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Lot Talk Radian.
You are now listening to True Murder, the most shocking killers in true crime history and the authors that have written about them. Gasey, Bundy, Dahmer, The Night Stalker BTK. Every week another fascinating author talking about the most shocking and infamous killers in true crime history. True Murder with your host journalist and author Dan Zufanski.
Good Evening. Dayton Leroy Rogers was known in Portland, Oregon, as a respected businessman and devoted husband and father. But at night he abduct did women, forced them into sadistic bondage games, and thrilled in their pain, terror, and mutilation.
His murderous spree was stopped only after in plain View, he slashed to death his final victim, and when a hunter accidentally stumbled onto the burial grounds of seven other women Rogers had killed one by one in the depths of the Malaala Forest, police realized that they were dealing with a serial killer whose blood lust knew no bounds. This is the shocking true story of the horrifying crimes, capture, and conviction of Dayton Leroy Rogers, Oregon's mild mannered businessman
by day, vicious serial killer by night. The book that we're profiling the seating is blood Lust, Portrait of a Serial sex Killer, with my special guest, journalist and author Gary C. King. Welcome back to the program, and thank you for agreeing to this interview. Gary C. King.
Thanks Dan, it's good to be I like your show a lot.
Well, it's great to have you back. So that works out good for everyone, including our esteemed audience. So now, as we spoke before just before the program, here, this is a book that came out twenty years ago. So tell us now, this true crime classic Bloodlust. Tell us exactly, without giving anything really too much away, how it came to be that you wrote this book Bloodlust? Was it your idea, the publisher's idea? How did you come to this?
How did it come to your attention? Tells us a little bit about how you came to write Bloodlust.
Well, at that time in my writing career, I was still writing for the detective magazines and I wanted very much to break out from that and explore books. This was my first book, and well therefore it was my choice to write about this particular case. There were a lot of women at the time going missing, and you know, there was a true mystery going on, was what was
happening to Portland's prostitutes. They were just disappearing. And I thought, well, this looks like a really good possibility, because it sure seems like there's a serial killer at work here, and so I followed it. I just followed the story for a long time, and as time went on, the case, of course, became more and more interesting as the cops, in fact, you know, determined that there was a serial
killer and they began developing the case. But it turned out that it was It was my idea, was my choice to write about it, and I had lots of cooperation from the cops in this case, which we can get into and I can tell you about if you're interested. Absolutely, But that's how it got started. And then came the famous one hundred and sixty page proposal. I never had written a book proposal before in the book proposal after.
The book, but yeah, proction.
And Michael Hamilton, then at that time at Penguin Books, decided she wanted it for their new American Library imprint, and so she snapped it up and I worked with her for the next six months or so in developing the rest of it into a book.
And she went on to Kensington Press and that's more on the story.
Yeah, yeah, she is. She's actually been over there for years now. Yeah, I'm very happy there with her True Crime division.
Absolutely. Now, tell us a little bit about I thought this a very fascinating to to put in perspective. Very much like Canada, the US is even more known for it seems to be one of the coasts. Even more evidence of serial killers in on the West coast for some reason. And Oregon and that area Portland, Washington. Anyway, tell us a little bit about the history of some of the famous and not so famous serial killers from
this area. Tell us about Brudos and up to the Green River Killer, which I thought was very interesting.
Yeah, we know that the Pacific Northwest, particularly the Seattle area, it was the stomping grounds of Ted Bundy and that went on for a long time. And of course there was Jerome Brudos. He operated out of Oregon and was not as as big or well known as some of the other serial killers, but just as vicious and savage as as they were. He liked, you know, collect trophies like breasts and feet and things like that. But he uh, he he was, you know, fairly big in the news,
uh when when these things were coming out. But uh, but then we've got you know, people like Wesley Alan Dodd came from that area. He was headline news for ages. Uh you know, child killer, pedophile.
Yeah.
And then uh the I five killer, Randall Woodfield, probably less well known, but uh nonetheless an interesting, interesting character from from that area.
Then.
Uh, in the mystery the Green River Killer, you know that went on for good how many decades it seemed like before uh where they found Gary Ridgeway.
Yeah. I found it interesting in your book is that obviously if people had bought the book twenty years ago, they would have The Green River Killer was not identified at that time.
That's true. Yeah, I allude to him a few times in the opening passages because he was still out there operating at the time, and there were times when people thought that Rogers may have been somehow linked to that case. But you know, of course that history turned out not to be the situation.
Now in the subject of this story, or the location of this story is Portland, Oregon, and we have this you paint again very vivid portrayal of this area and the people that inhabit it, this eighty second Avenue, and you get the rationale why these people would operate not downtown, but more so in this area. And then you introduced
the character Tracy Baxter. Tell us about Portland, Oregon at that time in the late eighties and this area and specifically and take us back and paint a portrait of this very different slice of life at that time.
