Retired homicide detective Mike Hammond was with the Chicago Police Department for 22 years. He has SEEN some things . . . and I get nosy and ask everything I wanted to know more about.
CAUTION: Some content may be harder to hear as crimes are discussed, so listen with caution.
We talk about polygraphs (lie detectors), the main case Hammond can not let go of, mental health, murders in Chicago, interview styles, gaslighting, lies, common sense, and how to get into the mind of a criminal, to help keep others safe.
Check out Mike Hammond's podcast; Detective Story (with Mike Hammond) which has a focus on victims and their families, as well as talking about actual cases and investigations.
CAUTION: Some content may be harder to hear as crimes are discussed, so listen with caution.
We talk about polygraphs (lie detectors), the main case Hammond can not let go of, mental health, murders in Chicago, interview styles, gaslighting, lies, common sense, and how to get into the mind of a criminal, to help keep others safe.
Check out Mike Hammond's podcast; Detective Story (with Mike Hammond) which has a focus on victims and their families, as well as talking about actual cases and investigations.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
The most important skill in being anon side detective is the ability to communicate
with people and get people that wantto communicate with you, and to be
able to not just listen to bit, but hear what's being said and how
it's being said. Get people towant to talk to you. That's the
whole thing. You know. There'snot a whole lot of Sherlock home stuff
that actually comes up, you knowwhat I mean. Stranger Connections is the
(00:23):
embodiment of Lisa david Olsen's perspective ofwe're all just friends who just simply haven't
met yet. It's an exploration ofthe weirdly wonderful side of life and a
look at the single commonality we havewith each other, our differences. Slip
off your shoes, pour a cupof your favorite and let's meet this week's
barrel of quirks. Welcome to StrangerConnections, where I celebrate wonderfully weird people
(00:49):
and quirky stories. I'm your curiousbeast and host Lisa david Olson, the
practically world famous interactive speaker, embarrassingmom, podcaster, speaker trainer, all
the things. So get a holdof me if you want me to jazz
up your event. I even doimprovisation sessions, So let's play today.
(01:11):
I am interviewing a homicide detective thatwas with the Chicago Police Department over twenty
two years, if I'm right onthat, and he was promoted to detective
in the year two thousand, servingon the Area for Homicide Unit and Cold
Case Homicide Unit and Area North Homicideuntil his retirement in twenty sixteen. Welcome
(01:34):
Mike Hammond. Thanks for being onStranger Connections. Mike, my pleasure.
Thanks so much for having me.I appreciate it. Cold cases, I'm
just gonna say this. I don'tlike them. I am a crime listening
fanatic. All my podcasts are truecrime, even though that's not what my
show is. But I'd love tolisten to true crime. But you give
(01:57):
me a cold case and you arejust your life leaving the fridge door open.
Don't do it. I need thatending, I need the bow on
top. How did you get intocold case work? You know, I
made detective, like you said intwo thousand and as soon as I walked
in the door and areafot. Iwas lucky to get pulled in there into
homicide right away. I kind ofhad relationships there because I worked on the
(02:21):
West Side as a trollman, andimmediately there were cases I was interested in
because I had this historical thing withlike old outfit mob murders and things,
and I was just fascinated by lookingat the old cases. So and at
that time, nobody cared. Aslong as you were, you know,
keeping up with your caseload and you'reworking and doing the things you needed to
(02:44):
do, They're happy to have youlooking at old cases because really nobody was
doing it specifically, or there werea few guys, but it wasn't organized.
And so about I don't know,five years into my detective career,
this department had created a federally fundedcold case homicide unit and I got asked
(03:07):
to go work there, and Idecided to try it out and did that
for a couple of years. So, but I'm with you, it's it's
uh, you know, you dothe job to solve murder, so it's
infuriating. It drives you out ofyour mind, you know, Like I
need answers to this. I needanswers. I just in my podcast,
(03:29):
I just did one on a younglady who was murdered. We're coming up
on fifty years ago, and thatcase is like passed down the detective for
all these years, and it's likeI still want an answer to that thing.
So Bass, Wow, I'm surebecause well, for one, I
want to say thank you so muchfor your service. That is incredible,
(03:52):
especially Chicago Wow. We'll just leaveit at that wow, because that is
especially Yeah, as of late,you hear someone things. The one thing
I want to say, like acase that you say is going on fifty
years unsolved, how things have changed, you know, the advances with science
or how the items were, youknow, how the evidence was stored or
(04:15):
maybe people sorted through it because theydidn't understand they couldn't touch it back fifty
years ago. You must have seenso many things along the path of everyone
before you who tried to solve it. Yeah. Well there's in that particular
case especially, there is evidence thatwould be fantastic to have and we just
(04:39):
have never been able to find it. And I described in that show our
herbs, which is our evidence andrecovered property section. We have a couple
of them, but the main warehouseis like out of the Indiana Jones thing.
Right. You walk in and it'slike a city block long, and
wide, and I still believe thatis there, but we're just never able
(05:02):
to find it. And in retrospect, like I wonder if I didn't spend
too much time trying to find thatevance because it was definitely going to be
probed of DNA type stuff, whichthere was good suspects in that case,
and they may still yet find it. But in some ways, I kind
of if I had to do overagain, I would have kind of let
(05:23):
that go at some point in goingback and interviewed, pushed some of those
people who are potential suspects a littlebit, see if they would have told
me anything. But yeah, it'scrazy. It's just like trying another case
that's now getting on sixty years old, the young woman who was killed in
nineteen fifty seven, and there wasa good suspect that we went down to
(05:45):
Texas and interviewed and actually got aDNA sample from, but we could find
no evidence to compare it to justnothing. So and it's you know,
again, it's not looking at placeblame there, it's just after sixty years
of you know, I think Icounted up just for dramatic purposes on that
(06:10):
the case is fifty years old.And I think I kind of there's been
thirty three thousand murders since she wasmurdered, So you can imagine the evidence
that's up there in what span ofthe land? Thirty three thousand in the
United States or where are you saying? City Chicago? Just in the city
of Chicago. Yeah, she waskilled nineteen seventy four, and I can't
(06:33):
remember it was over thirty thousand.It's thirty one thousand. I got the
exact number based on what I couldcalculate, so it was within a call
it one hundred, you know,plus minus. Wow. But yeah,
so in that fifty year span,thirty some thousand murders just in the city
of Chicago, you know. Andwhat you need on those cold cases is
(06:56):
the date line the Keith Morrison phonecall. And then the phone rang and
changed everything. How about it?How about it? Yeah? And my
hope, hope, hope UH stayseternal. Right, I'm like, I
know these days, one of thesedays somebody is going to uh because amazingly
enough, a lot with the exceptionon one person, the players, all
(07:19):
the potentials in that and everything,everybody is still alive. And so I'm
sure they weren't too excited to hearthat podcast. But life's hard when you
are a murder suspect, you know. So yeah, I'm hoping still that
that call comes. Although I'm retired, but it's okay, No, you're
(07:39):
never really retired. Oh no,that call comes. I'm still finding somebody
to go handle it. And thereare still plenty of men and women on
the department love to sink their teethinto that if we got something. So
yeah, well, and I'm luckyenough to work alongside officers in Minnesota.
I'm I'm their records, their assistant, their local dispatch kind of and you
(08:00):
know, smaller than Chicago. Butone thing that I've noted is the best
cops can think like the criminal,which is scary. What a thin line,
just like an actor who gets intothat role and has to become that
person there portraying. But for yourself, how does that handle for your mental
(08:22):
health to be able to go?All right? They must have been doing
you know, because you're solving it. You're a puzzle solver that is beyond
you know, doing a Rubik's cubeobviously, So how do you keep your
mental health away from going too farinto the dark. Yeah, it's a
challenge, you know, I thinkwhile you're doing it, I know,
(08:43):
like I being a homside detective wasmy dream, you know. And I
read a book when I was inhigh school, a book forced on me
by English teacher, like you gotto do a book report. And I'm
like every other sixteen or seventeen yearold boy, like, h he's no,
No, I got one I thinkyou'll like. And it was in
Cold Blood, Truman Capote's book,and it just it changed the way I
(09:05):
viewed the world. It really did. I was like, you know,
this is unacceptable to just read aboutit. And then I started watching the
news differently, and I knew Iwanted to like do something and and and
that started me on this path.But the thing that I didn't realize even
as a patrol and I worked onthe West Side, saw a lot of
(09:26):
a lot of stuff, you know, and did a lot of work.
