NEW: FBI Profiler James Fitzgerald's New Book

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.

Speaker 3 (00:38):
Bill Thomas. Welcome to Mind Murder. I'm Kristin Dilly.

Speaker 2 (00:43):
I'm Bill Thomas.

Speaker 5 (00:44):
We're joined today by a friend of the podcast, Tim Fitzgerald,
retired FBI profiler and forensic linguist, co host of the
Cold Red podcast with Raymond Carr, and author of the
book series Journey to the Center of the Mind, here
to talk to us about book four of Journey to
the Center of the Mind, which is now available.

Speaker 3 (01:02):
Welcome back to Mind over Murder.

Speaker 6 (01:04):
Hi christ and I love being a friend of a podcast,
and only a few podcasts out there that I would
give my friendship to in a full time status. Kristen
and Bill. Great to be back with you guys, and
thank you for having me on.

Speaker 2 (01:16):
We're very excited to have you back. This is a
treat for us and I hope for you it is.

Speaker 6 (01:21):
And you guys have been on my Cold Red podcast
and we've had great the reactions to that and we're
still going strong. In fact, I know we want to
talk a little bit about my book today, but just
up front, we did something different this season, and we've
focused on one case, actually a series of cases on
the Cold Red podcast, and I would encourage anyone to
check it out. It's a longitudinal study of what came

(01:44):
colloquially known as the Center City rapist case, and that
was in Philadelphia. Six rapes there, including one murder in
the late nineties in Philadelphia, and then the person went
dormant and then all of a sudden, rapes started occurring
in of all places, Fort Collins, Colorado, DNA, and it's
very early in infancy days. Analysis of it, that is,

(02:05):
forensic analysis came together and linked the two sets of
cases to one person and that person was arrested and
we can talk about that with Ray a little bit later,
but just for everyone to consider checking it out. We're
not even done yet, and the entire time it's me
and Ray, but we've deputized two other co hosts. They
retired Philadelphia police detective and also the father of the

(02:28):
murdered victim in Philadelphia, and he's a strong man. His
wife sits a long side of them, although off camera
and Mike, but it's difficult talking about his murdered daughter,
but he wants to get this done. Bladelfia police made
some mistakes. The retired detective with us readily acknowledges that
not him. He was kept getting some of this info.

(02:50):
Last night we had on two of the victims and
Fort Collins. They came on together, gave their real names
and put the video out there their actual faces. We
had a Philadelphia victim a few weeks ago. She preferred
a pseudonym and no no timera with her, which we
totally understood. I've interviewed rape victims across the table when
they first would come in. I've certainly interviewed rape suspects.

(03:13):
I put handcuffs on them. But hearing these women talk
twenty seven or so years after the fact, it's numbing.
And I would recommend your listeners to check out this
season Cold Red podcast for now in about episode ten
or twelve of the same series. But it's fascinating with
different rapes, a murtive and actually I'll seguey it this

(03:33):
way if anyone is watching, I'm holding up a copy
of my new book. One of the chapters in here
is about that where he cased because I did play
a role in it. Redy Carr was a Philadelphia FVII agent. Again,
he's my co host when Cold Read. He brought me
into this case when it actually turned into a murdive
and we helped that Philadelphia police put together the profile,

(03:54):
worked a little bit with Fort Collins after the fact,
and it all came together. I'm actually getting the sky
off the streets. But it's a very moving series of interviews.
We have media people, police officers, victims, the father of
a victim, and so folks consider checking in Cold Reggs
for that and Ray and I can come back when
we're completed. We'll give you more of a summary of it.

(04:16):
If Bill and christn are nice enough to invite us.
Of course, it's a standing invite at this point.

Speaker 5 (04:21):
Yes, you have a constant open invitation for whatever you
may want to talk about.

Speaker 6 (04:26):
A friend of the podcast.

Speaker 5 (04:27):
That's right, absolutely, absolutely open door policy.

Speaker 2 (04:31):
No, we don't unfriend anybody, so your end, I don't
think we have.

Speaker 6 (04:35):
Either in our podcast, but some people can post kind
You don't want to end up on the bad side
of our own.

Speaker 2 (04:42):
Friend, No, no, that would be bad.

Speaker 5 (04:44):
So, since your fourth volume of Journey to the Center
of the Mind has just come out, start by just
addressing how long has it taken you to write the
entirety of your memoirs? Because we've known each other a
while and I feel like you've been working on it
through the whole time that we've known each other.

Speaker 6 (05:02):
Yeah, that's a good question. And I just took four
those interview I sat down and I try to think
about that would be maybe one of the interest. So
the bottom line is I would tell my kids and
buddies and friends and sometimes strangers without giving names or
anything like that, but oh, here this story and that story,
and collectively individually, however they'd come to me. I put

(05:22):
that stuff in writing or for the days of a podcast,
or at least the very early days. I was always
a decent writer. I could certainly put declarative sentences together
and tell a story. Editors help, of course, down the line.
And I just said, let me put the first book together,
and I said, I had some interesting stories growing up,
and I just called that Journeys of a Profiler as

(05:43):
a young man, I think, borrowing from Hemingway. And so
my first book, he just started growing up in Philadelphia
in the sixties and seventies, going to Catholic schools, and
the nuns beating the hell out of this, which q'dp
you'd shake a figure at them now, if not worse,
but it probably straightened a few of us up when
we needed it back in the day. And then second
book was all about my leased career ben Salem, a

(06:05):
lice department from seventy six to eighty seven. And book
three is about the first ten years in the FBI.
And the lace chapter in book three is two hundred
pages on my role in the unibomb case. And then
I took a break after that because the mini series
came out in seventeen Man on un Obomber and people
kept saying, hey, you've got to give us more. You're

(06:26):
going to finish up your FBI career. I know you're
doing interesting stuff, now say yea, yeah, I'll get back
to it. Finally, about two and a half years ago,
I contacted my producer friend at Chicago. We never actually met,
certainly we've seen each other on a zoom whatever. But
I said, yeah, I want to do a book, but
I've bought. Everyone liked my third book. It sold well.
They said, Fitch, you got to get audio books.