Well, as you know, in any any major city, there there's always going to be pockets of prostitution in a particular area. And in Portland, for instance, Northeast Union Avenue was well known for prostitution, and in fact, it was so well known that the residents they're often referred to it as prostitute Row. But it wasn't the only area.
You know, there were parts of Southeast Union Avenue, you know, going all the way out to the Milwaukee, Oregon area, and of course eighty second Avenue, perhaps because of its proximity to the airport. I don't know for sure that it seems reasonable because it's a busy boulevard, you know, plenty of opportunity for hookers and john's to do their work, make their connections. But but those were the main areas
at that time. I've been away from there for quite a wile, so I don't know what's going on with there right now. But eighty second Avenue Southeast, eighty second Avenue was probably just as popular for prostitution and john activity as was Northeast Portland.
Now you introduced this very crucial character in this story, and the amazing access you have to this story is really the gift of this book because it explains how on earth this could actually happen, because without this information you have a lot more questions than answers, and this is really takes you to the heart of the matter. Now, you introduced this Tracy Baxter, barely sixteen, young, batite, good looking, in fit with a boy friend that you know is
her pimp slash boyfriend. Introduced Tracy Baxter and and her pimp boyfriend and sort of the rationale for what she's doing at this time in her life.
And your question is, well, just.
To just tell us about the what she was doing at this age, at this age doing this. I mean, obviously you explained how the boyfriend explains that we need some money, honey, and so, but that's how you introduce the character of.
The typical, typical teenager, you know, skipping school or not going to school, or whatever the case may be. The the situation was simply that, you know, she needed money and this was a quick way for her to turn a buck. And a lot of other girls got into the same situation as Tracy, which is not her real name, but it's just the youthful age of the girls seemed
to be a recurring pattern. Rogers seemed to like them young when he could get them, you know, at that age that oftentimes he had to settle, you know for older women, the more mature prostitutes, but most of them were supporting drug habits. Many of them were supporting the drug habits of their pimps slash boyfriends. And that was
a recurring theme over and over. It was just life on the streets of Portland or any other major city for that matter, where you have this kind of activity, and it makes people like Tracy, you know, a perfect right victim for people like Rogers. I mean, they're out there, they're in the open, they're taking risks that they probably know that they shouldn't be taking. And of course people like Dayton Rogers, you know, knew this so easy victim for someone like Rogers.
What I found very interesting was this the pimp the boyfriend, and her mission was to go out on the streets and make enough money, she said, for a couple of days worth of motel food, crack, cocaine and alcohol, and so, you know, four or five hundred dollars. And so you even described basically around the FETI was sixteen. Because she was good looking, sometimes she would make eighty dollars. But
on this particular night that she's hitchhiking, it's raining. Now what I found most interesting is that she had been warned about, you know, this blue She had a description of the vehicle of a guy that maybe you can tell us what that description was that warning. And then also what I found interesting was that you point out that maybe the reason why, or the reason why the boyfriend said that they should go to eighty second Avenue was because the real freaks, the anima guys, the thestality guys,
the the torture guys. I couldn't believe this, were actually more known to be those kinds of clients downtown. Tell us a little bit more about about this.
Well, you know, naturally, they they couldn't see more than two or three days into their futures, and that it counts for a lot of their thinking. They're mainly just thinking about getting by for the next day or two,
and it includes their their drug and alcohol habits. But that you're right, there were certain areas where certain types of johns, for lack of a better word, you know, they would frequent And while I may not know them off the top of my head, my research into the book showed me that many of the prostitutes working the various areas knew at least a little bit about the kinds of guys who frequented a certain area, such as the you know, the enema freak or the bondage freak,
or the violent ones. And at this particular time, and I think this is what you might have been referring to, as there were warnings out to the girls among themselves and you know, among others, just people on the street to watch out for this man named Steve the Gambler, and he'd drove a you know, little blue Nissan pickup and he had been known to be violent with his with his dates, and so the warnings were out there that yet people the women that they kept taking chances
suppose out of desperation. I mean, you and I. It's harder for us to fathom what would drive people to go to these lengths or to take such risks. But you know, it's well documented the fact that they do, and it's sad.
What I found fascinating was that they had give a good description of the vehicle pretty well, because when Tracy actually did see it, she at least recognized that memory of Okay, here's the description of that vehicle from this kind of guy, and then the description of the guy. But didn't anybody give her a physical description of the guy. I thought that was odd.
There weren't the physical descriptions that were going around in the early days, which would have included when Tracy had her encounter with Rogers. They were very limited descriptions. They were very vague, very general. They knew they were looking for a you know, a white guy, seemed you know, reasonable, seemed to have manners, soft spoken sort of individual. But that's about all they really had to go on. You know, blondish,
brown hair, the sort of thing. Now, if somebody had come out, come forward and said, hey, he kind of looked a little bit like John Ritter, you know, that would have helped mentally, you know, especially at that stage of Dayton's life, because there is a resemblance there, but nobody did that.
