0106 | Tacit Permissions & Behavioral Drifts

To better understand Lorenzo and Schweickert, their possible other crimes, and their MOs and victimology, Josh chats with clinical psychologist Dr. Scott (LA Not So Confidential) about killers who work in pairs, BDSM, Antisocial Personality Disorder, psychopathy, narcissism, and how homophobia made their ongoing crimes possible.
Plus: The Warrior gene, behavioral drift, Kanye West, Anita Bryant, and more.

Next episode: 1 February 2024

This episode was written, researched, edited, and produced by Josh Hallmark
Featuring: Dr. Scott from the LA Not So Confidential podcast

This is a Studio BOTH/AND production: bothand.fyi
For an ad-free experience: patreon.com/studiobothand

Music by: Color Book, Yehezkel Raz, Adi Goldstein, Infinity Lab, and Yotam Agam
Featured music by: Perfume Genius

Episode Transcript

(00:09):
This is a Studio Both And production. This episode was written, researched,
edited and produced by me Josh Hallmarkand features doctor Scott from the La Not
So Confidential podcast. And it wasmade possible by the following Patreon producers Adrian

(00:29):
I Yellow, Amelia Hancock, AmyBasel and E L. Benjamin Choppafon,
Casey Jensen, Richardson, Dana Keith, Drew Vipond, Halley Reed, Jessica
Alihozik, Gillian Natale, John O'Leary, Kendall, C Kimberly, Kay,
Lauren f Lindsay Curtis Linley, tuscoffManolas Bulcus, Nicole and Dennis Henry,
Sarah King, s C. ShelleyBrewer, Tuesday Woodworth, Vicky Russell,
Zachgnatowicks, Warren Ashley Harris, BethMcNally, John Comrie, Jordan Taylor,

(00:52):
Carly McNutt, Lana Sarah C,SHAWNA Harden and Lydia Fiedler. Thank you
to Studio Both Ann's newest Patreon supporters, Noel z a Key, Sammy m
Ziggy, Sawdust My Team, MeganMorgan, doctor Jill Cooper, Todd hc
Oversin, dylanb and Marilyn t.To support the investigation, go to Patreon
dot com, slash Studio both andThis episode includes music by color Book,

(01:15):
You, Haskel, rez Audie Goldstein, Infinity Lab, and Yotomagum, with
featured music by Perfume Genius. Ilove talking about behavioral drift within organized structures.
Whether it's law enforcement or military orhigh responsibility levels of employment. You're
usually held to a code of behaviorwithin that organization, and that code can

(01:40):
be set or based on any numberof rules. But what you can see
is that there's a thing that canoccur called behavioral drift. Like a jailer
or a custody agent at a prisonknows that a then an inmate is not
allowed any contraband right, but theirbehavior can be manipulated by inmates by slowly

(02:07):
inducing behavioral drift. Like okay,here's the boundary. I'm not supposed to
talk to custody about this, butI'm going to create a relationship with him.
How's your wife, how's your kids? How are things going? Most
seasoned guards will go, shut thefuck up, that's none of your business.
Don't ever talk to me about myfamily. Like you know how they

(02:27):
have really good boundaries or they justignore it. But younger, less experienced
people might make a behavioral drift andthey open up and then the person's like,
oh wow, it's really late hereat and I boy'd be great for
to get some real coffee, Likewe could get some real coffee in here
instead of those fucking Folger's crystals,right, And then before you know it,

(02:47):
this fake relationship has started, andthis guard has now bent his behavior
paradigm to fit the needs of thisinmate. There are a lot of police
officers that all prey to this whenthey are seizing drugs, right, contraband
materials. They might take a littlebit for themselves they are family members,
right, or it starts to itjust starts to veer away from the path.

(03:12):
And what I found interesting after thatlong explanation of behavioral drift that you
didn't ask for, was the ideathat I again think that both of these
guys came to it much farther alongin that journey. Their behavioral drift started
when they were kids. They wereboth testing boundaries pretty severely as children.
I can almost guarantee well with Schweiker, it came from a huge family,

(03:39):
right, and a well appointed one, and we see it throughout that they
are asking for him to be releasedearly to attend their anniversary party. They
want him to be released from hisplea deal because they're getting older and they
sure would like to have them around, even familiarly. There is a sense
of the rules don't apply to them. Yeah, exactly, I don't want

(04:01):
to make broad generalizations, and yetI'm probably going to when you have excessively
large families like that, which arenot common for today's world. You needed
families that large two hundred years agobecause the percentages say that most of your
kids are not going to make itto adulthood. Right, But in today's

(04:24):
world, at the pace that modernsociety moves, it's not possible to parent
twelve children in the way that wenow know helps to optimize that individual's experience.
So there is a level of entitlementthat comes with statements like that from

(04:45):
the parents that give me a littlebit of a hint of an alternate way
of raising children, or an alternateway of how we interact with the world
and what we expect from the worldto give to us. After this horrible
crime has been committed. But we'rewilling to dismiss because Oh, it was
a whatever excuse they made to themselves. Yeah, I think that was a
huge factor in how he got towhere he is. Lorenzo not so much

(05:10):
as known, I guess, butthat was striking when I heard in your
last recording. As we started compilingevidence and clues to help us determine if
there were other victims of Stephen andor Scott, and then who those victims
might be, I realized we weregoing to need an expert opinion, so

(05:31):
I reached out to my friend doctorScott of the La Not So Confidential podcast.
Doctor Scott is a licensed clinical psychologistwho works in forensics with law enforcement
in Los Angeles. He specializes inidentity development and specialized populations, amongst his
other specialties. You heard from himbriefly in the first two episodes, but

(05:54):
we've talked about this case for hours, and doctor Scott has gone through all
of our five watched the hearings,and has come to the table with some
great analysis and opinions on Lorenzo andSchweikert, how serial killers come together and
their dynamics as pears, the roleof BDSM in their crimes, and the

(06:15):
likelihood that either or both of themhad killed prior to meeting one another.
The question that the research team andI kept mulling over and changing our minds
about was who was the more dominantpersonality, the leader, if you will,
in this pair of men. Wewent back and forth between Schweikert using
Lorenzo as a patsy and then Lorenzousing Schweikert as one. Was Schweikert there

(06:42):
to take the fall for Lorenzo orwas Lorenzo there to take the fall for
Schweikert. And while it's a veryfair question, I think it's rooted in
my own limited knowledge of serial killerswho operate in pairs. With Henry Lee
Lucas and Ottis Tool, it seemedclear and the narrative had always been that
Lucas was the leader, Tool wasthe lower intelligence subordinate. With Carla Homolka

