December 11, 2024 • 17 mins
One evening in 2009, April Balascio was searching online, as she had been every night, for unsolved murders in the towns her family had lived growing up, when she stumbled across the latest investigations into the "Sweetheart Murders" cold case. All at once, the buried memories of her father's dark history were awakened, and she knew she had to take action. She picked up the phone to call a detective and the rest is infamous true crime history. In her unflinching memoir, Balascio bravely reveals an astonishing tale of a lifetime of manipulation, unexplained upheavals, and silent fear. Some part of her had always known what her father was capable of, but the full truth of how she came to these revelations is as riveting as it is quietly terrifying. Through searing storytelling, dedicated research, and intimate insight, Raised by a Serial Killer is a gripping, courageous memoir unlike any other.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Good morning, Arrow. Hey, how are you doing today, Bill?
Speaker 2 (00:03):
I'm good.
Speaker 3 (00:03):
How you doing? My friend?
Speaker 1 (00:04):
Man, I wish you guys were here, because nine deer
just walked by my studio window. I love this forest
and I love the nature that's out there. Man, they're
so beautiful. They've got their winter coats and everything on
right now.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
I know, I know, I you know what. Every once
in a while we'll catch one when I drive down
the block. Actually, last year I saw a couple like
two of them walk past my house. But then maybe
like a quarter of a mile down, we have this
little park in like this wooded area, and there's always
you know, deer. I'm just I get so nervous that
they're gonna run out into the street because it's so
(00:37):
it's right, the street is right there. In fact, I've
seen it before. But no, you know what, growing up
in Queens, New York, we didn't have deer there.
Speaker 1 (00:47):
We didn't have.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
Bunny rabbits like we do now. We had you know,
possum and raccoons and squirrels.
Speaker 1 (00:55):
It's not it and they were mean evenirrel.
Speaker 3 (01:01):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (01:02):
Coming out to Long Island, it's, uh, it's like I'm
living out in the uh.
Speaker 1 (01:08):
The wild.
Speaker 2 (01:10):
What do you want to call it?
Speaker 1 (01:12):
It's just a total different Yeah.
Speaker 4 (01:14):
Where where where are you at that you're in the wood?
Speaker 1 (01:17):
I'm here in South Charlotte, North Carolina. We planted seventeen
hundred trees in nineteen ninety seven so to help, you know,
fortify this, because I really wanted to bring this land
back so that nature would come back, because they always
had these signs that said, you know, deer crossing. Never
once did I see a deer in nineteen ninety two.
But once we planted these trees and I started letting
this forest grow, I mean, all of a sudden, the
(01:37):
hawks came back, the you know, the eagles. I mean,
it's just it's just it's just been phenomenal. That should
be a lot, very good, very good.
Speaker 4 (01:45):
I live in the country as well.
Speaker 1 (01:47):
I don't.
Speaker 4 (01:47):
I don't see too.
Speaker 3 (01:48):
Many deer, just because just the way my property is,
because I have I have all kinds of animals myself.
Speaker 4 (01:54):
I live on a small homestead.
Speaker 3 (01:55):
Oh.
Speaker 1 (01:56):
I just just there's something about them. And first of all,
I have a reallyationship with the soil and you being
out there with that land, don't you have one as well?
Speaker 4 (02:04):
I do. I do So are do you grow things?
I try to.
Speaker 3 (02:08):
I grow a lot of things. I try to harvest
and preserve what I grow. With you planting the trees,
do you do a lot of propagation?
Speaker 1 (02:16):
Well, what we do is, I'll tell you what, because
I jokingly say that I'm a forest farmer. What happens
is as these trees continue to grow and they get older,
we need to thin it out a little bit. What
I try to do is let people who use wood
as energy, I allow them to come in and take
the wood so they can use it and this way
their fuel costs will be lower for the winter.
Speaker 4 (02:36):
Very good, That's wonderful.
Speaker 1 (02:38):
Wow. Now what's wonderful is the way that you're able
to speak on a page. And I got to tell you,
when the letters, the newspapers, the videos that you watch,
the research that you did, have you had that opportunity
yet to sit back and just breathe because you have
put so much into this.