Unfortunately, there was one particular other than well i'll give i'll give it away bondage, but there was one other particular fetish that there was quite unique that it becomes important a little bit later.
Yeah.
That was the feet.
The feet, Oh yeah, the feet, yeah, paramount, I mean, it was always the feet with him.
Yeah.
I don't know how much you want to get into that here, but.
Well we will eventually.
Yeah, was just unbelievable.
But what I found interesting was that she was this tracy though at sixteen years old, was actually warned that he sometimes liked to get violently, like you said, but he also like knives and off and cut his dates. And when we're talking about desperate even I am kind of shocked at this that really people were warned like that and still took a chance. I mean, even I'm sorry.
Yeah me too, But I think it really boils down to this, it'll never happen to me syndrome. This sort of thing. Now, they know it's out there, they hear about it, they see it, but it's not going to happen to me. It happened to the other person. You know, I really believe that there was a major part of it.
Yeah, and you explain that too. Now, now, tell us about go back to the this amazing event with Tracy hitchhiking. It's it's March, it's a little bit cold, it's it's rainy. She's dressed real scantily, so she's not got too much clothing, and she wants she's just been out for ten minutes or so, and she has sort of a mindset. Take us back where you take the reader to what she's doing and what happens that evening.
Well, she's out, you know, exposed to the march weather for one thing, and in the Pacific Northwest that's not you know, very very nice weather. And she was out showing her skin and you know the passion paint anklets if I remember correctly, And and she was basically out showing off her wares to try to attract some business. And the best way she knew how was to dress that way into you know, act as young as possible and see how many people she could attract, how many
guys you know from the street. Sure, and uh, it was just a typical night for her, probably a pretty typical night for for Dayton too, as far as that goes. But but uh, anyway, that's what she was doing. She uh, she was just out work in the streets and and she liked to hang around the Hamburger joined out there to Bob's Big Boy restaurant. I don't think there are too many of those around anymore. But uh, anyway, I don't know how much you want me to get into that.
I mean, I I think that that pretty much covers what she was doing to set up her evening. She she just wanted to make sure that they had the money, her and her boyfriend, you know, to to take care of their drugs and alcohol in the room for a while, and and uh, at one point, Steve the Gambler pulled up.
In his blue pickup truck.
Yeah. Yeah, and you know, had a likable face. He was, like I said before, he was soft spoken, kind of mild mannered personality until he you know, worked himself into one of his frenzies. And that was a different matter. But she must have trusted him because she certainly you know, got into the truck with him. And then when she did that. Of course, it was all downhill until until she managed to get away.
Now let's not let's not skip over that, because that tells us a lot about what happened to the people that didn't get away, because we'll never be able to tell that story. Yeah, so the thing is with with him. She what you'd said in the book was that she noticed the blue truck and it fit the description. But again she's, well, it might not be, she rationalized, because she needed the money. She didn't want to be out that long. Again, just not thinking too far ahead. She was.
She was barely sixteen years old, so she got He seemed to be uh normal, good looking, soft spoken, like you said, he got into the vehicle. How did it? How did this date proceed?
Well, they wrote along for a while. I think they discussed, you know, the date that at one point, and probably arrived at the price and and you know, I think his his quietness eventually began to bother her. But you know, nonetheless, you know, she stuck with it for a while. And again she's not believing that something's you know, bad, you know, is about to happen to her. But then he very bluntly at you know, at one point told her that
he wanted to see her feet. He wanted to look at her feet, and you know, she's thinking that it's a strange request when he, you know, tells her that he, you know, she needs to take off her shoes and and but she did, you know, what she was told, and she was paying attention to him, noticing that he was getting, you know, aroused by by what she was doing.
And uh, you know, it was the nature of the business. So, you know, the day goes on, and you know, he he pushes some his trademark drink of of orange juice and vodka, you know, typical screwdriver on her cause it's easy to carry, easy to mix, easy to dispose of because he used the little airline type bo vodka, the type of orange juice purchased at a like a seven
eleven or the other convenience store. And he used the alcohol, I think as much to make himself relax more as much as he did to to try and loosen up, you know, the girls. But like I said, I don't know if I should have thought it was his trademark because that's kind of revealing. But yeah, I've said it. There, it's done.
Yeah, yeah, you know, now she has her she has her doubts when first with the vehicle a little bit. Then then when he talks about the feet, but then he sort of seems to be he doesn't precede anything violent, it seems, wants to drink some alcohol. Then he negotiates with her that he says, listen, I only got forty bucks and some alcohol. And right away she's not even used to making that much money. She agrees to it. Now, what is his idea? And how do they get to Malalla?
So how does it? How does the this date go that she what happens.
