I got notice a week ago that Murder in Battle Creek and The Murder of Maggie Hume, were both now available as audiobooks. I’m not an audiobook person. I tried once to listen to one of my books and hearing it with a different narrator struck me as strange. I also acknowledge that a lot of people out there love audiobooks; hence the need for this post.
Murder in Battle Creek is about the murder of Daisy Zick. It is a cold case that still is talked about in that community – and one that could potentially be solved.
The Murder of Maggie Hume holds a dear spot for me. Not only was the victim my age, but this was the first book my daughter and I wrote together. It was also on the New York Times Bestseller List for Crime and Punishment, back when they still had that list. This case became personal for the two of us as authors. One reason, it is solvable – to us it is fairly evident who committed the murder of this young woman. Two, we both developed a connection to the story, the people who investigated it, and others involved with the case.
I have other true crime books on audio as well…but these are new releases. If you like that kind of book, I encourage you to enjoy them.
You can read it in a day and it can change your way of thinking for your life
I will open with a disclaimer, Jack is a friend of mine. When he told me he was writing a book, I was hoping it was a tell-all autobiography. Jack and the company he founded provide personal protection services from international diplomats, American politicians, and media celebrities. When I saw what he was working on was a how-to for people that travel aboard; a guide on how to protect yourself, well, I had to have a copy.
My wife and I spend a lot of time with Jack and his wife and he lives by the tenants in this book and frankly, since I have picked up a crazed stalker who threatened my life and still rants about me online, I have adopted some of these myself. This is a short book, 79 pages, but it is crisply written and to the point. More importantly, you can adopt many principles quickly and easily.
The author maintains you need to maintain a constant sense of your surroundings, hence the title. He breaks down the spheres of personal boundaries and where threats come from. There’s a chapter on how to deal with an active shooter scenario. I found his lessons on stalking to be my most pertinent chapter, for obvious reasons.
The book provides you with details about where to sit in restaurant, a movie theater, or on an airplane. There’s a chapter dedicated to security in hotels – something that any traveler should read. There’s another section on personal defense weapons which is useful as well. The kidnapping chapter was intriguing to read too.
The book is written by a true and recognized professional in personal security. It’s not some fluff piece, but is based on examples that are provided in the narrative.
I recommend this book, not because I know the author but because there are things in it that you can apply almost instantly—things that can save your life or reduce your risk. We live in a world of threats and dangers, and 360 Degrees is a must-read. It is better to be pro-active than forced to be reactive.
One of the things I love about this series on FX is that it covers events that I lived through, like their kickoff season on OJ Simpson. It is amazing how much you forget the little details of such events and I strongly suspect that is part of the success of the series. The other aspect that stands out is the casting that the series does…which is brilliant.
This season is the impeachment of Bill Clinton, at least that is the overarching premise. In reality, up through episode 5 (which is where we are at as of the time of this writing) the focus is not on the President as much as it is on Linda Tripp and to a lesser extent, Monica Lewinsky.
You might think this is a weird angle to approach this from, but it is brilliant. Sarah Paulson plays Tripp who is a weird character that I think the writers and actress have captured perfectly. She’s not cut and dry like the media often portrays her. At times, she seems to be a genuine friend of Monica Lewinsky. At other times, she is a victim, and at other times, she is a conniving person attempting to profit from her activities. It is because she is not a simple character that this focus works so well in the series.
The Beanie Feldstein portrayal of Monica Lewinsky is far from gracious. She comes across as a love-struck 16 year old that does not seem to have a grasp of the story she is being sucked into. Perhaps that is true to life, but somehow you still feel sorry for her which is a credit to the actress playing her. She is being manipulated by everyone with conflicting agendas, which is probably close to how things actually played out. This is a crime where you find yourself wondering who the victim is and the one name that seems to fill that slot is Monica Lewinsky.
The portrayal of President Clinton is deep and dark. Paula Jones comes across as a naive fool, manipulated by those around her. The first few episodes exist to put the pieces on the game board. By episode five you start to see how these are converging for what will be a brutal confrontation.
The series has done well to step back from the partisan aspect of the politics and focus on the characters, which was exactly where it needed to play.
I enjoy the series so far and encourage you to give it a shot, at least through the first three episodes.
As a true crime author, I have a trust of law enforcement. It’s not a blind trust, but one borne out of experience. When I saw the film, Richard Jewell, that trust as far as the FBI was shaken.