Speaker 2 (06:48):
Now.

Speaker 6 (06:48):
Young people don't read anymore, so I'm sure they'd still read,
but they let's say, I knew they'd listened more than
they read. So I said, all right. So I hired
a guy who did a great job, and that third
book was nominated for an award in True Crime five
Top True Crime Audio Books of the Year. It can win,
but you know what, to be nominated was pretty good. Finally,

(07:08):
about five six, seven years though by and I said,
you know what, I owe it to myself and others.
Bands seat reaching out to me, fanboys, fangirls. And I'm
only using that term as I did a radio interview
on iHeartRadio True Crime tonight. So I decided to do
though with my producer, and he was signed with it.
I knew I had about thirty chapters, and I said, look,

(07:31):
I'm gonna do bullet points on each one. Let's meet
about once a week, and I'm just going to talk
and do and do and do the platform that he
has set up for that. And I even say in
the beginning, there may be a few u's and ms
in there, but this is the real fits. We're sitting
in a bar, we're sitting in a coffee shop, we're
driving in a long trip, and I'm telling you stories
about my career. And I got pretty good at the

(07:53):
end of my hiccupping or os and ms or whatever
in there. So yeah, I'm just telling these stories with
my own boys. And then for some modern aspects of technology.
Within a few days, he would send me the link
back in which everything I said was memorialized in this link,
so then I would transcribe it and put it into more.

(08:13):
In the beginning, he sent me just one long paragraph
like twelve to fifteen shreeds, and I had to go
through and break down sentences and piagraphs. Somehow, I think
the system upgraded about halfway through and they were at
least in separate paragraphs. But have you ever heard yourself
talk and then you want to transcribe what you say?
It's always seeking full sentences. I tried to as I

(08:36):
am right now. I remember I read some transcripts in
my early FBI days of court testimony, and I'm not
even putting full sentences together. Where's the verb in that sentence?
So i' drive to work for that with the producer
and I would listen to every send it back to me.
I listen again, and then of course I would sit
down and transcribe it. And I didn't change anything. I
would just put it more in sentence format, but a

(08:58):
few things in parentheses to make sure, which because there's
no intonation in writing, but it helps a lot more
when they're speaking. And I just said, you know what,
let's do this. So we did it thirty times. I
guess there's a preface we did separate. There's an epilogue
we did separate. I was finished in December of twenty three.
Took us about a year. In January December. Then I

(09:19):
had to send the written version, which I transcribed the
course as I just said, off to the FBI. There's
every FBI employee. Yeah, approved, that's right. By the pre publication.
Unit's all separate unit. We don't arrest bad guys or
chase down terrorists. They read agents books and approve or
disprove them. And the first three books only took them

(09:41):
about four to six weeks each one. This one they
told me up front it's going to take eleven months.
Why so entirely the entirety of nineteen I'm sorry, of
twenty twenty four. I just sat with a book I
couldn't do anything with figured. So to answer your question, Bill,
they want to make sure we know what we say
our contract joining the FBI. They don't want to plantified

(10:03):
secrets being given out. You can criticize the bureau, which
I do in this book, and some of the directors.
You can get away with that. You can say Hoover
warm glasses or dresses.

Speaker 5 (10:14):
That.

Speaker 2 (10:15):
Yeah, I don't think he wore the latter, but oh,
come on, I think that's accepted as fact by this point. Wow.

Speaker 6 (10:21):
I knew people that knew him, and so it wasn't
the case. I knew so many agents like Hoover. They
were single guys, never marry, no kids, straight guys, not
even matters, but they just that was their mice. That
was everything they wanted was the FBI, and lived and
eventually died if they made it through their careers. Enough
about Hoover. I only talked a little bit about Hoover
in my third book, in this one.

Speaker 2 (10:43):
The chapter called Lacy Underwear, Isn't it? No?

Speaker 6 (10:45):
It's I knew old girl made lazy underwear. I think
she was a dancers I professional anyway. Yeah, so they
finally get back to me. They didn't really take too
much out a few things here and there, and I
didn't really want to get into a long pitch battle
with him, so I just agreed some things around nine
to eleven.

Speaker 2 (11:03):
There's obviously a lot of sensitivity still around nine to eleven.

Speaker 6 (11:08):
Yeah, But in Frak's case, I really my colleagues, at
least a certain task force, a new one and director
Muller I thought. I had a meeting with him and said, hey,
your team is following the wrong person. The profilers feel
it's not this guy, it's someone else. Muller just looked
at me, what about the time you guys got this
case law? I said, no, sir, all due respect, you're

(11:29):
wrong about that. This is what happened. The investigator did this,
The profiler said, blah blah blah. As I wrote my
fourth book, he shared to me for ten straight seconds
that within a minute to his meeting's over. I just
walks out the door. Wow, the director, do you know
what you just did? Fince, what you corrected the director
in public? I said, we weren't in public. There's any

(11:50):
of us in the room here. Yeah, we're all bosses
in the FBI. Yeah, but still no one does that.
I said, he got some fact law. I respectfully reminded
him of that and thentonia, we don't do that in
this room with him. Good luck for the rest of
your career, jeez. And that was two thousand and four,
I think, and I had three good years left in
my career before retirement, so that's yeah. So they did

(12:13):
cut that out, and I would have thought for something
like that. What they did cut out I had to
do with some It wasn't even classified our top secret stuff,
but they just wanted to leave it out, so I
just put it there. Yeah, I guess my first chapter.
We were not going to go through all them, of course,
but I actually worked next to us SI and in
Quantico and I came back from unibaum and within a
few weeks there and he was arrested. That was an