(07:09):
and Paul Bernardo, Paul was alwayspainted as the dominant leader. With Kelly
and Jason Cochrane, Jason was thefollower with lower intelligence who Kelly tried and
failed to paint as the mastermind.The narrative around killers who work in pairs
has always been that one was thedominant in control and the other was the

(07:32):
submissive idiot, And so that wasthe first thing I asked doctor Scott,
and both of our calls and evenhis opinions seemed to change with time and
with new information. The more dominantof the two of the personalities and the
driver I really thought was Lorenzo.And then I'm realizing, oh no,

(07:56):
no, no, no, thiswas almost almost equal. Like as far
as them motivating each other, theyjust have very different personality types. But
you know, not, couldn't bea worse combination for two people to find
each other other than you know,Carla Hamalka and her husband. Well,
when I got off the phone,I was on the phone with one of

(08:18):
Lorenzo's survivor surviving victims earlier today andit was before well, I don't know
when he met Scott, because Ijust don't buy that that I am conversation
is the very first time they evertalked to one another. Yeah, I
could, I would agree, Yeah, but he said that in this instance,
Lorenzo acted alone. Hearing his accountwas like truly terrifying, and it

(08:41):
was like I was always concerned thatmaybe or not concerned. I was of
the belief that it was possible thatthese two were egging each other on but
it's very clear that Lorenzo at leastwas doing that all by himself. Yes,
I would agree with that. I'dalso say that, you know,
and you maybe if you want tofit this in some where, that you
know, you've done such a fantasticjob framing your narrative in these episodes with

(09:09):
the fact that this is a marginalizedpop subpopulation and this was of a specific
time that is very different from today'sworld, not in terms of marginalization or
oppression, because unfortunately that is swingingback around again, but at that time,
the I mean it was you know, Anita Bryant still held Sway in

(09:31):
Florida, and there was the HIVepidemic, and there was so much intense
shame in so many members of thegay community about connecting and how they chose
to connect and sort of over andover again, you see in interviews in
some of these true crime documentaries withguys getting interviewed by police and they can

(09:58):
only give part of the story becausethey're just riddled with shame. If they
even you know, can screw upthe courage to go and engage with them,
it's very sad. Well, thisguy Perkins said when he called to
report the drugging and assault. Thedetectives hung up on him and they didn't
haul him back later until they hadimplicated Lorenzo in actual homicides. And then

(10:20):
that's when they suddenly cared about astory. Right, Well, doctor Shiloh
and I just did an episode onthe documentary the Four Heart series on Max
about the Last Call Killer and thejust the the blank looks on these detectives
even to this day being interviewed aboutthe interviews that they conducted over twenty years

(10:43):
ago, and they're still clueless,not all of them, but just like,
you know, not really understanding whatthe big deal was, not realizing
where they made mistakes or where theirown bias came in. It's just it's
a bit shocking even, you know, you're looking at the guys that are
in their sixties and seventies and youjust think, but you were a detective,

(11:05):
you were a cop. You're supposedto know, you know, at
least this and this domain of expertise, and yeah, so this is that
parallels exactly what your study is doing. But I do think in terms of
control and general MO there's an importantdistinction to make to me at least Steven.

(11:30):
Lorenzo seemed to be much more meticulous, premeditated, and intentional about,
at minimum the planning of his crimes, which is not to say he wasn't
sloppy or impulsive, but much likeserial killer Israel Keys, he seemed to
always be thinking two to three stepsahead. He just didn't seem to always

(11:52):
follow through as gracefully or as skillfullywith those plans. BDSM comes up a
lot in this case, and inmy discussions with doctor Scott, both Lorenzo
and Schweikert had at minimum an interestin it. Lorenzo described himself as and

(12:13):
was known around Tampa and Philadelphia asa BDSM master. Schweikert described himself as
a novice someone who wanted to becomea master. And this is something we'll
get into further on in the series, but it's hard not to take into
consideration how the BDSM component might playout in an investigation. It was also

(12:35):
very important to me to draw outa clear distinction between BDSM and these two
men's crimes. So this is justan intro to BDSM culture and sort of
a historical timeline because people tend tothink that it's really just a relative emergence,
and it isn't. It's been invarious cultures around the world for various

(12:56):
reasons for a long time, buthas found a particular home and place in
the gay community. So the termin the acronym BDSM is attributed to a
writer, Paul Gapart in nineteen sixtynine, and that stands for bondage,
dominance or discipline and submission and satomasochism. And like I said earlier,

(13:20):
it has a history going back fora very long time, even into ancient
civilizations. So we really have todispel a lot of taboos and misconceptions about
how long this has been. Butagain, it emerged in the BDSM community
really more on the fringes as asort of a hidden expression of outlaw sex,

(13:41):
but now has become a recognized aspectof more healthy and pro sex,
pro healthy emergence and expression of sexualitywhen consent is involved. That's the magic
word through all of this is consent. When I refer to the term outlaw
sex, that doesn't necessarily ring abell for a lot of young men and

(14:07):
women, young gay men and womenin today's culture, But outlaw sex was
the expression of sexuality that you reallyfelt was your only choice when you're part
of a specifically marginalized community, andthat might mean meeting for sexual trysts in
parks, in clandestine locations, inanonymous settings where there's no words, no

(14:31):
identification exchanged, but again always ina consent environment. Again, it's like
a pushback. It is a pushbackagainst pressures of marginalizing forces of the overarching
community. And then we had apushback against that or an expression with artists
back in the fifties and sixties likeTom of Finland. If people are not

(14:52):
familiar with Tom of Finland, Iknow those of us that are content creators.
Here in the true crime genre,we have a very heavy female audience.
If you don't know who Toma Finlandis and you google him, just
be prepared. It's some lovely,lovely gay erotic drawings, mainly concerning leather

(15:13):
and very exaggerated poses of masculinity.But one of the things I love about
Tomma Finland is that all of hischaracters are joyous. It's very pro sex,
it's very healthy expression and fun andcreative sex. And then there's also
Robert Mablethorpe, who was a veryvery famous photographer who did some darker expressions

(15:37):
and absolutely beautiful in black and whitephotography back in decades past. Both are
worth looking at, but not suitablefor work viewing. If you're listening to
this at work, please don't goon your work computer and look at them.
Then we've also got designers like TierraMugler, who was very big,

(15:58):
I mean still is always been verytalented, but he was one of the
ones that brought a lot of theBDSM aesthetics into modern fashion, which was
very, very interesting. So webring it forward if we go all the
way back to and sorry for thecomplete history lesson, but if we always
go all the way back to Mesopotamiaand the cult of the Nana, one
of the goddesses, bondage and disciplineand masochistic practices, placing yourself in pain