So when I saw season two of Manhunt – Deadly Games was about Eric Rudolph, the actual Olympic Centennial Park bomber, I was intrigued.
Apparently both works were filmed at around the same time, which is wild given that some of their sets and scenes are eerily similar. The acting is different and many scenes play out quite a bit different in the TV series, but this is a complex story that goes far beyond Richard Jewell.
Eric Rudolph set off a number of bombs, including the Centennial Park bombing, before he was driven to ground in the forests of North Carolina. He survived off the land and with help of locals for a long time before law enforcement finally apprehended him.
There’s some creative licensing that has been done with this season of the show, much like the Unabomber one. Some aspects, such as the timelines of the key events have been fudged for the series, but that makes it a little more engaging. After the Richard Jewell film, there was an uproar about the portrayal of Kathy Scruggs, the reporter who broke the story of Jewell. Her portrayal in this series is more compelling, but far less complimentary.
Rudolph is a completely unlikable character. Unlike the first season, we don’t get much about his background to make him at all relatable. In that aspect, it likely mirrors real life. Ted Kaczynski, who could generate some sympathy as to how he became the Unabomber – Rudolph comes across as merely a sociopath with no moral compass.
Still, the series of worth watching. I liked the film version much more than this, but the series goes far beyond the events of the movie which really does manage to hold your attention and pull you in. It is on Netflix and I recommend you give it a chance to grow on you.
I get questions from readers from time-to-time about the writing process. I thought it might be worth putting some of these out for people who are contemplating being authors, fiction or non-fiction. These are not hard and fast responses carved in stone, but simply my responses based on experience. Don’t accept these as gospel, they are merely my responses. Other authors I’m sure have completely different answers that may be just as right – for them.
Here’s the most common ones I receive from readers/would-be authors:
Do you write out a detailed outline to work off of for a book?
Generally I do. Some authors don’t. Some of my chapter summaries are little more and a two of three sentence summary. For fiction, it helps me estimate how big the book is going to be. My chapters tend to be between 2.5 and 5k words in fiction, so knowing how many chapters I have allows me to estimate the project’s length. Also for fiction, it helps me see obvious issues, like a character not getting mentioned or on-screen for too long of a gap. It also helps me see where pacing might be a problem. On a new project, after I created the outline, I realized that I had no real action taking place for two chapters – just people talking. That drove me to a change.
For non-fiction I find the chapter breakdowns are a must. They help organize your research materials which is critical when writing military history or true crime.
I am not locked into the outline. If I come up with something that warrants a change, or a new chapter, I do it on the fly.
I’ve checked the math – it’s true.
Where do you start?
For me, it either begins with a great character idea or I mentally get a scene in my head that pops (to me) and from there, the rest of the story gets flowed out. Example: I have a novel coming out where I came up with one scene with two characters that I thought was cool. It tells you everything you need to know about this character and the strategy involved. From that one scene, the rest of the book was easy to craft. That scene happens now, but in the middle of the novel.
Sometimes it is the character. I have one coming up where I wanted a character based on Jack Churchill of WWII fame. I want a character like him. Now it is the matter of figuring out how he would fit into a broader plot that has been suggested. Oddly, understanding this character’s ins and outs compels situations where he will fit in.
What are the hardest parts to write?
I have tried to narrow my response to three things I find challenging to write.
The opening of the book. I like stories to start with an event – be that a battle or in the case of true crime, it can be the discovery of a body or a murder. In one case, my daughter and I began with something different, meeting a profiler and getting his perspective. You have to start off with a compelling reason for readers to want to read more. Some may bail if you start out poorly.
The end of the book. Ultimately you want and ending that leaves the reader satisfied. You don’t have to wrap up every loose end – sometimes that is done intentionally. It gets a little tricky when writing true crime books on cold cases, because the crimes remain unsolved. That doesn’t mean that you can ignore giving the reader some degree of closure in the form of summary as to where the cases remain.
For fiction, I try and put in a twist of some sort. Sometimes it is big, sometimes it is nothing more than a small revelation. It is as much about bringing closure for the reader as it is for the characters of the story. It is a fine balancing act between the two.
Changes in the character arcs. Characters grow, they evolve, their perspectives change. If they don’t, they are dull. I work on arcs for my characters as much as I do the outline for the story. Each character has to grow in some way, or devolve. Writing the scenes where a character’s path changes is tricky. If you don’t do it right, the reader feels that you are not being true to the character.
In fairness, some readers never can wrap their hands around changes in character arcs no matter how you justify and explain it. They are so invested in their perspective of the character, they refuse to accept change in any form. It is both a compliment and a struggle – but such is the nature of fan bases.