But when I made detective, aboutsix months into working murders, I hit
a wall where I was like,I had no idea the bodies were just
going to come like at this rate, it was just going to be like
standing on the on the ocean waitingfor the waves to stop. And I
kind of hit a wall where Idon't know, I didn't you know,
(09:50):
I got through it, but Ifound myself like I never been a science
fiction fan. I'm watching like HarryPotter and stuff, you know what I
mean, just to like escape totallynot be thinking about it at all.
But I worked my way through thatand kept working and and then you start
to get into a space or doingit. But as far as mental health,
(10:11):
you gotta figure out. You figurethat out. You gotta you know,
reach out, talk to the peoplearound you, let you know when
you're hurting. And we had areally good crew. They're an Area four,
and you know, we kind ofkept tabs on each other and would
talk. You know, it's notlike we're a therapist. And sometimes the
(10:33):
advice was probably like the opposite adviceyou should give somebody, But still having
somebody to talk to is uh youknow, uh, it's great, you
know it was so yeah, yougotta stay on top of that, and
it's hard and and to your directpoint, you do walk a real thin
(10:54):
line when you are we are outthere talking to people in the street and
you kind of start to get intothat mindset and you're and then you go
home and you're having you know,at you know, dinner parties or birthday
parties for the kids and things likethat, and you know, you're you
(11:15):
know, my ex wife, I'mstill very close with the mother and my
kids. You know, she'd haveto come over and say, hey,
maybe language, you know, likeyou forget sorry, right, you know,
or something whatever, you know,or you know, maybe that's not
that conversation, not appropriately because evenyou know, I like talking about I
always enjoy talking about it, andand you know, and a lot of
(11:37):
siblings like to hear. And sopeople come out and ask me stories.
Well, you know, maybe asix year old birthday parties not the place
to be having those stories, youknow what I mean. So, yeah,
you guys, gentle reminders are sohelpful. Oh they really are,
you know what I mean. Yeah, right, sometimes the less gentle the
better, even right like true's youknow, all of your investigating and all
(12:05):
of your experience with just you know, starting in patrol and working your way
up, what is your most commonfinding for violent crime? You know,
I immediately think drugs or mental healthor correct in a city like Chicago,
or you know, I have areally good friend of mine who's finally retired
(12:31):
Minneapolis homicide detective and so we andwe had a lot of cases back and
forth because a lot of our gangmembers back and forth between Minneapolis and Chicago,
and you know, we talk aboutthis kind of thing a lot.
In cities like like that, youknow, really big urban areas, most
(12:52):
of the violence is around narcotics andthe control of the narcotic sales and the
money that it brings in. It'svery lucrative. And so that that,
you know, control and competition forthat money is what costes a lot of
(13:13):
the bonus. The majority of it. You still have, you know,
domestic murders and you know, othervarious things. But you know, if
you took out the narcotics kind ofgang related murders out of the total sum,
it wouldn't be as nearly as biga number as we turn up with
every year. Yes, that's whatI was thinking. It's you know,
(13:35):
this is my territory, or yeah, you owe me this money, all
that kind of stuff. What aboutwhen you're interviewing people and you have to
know these different personalities, these pathologicalliars, narcissistic behaviors, the gas lighters,
they think they're above you. Theythink they're smarter than you. That
(13:56):
kind of a thing. Did youhave a certain style or a way to
get through to people? Yeah,I mean, you know, one of
my partners once said that, youknow, my style of interviewing, especially
with like potential offenders, is kindof overwhelming with common sense, just like
but you know, my it's youknow, it's my contention that the most
(14:20):
important skill in being an on sidedetective is the ability to communicate with people
and get people that want to communicatewith you, and to be able to
not just listen to bit, buthear what's being said and how it's being
said. Because of all those factorsthat you just described, you have to
kind of wade through that, youknow, and be able to hear and
(14:43):
get people to want to talk toyou. That's the whole thing, you
know, And it's a skill set. There's not a whole lot of Sherlock
home stuff that actually comes up,you know what I mean. It's really
more about just that communication. Communication, and that's why, you know,
there's this perception out there that Idislike that I kind of reel against that,
(15:05):
you know, and and maybe someof this is deserved, you know,
based on history. I don't reallyknow. But this this kind of
mindset that we you know, beattorture, you know, scream at people
until and TV and movie you know, film really plays into that. The
reality is that doesn't you can Imean I've gotten mad and yelled at people
and it doesn't help. It justdoesn't help you. You're especially with hard
(15:31):
Street, you know, criminals,it's not going to work. You got
to you got to find a wayto motivate them to want to talk to
you. And that's not going todo it. No, that's only on
TV. Really, say, turnthe camera off and right rightwhere, Yeah,
get the phone book right like,yeah, okay, not really hitting
(15:54):
somebody with a phone book is goingto make them admit to a murder.
That that's uh, try to finda phone book nowadays? How about it?
How about it? There's no there'snowhere for Superman to change his clothes
anymore. There's no bone bruing thatmouse in here. And so learning those
different personalities is really interesting to mebecause you do find a pattern. I
(16:17):
mean, all solving things is allabout patterns, you know, figuring out
a person, it's all about patterns. So then you hear about cases where
they use lie detector or polygraph.And I caught some of your other interviews
and and you were saying that's notyour passion. You're not saying that that's
the be all end all. No. And I by a college professor who's
(16:41):
since passed away that I was wasmy like counselor, and really good Man
was a polygraph expert, renowned,and he would be so frustrated. What
made to hear me talking about thisway? And I've got friends with polygraph
people. I don't mean to bedisparaging all that, but for me,
it's like it was just a meansto an end. Like if somebody was
(17:03):
asking, like, let me takea polygraph, Okay, Like I know
you're lying. I know you're lying. I don't need a polygraph, right,
even if you didn't do what you'relying about this, you're lying about
your knowledge, you know what Imean. But you want to take a
polygraph? Okay? Fine, youknow, And so I let them take
a polygraph and then they fail,you know, and let me do it,
(17:26):
right, yeah, right, right, Look, even if you passed,
I wasn't going to buy it.Let me be honest with you,
so you know, and I knowthat I'm going to have the whole entire
FBI after me now, But youknow, it's it's just it's it's a
means of, you know, gettingto a place for me. I know
(17:47):
they can be very effective and uhand and all that. I'm not trying
at all to disparage them, butfor me, it was just like not
something I counted very much on too. I'm not sure if this person is
lying or not. It's not likeI thought everybody was lying sometimes, you
know I would, but the peoplethat were like, let me take a
line to detect. I really wantto. I want to prove to you
like they're lying. You know.So they thought they could the machine and
(18:14):
that was some magical thing that thatwas going to put me off, you
know what I mean. And yeah, that's desperation. And also it's not
even admissible anywhere, is it?So that's not yeah, waste of money.
It always looks like in court.Uh. And then detective, did
(18:37):
you do anything that Yes, wetook the UH suspect for a polygraph examination
object okay, yeah over yeah,yeah sustained. So then after the polygraph
examination, what did you have acourse of action? Then yes, we
did, right, So I mean, that's what it looked like every time
most you know, right, itwas ever you know, he failed a
(19:00):
polygraphy life. It's not admissible,and it was never really critical, you
know what I mean, And bothsides would always try and play games with
that to get the jury to believeone side or another. And to me
it was like, yeah, mwell, moving on, you know exactly,
yeah, enough about the polygraph youguys, didn't you know it's not
(19:22):
even admissible, come on, let'sgo right, Well, but it is.
