FBI PROFILER DISCUSSES THE RECENT ELIZA FLETCHER KIDNAPPING

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Episode Transcript

(00:06):
Welcome to Inside the Criminal Mind podcast, where we analyze some of the most
notorious criminal cases with psychology and criminologycombined. Hey, welcome back everybody.
Well, today we have my buddyand fran and co host Andrew Bringle from

(00:26):
FBI Profiler, and he's going toanalyze for us today that tragic case of
the Eliza Fletcher murder. We're goingto learn more about that, what his
thoughts are before we get started.You know what to do, share,
subscribe, hit that I like butyou don't like it, and it's Welcome
back, Andy, Welcome back,Andy, Hey Carless, how are you
today? Good? And this isprobably one of the few times we get

(00:49):
into a case that really just hasn'teven gone anywhere yet. We just got
the guy who rested a couple ofdays ago. Yeah, but I know
you wanted to look into this casea little bit more and share your thoughts
on it so well, you know, run away with it. Yeah,
you know, I thought it wasinteresting only in the sense that you know,
it got a lot of national newsvery quickly because of the circumstances.

(01:12):
I also got several inquiries from mediaand so as we go forward in this
particular podcast. I gotta be verycareful because of my current occupation in terms
of what I say. I wantto make it very clear that the we're
analyzing the processes of these types ofcrimes in more global or more general terms

(01:36):
than assuming or making any kind ofpresumptions of guilt or innocence of this particular
subject. While saying that there isa subject incarcerated on this charge, and
to that extent, there's some historythat's been provided an open source, well,
we're not putting any at least I'mnot putting any value in terms of

(02:00):
of of guilt or innocence. Igot to be very clear about that,
because this subject is presumed innocent untilhe has his day in court. I
think this case is very interesting becauseof the fear that these types of crimes
in gender in the general population.You know, the idea that you could

(02:23):
be jogging your normal morning routine.This this woman, Eliza Fletcher, who's
the victim. This poor woman's amother of two. She is a teacher,
I think a kindergarten teacher. She'shappily married by all accounts, open

(02:43):
source relative. She's a relative,I think a granddaughter of some hardware modul
so that that makes it significant inthe sense that you know, she's a
wealthy woman or a woman of means, and she's But here's the bigger thing.
The bigger thing is regardless of color. Because I was watching one of
the newscasts and it was a blackgentleman who was in his fifties saying he's

(03:06):
an avid runner and he runs thesame route. And the idea that you
could be out exercising and running atfour o'clock in the morning, and you
know, let's for early, isa lot earlier than I get up.
But the fact that you're in yourneighborhood running and some guy will stop an
suv and force you in the passengerside, overpowering you, and then taking

(03:28):
you someplace to kill you, tomurder you is fearful to many people.
To me, the idea that youcould be randomly selected by a criminal.
And what we know from this pointis that the cameras have caught a male
who was driving an suv, gotout of the suv aggressively abducted this woman,

(03:53):
and then later this lady, ElizaFletcher, was found murdered, apparently
in a field behind an abandoned home, and the evidence shows that her jogging
chorts had been removed and put intoa plastic garbage bag. So that's what
we we know from the police andthe DA's office. Que. The bigger

(04:20):
question is regarding the investigation itself,and I think that's pretty interesting because I
was asked to look at this,you know, from a quote unquote profiling
perspective. Before I get into anyof that, I think it's interesting to
show the progression of the police,uh, in this particular case, and

(04:41):
it included both the local police andfederal police. I think it was US
marshals that made the arrest, right, yes, sir, and but this
particular too, I'm sorry they madethose rests outside it was a permanent He
reportedly tried to flee, yeah,and they got him as he was trying
to flee. But what's interesting,you know, besides the fact that the

(05:03):
victim is, you know, againa young white woman in her thirties jogging
at four o'clock in the morning whohappened to be related to a wealthy man,
what's really interesting is it in thestruggle. And this goes back to,
you know, my early investigative experiencein my training is that crime scenes
are critically important because you don't knowwhat you're gonna find, and that's why

(05:27):
contaminating the crime scene is such asuch a bad thing because you could contaminate
or lose evidence. In this particularcase, the CCTV camera showed where the
struggle took place in the adduction.During the abduction this individual, the subject
lost a shoe and that shoe revealedDNA. And so these advancements and forensic