If you have questions, feel free to submit them in the comments. I will do another post in the future.
We are in a quasi-spoiler zone here. Read on at your own risk.
I’m going to use the word ‘refreshing’ here in that this is not your typical true crime drama. It is less about crime and more about the dangers of people on the internet who consider themselves sleuths. As a true crime author, I know all about treading carefully. I have outted suspects before in my books, and I do so by presenting hard facts – not conspiracy theories. I attempt to engage the individuals I am writing about, to let them express their side of the story. If nothing else, this series on Netflix makes you see the dangers of people at their computers, assigning blame based on their own half-assed investigating.
The Cecil Hotel is creepy, and a lot of bad things have happened there over the years. Every city has a Cecil or two lurking in the shadows. In many respects, the hotel is a character in this drama as it unfolds – which is interesting. Elisa Lam, a Canadian, disappeared while staying there. The police could not find her at first, and a number of self-proclaimed investigators start tearing into the bizarre elevator video taken of Ms. Lam prior to her disappearing. They find a creepy song-writer who stayed there once and begin to label him as a suspect. There are claims that the hotel staff and the police are involved in a conspiracy to cover up the crime. You are drawn in, wondering where this true crime drama is going to take you.
If there was an award for best character in a true crime documentary, it would be her.
Then it hangs a hard left in Albuquerque (Bugs Bunny fans will get the reference)
Without ruining this series, it masterfully draws you in, then gut punches you. I enjoyed it because it was different, because it showed the dangers of people using their podcasts or digital forums irresponsibly.
The truth about Elisa Lam is sad and tragic. It is something that was not preventable, unfortunately. The real crime was what happened after she disappeared, and the producers get you there abruptly, almost without warning. It is a cautionary tale, and one well worth watching. It ends, not as you want it to, but with a cold dose of reality.
Where Keith Call’s car was found abandoned on the Colonial Parkway
We just learned of the release date for two-night series on Oxygen dealing with the Colonial Parkway Murders starting Thursday, February 11.
To be clear, my daughter and I have not been involved with this production at all, but we fully support any effort to get the story of the Colonial Parkway Murders out there and hopefully generate new tips or actionable leads for investigators. We remain in contact with some of the family members and endorse anything that can help the survivors get some closure.
Victoria and I wrote the definitive book on these crimes several years ago, A Special Kind of Evil. We have had people criticize us for writing true crime books, claiming that it is all about making money. In reality, given the two years we spent doing the research and conducting interviews – it was NEVER about the money. You get emotionally attached to cases and the victim’s families.
With cold cases, you are putting yourself out there, knowing full well that the killer is still on the loose. There were many times when we have gone to libraries and spoken when we have scanned the crowd wondering if the killer is sitting right in front of us. That is one of the reasons we have taken photos at the larger gatherings.
I have received death threats because of the books we write, so we take this seriously. It is chilling to think that the killer may have picked up your book to try and glean what law enforcement knows about the case. With one book we wrote, a suspect that we outed actually showed up to one of our book signings. I take a certain amount of pride knowing that I piss off serial killers or other murderers. The risks are real. So, if you think this is about profit, you are wrong. Our level of commitment to resolving cases like the Colonial Parkway Murders or the Freeway Phantom crimes is very real and honest.
When you write about true crime cold cases, you immediately become a focal point for some people to contact you with their tips and leads. Individuals are sometimes more comfortable calling or contacting an author rather than law enforcement with their ideas as to who may be behind these crimes. Messages come in via email or over the phone, at all hours of the day or night. We pass on any and all tips to the authorities to take action on. Victoria and I don’t have any illusions that we will solve this case, that will be done by the authorities.
The logging trail off of I-64 where the last two victims were killed and their bodies left until hunters found them weeks later.
Going over my notes, I see that our efforts in writing A Special Kind of Evil has thus far generated over 20 tips for authorities. Who knows, maybe one of these will eventually bring about some resolution to these heinous crimes? We have had people give us tips about former school teachers, police officers, family members, store owners…you name it. Many have come in regarding one or two suspects in particular…which is no real surprise.
So we will be watching for this series to be released in anticipation that it may finally bring these cases to closure…and we encourage you to do the same.
Addendum: Because of a request we received after this posting – here are links to the book if you want to get up to speed prior to or after the TV show:
Would you buy a used Soviet submarine from these three guys?
