December 27, 2023 • 45 mins
In this episode of Zone 7, Crime Scene Investigator, Sheryl McCollum, sits down with Aphrodite Jones. Together they primarily discuss Jones' latest book, "Levi's Eyes," and explore chilling cases that reveal the disturbing nature of psychopaths. They also give insights into high-profile cases including OJ Simpson, JonBenét Ramsey, and Natalie Halloway.
Guest Bio:
Aphrodite Jones is a New York Times best-selling author who dissects bizarre murder cases and brings readers into the heart of crime. She is also the host of the hit TV show True Crime with Aphrodite Jones, which airs on Investigation Discovery and is available on Amazon Prime. Listeners can learn more about Aphrodite at her website: aphroditejones.com/, or on X @Aphrodite_Jones
Resources/Mentions:
True Crime with Aphrodite Jones
LEVI'S EYES: A Son's Deadly Secret and a Father's Cruel Betrayal
Show Notes:
- [0:00] Welcome back to Zone 7 with Crime Scene Investigator, Sheryl McCollum.
- [2:30] Sheryl introduces Aphrodite Jones to the listeners
- [4:00] Discussion about the Natalie Holloway case
- [7:00] Insights into "Levi's Eyes" by Aphrodite Jones
- [8:43] Question: Can you walk us through how you investigate a case?
- [11:15] Questioning Carl’s alibi
- [15:30] The suspicious window repair… took 17 nails
- [18:30] Examination of criminal minds
- [24:30] Question: Can we break down the insurance policy that Carl had on his wife?
- [25:48] “That's what starts to make you wonder what was it he was going to do there that day in that fire in California. He got Levi out or Levi got out. Which is it? What did Levi see? What did Levi know? Why did Levi get killed? 17 years later, when he was 23 years old, all that is a thread that comes together.”
- [30:30] Sheryl and Aphrodite discuss the car fire that took place
- [37:45] Question: What are your most memorable cases?
- [45:30] “The serial arsonist is the most difficult to apprehend. Because the evidence is burned up.”
- Thanks for listening to another episode! If you love the show and want to help grow the show, please head over to iTunes and leave a rating and review! How to Leave an Apple Podcast Review: First, Open the podcast app on your iPhone, Mac, or iPad. Then, hit the “Search” tab at the bottom right-hand corner of the page and search for Zone 7. Select the podcast, scroll down to find the subheading “Ratings & Reviews”. and select “Write a Review.”
---
Sheryl “Mac” McCollum is an Emmy Award-winning CSI, a writer for CrimeOnLine, a 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.
You can connect and learn more about Sheryl’s work by visiting the CCIRI website https://coldcasecrimes.org
Social Links:
- Email: coldcase2004@gmail.com
- Twitter: @ColdCaseTips
- Facebook: @sheryl.mccollum
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:09):
Walk and I had a house fire. We had left
for work that morning. We carpooled to work. It was
a normal day, and y'all know how that goes. Anytime
somebody says it was a day like any other, that
means something's about to go down. Well, about mid morning,
I got a call from the fire chief saying, Cheryl,
y'all need to get home. Your house is on fire.
(00:30):
And I was like, well, Chief, do I need to
rush or is there just nothing left? I mean, tell
me what's going on, And he said, no, it's a
pretty good fire, but there's a lot that's been salvaged. Well,
when I got home, of course, all our neighbors were
in the front yard and everybody's there, the fire trucks
and the police, everybody. And to me, the fire had
(00:52):
done a lot of damage, but the fire department with
their water and the way they dropped the ceilings and
bust it into the walls to make sure there wasn't
any other embers that could have a secondary fire. Later,
I mean, the house just looked totally destroyed. To me.
Our neighbor's house actually caught fire and the flames came
(01:15):
over to our house, so it wasn't even anything we
had anything to do with, but it was still a
really strange feeling when you're getting interviewed and questioned by
an Arson investigator. We have somebody so fantastic with us.
Aphrodite Jones. She is a TV personality. She's a best
(01:36):
selling author. She has worked for over thirty years to
bring us up close and personal with some of the
darkest motives and just these emotional type truths behind these crimes.
She was the host of True Crime with Aphrodite Jones
for six seasons, a remarkable show. Her best selling books
(02:00):
have been turned into acclaimed films like the award winning
Boys Don't Cry and then the Netflix hit The Staircase.
She has made regular appearances on CNN, CBS, Fox News, MSNBC,
and twenty twenty just the name a few. I first
met her at Crime Con and let me tell you something, smart,
(02:25):
quick witted, and a whole lot of fun, but also
so approachable for people. It is an honor for me
to welcome to own seven afrod Id Jones.
Speaker 2 (02:36):
Thank you, Cheryl. It's my honor to be here.
Speaker 1 (02:39):
Right.
Speaker 2 (02:39):
I love your work. I love what you do helping
people sell cold cases. It's amazing and just today we
hear about Nellie Holloway. You know, it's killer coming forward.
I know you worked on that to start with. Then
I really really am proud to be on the show
with you.
Speaker 1 (02:56):
Thank you so much. And yeah, that was a wonderful day,
wasn't it. We have all worked with Beth and you know,
sent her good vibes and prayed for her and tried
to support her. So I know you've done that well
since two thousand and five.
Speaker 2 (03:09):
And then on that I was covering to Michael Jackson
case when that Natalie the report of her missing came out.
That was the last day of the trial, and the
next day you knew, everybody flew out the Aruba. But
it's just what's interesting to me about that, just to
get off topic for a minute, is that you never
really get a confession out of a killer. It's very
rare that Phil admits to anything. Certainly in this news
(03:32):
story I have written, you know, there's no confession. It's
all about I didn't do it if Ruba, you know,
And I just find it unusual, don't you.
Speaker 1 (03:40):
It's extremely unusual. And again you know, as you know,
it's something that Beth has literally begged for just tell me.
If I'm not going to get her back, tell me.
And so I saw great peace on her face the
other day. She was a different person.
Speaker 2 (03:58):
She looks relieved. She said that in some form of closure.
She understands that victims don't like the word closure. She's
a ultimate victim. But you know when I say the
ultimate victim for her to have to beg and plead
and spend eighteen years knowing who the killer is, you know,
I mean there's many people that are in cold cases
that they don't know who did this horrible thing, you know,
(04:19):
or they're not sure or they have answers.
Speaker 1 (04:22):
This.
Speaker 2 (04:22):
We knew it was svander Slout. We knew it. And
he came out and said as much in one of
those documentaries. Remember her way back when somebody caught him
in Germany or something.
Speaker 1 (04:33):
Yeah, right, he can fast several times.
Speaker 2 (04:36):
Yeah, so, you know, just the idea that he had
never been in federal custody before, he had not. They
had no opportunity to bring him to America because Aruba
would not let the FBI in there to do anything,
even though they're standing by it. And you know this
better than anyone, I'm sure your listeners do as well.
But think about how convoluted it is that that he
(04:57):
could not be tried in America for anything other than
extorting money from Natalie's mother. Thank god that happened. But again,
he didn't have to give the details. What do you
for me? You know, I look at what makes a
killer tick, and in his case, there's two things. First
of all, he committed that second murder five days to
the date, on the same date, as you know, right,
(05:18):
a lot of people don't realize that. You know, we're
in the crime world. We understand, we notice it, but
people don't realize, Oh, really they were the same date. Yeah,
they were the same day. What is he trying to
signal there? He's trying to tell you I got away
with it here, I am on the same date. I
want to get away with it again. And then the
other thing, too, is I think he's so desperate for
at tension. Now that he has given this horrendous confession,
(05:40):
we're all talking about him again.
Speaker 1 (05:42):
And you know, he gave great details on Stephanie Floor
as his murder. Once he was called he wanted to
tell these details. So to me, he's either doing it
because he has some kind of gratification from it, or
he's doing it because he knows he's going to go
to prison and he want some street grid.
Speaker 2 (05:59):
I think it's the first I think he has. He
gets gratification from it, I truly do. I mean, killing
once out of passion is one thing. Killing twice you're
you're a serial killer, that's it. I mean he would
kill again. He would kill again.
Speaker 1 (06:14):
I'm sure of it, you know, one hundred percent, so
ondred percent.
Speaker 2 (06:17):
He enjoyed it, and he enjoyed it, and he enjoyed
the tease, and he enjoyed all of it, and he
enjoyed being able to discuss people with the details, the
gritty nitty, horrifying details.
Speaker 1 (06:29):
I agree, and I think twenty forty three we need
to be on alert because he will kill again. Yeah,
yes he will.
Speaker 2 (06:38):
God knows. Anyway, by that's time, I won't be here.
Speaker 1 (06:45):
Let's talk about your book. So here's the deal. You
have written a book and it's an in depth, twisted
case over a great period of time. And I said
to you that you have written a beautiful book. And
even though it's about murder and you know, horrible things,
(07:08):
it can be beautiful in the way that you write
it in the way that you describe things. And I
just want to start the way you start the book,
and the book is Levi's eyes, and I'm quoting. The
guy was all over the map. He was like a
flowing river running into tributaries, into countless streams and creeks.
(07:30):
Now that's just beautiful aphrodite, and it gives you this
undeniable vision of, Yes, this person is telling you things.
He's telling you what happened, but he's all over the place,
and he's down this creek, and he's down this river,
and he's going in different directions. Immediately you had me.
Speaker 2 (07:53):
Yeah, well, you know I had certainly. I think I
raised my bar for myself with this book. I really
went for something more like a novel than I'd ever
had before. Even that I'm using the real facts, and
that's hard to do because you know, you walk a
fine line between you got to get there. You have
I have interviews with the people, the real people, the
(08:14):
police reports, the court transcripts, I was at the trial,
et cetera, et cetera. So you're dealing with real documents,
three thousand pages of them in this case, and you know,
and photos and newscripts and this and that, and then
on top of it, I want to make it so
that you're living this story, you're actually in the story.