It can be effective. It's agood tool in a lot of ways,
I guess just to see them andI in those stories you you know
that you read or hear a lotof times it's that the person running it
might say, oh, this showis that you're guilty, and and they
could be bessing and it's probably justTV, but yeah, and I have
(19:44):
to seem like a game. You'reright, And I have to say,
in fairness, there are polygraphic examinersthat are really really good at at at
exactly that you know, and andand no matter the outcome one way or
another, you know, we're goodat kind of giving me feedback. You
(20:06):
know, you know this this partI think is probably accurate this part,
you know, I would be youknow, I'm not so sure, but
I think maybe look at that orthis, clearly you know the person's not
giving you as not being factual.So yeah, I mean that there was
that. It was just not somethingfor me that I leaned on very much,
(20:26):
you know, right well, Anddo you have a favorite case that
stands out? You know, andyou are standing around the barbecue sharing stories
kind of times, is there afavorite case that you are like, yeah,
this one is the one that I'llalways remember. Yeah, for sure.
I mean, you know, asmy show is, the victims are
(20:48):
what stick with you, you knowwhat I mean, And the story of
the victims often stick with you,and sometimes are they even though they're solved
rather quickly. Still, the storyof the victims sticks with you and that,
But as far as the case,yeah, certainly. There was a
young twenty one year old woman thatwas shot and killed in her car two
days after Thanksgiving two thousand and one, and her name was Magdalena Zakowska,
(21:14):
Maggie they called her. And wedidn't actually have the scene, but the
detectives that had the scene, itwas a pretty busy time and they I
don't know if they got I justdon't recall well they got I think pushed
into another case whatever. But aweek or two after the case, one
of my partners, who is aPolish comes from a Polish family and speaks
(21:41):
Polish. Her family is Polish.Our homicide commander asked him to take a
look at it. So he cameto me with it and it took us.
There's good DNA evidence in that case, but it took us I think
four years to identify her killer,another two years to put together the case
(22:04):
strong enough to get him charged,and I think three years then by trials,
nine years by the time he wasconvicted. And that case was never
a cold case. I mean wehad leads that we were pursuing that entire
time, but at the same timewe're catching other cases, so we couldn't
Like, we had phone records thatwe had to track down because she had
(22:26):
called a phone before she left herapartment. That was what we call a
burnout phone, meaning it was openedunder false pretense pretenses with a false ID,
so wasn't directly tied to anyone,So we had to figure out who
had that phone. And then alsothe DNA didn't hit anybody in the code
(22:47):
of DNA system, so we hadto basically get DNA samples from everybody,
every mail that she knew or talkedto, whether you know she'd had a
relationship with him or now. Uh. So it was just years of that
as we were handling other cases,and we just stayed with it, and
every time we got a chance,we went back to it. We had
(23:07):
kind of a triage priority list,and uh, you know, we got
an answer. Finally got to bethe guy that I died in prison last
year. Oh my gosh. Wow. Yeah. So uh and uh,
you know, got to know herfamily really well, and uh yeah,
that was that case. You know, they all are important to everyone you
(23:30):
kind of get involved with, butthat one will always stick with me just
because, you know, of allthe work we went into it, all
the sleep I lost over it,you know, and how many times I
stared at those crime scene photos whichwere just you know, horrific for I
(23:51):
don't know how many hours, justthinking I'm missing something, There's something here
I'm not seeing, you know whatI mean. My partners as well,
it was it was, Yeah,that was a really good feeling to get
him convicted, and so what washis reason that he killed her? He
(24:11):
was a very unusual thing. Hehad been actually was an informant for a
commander on the police department for likeeighteen years, which added a real kind
of interesting dynamic to it all.And the commander was very helpful for us.
It wasn't like he was running airFrance for the guy at all.
But and in the end, henever admitted to killing her, but he
(24:40):
talked himself into a conviction anyway.I spent many hours on video talking with
him, and he just denied he'dever had sex with her. He denied
he'd ever been with her that night. He came up in an alibi that
we were able to tear down easily. But I think in the end,
I think she was just a bitnaive and was She went to meet with
(25:07):
him because she was trying to getmoney together to move out of her parents'
house with her boyfriend, and hehad made her. He was considerably older
than her, he was fifty,she was twenty one. And he was
a real player, slick guy,you know, every big time dope dealer
(25:29):
on the West Side Chicago. Hewas a very connected guy in that way,
and I think he, you know, kind of convinced her that,
you know, he would he wouldlend her some money somehow, and they
agreed to meet that night. AndI mean it was a sexual assault murder,
and so he went there with apurpose and she went there I think
(25:49):
pretty naive and that it went bad. You know, I think she was
found naked, shot to death inthe backseat of her car, and it's
pretty ugly defensive ones. I thinkshe you know, I think he was
sexually motivated, and uh, youknow, my guess is and this is
(26:14):
a way just my opinion based onspending all that time, I think,
you know, after the kind ofdem was over, she will made it
clear she wasn't going along, youknow, she wasn't gonna let it go,
and it turned violent, is mybest guess. You know, there's
no question he's a killer, becauseyou know, it's his DNA and his
(26:36):
phone, so he was there andyou know, he killed her. There's
no question about that. Now.How it actually went down will forever remain
a mystery. In fact, whenI heard that he I got notified from
Illinois Department Corrections that he had died. I I was a little bit like
I wish I had known he wassick. I'd love to talk to him
(26:59):
one more time, just because hewas a guy that because he'd been an
informant for so long, he likedtalking the police. Oh right, you
know that conversation with him on videowhen we finally brought him in to charge
him was about nine hours. Ohand and I just talked and him me
just continually trying to okay, lethim tell a story and then tear it
(27:21):
apart, turn apart. And Irealized at some point he was just never
going to admit to actually doing it. But he I thought I was close
because he was saying things to melike, you know, that would make
me a monster to do something likethat, and then me saying back necessarily
you know, things go bad andwhatever, you know, kind of being
empathetic and as you have to do. And uh so, yeah, I
(27:45):
mean there was a lot that wentinto that case. Dang, that is
a lot of that narcissistic like giveme that attention and and make me feel
better even though it's not real.Oh man. Yeah, and he called
you know, he called me Mikelike we're old friends. Sure, and
then uh it actually it got theappellate court reversed it on this thing that
(28:08):
his first attorney didn't do. Hedidn't take the stand in the first trial.
Unfortunately we had to retry. Butfortunately in the second trial he got
represented pro bono by a he hada public defender first time. Second time
he had a big law firm,and this time he took the stand and
his of course, I'm a witness, so I can't be in there in
(28:30):
the room in the courtroom when he'ssatisfying. But later talking to the state's
attorney and reading the transcripts, Imean, he told a fantastical tale and
then and the prosecutor, who wasreally good at his job, just ate
him alive. But he The greatpart about it was his defense team did
try and go down the road ofme like pressuring and uh, you know,
(28:56):
using psychological kind of torture on him. But unfortunately eight hours of him
saying, come on, Mike,you know, hey, Mike, you
know we're friends, aren't we.Yeah, you know what I mean.
So that was a little hard forthe jury to buy that I, you
know, done anything untoward towards him. So, you know, people think
that we don't like being videotaped thatit's not accurate. But as you know,
(29:22):
sometimes though, I will tell you, is your question earlier of the
lines getting mixed? You know,the first when when they made that law
and we had a video all homicidesuspects. The first few times I had
these really ugly kind of like childmurders. Those are tough because you don't
(29:44):
have any witnesses. You need theperson to tell you what happened. And
the only way to do that ifyou go in there berating them or calling
them names, and you know,making them feel you know, the obvious
thing, like we all, howcould you hurt a child? How could
you do? Then you're they're gonnajust shut themselves off. So you have
to be empathetic and you have toput yourself kind of in their shoes and
(30:06):
make them think that you can understandit. And boy, the first time
that I saw myself on video infront of a jury doing that, I
was like, that's painful to hearmyself being that empathetic with a guy that
just killed a child. You knowwhat I mean? Like, well,
I can understand, you know,I can underchild children can be tough.
