When the curtain drops on everyday life, true crime shows like this podcast and especially those on television expose the darkest side of humanity. Television relentlessly chases the latest trending crimes on police blotters and court dockets. Claire Satomall pursued those stories in the cutthroat world of prime time television as a producer for CBS forty eight Hours, and she also produced segments for sixty Minutes.
She's written a memoir about her experiences, Killer Story, The Truth Behind True Crime Television. Television executives have known for decades that the audience is overwhelmingly female. We're talking 70 to 80%, sometimes more. Mothers and daughters, best friends, women of all ages coming together for what amounts to a girl's night out centered on murder. You may wanna go back and listen to my episode with journalist, Mike Cox.
He wrote a funny satire, Getting Away with Murder, Learning from Dateline and other true crime shows. So what's going on here? Why are women so drawn to true crime? Claire Sanemaugh, now a fellow true crime podcaster, shares her insights. Well, Claire, I'll I'll ask you the question I get asked all the time. Why is true crime so popular, especially with women? I have thought about this a lot because
I also get asked this a lot. And I really think it's because it's a safe way to consume all the terrible things that could happen to us. You know, women are statistically more likely to be the victim of violent crime and enter, you know, personal violence. And so I think a lot of that fascination comes from knowing that many of the victims are just like us. And so I think that we're naturally drawn to stories where we can see ourselves in them, as scary as that might be.
And I always get the question from everybody on the serial killers. Is it nature or nurture? Now I have to believe it's it's a combination of both. Do you get that question a lot? I do. And I agree. I think it is a combination of both. I think some people are born with this, you know, violent tendency. I think some people are born with a shorter fuse.
I think that the idea that violence is the answer, that they've been wronged and they have to seek vengeance, you know, I think that is sort of something that is innate in in some people that they're more predisposed to that. But I think the nature element comes into play with, you know, are they taught to embrace that, tendency? Are they taught to try to do things differently? Do they have tools to manage their anger? Are they shown outlets for their frustration?
Or does it get to be something where violence is used against them regularly? And so they see violence as the answer, you know, and they they internalize that, that that's how you get respect. That's how you get results. And and I think that that is a really dangerous thing to teach anyone. And I think we see it, you know, in our society play out all the time that people grow old, but they don't grow up and they still act like,
you know, spoiled kids. They still act like the temper tantrum toddler. Only this time they have a knife or a gun in their hands. Well, we're both in Dallas and, you know, the FBI director was even here a number of months ago talking about gun crime among youth. And it does seem to be like epidemic that something has gone on out there. I'm talking about 16, 17 year olds, men and women. What's your sense?
Well, without getting too political, I do think the ease in which we can access guns, make it something that is as easy to do as to go to the store and to pick one up. And so I think that having that ability, is a blessing and a curse and it it does create opportunity for, you know, it
to be abused. And I think if you're growing up in an environment where you feel that you don't have protection, that you feel like you could face mortal harm at any moment, and you wanna protect yourself, well, I could certainly understand why you would start carrying a gun, but that introduces a whole other layer of problems, you know, in in our society. And I think there's just a public safety element to the idea that, you know, are we gonna have gun battles on the street like it's
the Wild West? Is that, you know, what we're really wanting our our modern society to look like? You know, I I find that disturbing. Well, we're having them in cars, you know, Texas leads the country in road rage, especially Houston. And it's people that normally would never even think of doing this. But there's something going on. Heat of the moment. I don't know if everybody is just angry. It's hard to put your finger on. I don't know how much you run into it,
but Yeah. I definitely think about that when people cut me off in traffic. I'm not the one to, retaliate or give them, you know, the finger or anything because I know that people can react completely disproportionately. And you know I often say you know for various behaviors well that's a good way to get shot in Texas, you know, and I just don't do it. So it's you know one of those things is to to start tailing someone after they've
cut you off in traffic. It's just not risky behavior I'm not going to engage in. What attracted you to write about true crime as a journalist? And I got the sense maybe from your book there's, you know, maybe you've had some misgivings of kind of waiting around in the refuse of society every day. You know, I was drawn to it initially, just because as a journalist, I couldn't believe all the story elements that were just right in front of my face in a
crime story. Whenever you go to the police report and you get the narrative of the case, you get the victim, the complainant, witnesses, names, phone numbers, addresses. To me, it was like this unbelievable gift from from the journalism gods to to give you this story that, you could just take a running start with to tell it. And you you had all of this really valuable information at your fingertips if you knew how to, you know, use the police databases. And so for me, that was the initial
draw. It was just all of this information that allowed me to very quickly start working on a story. And I, you know, I love nothing more than a good story. So so that was, pretty tantalizing to me. Was the police beat your start in crime? So, yes, it was. It was absolutely just the police blotter at People Newspapers was my start in crime. So I, I was a general assignment reporter, you know, covering everything. I was going to the school board meetings. I was going to city council.