(12:35):
interesting case there, and I guess the next chapter is
the Atlanta Olympics and how we got involved in that.
And once again that team pointed out the FBI team
early on pointed out Richard Jewel. I wasn't playing a
direct role in the case. Then I did later, but
we well, you sure you want this guy? He's the
one that called in the bomb and he sorted pushing

(12:56):
people away from it and went off still killed two people,
but the FB I went after him for a while.
Than the Atlanta newspaper at NBC you were putting stuff
out there and which a Jewel sued them and wouldn't
the court case land back and forth? But yeah, I
include that in there. Then of course it morphed into
additional bombings where Eric Rudolph was the bomber, and including

(13:17):
the abortion clinic in Birmingham, Alabama, which a police officer
was killed at the bombing, a nurse seriously injured, and
that's when he was in the LAMB for five years.
But yeah, boltally the FBI came together and although actually
with a routine pedestrian stop when a uniform officer saw
Eric Rudolf's two legs sticking out of a dumpster around

(13:37):
four o'clock in the morning somewhere in western North Carolina.
And that's when he on the arrest of the Olympic starmber.
Despite everything we tried in the FBI back in the day,
we just couldn't get him flushed out of the deep woods. Yeah,
I cover that case, and I'm going on to talk
to here. Do you have any questions about anything we've said?
Soup Park? Know more about Hoover's dress. I can't give

(13:58):
it up more information on that.

Speaker 5 (14:00):
One thing I'm interested in is I was reading through
your prologue and you're listing all of these cases that
I think most people are familiar with. They're the big
cases that shaped the nineties and the odds, the Olympic
Park bombing, Dejamine Ramsey case, nine to eleven DC Sniper,
and those really occurred in this era of the twenty
four hour news cycle, where there's always something on the

(14:21):
news about cases as they're happening. Was that ever a
challenge for you all when you're working the case. Was
anybody ever like you guys got to give us something.
We've got the news media to feed. Was that ever
come into play as you guys were doing an investigation,
this need to feed the beast, if you will.

Speaker 6 (14:37):
Well, that's a good point that I bring up Kristin
in my book, in that by the time I'm a
brand new profiler and getting involved in the highest I
say highest profile, but the biggest newsworthy cases in the
country at the time, there's now three competing news CNN
had been around for a few years, Box News started
at MSNBC for twenty four hours around the clock, and

(14:58):
they're trying to get every one out there under the sun.
And just about every case I had, somehow or I
worked on as a profiler somehow seem to be affected
one way or the other by the news media coppened.
In the Anthrax case, I remember doing what they called
a pressor no cameras or other type of electronic media
for like one hundred or so reporters all in this

(15:21):
auditorium of the FBI building, and some bosses got to
know me, Well, hey, Fitz, you were successful in you
to Obama. Yeah, and you're up here for nine to eleven.
Why don't you put out your profile in the anthrax chase,
and I said, it's not too much, we can go on,
but sure, I'll do this, and I lay out the profile,
which actually, when they finally got the right guy about

(15:41):
six years later, the profile matched up to a t
But I'm still putting this out and people are answering
me questions in the media, and I just come out
and say, look, some of you may and some of
them even asked about unibomb and I said, look, I'm
not saying this guy, this anthrax mailer, is like Ted Kaczinski.
He's not living in a cabin by himself in the
middle of nowhere, but he has some of the strange

(16:03):
characteristics or similar characteristics, since he's a loner, introverted, thinks
he's smarter than everyone else, and he's positive you can
get away with this. He has some hidden agenda. Them
just don't know what it is yet. And it took
about six months, but it calls me one day. I
mean see today's Wall Street Journal fits No, this was
early June two thousand and two, and he sends me

(16:26):
a copy. Somehow I get it, and here's this guy
named Robert Bartley takes all these shots at me in
his commentary piece whatever they call him, opinion piece in
the Wall Street Journal. He was a regular opinion piece writer,
and he was convinced it was Saddam Hussin who was
behind the antrax attacks. And we said the profiler said, no,
we think this is a domestic lone wolf, so to speak,

(16:49):
and did this for his own purposes. And this guy
really did his best to tear me a new one
in this cop Of course, I'm in the FBI. I
just can't write it, not ed back. I have to wait.
I had it. Turns out took the two thousand and eight.
But I was proven correct and Robert Bartley was proven wrong,
unfortunately for an Amnis seriously, he died of cancer a

(17:09):
few years after that opinion piece was sent out. So
I never did to get a chance to counter opine
a stupid in the matter. There you mentioned about media
also in the Anthrax case. I'll never forget. I was
doing some interviews. I remember one of them. I'm talking
about behavioral characteristics, forensic linguistic shop and the writings. There
wasn't a whole lot there. Of course, in the two

(17:31):
short letters the anthrax sender put out and a day
or two after the interview, one of my colleagues is
the profile. It walks in said, what the hell did
you say on CNN the other night? I said, I
just talked about the profile, and you helped me. Bill. No,
you put something out there about the life soores or
the life of lanthrax scores and how long they can

(17:54):
last in certain environments. I said, first of all, I
can know nothing. I was going to say that Fisher
n Ball I know him, he claims you did. This
is very early days of the infracts, and this guy
was on this task force, his first one. So I
even wrote on my book offer out to you. Here
did someone I would come up to you could be
years ago. Whatever I heard you said this that no, oh,

(18:17):
Joe says you actulutely said it. You're sitting back and
wait a minute. You didn't all right? Could it have
some help? And missed?

Speaker 2 (18:23):
Sure?