(30:26):
Luckily for me, the jury Ithink was smart enough to kind of understand
what was going on, but itwas it wasn't my favorite. No,
that's not that's not where you go. Oh man, I wish I could
do that every day. No,right, right right, that's not really
enjoy hearing myself having that conversation like, oh, but it works. You
know it can work, so yougot to take that chance. Oh man,
(30:49):
this is just so amazing the workyou do. And again, I
thank you so much for your service. And I can't let you go until
I ask you to share a dareor a prank story, one you've done
or had done to you. AndI know cops don't prank each other anything
like that. There's no humor backthere any of that. So well,
I've a lot about this and yeah, like you know, I'm pretty big
(31:15):
guy, and uh, but there'stwo quick stories I'll tell you. One's
about me and one's not directly aboutme at all. But the one,
the one is too. The worstthing to happen to you when you're working
around a bunch of people you reallycare about, and the the ball busting,
as we call it, is,you got to be able to handle
(31:37):
it. If you can't handle it, you just won't survive, you know,
because that's what we do. That'show you show love is its really
being on each other, you know. And I grew up Indiana, so
as always, wo'sier, he'll billyor that's going to ask you. You
must have had a nickname, becauseyou do get those well. And my
name is Mike Hammond, right,so even in college it's like my camera,
you know, it's not my camera, but hammer was my nickname for
(32:01):
years. And I'm like, that'snot going to play all that great in
civil court, but whatever. Theworst thing to happened to you is to
be like be on the news,like you're working on a case and the
news cameras catch you walking around,right, because then that you in the
(32:21):
office, everybody's going to be onyou. And I handled early on,
I handled somebody, some guy whoreally didn't have a great plan and his
friend robbed the Shehd Aquarium, whichis our one of our main tourist attractions,
beautiful aquarium downtown and it took usa really short time to solve it
(32:42):
because they had ski mask on.They hit the the the money room and
they got like forty thousand dollars,right, But the problem was one of
the girls working in there when theywere telling me, Hey, get on
the ground, everybody, get down. One of the girls working there recognized
(33:05):
the voice and even said to himlike, I'm just making up the name,
but it's like John, is thatyou? Right? So John was
in custody within about you know,ten hours, and we got about thirty
eight grand of it back or whateverit was. But there was a big
as day. They showed me walkingdown the big steps of the shed to
(33:29):
quarium on the news, right,and I knew it was coming. Next
day, I go to work andone of one of my buddies and his
partner see me walking in and oneof them say he's like, hey,
Mike, don't let anybody give youour time. Many you know, TV
adds ten pounds, They say,right, and his partner says, yeah,
(33:52):
just tell them they had three camerason you. Mike go, yeah,
thanks, guys, thanks a lot. I'll keep that in mind.
That's love that is, yeah.Yeah. And the other great one is
this. I was associated with this, but this wasn't me. We had
(34:15):
an incredible commander in our home sideunit. It's hard to describe me.
Likely the best policeman I ever knew, and I've known some incredibly brave and
talented detectives and police officers, butthis man's special, I mean, very
very good at what he did.And we get a call one day from
(34:37):
the very unusual situation. The watchcommander in the police district downstairs calls upstairs
and says, hey, I gotthis pizza parlor on the line who said
they got to call somebody ordered apizza and they can hear them planning the
robbery of my driver on the phone. They get over here, right,
(35:00):
so, uh so our boss hasput him through, so he talks to
him and then he comes out andhe goes, all, right, here's
what we're gonna do. We're gonnago out and we're gonna be we're gonna
deliver this pizza right to make thisplan, and of course, being the
man that he is, he's drivingdelivering the pizza right and because he's not
(35:22):
letting somebody else do that, right. But in the end it works out.
They do try and come up andrhyb them and and uh and and
you see what's going to take all. We get him on custody, right,
and we got him up there andour best and detective goes into interview
(35:43):
the main guy who walked up tothe car to try and rob our boss
who's the Plee pizza delivery guy,and so he's interviewing him. He comes
out after a while and we're allkind of sitting out there, including the
boss, and he goes, yeah, he's given up. He's admitting it.
Can I to the whole thing,you know, And so the boss
tells him, Mary, well,so are done you got Yeah, we're
(36:06):
pretty much done. He goes,so just type something out for me,
you know, like a little synopsisof what he's saying, so we have
it for you know, because thisbosses wanting to know, you know,
there's attention to it. So hedoes. He comes out, hes,
he types it out, and we'reall in the office sitting around doing other
things now or working on that whateverour partner that was, and he prints
(36:29):
it out. He takes it intothe boss to read it, and we're
all sitting out there, and aboutten minutes later, the boss comes out
and he goes, this is BS. He didn't say this. He goes,
I am not going forward with this. And we look like this is
a very unusual conversation because, firstof all, he doesn't talk that way
(36:52):
in a second, like this isthe most respected of the of all of
us, said guys there you knowat the time, and and he's like,
nah, that's what he said.Boss's exact words. He goes,
that's bys he did not say thisman. Go back in there. We're
like, what is going on?He goes, I, what do you
want me to do? Lie?I mean that's what he said. And
(37:15):
uh so the boss finally he's like, you're so full of the man,
and he kind of laughs and turnsand walks back in his office. We're
like, what's going on? Sohe prints it out for us, and
basically it says that the guy theguy's in his statement says, you know,
yeah, we're going to be planningthis route. We're going to walk
up and you know, I wasgonna stick the gun in his face and
(37:35):
rob whatever. He goes. Youknow, when I got up there,
felt bad. I hesitated because theguy looked old and you know, kind
of slow, like maybe had amental health issue, and so I hesitated,
and I think that's why we gotcaught. Yeah, so yeah,
(37:59):
yeah that wasn't the stated but uhyeah, we uh yeah, it's as
funny to me now as that day, I mean, we were waring and
even the boss thought it was funny. But it was very pretty awesome,
pretty awesome. And even for youto hear that conversation, he did not
(38:19):
say that, and that's so unusualfor you to hear that. Even he
was disputing, admitted to it.You know, that's perfect, it's great.
You know, why would he beespecially, it's like, why would
he be disputing so upset? Whenwe read it, we were just like,
oh lord, we're never gonna beable top this one. This is
a good one. In the reportdidn't say what kind of pizza it was.
(38:40):
I'm feeling pepperoni. Yeah, youknow, good question. I don't
know the answer to that. Idon't know the answers. Curious mind.
I actually I can't even tell youfor sure there was a pizza. Pizza
box was definitely, But my feelingis if there was pizza, we probably
(39:00):
would have beaten it. So Idon't think you can't admit eating evidence,
so that would not be good.Yeah, correct, Well, I want
people to find your show. Itis detective story with Mike Hammond, right,
is that correct? Of it?Detective Story? And so I know,
you're gonna have some new episodes comingout. There's a few that started.
(39:22):
And yeah, I think it's beenreally fun talking with you. And
you're looking to be on other podcastsas well. Anything else you have going
on, are you? Uh no, you know, yeah, that's it.
I'm just trying to expand out.I'm a enjoy I like telling the
stories of the victims and given someyou know, kind of celebrating the victims
(39:45):
and giving the victims family some youknow, you know, further justice in
that, and you know, someopen cases still like to try and get
solved and talk to some interesting peoplelike yourself and just have some with it.
