a teenager who really would never have
gone in this direction if you weren't guided there, if
you weren't manipulated and threatened. We talked with one of
his fellow Cub Scouts, Mark Nelson, and you just get
(15:56):
this mundane picture of a community that comes to gather
at the Henley household, and these cub Scouts meet up
and they're talking about all sorts of activities, and the
Henley parents, you know, Mary and Elmer sr Are you know,
guiding these meetings, and all the kids respect them, and
(16:19):
there is no sign of anything untoward until you see
that family start to break down. You start to see
the insertion of Dean Coral and his methods of grooming,
and everything takes a sharp right turn in the wrong direction.
(16:40):
And as a teenager, Elma Wayne Henley doesn't have the
ability to stop that. He's responding to all sorts of insecurities,
all sorts of lack of intelligence that you might have
as an adult, and for so long we've kind of
superimposed on him. Well he should have known. Will you
(17:02):
try being a young team and understanding all of these
kind of different ways, you know, somebody like dankorl could
manipulate you. It's very difficult even as adults to grasp.
Speaker 2 (17:17):
I think it's important to also point out about the documentary.
It is balanced. We have relatives of victims talking on it,
we have law enforcement discussing it. We have people who
just don't think that Wayne was a good guy, and
we have people who do. So you're really getting a
(17:38):
balanced picture of the response to the crimes and the
fact that Wayne is in this odd position of being
both a victim and a perpetrator, and it's very difficult
to try to find the language to talk about someone
like that.
Speaker 1 (17:55):
Sure, and here's the deal. When he's been on Zone
seven twice, he has stated very clearly he wants to
help at least one child. That's his whole purpose for
working with the two of you and now being a
part of the documentary. How do you think this is
(18:15):
going to maybe affect him? Like, I know you've talked
to him. I mean, is he excited about it?
Speaker 2 (18:22):
Yeah? I think I think he feels that it was worthwhile.
There was a long process and with ups and downs,
as documentary making can be, but I think he is
happy to have finally have had the opportunity to tell
his story fully without being, you know, having it distorted
(18:43):
in some manner as has happened to him before, and
that this could potentially reach not just kids who could
be in trouble, but counselors and teachers and parents who
deal with kids who need to under stand how important
it is to listen because the essence of his story
(19:04):
is that he did try to tell somebody. He tried
to tell several people adults, he tried to get away
several times. This is something that's not well known about him,
but what happened is people thought he was crazy or
drunk or on drugs or something. They just ignored his
cry for help. And he wants people to understand you
(19:25):
have to listen, no matter what it sounds like, you
have to at least try to help these kids. And
I think if he believes that this will in fact
achieve that goal.
Speaker 1 (19:38):
And Tracy, you know, I have watched court go from
just some people like the prosecution and the defense standing
and talking to almost more theatrical. They have you know,
video Now they have all kinds of charts and graphs
that can move and you can show things and real time. Tracy,
(20:02):
to me, when I think of what this documentary could
do for Wayne, especially with Catherine talking to him, is
how they're going to make it look correct, correct that
people are going to have the opportunity to hear him
in a way that I don't think they could in
the book. But this will give them an opportunity to say,
(20:24):
wait a minute, he was a victim, then he became
a perpetrator. Now he's trying to help so again for you,
being a documentary executive producer, that is part of the
story that I would want to really bring to light.
Speaker 3 (20:41):
It was such a privilege to be able to match
up story points with what doctor Ramslan and Wayne Henley
were discussing. But I must admit I was in charge
of scripting the second episode and the very exciting part
of that for me was the very last act where
(21:06):
we start to ask our participants, both for and against
Wayne Henley, now that you know that this had to
do with sexual trafficking, where there was pornography generated of
the victims, how do you feel about that? And to
(21:27):
have one of the victims' family members say, look, somebody
had to take those photographs, somebody had to send those
photographs to a publisher, somebody had to put together the
magazine and then distribute it. That for me, as people
are reflecting the thoughts of that insult to injury for
(21:50):
the victims, that was a very exciting part of putting
that together. To really bring those voices to a symphony
that describes sex trafficking and what really happened in this case,
and that has never been done before.
Speaker 1 (22:06):
Unbelievable. And you know, doctor you and Tracy were so
gracious to allow me to talk to him with y'all twice,
and I know how that affected me. I mean for
days and days, I just kept replaying some things that
he said and knowing the background and knowing the crimes.
(22:27):
I can't imagine for you this is in some way
it's a testament to your career, but it's also again
using your genius to help other people so that lay people, teachers, parents, counselors,
football coaches can get this information.
Speaker 2 (22:49):
That's what I'm hoping for, and I will say I
didn't actually expect it was going to move in this
direction when I had one of the original notions of
out Henley being a bad kid who sold his friends
for money to know this predator, because that was the
original notion that was passed around in the original true
(23:12):
crime books about this. But I wanted to talk with
him because he seemed in one brief interview about his artwork,
he seemed intelligent and self reflective, and I thought, well,
maybe maybe I have something to learn. And so I'm
hoping that is the same effect on other people who've
(23:33):
already made up their minds based on outdated information and
even incorrect information. I hope that's the same experience they
will have when they listen to him and they see
what this case really was about, which was not represented
in the original accounts of this of this case.