And in order to do that, I really have stretch
(08:36):
myself as a writer. It truly did Geryl, It was there.
There were a lot of growing pains that went on
with this one. I got to tell.
Speaker 1 (08:43):
You your process, the way you investigate a case. How do
you start? What do you look for? Do you wait
for a case to grab you, do you wait for
a twist that you can't walk away from? How do
you do it?
Speaker 2 (08:58):
First of all, Okay, so the Lawland serial killer, Yogo
Beach killer lives about fifteen minutes from where I am
right now, and I spend time up here in New York,
and I'm here now, and I was asked by one
of the radio stations, people here, you go over there
and the DA wants to talk to media, you know,
(09:19):
who wants a book, blah blah blah someone over there.
And I took some did some man on the street
interviews with neighbors and it was horrifying. But at the
end of the day, I can't do that book. That
is not there's no book there. Why Because who is
the book going to be about. The only person of
interest to me would be his wife and how she
did or did not know or figured it out later.
(09:41):
And actually, this is why the book I've written now
Levi's Eyes is so significant, is because for the first
time ever, I have the wife, the second wife, who
lived the inside of this not knowing she was married
to a killer and ultimately figuring me out. Not only
did he kill her steps Levi his son, but also
(10:02):
he had a life insurance policy out on his grandchildren,
on her that someone was going to be next. I
mean thinking that and understand. So if you were in
the Yoga Beach serial killer's house and you had the
opportunity to get into the wife's head and the kids' heads,
you know, then you have a story. But otherwise it's
(10:23):
just gratifying then ego of a monster. I don't want
to do that. That's my last thing I want to
do in life, so that that wouldn't be a project
for me. But here, you know two things, Cheryl one
is I had covered this story for my show True
Crime on ID in twenty fourteen, so next year, every
(10:45):
ten years ago. It was right after he had confessed
to killing his son. He took copta a second degree
murdered plea, and I did this story. I was up
in the Pringer Lakes area, up state New York and
we filmed it. And Carl had written to me back
then the killer, you know, I want to talk to you.
(11:06):
And I was in the midst of show after show
after show. What was I couldn't talk to him? You know,
I love filming. It just didn't work out that way.
But in any event, I knew one thing, and that
was his first wife had died in a fire, tragic
fire back in nineteen ninety one in California, And there
was no doubt in my mind that this was now
(11:27):
going to be re examined. And in fact it had
been ruled an accident. It was never cold case. It
was reopened after he confessed to murdering his son. And
then we're all waiting for that trial. Where's the trial
in California? What's happening? Years are going by. He doesn't
get extradited until twenty sixteen. He's a serving prison for
(11:50):
the murder of his son. They finally get enough to
extradize into California and they're going to try him for
murder of his first wife, Christina Carlson in California, and
then that drags on until the summer of twenty nineteen.
That's when I'm ready to go there because at that
point I'm talking to carl cross It on the phone
and I have a relationship quote unquote with this monster,
(12:12):
things that I like him, which of course got to
make them think that, you know, I understand you, Yeah,
I understand you anyway. So bottom line, that trial continued
to get postponed until January of twenty twenty. But when
that happened, I was there and I was ready, and man,
oh man, what a dramatic scene that was to be
(12:34):
in a place called San and DRez, California and watch
people testify about something that had happened almost thirty years.
Speaker 1 (12:41):
Before, something that's so critical for people to understand about
cold cases. You literally work them backwards, so you are
making a relationship with this person so that you can
get entail, you can get information, you can get quote,
you can understand the story, and then you've got to
(13:02):
go backwards in tom and understand, Okay, what was going
on thirty years ago. So one thing that they did
that I found fascinating in your book is when the investigators,
the arson investigators wanted to make sure that his account
was accurate, so they interview the six year old daughter, Aaron.
Speaker 2 (13:22):
Yeah, you know, it's interesting. They did interview her, and
they couldn't get a full statement out of her. She
was so young. And then what did Carl do. Now,
this man already had a plan. This was not an accident,
This was a planned arson. So he had taken life
insurance out on his wife, you know, weeks prior, in
(13:43):
the amount of two hundred thousand dollars. I think about that,
and this was the winter of nineteen nineties. He killed
her on New Year's Day, nineteen ninety one. Think about
two hundred thousand dollars in nineteen ninety You could triple
that to today's rates, right, it would be equivalent to a
probably a million dollars today. Okay, that is a lot
(14:04):
of for him. That is a lottery money for him.
That's who his wife was to him, a lottery ticket.
It's frightening and horrifying that, you know, this is how
this man thought. But there's more to that story.
Speaker 1 (14:17):
You know that always more, There's always more. But you
you do such a great job you include the autopsy results,
so you're very clear there was heavy soot on the
upper torso, back and posterior legs. Only the right side
of her face had been burned. The trachea and larynx
showed thermal damage. So the cause of death was simple
(14:40):
affhyxiation caused by inhaling smoke. But then you make it
clear that you know the manner was undetermined. But then
you go on and you say, look, y'all, the bathroom
window had been broken. He said he made a quick repair,
a quick re pair that included seventeen nails. I thought
(15:04):
that was so brilliant because you're painting a picture without
saying a word more. You are not saying, hey, freaking
killed his wife. But when you read seventeen nails, we've
all watched somebody do a quick repair, like, oh, the
window is busted, so I'm going to put this over
it to protect animals from getting in or the cold.
It don't take seventeen nails to do that.
Speaker 2 (15:26):
No. In fact, you know, one of the things I
point out in the book, Carl met Christina, his first wife,
when he worked on the military base in North Dakota.
So here he is grand Fork's Naval Air Force Base
rother and he's he's a person who get this. He's
(15:49):
in the nuclear warheads program. He's charged with driving around
nuclear warheads to stealth locations in the wilds of Wyoming
in North Dakota, Okay, uh missile locations underground miss So
here you have this man he's He meets Christina, she's
(16:10):
married to somebody else. She went there with her first husband,
who was also in the Air Force. She he swooped
her off her feet. He stole her basically from the
first husband. But aside from that, and same thing with Cindy,
the second wife. She was also just out of a
divorce and he was yanking her away from that husband.
And he liked that idea. But he presented himself as this,
(16:33):
you know, superhero. You know he's driving nuclear warheads around,
he's involved with the missile program. He's going to be
the you know, biggest dealer ever was in the Air Force.
I mean he really thought that about himself. But a
huge ego. But when you talk about the nails on
the window, what's interesting is there's a picture in the book.
You wouldn't understand it until you read the book, but
(16:55):
there's a photo of just icicles hanging and you can't
tell what it is, but I write in the caption
these this is a photo of the icicles that are
hanging from the window of Christina's place in North Carol,
North Dakota. Rather and she wrote, under look at our icicles.
(17:15):
Why is that important? Well, her first husband, Alan Teets,
gave me that photo. And in that photo, what you
realize is that window is covered with a plastic, a
clear film plastic. Because in the zero and minus thirty
degrees of North Dakota in the winter, that's how people
covered their windows to keep cold out. They didn't use
(17:37):
a plywood. They didn't have a piece of plywood and
staple it on there with seventeen nails. No. No, So
so the whole thing, you know, when you think about that,
you know the whole thing. How she didn't see through
what he was trying to do to her is another matter,
(17:59):
you know, because Cindy, the second wife, also didn't see
through what he was doing to her. He's a shape shifter.
Speaker 1 (18:06):
Well, let's talk about some of those things. They had
four smoke detectors and he had taken the batteries out,
he had taken them down and taken the batteries out
of all four.
Speaker 2 (18:17):
Exactly, And of course he said, no, no, no, I
didn't do that.
Speaker 1 (18:19):
That must have fallen on it yet, right, yeah, all
four fell and all four batteries popped out absolutely. And
then there's the kerosene. And this might be one of
my favorites that I've ever heard. So he buys this
two gallon or five gallons, sorry, a five gallon jug
of carosene, and he blames her for bringing it in
(18:41):
the house. He says, she did it. And then when
they say, well, why would she bring a five gallon
jug of carosene into your house, he says, well, we
would sometimes or I would sometimes use it and put
water in the empty kerosene can so we would have
extra water. And then they went, you put water in
(19:01):
a carothene can? He said, oh, yeah, just to pour,
you know, in the toilet to flush it if the
pipes were frozen. I mean your reaction should have been
their reaction, well, leave me.
Speaker 2 (19:17):
They couldn't laugh in his face. But you knew damn
well when they were asking that, when they were seriously
investigating in Arson, and they're questioning this man, Okay, for
them to say. In other words, he and just to
get a little more of a tweak here, this is
how convoluted it was, Cheryl. He says that five gallon
kerosene jug I brought up from the shop and we
(19:42):
used it and filled it with water because our pipes
were frozen. And so that's why Christina brought it into
the house, because she was filling up our toilets and
showers with water. So then the investigator says, well, well,
then why is there kerosene back in joy? Oh, well,
because then we put kerosene back into the jug that
we had the water and what so, in other words,
(20:06):
kerosene turns to water, turns to kerosene again, and it's
all Christ's fault because she didn't understand what she was
bringing into the house, because you know, she's an.
Speaker 1 (20:15):
Idiot, absolutely one. And then five gallons of kerothene gets spilled,
and you know, the victim, again being an idiot, takes
the brain new Christmas clothes and that's what that's what.