My daughter is a big true crimefan like you, and and that's
how I started this, really becauseshe was insistent, like Dad, listen,
(40:07):
I listened to these things and they'reawesome, but they're just missing your
perspective, you know. And itwas a tough because it's not it's counterintuitive
for us to put ourselves out therelike that. And I had to get
the way all those guys that wouldtease me and women that would tease me
all those years, I like thishas giving them more fodder. But I
(40:29):
got the approval from them like,yeah, it's cool idea. So that's
that's where we are now. Fantasticand maybe you'll have some of them on
your show or something like that.You never know, Yeah, that would
be fun because the storytelling with officersis always always something I will just cherish
and honor because you've been there,done that, and especially here in the
(40:50):
Midwest, the stories kind of getmore colorful as we tell them, so
right, I love a good story. I bought it well. I'm honored
to have had you on my show, Mike Hammond, and remember that we
can only be strangers once, andI invite you to stay weird. Thank
you very much. It's been myhonor. Thank you so much for having
me. Thank you. This hasbeen Stranger Connections with Lisa David Olson
The most important skill in being anon side detective is the ability to communicate
with people and get people that wantto communicate with you, and to be
able to not just listen to bit, but hear what's being said and how
it's being said. Get people towant to talk to you. That's the
whole thing. You know. There'snot a whole lot of Sherlock home stuff
that actually comes up, you knowwhat I mean. Stranger Connections is the
(00:23):
embodiment of Lisa david Olsen's perspective ofwe're all just friends who just simply haven't
met yet. It's an exploration ofthe weirdly wonderful side of life and a
look at the single commonality we havewith each other, our differences. Slip
off your shoes, pour a cupof your favorite and let's meet this week's
barrel of quirks. Welcome to StrangerConnections, where I celebrate wonderfully weird people
(00:49):
and quirky stories. I'm your curiousbeast and host Lisa david Olson, the
practically world famous interactive speaker, embarrassingmom, podcaster, speaker trainer, all
the things. So get a holdof me if you want me to jazz
up your event. I even doimprovisation sessions, So let's play today.
(01:11):
I am interviewing a homicide detective thatwas with the Chicago Police Department over twenty
two years, if I'm right onthat, and he was promoted to detective
in the year two thousand, servingon the Area for Homicide Unit and Cold
Case Homicide Unit and Area North Homicideuntil his retirement in twenty sixteen. Welcome
(01:34):
Mike Hammond. Thanks for being onStranger Connections. Mike, my pleasure.
Thanks so much for having me.I appreciate it. Cold cases, I'm
just gonna say this. I don'tlike them. I am a crime listening
fanatic. All my podcasts are truecrime, even though that's not what my
show is. But I'd love tolisten to true crime. But you give
(01:57):
me a cold case and you arejust your life leaving the fridge door open.
Don't do it. I need thatending, I need the bow on
top. How did you get intocold case work? You know, I
made detective, like you said intwo thousand and as soon as I walked
in the door and areafot. Iwas lucky to get pulled in there into
homicide right away. I kind ofhad relationships there because I worked on the
(02:21):
West Side as a trollman, andimmediately there were cases I was interested in
because I had this historical thing withlike old outfit mob murders and things,
and I was just fascinated by lookingat the old cases. So and at
that time, nobody cared. Aslong as you were, you know,
keeping up with your caseload and you'reworking and doing the things you needed to
(02:44):
do, They're happy to have youlooking at old cases because really nobody was
doing it specifically, or there werea few guys, but it wasn't organized.
And so about I don't know,five years into my detective career,
this department had created a federally fundedcold case homicide unit and I got asked
(03:07):
to go work there, and Idecided to try it out and did that
for a couple of years. So, but I'm with you, it's it's
uh, you know, you dothe job to solve murder, so it's
infuriating. It drives you out ofyour mind, you know, Like I
need answers to this. I needanswers. I just in my podcast,
(03:29):
I just did one on a younglady who was murdered. We're coming up
on fifty years ago, and thatcase is like passed down the detective for
all these years, and it's likeI still want an answer to that thing.
So Bass, Wow, I'm surebecause well, for one, I
want to say thank you so muchfor your service. That is incredible,
(03:52):
especially Chicago Wow. We'll just leaveit at that wow, because that is
especially Yeah, as of late,you hear someone things. The one thing
I want to say, like acase that you say is going on fifty
years unsolved, how things have changed, you know, the advances with science
or how the items were, youknow, how the evidence was stored or
(04:15):
maybe people sorted through it because theydidn't understand they couldn't touch it back fifty
years ago. You must have seenso many things along the path of everyone
before you who tried to solve it. Yeah. Well there's in that particular
case especially, there is evidence thatwould be fantastic to have and we just
(04:39):
have never been able to find it. And I described in that show our
herbs, which is our evidence andrecovered property section. We have a couple
of them, but the main warehouseis like out of the Indiana Jones thing.
Right. You walk in and it'slike a city block long, and
wide, and I still believe thatis there, but we're just never able
(05:02):
to find it. And in retrospect, like I wonder if I didn't spend
too much time trying to find thatevance because it was definitely going to be
probed of DNA type stuff, whichthere was good suspects in that case,
and they may still yet find it. But in some ways, I kind
of if I had to do overagain, I would have kind of let
(05:23):
that go at some point in goingback and interviewed, pushed some of those
people who are potential suspects a littlebit, see if they would have told
me anything. But yeah, it'scrazy. It's just like trying another case
that's now getting on sixty years old, the young woman who was killed in
nineteen fifty seven, and there wasa good suspect that we went down to
(05:45):
Texas and interviewed and actually got aDNA sample from, but we could find
no evidence to compare it to justnothing. So and it's you know,
again, it's not looking at placeblame there, it's just after sixty years
of you know, I think Icounted up just for dramatic purposes on that
(06:10):
the case is fifty years old.And I think I kind of there's been
thirty three thousand murders since she wasmurdered, So you can imagine the evidence
that's up there in what span ofthe land? Thirty three thousand in the
United States or where are you saying? City Chicago? Just in the city
of Chicago. Yeah, she waskilled nineteen seventy four, and I can't
(06:33):
remember it was over thirty thousand.It's thirty one thousand. I got the
exact number based on what I couldcalculate, so it was within a call
it one hundred, you know,plus minus. Wow. But yeah,
so in that fifty year span,thirty some thousand murders just in the city
of Chicago, you know. Andwhat you need on those cold cases is
(06:56):
the date line the Keith Morrison phonecall. And then the phone rang and
changed everything. How about it?How about it? Yeah? And my
hope, hope, hope UH stayseternal. Right, I'm like, I
know these days, one of thesedays somebody is going to uh because amazingly
enough, a lot with the exceptionon one person, the players, all
(07:19):
the potentials in that and everything,everybody is still alive. And so I'm
sure they weren't too excited to hearthat podcast. But life's hard when you
are a murder suspect, you know. So yeah, I'm hoping still that
that call comes. Although I'm retired, but it's okay, No, you're
(07:39):
never really retired. Oh no,that call comes. I'm still finding somebody
to go handle it. And thereare still plenty of men and women on
the department love to sink their teethinto that if we got something. So
yeah, well, and I'm luckyenough to work alongside officers in Minnesota.
I'm I'm their records, their assistant, their local dispatch kind of and you
(08:00):
know, smaller than Chicago. Butone thing that I've noted is the best
cops can think like the criminal,which is scary. What a thin line,
just like an actor who gets intothat role and has to become that
person there portraying. But for yourself, how does that handle for your mental
(08:22):
health to be able to go?All right? They must have been doing
you know, because you're solving it. You're a puzzle solver that is beyond
you know, doing a Rubik's cubeobviously, So how do you keep your
mental health away from going too farinto the dark. Yeah, it's a
challenge, you know, I thinkwhile you're doing it, I know,
(08:43):
like I being a homside detective wasmy dream, you know. And I
read a book when I was inhigh school, a book forced on me
by English teacher, like you gotto do a book report. And I'm
like every other sixteen or seventeen yearold boy, like, h he's no,
No, I got one I thinkyou'll like. And it was in
Cold Blood, Truman Capote's book,and it just it changed the way I
(09:05):
viewed the world. It really did. I was like, you know,
this is unacceptable to just read aboutit. And then I started watching the
news differently, and I knew Iwanted to like do something and and and
that started me on this path.But the thing that I didn't realize even
as a patrol and I worked onthe West Side, saw a lot of
(09:26):
a lot of stuff, you know, and did a lot of work.