Speaker 1 (23:55):
And it's an unbelievable winda into just the most horrific
types of crime that again target children. And I'm going
to go back to the young man we were talking
about in the state park. He not only was a teacher,
but he got that job over and over and over
(24:18):
in different states. So they're there, and they're going to
go to the places where they can get to the
victims of choice.
Speaker 2 (24:28):
And let's not forget the female teacher who was also
recently caught engaging in a relationship with an underage child.
It's not just guys.
Speaker 1 (24:40):
Oh, absolutely excellent point. Yes, And that's the thing. If
you're wanting to be with a child of a certain age,
then you're going to be a little league football coach,
or you're going to teach you the elementary school, you're
going to be a malsana. You're going to gravitate to
those jobs.
Speaker 2 (24:59):
Yeah, there's all kinds of ways in if you really determine.
Speaker 1 (25:03):
Of course, pracy, what do you think when the documentary
is out and people are going to be able to
engage and talk about it and hopefully start asking some questions.
What do you want them to be able to take
away from it to use immediately?
Speaker 3 (25:23):
You know, there's I actually want to kind of flip
that question.
Speaker 1 (25:27):
If it's okay, what I don't, Honey, you flip anything
you want.
Speaker 3 (25:32):
Thank you, I'm here flipping. But the thing that I
don't want people to take away are people who are
dead set in seeing this individual as one of the
worst criminals of all time. You know, the things that
he did while he was under the influence of a complete,
(25:58):
you know, completely manipulative, dangerous individual. The things that he
did were not things that he would have done had
he not met that person. And so when you think
about him committing murder, we have to put that in context.
And if people are constantly banging the drum of this
(26:19):
is a more than fifty year old narrative, the narrative
has to stick. We have to see this individual as dangerous,
always dangerous, and never redeemable, no matter what he says
and no matter what new information we have. That's something
that I will be very frustrated if people decide to
(26:41):
seize on language or you know, parts of this story
without viewing the entire body of information. What I would
hope people do is they say, oh, my goodness, I
can't believe. And this was the same for the investigation
into John Wayne Gacy. I think it will prove out
(27:01):
in the investigation of Jeffrey Epstein is that what we've
had here are people that are in power, who have
access to these illicit activities. They exploit them, they benefit from,
you know, expressing their perversions, and then they get to
(27:24):
write the history that we've now had for the past
fifty years, assigning Elma Wyn Henley Junior all of the
viciousness in these crimes. And what I want people to
take away from is, no, this was a child. You know.
(27:45):
This afternoon, doctor Ramselin and I were saying, you know,
can we accurately get the age at which Elmayn Henley
would have been involved in these crimes? And we went
between fourteen and fifteen years old, And the conclusion we
both came to is that's still very young. When I
imagine my three children being that age. You know, this
(28:09):
is these are not capable individuals. These are still forming individuals.
And so I just feel as though, you know, if
we can look at this with a new information, then
we see how many people prevented Dean Coral being discovered earlier.
(28:30):
How many people must have known he was creating pornography,
how many people must have known that they were purchasing
his pornography, and that there was a ring that surrounded
him that was, you know, very wealthy and very connected.
(28:51):
So what we want to walk away from is, let's
take a good look at who we're dealing with. Let's
understand why that individual might be making a suggestion about
taking our kids and kind of you know, doing things
with them that are just doesn't make sense. Why don't
we go ahead in question authority a little bit more.
(29:13):
That's what I'm hoping people will walk away with, not
that they will be afraid of anyone, but that they
will be more informed about how to behave in these
situations and not take situations in which authorities are presented
to us and take them just lock stock and barrel
everything that they do. Oh, that must make sense, you know.
(29:36):
I did a lot of research into the former Speaker
of the House, Dennis Haster as a result of looking
into these cases, and when I think about how many
victims Dennis Hastard had even though he continued to progress
in power and status and wealth. And you look back
(29:57):
on him now and you think, you know, it's just
horrible that we empowered him, and we shouldn't be letting
people get away with these things.
Speaker 1 (30:06):
And you know, Doc she mentioned Gacy, and you know
he was part of a sex rink. I thought that
was going to come out at Delphi, that there was
a sex ring when I first heard that one man
was texting one of the victims and said, Hey, meet
me at the bridge on this day this time, And
there just happened to be a second individual, a child killer,
(30:29):
on that same bridge at the same date and time.
I thought, surely these people know each other. And then
they were found on the property of another man that
had a background, and I just thought, this has got
to be a ring.
Speaker 2 (30:41):
I don't know that it's definitely not that. The problem
with relying on the information we have is that there's
a cognitive error we make that all the information we
have is all there is, and that's not necessarily true.