I stumbled across this true crime documentary on Netflix and started watching it on a lark. It is…well…unique.
I remember bits and pieces of the news reports about this. Right after the fall of the Soviet Union, a Columbian drug cartel tried to purchase a Soviet submarine to smuggle drugs. No, I’m not making this up. Like many news stories, it disappeared off the headlines and faded away. Well, this series covers what happened.
Part of this series came across to me as almost like a comedy. I mean seriously, purchasing a submarine to smuggle drugs? And the cast of characters are so ‘quirky’ that you cannot imagine them actually getting together to try and pull this stunt off. Remarkably, however, it is a true story.
This series has elements of the Russian mob, crooked (if not crazy) cartel members (I mean, one guy stole $10 million from the cartel and is still on the run), corrupt Soviet officers (“Would you like to purchase some nuclear material?”) and more. If I were writing this as a piece of fiction, no one would believe the individuals involved, let alone the thought that they might very well have pulled it off.
This is not your typical true crime fare – it isn’t about murders or serial killers. I couldn’t bring myself to shut it off, it is entertaining enough to hold onto you. It’s only a single documentary episode, so you don’t have to commit to a series.
It’s worth it for the helicopter landing in the city square to get directions alone.
I am giving it five out of five stars simply because it made me chuckle and wince at the same time. Enjoy!
The Netflix series about the Yorkshire Ripper was, with one exception, a very well-done documentary on the 1970’s murders commited by Peter Sutcliffe. As a true crime author myself, I was familiar with the killings, but did not know them in detail. I thought that the producers did an admirable job of laying out the crimes and giving viewers some of the social context that was useful in understanding the culture and the region during the period. I always respect that approach, expecially with older murders such as these.
I found the police investigation to be flawed…there’s no way around that. They had spoke with Sutcliffe on multiple occassions and found him suspicious. Further, he looked exactly like the artist’s sketch of the Ripper. Still, it was sheer luck that they stumbled into and finally apprehended them.
The only thing I didn’t like was in one episode which focused on this being misrepresentations of women and an issue of a male patriarchy. One individual got a summery of the Ripper report from the FBI and lauded that the authorities had painted the Ripper victims as prostitutes. I’ve seen such summary reports, they often do not contain the hours of interviews done to compile them. Their experts contended that many of the victims were not prostitutes and that, in some way, made the investigation flawed. They offered no real evidence to support this however, which left me puzzled.
They went on to explain that this serial killer was a product of a patriarchy and that the Ripper was suppressing their rights as female. I have done a lot of research on serial killers, with actual experts, and this just came acrossed as an unsupported and political-driven arguement. It would have been great to have experts on serial killers in the documentary talking about Sutcliffe or the crimes – but for some reason, the producers decided not to, which struck me as weird. Then again, my perspective could be entirely wrong…I leave that up to you to decide.
Regardless, most of my issues were contained in one episode and doesn’t take away from the overall high-quality production that went into this series. I give it four out of five stars — well worth your time and consideration.
The following is the transcript of our latest episode on the Freeway Phantom
Hello, this is Blaine Pardoe. Welcome back to our podcast. I’m joined, as usual, with my daughter and co-author, Victoria Hester.
Welcome back everyone. We hope you are all enjoying the Tantamount Podcast. We certainly are having fun pulling them together. With this episode is an important one for this case. We call it the Phantom of St. E’s, but the real meat of what we are going to cover is around the topic of geographic profiling.
I have to admit, when we started working on the book about the Freeway Phantom, I really only had a bit of surface knowledge about geographic profiling. I’m not an expert now, but I have read a fantastic textbook on the subject.
We really didn’t have a choice. One of our confidential police informants gave us a copy of the geographic profile done of the murders in 2005. That forced the issue because it was very revealing about potential suspects. Geography plays a key role in these murders. The killer operated in a relatively small number of neighborhoods. The roads were important to him and that was where he dumped the remains of his victims. If you analyze the geography, it can really focus on what was important to him, what was his tie to the communities. And in this case, the geographic profile puts you right on ground zero.
Let’s not get too far ahead of ourselves. Let’s talk about how geographic profiling works. When I started this I thought it was a matter of drawing circles around the crime scenes and seeing where they interlock. There is a lot more to it than that. This is some pretty serious math in play here. Geographic profiling looks at where the victims resided, where they were last seen – which is where they had contact with their killer, and where their bodies get dumped. These then factor in along with a variety of other factors including road systems, traffic patterns and volumes at the time of day. They look at things like the time travel to the crime scene and other criminal theories such as rational choice.