Speaker 2 (20:35):
She's a terrifying and horrifying story. But these are things
about this particular mind of the psychopath that really make
your you just your headspins it's so preposterous what he's saying,
and he's wants you to believe it. And you know,
I interviewed him for two years and I have those
recorded phone calls, and let me tell you, when you
(20:56):
hear him say it, you're just like, you know, I'm saying, yeah,
talking to is going to think is this really coming
out of this man's mouth? Like is he kidding? Is
he not? Yeah? He says, oh, you know, we used to.
And of course I questioned him on and again and
again to get him, you know, try to round him
in a corner. And I said, well, so you used
Christmas clothes to well, yeah, that was the closest thing
(21:18):
there was. So Christina, who made her own clothes for
her kids from handmade patterns, right, is going to take
that clothes that she spent god knows how long creating
and she's just going to use that to soak up
some pirosene in the hallway real quick.
Speaker 1 (21:34):
That's what That's what we would all do, absolutely.
Speaker 2 (21:38):
Right. I can't wait to use my next Christmas gifts
so that I can you know, mop the floor with them.
Speaker 1 (21:45):
That's right. How does Avrodoty Jones clean her house with
brand new clothes and it's just acidine, and.
Speaker 2 (21:55):
It's so crazy. And the thing is, he wants you
to believe him. He wants you to believe that. Now.
When six year old Aaron was interviewed by the fire investigators,
she told them she didn't know there was any kerosene
in the floor. The new kids, they don't know what
they're smelling and not smelling. But she did say there
were a pile of clothes in the floor, sheets and
(22:15):
towels and clothes and whatever they use to play leap
frog over. So what that tells me is that did happen.
A spill happened, and he deliberately made that happen, so
there'd be multiple accounts of kerosene all over the place, right,
and then the kids, clearly he did put some clothes down,
(22:36):
not new clothes, probably old rags, and a six year
old wasn't sure what it was you were jumping over.
What was blankets or something, you know? And then of course,
what did Carl do. He takes those kids and leaves
for New York, flies away from where they lived in Murphy's, California,
the day after Christina's memorial, so within four days of
(22:58):
her death, he's grabbed just three kids and moved to
New York, flown away, and he didn't even let his
kids go to their mother's memorial service.
Speaker 1 (23:09):
Well, because they might talk to somebody, they might say something,
so you can't let that happen. Then you got to
get them out of there as fast as you can.
But my favorite thing after that is the picture that
you paint of him calling the insurance agent. And to
your point, he just has no sense of what he's
really telling people. So now he's saying, man, I needed
(23:31):
that check to come on through because I had to
spend six thousand dollars on plane tickets. Then there's the funeral,
and now I'm you know, it's a bitch. Quote It's
a bitch raising three kids by myself, first of all.
Speaker 2 (23:45):
So he didn't pay for the plane tickets. We discovered
that later his brother played pay food plane tickets and
his brother might Carlson testify to that, And it's in
evidence the credit card receipt and from the travel agency
out here that those were all paid by his brother
number one number and never paid back by carl number two.
(24:07):
He didn't, he did. There was no funeral expenses to
pay for he didn't have a funeral for her. How
about that he didn't have a funeral for her. There
was a memorial service, not a real funeral. She was
later buried. She he didn't even put a tombstone on
her grave.
Speaker 1 (24:25):
So let's talk about the insurance policy that was attached
to the wife.
Speaker 2 (24:29):
He went into the insurance agent in California and said,
I'm in here. I would let to inquire about insurance
on my wife. And the inturn day said, well, what
about what a minute, you have insurance on you?
Speaker 1 (24:41):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (24:41):
Yeah, I do, I do. No, he did not. He's lying.
And the insurance day says, well, you know, you can't
take insurance out on your wife unless she's here with you,
and you have to prove to me that you've got
insurance on yourself. So of course Carl didn't have insurance
on himself. He was lying, But he brought Christina in
there and somehow convinced her to take you out a
two hundred thousand dollars insurance policy on herself on and
(25:04):
he took one out on himself. And the thing is,
I don't know why, why didn't the insurance agent have
a light bulb go off that he later testified, in
the forty years that he had been in the business,
he never had someone walk in off the street and
solicit getting life insurance for themselves or anyone else. So
(25:26):
that's something that people always have to be sold on.
You go and you call about car insurance, you call
about house insurance. You don't call that. Can I get
some life insurance? That's what I need, you know?
Speaker 1 (25:36):
And averdity he wanted insurance own the children. Most people
would never be able to utter those words that I
want insurance own my children in case they die.
Speaker 2 (25:48):
That's what really starts to make you wonder what was
it he was going to do there that day in
that fire in California. He got Levi out or Levi
got out, Which is it? What did Levi d What
did Levi know? Why did Levi get killed? Seventeen years
later when he was twenty three years old. All that
is a thread that comes together.
Speaker 1 (26:15):
Slowly. Investigators start to see some things and some things
come out like Karl was abusive maybe toward Chris by
pushing her out of her chair and things like that.
You know, you start chapter fifteen with something that every
single person in criminal justice would attest to immediately and
you say, and I quote, whether we like to admit
(26:36):
it or not, everybody lies. And you go on to
say that with Carl, his lies become truth and the
truth becomes lies, and he takes pleasure in confusing everybody.
Speaker 2 (26:52):
That is so true. You know this is and you
find this. You dealt with killers, you know so many years,
the worst of a sociopath that you're dealing with, and
you know, I say, look at van der Schlut as
an example. These are next level sociopaths. Okay, this is
(27:12):
you know, going into uh, you know, some kind of
stratosphy or sociopaths. I suppose in any event, they are
all about riddles, confusing, mixing, matching. Everything coming out of
their mouth is a lie. That's how you know that.
When they're talking, you know that. That's how you know
they're lying, because their lips are moving, like Judge Judy says,
(27:34):
if the lips are moving, it's a lie. This guy.
And that's the thing. He'll tell you a story and
it comes out throughout the book. I'm sure you've seen
it where you start telling one thing and then you realize, wait,
he said something different about this whole scenario. You know,
the months before, the year before, he just changes the story,
(27:55):
like what do you It's unbelievable. He really pathological, sociopath, liar.
Speaker 1 (28:03):
And sometimes he's just grotesque with it because when the
arts and investigator says, hey, you know your wife died
and you made a little money, he says, wait a minute,
and I quote, I mean, let's face it, I had
one hundred thousand dollars on all three of them. If
I was going to do it, I'd have to let
them go too, because then I wouldn't have to be
(28:26):
a mommy.
Speaker 2 (28:27):
Unbelievable. So the plan was, he says, Okay, he saved
his three kids, so this way he can get away
with murdering his wife, right, that's one way to look
at it. Or was the plan? He was going to
kill everybody to begin with.
Speaker 1 (28:41):
And you know they go on to say, and you
already mentioned this to what really happened with Levi because
when they asked him, did any of the kids see
you at the broken window? He says, I think Levi did. So,
in other words, he knows Levi was somewhere different than
the girls. He had more of an opportunity to see
what all transpired before the girls ever got out exactly.
Speaker 2 (29:04):
And you know, there's there are other things that if
you've read the whole book, you know there are other
weird things in the relationship between Levi and.
Speaker 1 (29:11):
His father, very twisted. And I think that's when even
the counselor starts saying, Levi won't talk to me, he
won't talk about his mama at all. And then later
he becomes you know, that kid that anybody can see
is struggling. He's smoking pot, he's stealing money, he's now goth.
I mean, he's got a lot of issues that he's
(29:32):
not even trying to hide that he has them.
Speaker 2 (29:34):
And of course, you know, all of this is fodder
for Carl to say, you know this, this kid is
a loser, he's a waste of a life. And Carl
is very good at that of demeaning people and making
people feel like they're worthless. And it's just comes in
(29:55):
the package with his inability to show any of oceans
at all, or have any have any real sense of
value of a human life. He just had none human life,
animal life, no life means anything to him.
Speaker 1 (30:13):
And you know, as I was reading the book, there
was one part where I just wanted to text you
and say stop it. Why are you making me go
through this, because I was already locked in on Carl
right and then you're like, hey, y'all, by the way,
he had a car fire before the house fire. Now
y'all listen to me. I almost had a text her
(30:34):
and tell her I'm not happy with you right this minute, Aphrodite,
because you're telling me that Carl now is telling a
whole different fire department. Hey, I just drove my car
home and went in the house, and then my wife
at the time realized the car just burst into flames
right there in our driveway.
Speaker 2 (30:54):
After I took the baby seats and carriages.
Speaker 1 (30:57):
Out of her Yeah, because you know those are expensive
to replace.
Speaker 2 (31:00):
After he removed all the baby seats and everything else
out of the car, it just it combusted. It's like
a natural disaster just occurred in his driveway.
Speaker 1 (31:11):
And thank god he had the foresight to say, you know,
I'm gonna get a safe that protects paperwork, but I'm
gonna keep it in the garage. And then when that
artisan investigator asked me, why is this safe in the
garage not in the house, Because if your house burns down,
your garage doesn't like, I'm gonna throw this book out
(31:35):
the window. I was like, I can't read anymore. I'm
getting irritated. But then I couldn't stop because I knew
what inevitably was coming, and I thought, oh my gosh.
And then it just goes on.
Speaker 2 (31:48):
You can't believe what comes out of this guy's mouth, right.
Speaker 1 (31:51):
And every time he gets insurance money, every time he
gets a check, here's a check for your car, here's
a check for your house, here's a check for your
and I mean, you're just like, okay. So then he
gets this big pile of money and he buys a
big old farm with horses and a barn and all
kind of acreage. And you're like, he is now succeeding
(32:13):
because their mama was killed and he's got a new
wife that he moves in there. And he's asked one time,
and I want you all to listen to this quote.
