BONUS: Chowchilla Kidnap Parole w Prosecutor Matt Murphy

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
You're listening to the Mind over Murder podcast.

Speaker 2 (00:06):
My name is Bill Thomas. I'm a writer, consulting, producer,
and now podcaster. I am now trying to use my
experience as the brother of a murder victim to help
other victims of violent crime. I'm working on a book
on the unsolved Colonial Parkway murders, and I'm the co
administrator of the Colonial Parkway Murders Facebook group together with
Kristin Dilly.

Speaker 3 (00:26):
My name is Kristin Dilly.

Speaker 4 (00:27):
I'm a writer, a researcher, a teacher, and a victim's advocate,
as well as the social media manager and co administrator
for the Colonial Parkway Murders Facebook page with my partner
in crime, Bill Thomas.

Speaker 3 (00:41):
Welcome to Mind of a Murder. I'm Kristin Dilly and
I'm Bill Thomas. We're joined today by one of our
very favorite legal eagles, Matt Murphy, prosecutor and author of
the Murder book. Matt, thank you for joining us.

Speaker 5 (00:56):
Happy to be here.

Speaker 2 (00:57):
I was going to say prosecutor to the stars. Then
I was thinking, maybe that isn't a good thing. If
you're a star and you're prosecuated by Matt Murphy.

Speaker 5 (01:06):
Yeah, I did prosecute too many stars in the criminal world.
I had some rock stars, for sure, but I had
some famous ones, but they were definitely not movie stars.

Speaker 2 (01:15):
I liked one of our favorite le legals. That's a
good one too.

Speaker 3 (01:18):
Absolutely, that was It was just occurring to me that
we do not have too terribly many friends on the
side of the bench. We tend to be more to
the forensic side. So we're so glad to have Matt
available to answer all of our questions because I certainly
don't have a good legal grounding.

Speaker 5 (01:38):
Yeah, I've certainly. I spent twenty six years as a
DA for your listeners, and I spent seventeen years in
the homicide unit, and I've prosecuted. I've never had a
kidnapping quite this crazy with all the kids, but I've
done some pretty ruthless kidnapping prosecutions. So familiar with the
law in this area. And part of our job in
Orange County, of course, was we would attend the prole

(01:58):
hearings on any life, so they'd send us up. We'd
go to the prison sit down with the BPT, the
Board of Prison terms and go through the administrative process
with the inmate there, and yeah, hopefully I can shed
a little light on it for you.

Speaker 2 (02:12):
I know from what we've read that child molesters and
pedophiles and folks like that are looked down upon in prison,
and sometimes even very hearts are tweeted by their fellow inmates.
I think people forget the fact that criminals have families
and many examples too. Do you have any sense of
how the incarcerated community would view kidnappers.

Speaker 5 (02:37):
It depends on the circumstances of the kidnapping. A kidnapper
who girl fashion kidnapping for ransom, that's a for example
Latin America, that is a cottage industry down there and
other places in the world. But if somebody kidnapped a
child for the purposes of sexual abuse, that would be
a totally different ballgame. Somebody's doing it for money, they
call it gen pop or general population. If they were

(02:58):
in like a level three or level four prison like
we see on TV with the rows and the bars,
somebody who kidnapped like a businessman for ransom, they're going
to have to deal with all the normal prison politics,
but they're not going to be targeted for that. But
somebody who kidnaps a child, especially a child for sexual abuse.
They're going to be what's known is a total set

(03:20):
or a total separation. Prison is a fascinating world because
it is a world unto itself, and they have rules,
and there's tons of politics, and the Vptier, the board
prison terms as well as the CDC, the California Department
of Corrections. They work very hard, believe it or not,
most of the time to make sure that they separate

(03:42):
and they classify inmates who are at risk of abuse,
so it's not like in the movies where stop Monster
gets thrown in the yard, and because they would be
dead by the end of the day, they tend to
house them separately from regular inmates. They separate them from
gang members and professional criminals and the really bad guys

(04:05):
because they will have a target on their back. If
you're a child moluster, if you're a snitch, if you've
testified against other inmates, or if you're a police officer
or some way connected to law enforcement. Those they have
to be separated very early in the incarceration process otherwise
they will be targeted for sure. So I hope that
answers the question.

Speaker 3 (04:25):
So, Matt, we wanted to have you on to talk
a little bit about these sort of nuances when it
comes to sentencing four crimes like the Chachilla mass kidnapping.
One of the things that we were most flue mixed
by when we started doing research on the case is
that now all three of these kidnappers are out from

(04:46):
behind bars, out on parole, And it really made us
step back for a moment and ask ourselves why would
the men who hijacked a bus and buried twenty six
children and an adult underground ever be allowed to come
up for parole. So my first question for you is this,

(05:06):
are there mandatory sentencing guidelines for felonies such as kidnapping
or does the judge in the case have the right
to impose any sentence that they see fit.