(05:53):
technologies helped police tremendously and identifying veryquickly the potential subject, and in this
particular place case, it led toan individual who had a previous record of
criminal violence. The DNA that wasfound on this sandal led them to a
subject. Witnesses then said that thatparticular subject was seen with an SUV that's

(06:17):
similar to the suv found on thevideo, cleaning the passenger side with chemicals
and acting quote unquote strangely. Thepolice then found tire tracks of a vehicle
similar to the SUV in this fieldbehind an abandoned home, and that's where

(06:38):
they found a foul odor that ledthem to the body of miss Fletcher.
And that basically is the progression ofthe evidence. I just take a minute
here to you know, give accoladesto the investigators who are very quick.
You know, you've heard of thetheory that you want to find the portrayed

(07:00):
of a murder within forty eight hours, and it was roughly about that where
they were able to find the evidencethat brought them to this particular case.
This case does remind me a littlebit of a case I was involved in
as an FBI agent and early inmy career nineteen ninety one. So I'll
set the scene in September nineteen ninetyone, about a week before my first

(07:26):
daughter was born, there was ayoung lady. Her name was Carrie Lawson,
and Kerry Lawson was kidnapped by aguy named Jerry Bland. Jerry Bland
was a local, he knew thearea, he case there. He in
fact, he targeted Kerry Lawson forthat particular kidnapping. He was a coal

(07:49):
miner and he knew that Kerrie Lawsonwas married to Greg Lawson, who was
a recent law school grad. Infact, Kerry Lawson also was a recent
law school grad at University of Alabama, and she never knew this in her
life, but she had actually passedthe bar. The notice of that had
come to the home after she hadbeen abducted. So in the middle of

(08:13):
the night, Jerry Bland makes apretense phone call to the home of Greg
and Carry Lawson, telling them thatGreg's parent was in a car wreck and
was in the hospital. So predictably, they went to the garage to go
to the hospital, and that's wherehe had a gun held on Greg while
he abducted the wife. And thereason I'm bringing this up for a couple

(08:35):
of reasons. Actually, Jerry Blandkidnapped Carry Lawson, who was a wealthy
woman, for the purposes of aneconomic motive or ransom. The purposes of
a ransom. Now, going backto what you and I have talked about
in other cases, we start with, you know, in terms of quote
unquote profile, and we look atwhat the motive can be. Why did

(08:56):
this individual commit this crime? Andagain, where this particular case in Memphis,
Tennessee stirs the fears, these primalfears of being a prey to a
predator, we want to know why. We want to know that question.
So we've talked about it. It'sPAPS is the acronym which stands for personal,

(09:18):
economic, power, political and socialAnd if we look at the Bland
case, it was purely economics,right. He kidnapped Carrie Laws, and
he held her for ransom, andthen the family ended up paying the ransom,
becase the FBI doesn't pay ransom,but we'll deliver the ransom in the
hopes of returning both the ransom andthe victim. And that's what happened in

(09:39):
the Carry Laws In case. Butas I can show, and we could
do a whole podcast on the historyof kidnappings in the United States that go
back, you know, well beforethe Lindburg kidnapping actually goes The first kidnappings
in the United States history were whitesettlers, where the families were killed and
the daughters were abducted by Indian tribesand the women were then integrated into the

(10:03):
Indian tribes. In fact, onefamous case involved a woman in Texas who
was abducted by Comanches and she becamethe wife of the chief, and then
she had several kids who then becamechiefs of that same Comanche tribe. But
of course the Lindbergh kidnapping is theone we're most famous with, and the

(10:24):
Carry Lost In case shares this factsimilarly with the Lindburg case. In both
cases, the victim were murdered,and it's very difficult even when there's a
ransom paid that the perpetrator is goingto release the victim. And that's what
happened in the Carry lost In case. The FBI delivered the ransom. I
was part of that team. Weconducted a surveillance, we lost the subject

(10:48):
for a short while. I won'tgo into great details. Maybe future we
can do a podcast on that case. It was fairly interesting for the things
that were done right and the thingsthat might have been done better, and
that particular the case, Jerry Blandwas identified as the subject and unfortunately he
committed suicide before we could identify whereCarry Lawson's body had been buried. But