Speaker 6 (18:24):
Per day? Did I say some'mores? And they took it
as spores. I can't imagine using the words s'mores, But
I said all right. But luckily I was in the FBI,
and I called up headquarters there whatever they call it,
their TV unit, and said, you record all the news shows, right, Yeah,
did you have it on seven o'clock Tuesday night?

Speaker 2 (18:45):
Yeah?

Speaker 6 (18:45):
Can you send me that tea? And back then he
didn't do it by email. I actually put a tape
in the mail. He said, hard copy is right. I
played it and my interview was perfect. But Bill and
Christen what happened? There was a chyron running the words
that I'd come across, and there FBI expert colon infract

(19:07):
stores can live six to twelve months in unprotected.

Speaker 2 (19:10):
And god, what we're talking about another FBI expert.

Speaker 6 (19:13):
Or But it was made it very clear. It was
it was below my name, it's James Fitzgerald, FBI PROFI
then below that I finally called this guy and I said,
I hurt your bad mouthing. I don't even know who
the l you are. You're bed mouthing, mate, And he goes,
you should. I said, I want to play my interview.
I'm going to hold the phone up. You'd listen real tightly, okay,

(19:36):
and he did. I said, did you ere mes say
anything about stores? Now? I said that was there were
words listed underneath, and there are the words had said, Well,
all right, I guess I was your fault. I said, yeah,
why didn't you call me instead of bad mouthing. Mind anyway,
he's on the task force and he's the one to
get completely wrong for the next few years, even implicating
a guy, and the FBI was following him doing all

(19:58):
this stuff and he was the wrong guy. That's to gut.
When I went to Director Mueller with our team and
other people in the room said, yeah, you're following a
long guy here. It's someone like him, but not him.
We have too much we know about him, and thanks,
no sinks, And they still follow him for another year
until the guys shoot them. Then they backed off. A
new task force was formed, which then perfectly matched the

(20:20):
profile we put together within a week or two after
your early anthe extra attacks. So you're asking me about media, stop, Yeah,
there's just two examples right up front where it did
affect an investigation, at least on a personal level between
some investigators themselves.

Speaker 2 (20:35):
Let me jump in here with the question. Then the FBI,
in our experience in the Colonial Parkway murders and in
other cases, often seems publicity averse, media averse. They don't
want to do interviews, and they don't do a lot
of interviews yet in these examples, you're appearing on CNN
and other national programs. Is that part of the strategy

(20:59):
in those examples, Yeah.

Speaker 6 (21:02):
Good question, And of course we can't. No FBI agent
can go or FBI employee could go in front of
the media without express certainly written or verbal approval. And
you better have an email covering yourself strongly by the
time I was leaving, So yeah, you have approval of headquarters.
And I was the only time I sent an FBI headquarters,
which of course it's nickname is the Puzzle Palace, And

(21:22):
you want to stay away from there as much as
you can if your goal in life is to be
a guy that arrests bad people and puts them in jail.
But after nine to eleven, they just had me up
there doing stuff, and some of these voices got to
know me and say, Noah, we think he'd be good
in front of the media. How will we put you
out there? And so for certain cases, while we're trying
to touch people and keep a case alive. Although anthrax

(21:43):
it was very alive, which was like late October early
November of two thousand and one, they just felt, let's
get someone out there. They felt they could trust. He
kind of looks okay, speaks okay, and that's what they
authorized me to do. I did Time Magazine, CNN, they
got one of the CBS morning shows or something. But
there wasn't a whole lot I could do with my

(22:03):
early days of forensic linguistics. I was in Georgetown taking
my graduate classes. But the Anthraxe writer was so farce.
In my twenty nine words or something total, some of
them repeated there wasn't a whole lot I could do there.
But yeah, agents can't talk to the media unless they're
given the authority to do and that's rare and infrequent,
and it only happens in between maybe a law and

(22:25):
investigation something like that.

Speaker 2 (22:28):
So there's often a strategic reason for putting a guy
like yourself on TV or in a print interview or whatever.
It isn't something that just happens. It's all part of
a plan.

Speaker 6 (22:41):
It absolutely is, And it could be something like a
year or two after a conviction and the person's in
prison and some like a documentary crew. That's one thing
where city agents can still go on TV and do that.
I remember what year was it, maybe two thousand and
five or so. The people know how to be like
the people from Criminal Minds. They just had their season
and they wanted to interview some real FBI agents and

(23:03):
the bureau permitted them to do it, real FBI profilers.
So they actually authorized to come to the studio at
the FBI Academy and we sat down and if anyone
owns the first season DVD of Criminal Minds, how do
I do downloaded? Well, the bonus features May and jim plemente. Yeah, okay, yeah,
And we had just talking away and I was upon

(23:25):
time doing that May even two thousand and four, two
thousand and five, I forget. Then they fired me afterwards
be their technical advisor a few years after that, but
yet I've been on I think America's Most Wanted twice.
Back in the day, we would sometimes go out to
communities like where a serial rapist or chiller is plying
his trade, and they'd want to get publicity out there,
and regular chief for the head of detectives could do it.

(23:47):
But they know, especially in smaller town but sometimes larger cities,
bringing in a FBI profileer that'll generate a lot of
interest on the media coverage and that would then help them.
We're very careful what we put out there, and Bill,
we also know when we're doing these interviews it's very
likely we're talking to the killer or the rapist, whoever
it may be, right, and we're careful on how we

(24:07):
put that out there and the exact words we use.
We learned a long time ago with a serial bomber,
he doesn't really know what he's doing with his bombs
at they're little toys. You don't want to attempt really
any serial killer or potential serial killer with that. You
actually pay them compliments. Ruben. He can make a bomb
now if only he told us what his ideology was.

(24:27):
And sometimes that person then will come forth and give
you that information.

Speaker 2 (24:32):
You're listening to Mind over Murder. We'll be right back
after this word from our sponsors. We're back here at
mindover Murder.