Speaker 5 (05:17):
So California does does sentencing ranges. Typically most felonies, they'll
be low, mid, or high term, depending on the case.
Say it's like a generic childmass, for example, you can
do three, six or eight, So you can do up
to eight years because that's a serious violent felony. That's
probably going to be an eighty percent. Although the law
is constantly influx on these things, So the court typically

(05:40):
will have the option of low term, midterm, or high
term on any felony. They'll be prescribed sentencing numbers for
whatever the case, whatever the crime is. But in virtually
all cases, the judge also has a probation option, So
the judge can always impose a term of probation where
they don't go to prison for the For violent felonies

(06:02):
like this, it's virtually unheard of the judges would ever
do that. So they're gonna they're gonna be at the range. Now,
what's interesting about this case, and one of the one
of the big issues in it is the GBI. Okay,
that's that stands for great bottle injury. If there's a
separate code section in the state of California for kidnapping
for the purposes of robbery or ransom that results in

(06:26):
great bottle injury or death. Okay, so that case does
not have a sensing range. If you're convicted of that,
the court essentially has the probation of or the option
of granting probation or sensing the defendants to lifelout possibility
or parole. So it's a it's basically that is the
prescribed sentence for kidnapping for robbery or ransom that results

(06:48):
in great bottle injury. So that's why this case became.
That was the hot issue when these guys all came
and were when they got caught and a couple of
them turned themselves in. They want to plead to everything
except for that enhancement. And that's why because they wanted
to have role hearings. They were convicted of the of
the injury and these were like scrapes and bruises. Then

(07:10):
they didn't shoot anybody, nothing, and I read that I
read indicated that they were particularly violent towards anybody. I
don't think they ever hit, stabbed, punch, or did much
to the bus driver that resulted in physical harm. So
you're now left with the definition of great bodily injury,
which in California must be more than superficial injury. It's

(07:33):
things like stitches, broken bones. It's a pretty low bar
injury wise. It doesn't have to be a life threatening injury,
but it has to be more than something just trivial
or minor. So that became the issue in this case
because there was a bunch of scrapes and bruises, but
great bodily injury. The Court of Appeal, even though they
were convicted on it, the Court of Appeal reversed that,

(07:54):
and I think in this case that was probably the
right move by the Court of appeal because they were
definitely shaken up. They were definitely traumatized, all these poor
kids and the driver, but there weren't any injuries that
really fit the definition of great Bodle injury. So because
of that, once the Court of the Pool reversed it,
that basically made it so that they all got parole hearings.

(08:17):
So they were eligible for parole, and that's why they
got their hearings, and that's why they were ultimately released.

Speaker 2 (08:23):
Kristin and I were both really struck by something though, Matt,
which is these twenty six people suffered a significant amount
of trauma, as you mentioned it, and very sadly, a
number of these victims, who ranged in age from six
to fourteen in terms of the kids, if I had
my numbers right, they had drug problems, alcohol problems with relationships, PTSD,

(08:50):
in the extreme nightmares. For the rest of their lives.
Some of them wouldn't go into a closed rum or
a confined space. Years later, they couldn't even find themselves
going downstairs in the basement of homes where they lived
does any of that coll It.

Speaker 5 (09:10):
Does, and I think that's one of the reasons why
we had so many parole hearings where they were denied parol.
One of these, one of the guys was denied parol,
I think it was Fred Woods. There's dined parol seventeen times,
I think, which is a lot. Now there's been a
there's been a shift in California where for years and
years the PPT or the parole board was essentially directed

(09:31):
to consider the circumstances of the offense as one of
the primary considerations and therefore one of the primary justifications
for denying PARL. The law has now changed in California
so that they can't do that anymore, so they have
to look instead to see that's one thing that can
be considered. However, they essentially have to justify keeping the

(09:53):
person in which means essentially, are they a risk to
the community if they are released? And have they? And
the focus goes back towards what's not as programming behavior
and custody programming would be are they going to AA
meetings if if there was an alcohol drug component to
the crime, are they taking advantage of educational opportunities in prison?

(10:14):
They are basically are they being good citizens in prison,
indicating that they may be suitable for pool that becomes
the name of the game for life, or inmates that
they've got they've got a program and they've got to
complete the classes and get the certificates. And if they
do that eventually and they avoid what are called one
point fifteen's, which are right ups for rule violations in prison.

(10:38):
So if they don't have PRUNO in their cells, they're
not getting caught with weapons, drugs, if they can stay
out of trouble which really isn't hard honestly in prison
because they're surrounded by the worst humans in the state,
that will catch most of the attention from the guards.
So if somebody really wants to behave they will be
given opportunities. And also there's different levels in California. There's

(11:00):
Level four prisons, which are like what you on TV
with the yard and the gang members and the mustaches
and all that and the racial segregation imposed by the
inmates themselves and all that sort of stuff. Then you
got Level three prisons, which are far safer. Then you
get to like level two prisons and level one prisons
where you've got older inmates that have demonstrated over years

(11:22):
that they're not getting in fights, they're not a threat
to staff, they follow the rules. When a lot of
the role hearings we would go do would be at
those level two prisons where they're all they're doing is
programming and doing time, it gets increasingly difficult for prosecutors
to successfully advocate to keep a lot of these guys in.

Speaker 3 (11:40):
One of the questions that I had now is a
mitigatting circumstance here. When fred Wood went up for role
for I think probably the eighteenth time he was finally
granted it, and some of the articles that I read,
it was revealed that he was running businesses out of prison.
He was running a used car lot. Was I in
a gold mine? He bought real estate from prison? That

(12:03):
can't possibly be allowed? Is it? Wouldn't that be considered
bad behavior?