Speaker 3 (02:57):
I try to steal the moments that I can, and
like I said, living on the homestead with the animals
has helped. Matter of fact, I don't know if you
can hear them suckling in the background, but my dog
just gave birth to eleven puppies, and for the first time,
I brought in some eggs to see if I could hatch,
(03:18):
and they just hatched. So I put them on my
coffee table because I didn't know where else to put them,
and they're chirping away. So I find solace in, you know,
with a land like that you were talking about and
with my animals.
Speaker 1 (03:34):
Well, see that to me is full circle. That is
nature giving to you, which will inspire the creative self
that you are to keep growing, because what you're doing
is you're giving us on the outside world something to
hold on to as well. You had to have that
inner strength in order to put this book together, and
it's coming from that and they're just giving it back
to you.
Speaker 3 (03:52):
Well, I find it very rewarding, and I would agree
with you on that.
Speaker 4 (03:56):
You know, nature is very.
Speaker 1 (03:57):
Healing for you to put this together. What did it
really take? Because I'm a daily writer. I've been keeping
a journal for thirty years. I know what's in those pages.
How were you able to edit and keep it straight.
Speaker 4 (04:12):
Writing this book?
Speaker 3 (04:14):
I can honestly say without any hesitation that it was
the hardest thing I have ever done in my life
and it took about five years, and as far as
the writing process, it was about the last year and
a half. And it was when I started out and
when I started to try this, I knew that I
needed to have a collaborator with me. Not because not
(04:34):
only was this story so intricate, at least the way
that I wanted to tell it, and trying to you know,
put it down on paper, and then dealing with my
emotional rollercoaster myself reliving it and trying to dive into
my memories. I hired a collaborator, and I've got to
(04:57):
give a shout out to Lily because she was awesome
and she was so patient with me because one minute
I might be telling a story and laughing with her,
then the next minute I'm i my voice might be
raised in anger because of what I had witnessed and
retelling that, or I might be crying. And then I
(05:18):
was so adamant as to how what I wanted my
book to say and how it read, that you know,
I kept I would tell Lily, no, no, that's not
what I'm trying to say, and she's like, okay, well.
Speaker 4 (05:29):
Let's try this again.
Speaker 3 (05:30):
She would have me talk and you know, so it
was meticulously going through literally every sentence and paragraph and
getting it to.
Speaker 4 (05:41):
Where I'm like, okay, that sounds like me. This is me.
And it was very hard and very demanding.
Speaker 3 (05:47):
And I don't ever want to write another book.
Speaker 1 (05:49):
Oh come on now, no no no, no, no, no no,
you can't do that because you're already the author and
it's given to us now. So the universe is gonna
knocking on your heart.
Speaker 4 (05:59):
Well, you know what I think I would like to
do is.
Speaker 3 (06:04):
Instead of writing books or any other books, I would
like I'm looking into this. I used to be a
public speaker long ago in my high school years, and
when I was a young mother, I was.
Speaker 4 (06:14):
Into public speaking.
Speaker 3 (06:15):
Not about my dad's story or even about my story
about my dad, but it had to do with, you know,
being a young mom and my beliefs and that. So
I'm looking into the possibility of becoming a public speaker,
taking on some public speaking engagements regarding my story. And
if I did that, I would love. I would love
(06:35):
the aspect of engaging with my audience, hoping that I
could reach more people help them because there's so many
no one may not have the exact story like mine.
I really think mine's unique, but so many families, so
many people grew up in dysfunctional families and have so
(06:56):
many hidden scars, And especially in the gin that I
came from, we were taught not to talk about things
that went on in your family.
Speaker 1 (07:05):
Shit, that's it, yep, so true, so true, And.
Speaker 3 (07:09):
Learning to talk about it has become very healing. And
I never realized how healing that was that was going
to be until I started talking about it.
Speaker 4 (07:19):
So my collaborator, Lucy or not Lucy.
Speaker 3 (07:23):
Lily, she was also kind of like a therapist. I
tell her all the time that how much I appreciate her,
and she took on a lot more than she bargained for.
Speaker 1 (07:34):
Yeah, but you know what you've got here, though, April,
is the fact that you are using your voice. And
Mark Twain was very adamant about that for all authors,
if you aren't using your voice, then you're borrowing somebody
else's Therefore it's not your story. So the fact that
you really did find focus in trying to figure out
how you were going to be on that page, that's
a brilliant first step.