(11:13):
there was also an accomplice in thatinvestigation, and that's very similar in a
lot of these cases where it involvesa traditional kidnapping, where the perpetrator has
somebody that helps them. You know, there's an accomplice if you will,
And I'll bring that back to whatwe're talking about today with the Fletcher case
in just a moment. And inthe Carrie laws In case, there was

(11:35):
a cousin of Jerry Bland who eventuallythen became a government witness. She confessed
to the kidnapping slash murder of CarrieLawson. Unfortunately, Sherry McPherson is the
woman. She couldn't tell us wherethe body was buried, and she's now
in jail life without parole. AndJerry Bland, as I mentioned, killed

(11:56):
himself before he could reveal where he'sput carry lost in his body. So
this September, actually September thirtieth oftwenty twenty two, marks the thirty first
anniversary of the Carrie loss and murder. And I know that date very well
because it was also the date ofthe first child born in my my family,

(12:22):
my daughter Hannah. That investigation,I had been an agent for about
a year, and that that hitme hard. That investigation and and the
results of it. That wasn't whatwe were looking for. So let me
go back to this particular case withthe Fletcher. So if we're and this

(12:43):
is this is the speculation, ifwe're looking at an economic incentive, there
there should have been some attempt toreach the family for a ransom demand.
The goal of an economic incentivized kidnappingis to keep the victim alone long enough
to make a ransom demand that didn'thappen in this case. Uh, there

(13:05):
was no evidence that Carrie Lawson waswas sexually assaulted. There was no history
of Jerry Bland being a sexual predator. And so again we're not judging innocent
or guilt. We're looking at opensource information and the individual whose DNA matched
the sandal that was found at thesite. Go ahead. I know people

(13:30):
are going to be saying, waita minute, you said her running shorts
were found apart from her body.They're going to probably suspect they might have
been some kind of sexual assault there. Yeah, I was I was going
to go there that so yeah,and again speculation, but this is from
open source that the victim, missFletcher, Elisa Fletcher's body was found separate

(13:56):
from her running shorts that were foundin a garbage back. Speculation then,
and there's no evidence to suggest thisat this point, So we want to
be careful the way we talk aboutthis, but the assumption is that she
may have been sexually assaulted. Thesubject that they're looking at has a history
of sexual assault. There was arate case at the age of fourteen where

(14:24):
the subject assaulted a mail and wasconvicted of that crime. In fact,
he was in juvenile detention and released, and two weeks later this subject abducted,
kidnapped, if you will, alawyer, and that lawyer was kidnapped

(14:48):
for the purposes of economic extortion.This individual was fourteen at the time.
He was a member of a localgang called LMG. He was two weeks
released from jail when he abducted anindividual by the name of let me find

(15:09):
his name real quick Durand the lawyerhe an accomplice. Remember I mentioned the
accomplice earlier, So then in thisparticular case, there was an accomplice in
the kidnapping or abduction for the purposesof extorting money from mister Durand, who
was put in his trunk and thendriven to an ATM. Mister Duran later
stated that he could hear conversation ofthe subject and his accomplice where the accomplice

(15:35):
was basically begging the main subject torelease mister Duran, and mister Duran later
said that he was certain that hewas going to be murdered. So at
the point where they reached the ATM, mister Durand saw an armed security guard
called out to that individual telling themthat he had been abducted and the two

(15:58):
portrayed is Ran later found and convicted. The subject was given a twenty four
year sentence, of which he servedtwenty years. He was released in November
of twenty twenty. And so there'sanother side issue that we can talk about

(16:21):
in the moment, which is notjust recidivism, but whether or not subjects
should be out of jail before theirfull sentence. In this particular case,
the subject served eighty five percent ofhis sentence, which is a considerable amount.
Isn't that a pretty damn severe sentencethough? Nineteen years for twenty four

(16:42):
years twenty four for the kidnapping,that's pretty heavy. Must have been what
kind of kidnapping was it? You? Aggravated assault? He was charged with
a number of charges, but includingkidnapping, and received a twenty four year
sense, of which he served twodecades. Not to say, it's Jesseph,
maybe I've chained different today's small sentencein yeah, twenty four years,