Speaker 5 (12:08):
Yeah? That is How was he.

Speaker 3 (12:10):
Given parole given those circumstances.

Speaker 5 (12:13):
The one hundred or so parole hangings I did, I
never saw anybody that was operating a youth car lot
from prison. I've never even heard of anything like that.
He doesn't. He was long pegged as the mastermind in
this whole thing, and the great irony here is that
this guy inherited by this on what I read, he
inherited one hundred million dollars. Yeah, and he's living in
a mansion. Now, what's interesting where I think a lot

(12:35):
of the I think I actually don't know what the
families did back then, But today I would hope that
they would have sued the the Jesus out of that family,
because this, of course was it was I believe it
was fred Wood's quarry. His father owned the quarry where
they buried the event. So that's a family that had
a lot of money, and I guess a lot of

(12:57):
it flows down to what the family knew and didn't know.
But I don't know. A judgment perhaps against fred Wood
himself could have been exercised maybe at some point. But
that's also complicated because you're talking about inherence and not
everything is. You can't get at everything as a planet's lawyer.
Sometimes family wealth you can't reach it. But it is

(13:18):
a little disturbing that you get a guy who really
didn't follow the rules. Now, none of those things are violent,
but sitting in a mansion with one hundred million bucks
in his pocket, and you've got the victims of his
crime that are still dealing with PTSD doesn't seem quite right.

Speaker 2 (13:33):
From what we've read. There was a settlement, but it
was characterized we didn't see a dollar figure, but it
was characterized as not enough to buy a house for
each of the twenty six victims, So you know, one
hundred thousand dollars, I don't know. Well, California is extensive.

Speaker 5 (13:54):
Yeah, and that would have been back then. So back
in nineteen seventy six, you can buy houses in west
Oa for forty thousand dollars, not enough to buy a
house in Chowchilla when they were selling for a lot
less than forty. I've had it's probably. Yeah, that sounds
like it's somewhere in the five to twenty thousand dollars
ranch back then in the seventies. Yeah, that's disturbing.

Speaker 6 (14:16):
To say the least.

Speaker 3 (14:17):
I'm hoping these aren't ridiculous questions, but there's not something
that I ever trained for any kidnapping case. Is the
number of victims taken into consideration during sentencing, like in
this case, there were twenty six kids and an adults
on the bus. Does each victim equal one count of kidnapping?
Or is it the act as a whole that is

(14:38):
considered by the court to be the one mass act
of kidnapping.

Speaker 5 (14:42):
Each victim is a separate count depending on how it's
filed and how it's prosecuted. I've done. The last kidnapping
I did as a prosecutor involved two people that were kidnapped.
One was the target, one was ancillary, and we argued
very sternly as hard as we can good for full
consecutive sentences for each victim, and the court gave that

(15:04):
to us. So each victim counts. Now, what's interesting, though,
is you can only because of the nature of the crime,
you can only have one l WOP. And I don't
know what happened to when the Court of Appeal reversed it.
I'm sure they send it back to spirit court for resentencing.
So one of the options that, depending on the circumstances
of the kidnapping, that a superior court judge could potentially

(15:27):
do is they can do what's called full consect terms
for twenty six twenty six children or what twenty five
children and one adult there are, depending on the way
the case is charged. You can have a judge sentence
on each one of those, having the defendant. Now they're
going to do one third the mid term for each
the math it gets a little bit complicated, but you

(15:49):
see this in sexual assaul cases where there's multiple victims.
Where if there's no multiple victim life enhancement alleged, but
the court has the ability to sentence consecutively, they'll stack
numbers so they're not eligible for parole hearing for one
hundred and forty years or one hundred and fifty years
or two hundred years. In fact, there's a famous, like
local legend, there was a judge named Judge Fitzgerald in

(16:11):
Orange County and he was it was a gang case,
and it was a this guy went on a very
violent spree and the sentence comes in. You got this
knucklehead gang member standing there in court. And fitz had
a very dry sense of humor and he was a
no nonsense, old school judge that I appreciate more and
more of the older I get. But the kid, the
guy's up there and it was like the sentence was

(16:31):
like two hundred and forty nine years and he's going
through the rigamar role and he's like saying, you do
this and if you ever get out, not to associate
with your gang and hereby sends you to one hundred
and forty five years in state prison. And the guy
stops and he says it makes a sound. And Fitzgerald
looks at this gangster with tattoos all over and he goes,
did you have a Do you have a question? Son?

(16:52):
And he said two hundred and forty nine years, slash.
I can't do two hundred and forty nine years. And
he goes, son, you just do as many as you can.
Out Yes, that's okay, son, you just do as many
as you can. So that is and not to be
glibbed out there to the listeners, but this was an
incredibly violent guy who had hurt a bunch of people

(17:14):
and and was he dedicated himself to a life of
violence and victimizing the innocence. Forgive the gallows humor, but
that's a true story and it's legendary down there and
where I used to where I used to work in
Orange County.