Well, the the southeast part of the city where they're at, you know, off of the eighty second is is kind of heading in that direction anyway, you know, towards the Malala Forest. They're in the vicinity already, right, so they just have to drive a few more miles down the road and get off the freeway and there they are, you know, deep in the in the Malala forests. So
that that really didn't take very long. Excuse me, but he had he had kind of a little bit of a route that, you know, that he liked to use, and I think it becomes somewhat apparent is as the
reader you know, delves into the book that uh. But uh, anyway, they drink their vodka and agree on their their date and they they had the Milala Forest road and and they turn off they park, and at some point he tells her to get her you know, all of her clothes off, to get completely undressed, and uh and uh she agrees, and uh she hasks for the money first.
But uh I at some point, you know, he he he brings bondage into the situation as he's looking at her, you know, a youthful naked body that uh, he's obviously fantasizing, probably recalling something that he had done previously with someone else.
And uh, you know, bondage gets brought up and and uh and the feet thing and and and uh you know it says that he actually tells her that that's the only way that that he can do it is he ties her up and plays with her feet and basically masturbates, and and uh she says she feels like that she can handle that, and and uh, I guess
it goes on from there. But you know, when she she got into the restraints, she started complaining that they were too tight and and uh, he gets angry and tells her she agreed to do it, and and uh, you know, so forth, Uh it's almost like he w he was I don't know, he was no longer the nice guy. His personality was changing. Yeah, and she was becoming more and more scared and uh, but again she
was one of the lucky ones. And you know, she complained and she fought with him, and and you know, he tells her to fight as much as she wants
and nobody will hear her in the forest. And then he he goes on and starts talking about some woman that that he knew before, Maureen, and he's like, it's definitely, you know, fantasy if you as you know from studying this kind of work, serial killers typically like to relive what they've done over and over and over, and he apparently was doing reliving his experience with Tracy using another victim, Maureene. And she she comes into play later on in the book.
It's not clear at this stage that that's who he's talking about, but it becomes clearer later on, I believe.
And anyway, he gets violent with her. He starts biting her, you know, biting her her feet, I believe, and she screams that him and tells him that it wasn't part of the the deal and that he needs to back off basically, And and uh, he really put fear into her when he pulled the kitchen knife, you know, out of his glove compartment and uh he held it you know, next to her, next to her body, and uh that I mean he threatened at that point he was gonna
he wanted to cut off her breasts, and she basically fought back and told him that there was no way that that he was going to cut off her breasts. And I believe that her action of fighting back with him and trying to take control of the situation at least as best she could, might have shocked him back into reality enough to where he was no longer either not in the mood to go through with what he had planned, or it had scared him out of being in the mood to carry on with what he had planned.
But for whatever a reason, her standing up to him, uh calls him to back down, and he ended up, you know, letting her go.
This is this is a we we don't want to I don't want to underestimate how powerful this this scene in your book is how powerful it is for that woman. I was totally totally taken aback. This woman at some point figures, listen, I I I'm hoping I can get
out of this. I've been optimistic so far. Maybe if I go along with this guy, because he's changed his personality radically to listen, bitch, and he's got her, he's got her hog tiede and face down, and he's, uh, he's not entering her nicely, and he's well endowed, and he's mean and uh, and it seems like he's reveling in any kind of pain and any kind of blood, the sight of blood, and so he's, uh, she's really afraid, and so we don't underestimate that fear. And then he says, listen,
there's only two ways out of here. Either I'm gonna carve I'm gonna cut both your breasts off, or I'm gonna I'm gonna strangle you. And then she mustered up this at least because she couldn't move, she said, well, you're gonna have to kill me. She yelled at him, You're gonna have to kill me because you're not going to carve me up. And I was blown away on how how powerful that was from this woman to be able to you know, crack this mind of this guy
at that point. It's very important. We'll talk about this this point in time, how important that is and hurt obvious being able to escape. So tell us now more about he puts her, she puts him in his place. How does it come that he thinks, geez, despite what I've done to her, despite what she's gone through and seen witnessed, I can let her go. Tell us about that.
Well, it would really be just you know, supposition on my part more than anything, because you know, the fact is that he he did let her go, whether it was out of fear or whether he felt sorry for her. I you know, I I have no way of knowing what the reason was, other than the course, it has been twenty years since I wrote the book.
It just.
It just seems like he had a he lost his edge, he lost the edge that he had with his victim, and when he realized that he he he just let her go. I mean I he he probably at some point knew that his impending doom was, you know, out there, that he would eventually get caught. No matter what. He must have thought about it, but in this particular instance, why let go of a pert, you know, potential witness.
It could be that he felt like that she just wouldn't tell, or that they would never connect because a lot of these a lot of these girls never did tell the police until later.
Yeah, well, I mean it seems that and again it might be it might just be what I haven't feared from it is that any kind of previous attacks will say or this kind of behavior was never reported. It was reported among the women, but who, like you stayed in the book, these people aren't going to go because they likely have warrants. And that's why Tracy was hesitant to warrants, the police not caring much anyway, thinking it's
just a date gone bad. So again, that kind of information probably floats among the women to the point where there's no use, you know. So you've stated in the book that he likely knew that as well. But what I found was fascinating was that that he you kind of maybe I read more into it, that he lost his enjoyment right there. There was sort of an edge of fantasy and excitement, but it's sort of got drained out of him. It was no more enjoyment at that point.