I was writing stories when little old ladies turned a hundred and they were throwing birthday parties. You know, I was doing it all, Robert. So, the police blotter was was part of my, you know, weekly routine and I just started to get really interested in the patterns that I would see in the kinds of crimes that were committed and, you know, just really thinking about all the
different people who are impacted by crime. You know, you have the police officers, you have, of course, the victims, you have, you know, the suspects and people who get, you know, falsely accused of crimes. There's just it's a really rich tapestry for writing. Oh, it is a tapestry. You know, I'm very senior in age to you. But, you know, my peers we've all talked about the best place to start in journalism as a rookie was the police beat. And you see really good reporters
come out of that. I mean, amazing reporters. What is it you think about that it is about you can really craft a good journalist covering the police beat. I think it's a trial by fire. You know, you're thrown in, you're talking to cops that usually don't wanna talk to you. You're
dealing with matters of life and death. You are chasing down, you know people for statements and interviews and you're learning you know the basics of records requests and you know navigating the court system and I think it really gives you, you know, a lot of skills that can translate to other types of journalism, you know, very easily. Political journalism, you know, feature writing, so many things. You know, you can use the skills that you learn as
a reporter on the police beat. But, yeah, I just think also the idea that there's always something happening. There's, you know, the crime beat never sleeps, and you you can always find a story, and there's always, like, more things to dig into. In your new book, Killer Story, is it based largely on your experience as a producer for forty eight hours doing crime stories?
And you also talk about a story that really was interesting is the woman who was, murdering her husbands and you found a pattern. Yeah. Yes. Talk about that story. Is that really what kind of set you off? It is. So the story of Michelle Williams is my origin story in true crime television. I was at the time working for Culture Map Dallas, and I came across just a scant story talking about a plea deal that a woman named Michelle Williams had reached in the death of her husband.
And it said that she would, you know, probably serve nine years and she was pleading guilty to deadly conduct and tampering with evidence and, you know, it was just all very curious to me and it really piqued my interest as a crime reporter because I know you don't get a plea deal for murder in Texas very easily And you certainly don't get something like nine years,
you know, that that's that's unheard of. So I was really drawn to this case and I started digging into Michelle Williams' background and I found out that nothing about this woman was as it seemed. And she had a trail of destruction. This was her third husband. This was the second time that she was claiming, you know, that someone close to her had committed suicide.
And this was a pattern that I discovered that she would lie and manipulate and use her, you know, sweet innocent woman persona as this damsel in distress to really get preferential treatment from law enforcement and from, you know, the court system. And so I ended up doing a three part investigative series on Michelle Williams asking, did she get away with murder in the death of her husband because she was allowed to plead plead guilty to something called deadly conduct, not murder.
And so, you know, after my story came out, it was just a wave of of media interest from Dateline NBC, from twenty twenty on ABC, and from forty eight hours on CBS, about this twisted murder story in in Texas. And so I ended up working with forty eight hours as a consultant on that story and that really launched my career in television. It was my first experience with TV and it was just the beginning of of a
new phase of my career. We covered, you know, the fact that Michelle Williams plea deal was taken off the table, once the authorities realized how much she had lied about in her past. And she actually went to trial for murder and was found guilty and sentenced to sixty years in prison.