Speaker 2 (17:27):
Given the three of us, I don't think any of
us are going to be terribly sympathetic to heinous criminals
who've committed violent acts. I'm not terribly sympathetic to someone
who has committed horrible crimes like these.

Speaker 5 (17:42):
That's and we're going to get to it. You guys
are going to ask me, I say, restorative justice, and
I definitely have some thoughts about that.

Speaker 3 (17:48):
Yeah, I definitely, yeah, I definitely want to get there.
So I guess I just have one more question about parole,
and that's what factors do the parole board take into
account when they make decision to ultimately release someone like
fred Wood onto parole.

Speaker 5 (18:05):
So one factor certainly is the amount of time that
they have done. So he did forty five actual years, which,
considering nobody died, that's quite a hit. I was surprised
to see in the materials as I was preparing that
Gavin Newsom, of all people, actually opposed his parole. Yeah,
because Gavin Newsom typically is the captain freedom where all

(18:28):
these guys get out. So I was surprised to see that.
It's actually good to see that he does understand that
some people really shouldn't probably ever be released. So that's
one of the big factors. The amount of time. Another
they're guided by insight, does the inmate demonstrate that insight
into the offense? Has the inmate programmed in prison? How
much time have they done? They also consider opposition from

(18:50):
the local police department, from the victims' families, you know,
they weigh all of that. All that sort of goes
into the mix. But the parole board is a point
to by the governor's office. So these are the people
that work in the Board of prison terms. Some of
them are foreign prison guards. Some of them are former wardens,
which are actually tend to be very good, I think

(19:12):
for victims. But on the other hand, some of them
are attorneys that used to be prisoner advocates and their
hearts and sympathies really go towards the inmate. And so
California is an interesting dynamic place, as you guys know,
and this is one of the unseen parts of the
criminal justice system. They don't televise those. There's very little

(19:35):
public understanding of how the parole system works. And we
went from the terms of Gray Davis, Arnold Schwarzenegger, even
Garry Brown in his second term, where it was widely
viewed that life sentences were imposed for a good reason.
There was deference given to the trial courts who really
know more about the case than anybody. And they used

(19:55):
to say even the Democratic governors used to say life
means life. Life means life. They would oppose the release
of life prisoners. That has completely changed in the state
of California now are thankfully now gone. District Attorney George
Gascone from Los Angeles County his first day, he issued
a bunch of edicts, like all those presidential orders we

(20:17):
just saw the day one, there was a bunch of
stuff that came out. And on his first day, George Gascon,
used to be the DA of San Francisco, came down
to La ran as a criminal justice reformer right after
the summer of George Floyd and was elected. He just lost,
by the way, thank god, by I think thirty points
in Los Angeles because he was he was really eager

(20:41):
to prosecute police officers and pretty much nobody else. So
that's all the smash and grabs we saw. All that
stuff can be largely linked to a lot of the
policies seen by many that were imposed by George Gascon,
one of which one of the most controversial is that
he immediately forbade prosecutors from Los Angeles County to attend
those parole hearings and oppose the release of people serving life.

(21:05):
So the three groups that serve life by like ninety
eight percent. I don't know what the actual statistics are,
but the vast majority of people serving life are not
kidnappers like this case, but they're going to be murderers,
child molesters, and rapists. Overwhelmingly, those are the vast majority
of life sentences. And when you stop opposing the release

(21:26):
of those friggin guys, especially when it's in a they are,
they get parole to the same communities that many profess
to want to protect, and they immediately begin praying on
the most vulnerable again. And there's a hypocrisy to that. Anyway,
The parole system is very it's complex, and the philosophy,
especially under Gavinism, has changed radically in the last decade

(21:49):
or so.

Speaker 2 (21:51):
You're listening to Mind over Murder. We'll be right back
after this word from our sponsors. We're back here at

(22:12):
Mind over Murder. One of the things that we read
was that the victims in this case found it very
difficult to feel obligated to go back time and time
again to oppose the release of these three kidnappers. They
found it very difficult, and that would bring back a

(22:33):
lot of really powerful and disturbing memories but because no
one else seemed to be standing up for them, the
victims themselves, as they grew into adulthood, felt that they
had to go before the parole board to oppose releasing
these three prisoners.

Speaker 5 (22:51):
That is I'm glad you mentioned that, because that really
is that's where we get into the Menendez touch VERSI. Okay,
when the people there are serving lifelout possibility of parole,
I'm here to tell you are the worst human beings
on the planet and for our little sliver of the
world here, to get an l WOP sentence, which is
what they call it LWOP, you have to have committed

(23:12):
something absolutely horrific. It's almost always first agree murders with
special circumstances, but kidnapping with GBI I did one where
they severed the man's penis and took it with them.
That's basically what you have to do. They were trying
to rob him. That's what you have to do to
get an LWOP sentence. And a lot of people don't
understand what these families go through when the determinate part

(23:36):
of the sentence is up and these guys start getting
pool hearings, because the families do they have to go.
Sometimes they allow them on zoom. But imagine that if
you lose a loved one to a murderer, rape, murder,
whatever it may be. Now rape would hopefully be an
LWOP sentence. Your loved one is murdered by somebody else,
that person comes up for parole and they're typically given