Well, yeah, I believe that that was true. Part of the thrill, part of the sexual thrill, was his dominance over her, and suddenly he had lost that. And that's like almost like sticking a you know, a ten in a balloon. I mean, it was just popped. He just you know, kind of lost where to go because that was his modus operandi, and that's just the way he operated. He liked to do it that way, and that's the way he got off on committing his crimes. And suddenly here was this woman who.
Now you would think that most people, most people would go to the police. So she didn't go to the police. She must have told her did she tell her boyfriend? I mean, what about she must have warned the other women? Tell us what happened after.
I'm trying to remember back if she did go to the police, it was it was a little bit later.
Maybe it wasn't initially.
No, yeah, I don't believe it was right away. No, I know, I know Detective Turner did find out about her later. But I thought I knew those frontwards and backwards.
But it so Yeah, now she she bumps into a person that's known on the street that's working the streets as well, a co worker named Mo. And while Mo is giving her some hard luck story, she realized she tells her about She tells Mo about her experience with Steve, and tell us about that conversation between the two.
Well, she Mo basically once she heard that Tracy had, you know, had this encounter with Rogers or Steve the Gambler as he was known, she she basically said that, you know, she wouldn't have anything to do with him anymore, and you know this has been I don't know, she Mo had gone out on a few dates with Rogers. And it becomes clearer as you get into the book.
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With the interviews with the various prostitutes. But she just basically gave her a word of warning, you know, to stay the hell away from yim if he ever she ever came, you know, into you encountered him again. She recognized him as dangerous. She, you know, her mo herself, was not going to have anything else to do with him. But I don't know when her actions or when her business actually ended with Rogers. It must have been, you know, when he killed her. I'm going to have to be
her final. I mean that's obvious, you know that it was her final thing. But whether or not there were many encounters as opposed to just a few between Marine and Rogers from the time that Marine was finding out about what she was hearing on the streets. It's probably anybody's guess. I would just be you know, give me a conjecture at this point.
Yeah. What I found incredible is that Tracy doesn't really make the connection between Moe and Maureen, despite the name. So they have the conversation wherein Maureen warns Tracy, who you know, was already warned before by someone, maybe even somebody like Maureen, who had told someone else this is remarkable. So she rewarns Tracy and states her own experience of
having gone on the dates with this freakazoid. And then she goes on more dates with the guy, even though she tells hers, listen, if you even bump into the guy, call the cops if you have to. And then Maureen goes back on dates with this guy. Now, before we go any further, we introduce this. We've introduced this gentleman here, so maybe we can give us the background on this gentleman before we go any further. You mean Rogers, yes, please.
Well, he had a very unusual background unusual by my standards. Anyway, he was born in Moscow, Idaho, and that in itself is not so unusual. But his parents were you know, religious, zealous, and moved around a lot. At some point, I believe they even lived in chicken coops wherever they could find shelter, but very very strict parents, you know, dating. I believe I had a sister. You know, they had a thing about his sister's shoes, which the family tried to keep quiet.
He he was, you know, basically a loner. Didn't have you know, too many friends growing up, None that I could find there were. He he he fits your basic I guess profile of of how so many of these other guys you know, Gaycy Bundy, all these guys, how they developed and just that that h his his time was perhaps shorter than some of the others. That his family life. And I'm hesitant to always try to put the blame off on, you know, how the child was raised.
I mean, hm, there have.
Been horrendous parents in the world, and they don't all turn out to be you know, bad seat like that. But but one can't help but wonder if if the way he was brought up had something to do with it. He got involved in in uh like minor or uh, not really minor. I don't want to try to oversimplify anything that he ever did, but uh, the the crimes that he was involved in were less severe, you know, early on, than they became as he progressed through through this.
And by saying that, I mean that he had encounters with younger girls that got him in trouble with the cops and and it was mainly usually just a hand slapping type thing. He'd get arrested, you know, and charged and released. And it was it was kind of sad in a way because had they recognized early on the type of person that they were dealing with, Dayton may
not have killed so many women. But unfortunately that didn't happen, and we had this monster running around Portlandaria for quite some time.
What were the what were the relatively minor crimes if we if we would hear about them, maybe we could see how they might be able to establish some sort of future pattern or future threat.
Well, you know, they were encounters with younger girls. Whenever he was like the teenager maybe a little bit older. And I don't want to go too far and to his other crimes because a lot of them were never adjudicated, and and I just you know, kind of got to be a little bit careful with it.
But well, was there any warning signs that that could have been seen? Foreseen? Some sometimes they some people don't seem to be recognized by the courts where in hindsight they should have been. It was there any indication of that here? Some oversight?