But when I made detective, aboutsix months into working murders, I hit
a wall where I was like,I had no idea the bodies were just
going to come like at this rate, it was just going to be like
standing on the on the ocean waitingfor the waves to stop. And I
kind of hit a wall where Idon't know, I didn't you know,
(09:50):
I got through it, but Ifound myself like I never been a science
fiction fan. I'm watching like HarryPotter and stuff, you know what I
mean, just to like escape totallynot be thinking about it at all.
But I worked my way through thatand kept working and and then you start
to get into a space or doingit. But as far as mental health,
(10:11):
you gotta figure out. You figurethat out. You gotta you know,
reach out, talk to the peoplearound you, let you know when
you're hurting. And we had areally good crew. They're an Area four,
and you know, we kind ofkept tabs on each other and would
talk. You know, it's notlike we're a therapist. And sometimes the
(10:33):
advice was probably like the opposite adviceyou should give somebody, But still having
somebody to talk to is uh youknow, uh, it's great, you
know it was so yeah, yougotta stay on top of that, and
it's hard and and to your directpoint, you do walk a real thin
(10:54):
line when you are we are outthere talking to people in the street and
you kind of start to get intothat mindset and you're and then you go
home and you're having you know,at you know, dinner parties or birthday
parties for the kids and things likethat, and you know, you're you
(11:15):
know, my ex wife, I'mstill very close with the mother and my
kids. You know, she'd haveto come over and say, hey,
maybe language, you know, likeyou forget sorry, right, you know,
or something whatever, you know,or you know, maybe that's not
that conversation, not appropriately because evenyou know, I like talking about I
always enjoy talking about it, andand you know, and a lot of
(11:37):
siblings like to hear. And sopeople come out and ask me stories.
Well, you know, maybe asix year old birthday parties not the place
to be having those stories, youknow what I mean. So, yeah,
you guys, gentle reminders are sohelpful. Oh they really are,
you know what I mean. Yeah, right, sometimes the less gentle the
better, even right like true's youknow, all of your investigating and all
(12:05):
of your experience with just you know, starting in patrol and working your way
up, what is your most commonfinding for violent crime? You know,
I immediately think drugs or mental healthor correct in a city like Chicago,
or you know, I have areally good friend of mine who's finally retired
(12:31):
Minneapolis homicide detective and so we andwe had a lot of cases back and
forth because a lot of our gangmembers back and forth between Minneapolis and Chicago,
and you know, we talk aboutthis kind of thing a lot.
In cities like like that, youknow, really big urban areas, most
(12:52):
of the violence is around narcotics andthe control of the narcotic sales and the
money that it brings in. It'svery lucrative. And so that that,
you know, control and competition forthat money is what costes a lot of
(13:13):
the bonus. The majority of it. You still have, you know,
domestic murders and you know, othervarious things. But you know, if
you took out the narcotics kind ofgang related murders out of the total sum,
it wouldn't be as nearly as biga number as we turn up with
every year. Yes, that's whatI was thinking. It's you know,
(13:35):
this is my territory, or yeah, you owe me this money, all
that kind of stuff. What aboutwhen you're interviewing people and you have to
know these different personalities, these pathologicalliars, narcissistic behaviors, the gas lighters,
they think they're above you. Theythink they're smarter than you. That
(13:56):
kind of a thing. Did youhave a certain style or a way to
get through to people? Yeah,I mean, you know, one of
my partners once said that, youknow, my style of interviewing, especially
with like potential offenders, is kindof overwhelming with common sense, just like
but you know, my it's youknow, it's my contention that the most
(14:20):
important skill in being an on sidedetective is the ability to communicate with people
and get people that want to communicatewith you, and to be able to
not just listen to bit, buthear what's being said and how it's being
said. Because of all those factorsthat you just described, you have to
kind of wade through that, youknow, and be able to hear and
(14:43):
get people to want to talk toyou. That's the whole thing, you
know, And it's a skill set. There's not a whole lot of Sherlock
home stuff that actually comes up,you know what I mean. It's really
more about just that communication. Communication, and that's why, you know,
there's this perception out there that Idislike that I kind of reel against that,
(15:05):
you know, and and maybe someof this is deserved, you know,
based on history. I don't reallyknow. But this this kind of
mindset that we you know, beattorture, you know, scream at people
until and TV and movie you know, film really plays into that. The
reality is that doesn't you can Imean I've gotten mad and yelled at people
and it doesn't help. It justdoesn't help you. You're especially with hard
(15:31):
Street, you know, criminals,it's not going to work. You got
to you got to find a wayto motivate them to want to talk to
you. And that's not going todo it. No, that's only on
TV. Really, say, turnthe camera off and right rightwhere, Yeah,
get the phone book right like,yeah, okay, not really hitting
(15:54):
somebody with a phone book is goingto make them admit to a murder.
That that's uh, try to finda phone book nowadays? How about it?
How about it? There's no there'snowhere for Superman to change his clothes
anymore. There's no bone bruing thatmouse in here. And so learning those
different personalities is really interesting to mebecause you do find a pattern. I
(16:17):
mean, all solving things is allabout patterns, you know, figuring out
a person, it's all about patterns. So then you hear about cases where
they use lie detector or polygraph.And I caught some of your other interviews
and and you were saying that's notyour passion. You're not saying that that's
the be all end all. No. And I by a college professor who's
(16:41):
since passed away that I was wasmy like counselor, and really good Man
was a polygraph expert, renowned,and he would be so frustrated. What
made to hear me talking about thisway? And I've got friends with polygraph
people. I don't mean to bedisparaging all that, but for me,
it's like it was just a meansto an end. Like if somebody was
(17:03):
asking, like, let me takea polygraph, Okay, Like I know
you're lying. I know you're lying. I don't need a polygraph, right,
even if you didn't do what you'relying about this, you're lying about
your knowledge, you know what Imean. But you want to take a
polygraph? Okay? Fine, youknow, And so I let them take
a polygraph and then they fail,you know, and let me do it,
(17:26):
right, yeah, right, right, Look, even if you passed,
I wasn't going to buy it.Let me be honest with you,
so you know, and I knowthat I'm going to have the whole entire
FBI after me now, But youknow, it's it's just it's it's a
means of, you know, gettingto a place for me. I know
(17:47):
they can be very effective and uhand and all that. I'm not trying
at all to disparage them, butfor me, it was just like not
something I counted very much on too. I'm not sure if this person is
lying or not. It's not likeI thought everybody was lying sometimes, you
know I would, but the peoplethat were like, let me take a
line to detect. I really wantto. I want to prove to you
like they're lying. You know.So they thought they could the machine and
(18:14):
that was some magical thing that thatwas going to put me off, you
know what I mean. And yeah, that's desperation. And also it's not
even admissible anywhere, is it?So that's not yeah, waste of money.
It always looks like in court.Uh. And then detective, did
(18:37):
you do anything that Yes, wetook the UH suspect for a polygraph examination
object okay, yeah over yeah,yeah sustained. So then after the polygraph
examination, what did you have acourse of action? Then yes, we
did, right, So I mean, that's what it looked like every time
most you know, right, itwas ever you know, he failed a
(19:00):
polygraphy life. It's not admissible,and it was never really critical, you
know what I mean, And bothsides would always try and play games with
that to get the jury to believeone side or another. And to me
it was like, yeah, mwell, moving on, you know exactly,
yeah, enough about the polygraph youguys, didn't you know it's not
(19:22):
even admissible, come on, let'sgo right, Well, but it is.