So I I take a lot of, pride in that story in in finding out more information about her than authorities had been able to figure it out, you know, in their investigation and really helping the family, you know, the victim's family get justice, get, a just verdict for, you know, their loved one's death. Did you ever go see her in prison? Do you ever interview her? I have tried. She has, declined my interview request, Robert. Yeah. Imagine that. Is she going to be eligible for parole
in the future? I'm just wondering what the sentence was. Yes. So she would be eligible for parole, but unlikely to to get it. I think she would be, have to serve, I wanna say, thirty years of her sentence before she would be eligible for parole, but I know the victim's family plans on Protest. Yeah. Exactly. Protesting that and and being present, and vocal about how they do not want her to get out.
In your time with sixty minutes, what was a particular story there that you just you know, we all gonna shake our head about, like, boy, you can't make this stuff up? Sure. So I my big story with sixty minutes was called the ranger and the serial killer. And it was a story of a Texas ranger who had elicited 93 confessions from serial killer Samuel Little, who at the time was in LA County Prison on a life sentence for three murders that he had said he had been falsely accused
of, that he did not commit. He was adamant that he was innocent. And after this Texas Ranger went and interviewed him, over the course of of many, many interviews, many hours, many days, he ended up confessing to not only those three murders, but to 90 others and really providing so many rich details about the cases and the victims where he would actually sketch his victims. And he had these haunting portraits of, these women that he killed, and they were actually used to identify the bodies.
Many times, authorities had found these unknown Jane Does and the bodies had been out for some time. There's decomposition. They did not know who they were. And so Samuel Little's own words and drawings were made public and family members would come forward and say, that looks like my mom. That looks like my sister. And you know, would remember details that would allow
authorities to corroborate those cases. So that was just an unbelievable investigative journey and was so interesting to be part of that story and to, you know, share it with the nation. Do you know how many actually ended up being confirmed of the 90? So I believe the last time I checked, it was somewhere in the sixties.
I know we had broken, I think it was, like, 61 when the FBI announced Samuel Little as the most prolific serial killer in the history of The United States because he had gone past the other established kill number, which I I believe was, like, 60 from, yeah, previous serial killer. As a reporter, I'm curious. Did you ever get a little apprehensive in the process? Because everybody got burned by Henry Lee Lucas in this state Yes. Years ago. Yeah. Yes. So that absolutely came up.
And the Texas Ranger who was interrogating Samuel Little, he was very aware of the Henry Lee Lucas case and the pitfalls that authorities made at that time by putting this information out in front of him. And so he was very careful never to put information in front of him to allow Samuel Little to himself bring up the dates, the places, the cities where he killed. And so by doing that, he really avoided the false confession pitfall.
And many people have tried to prove that Samuel Little, you know, did not commit these crimes. And to date, I don't know of a single murder that Samuel Little has confessed to that has been proven to be anyone else's. Many many journalists from the Washington Post, from all sorts of fabulous media companies have looked into this to see, is there a false confession? And to date, I have not seen any evidence that that they found one. Did you ever get the opportunity to interview him?
Samuel Little, I did not. So the closest we got so LA County does not allow media interviews with their inmates on prison grounds, but we were able to do a phone call interview with him. And so correspondent Sharon Alfonsi with sixty minutes, you know, conducted that phone conversation. And as one of the producers, I was in the room as as she was talking to Samuel Little over the phone. And that
that's as close as I got. Probably a little bit closer than I would have liked was whenever we went into his cell at LA County Prison and he was not in it, but we were allowed inside and we could see, you know, he gets fan mail, which is really disturbing to think about, and he hangs it up on his walls and, you know, he gets still gets, like, lots of newspapers and and other forms of media that he he keeps and, you know, he had all sorts of snack cakes and
it was this kind of bizarre, like, almost like a summer camp cabin atmosphere because he had, like, pictures that people had drawn, you know, tacked up on his wall and his own drawings and letters from pen pals. And it was a strange experience, and it was very eerie to be, you know, in his space and know that this is where, you know, this man that had killed so many people, this is where he relaxes. This is where he reclines. You know, it was a disturbing, experience.