(23:57):
there's a range of deferrals. Sometimes they can be the
parole can be deferred six months. And some of these
families have to go to a prison twice a year
to oppose the person that murder their love one and
sit in a room with them. It is an absolute nightmare.
It's not fair to them. So that's where Menendez comes in.
Like all these people are like, oh, they've done thirty

(24:19):
five years, what's the big deal? Where it's just elop,
let's re sentence them. The big deal is if you
do it on one, every one of those people is
going to be lining up trying to get their sentencing redone.
And when you remove al wop, it means the families
have this incredible imposition upon them where they have to
go and do the state's job essentially, and they have

(24:41):
to go and appeer and they oftentimes feel obligated for
their love on but it is it's a nightmare and
it never ends until the person gets out. And that
now the guy's out and the family has personally sat
in a room and railed against them multiple times, and
it's a murderer. So that's a lock your door's moment
for sure. There are Look, there are a certain sences
where life without possibility parole is the fairest sentence for

(25:04):
the victims because it means that they get to put
it behind them and not worry. So all these people
that come around and there's a big movement in California
to eliminate that as a sentence, and that can only
be done, in my view, with utter disregard for the
impact upon innocent family members of their victims.

Speaker 6 (25:22):
Well said, I couldn't agree more.

Speaker 2 (25:24):
I'm hoping that someday someone, perhaps a group of someone's,
are sentenced in the Colonial Parkway murders, and I'm picturing
that the families would have to go through this. This
seems like on some level, you're making the victims, the
survivors prisoners themselves of the parole system because they're gonna

(25:45):
have to go back every couple of years and fight
for something.

Speaker 6 (25:48):
As you said, this should be the state's job.

Speaker 5 (25:52):
That's right, yep, and it should be done. You're absolutely right.
They are. Really they become prisoners in their own right,
especially the moms, the elderly moms who lost children, the killers,
whether they were children or just their own kids. Like
if it's murdering the child's in their twenties their thirties,
you know, your standard second degree murder, given the current

(26:13):
sentencing guidelines, that person gets out or gets a parole
hearing in twelve years. So imagine that you have a
love one that's murdered that you're at a you personally
will have to attend a parole hearing in twelve years.
You're not even out, you're not even over the shock
of grief. If it's a close family member who's murdered,
you're barely processing the killing. In twelve years, and the

(26:36):
person who did it will be eligible for parole in
a second degree murder. Now there's enhancements depending on whether
there's a gun, whether there's a knife. There's ways that
sometimes they can add time to that, but right now,
a generic second degree murder is fifteen years to life
with good time work time, and that the parole hearing
happens in about twelve years, so your standard domestic violence murder,

(26:57):
that guy is going to be up for parole in
just over a decade. Man.

Speaker 3 (27:03):
One of the things that I found most interesting when
I was watching the Child Chilla documentary was discussion from
one of the survivors. His name is Larry Park. He
was six when he was kidnapped and held for ransom,
and he is one of the people who seem to
have the hardest time dealing with PTSD, trauma and so
on and so forth, and I don't blame him at all.

(27:26):
He talked about his decision to become involved in the
restorative justice process. He said that it helped him more
than anything else could have. Can you talk to us
about restorative justice for anyone who is not familiar with it,
What does that process look like?

Speaker 5 (27:43):
First of all, anything that provided some peace to him
as an individual victim. Of course, I support that one
hundred percent. That is that's really that's a great thing
for him. The concept of restorative justice is essentially it's
an academic model. They use a lot in South Africa
after apartheid, so it's an internationally used thing oftentimes, and

(28:06):
I think they did some of that in the Congo
after the slaughter of the the Suitsies, and they've tried
it in different places in the world. Essentially, what it
means is that the perpetrator is afforded an opportunity to
say sorry to the victims and when talk about their
story and what led them there, and that under certain

(28:29):
circumstances like this is one where maybe that works great.
They propose it academically as a counter model to what
is known as the punitive justice system. In reality, number one,
they're not mutually exclusive. In California, we have we're known
as victim impact statements, which can be incredibly cathartic for
the victims to stand up there where the defendant has

(28:50):
to sit there and listen to them, and they get
to talk about what it did to them. They get
to talk about how it impacted their family, their job,
their relationships. The ones that I've done we're in murder cases,
so it's a family member of the victim that comes
up and does that can be incredibly powerful, and that
can be really cathartic for them. The idea of a
pure restorative justice model is can I swear on your show? Okay?

(29:16):
That's just it's friggin bullshit. It's basically that you And
this is my opinion only to twenty six years advocating
for victims, and I still advocate for victims in certain crimes.
If it's somebody who vandalized somebody's car, like we're seeing
that with Tesla, if somebody wants to sit down with
the victim and say I was really sorry, I was
a bede, awesome. Great when it comes to I spent
twenty one years prosecuting child mousters, rapists, and murderers, those

(29:39):
are predatory defendants. When you're talking about somebody that's crossed
rubicon and is the sexual abuse of strangers. I never
want to see one of my victims have to endure
some a hole rapist explain why they did it, because
there usually isn't the insight to begin with child monasters, rapists,
those who are sexual predator. All that happy hugging in