Speaker 5 (24:43):
Since you mentioned Criminal Minds, I don't want to slip
past it real quick because we all know that it's
one of my two favorite shows.

Speaker 3 (24:49):
The work that you did on Criminal Minds.

Speaker 5 (24:50):
I think my favorite that I know you worked on
from season one was Empty Planet, and that was about
a serial bomber in Seattle when you were working as
a technical eyes are on a show like Criminal minds.

Speaker 3 (25:02):
What does that mean? Precisely?

Speaker 5 (25:03):
Does that mean you're given the script and they ask you, hey, Fitz,
is this right? Do you suggest dialogue? Are you on
the set? What does that technically mean when you're working
on a show like that?

Speaker 6 (25:14):
Tell us a little bit about that which you're not
watching us right now. I'm holding my book up and
I actually devote a whole chapter to my work on
what it was like because in the book four, which
again just came out and brendan form ebook audiobook now
rated by me, I definitely go into my time. It's
about dividing the hands fifteen or so chapters, finishing up

(25:36):
my FBI career, then the other fifteen my quote unquote
retirement years using hand air quotes if you're not watching us,
and very busy in retirement excluding criminal Minds. I met
the guys I was still in the f FBI and
met the showrunner and a few others for lunch out
in La Jim Clement. He was there, their wives were there.
It was a fun night, of course, a few drinks

(25:56):
in them. The wives profile them under the table. I
had a job and this do it good. You're beautiful,
you're young and admit and love you. Oh they were
nice and attractive, word and all that stuff. But yeah,
they hired me and it was a nice skating I
didn't move to LA I told him I'm non movie.
I wanted to get back to Silly. My youngest son
was in high school. Wanted to be there with him.

(26:16):
So I would do everything as you just suggested, Kristin.
They would send me strips. I would look at them.
I didn't try to change the plot line that didn't
certainly be over grammar or punctuation that was on them,
but I would try to add jargon, nomenclature, whatever that
would be more police oriented, more FBI oriented. And yeah,
there's a few scenes I can still go back on.

(26:37):
Potch was in a prison cell with someone or like
an interview room and the guys coming after him. And
you learn early on as a coup people make fun
of cops. I used to wear snap one ties. You
do that so you're the band guy that can't gradual
tize and wrangle you. I don't think many cops wear
ties anymore, which is a good thing. So the first
thing Hodge did, he didn't have a snap tie, but
the guys coming after him or posturing that he is.

(26:58):
Then Hods just takes his tie off. This idea and
then it's so at least, no matter what happens in
a flight, the guys are going to grab his tie
and shing around the room. So they appreciated that. I'll
never forget. One of the first things I did, a
guy one of the writers sent me a strip and
if one thing in a movie or a mini series
where you have more time, but a show like Frimerlal
Minds was very formulaic. You know, there's the opening act,

(27:20):
then four acts afterwards, and the time was so strict.
Every word really was counted against that ticking clock. And
this one writer came to me with a scene where
a police officer had been killed by a serial killer
and the team was down in this town. But he's
also kill other people. And this writer is struggling with
how do I reduce this dialogue from this chief talking

(27:40):
to his officers, talking to Potch and the others, And
let's say to him, I said, are you familiar with
the black band that officers put over their badge when
one of their colleagues is killed. If you ever see
a police officer with a black band across his badge
or her badge that made one of their officers killed
in the line of duty, and they're wearing that out
of respect for thirty days. I said, you could just

(28:01):
have the cheap hand those out to his men, and
your dialogue can be shifting elsewhere, because Fitz, I don't
believe it. You saved me forty five seconds of dialogue
makes my own show. And I watched this and he
was very poignant how they did it, but yeah, there
was dialogue on top of it so they could make
their time restrict and the series worked out well.

Speaker 2 (28:21):
It's also a very compelling visual when you put the
idea in his head.

Speaker 6 (28:25):
It is and he thoroughly enjoyed that. And a lot
of cops in law enforcement like that show, and they
knew that there was a technical advisor behind it. I
don't just tell them I'm watching something. They've got someone
retired helping them out of here. They're getting the language right,
even some of these British shaers I watch, having worked
with new Starting the Artist a few times, Yeah and
again I put it in here. I get to meet
the actors and there's some pictures in the book, and

(28:46):
of course Jim Clemente was active with them too. He
became a staff writer after a while, and he actually
took over. He retired from the FBI, moved out to
LA and we had a handshake agreement early on. You
take over full time technical advisor. I'll help you out.
And it was fine. I still went out there and
helped them break stories every June. As you may know,

(29:06):
season nine, they introduced Alex Slake, who was portrayed by
Gene Tripplehorn, and they couldn't think of a background story.
He gave her this is of course in the book.
And I'm in the room and I'm listening to them,
and they slew me out. I wasn't getting paid at
this point, but they slew me out. I was staying
with Jim, and I said, you guys have met my fiance,
Natalie Shilling. Yeah, a NISE person. She's a linguist, a
forensic linguist, and she teaches at Georgetown University. Why don't

(29:30):
you combine her with my background as a profiler and
have her having worked the unibomb case as a rookie
and helped solve it paced great. Her name's Alex Slake,
and within the first episode they introduce her and she's
the real Natalie. My now wife really liked it because
she'd be teaching classes. Her cell phone would go off.