You know, I've done a lot of reporting on Texas death row, and I see the same thing, the fan mail, particularly women that come to Oh, that's bizarre. Yeah. And pals and all. And I still have trouble wrapping my head around it. I'm just like, it's hard to understand. It is. You know, part of it, I think, is that a certain kind of woman is drawn to this, quote, unquote, powerful man that is locked away and cannot actually harm them anymore.
I think there's a weird, like, safety element in that they are completely incapable of causing them physical harm, but they can have, like, this emotional relationship with this violent, powerful man that they're probably drawn to due to some very sad things that have happened in their lives and like some strange psychology about just being attracted to bad men. And so I found that, you know, women will make pen pals with these murderers knowing that they'll never get out and they like it that
way. You know, they can't they can't cheat on them. They can't abuse them. They can't actually steal money from them. And so it's this sort of really bizarre, unusual, quote unquote relationship, you know? It's not a physical relationship. It's not a relationship in the way that you and I would have, you know, a relationship with someone outside of prison. But to them, it's actually a very romantic, intimate, emotional connection. You talked about the Texas Ranger.
Certainly overseas, the Rangers have this huge mythology, and even here in The States. What do you think that is? And is it justified in this day and age? So the Texas Rangers, you know, they have a unique role in law enforcement in our state. They are able to have jurisdiction across the entire Lone Star State, which is expansive. So they aren't limited to a city or
county. And I think the idea that they can literally go into any town in Texas and start investigating a crime and arrest someone, you know, that alone is pretty special and allows them to, you know, stand above local law enforcement. I also think the specialized nature of their training and the types of cases that they look into, like, if the Texas Rangers are involved, it's a very serious crime. It's a weird crime. It's an unusual
case. And so I have worked with a lot of cold case investigations that involve the Texas Rangers and they come in and they do new interviews and they retest evidence and they do the kinds of things that, you know, victims' families are like have been asking for, you know. And so I I think they rightfully so, you know, get a lot of credit for looking into these forgotten cases. These, you know, their unsolved crimes unit is is very busy in Texas.
I like to say that you might find them in the morning on a horseback and in the evening on their laptop. I mean, they're very, even though they're the don't be misled by the Western garb and everything, they're very sophisticated and got great answers. They are. And a lot of times, yeah, they're the first to use new technology and to look at advances in, you know, DNA testing or
other forensics. And, yeah, I I definitely think that they are on usually on the cutting edge of of new technology, which you wouldn't necessarily think with the with the cowboy hats and the boots and Well, you know, they were at the forefront of, forensic genetic genealogy in this state, in Texas. So Yeah. That's fascinating. Yeah. But, you know, they they stay
out of the limelight. You know, when there's a press conference, even though they might have helped solve the crime, they let the sheriff take all the credit. Yeah, that's right. They stay in the background. On cold cases, you know, there's 300,000 cold cases across the country. Heck, there's more than a thousand in Fort Worth alone. I've always called it sort of the silent scandal. What is your sense of, will we ever get there?
It's really a never ending mountain to climb because as these cases, you know, they don't have enough evidence to test, they don't have witnesses, and they just kind of start stacking up. And so I I do think that, as we have more, you know, advances in technology and the ability for, like, touch DNA and, you know, other types of, forensic testing, I think we'll get
a higher, you know, solve rate. But, yeah, unfortunately, there is just a backlog of these cases that have not been solved and continue to grow colder by the day. And we know how important it is to investigate these cases when they're fresh and when the days are short on the calendar from from when the crime occurred. And so it just gets harder, you know, memories fade, evidence degrades, and, you know, the longer a case sits there, the harder it is to solve.