There could be things we will find out later or
(31:04):
which will never be uncovered, but which are nevertheless true.
I'm not trying to feed a conspiracy theory here, but
but I always am very careful about saying that we
have the final story on any case, because I've watched
just this case, for example, I've watched how it evolved
as we've come up with more and more information. There's
(31:26):
still stuff being found that we weren't even able to
add in because it's only been found recently. So I
think that that I wouldn't say definitively there wasn't one
or that we'll never find out. I think I think
this is that is a case that has some dark spaces,
yet still I think.
Speaker 1 (31:47):
I would agree with you one hundred percent, because I've
even said I can't fathom the coincidence that would take.
I imagine y'all get a lot of questions. I at one
is about Wayne. Did he ever have any remorse or
does he have remorse?
Speaker 3 (32:05):
Now? You know, having spoken with him on a regular basis,
sometimes twice a week for the past five years, we've
had many discussions about Wayne's remorse and how he wish.
You know. One of the first conversations that him and
I actually had, starting in March of twenty twenty, was
(32:27):
I said, did you realize that you were part of
a sex trafficking ring, And he said he was very
intimidated by that. He said, I don't think I know
what you're referring to. I said, I need you to
know that a lot of your victims appeared in pornography
that you had no responsibility for. I said that pornography
(32:48):
was distributed over years and found again and again in
various collections. And him hearing this was just mind blowing
to him. He had never even considered it. He had
heard of syndicate, He had understood there might be other
people in Dallas associated with Dean Coral, but he had
(33:08):
never been able to He just wanted to follow along
with what had been told to him in court. You
are responsible for these murders that you've committed, and you
will forever be, you know, at the receiving end of guilt.
And he just kind of banged that drum all along.
(33:29):
And so once we started talking about, wait, this is
a reality that you were not the sole apprentice of
this individual. More than likely there were apprentices before you
that no longer existed when you got there. And then
to kind of bring him into police records that he
(33:49):
had never had access to that they knew right away
that there was pornography of the victims. That they started
to associate this with an individual in data Listen named
John David Norman, but that this individual, who was arrested
initially for having four tons of child pornography in Dallas,
(34:09):
managed to escape on bond to the suburbs of Chicago,
uniting with associates of John Wayne Gacy. When you think
about that whole large scenario, I think that Wayne finally
got some relief in the idea that wait, I was
(34:31):
not old enough to consent to this, I didn't even
understand maybe what was happening, and the behaviors that I
experienced were merely for survival. And that was something that
I think both of us had to convince him of
instead of just that he was responsible for every single
murder that happened.
Speaker 2 (34:50):
Yeah, and so when I first talked to him, one
of the very first things he said to me was,
don't try to talk me out of being responsible for this. Wow,
what a way to introduce yourself. And you know, but
I knew that eventually I would be introducing him to
the literature from neuro psychology and the teenage brain and
(35:14):
you know, things like that that would help him understand
much more about how easily kids are to manipulate. And
you know, I didn't want him necessarily to take a
stance of resistance, but repeatedly he has expressed remorse and
he doesn't understand why people don't think he's capable of it,
(35:37):
which was the idea, you know, back when he was
trying to do some media in the nineteen eighties and nineties,
people just didn't believe that he could he could be
genuine or have any real deep feeling about being remorseful.
But he he's horrified at how at what he was
(35:58):
capable of doing under the influence of Dean Coral. And he,
as he says in the documentary, I'm still living my
life inside Dean Coral because I'm here because of Dean Coral.
And these are not the things I would have ever
wanted to do. He wanted to be a minister, and
(36:19):
he read the Bible every day, carried a little pocket
Bible around with him. And that's somebody who's not a
person who wanted to bring harm to others. And so
I think that it's hard for him to understand why
do people question his ability to feel the remorse that
he says he has, and yet we do come across
(36:42):
that a lot.
Speaker 1 (36:44):
That's powerful. And I just appreciate you both. I mean,
y'all know how I feel about your work. It is
invaluable and it is something that needs to be in
the hands of every teacher and counselor and parent and
coach and anybody that deals with children in any way.
So I just appreciate you both. And congratulations on the documentary.
(37:07):
That is significant and it is well earned and deserved.
Speaker 3 (37:12):
Thank you, Thank you so much. We really appreciate you.
Speaker 1 (37:16):
Cheryl anytime, anytime, y'all. I'm going to end Zone seven
the way that I always do with a quote, some
people still to stay alive and some people still to
feel alive, simple as that. From a darker shade of magic.
I'm Cheryl McCollum, and this is Zone seven.
Y'all, they are back, and we are so fortunate. Renowned
criminologist doctor Catherine Ramslin and executive producer Tracy Olman are
here tonight and they've got big news that I am
so excited to share with all of y'all. Doctor Ramslin, welcome, welcome,
(00:29):
and will you tell us what's happening.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
Well, it's great to be back here. The last time
we were here, we had Queen Henley with us as well.