(16:26):
was part of a religious ceremony,was part of a spiritual ceremony. So
there's always been this very interesting overlapand entwining of sex practices and pain throughout
cultures. And I think it's reallyonly in the last six or seven hundred
years with the Puritanical movement that theyreally kind of squashed that and it's become

(16:48):
something other than what it was.Meant to be or what it was meant
to originally be. And back inI think twenty nineteen, there was a
poll that showed forty six to fiftypercent of individuals under the age of forty
had expressed an interest or in experiencewith BDSM practices. So that really challenges
our stereotypes that have been for decadesjust saying, oh, this is just

(17:11):
on the fringe, this is juston the fringe of sexuality, when it's
really not. One of the thingsthat you'll see in the leather communities today,
especially organizations like International Mister Leather,is that there's a real respect for
this particular expression of sexuality. Andagain it's not homogenized across the LGBTQIA spectrum,

(17:32):
like not every practitioner a BDSM necessarilybelieves in all the tenets of International
Mister Leather of any of these othersort of organizations. But again, the
important part is consent. They're consentingpartners, and limits are established and there
are practices that keep your sex partnerssafe throughout this practice. And the reason

(17:56):
I wanted to give this as aframework, especially for un say spaces,
is that BDSM for these two killersends up being the car that they're driving,
right, it is a means oftools and a means of practices that
is completely devoid of the actual sexact itself. I mean, it's when

(18:18):
we talk about sexually violent predators,we're always we always want to be upfront
as clinicians by saying that rape isnot an act of sex. Rape is
an act of absolute violence and sadism. It is about humiliating, dominating,
destroying the inner quiet, the innercalm, the inner reserve of the victim.

(18:41):
It's not about sex. Sex isthe car that is driven along that
path, right, So that Ifeel very strongly is happening in these crimes
that you've been relating. Then again, one of the things that can bring
people to this particular practice is theintersection between pain and pleasure. So,

(19:04):
just without completely going into a physiologicallecture hall and pulling out my PowerPoint on
it, it is really fascinating aboutwhat happens to the body and how our
bodies are physiologically designed to deal withpain. One of the fascinating studies about
pregnancy and about the process of childbirthis how amazingly designed women's bodies have evolved

(19:30):
to be in how they can respondto pain and that they can just endure
this incredible amount of pain in orderto go through the process of childbirth.
And one of the reasons is thatthey have a higher chemical response where their
brain releases more opiates, more naturalopiates into the system. But you can
also artificially induce that by practices thatwould induce pain through the process of sex.

(19:56):
Again, with consent. Always on, everything I'm framing is with consent,
because if you're inducing pain as adom you are inducing it in order
to fulfill the pleasure of your submissive, right, So it's a feedback loop,

(20:18):
and it's a healthy feedback loop becausethe person who is the dominant in
that situation is gaining a sense ofcontrol and power because they're directing the scene.
And then there's the person who ison the receiving end, who has
given consent, but they're allowing thislevel of stimulation to rise to the point
that they're also creating a physiological responsein their own bodies. And that's the

(20:40):
really healthy version, which is veryvery divorced from these two individuals that you
are exploring. It would be reallyeasy to use actual alleged or perceived involvement
in BDSM as a means to victimblame many of the men who were assaulted

(21:00):
or murdered by Stephen Lorenzo and ScottSchweikert, and in many cases it seems
like that was perhaps an internalized biasheld by the law enforcement who were involved
in both the investigations into the murdersof Jason Galehouse and Michael Wacholts and taking
reports by the surviving assault victims braveenough to report their attacks. In fact,

(21:25):
Lorenzo frequently did this himself. Hemade his victims responsible for their own
attacks because of their involvement in BDSMor their use of drugs and alcohol,
which to me at least demonstrates Lorenzo'sdeep awareness of and exploitation of the biases
at play and the overall marginalization ofthe greater gay community his own community.

(21:53):
Like Dahmer before him, he knewthat police and the general public were mostly
uncomfortable with than avoidant of gay culture. Throw in topics like BDSM and your
almost guaranteed impunity, and based onLorenzo's AOL instant messenger chats, it seems
for at least a period of timethat he was actively pursuing men with an

(22:17):
interest in BDSM, presumably for twovery fucked up reasons. One, based
on his testimony, cross examinations ofhis victims and comments in those chats,
Lorenzo knew that BDSM would muddle ordivert any police investigations. And two,
based on his own words, Lorenzotook joy in the bait and switch and

(22:42):
in taking complete control and what weresupposed to be consensual encounters. The question
I keep it asking is do youthink that this started as a genuine interest
in BDSM and then eventually evolved intothese or do you think BDSM, much

(23:03):
like the car or the vehicle,was also the excuse to commit this kind
of pain and torture onto individuals,like almost like it was a costume.
That's a great I want to comeback to that, because I don't think
that those two things are mutually exclusive. I think that it could have started
out as an expression of, oh, well, this is what I get

(23:26):
to do in the expression of mysexuality. I get to be dominant,
and I really like that. Butthen veering over into violence is a completely
different pathway of internal wiring, right, And then I wasn't sure, but
I believe one of them, notLorenzo, but Schweikert. I believe it
was Schweikert who was the one thatshowed up at one of the bars in

(23:49):
full leather. Right, So theyhad not been able to be successful in
their previous plans that they show upat the local bar and he's basically in
full costume. So that is certainlypart of it. You know, when
you put on a uniform, Imean, even watching Dexter, right,
Dexter, it's a uniform, wasa full hasmat suit of plastic that could

(24:12):
be washed and then destroyed and allthe evidence is gone. There's an expression
of almost an exaggerated, cartoonish versionof masculinity when people cause play to that
extent. And I don't mean anydisrespect to the BDSM community. I mean
there are beautiful, beautiful expressions ofleather, even if it's not esthetically what

(24:37):
we would consider attractive. I meanit's a pro sexual, pro sex,
healthy sex expression, and they're dressingthe part. I think the wires got
crossed for both of these guys,and that there was always a foundation there
that really didn't have anything to dowith their sexuality. And that has to
do with these aspects of psychopathy thatemerged very strongly in both of them.

(25:12):
To better understand Lorenzo and Schweikert andtheir roles in these crimes and other potential
crimes, I wanted to understand asbest we can the psychology at play here,
first on an individual basis and thenas a pair. So, you
know, when we talk about psychopathyor psycho it just seems to be a

(25:36):
term that has been thrown around fora long time, very very easily,
without us or the general public reallyunderstanding what a very apt definition is.
And psychopathy is its own thing thatemerges from antisocial personality disorder. Psychopathy itself
is not a diagnosis. It isa cluster, a constellation of behaviors and

(25:57):
presentations in commune unity and functioning thatis like antisocial personality disorder to the nth
degree. So ASPD or anti socialpersonality disorder is a diagnosis within the diagnostic
and statistical manual that we used todiagnose and bill within the mental health community.