He is asked, bye, I believe his sister in law
something about rats, and he goes, hey, do you know
(32:33):
how an arsonist gets away with a fire. You douse
a rat in kerosene, lighted and it always runs back
to its home.
Speaker 2 (32:42):
Yeah, which its home is a pile of hay. So
it's just gonna light up that barnfire. And he's letting
that sister know, yeah, I killed your sister. It gives
me chills to really that makes my hair stand on
said when I hear you say it, because I can
feel it, you know, I can feel it. What how
(33:04):
He really just was enjoying those moments where all of
a sudden it wasn't preposterous. All of a sudden, he
gets real, you know KLi Vandersloute, all of a sudden,
oh album, Well, let me tell you this is this
is you know, here's here's a good clue for you. Here.
That's that's that's the sickness of a of a psychopath.
(33:26):
You know, they want It's like the BTK. I was
at Dennis Raiders sentencing. He wanted to take credit for
it all. After thirty years of torturing everybody in the
city of Chita, after thirty years of being undercover, of
being in hiding, coming in and out of hiding, he
at the end of it all wanted to take credit.
And he stood up there, Cheryl in that courtroom, and
(33:46):
I was there, proud as he could be, referring to
himself as Dennis Raider in the third person, and I mean, really.
Speaker 1 (33:56):
I mean you you have literally covered everything and you
didn't do it from a distance. You've been right up
close and personal the whole time. And that's why when
I got to this part of the book, because I
kept thinking, you know what, I think, I know what's
coming with the sun, but we're not there yet. And
all of a sudden, you say, it's two am, November third,
(34:17):
two thousand and two, and all of a sudden, Karl
is screaming, call now one one. The barn is on fire.
And I'm like, I am so done right this minute.
This man cannot have set another fire. And just like
the car, you go on to say, there were these
prize you know, oh what are they called, everybody, the
(34:40):
things for the horses, tack tack. Yes, and he had
taken all these prize possessions, these you know, irreplaceable tacks
that were custom done. Oh, he had removed them from
the barn.
Speaker 2 (34:53):
Yeah, the saddles, the boots, the horse, all of the gear,
all the tack was all removed. Yeah. Somehow that didn't
get destroyed. That was in a different place. Now, the
creepiest part of that, and I don't like to give
away so much of the book, but I will say
this because it does make my head spin. I want
to blow off of its head. Is that at one
(35:17):
point his younger son, Alex, who he had with sending
his second wife, is standing in the driveway waiting for
the school bus or they're playing hoops whatever it is,
in the front of the house in New York. And
now the horse, the horse fire had happened. Alex the
child loved the horse that died. Ginger was her name,
and he loved that horse and the other horses too,
(35:40):
but especially Ginger. And now he's the fire's over. The
horses died. Bat it ah, it's it's he got away
with it. It was considered an accident. He's playing ball
and hoops in the driveway waiting for the bus with
his kid, and Alex finds the hoof of Ginger in
the dirt next to the driveway there in the farm.
(36:01):
Think about that for a minute.
Speaker 1 (36:03):
It's beyond twisted.
Speaker 2 (36:04):
And a kid that was like he was a kid.
I was born in nineteen ninety five, so in two
thousand and two, what is he seven years old?
Speaker 1 (36:11):
And that was his pet. Well for all purposes.
Speaker 2 (36:14):
Yes and no, Yeah, it was Ginger was there to
be bred. Turned out that she was unable to breathe.
So hence what she's not very useful anymore. Hence maybe
we should have a fire. And of course Carl up
to the insurance on the horses right before the fire.
I mean, it's like, how do these people in these
insurance agencies not know this? But they did know it,
(36:35):
but they couldn't catch them. Of course they knew it.
They were looking at the policies they're seeing. He took
this policy out, he changed numbers two weeks prior, four
ex prior, three weeks prior out every one of these cases,
but they couldn't pin it to him.
Speaker 1 (36:50):
Now, I want to tell everybody you need to go
get Levi's eyes, because this book, as much as we
have talked about it already, it is an over. His
crimes are not over. What has all fixing a transpire
with Levi? You will not believe it. It is important to
(37:11):
read it. To me, It's one of those cases where
you can see what's coming down Peach Street Street and
at some point this person should have been stopped. I
think his family knew it. I think friends knew it.
I think the children knew it, and they couldn't stop
this in.
Speaker 2 (37:27):
Time, exactly, no question, no question about that. There's some
blood on a lot of people's hands and this once
you get through the woll streight.
Speaker 1 (37:39):
Okay, So before I let you go, let's talk a
little bit. What is one of your favorite cases? And
I know how that sounds, but you know what I
mean by it. What is one of the worst cases?
What is a dream case? What is you tell us
anything you want us to know about your background and
maybe future projects.
Speaker 2 (37:58):
The favorite thing I ever had in the crime world
was being with OJ Simpson in Las Vegas when he
was being tried there for you know, kidnapping and et cetera.
With the gun and in the hallway outside the courtroom,
I happened to know somebody he played football with, so
I mentioned it. He made the phone call and he
(38:18):
got all excited and happy. Next thing, you know, it
was my girlfriend's birthday and I had OJ sing happy
birthday to her. That's a highlight right there.
Speaker 1 (38:33):
That's a once in a career that's a once in
a career movie.
Speaker 2 (38:36):
That yeah, that doesn't come around ever again. Now. And
in fact, when he did it. A good part about
it was when he did it. You know, so, my
girlfriend knew I was in Las Vegas. She knew I
was at that trial, and she knew that she didn't
know I was hanging out with Oja in the hallway.
But I handed the phone over. I said, somebody wants
to sing Happy Birthday to you. And he's saying it
(38:57):
and I'm watching, and then she asked him. I've so,
she said who is this and he said it's Oh Jay,
Like she just wanted to hear and say it. I'm
thinking myself, who do you think it? I mean, his
voice was still very recognizable. You know, you knew it
was him. But I said to her, why did you
risk him that.
Speaker 1 (39:16):
You knew it?
Speaker 2 (39:16):
So, I know, I just wanted him to tell me.
That's one Another thing that always stays with me is
the John MAInet. You know, I interviewed John Ramsay for
about an hour and a half. We had lunch in
Las Vegas. I was trying to convince him to do
my show. I did an episode on John Benet back
(39:37):
in Oh My God. This was its season three, season
two of My show, and even long time ago now
probably ten years ago, anyway, he became such an interesting
subject to me because I started to believe that Patsy
had convinced him. She found a way to make it
(39:58):
look like somebody was in that house. And I believe
that John Ramsey truly was unaware. And I think what
brings that full circle for me is the interview that
his son Burke did with doctor Phil mcbrau. It's if
you notice once that was done and the CBS thing
special air series pointing to the sun. You know, there's
(40:20):
none of that has ever eared again. Ever, you can't
find it on the internet anywhere. In my mind, I
believe that Patsy Ramsey figured out a way to keep
her husband out of the loop because I don't think
she thought he could act the part. And this is
just my theory, but I really hold to it because
(40:41):
I spent a lot of time with this man, and
I fully believe that he does not know who killed
his kid. Now, how could that be He thinks somebody
came to the house. How could that be unless Patsy
used a mind game of him, and I believe she did.
Speaker 1 (41:01):
I truly do the thing that always has bothered me
the most, Like, let's just say I have a little
dog traveler unless they traveler got lost. If I heard
my husband Walt say I found her, I would take
that demean She's okay, you found her. When John is
coming up the steps, he hollers, I found her, and
(41:22):
Patsy drops to her knees and screams, no, not my baby.
Speaker 2 (41:27):
That's exactly in line with what I'm talking about.
Speaker 1 (41:30):
You and I are in sync there, yeah, I mean.
Speaker 2 (41:33):
And people don't really see that. They think that John,
you know, was a party to it. I don't think
he was a party to it. I truly don't, so
that that case sticks with me because I really do
wish like we finally got this answer from your on
van der Sloot, you know, and there is something so satisfying,
mortifying and satisfying all at the same time. But at
(41:55):
least you have an answer, as best Twitty said, you
have an answer, how confession, You have a sense of
there's some justice in this world, you know, But in
the John Manty case, there's nothing. Just have emptiness. This
gorgeous little child. And then the whole sect was a
(42:16):
sexualization of her, which back then, you know, girls in
makeup and outfits at six years old were considered to be,
you know, unheard of. Now we have princesses and tiaras
and every other thing, and every My granddaughters run around
and makeup at eight years old, and dance classes and
dancer styles. I mean, I don't know when I grew
(42:38):
up as a kid, I was in a dancer style.
I want to too, I'd have eighteen outfits that cost
two hundred dollars apiece, with all kinds of crazy makeup
and eyelashes and every I mean, things have gotten very different,
obviously for young children, girls in particular, with that in
that regard. But back then, the rags the tabloids were
blaming John Ramsay for sexualizing his daughter. And you know,
(43:00):
I mean, how horrible, how horrible is that he had
nothing to do with it. You, by the way, he
did tell me. You know, Patsy had cancer, she knew it,
and that she took John Beney to Manhattan when John
Banney was five because she felt she wouldn't have the
opportunity to do that with her child later on, because
she felt she would die early. So she had she
(43:20):
already had a sense of her own demise. You know,
she knew she was sick and you don't take a
five year old to New York City by yourself, unless
unless you're thinking, you know, it doesn't didn't never occur
to men till he told me that, thinking to myself, Wow,
you know that Patsy realized she'd have a lot of
time on this earth with her kids. I don't know.
(43:43):
I just I really really wish that there would be
an answer, but I have a feeling that that answer
would not help the family, if you know what I mean.