We did a couple with him and that was based
on a book that we had written about his case.
And now we have the documentary version of it, a
two hour documentary on the ID Network on August seventeenth,
(00:56):
Sunday night, so nine to eleven East Time, and we're
hoping that people will really respond to that. There there's
more in it than was in the book because there
are people interviewed for the documentary that we're not part
of the book, So there is yet more really to
discover for anyone who has read it and those who haven't.
(01:21):
It's it's quite a case and it's disturbing, shocking, but
so relevant for today.
Speaker 1 (01:30):
When I first learned about it, I got real excited.
I figured there would be some people that weren't in
the book. But anytime you can watch the person talk
and that includes you, doctor, you know, you get to me.
I get so much more from it, like I can
you know, hear the way you you know, present it
(01:51):
and you know that kind of thing. You know what
I'm talking about it.
Speaker 2 (01:54):
I do, and you know, obviously I'm interviewed on it.
But also we have some excerpts from the many hours
of taping that I did when I was talking to Wayne,
So you have footage from the nineteen seventies when all
this happened. You have Wayne talking on tape to me,
(02:15):
you have me talking about the case, you have other
experts talking about the case. So it really is a
different experience than reading the book, though it's the same story.
Speaker 1 (02:27):
And Tracy, I mean, obviously you and doctor Ramslt are
not strangers to TV, and you have even been the
executive producer own a documentary, so this is familiar ground
for you, right right.
Speaker 3 (02:41):
It was a pleasure to make this, and you know,
Catherine and I partnered on the book, but we also
worked very much hand in hand on the documentary because
she was so essential to giving context to this story.
Speaker 1 (02:58):
Of course, you know the first thing I thought about was, man,
that might be a little difficult to take this masterpiece
that y'all have done and then put it in live form.
But then I thought, that's what doctor Ramslin does all
the time.
Speaker 3 (03:13):
She takes it on.
Speaker 1 (03:14):
That's what you do all the time. You take a
textbook and you bring it to life. And you know,
Tracy the same for you. You take material, you take information,
and you put it in film form. So I am
so excited August seventeenth, I cannot wait. But I have
this question now, doctor Ramslin, were there components that you
(03:37):
found difficult to take a chapter and then flip it
into like a SoundBite. Was there anything that was a
challenge for you.
Speaker 2 (03:46):
I think it was that I knew we're going to
take a really large story and condense it down to
two hours, so right off the bat, that's challenging. And
then of course you want to figure out what is
really essential to get across in this story and who
else are they going to be using to peace in.
(04:10):
So for me, it was simply telling the story as
I know it, you know, and reaching back to the
nineteen seventies when the Dean Coral story happened, when these
murders happened, and to be able to talk about it
in the clinical way that I typically have. Wild viewers
(04:30):
are watching these really horrendous images, because you do get
footage of them digging up some of the bodies and
going into Dean Coral's house and seeing what the torture
implements that were in there. Seeing Wayne Henley as a
seventeen year old kid, the skinny guy talking to weeping
(04:52):
on the phone as he's talking to his mother. So
I think trying to get all that into a two
hour show was challenging, but it worked well. I think
I watched it a couple of times and I really
enjoy the sort of way it's been packaged.
Speaker 1 (05:11):
Well, you know, Tracy, I'm Southern, so I love a
good story, and it's hard for me to condense anything.
Speaker 3 (05:19):
I mean.
Speaker 1 (05:21):
And somebody says, do you want ice cream? I don't
want to just say yes or no. I want to
tell them all the reason's. Like, you know, when I
was a child, I loved you know what I mean.
So when I think of this book, there is a
global picture that even when I was reading it, I thought, man,
(05:41):
there is so much more that they're going to be
able to connect from that book. It's not just Dean Coral.
It's not There's a lot more if you look at
crime in general, if you look at the way crime
is committed, and I'm one of those people. If you
take a theft or you take a murder, you can
(06:03):
dissect both and get to the same motive.
Speaker 3 (06:07):
Yeah, I mean, you know, when we wrote the book together,
Katherine really took the lead. My strength was that I
had known Wayne for a few years before we connected Catherine,
and then I was very much into the sex trafficking
aspect of this story and uncovering that. So when we
(06:30):
finally had to sit down with a team that included
members of Dick Wolf Entertainment and ITV America, they hired
in a what's called a showrunner, somebody who was going
to give a look and feel to this story. His
name was Alexis Robi, and then they also had a producer,
(06:53):
Zoe Vach, and all of us did about five different
jobs as we went through what we could possibly do
with a small budget, a relatively small budget, and you know,
in the end, it was pretty incredible the amount of
archive that we had to show what literally happened. And
(07:18):
then we put in the recordings of Wayne. We had
a way of scrubbing through those by having them artificially
intelligenced and transcribed that way, and once we were looking
through those things, we were able to discern, Okay, this
is going to be relevant to what we're talking about here.