(26:18):
It is part of a spectrum ofpersonality disorders that our understanding historically has
come to shift. Over the pasttwo decades. We have narrowed it down
from a really wide range of personalitydisorders down to really more than just a
handful. Right now, antisocial personalitydisorder used to be thought of, as

(26:41):
well as some of the other personalitydisorders like a narcissistic or borderline or histrionic,
as something that only emerged in thepresence of really intense adverse child experiences
such as a neglect or abuse orbrain trauma. And what we now know

(27:02):
from years and years and years ofstudy is that there are some people that
have a genetic predisposition or a propensityto develop personality disorders. If they're in
an unhealthy setting and they're delivered messagesthat are inconsistent, then we can just
flare these up. But when wetalk about psychopathy again, this is to
the nth degree of that experience.And what we do know is that people

(27:26):
that are acting in the realm ofpsychopathic behavior, they're expressing a lack of
empathy for the community around them,right So that's clearly they're just not wired
to feel empathy. But we wouldalso say, what are just like the

(27:47):
headlining ones that we would say it'scharacterized by this persistent, chronic, verging
on severe disregard for the rights ofothers, lying in deceitfulness, high levels
of impulsivity, irritability, aggression,and a lack of remorse after harming others.

(28:07):
So, you know, children cancome across as psychopaths sometimes, you
know, when kids get to thatterrible autonomous version of age three or four.
But generally speaking, the vast majorityof children, when they accidentally hurt
a peer or a family member,they'll immediately experience remorse. And this is
a big red flag in childhood developmentis when a child does not express remorse

(28:30):
after violating the rights or the bodilyautonomy of others, then it's a hint
that there's something going on and they'rewiring. But we see the worst of
antisocial personality disorder emerging usually in thelate teen years, and it manifests in

(28:51):
ways that can impact a lot ofdifferent aspects of the individual's life. What's
really interesting is how successful individuals withantisocial personality can be in our community.
If they're smart, and they're drivenand they're organized, they can become fortune
five hundred CEOs, right because fortunefive hundred companies and political positions and anyone

(29:15):
in positions of higher power are sometimesrequired to make very difficult decisions that have
to be devoid of compassion in thelarger aggregate for the world at large.
I guess you know, I usethe example every time I thinking I'm more
than a little off, I go, well, at least I know I'm
not antisocial because I could never Icould never be a financier that's willing to

(29:41):
invest, you know, five hundredmillion dollars of elderly people's retirement funds,
right, But that's what you wantfor a retirement investor, is somebody that's
going to take those chances to makeyou money in the long run. But
we see these high level positions wherethere's a lot of power or that will
attract particular individuals with this makeup.So a lot of clergy, a lot

(30:07):
of politicians, some teachers, there'sa high level of antisocial personality disorder,
and elementary school teachers unfortunately. Sowe've taken sort of the basics of antisocial
personality disorder and now we've talked aboutthat, we're just magnifying it to this

(30:29):
really high degree in order to callit psychopathy. Because we look at what's
called either the dark triad or thedark tetrad. So triad refers to three
factors, and the three factors arewhat would be considered socially averse traits,
and this is why they fall intoline in this particular order. Narcissism.

(30:52):
Literally, no one exists in theworld except for the narcissist right. Everything
else, every connection around them isjust an extension of them, and it's
either you're for me or you're againstme. I have my needs. My
needs supersede everyone else's. And thenthere's also another sort of aspect of this
called Machiavelianism, and Machiavelianism refers toMachiavelli, who was willing to manipulate,

(31:19):
strategize, and violate the rights ofothers by the use of subterfuge or manipulation.
So it's about not only is theworld exists to meet my needs,
but I'm also going to use thetools that I have of manipulation to bend
the world to my needs as well. And then of those two we add

(31:44):
to the tetrat ASPD a third stoolleg is antisocial personality disorder. So there's
a diagnosis, but there's also anadditional diagnosis of narcissism or narcissistic traits.
And then there's also the expression ofthese manipulative behaviors such as is machiavelianism.
Now, getting back to where weare with your subjects, we move on

(32:06):
to the dark tetrad, and thedark tetrad takes all of those three,
but it adds an additional element tothis aggregate. And it's not about BDSM
and consenting sexual partners in a healthysituation, a healthy paradigm. It's the
addition of just sadism, taking pleasureout of the joy of inflicting physical or

(32:28):
emotional pain. So it's not usingpain in order to elicit a response of
intimacy or physiological pleasure. But it'sactually the opposite. It's actually sadism to
with the soul desire, the souldrive to destroy. I think in one

(32:50):
of your most recent episodes you talkabout, or at least I think the
recording is what the DA shares heropinion, and I'm not I'm just going
to say her opinion because I don'tknow if it's verified. It was used
in the trial that they chose totake out one of their victims around the
holidays because they knew that that wouldnot only you know in the life of

(33:12):
this individual, but it would causeharm to the family members. So a
little bit earlier, I said thatfor years, those of us in the
clinical community of mental health really understoodpersonality disorders like borderline personality disorder, narcissistic,

(33:37):
antisocial to be the result of aseries of traumas during a really particularly
important developmental time for a child.What we now know is that that can
actually play a role. Neglect,abuse, all that can play a role.
But the underlying foundation is a differencein brain structure. So there are

(33:59):
just people that have a tendency orgenetic predisposition to be wired for the potential
for the expression of either full blowndiagnoses of personality disorders or strong, moderate,
or mild traits of personality disorders.And what we found through this study,
and there's some really really amazing neuropsychologistsand neuroscientists out there studying this,

(34:23):
is that there are three factors thatare really important in this and one is
called the warrior gene. And Ijust geek out on this because it's so
fascinating. It's something that was onlyrecently discovered. Was this gene variance that
came you know, I think froman evolutionary standpoint, it came from around

(34:45):
the New Zealand Australia areas, Likewe know that that's where this particular gene
came from. And it's called them ao A gene. That's actually really
important, so hold on to thatis the name of that gene. Miao
a is responsible for affecting the areasof the brain that control aggression, violence,

(35:10):
low empathy, and high risk takingbehaviors. Science has proved that there
are some people that are just wiredfor that potential, right, and maybe
it serves a purpose from an evolutionarystandpoint, maybe those are you know,
maybe some of those traits are goodfor military or for protecting your tribe,

(35:30):
right, so it serves a purpose. But if you take that and then
you also take a brain structure thatis very different from the general population,
where like we'll see long term studieslike going through prisons here in the US
that have asked and been allowed byinmates to be scanned and provide their brain