Speaker 4 (07:54):
Thank you for saying that.
Speaker 3 (07:56):
And I don't know if I said this earlier, but
My goal was to take the reader on that emotional
journey that I went on, because my life was very
much an emotional rollercoaster, and I wanted people to experience that.
I wanted people to see my dad through my eyes.
I love my dad, but yet I feared him. My
(08:18):
dad was the life of the party. He loved to entertain,
He had people over all the time. He was very charismatic.
But on the other flip side, he was very violent.
He abused my mom, he abused us kids, and of
course now we know how he killed people.
Speaker 4 (08:37):
But at the same.
Speaker 3 (08:39):
Time, people loved him, and that's why I think that's
one of the reasons why he got away with what
he did for so long, because people didn't suspect.
Speaker 1 (08:48):
Him, right, Yeah, you know it's almost like that one
you know, it happens in the newspaper every day. It's
always that one guy that we you know, who would
have thought it was that guy that would be doing it,
And your father seems to be that guy.
Speaker 4 (09:01):
Exactly exactly.
Speaker 3 (09:02):
And then the other thing that he did is every
place that we moved, he would befriend a local law
enforcement officer, a police department, or an FBI agent, and
he would feed them information about local thieves or con men.
So he and you know, became there.
Speaker 4 (09:26):
Well, he was a snitch, you know, That's exactly what
he was. He was a snitch.
Speaker 3 (09:31):
And but that made him feel you know, grand, that
that made him feel good. And I can't think of
the exact word I'm looking.
Speaker 4 (09:41):
For at the moment, but he got off on that.
He was thrilled with that.
Speaker 3 (09:46):
And I also the other thing that he did is
in the crimes that he committed, he was notorious looking
back now, notorious for leaving the authorities to investigate other
people that steered them away from him.
Speaker 1 (10:00):
Wow. Wow, See that's a genius at heart right there,
because they know how to work the game.
Speaker 4 (10:07):
Yes, yes, wow.
Speaker 3 (10:08):
And you know here's another thing, And this is one
thing I haven't shared on any of the other interviews
that are done, but I do believe I said it
in my book. My dad could look law enforcement, you know,
an FBI agent, a police officer in the eye and
lie to them and they had no clue, no clue.
They believed him. He was so good and he was
(10:30):
so good at lying that I actually think that he
believes some of his own minds. And I say, that
I say that sincerely, I really do.
Speaker 1 (10:41):
You speak of something in the book that I that
I wish more people would bring out and put it
in conversations. You speak about the silent fear. Do you
know there are millions of people on this planet every
day that deal with silent fear.
Speaker 4 (10:55):
That doesn't surprise me.
Speaker 3 (10:56):
It doesn't surprise me at all, And you know, and
that's one of the things that breaks my heart. And
I'm hoping that people will gather some courage from my
book and start speaking out because I'm very adamant in
(11:17):
stating that I'm not a victim. I refuse to put
on that mantle. I refuse to be a victim. I
tell people I'm a survivor. I don't want to have
that mentality, a victimhood, because once we have that mentality
of being a victim, we start blaming others for our actions.
And I you know, we see that in society today,
(11:38):
and we can make choices. We can make the choice
to speak out, even though it's so difficult and very hard,
and we just need to find the right person to
do that with.
Speaker 4 (11:50):
And when we speak out, we.
Speaker 3 (11:52):
Start that healing process, and if we don't, we harbor
that inside, and we keep that in inside of us,
and we become bitter people. We develop health problems, whether
mentally or physically. And I'm hoping that my book will
encourage others to speak out who who are living in
(12:15):
that silent fear.
Speaker 1 (12:17):
You've dedicated your book to David and Judy. I would
love for you to share the story as to why
they get the dedication, because when people go into your book,
and that's one of the first things that we identify with,
I just want them to know who they are from
your voice.
Speaker 4 (12:32):
Okay, I'm going to.
Speaker 3 (12:33):
Try to get through this without cry.
Speaker 4 (12:37):
Dave and Judy. Dave was the father of Tim Hack.
Speaker 3 (12:42):
He was one of the victims of the Sweetheart murders
up in Wisconsin in nineteen.