(07:40):
This is how we're going to show the grooming that
went on. And once that cut was put together, then
we had doctor Ramsland come back in and she was
basically on a set where we kind of old her
talking with Elma Wayne Henley. But there's a little bit
(08:04):
of fakery that goes on that way. And once you
have the story put together with all those different components,
it really brings you back into the early nineteen seventies
in Houston and in America, and it really gives the
(08:25):
context of we were a country that we were changed
by these murders, and we didn't really know why or
how until you know, we really you know, doctor Ramslin
and I dug into this, and I think now it's
much more obvious what those changes ended up being.
Speaker 1 (08:45):
And I think that's the global picture that interests me
so much, because it's not just murder like serial killer, absolutely,
but when you're talking about the grooming and the sex trafficking.
Those are elements that a lot of people do not
realize are so ingrained in some of these cases.
Speaker 2 (09:04):
And that's partly the takeaway from the book and the
documentary is to recognize that this isn't something deep in
the past, you know, fifty years ago. This is about
kids today just as much and even more so, because
they're more vulnerable than they were back in the seventies.
(09:24):
And it's not just vulnerable to predators looking for prey.
These are predators are looking for partners. They're looking to
groom kids to help them. That's essentially what we're talking
about is an adult Dean Coral, picked two adolescent boys
to do his dirty work for him by leveraging them
(09:47):
and more or less trapping them by using things that
matter to them until they were in too deep to
get out. And this is the thing that kids face today.
There are all kinds of sophistications, predators on the internet
looking for vulnerable kids to bring into the criminal enterprise
(10:08):
they have, and we're seeing that right now with all
the Epstein stuff, that kids can be recruited to recruit
other kids and on it goes. It's pretty horrifying, and
we want people to understand what are the signals and
what should they be doing when kids say they need help?
Speaker 1 (10:27):
And doctor, that's something you have said, and I'm quoting here,
there were hard lessons to learn to help us navigate
today's world. That's what you're talking about, Yes, very much.
You know there's a meme out there that it says
something to the fact that it used to be you
had to protect your child from one person. Well, now
(10:49):
the whole world has access to your child.
Speaker 2 (10:51):
And even some of their own associates. Other kids might
be on something sure, finding ways to exploit their trust.
Speaker 1 (11:03):
So, Tracy, I think the ultimate goal that y'all are
trying to do with this documentary would be what how
would you condense it?
Speaker 3 (11:10):
I think that it is very relevant for doctor Ramsland
to mention Jeffrey Epstein in this instance because we have
this staring us in the face right now as a
societal issue, and the modus operendi is the same across
the board. When you talk about John wayn Gacy, when
(11:31):
you talk about Dean Coral, Jeffrey Epstein learned ways of
operating that are directly related to these men. And when
you think about them operating, They cannot operate successfully without
others empowering them, other people empower clearing the way so
(11:53):
that they don't get arrested, so that they do have
access to other victims as well as other people that
will be paying for their services. And so, you know,
doctor Ramsland and I were discussing earlier, we don't know
half as much as we should about the Jeffrey Epstein
(12:14):
case because with everything else being comparable to these other cases,
is there any form of pornography that surrounds this case?
Are there any murders that surround this case? These are
questions that have not yet been answered. They haven't been asked, really,
(12:35):
And so when you have a modus operendi that's copied
over and over again, what elements have people copied? And
you know, we're just trying to give an example of
what's possible as part of this story.
Speaker 1 (12:49):
And you know, doctor Tryes, it brings up a great point.
The young man that just murdered the mom and dad
that we're walking with the two little girls in the
state park. One of the first things I said is
he will have pornography on all of his devices. Child
pornography specifically. I think the children were his target. I
(13:12):
think those parents probably thought were together, we're in a
state park. We could not be safer.
Speaker 2 (13:18):
That, yeah, And I don't want to make it seem
as if every place in the world is dangerous. But
on the other hand, predators look specifically for places that
people feel safe and pose as people who seem safe.
He was a teacher, He was an ordinary looking guy
(13:38):
aside from the strange hair, but he was an ordinary
looking guy. And so they really want people to be
off guard, to not see them coming, and they play
a long game. Quite often, they will brewm a whole neighborhood,
whole town, a whole city to believe certain things about
(14:01):
them so that they can operate under the radar. And
I think, you know, we don't know that much yet
about his motivation and background. I know some things, but
I think as it's going to come out, you know,
you're probably right that he was certainly out there targeting
possibly those kids. But yeah, he was a dangerous individual
(14:25):
who found a seemingly safe place to operate.
Speaker 1 (14:33):
Tracy, when you're looking at the documentary and y'all have
added people that are not in the book and the
interviews so you're going to have information that's maybe new
to y'all. How did y'all craft that if it was
something that y'all were not privy to before.
Speaker 3 (14:50):
I think the thing we wanted to do was to
get everyone back into Houston in the early nineteen seventies.