(35:53):
scan information show that there's very lowactivity in certain areas of the frontal and
temporal lobes right up here in front. They're responsible for what we call executive
functioning controlling empathy, not necessarily knowingright from wrong, but controlling the impulse
to do something that is wrong,because in an instant all the connections and

(36:16):
the synaptas are firing, going,hey, if I do this, what
are the consequences for somebody that hasan altered brain structure? They may not
have that stopgap measure, and thenthat can also be created, not necessarily
from their own organic brain structure,but from a traumatic brain injury. So
someone like Aaron Hernandez, who whenthey did the autopsy on him, they

(36:40):
had just saw incredible amounts of braindamage from all his football years, which
completely is now thought to have contributedto a lot of his violent behaviors in
the last few years of his life. So we got the warrior gene,
we got brain structure. Now,so me, what's a metaphor? Or

(37:00):
I'm kind of outdoorsy, So themetaphoral you uses a campfire. If the
warrior gene and the brain structure arethe firewood and the kindling, then what
is the match? What is thematch that sets the kindling to burning,
that then causes those logs to burnfor hours on end or for a lifetime,

(37:22):
And the match is adverse childhood experiences. So that's a whole classification of
things that can encompass PTSD as achild, where a child is exposed to
intimate partner violence perpetrated by their parentsor their caregivers, or they have violence
perpetrated upon themselves, or they areexposed to behaviors that are outside the accepted

(37:49):
norms of society, like exposed toinappropriate sexual materials for their age, or
they're exposed to criminal activities, andthose criminal life activities are framed as this
is normal for us. So nowwe have those three things. We have
the wood, we have the kindeling, and we have the match. All
of those put together can lead toa full blown psychopath. Now. I

(38:14):
don't know so much about our twoperpetrators backgrounds, and I think I'm not
sure we're ever going to really knowat this point and get a clear picture
of what they experienced as children.But I would not be surprised if both
of them at some point allowed theirbrain scans to be made available for research
that we wouldn't see many of thesestructural abnormalities. Yeah, it's funny because

(38:39):
I know very little, but whoI do know about their childhood as keys,
and I just like lots of alarmbells are ringing in regards to him.
Alarm bells. That's yeah, thatis a windmill painted bright red.
Completely there are so many red flagswith that. So that kind of comes

(39:07):
into play here because we have amarginalized community. We have two people who
I think are underestimated because they're gay, and I think they also what they
have working in their favor is societyat that time was fairly apathetic about anything
going on in the gay community,let alone crimes perpetrated against gay individuals.

(39:31):
And then we also have two menwho severely disassociate, I guess from the
broader general population for not just theirmarginalization, but they're perceived psychopathy. So
my question here is like, ahow do people like this find each other?
And you know, we talked inthe pre interview about who was the

(39:52):
dom or, who was leading thesecrimes, who was in the position of
power, and so I would loveto attack that a little bit. And
then also, did these two mencome together, in your opinion, as
fully formed criminals or did they feedoff of and escalate from one another.
It would be highly unlikely for twopeople to come together and ignite spontaneously in

(40:20):
this way unless they both had avery significant previous history. In fact,
I think that that significant previous historyis the accelerant that brought them together.
Most people understand the boundaries, thesort of dilating and constricting boundaries of sexual

(40:47):
fantasy, and I believe me.I was there on AOL chat days,
right. I mean, that waslike sort of just this explosion of people
connecting online in a way that wasuser friendly. Yeah, there were message
boards for years before that, butAOL opened up this new opportunity for people

(41:07):
to start chatting back and forth.And of course it's developed now into entire
websites and fet life and all sortsof kink sites where people can connect.
But generally speaking, there's an understanding, there's an understanding of that boundary between
reality and fantasy, and when someonepushes, most people will immediately because their

(41:29):
brains are functioning and they've got executivefunction going on in the frontal lobes,
will go, yeah, this istoo much. A great example of this
is in the case of the cannibalcop in New York. So when they
were reviewing many of his chats withpeople that he met on message boards that
he was allegedly trying to entice intoyou murdering these women and cannibalizing them one

(41:53):
after the other. People would belike, you're joking, right, I
mean, they would go along toa certain an extent to when he would
lay out, I've got the cabin, I've got the spit, I've got
the rope, I've got you know, he'sa laying out all the accouterments.
He's laying out the the location,the plan, And that's where it gets

(42:15):
to be too real for people,so they separate away. In this particular
case, you have two individuals wherenobody put the brakes on. Ever,
right, there's no questioning to me, that's an indicator that both of them
had a history. They were primed, they were ready to go, and

(42:35):
they just happened. And thankfully it'sa rare occurrence that this doesn't happen more
that people come together in this levelof psychopathy. So would you say,
do you think it's not only worthlooking into, but probable that they had
prior serious acts of violence? Iwould without Okay, you know, I

(43:00):
want to be so careful about somethingthat's still active, you know, and
it's probably going to be active foryears as their appeals and investigations of this.
I have no doubt that individuals whofit this profile, that fit this
behavioral drift, that fit these seriesof alleged events, would absolutely have had

(43:24):
histories of violence that they practiced orthat they carried out in certain amounts.
I just wouldn't doubt that at all. Yeah, I mean that's what I've
thought all along, particularly in thecase of Lorenzo. I think you know,
the one reported violent crime we havewith Schweikert prior to all this is

(43:45):
quite violent. He's got handcuffs anda gun and he lures a man to
his apartment. So right, andthat's a perfect example right there, Josh,
is that that was not a spontaneous, opportunistic event. That was that
was laying not necessarily lying in waitfor a walk by victim, but it

(44:06):
was everything lined up. All Ihave to do is get this person to
walk into my web and then it'sgoing to snapshot on them. Right.
That takes planning, And that kindof planning means, you know, it's
the things that we take for grantedabout this, the powers of executive functioning
that says, oh okay, Igot to get up at five am tomorrow,

(44:27):
let me set the coffee pot.Right, Well, that's what these
things are really in focus for thesepeople. They've been thinking about it a
lot, they've been making these plansfor years, and they probably have been
stimulating themselves in the way any waythey can exposing. I mean, this
was a time where they didn't havenecessarily tons of access to the dark web,

(44:49):
which now it's just off the hookwhat people can access if they want
to, right, So they hadto find other ways of connecting with people
within this community. I don't thinkthat it was immediately available to give a
bigger context of healthy sexuality, I'mgetting off here, but my point being

(45:09):
is that I think that they werealready primed and ready to go when they
just happened to connect. And what'sinteresting to me is why would you be
actively seeking another domb to engage inthese activities with unless you were, on
some level conscious or unconscious, seekingtacit permission from that individual. So maybe