Speaker 4 (12:47):
Eighty and Dave and Judy are Christians.
Speaker 3 (12:51):
They love the Lord. And when my dad got arrested,
they actually wrote a letter to my mom, reaching out
to my mom, and I read the letter and my
mom didn't want to write back, didn't want to open
up that line of communication, and I didn't feel like
I could, so I just let it go because the
letter wasn't addressed to me. But eventually David Judy reached
(13:13):
out through me through Detective Garcia, and they traveled from
Wisconsin to my home up in Ohio, and they came
to my home and the first thing that they did
when they walked through the door.
Speaker 4 (13:27):
Was they gave me a hug. And the love that radiated.
Speaker 3 (13:34):
From them and the forgiveness, and I later found out, no,
here's of it.
Speaker 4 (13:40):
I'm going to try to lighten this a little bit.
Speaker 3 (13:43):
One of the things that I found out later from
Dave was Dave was expected me to be some kind
of fluozy and I don't even know what all adjectives
he used to describe me, but here he was pleasantly
surprised too, that you know, I lived.
Speaker 4 (14:00):
And a nice home I had. I was married for
a long time.
Speaker 3 (14:04):
I've since been divorced, but I was married for thirty years,
had three children, I was a homemaker, had a.
Speaker 4 (14:10):
Very stable life of a Christian myself.
Speaker 3 (14:13):
So not only I guess they were pleasantly surprised as
well as I was, but they were just, you know,
and we when they came to my home, I just
asked them questions about Tim and how Tim grew up,
and then they in turn just ask questions about me,
you know, how was my life like? What was my
(14:34):
father like? About my kids? We just it was just
a beautiful conversation. And I decided that to dedicate the
book to them.
Speaker 2 (14:46):
Oh my god.
Speaker 1 (14:47):
Oh see, that's the reason why I asked the question
because I want listeners and I want readers to know
exactly and to feel your emotions. So here's here's the
thing you were talking about. You wanted to become a
public speaker. I think you need a podcast too. If
you're going to go out there and you're going to
do public speaking, you can take that story and those
emotions and you can change people's lives because look at
how many fathers are in prison today and the children
(15:09):
are at home going well, who are they? What were
they like? What happened? You've answered a lot of questions
inside this.
Speaker 4 (15:15):
Book, And you know that was something that I made.
I told you about making choices.
Speaker 3 (15:22):
My dad made the choices that he made, and they
were not good choices. But from a very young age
I realized and that was not because of what I
experienced with other families, because my dad very much kept
us in a bubble. But through the TV, you know,
like Little Household, the prairie and other shows that there
(15:44):
was a different life out there.
Speaker 4 (15:46):
There's a different.
Speaker 3 (15:47):
Way of living than the way that we were living.
And I knew from a young age, and not just me,
but my other siblings. We knew from a young age
that we did not want to live the life that
my dad was living, that my mom was living.
Speaker 4 (15:59):
We did not want.
Speaker 3 (15:59):
To grow up in the dilapidated homes without running water
or electricity.
Speaker 4 (16:05):
And not only did.
Speaker 3 (16:06):
I, but my siblings, we all made choices. We knew
we had to get an education, or to the best
of our ability to get that education.
Speaker 4 (16:15):
We knew we.
Speaker 3 (16:16):
Had to make choices, life decisions from a young age
to start us on that path so that we didn't
end up like our father. And now you know, so
you know we, like I said, we refuse.
Speaker 4 (16:30):
I refuse to be a victim.
Speaker 3 (16:31):
And those are choices that I as hard as they were,
choices that I've decided to make. And that's the people
that you know, their father you mentioned, their fathers in prison.
They do not have to be a product of that environment.
They can raise above it. And especially nowadays, it's so
much easier. There's so many programs out there that are
(16:55):
available to people in those situations that were not available
when I was growing up. You know, looking back, I
could have got my college paid for for free.
Speaker 4 (17:06):
I didn't know that at.
Speaker 3 (17:07):
The time, so I and as far as the podcast,
I would be open to it, but I get so emotional.
Speaker 2 (17:17):
And that.
Speaker 3 (17:20):
I think people would get annoyed with me and be like, oh,
she's crying again.