Speaker 1 (43:53):
So, Aphrodity, I cannot thank you enough for being with
us tonight and your extraordinary career in fantastic stories and
the way that you tell them is so necessary for justice.
Speaker 2 (44:05):
Thank you for saying that, Cheryl, I really do appreciate it,
because at the end of the day, you know what
is it's all about. It's for me. It's all about
finding a way to make this world a safer place,
inch by inch, person by person. That's how you have
to do it. If you notice somebody who's being you
think is a victim of domestic violence, figure out somehow
(44:26):
some way to get through to them. If you notice
a kid that is off and needs extra counseling or whatever,
figure out how that can happen. Maybe their parents can't
are not in the position, Maybe this, maybe that, But
you know, we all we're all connected, and as much
as we're also disconnected with different countries, different values, at
the same time, when it's life and death, when it's violence,
(44:47):
when it's murdered, we're all in the same boat. And
let's try to find a way to keep the white
light around us. And the only way to do that
is to look into these stories that have happened to
other people and try deep lessons from them. And that's
what I am all about.
Speaker 1 (45:03):
We are all connected. I cannot agree more. Thank you
again so much, And y'all, I'm going to end Zone
seven the way that I always do with a quote
the serial arsonist is the most difficult to apprehend because
the evidence is burned up Joseph Wambach. I'm Cheryl McCollum,
(45:24):
and this is Zone seven.
Walk and I had a house fire. We had left
for work that morning. We carpooled to work. It was
a normal day, and y'all know how that goes. Anytime
somebody says it was a day like any other, that
means something's about to go down. Well, about mid morning,
I got a call from the fire chief saying, Cheryl,
y'all need to get home. Your house is on fire.
(00:30):
And I was like, well, Chief, do I need to
rush or is there just nothing left? I mean, tell
me what's going on, And he said, no, it's a
pretty good fire, but there's a lot that's been salvaged. Well,
when I got home, of course, all our neighbors were
in the front yard and everybody's there, the fire trucks
and the police, everybody. And to me, the fire had
(00:52):
done a lot of damage, but the fire department with
their water and the way they dropped the ceilings and
bust it into the walls to make sure there wasn't
any other embers that could have a secondary fire. Later,
I mean, the house just looked totally destroyed. To me.
Our neighbor's house actually caught fire and the flames came
(01:15):
over to our house, so it wasn't even anything we
had anything to do with, but it was still a
really strange feeling when you're getting interviewed and questioned by
an Arson investigator. We have somebody so fantastic with us.
Aphrodite Jones. She is a TV personality. She's a best
(01:36):
selling author. She has worked for over thirty years to
bring us up close and personal with some of the
darkest motives and just these emotional type truths behind these crimes.
She was the host of True Crime with Aphrodite Jones
for six seasons, a remarkable show. Her best selling books
(02:00):
have been turned into acclaimed films like the award winning
Boys Don't Cry and then the Netflix hit The Staircase.
She has made regular appearances on CNN, CBS, Fox News, MSNBC,
and twenty twenty just the name a few. I first
met her at Crime Con and let me tell you something, smart,
(02:25):
quick witted, and a whole lot of fun, but also
so approachable for people. It is an honor for me
to welcome to own seven afrod Id Jones.
Speaker 2 (02:36):
Thank you, Cheryl. It's my honor to be here.
Speaker 1 (02:39):
Right.
Speaker 2 (02:39):
I love your work. I love what you do helping
people sell cold cases. It's amazing and just today we
hear about Nellie Holloway. You know, it's killer coming forward.
I know you worked on that to start with. Then
I really really am proud to be on the show
with you.
Speaker 1 (02:56):
Thank you so much. And yeah, that was a wonderful day,
wasn't it. We have all worked with Beth and you know,
sent her good vibes and prayed for her and tried
to support her. So I know you've done that well
since two thousand and five.
Speaker 2 (03:09):
And then on that I was covering to Michael Jackson
case when that Natalie the report of her missing came out.
That was the last day of the trial, and the
next day you knew, everybody flew out the Aruba. But
it's just what's interesting to me about that, just to
get off topic for a minute, is that you never
really get a confession out of a killer. It's very
rare that Phil admits to anything. Certainly in this news
(03:32):
story I have written, you know, there's no confession. It's
all about I didn't do it if Ruba, you know,
And I just find it unusual, don't you.
Speaker 1 (03:40):
It's extremely unusual. And again you know, as you know,
it's something that Beth has literally begged for just tell me.
If I'm not going to get her back, tell me.
And so I saw great peace on her face the
other day. She was a different person.
Speaker 2 (03:58):
She looks relieved. She said that in some form of closure.
She understands that victims don't like the word closure. She's
a ultimate victim. But you know when I say the
ultimate victim for her to have to beg and plead
and spend eighteen years knowing who the killer is, you know,
I mean there's many people that are in cold cases
that they don't know who did this horrible thing, you know,
(04:19):
or they're not sure or they have answers.
Speaker 1 (04:22):
This.
Speaker 2 (04:22):
We knew it was svander Slout. We knew it. And
he came out and said as much in one of
those documentaries. Remember her way back when somebody caught him
in Germany or something.
Speaker 1 (04:33):
Yeah, right, he can fast several times.
Speaker 2 (04:36):
Yeah, so, you know, just the idea that he had
never been in federal custody before, he had not. They
had no opportunity to bring him to America because Aruba
would not let the FBI in there to do anything,
even though they're standing by it. And you know this
better than anyone, I'm sure your listeners do as well.
But think about how convoluted it is that that he
(04:57):
could not be tried in America for anything other than
extorting money from Natalie's mother. Thank god that happened. But again,
he didn't have to give the details. What do you
for me? You know, I look at what makes a
killer tick, and in his case, there's two things. First
of all, he committed that second murder five days to
the date, on the same date, as you know, right,
(05:18):
a lot of people don't realize that. You know, we're
in the crime world. We understand, we notice it, but
people don't realize, Oh, really they were the same date. Yeah,
they were the same day. What is he trying to
signal there? He's trying to tell you I got away
with it here, I am on the same date. I
want to get away with it again. And then the
other thing, too, is I think he's so desperate for
at tension. Now that he has given this horrendous confession,
(05:40):
we're all talking about him again.
Speaker 1 (05:42):
And you know, he gave great details on Stephanie Floor
as his murder. Once he was called he wanted to
tell these details. So to me, he's either doing it
because he has some kind of gratification from it, or
he's doing it because he knows he's going to go
to prison and he want some street grid.
Speaker 2 (05:59):
I think it's the first I think he has. He
gets gratification from it, I truly do. I mean, killing
once out of passion is one thing. Killing twice you're
you're a serial killer, that's it. I mean he would
kill again. He would kill again.
Speaker 1 (06:14):
I'm sure of it, you know, one hundred percent, so
ondred percent.
Speaker 2 (06:17):
He enjoyed it, and he enjoyed it, and he enjoyed
the tease, and he enjoyed all of it, and he
enjoyed being able to discuss people with the details, the
gritty nitty, horrifying details.
Speaker 1 (06:29):
I agree, and I think twenty forty three we need
to be on alert because he will kill again. Yeah,
yes he will.
Speaker 2 (06:38):
God knows. Anyway, by that's time, I won't be here.
Speaker 1 (06:45):
Let's talk about your book. So here's the deal. You
have written a book and it's an in depth, twisted
case over a great period of time. And I said
to you that you have written a beautiful book. And
even though it's about murder and you know, horrible things,
(07:08):
it can be beautiful in the way that you write
it in the way that you describe things. And I
just want to start the way you start the book,
and the book is Levi's eyes, and I'm quoting. The
guy was all over the map. He was like a
flowing river running into tributaries, into countless streams and creeks.
(07:30):
Now that's just beautiful aphrodite, and it gives you this
undeniable vision of, Yes, this person is telling you things.
He's telling you what happened, but he's all over the place,
and he's down this creek, and he's down this river,
and he's going in different directions. Immediately you had me.
Speaker 2 (07:53):
Yeah, well, you know I had certainly. I think I
raised my bar for myself with this book. I really
went for something more like a novel than I'd ever
had before. Even that I'm using the real facts, and
that's hard to do because you know, you walk a
fine line between you got to get there. You have
I have interviews with the people, the real people, the
(08:14):
police reports, the court transcripts, I was at the trial,
et cetera, et cetera. So you're dealing with real documents,
three thousand pages of them in this case, and you know,
and photos and newscripts and this and that, and then
on top of it, I want to make it so
that you're living this story, you're actually in the story.
And in order to do that, I really have stretch
(08:36):
myself as a writer. It truly did Geryl, It was there.
There were a lot of growing pains that went on
with this one. I got to tell.
Speaker 1 (08:43):
You your process, the way you investigate a case. How do
you start? What do you look for? Do you wait
for a case to grab you, do you wait for
a twist that you can't walk away from? How do
you do it?
Speaker 2 (08:58):
First of all, Okay, so the Lawland serial killer, Yogo
Beach killer lives about fifteen minutes from where I am
right now, and I spend time up here in New York,
and I'm here now, and I was asked by one
of the radio stations, people here, you go over there
and the DA wants to talk to media, you know,
(09:19):
who wants a book, blah blah blah someone over there.
And I took some did some man on the street
interviews with neighbors and it was horrifying. But at the
end of the day, I can't do that book. That
is not there's no book there. Why Because who is
the book going to be about. The only person of
interest to me would be his wife and how she
did or did not know or figured it out later.