When he stabbed a girl in Eugene, for instance, that was a perfect idea of oversight there. I mean, he just they should have seen that this guy, you know, has his violent tendency and uh, yeah, why why would he stab her, you know, just and and leave her in the woods and go back later to try and save her that was supposedly was his you know girlfriend at the time, or somebody that he had thought of as possibly a girlfriend.
Uh.
But just the fact that he stabbed her out of nowhere, it became out of out of nowhere, that that should have been a big clue right there. But yeah, it didn't. He was released and life went on.
No, at what point does he does he get married and and started assuming this real normal life? Uh? How young?
Well is he I don't remember how old he was when he got married right off the top of my head. But he, uh, he was actually married a couple of times. And and his first wife actually came to see me at a book signing and U, I didn't believe it was really her, hm until she showed me a picture of her and Dayton at their wedding and uh and uh, so he was married to this this other woman for a while. And he then he married uh, his later wife during the time of the killing. And uh, I'm
I'm reluctant to name her name. She probably wants to get on with her life by now, but uh, they had a child together, boy. And uh. You know, Dayton was running a small engine repair shop out of small town there south of Portland, and he was fairly successful at it. You know, he made a decent living for his family. And but he was living these these two lives. He was going to work repairing small engines and then staying out late instead of coming home to his wife
and child. He was, you know, on murdering prostitutes and making up excuses to his wife. So you know, he was living a double life, to be sure.
And from all indications, he did really have this. He wasn't a loner, but had the the facade of the marriage in the in the in the child. Was he this this genuine very much like Bundy able to have this, as you described, a sort of a mask about him, this really duality.
Yeah. He had social skills and there's no there's no doubt about it. He he knew when too to pour on the charm and and when not to. Uh. He may not have been quite as adept as Bundy, you know, in that regard, but that the ability was there.
Now was amazingly that h Tracy Baxter doesn't go to the police. Uh, police never hear about well do not hear about this report till much later, or know about her at all. Moe disappears at some point. There's this six month period. Tell us about that period in Portland, what was going on, and tell us what happened in that six months?
Well, can you be a little bit more specific about the six month period? It's not making.
Well after Tracy didn't report anything to police. Then later much well we alluded to it in the in the introduction about the hunter accidentally finding the bodies. But what happens with the investigation itself into these women disappearing.
Well, they're they're basically documenting the disappearances, and they're taking reports from you know, potential witnesses, and they've they've they've talked to a number of these women and they're beginning to you know, see similarities, see certain things that that they're standing out, but nothing real definitive yet. And really I don't think they They would have known about Rogers for quite some time if he hadn't screwed up on
his final kill. But I'm not quite sure where you're trying to go with that other than.
Well, just I mean, maybe that's the amount of months wrong. But I know that the investigator, I mean, obviously there's a pro but a force that's looking at this at the same time. You you talk about in your book that the reason why you know Rogers is very careful till Tracy Baxter and then he felt, well, geez, you know, I don't think you know, he was pretty confident she wasn't going to go to the police. He wasn't that worried.
He didn't really change what he was doing. So at some point we alluded to that he has his he finally makes a mistake. He's very careful though before that, there are no bodies, there is no there's no evidence because there's no one showing up. So tell us what happens. How does everything all change? What happens to what happens to our perpetrator here that somehow he is not careful anymore.
Well, basically, we have a number of women who are disappearing, you know, one by one off of Portland streets over a period of month, and a killer who's obviously out there, but we have no bodies yet to prove murder. So he's obviously getting away with what he likes to do, and he's probably building up a lot of confidence and
doing it. And this went on for some time, and you know, when there would be the occasional case that would come in or the police would interview someone, you know, something might ring a bell, that similarity of name, you know, a place or whatever, but it was never enough to make the determination that there was something actually actively going on, not until Everett Baniard, the Hunter stumbled upon Dayton's cluster
dump in the Malala Forest. Once he stumbled upon those bodies and reported it to the Blackhams County Sheriff's Department, that's when the case really broke wide open, and that would have been, you know, beginning of the end for Rogers by by the time that the cops actually get up there. And this was one of the reasons that's why I wrote the book in the manner that I did it was it was too hard to put it
together in a dramatic fashion in strictly chronological order. But I tried to do that by showing the final kill, that of Jennifer Lisa Smith at the Denny's restaurant, by showing that first in detail, because it clearly showed Rogers in action, it showed what he liked to do, had eye witnesses who saw him doing it, and he fled the scene and basically escaped for a short time until the cops tracked him down in the wee hours of the morning is at his shop, you know, south of Portland.
And then of course the bigger break comes a little bit later. I don't know if you want to get into that yet or not, sure.
Proceed just proceed from there. Basically, what I wanted to do is establish I mean, to me, it's remarkable why anybody would jump in a vehicle as a I mean, I understand prostitution. But I didn't understand this element of it. I didn't understand, so I wanted to introduce somebody that survived. And then you would think, oh, now the police will know. Still the police don't know, so tell us more about So tell us more about the discovery, and what do
police do right from there? How do they proceed?