Geographic profiling is not intended to tell you where the killer lives or works – but that can be a result. What it does is zero in on what are called Anchor Points. These are places where the serial killer has a special connection of some sort. Now, in some cases, that can be their home. Likewise it may be where they work. Many times it is neither. An Anchor Point is merely a place where the murderer has a high degree of familiarity. They frequent these spots. These are often the places where they are most comfortable being. It may not even be where they have ties now, but where they had a strong connection in the past.
The person that did the Freeway Phantom geographic profile was D. Kim Rossmo, out of the Center for Geospatial Intelligence and Investigation, at the Texas State University. He was invited to pull it together by Detective Jim Trainum of the Washington DC Metropolitan Police. It was a technique that was not available to the original investigators in the 1970’s and Trainum hoped that the use of this tool might help him as he reopened the Freeway Phantom murders.
Geospatial intelligence originated out of the research done at Simon Fraser University’s School of Criminology in British Columbia, Canada, in 1989. Dr. Rossmo is a pioneer in this field. It has helped investigators narrow their search for killers in active investigations. What I found interesting is that they really refined the formula and the techniques by looking at serial killings that had already been solved. In the case of the Night Stalker in California, they were able to retro-fit the analysis and it showed the very block that Richard Ramirez lived at when he had been committing the crimes. Rossmo has also applied this to a number of cold cases.
I liked the analysis done of Jack the Ripper’s murders. It is so cool to see a technique like this applied to these high-profile unsolved cases.
I agree! That was pretty neat.
What is also interesting is that Geographic profiling can’t be used in every case. You really need a string of connected murders for it to be effective. Also, you need a certain kind of serial killer. You need a killer who is not a rover. If you have a serial killer that, for example, travels the country and kills in a wide spread of geographies over time, the tool’s effectiveness diminishes because that kind of killer does not have relevant anchor point.
Well, in the case of the Freeway Phantom, we know he operated in a fairly tight area, concentrated on the southeast neighborhoods of DC and just inside Prince George’s County, Maryland.
True. I found Dr. Rossmo’s textbook on profiling fascinating to me. A lot more interesting than the textbooks I read in college. Not so much the math, but the thinking behind how serial killers operate.
Why don’t you go into that for a minute? I’m sure the listeners would like it.
Sure. A serial killer is often a hunter. There are multiple varieties of how they hunt. Some lure their victims to their place and kill them there.
Like Jeffrey Dahlmer.
Exactly. Other killers stalk their prey and kill them either where they make contact with them, or take them somewhere else after gaining control of them, then kill them there.
Then they must dispose of their victims. Some do that locally, burying them at their house. Most try and put some distance between the victims and where they were slain. As you know, some killers use dump sites to dispose of multiple victims, while others spread out where they leave their victims.
Well, that’s the Freeway Phantom. We know he took seized his victims, took them somewhere, most likely his house, killed them, then drove their bodies to where he left them. He started doing a dump site initially. Carol Spinks and Darlenia Johnson were found in a very small area, less than 15 feet apart. His other victims were left all Southeast DC and Maryland.
Right. Now some of the theories that I found in Dr. Rossmo’s book was that there are zones where a serial killer will and won’t operate. Think of these as concentric rings and imagine his home or place of work in the center. The neighborhood around that anchor point is well known to the killer. He knows the roads, the side streets, traffic, everything. The problem is he is known there too. So if he tries to pick up a victim, the people in that center ring may very well know who he is and make him easier to capture. So a killer is less likely, in most cases, to operate in that center ring around their anchor point.
The next ring out is where the real hunting for victims takes place. These are neighborhoods and streets that the serial killer knows very well. At the same time, he is not known there. For the most part he’s as stranger there.
The familiarity with the streets is pretty important. The killer has to be able to navigate with the victim to wherever he intends to kill them. To me, it feels like these are the areas where he has spent a lot of time looking for potential victims. He’s probably even made some trial runs from there back to where he kills them. If he’s smart, he knows something about the police patrols there too.
Exactly. The final outermost circle is huge. This represents geography were the killer is not likely to operate. He isn’t familiar with the area, there isn’t that comfort he has. It’s not his turf. This area is where the killer is uncomfortable that he can pull off his crime and not get caught.
I like to think of these as hunting zones. They factor into the calculations for geographic profiling as well. So as you can see, it’s not as easy as pulling up Google Maps and drawing circles on it. There’s a lot you have to consider with this kind of profiling.