(30:02):
the world is never going to change their predatory nature.
They're going to keep doing that for as lung as
they draw breath. If they're given the opportunity, and I
think that it's great if the victim wants to participate.
I think using it as any sort of official model
puts victims in the position they have to sit and
listen to that, And they did that in Liberia after
the Liberian Civil War. And there's some really interesting documentaries

(30:25):
on a guy who who ran a group of child soldiers,
like one of the rebel groups. It was called the
buck Naked Brigade. And this guy was a monster and
he would torture people. He was one of these people
that cut off arms and hands, and in certain communities
it became the official policy that the victims would have
to sit there and listen to that guy like they
were compelled to do it. I cannot tell you how

(30:48):
much I oppose that. And also when it comes to murders,
it's if it helps the victim's family, great, I'm all
for it. They should never be compelled to do it,
and it should be done, in my view, only in
conjunction with punitive measures, where that person is has to
spend as much time in prison as possible, especially if
it's a predatory homicide, because that's a different thing.

Speaker 6 (31:11):
Now.

Speaker 5 (31:12):
The true predators in a vast array of crimes and
criminal justice. It's a small group, but that's what I
specialized in and The only circumstance that I think my
victims should ever have to spend time in room with
one of those guys is when the guy has to
sit there in a courtroom and listen to what the
victim has to say. And it's called a statement in allocution.

(31:33):
Some judges allow it, some don't, where the defendant can
then address the victims. And I'll tell you I was
on a case, a Golden State killer case, Joseph D'Angelo.
That guy was a monster, and the court aloud gave
him the last word. And that was in Sacramento. I
had retired at that point from the day's office, so
I wasn't there for that. I would have been. I
was crawling through my TV screen when I saw that,

(31:54):
like that guy should never have been given the last
word because he was a monster. So restorative justice sounds
great on paper, I think the practical application of that,
when you're talking about predatory, violent criminal defendants, I think
that it is very misplaced under most circumstances. And I
got strong feelings about this. For minor cases, it's fine,

(32:15):
knock yourself out. For the rare victim that chooses to
participant in it, like the young not so young man
in our case anymore, the six year old. That's great,
But I'm telling you, for rapists, child musters, and murders,
I don't think anybody should us to listen to them,
and adopting that as an official model is deeply problematic
for a lot of reasons.

Speaker 2 (32:37):
Now, I will say this, though we've met a number
of survivors. Many of them have told us that the
victim impact Statement, which many of them worked on for
weeks just to craft what it was they wanted to say,
was very powerful for them and very empowering.

Speaker 5 (32:56):
Oh yeah, time.

Speaker 6 (32:58):
Many of them talked about it as.

Speaker 2 (33:00):
Finally a way to speak out and take some degree
of control over this horrific situation. In many cases these
are relatives of murder victims, but that it was very
meaningful for them.

Speaker 5 (33:13):
Yeah, no, and it can be. But also remember that
that's a situation of control where they talk at the
podium and the defendant has to sit there at council
table and listen. They don't. The defendant doesn't get to
talk to them, doesn't get to address them unless the
court allows it, and the court usually will ask for
a heads up regarding the prostitutor's position on a statement

(33:34):
in allocution, and sometimes the courts allow it and it
can be okay. But restorative justice is the classic case
of that is you bring the bad guy in and
you sit him in a chair across from the victim,
and you bring in quote unquote members of the community
whatever that means depending on the case, and you let
the guy. The ones that I have seen is infuriating

(33:57):
to me because it's basically a bunch of excuses and
I did this, but it's only because I had a
hard life, or I didn't have any money or blah
blah blah blah blah. Under in that, using that as
a model, I think you can do. If it's poorly done,
it can do more harm than good. Victim impact is awesome.
Letting some predatory monster talk at his victim is something

(34:20):
that I think we should all be opposed unless it's
carefully regulated, it's supervised properly. It has to be done right,
and even then, it is not a substitute for lengthy
prison and custodial sentences for violent crimes. That's how you
give victim solace. You make sure that the person's punished.
They're not going to hurt anybody. Else, and they're paying
for what they did to the victim or their loved ones.

Speaker 3 (34:41):
In my view, Matt, do you feel like justice has
ultimately been served in the child Chilli case? Richard Chowenfeld
served thirty five years, James Chowenfeld served thirty eight and
Fred Woods served forty five years. Do you feel given
the magnitude in scope of the crime and the number

(35:01):
of victims, do you feel like they serve the amount
of time they should have served or do you feel
like they should probably still be back in there.

Speaker 5 (35:08):
I think that fred Wood and his one hundred million dollars,
that one disserves me a little bit. But then again,
forty five years for this crimes. Who he was twenty four?
I think when he helped me do math, I went
to law schools because I couldn't do mouth. So twenty
four plus forty five, what are we at his parole date?

Speaker 3 (35:24):
It was sent he was seventy when he was seven.

Speaker 5 (35:27):
Seven years old. Okay, I think that this one I
just bit my rant that you just listened to it
dulgs me on regarding restorative justice and that happy crap.
I think that this one, honestly, I think that these
are Ballpark. Even though that it was absolutely horrific because
nobody was killed, I think that is a these were

(35:48):
substantial sentences given the fact that everybody survived, and that
is I'm not taking anything away from the psychological horror
and what all these poor people are going through now.
But again, strangle your husband in the middle of in
a custody dispute, you're getting a parole hearing in twelve years.
The fact that these guys served thirty five and forty
five years actual, that seems commensurate with what they did.