Speaker 1 (17:26):
April. You've got to come back to this show anytime
in the future. I love where your heart is.
Speaker 3 (17:32):
Well, thank you, and I'll come back anytime.
Speaker 4 (17:35):
Invite me anytime.
Speaker 1 (17:36):
I will. Will you be brilliant today?
Speaker 4 (17:38):
Okay, you too, and you have a great holiday.
Good morning, Arrow. Hey, how are you doing today, Bill?
Speaker 2 (00:03):
I'm good.
Speaker 3 (00:03):
How you doing? My friend?
Speaker 1 (00:04):
Man, I wish you guys were here, because nine deer
just walked by my studio window. I love this forest
and I love the nature that's out there. Man, they're
so beautiful. They've got their winter coats and everything on
right now.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
I know, I know, I you know what. Every once
in a while we'll catch one when I drive down
the block. Actually, last year I saw a couple like
two of them walk past my house. But then maybe
like a quarter of a mile down, we have this
little park in like this wooded area, and there's always
you know, deer. I'm just I get so nervous that
they're gonna run out into the street because it's so
(00:37):
it's right, the street is right there. In fact, I've
seen it before. But no, you know what, growing up
in Queens, New York, we didn't have deer there.
Speaker 1 (00:47):
We didn't have.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
Bunny rabbits like we do now. We had you know,
possum and raccoons and squirrels.
Speaker 1 (00:55):
It's not it and they were mean evenirrel.
Speaker 3 (01:01):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (01:02):
Coming out to Long Island, it's, uh, it's like I'm
living out in the uh.
Speaker 1 (01:08):
The wild.
Speaker 2 (01:10):
What do you want to call it?
Speaker 1 (01:12):
It's just a total different Yeah.
Speaker 4 (01:14):
Where where where are you at that you're in the wood?
Speaker 1 (01:17):
I'm here in South Charlotte, North Carolina. We planted seventeen
hundred trees in nineteen ninety seven so to help, you know,
fortify this, because I really wanted to bring this land
back so that nature would come back, because they always
had these signs that said, you know, deer crossing. Never
once did I see a deer in nineteen ninety two.
But once we planted these trees and I started letting
this forest grow, I mean, all of a sudden, the
(01:37):
hawks came back, the you know, the eagles. I mean,
it's just it's just it's just been phenomenal. That should
be a lot, very good, very good.
Speaker 4 (01:45):
I live in the country as well.
Speaker 1 (01:47):
I don't.
Speaker 4 (01:47):
I don't see too.
Speaker 3 (01:48):
Many deer, just because just the way my property is,
because I have I have all kinds of animals myself.
Speaker 4 (01:54):
I live on a small homestead.
Speaker 3 (01:55):
Oh.
Speaker 1 (01:56):
I just just there's something about them. And first of all,
I have a reallyationship with the soil and you being
out there with that land, don't you have one as well?
Speaker 4 (02:04):
I do. I do So are do you grow things?
I try to.
Speaker 3 (02:08):
I grow a lot of things. I try to harvest
and preserve what I grow. With you planting the trees,
do you do a lot of propagation?
Speaker 1 (02:16):
Well, what we do is, I'll tell you what, because
I jokingly say that I'm a forest farmer. What happens
is as these trees continue to grow and they get older,
we need to thin it out a little bit. What
I try to do is let people who use wood
as energy, I allow them to come in and take
the wood so they can use it and this way
their fuel costs will be lower for the winter.
Speaker 4 (02:36):
Very good, That's wonderful.
Speaker 1 (02:38):
Wow. Now what's wonderful is the way that you're able
to speak on a page. And I got to tell you,
when the letters, the newspapers, the videos that you watch,
the research that you did, have you had that opportunity
yet to sit back and just breathe because you have
put so much into this.
Speaker 3 (02:57):
I try to steal the moments that I can, and
like I said, living on the homestead with the animals
has helped. Matter of fact, I don't know if you
can hear them suckling in the background, but my dog
just gave birth to eleven puppies, and for the first time,
I brought in some eggs to see if I could hatch,
(03:18):
and they just hatched. So I put them on my
coffee table because I didn't know where else to put them,
and they're chirping away. So I find solace in, you know,
with a land like that you were talking about and
with my animals.