Are you seeing any new trends in crime? I'm seeing trends of criminals trying to get smarter with the technology, trying to cover their tracks. But even so, you know, if you turn off your cell phone and go commit a crime and then turn it back on, well, that stands out as an unusual activity.
So I think that in a lot of ways, you know, technology is really catching up to many criminals and there's a lot more data for people to come through, you know, not only your cell phone, your smartwatch, your Fitbit, but license plates readers, you know, toll tags. There's lots of information available that police officers are using, you know, to solve these crimes and to put the the puzzle pieces together. Well, as you know, Dateline's the mother of all
televised crime shows. Breakdown for our listeners the formulas, story formulas, that each of these shows they have. Yeah. So I mean, you know, true crime shows, we all talk about telling them in acts. That's something that comes up, you know, time and time again and whether you're working for the networks or cable or who you're, you know, whatever you might be working for. They tell the story in in five or six acts and that's, you know, they these little bite sized pieces of,
drama, right, for the audience. And you always wanna end on a cliffhanger before you go to commercial break and get them to come back. And, you know, these shows are really built for the linear television experience. They're not built to binge. And so they really just wanna keep you glued to your chair for for one hour, and that's that's the goal. And at the end of the hour, you have the satisfaction that the case has wrapped up. You know who the bad guy is. They're being punished.
And, you know, you can sleep better at night because we got to the bottom of this case. Which is not always the case. No. It's definitely not that cut and dry. But if you watch true crime television, you would think that it is. Well, in contrast to what you did in true crime television to now a podcast, what's the difference? What do you like about the podcast?
Yeah. The podcast really allows me to go as deep as I need to and, you know, go down all the trails that are available to me and follow the story wherever it takes me. And sometimes that's six episodes. Sometimes it's 10. Sometimes it's 15. And there's really not anything that limits the amount of airtime that you can have in a podcast because you can always release a new episode.
So that's exciting to me. So for you, what's kinda is the hallmark of a great true crime story that you're looking for? I look for twists and turns. You know, I look for those moments where you think you know the answers, you think you know who did it, and suddenly your entire perspective changes based on new witness testimony, new evidence, you know, and the idea that things are not as they seem. Same here. I'm really drawn to the mind. Yeah. What makes them tick? You know, bottom
line in all of it. Well, based on your all the crimes you've seen, what advice do you have to people listening to this, elders and or young women, young men, about safety? So I usually tell people, if you're not worried about the person sleeping next to you, then you're probably gonna be okay because that's your biggest risk. Your intimate partner is your biggest risk for violent crime. And so if you have concerns about that person, get out now, right? Like that that is very real.
The other big risk is anyone that you let into your home. So talking about contractors, talking about anyone who might do regular work in your home, housekeeping. A lot of times these people might be casing these houses to see who would be an easy target for crime. So a good way to not be an easy target, have security cameras, make sure they have a visible light so people know that they're working it on.
I like to tell people wave to the camera when they come into my house, if they're, you know, not a friend, if if it's someone who who I've hired to come into my house, I want them to know that I have
cameras. I also have a very large dog that barks and, you know, these are things that are very easy to do that just really make you a less likely target for this type of crime where they would think, I'm gonna come back and steal the TV and the computer and, you know, they don't wanna come back to the house with cameras everywhere and with a big barking dog. Speaking of barking dogs, I travel with a 168 pound Great Dane named Bob.
He'll pounce on command whether he's in the back of my SUV or guarding the front door. Like most police beat reporters, I have no desire to become the subject of a true crime drama. That's why I follow a simple mantra, stop, pause, observe. It's not just a phrase, it's a survival skill crafted by FBI agent, Robin Juric, who I profiled in two earlier episodes. It reminds us to slow down and see what others miss because danger rarely announces itself.
And the truth is most victims never saw it coming. To learn more about Stop, Pause, Observe, subscribe to my newsletter, Stories to Keep You Safe on the homepage of truecrimereporter.com. I'm Robert Riggs reporting.