We did not want to say, Okay, we've got all
of this noise going on, with fifty years having passed
from this case, we want to bring you back into
Elma Wayne Henley's world. And so one of his best
(15:12):
friends at the time, Angela Michaels, she, you know, was
able to talk about what a good person this was.
We were able to talk about them going to concerts,
what an average individual this person was, and so to
(15:33):
think about Emmayne Henley before all this becomes publicized, you
start to see a teenager who really would never have
gone in this direction if you weren't guided there, if
you weren't manipulated and threatened. We talked with one of
his fellow Cub Scouts, Mark Nelson, and you just get
(15:56):
this mundane picture of a community that comes to gather
at the Henley household, and these cub Scouts meet up
and they're talking about all sorts of activities, and the
Henley parents, you know, Mary and Elmer sr Are you know,
guiding these meetings, and all the kids respect them, and
(16:19):
there is no sign of anything untoward until you see
that family start to break down. You start to see
the insertion of Dean Coral and his methods of grooming,
and everything takes a sharp right turn in the wrong direction.
(16:40):
And as a teenager, Elma Wayne Henley doesn't have the
ability to stop that. He's responding to all sorts of insecurities,
all sorts of lack of intelligence that you might have
as an adult, and for so long we've kind of
superimposed on him. Well he should have known. Will you
(17:02):
try being a young team and understanding all of these
kind of different ways, you know, somebody like dankorl could
manipulate you. It's very difficult even as adults to grasp.
Speaker 2 (17:17):
I think it's important to also point out about the documentary.
It is balanced. We have relatives of victims talking on it,
we have law enforcement discussing it. We have people who
just don't think that Wayne was a good guy, and
we have people who do. So you're really getting a
(17:38):
balanced picture of the response to the crimes and the
fact that Wayne is in this odd position of being
both a victim and a perpetrator, and it's very difficult
to try to find the language to talk about someone
like that.
Speaker 1 (17:55):
Sure, and here's the deal. When he's been on Zone
seven twice, he has stated very clearly he wants to
help at least one child. That's his whole purpose for
working with the two of you and now being a
part of the documentary. How do you think this is
(18:15):
going to maybe affect him? Like, I know you've talked
to him. I mean, is he excited about it?
Speaker 2 (18:22):
Yeah? I think I think he feels that it was worthwhile.
There was a long process and with ups and downs,
as documentary making can be, but I think he is
happy to have finally have had the opportunity to tell
his story fully without being, you know, having it distorted
(18:43):
in some manner as has happened to him before, and
that this could potentially reach not just kids who could
be in trouble, but counselors and teachers and parents who
deal with kids who need to under stand how important
it is to listen because the essence of his story
(19:04):
is that he did try to tell somebody. He tried
to tell several people adults, he tried to get away
several times. This is something that's not well known about him,
but what happened is people thought he was crazy or
drunk or on drugs or something. They just ignored his
cry for help. And he wants people to understand you
(19:25):
have to listen, no matter what it sounds like, you
have to at least try to help these kids. And
I think if he believes that this will in fact
achieve that goal.
Speaker 1 (19:38):
And Tracy, you know, I have watched court go from
just some people like the prosecution and the defense standing
and talking to almost more theatrical. They have you know,
video Now they have all kinds of charts and graphs
that can move and you can show things and real time. Tracy,
(20:02):
to me, when I think of what this documentary could
do for Wayne, especially with Catherine talking to him, is
how they're going to make it look correct, correct that
people are going to have the opportunity to hear him
in a way that I don't think they could in
the book. But this will give them an opportunity to say,
(20:24):
wait a minute, he was a victim, then he became
a perpetrator. Now he's trying to help so again for you,
being a documentary executive producer, that is part of the
story that I would want to really bring to light.
Speaker 3 (20:41):
It was such a privilege to be able to match
up story points with what doctor Ramslan and Wayne Henley
were discussing. But I must admit I was in charge
of scripting the second episode and the very exciting part
of that for me was the very last act where
(21:06):
we start to ask our participants, both for and against
Wayne Henley, now that you know that this had to
do with sexual trafficking, where there was pornography generated of
the victims, how do you feel about that? And to
(21:27):
have one of the victims' family members say, look, somebody
had to take those photographs, somebody had to send those
photographs to a publisher, somebody had to put together the
magazine and then distribute it. That for me, as people
are reflecting the thoughts of that insult to injury for
(21:50):
the victims, that was a very exciting part of putting
that together. To really bring those voices to a symphony
that describes sex trafficking and what really happened in this case,
and that has never been done before.
Speaker 1 (22:06):
Unbelievable. And you know, doctor you and Tracy were so
gracious to allow me to talk to him with y'all twice,
and I know how that affected me. I mean for
days and days, I just kept replaying some things that
he said and knowing the background and knowing the crimes.
(22:27):
I can't imagine for you this is in some way
it's a testament to your career, but it's also again
using your genius to help other people so that lay people, teachers, parents, counselors,
football coaches can get this information.