It can be effective. It's agood tool in a lot of ways,
I guess just to see them andI in those stories you you know
that you read or hear a lotof times it's that the person running it
might say, oh, this showis that you're guilty, and and they
could be bessing and it's probably justTV, but yeah, and I have
(19:44):
to seem like a game. You'reright, And I have to say,
in fairness, there are polygraphic examinersthat are really really good at at at
exactly that you know, and andand no matter the outcome one way or
another, you know, we're goodat kind of giving me feedback. You
(20:06):
know, you know this this partI think is probably accurate this part,
you know, I would be youknow, I'm not so sure, but
I think maybe look at that orthis, clearly you know the person's not
giving you as not being factual.So yeah, I mean that there was
that. It was just not somethingfor me that I leaned on very much,
(20:26):
you know, right well, Anddo you have a favorite case that
stands out? You know, andyou are standing around the barbecue sharing stories
kind of times, is there afavorite case that you are like, yeah,
this one is the one that I'llalways remember. Yeah, for sure.
I mean, you know, asmy show is, the victims are
(20:48):
what stick with you, you knowwhat I mean, And the story of
the victims often stick with you,and sometimes are they even though they're solved
rather quickly. Still, the storyof the victims sticks with you and that,
But as far as the case,yeah, certainly. There was a
young twenty one year old woman thatwas shot and killed in her car two
days after Thanksgiving two thousand and one, and her name was Magdalena Zakowska,
(21:14):
Maggie they called her. And wedidn't actually have the scene, but the
detectives that had the scene, itwas a pretty busy time and they I
don't know if they got I justdon't recall well they got I think pushed
into another case whatever. But aweek or two after the case, one
of my partners, who is aPolish comes from a Polish family and speaks
(21:41):
Polish. Her family is Polish.Our homicide commander asked him to take a
look at it. So he cameto me with it and it took us.
There's good DNA evidence in that case, but it took us I think
four years to identify her killer,another two years to put together the case
(22:04):
strong enough to get him charged,and I think three years then by trials,
nine years by the time he wasconvicted. And that case was never
a cold case. I mean wehad leads that we were pursuing that entire
time, but at the same timewe're catching other cases, so we couldn't
Like, we had phone records thatwe had to track down because she had
(22:26):
called a phone before she left herapartment. That was what we call a
burnout phone, meaning it was openedunder false pretense pretenses with a false ID,
so wasn't directly tied to anyone,So we had to figure out who
had that phone. And then alsothe DNA didn't hit anybody in the code
(22:47):
of DNA system, so we hadto basically get DNA samples from everybody,
every mail that she knew or talkedto, whether you know she'd had a
relationship with him or now. Uh. So it was just years of that
as we were handling other cases,and we just stayed with it, and
every time we got a chance,we went back to it. We had
(23:07):
kind of a triage priority list,and uh, you know, we got
an answer. Finally got to bethe guy that I died in prison last
year. Oh my gosh. Wow. Yeah. So uh and uh,
you know, got to know herfamily really well, and uh yeah,
that was that case. You know, they all are important to everyone you
(23:30):
kind of get involved with, butthat one will always stick with me just
because, you know, of allthe work we went into it, all
the sleep I lost over it,you know, and how many times I
stared at those crime scene photos whichwere just you know, horrific for I
(23:51):
don't know how many hours, justthinking I'm missing something, There's something here
I'm not seeing, you know whatI mean. My partners as well,
it was it was, Yeah,that was a really good feeling to get
him convicted, and so what washis reason that he killed her? He
(24:11):
was a very unusual thing. Hehad been actually was an informant for a
commander on the police department for likeeighteen years, which added a real kind
of interesting dynamic to it all.And the commander was very helpful for us.
It wasn't like he was running airFrance for the guy at all.
But and in the end, henever admitted to killing her, but he
(24:40):
talked himself into a conviction anyway.I spent many hours on video talking with
him, and he just denied he'dever had sex with her. He denied
he'd ever been with her that night. He came up in an alibi that
we were able to tear down easily. But I think in the end,
I think she was just a bitnaive and was She went to meet with
(25:07):
him because she was trying to getmoney together to move out of her parents'
house with her boyfriend, and hehad made her. He was considerably older
than her, he was fifty,she was twenty one. And he was
a real player, slick guy,you know, every big time dope dealer
(25:29):
on the West Side Chicago. Hewas a very connected guy in that way,
and I think he, you know, kind of convinced her that,
you know, he would he wouldlend her some money somehow, and they
agreed to meet that night. AndI mean it was a sexual assault murder,
and so he went there with apurpose and she went there I think
(25:49):
pretty naive and that it went bad. You know, I think she was
found naked, shot to death inthe backseat of her car, and it's
pretty ugly defensive ones. I thinkshe you know, I think he was
sexually motivated, and uh, youknow, my guess is and this is
(26:14):
a way just my opinion based onspending all that time, I think,
you know, after the kind ofdem was over, she will made it
clear she wasn't going along, youknow, she wasn't gonna let it go,
and it turned violent, is mybest guess. You know, there's
no question he's a killer, becauseyou know, it's his DNA and his
(26:36):
phone, so he was there andyou know, he killed her. There's
no question about that. Now.How it actually went down will forever remain
a mystery. In fact, whenI heard that he I got notified from
Illinois Department Corrections that he had died. I I was a little bit like
I wish I had known he wassick. I'd love to talk to him
(26:59):
one more time, just because hewas a guy that because he'd been an
informant for so long, he likedtalking the police. Oh right, you
know that conversation with him on videowhen we finally brought him in to charge
him was about nine hours. Ohand and I just talked and him me
just continually trying to okay, lethim tell a story and then tear it
(27:21):
apart, turn apart. And Irealized at some point he was just never
going to admit to actually doing it. But he I thought I was close
because he was saying things to melike, you know, that would make
me a monster to do something likethat, and then me saying back necessarily
you know, things go bad andwhatever, you know, kind of being
empathetic and as you have to do. And uh so, yeah, I
(27:45):
mean there was a lot that wentinto that case. Dang, that is
a lot of that narcissistic like giveme that attention and and make me feel
better even though it's not real.Oh man. Yeah, and he called
you know, he called me Mikelike we're old friends. Sure, and
then uh it actually it got theappellate court reversed it on this thing that
(28:08):
his first attorney didn't do. Hedidn't take the stand in the first trial.
Unfortunately we had to retry. Butfortunately in the second trial he got
represented pro bono by a he hada public defender first time. Second time
he had a big law firm,and this time he took the stand and
his of course, I'm a witness, so I can't be in there in
(28:30):
the room in the courtroom when he'ssatisfying. But later talking to the state's
attorney and reading the transcripts, Imean, he told a fantastical tale and
then and the prosecutor, who wasreally good at his job, just ate
him alive. But he The greatpart about it was his defense team did
try and go down the road ofme like pressuring and uh, you know,
(28:56):
using psychological kind of torture on him. But unfortunately eight hours of him
saying, come on, Mike,you know, hey, Mike, you
know we're friends, aren't we.Yeah, you know what I mean.
So that was a little hard forthe jury to buy that I, you
know, done anything untoward towards him. So, you know, people think
that we don't like being videotaped thatit's not accurate. But as you know,
(29:22):
sometimes though, I will tell you, is your question earlier of the
lines getting mixed? You know,the first when when they made that law
and we had a video all homicidesuspects. The first few times I had
these really ugly kind of like childmurders. Those are tough because you don't
(29:44):
have any witnesses. You need theperson to tell you what happened. And
the only way to do that ifyou go in there berating them or calling
them names, and you know,making them feel you know, the obvious
thing, like we all, howcould you hurt a child? How could
you do? Then you're they're gonnajust shut themselves off. So you have
to be empathetic and you have toput yourself kind of in their shoes and
(30:06):
make them think that you can understandit. And boy, the first time
that I saw myself on video infront of a jury doing that, I
was like, that's painful to hearmyself being that empathetic with a guy that
just killed a child. You knowwhat I mean? Like, well,
I can understand, you know,I can underchild children can be tough.