For me, as an author, going to some of these neighborhoods some 40 plus years later, it is surreal. You can cruise the same streets, see the same thing that the killer did. Sure the cars are smaller and the apartments and homes are different, some better, some worse…but you get a vibe of what it was like for the Phantom roaming, looking for prey.
Detective Trainum didn’t mess around when he wanted his geographic profiling done. He had Dr. Rossmo do it. And while it was done in 2005, the results still should stand as valid.
I would like to point out that the geographic profile done for the Freeway Phantom cases did NOT include Teara Ann Bryant. We know that the FBI considered her as part of the Freeway Phantom killings because she is part of their profile of the killer. When the Washington MPD asked for their geographic profile, they didn’t include her. Even so, I doubt it would have affected the results greatly. The location where she disappeared and where her body was found is, as I like to call it, ‘in the zone’ of where the Phantom operated.
By now you probably want us to cut to the chase, so I will. Where did the geographic profile say the anchor point for this serial killer was? St. Elizabeth’s Hospital.
St. Elizabeth, or St. E’s as a lot of locals call it, is not your typical psychiatric facility in the 1970’s. It was built around the time of the Civil War. It was huge, a campus really, consisting of many buildings, gardens, etc. Even today, as they tear it down for new homes, it has a creepy-factor about it. The windows all are barred, the doors and stairs have industrial screening. For decades, this hospital was where the government sent their criminals and citizens that suffered the worst mental conditions. They used shock treatments and experimental medications there. Those bars on the windows, they are not to keep people out, but keep patients in.
When we were down there, I have to admit, it gave me an ooky feeling. I mean this was an anchor point for the killer, a place that he had a special connection to. When you looked through the chain link fencing that now surrounds the site, it is easy to picture patients peering out of the windows. Every door has flat faded green mesh or bars. It was like a prison, but far worse. I would hate to be there at night. Not because of any fear in the neighborhood, but you can stand there and imagine the sounds that came from those buildings, the muffled screams from padded cells – the cries of the mad in the night. It really is a place right out of a Hollywood horror film.
Remember, the first two victims, Spinks and Johnson, they were left on I-295 on the shoulder. Some 20 feet away was the perimeter fence for St. E’s. That’s how much this facility was tied to the killer. You have to wonder, did he wander the grounds there at some point and scope out where he was going to leave his victims years later?
For me – this profile brings us back to looking at the suspects. From what we were able to gather through our research and reviewing court records, none of the Green Vega Gang had a significant tie to St. Elizabeths prior to their arrests. One was sent there after he was arrested for an evaluation, but before, none of them worked there or had been patients there. That doesn’t rule them out entirely. But the profile essentially is telling us that whoever the killer is, he had a tight bond with that location – and these guys just don’t show that.
That makes me turn to my favorite suspect, Robert Askins.
I knew you were going to go there!
Duh. The guy spent decades in St. E’s as a patient. That was where he was sentenced after his first murder conviction. Look, there’s a number of suspects that the police looked at, but only one had any connection to St. Elizabeths, and that was Robert Ellwood Askins.
I felt the same thing when I read the report. However, being impartial, I have to point out that there were thousands of patients that had been in and out of St. E’s. It is entirely possible that it was a doctor or a worker there. Remember, that hospital is an anchor point for the killer. He has some connection there. That doesn’t necessarily mean that he was a patient. It could be he had a relative that was a patient and spent a lot of time there visiting. There’s a lot of scenarios that can be concocted that could link people to St. E’s.
But what do you think?
To me, it’s another nail in the Robert Askins coffin. It points to him. However, we are looking at it from the lens of the police and who they had as suspects. If that is your sample, then it is Askins. If, however, it was someone that the police didn’t have as a suspect, well, it means it could be thousands of potential individuals.
Our book presented the information on the geographic profile to the public for the first time. It is an important bit of information. I only wish the police had released this information earlier themselves. It may have generated some tips, got people thinking about friends or relatives that had links to St. E’s.
It still can. Remember, this is a cold case. There’s information at the end of each episode if you have any information that might assist authorities in closing these cases. This little nugget of information might just trigger a thought or memory that can close these cases.
In the next episode of Tantamount – serial killers rarely contact the authorities. The Freeway Phantom did. He had one of his victims write a note, a grizzly message that he left on her body. The note is important because it is the killer speaking directly to the public, and to the authorities. Please join us for Episode 9, The Voice of the Killer.
Notes From The Bunker 