(45:37):
they had engaged in violent crimes before, but it hadn't been to this extent.
But now they've met together. Thefirewood is there, somebody's poured gasoline
on it. Now they've thrown amatch, and no one's pumping the brakes
on the fantasy and how they're goingto express it. So it just goes
immediately into planning, and now thatthey've given each other permission, they start

(45:59):
elaborate and building on it with theuse of drugs, and this is how
you do it. This is howyou counter for body weight, this is
how you dose it. You coulddo it this way, this way.
Like now that they've given each otherpermission to do these things, there is
no holding them back. I don'tknow that this matters, but I'm curious

(46:22):
about it, and it might justbe in response to watching too many bad
TV shows. But in the chatsthey talk a lot about targeting other doms.
Lorenzo independent from Schweikert, but alsoin his chats with Schweikert, there
was a dom from Atlanta they wantedto lure out and make disappear or whatever

(46:44):
terminology they used. Do you thinkI guess in the case of Lorenzo,
like Schweikert was possibly not a patsy, but like there was a game in
it for him of like working withthis guy and then eventually dominating him.
Like I just find it so suspectthat like Lorenzo in particular had such a

(47:05):
deep interest in targeting, kidnapping,torturing other doms. Psychologically, what do
you think is behind that? Ilike, why would he be targeting other
doms? Is it? Because withkeys, Like I look a lot at
his crimes through the lens of likehis hatred for himself. A lot of
the men we believe are potential victimslook like keys or exhibited traits of keys,

(47:30):
right, and so it seemed likehe was targeting or targeting these men
as a proxy for his self loathing. Well, I always want to be
Okay, I think that's a reallyinteresting question and direction to go because remember
the dark triad and Dark tet tradhas as it's both of them have as

(47:53):
foundational elements this level of narcissism,right that I'm the I'm the big cahuna
here, I'm the big guy inthe room. I am the power,
I'm the dom Right. So Ikind of want to divorce that whole paradigm
from the expression of sexuality, becauseagain I don't think they really had anything

(48:14):
to do with sexuality, but Ido think that along with the desire to
maintain this image of power, thatfor him in particular, he wanted to
take down people that represented power,and why did they represent power to him?

(48:35):
Because he was threatened by them forsome reason. So this dominan Atlanta,
did he laugh at him one timeat a bar? You know,
was he wearing his harness wrong orhis codpiece wasn't snapped properly. I mean
they're very specific about al dress,right, So you know he could have
or he could have dissed him,or they could have you know, fought
over something, or maybe they lookedat each other the wrong way. But

(48:57):
so there's some sort of perceived aggression, perceive enmity, at least on Lorenzo's
part. Right, So, afterall of this explanation about these legs of
the triad and the tetrad and narcissismbeing biologically based, even though narcissism does
have a strong biological basis to it, it's also inherent that that person that

(49:22):
narcissist has a very shriveled and distortedview of self. You know, they
see themselves as less than but theyare so terrified of that notion of being
less than then that there are layersand layers and layers of false persona and
bravado and anger and resentment and irritability, that act as the armor around that

(49:46):
truncated or void of a sense ofself. Right, So how are you
going to maintain your sense of power? You start thinking about who you could
take out. I wouldn't be surprisedif Lorenzo, feeling that he is probably
the dom in the relationship between himand Schwiker, that Schweiker wouldn't eventually have
become a victim himself. That's beenmy theory. It also just like it

(50:10):
almost seems inevitable, doesn't it.Yeah, And it also kind of recontextualizes
the trial portion of all this becausethe two of them turn on each other
very quickly, I would agree.And what I find fascinating is like Lorenzo
will put all the blame on Schweikert, but with the caveat that he just

(50:34):
didn't know what he was doing.So it's like he has to maintain his
power and his control but shift theblame. And I find it a very
fascinating way of doing that, oflike, oh, no, I was
in control. I didn't kill thesemen. Schweikert did, and he only
killed them because he was an idiot, But I was still in control.
Yeah, right, it's blame,distract, push off of any sense of

(51:00):
responsibility, and yet I am stillthe smartest person in the room. I'm
still the one who's in control.Because those things don't add up, right,
They just don't add up for itto be that way. But that
is what the expression of narcissism willdo. And what doctor Scott said here
really struck me, particularly in termsof gay culture and its role in their

(51:22):
possible victimology. To quote doctor Scott, he wanted to take down people that
represented power and why did they representpower to him? Because he was threatened
by them for some reason. Eventhough narcissism does have a strong biological basis
to it, it's also inherent thatthat person that narcissist has a very shriveled

(51:46):
and distorted view of self. Theysee themselves as less than, but they
are so terrified of that notion ofbeing less than that they are layers and
layers and layers of false persona andbravado and anger and resentment and irritability.

(52:07):
So how do you maintain your senseof power? You start thinking about who
you can take out. In Lorenzo'sAOL chats, both with Schweikert and others,
he discusses his loathing of twinks andhis interest in targeting white collar or
professional straight men or straight acting men. And while he says in those chats

(52:30):
that he avoids twinks, he doesn'tgo to bars where twinks hang out,
his known victimology would indicate otherwise forthose unaware. Twink is a term used
in the gay community to describe ayounger, usually attractive, thin, or
smaller framed gay man who is oftenany combination of effeminine, a bottom,

(52:55):
or superficial. And while beauty standsare always changing and evolving, in the
early aughts, twinks were often consideredthe beauty standard within the gay community.
Young, thin, hot, andfrom an outside perspective on which I could

(53:16):
be considerably wrong, I would describeboth gae House and Waclets based on their
photos, as having twink qualities.And I need to be clear, while
twink can have bad connotations, Idon't consider it pejorative, possibly because I
myself was often considered or outright calleda twink in the early aughts, but

(53:40):
generally it was just a category,and gay men tend to have an affinity
for categorizing one another. There arewolves, otters, bears, daddies,
twinks, and We could spend daysgetting into identity politics within the gay community,
but I digress. Second to that, gay culture has always had an

(54:04):
unhealthy obsession with masculinity, particularly backthen, something very clearly born of widespread
homophobia. To be effeminate was tobe gay, and to be gay was
bad. The more straight presenting youwere in public, the safer you were,
the gayer you appeared to be,the more taunting, violence and harassment

(54:30):
you were likely to encounter. It'sone of many ways that straight culture and
homophobia injected a decades long toxicity withinthe gay community. So it would make
sense for Lorenzo and Schweikert to targettwinks, younger guys with more social capital,

(54:50):
and professional straight men or straight actingmen, men considered more socially dominant
or important than them, based ontheir own narcissism and desire to take out
those with power. Speaking of thetrial, you know, I know very
little about sovereign citizen defenses, soI want to tackle that if you know

(55:15):
more about that than I do,which is inevitable. But also the whole
trial to me just seemed like acharade for him to taunt his victims one
last time. Yeah, I meanthat's any Any stage is better than no
stage at all. Right, Sohe no longer has the stage of his