(29:50):
I got to go teaching assistant, you take over and
now he says, I'd love to do that someday. Just
get a Bowe call and at the teacher. You could
probably relate to that. Oh yeah, I said, yeah, they
probably aren't too many full time Georgetown professors. Also a
FBI profiles, so a little bit of literary license there.
But the fans liked her. She did two years in
the show. She did great. We saw the Las Vegas

(30:10):
at the two hundredth episode party which I was invited.
Brought Natalie and it's the first time I met Jean
triple Horn and introduced Oh, they came up. They're the ones.
It was Fit you're based on Fits and Natalie, and
they came up with you and your character, and Jean
looked at us, took a pregnant pause, said hi, mom
and dad, nice to meet you. Created her character, which

(30:31):
actually we did, she'd already hired. We just gave her
the backstory and another part there. Yeah, sort of art
imitating life. So that's just one story. There, But yeah,
good memories of that show, and we kept it as
real as we possibly could. But no, I wasn't their boss,
and I would give advice sometime, and I don't think
the show runner they want to see this yet another

(30:52):
car chase well one of the TV and shootouts and
all that stuff. And I said, all right, but I'll
give it to you real. You do with it what
you want real quickly. I put this in the book too.
I was in hired a few years later by the
TV show Sleepy Hollow. Do you remember that? I was
on two seasons. I think it was based on an
FBI agent in upstate New York in the town of

(31:12):
Sleepy Hollow, based on the original story, if you will.
I'm the tech advisor on this, along with another retired
Femaiale agent, And that was tough because there were great
story lines. But she's chasing this headless horseman and demons
from l and other creatures from all different walks of life.
Then they'd have her break into the evidence from the
agent and take evidence sounds just to make the case.

(31:35):
She wasn't like doing bad stuff with You can't have
an agent seal evidence and fire locked up and but
she puts it back at the end. Okay, that doesn't live.
But they still went and did it, so Limsa, and
then they paid me every episode and my name was
in the credits. So a fun show. Nothing against it,
but the polar opposite of technical advising for criminal minds

(31:55):
on particular show.

Speaker 2 (31:56):
So wait, Jim, you're okay with the demons from Hell,
but stealing evidence from the evidence from that's where you
draw the line.

Speaker 6 (32:04):
I couldn't disprove that our demons from Hell are getting
involved in FBI cases, but I do know you can't
be in FBI agents fair enough. Yeah, So it was
fun doing that. And of course with Manhunt Unibomber, it's
a whole chapter on that. It was based on true facts,
and they used my name and a few other people's names,
but they took some liberties there too, which I argued
a bit. Didn't even answer their calls for a week.

(32:26):
Finally we did some compromising And I always say that
mini series it tells the story very well. It's about
eighty five percent accurate in terms of being truthful. The
scenes where the Fitz character is sitting across the table
from the Kazinski character that they didn't happen, and I've
talked about it. I don't shared before. I believe right
you have, but it makes sure two A list actors
they wanted to put the same scenes.

Speaker 2 (32:47):
Right compelling dialogue television.

Speaker 6 (32:50):
And I also include in the book I knew this
was going to happen when that episode aired, or those
episodes in that there's some agent who thinks he's some
kind of a you know, a poor man's Ernest Hemingway.
He wrote this article on this web based blog and
criticizing the heck on me, and I finally responded, I
don't care if anyone likes the show or not. You
don't like the directing, the acting, the cinematography, that's fine.

(33:12):
But this guy was attacking me personally. So I addressed
him in the book too, and I could basically call
him at the end. He's the Jason Blair of the FBI,
and he wanted to remember that fake foot reporter of
the New York Times. That's the nickname I gave this guy. Yeah,
you just can't keep everyone happy in that regard. But yeah,
so I put the good stuff in there, the band stuff,
and finish up my lambst ten years of my FBI

(33:34):
career and the next seventeen years. Hard to believe I've
been retired that long. I'm still keeping busy and still
stuff I got out in there this day. But now
I guess I'll talk about it on the Cold Red podcast.

Speaker 2 (33:44):
Speaking of controversial cases, you touch on the John Benet
Ramsey case in the book. I know there are limitations
because the case is still not solved. What can you
tell us about what you wrote in the new book,
Journey to the Center of the Mind about the Ramsey case.

Speaker 6 (34:02):
Yeah, and I'm not a shand of this at all.
I did a mini or a documentary with Jim Clemente,
Laura Richards and a few other folks did aired on
CBS in twenty sixteen, doctor Henry Lee and others, and
we rendered some opinions at the end about that case,
the four hour documentary on the John Bana Ramsey murder,
and the Ramsey family didn't like our opinions and they

(34:23):
shoot us. We were fully indemnified. And this production company,
an insurance company, made all the decisions. I've actually settled
and of court, I have no idea what it was
settled for. But that case was over. But the lawyer
said from now on fits you're on your own anything
you said, So when I don't do anymore, I don't
comment on booke chilled the girl watched the series from
twenty sixteen, figure out what do you think after that?

(34:45):
But I wanted to clarify one part of the story
that really hadn't been talked about, and that involved professor
friend of mine from Vassar College, who I recommended to
the Boulder Police Department to look at some writings, look
at the course the three page ransom letter, and then
look at the writings of any suspects involved. He did.
He had a strong conclusion. He put that in writing.

(35:09):
He sent it to Boulder PD, the Bolder Prosecutor's offices.
We want you to come out and testify. He was
a day away from getting on the plane. And the
Ramsey defense team they had all had lawyers. The mother
had a lawyer, the father had a lawyer, the young
son had a lawyer, like an older son had a lawyer.
They said, you sure you want to bring him out

(35:29):
because look at this letter he wrote us a year ago.
And the same professor wrote a letter saying, we know
I know you didn't till your child. No parents would
do that. Ever, no parents should ever quarm a child.
Of course, you and I know that's not true, and
your audience does. He was a brilliant stallar, not a
linguist English language. And basically the prosecutor saw this letter

(35:51):
and said, the professor, we can't use you because of
what you wrote. And he swore up and down that
he ded or remembered sending that letter a year ago.
It's like two pages long, two to three pages long,
and it's out there in line if you want to
look it up. I don't put the whole thing in
my book, but certain pieces of it. And they basically
called him testimonially, if that's even a word, testimonially challenged.