Speaker 1 (03:34):
Well, see that to me is full circle. That is
nature giving to you, which will inspire the creative self
that you are to keep growing, because what you're doing
is you're giving us on the outside world something to
hold on to as well. You had to have that
inner strength in order to put this book together, and
it's coming from that and they're just giving it back
to you.
Speaker 3 (03:52):
Well, I find it very rewarding, and I would agree
with you on that.
Speaker 4 (03:56):
You know, nature is very.
Speaker 1 (03:57):
Healing for you to put this together. What did it
really take? Because I'm a daily writer. I've been keeping
a journal for thirty years. I know what's in those pages.
How were you able to edit and keep it straight.
Speaker 4 (04:12):
Writing this book?
Speaker 3 (04:14):
I can honestly say without any hesitation that it was
the hardest thing I have ever done in my life
and it took about five years, and as far as
the writing process, it was about the last year and
a half. And it was when I started out and
when I started to try this, I knew that I
needed to have a collaborator with me. Not because not
(04:34):
only was this story so intricate, at least the way
that I wanted to tell it, and trying to you know,
put it down on paper, and then dealing with my
emotional rollercoaster myself reliving it and trying to dive into
my memories. I hired a collaborator, and I've got to
(04:57):
give a shout out to Lily because she was awesome
and she was so patient with me because one minute
I might be telling a story and laughing with her,
then the next minute I'm i my voice might be
raised in anger because of what I had witnessed and
retelling that, or I might be crying. And then I
(05:18):
was so adamant as to how what I wanted my
book to say and how it read, that you know,
I kept I would tell Lily, no, no, that's not
what I'm trying to say, and she's like, okay, well.
Speaker 4 (05:29):
Let's try this again.
Speaker 3 (05:30):
She would have me talk and you know, so it
was meticulously going through literally every sentence and paragraph and
getting it to.
Speaker 4 (05:41):
Where I'm like, okay, that sounds like me. This is me.
And it was very hard and very demanding.
Speaker 3 (05:47):
And I don't ever want to write another book.
Speaker 1 (05:49):
Oh come on now, no no no, no, no, no no,
you can't do that because you're already the author and
it's given to us now. So the universe is gonna
knocking on your heart.
Speaker 4 (05:59):
Well, you know what I think I would like to
do is.
Speaker 3 (06:04):
Instead of writing books or any other books, I would
like I'm looking into this. I used to be a
public speaker long ago in my high school years, and
when I was a young mother, I was.
Speaker 4 (06:14):
Into public speaking.
Speaker 3 (06:15):
Not about my dad's story or even about my story
about my dad, but it had to do with, you know,
being a young mom and my beliefs and that. So
I'm looking into the possibility of becoming a public speaker,
taking on some public speaking engagements regarding my story. And
if I did that, I would love. I would love
(06:35):
the aspect of engaging with my audience, hoping that I
could reach more people help them because there's so many
no one may not have the exact story like mine.
I really think mine's unique, but so many families, so
many people grew up in dysfunctional families and have so
(06:56):
many hidden scars, And especially in the gin that I
came from, we were taught not to talk about things
that went on in your family.
Speaker 1 (07:05):
Shit, that's it, yep, so true, so true, And.
Speaker 3 (07:09):
Learning to talk about it has become very healing. And
I never realized how healing that was that was going
to be until I started talking about it.
Speaker 4 (07:19):
So my collaborator, Lucy or not Lucy.
Speaker 3 (07:23):
Lily, she was also kind of like a therapist. I
tell her all the time that how much I appreciate her,
and she took on a lot more than she bargained for.
Speaker 1 (07:34):
Yeah, but you know what you've got here, though, April,
is the fact that you are using your voice. And
Mark Twain was very adamant about that for all authors,
if you aren't using your voice, then you're borrowing somebody
else's Therefore it's not your story. So the fact that
you really did find focus in trying to figure out
how you were going to be on that page, that's
a brilliant first step.
Speaker 4 (07:54):
Thank you for saying that.
Speaker 3 (07:56):
And I don't know if I said this earlier, but
My goal was to take the reader on that emotional
journey that I went on, because my life was very
much an emotional rollercoaster, and I wanted people to experience that.