(36:11):
And another thing, I think that for the state of
California also when these guys start getting old, if they've
served decades. In decades, that means they didn't have families
of their own. They destroyed their own lives in the process,
which is appropriate for what these guys did, that they
should suffer a hit like that. But also as a taxpayer,
we live in the highest, most highest highly taxed state

(36:32):
in America, right, I'm happy that those guys get out,
and especially the guy with that fred Wood, with his money,
we're not paying all of his medical expenses as the
ages in prison too. But now I think that this
was Paul Park seventeen parole denials. But again the problem
is imagine that seventeen hearings where these poor victims have
to go in seventeen times for the guy who did

(36:55):
this for money. Remember they were after five million dollars,
so this was, in a way, depending on how you
look at it, this was worse than a lot of crimes.
These weren't methaddicts who figured out they were sticking a
gun in some poor guy's face at a seven to eleven.
These weren't even like mentally ill people or even like
the rapists themselves that at least have a screw loose
to God. And this is the worst reason to violently

(37:16):
victimize people of all, and that's money. Like this was
well planned, not so well planned. It was planned out,
it was thought through, and they were just after cash.
Maybe one of the most disturbing parts is these guys
all came from rich families. It's almost like the Saco
and Benzetti trial of the Chicago in the early nineteen hundreds.

(37:38):
It's the just the wantonness of it. They didn't need it,
but they did it for the thrill. And if they
hadn't dug themselves out, I don't know, guys, you're more
familiar with the facts's than I am. But as I'm
reading through that, it's like they're really lucky that all
twenty six of these people did not die.

Speaker 2 (37:57):
The roof of the movements collapses, was collapsing, and when
you see the photographs. I found more photographs over the weekend.
It was shocking how bad the conditions were to start with,
and then the roof began caving in from the weight
of the twelve feet of rock and boulders and dirt
they had put on top of the moving van, So

(38:19):
those people could have died. One of the things that
Kristin and I could not get over was when they
couldn't get through to the Chowchilla Pde to place their
ransom demand because the amazing the town's phone system was
so jammed by family members, media and other inquiries. That

(38:40):
these idiots took an sleep, Yeah, took a nap while
these kids are terrified in what Kristin described as a tomb.

Speaker 5 (38:50):
Yeah, kidnappings, hard work, napping, nap time was important. No,
they were literally the roof is caving in. There's all
these children six years old, and those knuckleheads want to
sleep it is. The whole case is outrageous, but maybe
the most outrageous part. I just have this visual image,
guys of this guy sitting in his mansion with his
hundred million bucks he's got out when he was seventy.

(39:11):
I don't know how old he is now, but I
don't know. It suould be great if there's a mechanism
to funnel some of that cash swards those victims.

Speaker 2 (39:18):
Yeah, it's funny. When you were saying you thought they'd
served enough time. I was going to say, Matt, you softy,
you and I understand.

Speaker 5 (39:26):
I'm not I'm saying it's the it's in the ballpark.
It's in the ballpark. I'm not saying that. I'm not
saying I agree with any of these VPT decisions on it.
It's just not as it's not as outrageous as some
of the some of the releases that I have seen
personally over the years. Forty five years is it's a
long time. That is a that's a long time to
actually serve. But hey, you guys hit the nail on

(39:47):
the head. The fact that the guy's violating prison rules
by running businesses and all that stuff. I think that
they should have won fifteen his butt and kept him
in personally. But and look, you're you're almost never going
to hear me advocate for the release of any life prisoner.
But sometimes I included this part of my book. There
are a few that I sat I sat in that
prole board room looking at where especially the ones that

(40:10):
did stuff when they were very young, like eighteen years old,
where I saw people that actually as adults, understood what
they had done, what they participated in, they regretted it,
they'd served a substantial chunk of their life. I did
have a few that I looked across the table and
thought that guy could get released and not hurt anybody else.
Not a lot, but I did have a few, and
this is one forty five years. Considering nobody died, there

(40:33):
would be a lot. I can understand the pressure that
was on that parle board in the eighteenth subsequent they
called that's what they call it, subsequence is subsequent hearing.
But had I been on the board, I almost certainly
way have voted against releasing the guy. But am am
I going to lose sleep tonight over the idea that guy,
when nobody died, did forty five actual years. I'll lose

(40:54):
sleep on some other ones tonight, guys, but I want
to lose sleep on that one.

Speaker 3 (40:57):
My one other interesting tidbit here about fred Woods. Not
only did he leave to one hundred million dollars and
a couple of lucrative businesses, he was married three times
while he was inside prison. How does that even work?
Matt If you want to get married inside prison, do
you ask someone's permission? How does that even work?