(17:06):
I don't. I don't know ifi'd ever see that in today's war with
a kidnapping anymore. Yeah, Imean the individual, uh that was kidnapp
who's who has now passed? Thelawyer has passed. I assume from you
know, natural causes in old age. But he he actually was alive when
there was a parole hearing a coupleof years back, and he he testified,

(17:27):
you know, in his in hisvictim statement, that he thought that
he would be killed, He wouldhave been murdered, and lobbied for this
individual to remain in jail. Soin that particular, that particular case,
you know, was the long periodof time in jail prior to that,
this individual at age eleven was foundguilty of of several crimes including theft,

(17:56):
aggravated assault with a weapon, andrape at age eleven, if you had
conduct disorder at least. So whatwe have here, but what we have
an open source. Again, I'mgoing to reiterate this is open source for
this particular uh, this individual.And we're not assuming guilt in this particular
case, in the Fletcher case,but prior history and quote unquote raps sheet

(18:17):
at eleven, rape at fourteen,rape at fourteen, abduction for economic concenter.
So here we have a woman whouh got twenty four years right,
he has a guestory usually makes sense, but he was fourteen years old and
tried as an adult you wouldn't gettwenty four year sentence as juvenile, so

(18:38):
it's fourteen, wouldn't get anymore,that's for sure. Right. So now
what we have fast forward to thirtywhatever, the mid thirties, late thirties,
and we have a case where he'saccused of abduction and then charged with
a number of charges including kidnapping,aggravated assault. I don't know, let's

(19:07):
see if he's been I don't thinkhe's been charged yet with rape. But
again, this is a very fluidinvestigation. The question becomes whether or not
this individual is matters are bad?You know, yes, go ahead,
there's another one in here in theUK Independent. Again, like Andy was
saying, it is open source.But the court records reveal he's also a
member of the LMG le Moines Gardensgangster is a gang, and he spent

(19:30):
his years in and out of prison. Yeah, the LMG gang is a
local Memphis and he's been the subjectwas allegedly a member of that gang since
the age of fourteen. So yes, aside to the fact that he was
in jail for I don't even knowif the gang exists today. But back
in two thousand, year two thousand, he was a member of that local

(19:52):
and it was detained sixteen times incharges including rape, aggravated assault, and
unlawful possession within a five year span. Brothers also charged the possession of control
substance and attempt to manufacture and selffetanol and cell heroin and convicted fell into
possession. Not that his brother hasanything to do with this, obviously,
but just to attle bit more stories. Yeah, and I think what you

(20:15):
know again, I think the storyis bigger in the sense, bigger than
a particular incident or a particular individual. I think it goes beyond that in
terms of you know, my interests, in terms of human criminal behavior and
whether or not the individual is badversus mad. A lot of people look
at these heenous crimes and think thisperson must be mad, they must be

(20:37):
mentally ill, they must something mustbe off inside their brain. And the
reality is that many of these repeatoffenders, these maladaptive individuals, are just
simply bad people. They they makebad choices consciously intentionally. They are predators,

(20:57):
and they see a victim at aparticular time and routine activities. Theory
kicks in. They see a womanjogging in the middle of the night,
she appears to be you know,vulnerable and just like a lion in the
Sahari they see a gazelle and they'rehungry and they pounce on it and they

(21:18):
have no remorse, They have noguilt because they are in fact animalistic and
primal. So the question then becomes, when a person has been incarcerated number
of times on these types of charges, you know, is there a higher
rate of recidivism? That's one ofthe big questions that goes beyond the should

(21:44):
he have been there twenty four years? The argument, which is, you
know, on its face is kindof you know, if he was still
in jail serving that sentence, becausehe still have two years in his sentence,
Miss Fletcher, would be alive,Okay, ain't you that? But
in two years when he was released, would he then go find somebody to
kill and to be somebody else?And it appears that this individual is committed

(22:08):
to a life of crime with verylittle, you know, appearance of rehabilitation.
So in this particular case the subject, would he be likely to recilibate?
And I just want to mention someof the research in this area.