I wanted people to see my dad through my eyes.
I love my dad, but yet I feared him. My
(08:18):
dad was the life of the party. He loved to entertain,
He had people over all the time. He was very charismatic.
But on the other flip side, he was very violent.
He abused my mom, he abused us kids, and of
course now we know how he killed people.
Speaker 4 (08:37):
But at the same.
Speaker 3 (08:39):
Time, people loved him, and that's why I think that's
one of the reasons why he got away with what
he did for so long, because people didn't suspect.
Speaker 1 (08:48):
Him, right, Yeah, you know it's almost like that one
you know, it happens in the newspaper every day. It's
always that one guy that we you know, who would
have thought it was that guy that would be doing it,
And your father seems to be that guy.
Speaker 4 (09:01):
Exactly exactly.
Speaker 3 (09:02):
And then the other thing that he did is every
place that we moved, he would befriend a local law
enforcement officer, a police department, or an FBI agent, and
he would feed them information about local thieves or con men.
So he and you know, became there.
Speaker 4 (09:26):
Well, he was a snitch, you know, That's exactly what
he was. He was a snitch.
Speaker 3 (09:31):
And but that made him feel you know, grand, that
that made him feel good. And I can't think of
the exact word I'm looking.
Speaker 4 (09:41):
For at the moment, but he got off on that.
He was thrilled with that.
Speaker 3 (09:46):
And I also the other thing that he did is
in the crimes that he committed, he was notorious looking
back now, notorious for leaving the authorities to investigate other
people that steered them away from him.
Speaker 1 (10:00):
Wow. Wow, See that's a genius at heart right there,
because they know how to work the game.
Speaker 4 (10:07):
Yes, yes, wow.
Speaker 3 (10:08):
And you know here's another thing, And this is one
thing I haven't shared on any of the other interviews
that are done, but I do believe I said it
in my book. My dad could look law enforcement, you know,
an FBI agent, a police officer in the eye and
lie to them and they had no clue, no clue.
They believed him. He was so good and he was
(10:30):
so good at lying that I actually think that he
believes some of his own minds. And I say, that
I say that sincerely, I really do.
Speaker 1 (10:41):
You speak of something in the book that I that
I wish more people would bring out and put it
in conversations. You speak about the silent fear. Do you
know there are millions of people on this planet every
day that deal with silent fear.
Speaker 4 (10:55):
That doesn't surprise me.
Speaker 3 (10:56):
It doesn't surprise me at all, And you know, and
that's one of the things that breaks my heart. And
I'm hoping that people will gather some courage from my
book and start speaking out because I'm very adamant in
(11:17):
stating that I'm not a victim. I refuse to put
on that mantle. I refuse to be a victim. I
tell people I'm a survivor. I don't want to have
that mentality, a victimhood, because once we have that mentality
of being a victim, we start blaming others for our actions.
And I you know, we see that in society today,
(11:38):
and we can make choices. We can make the choice
to speak out, even though it's so difficult and very hard,
and we just need to find the right person to
do that with.
Speaker 4 (11:50):
And when we speak out, we.
Speaker 3 (11:52):
Start that healing process, and if we don't, we harbor
that inside, and we keep that in inside of us,
and we become bitter people. We develop health problems, whether
mentally or physically. And I'm hoping that my book will
encourage others to speak out who who are living in
(12:15):
that silent fear.
Speaker 1 (12:17):
You've dedicated your book to David and Judy. I would
love for you to share the story as to why
they get the dedication, because when people go into your book,
and that's one of the first things that we identify with,
I just want them to know who they are from
your voice.
Speaker 4 (12:32):
Okay, I'm going to.
Speaker 3 (12:33):
Try to get through this without cry.
Speaker 4 (12:37):
Dave and Judy. Dave was the father of Tim Hack.
Speaker 3 (12:42):
He was one of the victims of the Sweetheart murders
up in Wisconsin in nineteen.
Speaker 4 (12:47):
Eighty and Dave and Judy are Christians.
Speaker 3 (12:51):
They love the Lord. And when my dad got arrested,
they actually wrote a letter to my mom, reaching out
to my mom, and I read the letter and my
mom didn't want to write back, didn't want to open
up that line of communication, and I didn't feel like
I could, so I just let it go because the
letter wasn't addressed to me. But eventually David Judy reached
(13:13):
out through me through Detective Garcia, and they traveled from
Wisconsin to my home up in Ohio, and they came
to my home and the first thing that they did
when they walked through the door.