(55:37):
you know, leather appointed apartment andtorture dungeon. He doesn't have that.
So where can he retain that sortof distorted view of power in the room
by expressing something like that, BecauseI like I you know, I've listened
to thirty six hours of keys justbeing an absolute piece of shit, But

(56:00):
nothing has made me more irate thanlistening to Steven Lorenzo Cross examine his assault
victims. Yeah, that's not agood that's not a good look on the
legal system there. Yeah, it'sjust not it's not for the time,
it's not. I mean, itshowed that I just the idea that that

(56:22):
was allowed to happen when so manypeople, so many judges now are just
not tolerating this sovereign citizen movement.Just for your listeners, like a quick,
down and dirty definition is there areindividuals within the US. I've never
heard of a sovereign citizen in othercountries, but we have it, particularly

(56:45):
here in our United States. Westernculture of like glowing golden individualism, which
is sort of one of the hallmarksof sort of of Western American culture,
I guess, but it's this ideathat our current government is invalid and has

(57:05):
been invalid for two hundred years,and that only certain elements of our government
that were established during the settlement andthe writing of the Constitution, only certain
elements of those actually exist. Sosovereign citizens do not feel that they have
to obey laws because the laws don'tapply to them. They do not respect

(57:30):
law enforcement. They have a littlebit of law enforcement, respect for sheriff's
departments because sheriffs are a more archaicterm that was carried over from Britain when
America was settled. They completely questionedthe concept of taxation. It's kind of

(57:51):
crazy. I had a sovereign citizenwhen I was a talent manager a gazillion
years ago. I had a clientwho was a female sovereign citizen and she
started to went really well in hercareer and I was talking, you know,
she goes taxes. I don't haveto pay taxes. Just like,
what do you mean You're you're gonnabe in so much trouble And she's like,
oh, no, no, nono. I had this guy explained

(58:13):
it all to me. I don'thave to pay taxes. I'm a sovereign
citizen. Okay, that's going tokick you in the ass one of these
days. So you know, ifyou want to get on a late night
doom scroll, just go on reelsor TikTok and put in sovereign citizen and
law enforcement encounters and it will justblow your mind. So I'm not surprised

(58:35):
that Lorenzo fits that that particular makeup. Someone who is so self absorbed and
so egocentric that the world doesn't reallyapply to him. The rules of the
world, the rules of community,the rules of interpersonal engagement, don't apply
to him past the extent of doingwhat he needs to do in order to

(58:58):
just move through data day life.Based on my conversations with doctor Scott and
Albert Perkins and our overall investigation andresearch, it seems probable that Lorenzo killed
prior to the murders of Jason Galehouseand Michael Walchole's, and it seems likely

(59:22):
that Schweikert could have as well.So the questions we have to ask are
who, when, and where.Fortunately, Stephen Lorenzo and Scott Schweikert left
behind a lot of evidence and alot of clues, evidence and clues that

(59:44):
could help us determine a pretty clearvictimology and mo for both men. We
know from their AOL chats and knownvictims that they were targeting tall gay men
in their late twenties and very earlythirties with dark features who hung out in
the gay bar and gay club scenes. And from those same chats, we

(01:00:05):
know that both Lorenzo and Schweikert hadan interest in targeting straight men and straight
acting men, specifically those considered professionalsor white collar. We also know through
their chats and eyewitness testimony that inlieu of more desirable victims, they would
target runaways and hustlers, low riskvictims, and the methodology to this victimology

(01:00:32):
is that all three victim types weresafe. As we've discussed at length now,
missing and assaulted gay men weren't ofgreat interest to Tampa Pedee at the
time, gay hustlers and runaways evenless so, and missing straight men or
closeted men likely wouldn't be connected toanyone in the gay community. We also

(01:00:59):
know through evidence seized from Lorenzo's housethat he had an interest in gay men
who had gone missing in Georgia.Specifically, he had collected and saved articles
and photos of specific missing gay menin Georgia, a state that Schweikert lived
in and Lorenzo frequented. And then, of course there's the unsolved disappearances of

(01:01:23):
gay men in Florida during Lorenzo's timethere, James Shoemaker, Bradley Lee Williams,
Mark Allen Thompson, David George Rhoades, William Joseph Davis, Barry,
Alan Block, and Mark Douglas Jackson. And finally, and much more dauntingly,
all the missing gay men and allthe other places Lorenzo and Schweikert lived

(01:01:47):
Philadelphia, Albany, New York,Athens, Georgia, Chicago, Charleston,
South Carolina, Long Island, Bloomington, Illinois, Peru, Illinois, possibly
even Cincinnati, Ohio, and WalkerShot, Wisconsin. It's overwhelming how many
unsolved disappearances of gay men there areacross the United States. I have a

(01:02:13):
very obtuse question, so sorry inadvance, but I think your response will
be relevant, and it's something Ithink, like we've talked about. I
guess between the lines, but youknow it's come. The further I investigate
this, the more clear it becomesthat it was an open secret within the
Tampa gay community that Stephen Lorenzo foryears was drugging and assaulting men. Some

(01:02:37):
of them went to law enforcement,some of them did not, but it
was well known. How did heget away with it for so long?
I think that's a really great question. Again, I want to talk about,

(01:02:59):
or I guess I want to Iwant to express, is the power
of Zeitgeist, the spirit of thetime, really held major dominance over that
particular phenomenon being able to continue theway it did. It's very interesting.
There's a really famous story about aguy in a small western town. This

(01:03:21):
is recently, This is I thinkback in the seventies, and this guy
was a terror. He was anabsolute terror. He was assaulting people,
he was destroying property, he hadthreatened people, he had put people in
the hospital, and nobody could doanything to stop him. He was unstoppable.
And somebody in the town killed himin the middle of the one lane

(01:03:44):
street, in the middle of acrowd, and nobody said anything. Nobody
saw anything. You know, everybodythat was there on main street that day
was interviewed and nobody saw anything.They had to take justice into their own
hands, or they felt that theydid right. But it isn't interesting that
there was this solidarity of community amongstthose townspeople that said, nobody's helping us

(01:04:09):
take care of this, We haveto do it on our own, and
they tacitly gave themselves permission to dothat. Was it the right thing to
do? I don't know. Itkind of sounds like it was the right
thing to do. Was it legal? No, it was not legal at
all. So if we draw aparallel between that and what was going on
in that Florida community at that time, for one thing, Florida has always

(01:04:30):
been oppressive. I mean, Floridahas always been around, you know,
behind the curve on issues like that. And as much as I joked about
it earlier with Anita Bryant, AnitaBryant was upheld as a hero for decades,
you know, after she maligned thegay community and said absolutely crazy,