(36:15):
So if he went up on the sand or he
was ever going to testify to his report, I don't
even go into what the report said. I never actually
read it, but if they wanted him to testify, it
probably had some important evidence. So the professor calls me,
he's almost he's in crying. Jim, I didn't remember writing
that letter. I really screwed up. I said, all right,

(36:35):
let's see what happens. I called the Boulder PD. The
lieutenant basically hangs up on me, but I'm the one
that recommended this guy. And then I retire and this again,
this isn't a book. The end of this chapter, I
retire and I said, you know what, I always felt
bad about what happened. Let me get Natalie Shilling from Georgetown,
my friend Ron Leonard from HOSTRA, and me arguably three

(36:57):
of the best forensic linguists in the US chimly most experienced.
Let's volunteer our time to the Boulder PD to say, hey,
we're going to help you with this case. We know
what went wrong wasn't really my fault, but it went
wrong back there in ninety six ninety seven. The chief said,
either say, Jim Fitzgerald that gave us this professor. Yeah,

(37:18):
but I have two other professors. Thanks for no thanks.
I send them another email. I the mind back out
of it. These two professors said they'll help you. He
never responded, Wow, yikes, this is in the book. Yeah,
so I cover that, and it's very thrustrating. The stay
should be solved the first day. It wasn't. I'll leave
it at that, and the CBS special was still floating

(37:39):
around out there somewhere online. But yeah, so whoever killed
the girl. I'm not saying publicly at this point, but
people can make up their own minds that they have
all the evidence involved in this case.

Speaker 5 (37:50):
So, fitz we don't want to spoil the whole book,
of course, we want people to action to buy it
and read it and listen to the audio book as well.
So can you tell us a little bit about what
you're doing in the meantime. I know that you were teaching,
but you also told me that you're taking a little
bit of a hiatus on that.

Speaker 3 (38:05):
So fill us in. What is Jim Fitzgerald doing in meantime?

Speaker 6 (38:09):
Yeah, I was teaching grad classes, but we're not on
hold for now, which is fine. It's good timing because
their Cold Red podcast is really kicked in with this
Center City rapist or Collins, Colorado Sheirol rapist case. I
am promoting the new book now, no appearance is set
as of yet in person, but I finally do a
lot more online now than going to the local library

(38:31):
or even a bookstore. Yeah, so just keeping busy that way,
and I am trying to fill in. So I'm done
writing the book and not reading it, done teaching grad
courses for now, So there are definitely some openings in
my schedule, so I'm thinking of getting back to my
drum lessons, which I started last summer but then got
really busy. But I do a little bit of consulting
work on the side, but other than that, just for

(38:51):
the first time in my seventy years. Yeah, and again,
the podcast keeps me busy. We're always trying to get
new gats and we're going to have you guys back on.
I know there's a lot going on on Bill and
your sister's case, and I've talked to you enough times
about the murder of your sister, and I'll just say that,
as hard as it is for you to hear and
here on this podcast, over the last this whole summer,
we've had the father of a rape and murder victim.

(39:14):
You're the co host of this podcast, Bill, and he's
a temporary co host of our podcast, and every time
we say it and bring it up, but he's a
trooper and he's willing to go along. His daughter never
should have been murdered. This rapist should have been identified
earlier on the public should have known about him. The
PHILLYPD it's election coming up, and the mayor and the

(39:35):
chief of police didn't want certainly facts being put out there,
and they've all been a five block radius in Philadelphia.
It's just so anyway, that's see being us very busy
and yeah, other than I'm just trying to take a
little break here and just enjoying life at the beach
and all that I can do in that regard.

Speaker 2 (39:52):
So in this latest book four of Journey to the
Center of the Mind, Fits, you narrated, whereas you mentioned
and earlier in this podcast that you'd used a professional narrator,
which is fine. What made you decide to use your
voice as the presenter, if you will, because.

Speaker 6 (40:10):
People kept telling me we want to hear you talk,
not just a paid narrator. And again the name was
John Gully did a great job. Nothing against him at all.
But at the same time, people wanted to hear my voice,
and people said, hey, your voice is okay. Fits. I'm
not sure I would do it full time and doing
commercials things like that, but I said, sure, let me
do that and we'll take it from there. Yeah. So

(40:31):
I was glad to do it, and not the easiest
things to do because every once in a while I
would mispronounce something where there's a noise in the background.
I had a studio set up, but my producer was great,
and he just do this over again. And you don't
just want to put one word in the middle of
a paragraph, so we would do like the whole paragraphs
over so it flows more smoothly. But if you know
what you're doing in front of a you're one of

(40:51):
these audio technic issues. It's so easy for these guys
to do. And really appreciated that.

Speaker 2 (40:57):
One other question along those lines, Jim, you wrote three
lengthy books in what I would call the traditional method.
That is, you sat down, you chapters worked out, and
you wrote them finger to keyboard, and then in this
last book, you flipped it around and you tried doing
the audio portion first and then turned it more into

(41:18):
a written narrative. Now that you've done it both ways,
do you have a preference between writing first, then recording,
or recording first and then turning it into the written paragraph.