(22:30):
There is some research suggesting that juvenilecriminals who progress from nonviolent to violent crimes
are incarcerated at a higher rate,particularly sexual predatory offenses. But there was
a DOJ research study done in twothousand and three langen Schmidt and Deurose,

(22:52):
and they found that five percent ofthree and fifteen rapists in their study were
tested for a new sexual offense duringthe three year follow up period, only
only five percent of three thousand,one hundred and fifteen. Let me do
that math real quick. Five percentwould be fifteen sixty, one hundred and

(23:15):
fifteen. No, let's see isthat fight thousand? Yeah, three thousand,
yeahd be one hundred and fifty.Right, those are the ones at
least were caught, so one hundredfifty the ones caught. Eighteen point seven
percent were arrested for a violent crime. However, so it went from fifteen
percent eighteen percent. So it's fifteenpercent or five percent. No, no,

(23:36):
no, five percent of those inthe in the sample pool was thirty
one hundred people, only five percentrecidivised, about one hundred and fifty.
Yeah. But during that same threeyear period, eighteen almost twenty percent were
arrested for violent crimes over five sixhundred, or the thirty at least they
were caught. Right, So itmay not be so, it may not
be ready, it could be itcould be abduction for the purposes of economic

(24:02):
motivation, robbery. Right, howabout this? Forty six percent were arrested
for any crime. Almost half ofthe three thy one hundred were rearrested,
and that is the typical recidivism rate, which is about fifty five to sixty
percent. Right. Now, here'sanother interesting point of their study. Rapists
in the study were more than onewith more than one prior arrest were rearrested

(24:26):
at a rate of nearly double fortynine point six percent compared to twenty eight
point three percent. So if youhad previously been a rapist and had one
prior arrest, at least you wererearrested at nearly double rate. This particular
suspect fits that particular criteria. Solet me say that in a different way.

(24:48):
One of the most important findings inthe langen Schmidt and DeRose study of
two thousand and three that emerged fromthe study was that about half of the
rapists with more than one prior arraus were rearrested within three years of their
release, a rearrest rate of nearlyfifty percent. He was released two years
ago. That's the other thing too, And with those stats right, it

(25:12):
could be two years, the cutoffcould be three, the cutoff could be
four. And the longer you go, the higher that recidivism rank goes,
and the older the individualism recidivism rankgoes even higher if they've been in and
out of jail most of their life, which she has. That's what I
know you've heard the theory. Moffatt'stheory is so he's a life course persistent
offender. According to her, aperson is really difficult to rehabilitate. And

(25:34):
the question is at what point diddid society lose this individual or the opportunity
to rehabilitate that, and and andwhere is the where are the areas that
can be improved? I mean thatto me is the real interest is was
there failures in the juvenile system inthe past where we simply house these individuals

(25:56):
and they didn't get the proper treatmentsthey need. NCIICE, the National Crime
Information Center, is interesting as itrelates to abductions and kidnappings because it doesn't
really separately categorize kidnappings. There's areason for that because the numbers are astounding.
Of what I found, seventy thousandmissing people over the age of twenty

(26:19):
one in the year twenty twenty one, one year twenty twenty one. This
is typical, right, seventy thousandmissing people over the age of twenty twenty
one. Many of those people wantto go missing on their own, They
just disappear, and there's a missingperson report. About two hundred thousand cases
of domestic kidnappings. These are individualsless than twenty one years old where a

(26:42):
parent kidnaps them in violation of acustody agreement. So two hundred thousand cases
a year, of which one thousand, one hundred are international cases. That's
a status. Yeah, your parents, right, and that's twenty ten under.
The most prevalent kidnappings abductions under agetwenty one are relatives, okay,

(27:07):
parents or grandparents are so forth,there's only about one hundred to three hundred
people under the age of twenty onethat are abducted by strangers per year.
And focus on that's right, becausethat's right, and that's the case.
That's the point. I want tofocus on our irrational fear that we could

(27:29):
be one of the one hundred ayear, and here's most of those one
hundred to three hundred are young womenthat go to a bar and go off
with, you know, some guythey just met, or they meet somebody
online. They don't know them.These stranger interactions are a happenstance, and
they deal with predators who look foropportunities the routine activities theory, and they