(30:26):
Luckily for me, the jury Ithink was smart enough to kind of understand
what was going on, but itwas it wasn't my favorite. No,
that's not that's not where you go. Oh man, I wish I could
do that every day. No,right, right right, that's not really
enjoy hearing myself having that conversation like, oh, but it works. You
know it can work, so yougot to take that chance. Oh man,
(30:49):
this is just so amazing the workyou do. And again, I
thank you so much for your service. And I can't let you go until
I ask you to share a dareor a prank story, one you've done
or had done to you. AndI know cops don't prank each other anything
like that. There's no humor backthere any of that. So well,
I've a lot about this and yeah, like you know, I'm pretty big
(31:15):
guy, and uh, but there'stwo quick stories I'll tell you. One's
about me and one's not directly aboutme at all. But the one,
the one is too. The worstthing to happen to you when you're working
around a bunch of people you reallycare about, and the the ball busting,
as we call it, is,you got to be able to handle
(31:37):
it. If you can't handle it, you just won't survive, you know,
because that's what we do. That'show you show love is its really
being on each other, you know. And I grew up Indiana, so
as always, wo'sier, he'll billyor that's going to ask you. You
must have had a nickname, becauseyou do get those well. And my
name is Mike Hammond, right,so even in college it's like my camera,
you know, it's not my camera, but hammer was my nickname for
(32:01):
years. And I'm like, that'snot going to play all that great in
civil court, but whatever. Theworst thing to happened to you is to
be like be on the news,like you're working on a case and the
news cameras catch you walking around,right, because then that you in the
(32:21):
office, everybody's going to be onyou. And I handled early on,
I handled somebody, some guy whoreally didn't have a great plan and his
friend robbed the Shehd Aquarium, whichis our one of our main tourist attractions,
beautiful aquarium downtown and it took usa really short time to solve it
(32:42):
because they had ski mask on.They hit the the the money room and
they got like forty thousand dollars,right, But the problem was one of
the girls working in there when theywere telling me, Hey, get on
the ground, everybody, get down. One of the girls working there recognized
(33:05):
the voice and even said to himlike, I'm just making up the name,
but it's like John, is thatyou? Right? So John was
in custody within about you know,ten hours, and we got about thirty
eight grand of it back or whateverit was. But there was a big
as day. They showed me walkingdown the big steps of the shed to
(33:29):
quarium on the news, right,and I knew it was coming. Next
day, I go to work andone of one of my buddies and his
partner see me walking in and oneof them say he's like, hey,
Mike, don't let anybody give youour time. Many you know, TV
adds ten pounds, They say,right, and his partner says, yeah,
(33:52):
just tell them they had three camerason you. Mike go, yeah,
thanks, guys, thanks a lot. I'll keep that in mind.
That's love that is, yeah.Yeah. And the other great one is
this. I was associated with this, but this wasn't me. We had
(34:15):
an incredible commander in our home sideunit. It's hard to describe me.
Likely the best policeman I ever knew, and I've known some incredibly brave and
talented detectives and police officers, butthis man's special, I mean, very
very good at what he did.And we get a call one day from
(34:37):
the very unusual situation. The watchcommander in the police district downstairs calls upstairs
and says, hey, I gotthis pizza parlor on the line who said
they got to call somebody ordered apizza and they can hear them planning the
robbery of my driver on the phone. They get over here, right,
(35:00):
so, uh so our boss hasput him through, so he talks to
him and then he comes out andhe goes, all, right, here's
what we're gonna do. We're gonnago out and we're gonna be we're gonna
deliver this pizza right to make thisplan, and of course, being the
man that he is, he's drivingdelivering the pizza right and because he's not
(35:22):
letting somebody else do that, right. But in the end it works out.
They do try and come up andrhyb them and and uh and and
you see what's going to take all. We get him on custody, right,
and we got him up there andour best and detective goes into interview
(35:43):
the main guy who walked up tothe car to try and rob our boss
who's the Plee pizza delivery guy,and so he's interviewing him. He comes
out after a while and we're allkind of sitting out there, including the
boss, and he goes, yeah, he's given up. He's admitting it.
Can I to the whole thing,you know, And so the boss
tells him, Mary, well,so are done you got Yeah, we're
(36:06):
pretty much done. He goes,so just type something out for me,
you know, like a little synopsisof what he's saying, so we have
it for you know, because thisbosses wanting to know, you know,
there's attention to it. So hedoes. He comes out, hes,
he types it out, and we'reall in the office sitting around doing other
things now or working on that whateverour partner that was, and he prints
(36:29):
it out. He takes it intothe boss to read it, and we're
all sitting out there, and aboutten minutes later, the boss comes out
and he goes, this is BS. He didn't say this. He goes,
I am not going forward with this. And we look like this is
a very unusual conversation because, firstof all, he doesn't talk that way
(36:52):
in a second, like this isthe most respected of the of all of
us, said guys there you knowat the time, and and he's like,
nah, that's what he said.Boss's exact words. He goes,
that's bys he did not say thisman. Go back in there. We're
like, what is going on?He goes, I, what do you
want me to do? Lie?I mean that's what he said. And
(37:15):
uh so the boss finally he's like, you're so full of the man,
and he kind of laughs and turnsand walks back in his office. We're
like, what's going on? Sohe prints it out for us, and
basically it says that the guy theguy's in his statement says, you know,
yeah, we're going to be planningthis route. We're going to walk
up and you know, I wasgonna stick the gun in his face and
(37:35):
rob whatever. He goes. Youknow, when I got up there,
felt bad. I hesitated because theguy looked old and you know, kind
of slow, like maybe had amental health issue, and so I hesitated,
and I think that's why we gotcaught. Yeah, so yeah,
(37:59):
yeah that wasn't the stated but uhyeah, we uh yeah, it's as
funny to me now as that day, I mean, we were waring and
even the boss thought it was funny. But it was very pretty awesome,
pretty awesome. And even for youto hear that conversation, he did not
(38:19):
say that, and that's so unusualfor you to hear that. Even he
was disputing, admitted to it.You know, that's perfect, it's great.
You know, why would he beespecially, it's like, why would
he be disputing so upset? Whenwe read it, we were just like,
oh lord, we're never gonna beable top this one. This is
a good one. In the reportdidn't say what kind of pizza it was.
(38:40):
I'm feeling pepperoni. Yeah, youknow, good question. I don't
know the answer to that. Idon't know the answers. Curious mind.
I actually I can't even tell youfor sure there was a pizza. Pizza
box was definitely, But my feelingis if there was pizza, we probably
(39:00):
would have beaten it. So Idon't think you can't admit eating evidence,
so that would not be good.Yeah, correct, Well, I want
people to find your show. Itis detective story with Mike Hammond, right,
is that correct? Of it?Detective Story? And so I know,
you're gonna have some new episodes comingout. There's a few that started.
(39:22):
And yeah, I think it's beenreally fun talking with you. And
you're looking to be on other podcastsas well. Anything else you have going
on, are you? Uh no, you know, yeah, that's it.
I'm just trying to expand out.I'm a enjoy I like telling the
stories of the victims and given someyou know, kind of celebrating the victims
(39:45):
and giving the victims family some youknow, you know, further justice in
that, and you know, someopen cases still like to try and get
solved and talk to some interesting peoplelike yourself and just have some with it.
My daughter is a big true crimefan like you, and and that's
how I started this, really becauseshe was insistent, like Dad, listen,
(40:07):
I listened to these things and they'reawesome, but they're just missing your
perspective, you know. And itwas a tough because it's not it's counterintuitive
for us to put ourselves out therelike that. And I had to get
the way all those guys that wouldtease me and women that would tease me
all those years, I like thishas giving them more fodder. But I
(40:29):
got the approval from them like,yeah, it's cool idea. So that's
that's where we are now. Fantasticand maybe you'll have some of them on
your show or something like that.You never know, Yeah, that would
be fun because the storytelling with officersis always always something I will just cherish
and honor because you've been there,done that, and especially here in the
(40:50):
Midwest, the stories kind of getmore colorful as we tell them, so
right, I love a good story. I bought it well. I'm honored
to have had you on my show, Mike Hammond, and remember that we
can only be strangers once, andI invite you to stay weird. Thank
you very much. It's been myhonor. Thank you so much for having
me. Thank you. This hasbeen Stranger Connections with Lisa David Olson
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