(09:41):
And actually, this is why the book I've written now
Levi's Eyes is so significant, is because for the first
time ever, I have the wife, the second wife, who
lived the inside of this not knowing she was married
to a killer and ultimately figuring me out. Not only
did he kill her steps Levi his son, but also
(10:02):
he had a life insurance policy out on his grandchildren,
on her that someone was going to be next. I
mean thinking that and understand. So if you were in
the Yoga Beach serial killer's house and you had the
opportunity to get into the wife's head and the kids' heads,
you know, then you have a story. But otherwise it's
(10:23):
just gratifying then ego of a monster. I don't want
to do that. That's my last thing I want to
do in life, so that that wouldn't be a project
for me. But here, you know two things, Cheryl one
is I had covered this story for my show True
Crime on ID in twenty fourteen, so next year, every
(10:45):
ten years ago. It was right after he had confessed
to killing his son. He took copta a second degree
murdered plea, and I did this story. I was up
in the Pringer Lakes area, up state New York and
we filmed it. And Carl had written to me back
then the killer, you know, I want to talk to you.
(11:06):
And I was in the midst of show after show
after show. What was I couldn't talk to him? You know,
I love filming. It just didn't work out that way.
But in any event, I knew one thing, and that
was his first wife had died in a fire, tragic
fire back in nineteen ninety one in California, And there
was no doubt in my mind that this was now
(11:27):
going to be re examined. And in fact it had
been ruled an accident. It was never cold case. It
was reopened after he confessed to murdering his son. And
then we're all waiting for that trial. Where's the trial
in California? What's happening? Years are going by. He doesn't
get extradited until twenty sixteen. He's a serving prison for
(11:50):
the murder of his son. They finally get enough to
extradize into California and they're going to try him for
murder of his first wife, Christina Carlson in California, and
then that drags on until the summer of twenty nineteen.
That's when I'm ready to go there because at that
point I'm talking to carl cross It on the phone
and I have a relationship quote unquote with this monster,
(12:12):
things that I like him, which of course got to
make them think that, you know, I understand you, Yeah,
I understand you anyway. So bottom line, that trial continued
to get postponed until January of twenty twenty. But when
that happened, I was there and I was ready, and man,
oh man, what a dramatic scene that was to be
(12:34):
in a place called San and DRez, California and watch
people testify about something that had happened almost thirty years.
Speaker 1 (12:41):
Before, something that's so critical for people to understand about
cold cases. You literally work them backwards, so you are
making a relationship with this person so that you can
get entail, you can get information, you can get quote,
you can understand the story, and then you've got to
(13:02):
go backwards in tom and understand, Okay, what was going
on thirty years ago. So one thing that they did
that I found fascinating in your book is when the investigators,
the arson investigators wanted to make sure that his account
was accurate, so they interview the six year old daughter, Aaron.
Speaker 2 (13:22):
Yeah, you know, it's interesting. They did interview her, and
they couldn't get a full statement out of her. She
was so young. And then what did Carl do. Now,
this man already had a plan. This was not an accident,
This was a planned arson. So he had taken life
insurance out on his wife, you know, weeks prior, in
(13:43):
the amount of two hundred thousand dollars. I think about that,
and this was the winter of nineteen nineties. He killed
her on New Year's Day, nineteen ninety one. Think about
two hundred thousand dollars in nineteen ninety You could triple
that to today's rates, right, it would be equivalent to a
probably a million dollars today. Okay, that is a lot
(14:04):
of for him. That is a lottery money for him.
That's who his wife was to him, a lottery ticket.
It's frightening and horrifying that, you know, this is how
this man thought. But there's more to that story.
Speaker 1 (14:17):
You know that always more, There's always more. But you
you do such a great job you include the autopsy results,
so you're very clear there was heavy soot on the
upper torso, back and posterior legs. Only the right side
of her face had been burned. The trachea and larynx
showed thermal damage. So the cause of death was simple
(14:40):
affhyxiation caused by inhaling smoke. But then you make it
clear that you know the manner was undetermined. But then
you go on and you say, look, y'all, the bathroom
window had been broken. He said he made a quick repair,
a quick re pair that included seventeen nails. I thought
(15:04):
that was so brilliant because you're painting a picture without
saying a word more. You are not saying, hey, freaking
killed his wife. But when you read seventeen nails, we've
all watched somebody do a quick repair, like, oh, the
window is busted, so I'm going to put this over
it to protect animals from getting in or the cold.
It don't take seventeen nails to do that.
Speaker 2 (15:26):
No. In fact, you know, one of the things I
point out in the book, Carl met Christina, his first wife,
when he worked on the military base in North Dakota.
So here he is grand Fork's Naval Air Force Base
rother and he's he's a person who get this. He's
(15:49):
in the nuclear warheads program. He's charged with driving around
nuclear warheads to stealth locations in the wilds of Wyoming
in North Dakota, Okay, uh missile locations underground miss So
here you have this man he's He meets Christina, she's
(16:10):
married to somebody else. She went there with her first husband,
who was also in the Air Force. She he swooped
her off her feet. He stole her basically from the
first husband. But aside from that, and same thing with Cindy,
the second wife. She was also just out of a
divorce and he was yanking her away from that husband.
And he liked that idea. But he presented himself as this,
(16:33):
you know, superhero. You know he's driving nuclear warheads around,
he's involved with the missile program. He's going to be
the you know, biggest dealer ever was in the Air Force.
I mean he really thought that about himself. But a
huge ego. But when you talk about the nails on
the window, what's interesting is there's a picture in the book.
You wouldn't understand it until you read the book, but
(16:55):
there's a photo of just icicles hanging and you can't
tell what it is, but I write in the caption
these this is a photo of the icicles that are
hanging from the window of Christina's place in North Carol,
North Dakota. Rather and she wrote, under look at our icicles.
(17:15):
Why is that important? Well, her first husband, Alan Teets,
gave me that photo. And in that photo, what you
realize is that window is covered with a plastic, a
clear film plastic. Because in the zero and minus thirty
degrees of North Dakota in the winter, that's how people
covered their windows to keep cold out. They didn't use
(17:37):
a plywood. They didn't have a piece of plywood and
staple it on there with seventeen nails. No. No, So
so the whole thing, you know, when you think about that,
you know the whole thing. How she didn't see through
what he was trying to do to her is another matter,
(17:59):
you know, because Cindy, the second wife, also didn't see
through what he was doing to her. He's a shape shifter.
Speaker 1 (18:06):
Well, let's talk about some of those things. They had
four smoke detectors and he had taken the batteries out,
he had taken them down and taken the batteries out
of all four.
Speaker 2 (18:17):
Exactly, And of course he said, no, no, no, I
didn't do that.
Speaker 1 (18:19):
That must have fallen on it yet, right, yeah, all
four fell and all four batteries popped out absolutely. And
then there's the kerosene. And this might be one of
my favorites that I've ever heard. So he buys this
two gallon or five gallons, sorry, a five gallon jug
of carosene, and he blames her for bringing it in
(18:41):
the house. He says, she did it. And then when
they say, well, why would she bring a five gallon
jug of carosene into your house, he says, well, we
would sometimes or I would sometimes use it and put
water in the empty kerosene can so we would have
extra water. And then they went, you put water in
(19:01):
a carothene can? He said, oh, yeah, just to pour,
you know, in the toilet to flush it if the
pipes were frozen. I mean your reaction should have been
their reaction, well, leave me.
Speaker 2 (19:17):
They couldn't laugh in his face. But you knew damn
well when they were asking that, when they were seriously
investigating in Arson, and they're questioning this man, Okay, for
them to say. In other words, he and just to
get a little more of a tweak here, this is
how convoluted it was, Cheryl. He says that five gallon
kerosene jug I brought up from the shop and we
(19:42):
used it and filled it with water because our pipes
were frozen. And so that's why Christina brought it into
the house, because she was filling up our toilets and
showers with water. So then the investigator says, well, well,
then why is there kerosene back in joy? Oh, well,
because then we put kerosene back into the jug that
we had the water and what so, in other words,
(20:06):
kerosene turns to water, turns to kerosene again, and it's
all Christ's fault because she didn't understand what she was
bringing into the house, because you know, she's an.
Speaker 1 (20:15):
Idiot, absolutely one. And then five gallons of kerothene gets spilled,
and you know, the victim, again being an idiot, takes
the brain new Christmas clothes and that's what that's what.
Speaker 2 (20:35):
She's a terrifying and horrifying story. But these are things
about this particular mind of the psychopath that really make
your you just your headspins it's so preposterous what he's saying,
and he's wants you to believe it. And you know,
I interviewed him for two years and I have those
recorded phone calls, and let me tell you, when you
(20:56):
hear him say it, you're just like, you know, I'm saying, yeah,
talking to is going to think is this really coming
out of this man's mouth? Like is he kidding? Is
he not? Yeah? He says, oh, you know, we used to.
And of course I questioned him on and again and
again to get him, you know, try to round him
in a corner. And I said, well, so you used
Christmas clothes to well, yeah, that was the closest thing
(21:18):
there was. So Christina, who made her own clothes for
her kids from handmade patterns, right, is going to take
that clothes that she spent god knows how long creating
and she's just going to use that to soak up
some pirosene in the hallway real quick.
Speaker 1 (21:34):
That's what That's what we would all do, absolutely.
Speaker 2 (21:38):
Right. I can't wait to use my next Christmas gifts
so that I can you know, mop the floor with them.
Speaker 1 (21:45):
That's right. How does Avrodoty Jones clean her house with
brand new clothes and it's just acidine, and.
Speaker 2 (21:55):
It's so crazy. And the thing is, he wants you
to believe him. He wants you to believe that. Now.