(27:51):
see an opportunity to commit these actsof violence, rape and a murder.
If I can just add one morething to their routine activity series, I
completely agree. Actually just told classthat and the other two compunts as a
motivated offender, which obviously he was. And then the four of the absence
of guardianship. If she's running inthe woods, and this is not blaming
her, folks, but she's runningin the woods, the perpetrator is going
to look at that and say,there's no cameras around, unless you didn't

(28:14):
think so, there's no police around, has no security. It means you
have that absence came on for thoseindividuals, and listen again, and it's
really critically important. We are certainlynot blaming miss Fletcher for wanting to run
in her neighborhood at four o'clock inthe morning. It's probably peaceful, it's
quiet, she's got her whole dayin front of her. There's a million

(28:36):
reasons to do that. But ifit's even as an FBI didn't carrying a
weapon when I was in places likeNew Orleans or Atlanta. I didn't go
down dark alleys right without lights.I made sure that. Listen, And
here you're talking to somebody who hashad a gun pointed to his forehead,
who has had shots fired at him, who was a victim of two burglar

(28:59):
vehicles. Now I've been a victimof crime, and so perhaps because of
that, I'm a little and mytraining is an FBI agent a little more
aware from a victim's perspective, hownot to be a victim. And it's
something that we young people particularly,and I talk about, you know,
my single daughter, how to becareful. You don't know what's going to

(29:19):
be slipped in your drink. Soout of all of the total of missing
people, about one hundred to threehundred under the people under the age of
twenty one are abducted by strangers.About one hundred people one hundred people a
year are abducted by strangers. Overtwenty one. Traditional kidnappings are very rare,

(29:40):
about one hundred cases of a year, according to the FBI statistics,
most of which involve collection of debt. What kind of debt do you think
most of these kidnappings involved? Probablysomething criminal activity going on? Yes,
of course. Most of the timeit's somebody that owes them money for drugs.
So they're going to kidnap a brother, sister, mother, whatever,

(30:02):
and his brother. Well, yeah, it's dangerous. There's very there's no
stats I could find, but thethe percentage of individuals who are targeted for
economic kidnappings in the wealthy strata ofour society, the Lindberghs for example,
right, or the carry lawsons isinfinitesimally small. It is extremely small.

(30:29):
The point being, we don't reallyhave to fear jogging, whether it's four
o'clock in the afternoon four o'clock inthe morning. In most cases, with
good common sense, uh, youare going to be safe. And so
I think in this particular case itwas it was, you know, sensational,
and it should be. It shouldgrab our national attention. It's horrific.

(30:52):
For all it represents that a youngmother can't go jogging in the middle
of the morning in her neighborhood.Is is beyond the pale. It's it's
sad, it's sickening, and whouh the person who perpetrated this crime.
While they should have their day incourt, should stand uh and face the

(31:14):
evidence, that's uh, that's againstthem again. Yeah, so that's you
know, it's an interesting case becauseof its simplicity and the complexities of other
issues I think. UH. Again, I want to make very very clear
that we're not making any presumptions ofguilt uh in this particular case. We're

(31:36):
not judging the investigation uh in termsof guilt or innocence. We're looking at
the processes of this investigation uh inin this podcast and UH and I find
I find it very interesting the reactionfrom not just the local media, but
the national media. Go on Googlenow and see how many stories there are
that still about this case. It'sbeen since last weekend, and it's certainly

(31:59):
caught the attention of America. That'sinteresting. I'm not going to get into
that, but yeah, it's atragic case. And again, folks,
I always say make sure you're carefulout there and watch out for news headlines
and stuff like that. You justnever know. Well, you know,
one final point, and it mayThis is one hundred percent conjecture, but

(32:22):
one reason why it may grab theattention of people like my daughter who's twenty
seven, is it you know,young people that are in that demographic of
I don't say, twenty five tofifty female see this as something that can
truly happen to them. Yea.And hey, last point I make.