Well, the cops have been getting these reports all along of this guy who liked to, you know, be rough with his dates and so forth. And there was one recurring theme that seemed to be among them, and that was that he'd always liked to drink vodka and orange juice, and vodka being in the small airline bottles and the orange juice being from those types bout at the convenience stores.
And it wasn't until after Jenny's meth was murdered in front of dining patrons at the Dennis Restaurant in Milwaukee, Oregon, that Rogers was arrested, of course, and they had that one murder on him right then and there. But that's all they knew at that point. But then there comes Everett Daniards, the hunter, and he reports finding these bodies
up in the Malala forests. So John Turner and Jim Strovank and different ones from the Clackhams County Sheriff's Department head up there find them, you know, designated as a crime scene. They start they basically, you know, do the whole operation in the way it's supposed to be done. And at one point they encountered orange juice bottles and the small miniature vodka bottles that have been dropped off
near one of the bodies. And that was the clue, the one single thing that put in Detective Turner's mind that Dayton Rogers was behind these killings, and it was. It was mainly because of he I'm having trouble remembering exactly how you put this together. You you read the book recently. I haven't, but but there was something that I should know this, but god, it's been so long. Yeah, you know, there were there had something to do with
the the alcohol and orange juice. I thought with Jenny Smith too, but maybe not.
I'm not I'm thinking of what you're referring to.
But yeah, I probably got off on a tangent that I shouldn't have.
There, No, no, no, I I wanted to know what was the was the police, what was their idea in terms of the timeline timeline in that cluster dump that he did have there. What did the police initially look at and say this? Did they did? They think it was a large expansive time or a shorter expansive time in terms of how the how the victims got there and how long it had been there since they had been there.
Well, it wasn't a long time. It was like it was it was less than two years if memory serves me correctly. You had to look at the dates of the victims that that they were finding him there and when they when they disappeared. But it was, it was it was overall a fairly short period of time, but one that could have went on and on and on had it not been for you know, Dayton's carelessness with
the uh, the vodka pottles. But I think I I just remembered where Turner had seen the vodka poles, and it had been when they impounded his pickup truck the morning after Jenny Smith's and that's what had caused you know, to ring the bell when they found the debris or the garbage in the in the forest near the body.
But tell us a little bit about Detective John Turner in terms of who who he was before this sort of well not sort of definitely changed his life for a couple of years.
He's a great detective, if not somebody you want on your hearth, No, he John and I developed a great relationship over the period that I was writing this book, and even before and after that, we'd known each other because of my days of writing for True Detective. So he had kind of an open door policy with me. I'd dropped by and we'd talk, and if he had something,
I'd research it. And when I put this on him, he decided he had to take this to the sheriff and find out if they could cooperate, and and so they did. The sheriff was very happy to be able to have this case highlighted in such a positive manner for their department, because they really did do an outstanding job on solving it. And so I get this phone call one day from John says, you need to meet
me downtown. We're gonna make this the easiest possibly said you need to meet me downtown in a parking garage. So I'm thinking, Wow, Okay, Woodward and Earnstein, uh deep throat type stuff. So anyway, we go to the parking garage and I pull up next to his car and he basically unloads all copies of the case files, you know, and from his car into mine. There's like six boxes. Is take him, study him, give him back when you're done, But uh, any questions in the meantime, just call me.
And that's how I had such good information from number one on how the case was handled, and number two, that information enabled me to go and talk with people in person because I could track them down. I was basically dealing with the same thing that the cops were dealing with.
Yeah, it was amazing the access you had, and that information is just inc invaluable really to this story.
Yeah, but you know, I have the utmost respect for John Turner. I think he might be retired now. I've kind of lost track of what's going on up there been a way so long. But they all did a great, great work on the case.
Well, it's it's it seems to be hard to fathom for some people, but not every officer goes in into this without a certain amount of bias. So we we hear constantly how less valued the the prostitute's story is, or the prostitute is in terms of a victim, certainly, it seems not. It's not just the police. I'm saying in terms of society in general, media, the public, and oftentimes police are just in that small, you know, group of people that could care less. But this person was not.
That's not what he was made of.
No, No, he actually cared for the victims. And I think by and large, we get this perception that a lot of cops really don't care, you know, if they're from the lower dregs of society or whatever. Something happens to him, you know, it's their fault, they deserved it or whatever. Sure, you've got a number of people who have that attitude, but I believe for the most part that you almost have to believe this, and my line of work and as far as just being human, I
guess we have to. We have to believe that they care, you know, about what they're doing, at least to some degree. And John definitely demonstrated, you know, that he cared about the victims.
Well more importantly too. You know, if you if you and he had outrage, that's what you put in the book too, that he had a certain level of outrage. And so so these kinds of people are hell bent on catching the criminals so as much as they care about the victims, of course, because they deal with the families. So how could you not be sympathetic because there's families involved.