Speaker 2 (22:49):
That's what I'm hoping for, and I will say I
didn't actually expect it was going to move in this
direction when I had one of the original notions of
out Henley being a bad kid who sold his friends
for money to know this predator, because that was the
original notion that was passed around in the original true
(23:12):
crime books about this. But I wanted to talk with
him because he seemed in one brief interview about his artwork,
he seemed intelligent and self reflective, and I thought, well,
maybe maybe I have something to learn. And so I'm
hoping that is the same effect on other people who've
(23:33):
already made up their minds based on outdated information and
even incorrect information. I hope that's the same experience they
will have when they listen to him and they see
what this case really was about, which was not represented
in the original accounts of this of this case.
Speaker 1 (23:55):
And it's an unbelievable winda into just the most horrific
types of crime that again target children. And I'm going
to go back to the young man we were talking
about in the state park. He not only was a teacher,
but he got that job over and over and over
(24:18):
in different states. So they're there, and they're going to
go to the places where they can get to the
victims of choice.
Speaker 2 (24:28):
And let's not forget the female teacher who was also
recently caught engaging in a relationship with an underage child.
It's not just guys.
Speaker 1 (24:40):
Oh, absolutely excellent point. Yes, And that's the thing. If
you're wanting to be with a child of a certain age,
then you're going to be a little league football coach,
or you're going to teach you the elementary school, you're
going to be a malsana. You're going to gravitate to
those jobs.
Speaker 2 (24:59):
Yeah, there's all kinds of ways in if you really determine.
Speaker 1 (25:03):
Of course, pracy, what do you think when the documentary
is out and people are going to be able to
engage and talk about it and hopefully start asking some questions.
What do you want them to be able to take
away from it to use immediately?
Speaker 3 (25:23):
You know, there's I actually want to kind of flip
that question.
Speaker 1 (25:27):
If it's okay, what I don't, Honey, you flip anything
you want.
Speaker 3 (25:32):
Thank you, I'm here flipping. But the thing that I
don't want people to take away are people who are
dead set in seeing this individual as one of the
worst criminals of all time. You know, the things that
he did while he was under the influence of a complete,
(25:58):
you know, completely manipulative, dangerous individual. The things that he
did were not things that he would have done had
he not met that person. And so when you think
about him committing murder, we have to put that in context.
And if people are constantly banging the drum of this
(26:19):
is a more than fifty year old narrative, the narrative
has to stick. We have to see this individual as dangerous,
always dangerous, and never redeemable, no matter what he says
and no matter what new information we have. That's something
that I will be very frustrated if people decide to
(26:41):
seize on language or you know, parts of this story
without viewing the entire body of information. What I would
hope people do is they say, oh, my goodness, I
can't believe. And this was the same for the investigation
into John Wayne Gacy. I think it will prove out
(27:01):
in the investigation of Jeffrey Epstein is that what we've
had here are people that are in power, who have
access to these illicit activities. They exploit them, they benefit from,
you know, expressing their perversions, and then they get to
(27:24):
write the history that we've now had for the past
fifty years, assigning Elma Wyn Henley Junior all of the
viciousness in these crimes. And what I want people to
take away from is, no, this was a child. You know.
(27:45):
This afternoon, doctor Ramselin and I were saying, you know,
can we accurately get the age at which Elmayn Henley
would have been involved in these crimes? And we went
between fourteen and fifteen years old, And the conclusion we
both came to is that's still very young. When I
imagine my three children being that age. You know, this
(28:09):
is these are not capable individuals. These are still forming individuals.
And so I just feel as though, you know, if
we can look at this with a new information, then
we see how many people prevented Dean Coral being discovered earlier.
(28:30):
How many people must have known he was creating pornography,
how many people must have known that they were purchasing
his pornography, and that there was a ring that surrounded
him that was, you know, very wealthy and very connected.
(28:51):
So what we want to walk away from is, let's
take a good look at who we're dealing with. Let's
understand why that individual might be making a suggestion about
taking our kids and kind of you know, doing things
with them that are just doesn't make sense. Why don't
we go ahead in question authority a little bit more.
(29:13):
That's what I'm hoping people will walk away with, not
that they will be afraid of anyone, but that they
will be more informed about how to behave in these
situations and not take situations in which authorities are presented
to us and take them just lock stock and barrel
everything that they do. Oh, that must make sense, you know.
(29:36):
I did a lot of research into the former Speaker
of the House, Dennis Haster as a result of looking
into these cases, and when I think about how many
victims Dennis Hastard had even though he continued to progress
in power and status and wealth. And you look back
(29:57):
on him now and you think, you know, it's just
horrible that we empowered him, and we shouldn't be letting
people get away with these things.
Speaker 1 (30:06):
And you know, Doc she mentioned Gacy, and you know
he was part of a sex rink. I thought that
was going to come out at Delphi, that there was
a sex ring when I first heard that one man
was texting one of the victims and said, Hey, meet
me at the bridge on this day this time, And
there just happened to be a second individual, a child killer,
(30:29):
on that same bridge at the same date and time.