(32:45):
If you're interested in how not tobe a victim, read Gavin de Becker's
book A Gift of Fear, whichtalks about a lot of what I talk
about in terms of disruptors. Disruptorslead to conflict, Conflict leads to crisis,
and he talks about these disruptors asfear indicators. And he says,
oftentimes, because of our polite society, we don't put our antennas up when

(33:09):
we see fear indicators. We suppressedthem, we ignore them, we misidentified
them. It may be possible.I'm not saying this is the case because
I don't have the evidence to backit up, but it may be possible.
Miss Fletcher saw this van slowing downor this person and previous nights kind
of lurking and observing her, andshe just kind of let it go and

(33:30):
was not aware it did not includethat in her fear indicators. And perhaps
I'll give you a quick example beforewe leave where that happened to me in
a learning point. So, Iwas a young man about sixteen seventeen years
old, working at a place calledthe Master host In. I was a
desk clerk. I was robbed twicethere, but this time, this is

(33:51):
the first time I was robbed.I didn't make this mistake again. During
the early evening hours, there weretwo young men outside the hotel. They
were not checked in. I hadnot checked them in. They were just
lurking about, loitering, if youwill. I didn't pay any attention to
him. I saw them, youknow, I saw that they were there,

(34:13):
but I didn't really address them.I didn't call security, didn't do
any of that. About ten o'clockat night, they come into the hotel.
I see them. I really stilldidn't, you know, didn't register
any kind of fear or threats.They were too young to check into the
hotel, or were young teenagers,probably fifteen sixteen years old. As I
approached him to ask what they wanted, one of them jumped over the counter

(34:35):
with a gun, and that individualthen opened the door. The other one
came in with a bag. Theguy with the guns pointed at me.
Then he put it up against myforehead and he told me to get on
the ground, which I did immediately. The one with the seagrums, it
was a seagrums, you know,Crown Royal back went over to the register.
I couldn't get the redstroke, andwhile the other guy was holding the

(34:57):
gun on me, the guy withthe gun then told me to get up
and open the register, which Idid, and then immediately went back down
to the ground, thinking I wasgonna be shot at any moment, and
the person with the bag starts emptyingthe register of cash, and they both
fled. You know. They toldme to stay still, They're gonna kill
me. Blah blah blah. Istayed as prone as I could and Saint

(35:19):
hell Mary's the whole time. Ioften revisited the hours before the robbery and
kind of figured out where did Imake my mistake? How did I become
a victim? They were clearly inthe wrong place at the wrong time.
I could have easily called police.They could have then come seen these kids

(35:39):
found a gun on them. Offto jail they go. But my own
naivete n my own social consciousness,innocence, if you will, didn't register
that these people could be a threat. My fear indicators were way off,

(36:00):
and as a result, I becamea victim. So maybe that's cautionary tale.
It certainly helped me throughout my FBIcareer as an adult as well to
better protect myself in those situations,to be more situationally aware, and I
think that's the critical piece, andperhaps future we do a podcast on situational
awareness to prevent victimization. But Ithink I've done a much better job since

(36:23):
I was sixteen years old. I'vereached the ripe old age of sixty two.
I'll do a shameless plug folks ifyou are interested to learn more about
situation, where As you can catchour other podcast, Situation Awareness Tactics,
where I interview people every week onsituational awareness and other stuff related but to
it in some capacity. Sometimes we'llget fighters on there talking about which styles

(36:45):
are the best if they're looking toget into martial arts or other more suspect
characters to talk about their life inthe dark side and how they help you.
These more situation where to prevent peoplefrom individuals like they were, to
prevent yourself from being robbed. Well, even you know, even even this

(37:07):
was this happened like in July Augusttime frame. Even something is innocuous.
Is a heavy jacket being worn inan inappropriate season, and as I look
back, in my particular case,it should have been an indicator that he
was hiding something under that jacket,and in fact he was a gun.
So yeah, there are things definitelywe can do to help prevent us from

(37:30):
being victimized. And there was alearning lesson for me. Thank god,
I'm still alive to learn. Soabsolutely this is a particular interesting case from
a number of factors, as wepointed out. And I think the message
here is the chances of someone beingabducted while they're jogging is very, very
small, and just be aware ofyour surroundings and God bless everyone folks.

(37:53):
There's about fifty unfortunately, there's sixtyhomicides a day. They picked the most
egregious ones to show you there's areason for that. So as Andy says
that the probabilities are still very low, but just make sure you think about
that. That's it for now.Folks, thanks for listening. Make sure
to share a subscribe and hit donlike button you don't like it.