When six year old Aaron was interviewed by the fire investigators,
she told them she didn't know there was any kerosene
in the floor. The new kids, they don't know what
they're smelling and not smelling. But she did say there
were a pile of clothes in the floor, sheets and
(22:15):
towels and clothes and whatever they use to play leap
frog over. So what that tells me is that did happen.
A spill happened, and he deliberately made that happen, so
there'd be multiple accounts of kerosene all over the place, right,
and then the kids, clearly he did put some clothes down,
(22:36):
not new clothes, probably old rags, and a six year
old wasn't sure what it was you were jumping over.
What was blankets or something, you know? And then of course,
what did Carl do. He takes those kids and leaves
for New York, flies away from where they lived in Murphy's, California,
the day after Christina's memorial, so within four days of
(22:58):
her death, he's grabbed just three kids and moved to
New York, flown away, and he didn't even let his
kids go to their mother's memorial service.
Speaker 1 (23:09):
Well, because they might talk to somebody, they might say something,
so you can't let that happen. Then you got to
get them out of there as fast as you can.
But my favorite thing after that is the picture that
you paint of him calling the insurance agent. And to
your point, he just has no sense of what he's
really telling people. So now he's saying, man, I needed
(23:31):
that check to come on through because I had to
spend six thousand dollars on plane tickets. Then there's the funeral,
and now I'm you know, it's a bitch. Quote It's
a bitch raising three kids by myself, first of all.
Speaker 2 (23:45):
So he didn't pay for the plane tickets. We discovered
that later his brother played pay food plane tickets and
his brother might Carlson testify to that, And it's in
evidence the credit card receipt and from the travel agency
out here that those were all paid by his brother
number one number and never paid back by carl number two.
(24:07):
He didn't, he did. There was no funeral expenses to
pay for he didn't have a funeral for her. How
about that he didn't have a funeral for her. There
was a memorial service, not a real funeral. She was
later buried. She he didn't even put a tombstone on
her grave.
Speaker 1 (24:25):
So let's talk about the insurance policy that was attached
to the wife.
Speaker 2 (24:29):
He went into the insurance agent in California and said,
I'm in here. I would let to inquire about insurance
on my wife. And the inturn day said, well, what
about what a minute, you have insurance on you?
Speaker 1 (24:41):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (24:41):
Yeah, I do, I do. No, he did not. He's lying.
And the insurance day says, well, you know, you can't
take insurance out on your wife unless she's here with you,
and you have to prove to me that you've got
insurance on yourself. So of course Carl didn't have insurance
on himself. He was lying, But he brought Christina in
there and somehow convinced her to take you out a
two hundred thousand dollars insurance policy on herself on and
(25:04):
he took one out on himself. And the thing is,
I don't know why, why didn't the insurance agent have
a light bulb go off that he later testified, in
the forty years that he had been in the business,
he never had someone walk in off the street and
solicit getting life insurance for themselves or anyone else. So
(25:26):
that's something that people always have to be sold on.
You go and you call about car insurance, you call
about house insurance. You don't call that. Can I get
some life insurance? That's what I need, you know?
Speaker 1 (25:36):
And averdity he wanted insurance own the children. Most people
would never be able to utter those words that I
want insurance own my children in case they die.
Speaker 2 (25:48):
That's what really starts to make you wonder what was
it he was going to do there that day in
that fire in California. He got Levi out or Levi
got out, Which is it? What did Levi d What
did Levi know? Why did Levi get killed? Seventeen years
later when he was twenty three years old. All that
is a thread that comes together.
Speaker 1 (26:15):
Slowly. Investigators start to see some things and some things
come out like Karl was abusive maybe toward Chris by
pushing her out of her chair and things like that.
You know, you start chapter fifteen with something that every
single person in criminal justice would attest to immediately and
you say, and I quote, whether we like to admit
(26:36):
it or not, everybody lies. And you go on to
say that with Carl, his lies become truth and the
truth becomes lies, and he takes pleasure in confusing everybody.
Speaker 2 (26:52):
That is so true. You know this is and you
find this. You dealt with killers, you know so many years,
the worst of a sociopath that you're dealing with, and
you know, I say, look at van der Schlut as
an example. These are next level sociopaths. Okay, this is
(27:12):
you know, going into uh, you know, some kind of
stratosphy or sociopaths. I suppose in any event, they are
all about riddles, confusing, mixing, matching. Everything coming out of
their mouth is a lie. That's how you know that.
When they're talking, you know that. That's how you know
they're lying, because their lips are moving, like Judge Judy says,
(27:34):
if the lips are moving, it's a lie. This guy.
And that's the thing. He'll tell you a story and
it comes out throughout the book. I'm sure you've seen
it where you start telling one thing and then you realize, wait,
he said something different about this whole scenario. You know,
the months before, the year before, he just changes the story,
(27:55):
like what do you It's unbelievable. He really pathological, sociopath, liar.
Speaker 1 (28:03):
And sometimes he's just grotesque with it because when the
arts and investigator says, hey, you know your wife died
and you made a little money, he says, wait a minute,
and I quote, I mean, let's face it, I had
one hundred thousand dollars on all three of them. If
I was going to do it, I'd have to let
them go too, because then I wouldn't have to be
(28:26):
a mommy.
Speaker 2 (28:27):
Unbelievable. So the plan was, he says, Okay, he saved
his three kids, so this way he can get away
with murdering his wife, right, that's one way to look
at it. Or was the plan? He was going to
kill everybody to begin with.
Speaker 1 (28:41):
And you know they go on to say, and you
already mentioned this to what really happened with Levi because
when they asked him, did any of the kids see
you at the broken window? He says, I think Levi did. So,
in other words, he knows Levi was somewhere different than
the girls. He had more of an opportunity to see
what all transpired before the girls ever got out exactly.
Speaker 2 (29:04):
And you know, there's there are other things that if
you've read the whole book, you know there are other
weird things in the relationship between Levi and.
Speaker 1 (29:11):
His father, very twisted. And I think that's when even
the counselor starts saying, Levi won't talk to me, he
won't talk about his mama at all. And then later
he becomes you know, that kid that anybody can see
is struggling. He's smoking pot, he's stealing money, he's now goth.
I mean, he's got a lot of issues that he's
(29:32):
not even trying to hide that he has them.
Speaker 2 (29:34):
And of course, you know, all of this is fodder
for Carl to say, you know this, this kid is
a loser, he's a waste of a life. And Carl
is very good at that of demeaning people and making
people feel like they're worthless. And it's just comes in
(29:55):
the package with his inability to show any of oceans
at all, or have any have any real sense of
value of a human life. He just had none human life,
animal life, no life means anything to him.
Speaker 1 (30:13):
And you know, as I was reading the book, there
was one part where I just wanted to text you
and say stop it. Why are you making me go
through this, because I was already locked in on Carl
right and then you're like, hey, y'all, by the way,
he had a car fire before the house fire. Now
y'all listen to me. I almost had a text her
(30:34):
and tell her I'm not happy with you right this minute, Aphrodite,
because you're telling me that Carl now is telling a
whole different fire department. Hey, I just drove my car
home and went in the house, and then my wife
at the time realized the car just burst into flames
right there in our driveway.
Speaker 2 (30:54):
After I took the baby seats and carriages.
Speaker 1 (30:57):
Out of her Yeah, because you know those are expensive
to replace.
Speaker 2 (31:00):
After he removed all the baby seats and everything else
out of the car, it just it combusted. It's like
a natural disaster just occurred in his driveway.
Speaker 1 (31:11):
And thank god he had the foresight to say, you know,
I'm gonna get a safe that protects paperwork, but I'm
gonna keep it in the garage. And then when that
artisan investigator asked me, why is this safe in the
garage not in the house, Because if your house burns down,
your garage doesn't like, I'm gonna throw this book out
(31:35):
the window. I was like, I can't read anymore. I'm
getting irritated. But then I couldn't stop because I knew
what inevitably was coming, and I thought, oh my gosh.
And then it just goes on.
Speaker 2 (31:48):
You can't believe what comes out of this guy's mouth, right.
Speaker 1 (31:51):
And every time he gets insurance money, every time he
gets a check, here's a check for your car, here's
a check for your house, here's a check for your
and I mean, you're just like, okay. So then he
gets this big pile of money and he buys a
big old farm with horses and a barn and all
kind of acreage. And you're like, he is now succeeding
(32:13):
because their mama was killed and he's got a new
wife that he moves in there. And he's asked one time,
and I want you all to listen to this quote.
He is asked, bye, I believe his sister in law
something about rats, and he goes, hey, do you know
(32:33):
how an arsonist gets away with a fire. You douse
a rat in kerosene, lighted and it always runs back
to its home.
Speaker 2 (32:42):
Yeah, which its home is a pile of hay. So
it's just gonna light up that barnfire. And he's letting
that sister know, yeah, I killed your sister. It gives
me chills to really that makes my hair stand on
said when I hear you say it, because I can
feel it, you know, I can feel it. What how
(33:04):
He really just was enjoying those moments where all of
a sudden it wasn't preposterous. All of a sudden, he
gets real, you know KLi Vandersloute, all of a sudden,
oh album, Well, let me tell you this is this
is you know, here's here's a good clue for you. Here.
That's that's that's the sickness of a of a psychopath.
(33:26):
You know, they want It's like the BTK. I was
at Dennis Raiders sentencing. He wanted to take credit for
it all. After thirty years of torturing everybody in the
city of Chita, after thirty years of being undercover, of
being in hiding, coming in and out of hiding, he
at the end of it all wanted to take credit.
And he stood up there, Cheryl in that courtroom, and
(33:46):
I was there, proud as he could be, referring to
himself as Dennis Raider in the third person, and I mean, really.