I thought, surely these people know each other. And then
they were found on the property of another man that
had a background, and I just thought, this has got
to be a ring.
Speaker 2 (30:41):
I don't know that it's definitely not that. The problem
with relying on the information we have is that there's
a cognitive error we make that all the information we
have is all there is, and that's not necessarily true.
There could be things we will find out later or
(31:04):
which will never be uncovered, but which are nevertheless true.
I'm not trying to feed a conspiracy theory here, but
but I always am very careful about saying that we
have the final story on any case, because I've watched
just this case, for example, I've watched how it evolved
as we've come up with more and more information. There's
(31:26):
still stuff being found that we weren't even able to
add in because it's only been found recently. So I
think that that I wouldn't say definitively there wasn't one
or that we'll never find out. I think I think
this is that is a case that has some dark spaces,
yet still I think.
Speaker 1 (31:47):
I would agree with you one hundred percent, because I've
even said I can't fathom the coincidence that would take.
I imagine y'all get a lot of questions. I at one
is about Wayne. Did he ever have any remorse or
does he have remorse?
Speaker 3 (32:05):
Now? You know, having spoken with him on a regular basis,
sometimes twice a week for the past five years, we've
had many discussions about Wayne's remorse and how he wish.
You know. One of the first conversations that him and
I actually had, starting in March of twenty twenty, was
(32:27):
I said, did you realize that you were part of
a sex trafficking ring, And he said he was very
intimidated by that. He said, I don't think I know
what you're referring to. I said, I need you to
know that a lot of your victims appeared in pornography
that you had no responsibility for. I said that pornography
(32:48):
was distributed over years and found again and again in
various collections. And him hearing this was just mind blowing
to him. He had never even considered it. He had
heard of syndicate, He had understood there might be other
people in Dallas associated with Dean Coral, but he had
(33:08):
never been able to He just wanted to follow along
with what had been told to him in court. You
are responsible for these murders that you've committed, and you
will forever be, you know, at the receiving end of guilt.
And he just kind of banged that drum all along.
(33:29):
And so once we started talking about, wait, this is
a reality that you were not the sole apprentice of
this individual. More than likely there were apprentices before you
that no longer existed when you got there. And then
to kind of bring him into police records that he
(33:49):
had never had access to that they knew right away
that there was pornography of the victims. That they started
to associate this with an individual in data Listen named
John David Norman, but that this individual, who was arrested
initially for having four tons of child pornography in Dallas,
(34:09):
managed to escape on bond to the suburbs of Chicago,
uniting with associates of John Wayne Gacy. When you think
about that whole large scenario, I think that Wayne finally
got some relief in the idea that wait, I was
(34:31):
not old enough to consent to this, I didn't even
understand maybe what was happening, and the behaviors that I
experienced were merely for survival. And that was something that
I think both of us had to convince him of
instead of just that he was responsible for every single
murder that happened.
Speaker 2 (34:50):
Yeah, and so when I first talked to him, one
of the very first things he said to me was,
don't try to talk me out of being responsible for this. Wow,
what a way to introduce yourself. And you know, but
I knew that eventually I would be introducing him to
the literature from neuro psychology and the teenage brain and
(35:14):
you know, things like that that would help him understand
much more about how easily kids are to manipulate. And
you know, I didn't want him necessarily to take a
stance of resistance, but repeatedly he has expressed remorse and
he doesn't understand why people don't think he's capable of it,
(35:37):
which was the idea, you know, back when he was
trying to do some media in the nineteen eighties and nineties,
people just didn't believe that he could he could be
genuine or have any real deep feeling about being remorseful.
But he he's horrified at how at what he was
(35:58):
capable of doing under the influence of Dean Coral. And he,
as he says in the documentary, I'm still living my
life inside Dean Coral because I'm here because of Dean Coral.
And these are not the things I would have ever
wanted to do. He wanted to be a minister, and
(36:19):
he read the Bible every day, carried a little pocket
Bible around with him. And that's somebody who's not a
person who wanted to bring harm to others. And so
I think that it's hard for him to understand why
do people question his ability to feel the remorse that
he says he has, and yet we do come across
(36:42):
that a lot.
Speaker 1 (36:44):
That's powerful. And I just appreciate you both. I mean,
y'all know how I feel about your work. It is
invaluable and it is something that needs to be in
the hands of every teacher and counselor and parent and
coach and anybody that deals with children in any way.
So I just appreciate you both. And congratulations on the documentary.
(37:07):
That is significant and it is well earned and deserved.
Speaker 3 (37:12):
Thank you, Thank you so much. We really appreciate you.
Speaker 1 (37:16):
Cheryl anytime, anytime, y'all. I'm going to end Zone seven
the way that I always do with a quote, some
people still to stay alive and some people still to
feel alive, simple as that. From a darker shade of magic.
I'm Cheryl McCollum, and this is Zone seven.
Host
Sheryl McCollum
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