Speaker 6 (41:29):
Yeah. I'm not sure every book would work that way,
but I set my computer in several different countries actually
writing the first three books, and I just didn't feel
like writing this whole thing out on a keyboard. I
did it three times and before I think I counted
written one hundred and sixty chapters, I think, and my
book is really long. A lot of things happened in
my police career inside the building and outside the building,

(41:51):
so that's a long one, a lot of stuff there.
But I just said, no, I'm going to do my voice.
Instead of typing everything, keyboarding it first, sending it off,
getting it published, then reading it again, I can make
it a little bit easier by just narrating it, not
reading it, but narrating it from bullet points and taking
it from there. It just worked best for me, and
if I was going to do it again, that's show

(42:11):
I would do it. It just worked for me. I
know we're running out of time, but I want to
mention one last chapter here. It's a case that you've
never heard of. Most people haven't, certainly outside of the
Philadelphia area. But that is the murder of my friend
Joe Welsh. He was murdered in the late nineties in
the street robbery. Nothing sexy about it. Some thug wanted
his money and he bought them. Probably shouldn't have. The

(42:32):
felg shot him, got away. There's a witness description all
that stuff, and I told the family I'll use all
my powers, just a profiler FBI to get this case palmed.
But it's a state case. It's no FBI jurisdiction. It
occurred in my old neighborhood in the Honey section of Philadelphia,
and here I'm going back where I used to ride
bikes and visit my friend. It's actually his older brother.

(42:54):
We were best friends. I was in his wedding, he
was in mine, but Joe was just a few years younger.
Break I hung out with us too, and never could
solve it. And so I wrote the chapter about it.
I put everything in there that I could, the description
of the guy, whatever, then I'm doing. I told my
buddy John Brother. I said, first of all, you okay
with me writing this chapter. They're very private people. He said, yeah,

(43:14):
of course, I said him the chapter. He approved of it,
and I said, John, here's what else I'm going to do.
It's not a whole lot of money nowadays, but I'm
going to put twenty five thousand dollars up of my
own money to get this guy arrested and condicted. Of course,
he said, all right, if you want to do that.
So this is actually the first public forum, your podcast
or where I said this. It's in the book, of course.
So yeah, I'm hoping to solve a case from nineteen

(43:37):
ninety eight and of this guy a street crime again. No,
this guy may have been a serial offender, but we
really think this was his first homicide because he was
pretty sloppy at it, although he still managed to successfully
kill my friend with the two gunshots to him. Yeah.
I don't want to end on a sad note, but
I do want just everyone to know that if you
look at the book and if you have any connection
to pill it up to you going back to the nineties,

(43:59):
anyone talked about the murder of Joe Welsh, please contact me.
My website's James R. Fitzgerald dot com. Book information. There's
bonus times about the book, pictures and documents, things like that.
Check it out there and you know anything about Joe
Welsh and his murder. I will get the PHILLYPD back
in bold and let's get this case. Old Bill. I
know you can relate to that too with your with

(44:21):
your sister.

Speaker 2 (44:21):
No, absolutely, and it's a I'm amazed you're still working
even though you're long retired.

Speaker 6 (44:28):
I am trying and a few other irons in the fire.
I'm quite ready to go public with them, yed some
TV stup. We'll just see how that plays out. I'll
leave you with this big anniversary is happening right now.
It's thirty years ago last month that I showed up
at the unibomb Tank Wars in San Francisco, and coming
up September nineteenth, that'll be the thirtieth anniversary god or

(44:49):
to believe, of the publication of the Manifesto.

Speaker 2 (44:51):
I remember that.

Speaker 6 (44:52):
And next April third will be the thirtieth anniversary of
Kazinski's arrest. I've already done in the New York Times
interview and at iHeartRadio. Thing they're differing. They recorded at
the I played on the nineteenth. We're around that. We're
into a special Cold Red podcast we dropped on eighteenth
or nineteen about the Manifesto. So yeah, we'll keep up
on this and see that goes. Kajitski's been going over

(45:12):
two years now. Good riddance there. Unfortunately, with these young shooters,
a CEO shooter and others that somehow claimed that the
Unibomber seeks to them through his writings and his philosophy,
and I want to get the word out there that
he may have been brilliant with multiple degrees, but he
was basically a low life murderer, and none of what
he posited about the evils so technology was really original.

(45:34):
He stole from a lot of other people in this manifesto,
including Jacques Yule, a French philossoper from the sixties and
seventies in France. So anyway, yeah, so things like that'll
be keeping me busy and we'll see where light takes me.
But I'm still swimming three days a week and biking.
The brain is still working pretty good. I hope that
if I listen to this afterwards, I absolutely lap a

(45:54):
bunch of words, I'll know it's not.

Speaker 5 (45:56):
But the book is Journey to the Center of the
Mind Look four. It is available on Fitz's website. It's
also available at Amazon and wherever books are sold. As always,
you have a standing invite with us. We are so
thankful that you took the time to join us today,
and we want to have you back again here very soon.

Speaker 6 (46:15):
Let's do exactly that. Let's come back and we'll talk
about even more stuff going on in my life. But
thanks again, Christin and Bill. I always enjoy being on
your show, and I know we'll be talking against Sun
and Risen and Bill, you're so invited to the Vidank Society.
Let's try to work out a trip there and show
it off here. Yeah, and solve another cold case if
we can.

Speaker 3 (46:34):
Absolutely we love that.

Speaker 5 (46:36):
That is going to do it for this episode of
mind Ever Murders. Thank you so much for listening. We'll
see you next time.

Speaker 1 (46:51):
Mind Over Murder is a production of Absolute Zero and
Another Dog Productions.

Speaker 2 (46:56):
Our executive producers are Bill Thomas and Kristen.

Speaker 1 (47:00):
Our logo art is by Pamela Arnoit.

Speaker 2 (47:03):
Our theme music is by Kevin McCloud.

Speaker 1 (47:06):
Mind Over Murder is distributed in partnership with Coral Space Media.

Speaker 2 (47:11):
You can follow us on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram.

Speaker 1 (47:14):
You can also follow our page on the Colonial Parkway
Murders on Facebook.

Speaker 2 (47:18):
And finally, you can follow Bill Thomas on Twitter at
Bill Thomas five six.

Speaker 1 (47:23):
Thank you for listening to mind Over Murder.

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