Speaker 1 (33:56):
I mean you you have literally covered everything and you
didn't do it from a distance. You've been right up
close and personal the whole time. And that's why when
I got to this part of the book, because I
kept thinking, you know what, I think, I know what's
coming with the sun, but we're not there yet. And
all of a sudden, you say, it's two am, November third,
(34:17):
two thousand and two, and all of a sudden, Karl
is screaming, call now one one. The barn is on fire.
And I'm like, I am so done right this minute.
This man cannot have set another fire. And just like
the car, you go on to say, there were these
prize you know, oh what are they called, everybody, the
(34:40):
things for the horses, tack tack. Yes, and he had
taken all these prize possessions, these you know, irreplaceable tacks
that were custom done. Oh, he had removed them from
the barn.
Speaker 2 (34:53):
Yeah, the saddles, the boots, the horse, all of the gear,
all the tack was all removed. Yeah. Somehow that didn't
get destroyed. That was in a different place. Now, the
creepiest part of that, and I don't like to give
away so much of the book, but I will say
this because it does make my head spin. I want
to blow off of its head. Is that at one
(35:17):
point his younger son, Alex, who he had with sending
his second wife, is standing in the driveway waiting for
the school bus or they're playing hoops whatever it is,
in the front of the house in New York. And
now the horse, the horse fire had happened. Alex the
child loved the horse that died. Ginger was her name,
and he loved that horse and the other horses too,
(35:40):
but especially Ginger. And now he's the fire's over. The
horses died. Bat it ah, it's it's he got away
with it. It was considered an accident. He's playing ball
and hoops in the driveway waiting for the bus with
his kid, and Alex finds the hoof of Ginger in
the dirt next to the driveway there in the farm.
(36:01):
Think about that for a minute.
Speaker 1 (36:03):
It's beyond twisted.
Speaker 2 (36:04):
And a kid that was like he was a kid.
I was born in nineteen ninety five, so in two
thousand and two, what is he seven years old?
Speaker 1 (36:11):
And that was his pet. Well for all purposes.
Speaker 2 (36:14):
Yes and no, Yeah, it was Ginger was there to
be bred. Turned out that she was unable to breathe.
So hence what she's not very useful anymore. Hence maybe
we should have a fire. And of course Carl up
to the insurance on the horses right before the fire.
I mean, it's like, how do these people in these
insurance agencies not know this? But they did know it,
(36:35):
but they couldn't catch them. Of course they knew it.
They were looking at the policies they're seeing. He took
this policy out, he changed numbers two weeks prior, four
ex prior, three weeks prior out every one of these cases,
but they couldn't pin it to him.
Speaker 1 (36:50):
Now, I want to tell everybody you need to go
get Levi's eyes, because this book, as much as we
have talked about it already, it is an over. His
crimes are not over. What has all fixing a transpire
with Levi? You will not believe it. It is important to
(37:11):
read it. To me, It's one of those cases where
you can see what's coming down Peach Street Street and
at some point this person should have been stopped. I
think his family knew it. I think friends knew it.
I think the children knew it, and they couldn't stop
this in.
Speaker 2 (37:27):
Time, exactly, no question, no question about that. There's some
blood on a lot of people's hands and this once
you get through the woll streight.
Speaker 1 (37:39):
Okay, So before I let you go, let's talk a
little bit. What is one of your favorite cases? And
I know how that sounds, but you know what I
mean by it. What is one of the worst cases?
What is a dream case? What is you tell us
anything you want us to know about your background and
maybe future projects.
Speaker 2 (37:58):
The favorite thing I ever had in the crime world
was being with OJ Simpson in Las Vegas when he
was being tried there for you know, kidnapping and et cetera.
With the gun and in the hallway outside the courtroom,
I happened to know somebody he played football with, so
I mentioned it. He made the phone call and he
(38:18):
got all excited and happy. Next thing, you know, it
was my girlfriend's birthday and I had OJ sing happy
birthday to her. That's a highlight right there.
Speaker 1 (38:33):
That's a once in a career that's a once in
a career movie.
Speaker 2 (38:36):
That yeah, that doesn't come around ever again. Now. And
in fact, when he did it. A good part about
it was when he did it. You know, so, my
girlfriend knew I was in Las Vegas. She knew I
was at that trial, and she knew that she didn't
know I was hanging out with Oja in the hallway.
But I handed the phone over. I said, somebody wants
to sing Happy Birthday to you. And he's saying it
(38:57):
and I'm watching, and then she asked him. I've so,
she said who is this and he said it's Oh Jay,
Like she just wanted to hear and say it. I'm
thinking myself, who do you think it? I mean, his
voice was still very recognizable. You know, you knew it
was him. But I said to her, why did you
risk him that.
Speaker 1 (39:16):
You knew it?
Speaker 2 (39:16):
So, I know, I just wanted him to tell me.
That's one Another thing that always stays with me is
the John MAInet. You know, I interviewed John Ramsay for
about an hour and a half. We had lunch in
Las Vegas. I was trying to convince him to do
my show. I did an episode on John Benet back
(39:37):
in Oh My God. This was its season three, season
two of My show, and even long time ago now
probably ten years ago, anyway, he became such an interesting
subject to me because I started to believe that Patsy
had convinced him. She found a way to make it
(39:58):
look like somebody was in that house. And I believe
that John Ramsey truly was unaware. And I think what
brings that full circle for me is the interview that
his son Burke did with doctor Phil mcbrau. It's if
you notice once that was done and the CBS thing
special air series pointing to the sun. You know, there's
(40:20):
none of that has ever eared again. Ever, you can't
find it on the internet anywhere. In my mind, I
believe that Patsy Ramsey figured out a way to keep
her husband out of the loop because I don't think
she thought he could act the part. And this is
just my theory, but I really hold to it because
(40:41):
I spent a lot of time with this man, and
I fully believe that he does not know who killed
his kid. Now, how could that be He thinks somebody
came to the house. How could that be unless Patsy
used a mind game of him, and I believe she did.
Speaker 1 (41:01):
I truly do the thing that always has bothered me
the most, Like, let's just say I have a little
dog traveler unless they traveler got lost. If I heard
my husband Walt say I found her, I would take
that demean She's okay, you found her. When John is
coming up the steps, he hollers, I found her, and
(41:22):
Patsy drops to her knees and screams, no, not my baby.
Speaker 2 (41:27):
That's exactly in line with what I'm talking about.
Speaker 1 (41:30):
You and I are in sync there, yeah, I mean.
Speaker 2 (41:33):
And people don't really see that. They think that John,
you know, was a party to it. I don't think
he was a party to it. I truly don't, so
that that case sticks with me because I really do
wish like we finally got this answer from your on
van der Sloot, you know, and there is something so satisfying,
mortifying and satisfying all at the same time. But at
(41:55):
least you have an answer, as best Twitty said, you
have an answer, how confession, You have a sense of
there's some justice in this world, you know, But in
the John Manty case, there's nothing. Just have emptiness. This
gorgeous little child. And then the whole sect was a
(42:16):
sexualization of her, which back then, you know, girls in
makeup and outfits at six years old were considered to be,
you know, unheard of. Now we have princesses and tiaras
and every other thing, and every My granddaughters run around
and makeup at eight years old, and dance classes and
dancer styles. I mean, I don't know when I grew
(42:38):
up as a kid, I was in a dancer style.
I want to too, I'd have eighteen outfits that cost
two hundred dollars apiece, with all kinds of crazy makeup
and eyelashes and every I mean, things have gotten very different,
obviously for young children, girls in particular, with that in
that regard. But back then, the rags the tabloids were
blaming John Ramsay for sexualizing his daughter. And you know,
(43:00):
I mean, how horrible, how horrible is that he had
nothing to do with it. You, by the way, he
did tell me. You know, Patsy had cancer, she knew it,
and that she took John Beney to Manhattan when John
Banney was five because she felt she wouldn't have the
opportunity to do that with her child later on, because
she felt she would die early. So she had she
(43:20):
already had a sense of her own demise. You know,
she knew she was sick and you don't take a
five year old to New York City by yourself, unless
unless you're thinking, you know, it doesn't didn't never occur
to men till he told me that, thinking to myself, Wow,
you know that Patsy realized she'd have a lot of
time on this earth with her kids. I don't know.
(43:43):
I just I really really wish that there would be
an answer, but I have a feeling that that answer
would not help the family, if you know what I mean.
Speaker 1 (43:53):
So, Aphrodity, I cannot thank you enough for being with
us tonight and your extraordinary career in fantastic stories and
the way that you tell them is so necessary for justice.
Speaker 2 (44:05):
Thank you for saying that, Cheryl, I really do appreciate it,
because at the end of the day, you know what
is it's all about. It's for me. It's all about
finding a way to make this world a safer place,
inch by inch, person by person. That's how you have
to do it. If you notice somebody who's being you
think is a victim of domestic violence, figure out somehow
(44:26):
some way to get through to them. If you notice
a kid that is off and needs extra counseling or whatever,
figure out how that can happen. Maybe their parents can't
are not in the position, Maybe this, maybe that, But
you know, we all we're all connected, and as much
as we're also disconnected with different countries, different values, at
the same time, when it's life and death, when it's violence,
(44:47):
when it's murdered, we're all in the same boat. And
let's try to find a way to keep the white
light around us. And the only way to do that
is to look into these stories that have happened to
other people and try deep lessons from them. And that's
what I am all about.
Speaker 1 (45:03):
We are all connected. I cannot agree more. Thank you
again so much, And y'all, I'm going to end Zone
seven the way that I always do with a quote
the serial arsonist is the most difficult to apprehend because
the evidence is burned up Joseph Wambach. I'm Cheryl McCollum,
(45:24):
and this is Zone seven.
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