Speaker 5 (41:18):
So again, California, I grew up here. I love California,
but our state is more than a little crazy, guys.
And the way the law, the way the law used
to be, is that you if you were a life prisoner,
you could not have conjugal visits. And man, yeah, you
can marry anybody you want, but you don't get the
benefits that go along. That is shifted back and forth

(41:40):
over the years. And you know what, I don't know
what the current status of that is, but I know
that for other violent felons in the state of California
that aren't terving life sentences, they are allowed conjugal visits,
and the prisons use that as a reward system where
it's like, hey, be good and your husband or wife
can come visit you and you can get that. They
use it as like behavioral modification carot, so to speak,

(42:03):
where it's like, hey, behave yourself and you get to
you get to spend the night with your with your
girlfriend or your wife. I don't know if they have
to be married for that to happen. But again, our legislation,
our legislature in California is very active, and this is
one of the areas that they like to weigh in on.
And there's a lot of them up there, certainly not
all of there's a lot of them who, for reasons
I don't understand, love their criminals. So I don't know

(42:26):
what the current status of the laws on that. I
do know that Schuyler da leone one of the cases
I did, he was given gender reassignment surgery and I
got a photo that went up in my hands with
him and his boyfriend who or her? I guess they'd
say it, and I'm not gonna call him her, And
I don't know how that works. I don't know how

(42:47):
you get a full contact visit when you're literally a
death row inmate. But I got a photo of them hugging. Yeah,
it's a twisted maze of ever changing laws in the
state of California, and used to be that you can't
get you could get conjugals as a lifer. It should
be that way in my opinion. Why should they get
to have babies when their victims are dead? But I

(43:08):
am not in charge. Thankfully for me and probably many
of the people I put in prison, they don't ask
me anymore.

Speaker 6 (43:14):
So conversation for another day.

Speaker 2 (43:18):
Kristin and I are both fascinated with who the heck
wants to marry some fool who's in jail for murder
or sexual assault or other serious crimes.

Speaker 6 (43:30):
This is beyond me.

Speaker 5 (43:33):
Yeah, and it looks Richard Ramirez, the night stalker, girlfriend
after girlfriend, the Menendez brothers, each of them I think,
has been married, one of them, I think, while even
was accused of his by his wife of having an
affair better. How do you cheat on your wife when
you're in prison? But they do, they do, and they
I don't know. If it's just a notoriety, I don't know.

(43:54):
I don't know what it is. If it's people that
want to fix them, they want to see the good
in them, I don't know. But these guys, especially the
famous ones, they have no trouble finding the men that
are in there, and have no trouble for finding women
that want to. There's got to be a whole psychological
thing that goes along time. Maybe, but it's a safety thing,
it's an abandonment thing. The psychology the women who do that,

(44:16):
I don't know, but yeah, it's another feature of our
crazy world.

Speaker 2 (44:19):
Yeah, we're pretty close to being out of time. But
I would like to put a marker down that Kristin
and I actually want to do some research on this.
We actually want to have a discussion about why do people,
typically women marry people that are in jail for horrific crimes.
We're not talking about a relatively minor offense here, we're
talking about lifers. As you said, Yeah, conversation for a

(44:43):
future episode.

Speaker 5 (44:44):
Yeah, hey, I'd love to be a part of it.

Speaker 3 (44:46):
Matt. As we're wrapping up here, go ahead and plug
your book for everybody, please, so that we can get
you some additional book sales.

Speaker 5 (44:52):
Yeah, thank you. So it's the book of murder Prosecutor's
Journey through Love and Deus. What I do is I
chronicle my experience in the HOMSID at the Orange County
Gay's Office, walk people through the taxonomy of different murder
cases and the things I learned from serial killers to
conspiracies to kill for money. I have a gang chapter,
which I think is it was fun to write, so

(45:13):
hopefully it's fun for people to read. It's available on
Audible Amazon Books. The audible is doing very well, four
point nine stars out of almost one thousand ratings so far.
And yeah, so it was fun to write. Hopefully people
will check it out. And I've got a proposal and
I want to write another one, this time focusing on
zero killers. So hopefully I can get another book deal.

Speaker 6 (45:33):
Wow, it's a great read.

Speaker 2 (45:35):
We both really enjoyed it, and we urge folks to
check it out.

Speaker 6 (45:39):
The Book of Murder.

Speaker 3 (45:41):
Matt, thank you so much for joining us today. We
really appreciate you taking the time.

Speaker 5 (45:45):
Thanks guys, as always love your show.

Speaker 3 (45:47):
Thank you so much. That is going to do it
for this episode of mind Over Murder. Thank you for listening.
We'll see you next time.

Speaker 1 (46:04):
Mind Over Murder is a production of Absolute Zero and
Another Dog Productions.

Speaker 2 (46:09):
Our executive producers are Bill Thomas and Kristin Dilley.

Speaker 1 (46:13):
Our logo art is by Pamela Arnois.

Speaker 6 (46:16):
Our theme music is by Kevin mcleoud.

Speaker 1 (46:19):
Mind Over Murder is distributed in partnership with kral Space Media.

Speaker 2 (46:23):
You can follow us on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram.

Speaker 1 (46:27):
You can also follow our page on the Colonial Parkway
Murders on Facebook.

Speaker 2 (46:31):
And finally, you can follow Bill Thomas on Twitter at
Bill Thomas.

Speaker 6 (46:35):
Five six.

Speaker 1 (46:36):
Thank you for listening to mind Over Murder.

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