Speaker 4 (13:27):
Was they gave me a hug. And the love that radiated.
Speaker 3 (13:34):
From them and the forgiveness, and I later found out, no,
here's of it.
Speaker 4 (13:40):
I'm going to try to lighten this a little bit.
Speaker 3 (13:43):
One of the things that I found out later from
Dave was Dave was expected me to be some kind
of fluozy and I don't even know what all adjectives
he used to describe me, but here he was pleasantly
surprised too, that you know, I lived.
Speaker 4 (14:00):
And a nice home I had. I was married for
a long time.
Speaker 3 (14:04):
I've since been divorced, but I was married for thirty years,
had three children, I was a homemaker, had a.
Speaker 4 (14:10):
Very stable life of a Christian myself.
Speaker 3 (14:13):
So not only I guess they were pleasantly surprised as
well as I was, but they were just, you know,
and we when they came to my home, I just
asked them questions about Tim and how Tim grew up,
and then they in turn just ask questions about me,
you know, how was my life like? What was my
(14:34):
father like? About my kids? We just it was just
a beautiful conversation. And I decided that to dedicate the
book to them.
Speaker 2 (14:46):
Oh my god.
Speaker 1 (14:47):
Oh see, that's the reason why I asked the question
because I want listeners and I want readers to know
exactly and to feel your emotions. So here's here's the
thing you were talking about. You wanted to become a
public speaker. I think you need a podcast too. If
you're going to go out there and you're going to
do public speaking, you can take that story and those
emotions and you can change people's lives because look at
how many fathers are in prison today and the children
(15:09):
are at home going well, who are they? What were
they like? What happened? You've answered a lot of questions
inside this.
Speaker 4 (15:15):
Book, And you know that was something that I made.
I told you about making choices.
Speaker 3 (15:22):
My dad made the choices that he made, and they
were not good choices. But from a very young age
I realized and that was not because of what I
experienced with other families, because my dad very much kept
us in a bubble. But through the TV, you know,
like Little Household, the prairie and other shows that there
(15:44):
was a different life out there.
Speaker 4 (15:46):
There's a different.
Speaker 3 (15:47):
Way of living than the way that we were living.
And I knew from a young age, and not just me,
but my other siblings. We knew from a young age
that we did not want to live the life that
my dad was living, that my mom was living.
Speaker 4 (15:59):
We did not want.
Speaker 3 (15:59):
To grow up in the dilapidated homes without running water
or electricity.
Speaker 4 (16:05):
And not only did.
Speaker 3 (16:06):
I, but my siblings, we all made choices. We knew
we had to get an education, or to the best
of our ability to get that education.
Speaker 4 (16:15):
We knew we.
Speaker 3 (16:16):
Had to make choices, life decisions from a young age
to start us on that path so that we didn't
end up like our father. And now you know, so
you know we, like I said, we refuse.
Speaker 4 (16:30):
I refuse to be a victim.
Speaker 3 (16:31):
And those are choices that I as hard as they were,
choices that I've decided to make. And that's the people
that you know, their father you mentioned, their fathers in prison.
They do not have to be a product of that environment.
They can raise above it. And especially nowadays, it's so
much easier. There's so many programs out there that are
(16:55):
available to people in those situations that were not available
when I was growing up. You know, looking back, I
could have got my college paid for for free.
Speaker 4 (17:06):
I didn't know that at.
Speaker 3 (17:07):
The time, so I and as far as the podcast,
I would be open to it, but I get so emotional.
Speaker 2 (17:17):
And that.
Speaker 3 (17:20):
I think people would get annoyed with me and be like, oh,
she's crying again.
Speaker 1 (17:26):
April. You've got to come back to this show anytime
in the future. I love where your heart is.
Speaker 3 (17:32):
Well, thank you, and I'll come back anytime.
Speaker 4 (17:35):
Invite me anytime.
Speaker 1 (17:36):
I will. Will you be brilliant today?
Speaker 4 (17:38):
Okay, you too, and you have a great holiday.
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