(01:04:51):
horrific things about gay men about recruiting, you know, which now that back
then it was recruiting. Now it'scalled groom, right. I think that
what happened was that nobody knew whatto do because there was this inherent sense

(01:05:12):
of shame. Yes, I'm gettingbeaten up. But if they go back
and they tell the story, didanybody really tell their friends? Not?
Was that only was I beaten up? I was held for fifteen hours,
and I was tied up, andI was tortured, and I was this,
and I was that. There aretwo things that occurred to me.
One is that people felt powerless becauseof their experience. The law enforcement did

(01:05:35):
not reflect back to him them thatthey were worthy of safety, that they
were worthy of protection, and thatthis was even worth pursuing. So what
do you do against that? Unlessyou can gather everyone up and get militant
and go take care of the situationyourself, you're kind of powerless, right

(01:05:58):
That coupled with this intense shame ofI'm marginalized. This is supposed to be
my safe place. I can goto these five bars. This is our
gay area, this is boys town. This is how we protect ourselves,
and yet nobody's willing to stand upto him to take at the next level.
I would guarantee you this, iffour or five had come forward and

(01:06:23):
confronted him, he would have lefttown immediately. That's that's more my personal
opinion as a gay man myself wholived through those times. If, like,
if somebody had confronted a beast likethat, he would have realized,
oh, they're on to me likethis, this is too many people against
me. I gotta go. Butnobody ever pushed back. Right. But

(01:06:45):
we do it because there's a partof our brains as humans that is designed
for unbelievable resiliency. And that isa wonderful superpower to have here in the
biosphere of Earth. Right, wehave that higher brain functioning. We have
the ability to ultra compartmentalize trauma sothat sometimes if it's just too difficult to

(01:07:13):
think about, we just won't thinkabout it. Right. I think likely
that many people had complained. Butwhen there is no response to it,
what do you do with that?You feel powerless? Right, So you
compartmentalize it and you decide, well, I'm not going to go to that
bar, or I'm not going tosee him, or I'm not going to

(01:07:34):
pay attention to him, or maybeand who knows, It would be interesting
to find out if anybody ever walkedover to someone and said, do not
go home with that guy. Imean, I've been in bar. I
remember living in Chicago and there werea couple of guys like that, where
the minute they walked in, youknow, one of the bartenders would say,
get the fuck out of here.Don't ever come in this bar again.

(01:07:57):
But Chicago was a huge city inthe eighties nineties with a thriving gay
community that protected themselves right and protectedeach other. Florida, I think,
as a reflection of the spirit ofthe times, just didn't have that ability.
I also think of just like,I don't know why this is coming
to me, but I keep thinkingabout Hurricane Katrina and Kanye West. He

(01:08:21):
was on CNN and he just said, point blank George Bush doesn't care about
black people, and people were upin arms, and they were more up
in arms not about the content ofwhat he had to say, but that
he said the quiet part out loud. Yeah, And I feel like that
also has a large impact on whatwas happening here, which is like,

(01:08:47):
Florida doesn't care about gay people,so why waste my energy trying to do
something about this. Yeah. Imean, you look at the time,
this interesting, like for all ofthe creative madness of Kanye West, that
was actually you know, not onlywas he saying the quiet part out loud,

(01:09:10):
he was actually showing something saying somethingvery insightful. Yeah. Right,
that's not necessarily just reflective of Bush, but reflective of American culture at large.
Right, And there's a version ofthat that that is reflected in really
the way the gay community has beentreated for years. And there's so many

(01:09:39):
there's so many discussions that can behad about what's been going on in the
last twenty years. But you know, I am of a certain age where
I came to age at the beginningof the HIV epidemic, and at first
in my college community, it wasn'treal. In Birmingham, Alabama. I

(01:09:59):
had got warned by a doctor.I had gotten warned by a doctor like,
Hey, there's this disease. Millionsof people are going to die.
We don't know what it is.There is no cure. All we know
is people who wear condoms tend tonot come up infected. And nobody at

(01:10:23):
my college campus would believe me.Like when I came back, I was
like, you guys, you guys, and they were like, Oh,
that doesn't going to happen here.You know, that's New York, that's
San Francisco, maybe Atlanta. That'snot going to happen here. So that
was my first taste of denial withinthe gay community. Right, But that
denial is part and parcel of beingpart of a marginalized community. Right.

(01:10:45):
You just don't have room for it, right, If you can't conceptualize it,
you just tuck it away. Andeven with the political movement of Stonewall
and all the things that were donein the large metropolitan areas, you know,
more rural areas and isolated areas andmore conservative or red states, they
were just really stuck and continue tobe stuck in sort of these self repeating

(01:11:11):
patterns. But the period of HIVand the AIDS epidemic was just out of
control because the world turned on us. The world turned on us in ways
that younger generations don't remember at all. And for those of us that were
delivering food for Project Angel food outhere and you know, hanging out with
our dying friends at La County Hospitalwhere some nurses wouldn't go into the room,

(01:11:35):
and some doctors wouldn't go into theroom, and some orderlies wouldn't go
into the room. And here wewere sitting there holding hands, hoping that
we wouldn't be next. Right,that is a collective trauma that hit the
gay community and lasted until this day, even in younger generations that aren't aware

(01:11:56):
of what happened. And in thisparticular or series that you are investigating and
illuminating right now, there's a bigpiece of that. You know, an
individual going in to report being sexuallyassaulted, I would not be surprised if

(01:12:16):
one of the first things that theofficer say is like, you have aids.
Right, that was just part ofthat's the part of the way we
were treated at that time. SoI can I can understand how powerless people
felt and how that their voices weresilenced, and you know, I can
create this amount of safety and thisis this is what I'm going to be.

(01:12:40):
I'm going to be in this littlejar right here. And yeah,
I mean, unfortunately, that's that'swhat happened. Like you know, it's
almost like that old trope of abusiverelationships and heteronormative couples is like, well,
why didn't she just leave? Well, they were saying that to people
in Florida when those things were happened. They were saying that in other areas

(01:13:02):
of the country when it got dangerous, why don't you just leave? It's
like, what do you mean,Like, my life is here. It's
easier to quiet someone than to acknowledgethe damage that's been done to them,
the damage you may have played apart in. If you just leave,
we don't have to acknowledge the damagehomophobia has done to you. We don't

(01:13:24):
have to acknowledge your homosexuality exists atall. Don't she know you queen?
Oh yeah, my Fia know.Quiet you see do show me no family

(01:14:39):
said you're the session, don't you? I queen clean it wrapped in golden

(01:15:25):
don't choo. Money has kind son, she Cayse said for the last to
break and harness and to Sami's forthe session.