But it's their job, the dirty job. They get these guys, elicit the confessions, they get all the necessary evidence, and live with these cases till completion. So I find homicide detectives are not, obviously, you know, are a lot more involved than the general cop on the beat might have a bad misrepresentation of a young cop that's a little still naive, but the homicide detective is not a guy that just started off.
So that's true. Yeah, that's very true.
Yeah, Now do how do they come? Sorry?
Go ahead, No, go ahead, you go ahead. I don't out of time?
I think?
Now, what what happens with with police now that they have this this murder witness and also this other mounting evidence. What is m What is the police interview like with Rogers?
Well, they're you know, of course, there were several, but the the main interviews before he you know, lawyered up and wouldn't talk to him at all, was, you know, Dayton, we have this evidence, you know, we your your car was seen at the scene of the crime. You have a witness that showed you stabbing a victim. You know, we even have the knife. We have your your vehicle. It was warm, you know to the touch, and you're saying you didn't drive it, and so on and so forth.
He has cuts on his fingers, you know, defensive wounds. Evidently, uh, you know, they they know they've got him red handed. They know they have someone red handed, at least for Jenny Smith. And and you know, so at first they're
not they're not polite at all. And they basically accused him of this and accused him of that, and of course it's all related to Jenny Smith during the first encounters, and then then later any lawyers up and doesn't speak to anybody, and that was pretty much the end of the end of that other than what was in the official police reports.
So the evidence, so the evidence that they have against him is is is a lot more than circumstantial at that time. DNA is not tell us about the state of DNA at that time.
Well, that would have been in the mid to late eighties when the crimes are being committed and DNA was still in its very early stages, and they were beginning to work with it and you know, use it as a tool. But I don't believe that there was much done as far as DNA is concerned with this particular case, unless you know, I mean that could be mistaken. I just don't recall it right now. It doesn't help, no, they you know, because it's smart't using it then.
But so how do they what what is the case that they put together with? What with the what is the evidence that they do have? How strong a case can they put together on him? Of course he has a good lawyer. Tell us what they do have on him?
In terms of evidence, Well, they had a lot of fiber evidence, They had hair, they had blood typing. You know, much of it came from inside the truck itself. The underneath the floor, you know, is basically just soak with blood, and a lot of it would have been really great DNA evidence had been available to them at the time, but instead it was mainly blood typing, hair, fiber, you know, him maybe being seen in the vicinity of somewhere, the uh,
the orange juice. A lot of it was circumstantial, of course, but uh, you know, they uh, they they built a as good a case as I guess they could have built against him based on what they had, and as you probably know from reading the book and went through the system, you know, two or three times, and he's still on death row. It hasn't you know, he hasn't been put to death. Chances are probably won't be uh in Oregon. But UH, they they had a a decent case against him, is right?
What point? At what point did police a and what circumstances do police speak with uh, Tracy Baxter.
That came out and I in the well for me, that came out, uh a little bit later on, and it prompted me to use you know, give her a fictitious name and so forth. But it came out during the interviews with the prostitutes. And there's a section in the book that kind of deals with that. But I don't, you know, go into great detail with it. There's just
too much you know, other info to use instead. But I used enough of it to where it would give the reader a good idea of what kind of information that the police, you know, we're receiving and what kinds of details that the prostitutes were providing them. Because the interviews were quite detailed and interesting. And that's where I found you know, Tracy's statement, what.
Is the evidence of the you talked we talked about in the in the beginning, which is this guy is quite unique. I mean, serial killers a lot of very often share a lot of characteristics. This guy, of course, shares many of those characteristics, but has some unique features too. This mutilation while people are alive, whereas a lot of
them might mutilate afterwards. Tell us what evidence they did get from the prostitutes themselves in terms of what this Rogers was like and likely did to his victims.
Well, he enjoyed torturing them. I mean that was very clear. He would bite them on their feet, the bottoms of their feet, and other parts of their body to the point you know, where they would bleed and calls them tremendous pain. He would cut the heels of their feet, you know, with a knife. There was evidence that he
eviscerated one of his victims with a machete. He basically, you know, shoved it into her vagina and then cut her from there all the way up to the sternum, presumably while she was alive and conscious, or at least for a moment or two, and he enjoyed sawing their
feet off. He would take a hack saw. And this was more theory than proof, but there was evidence shown that in some of two or three of his victims he would take a hack saw and cut their ankles, you know, like a halfway or two thirds of the way through, and to elicit more pain, to cause more pain, to elicit a better pain response to something that he
would enjoy. And when they would go into shock and basically not provide any show for him, I guess for lack of a better word, he would then break the bone the rest of the way to try and you know, elicit additional response. So there there were many indicators, including witness testimony, that that he he thoroughly enjoyed torturing his victims. And he definitely had a blood lust or a lust for blood.
And and what what was his idea about the clustered dump? And and when police believed that there may be other victims? Again, what what what's their idea that there may be other victims?
Well, there was there was one victim that went unidentified for a number of years, Victim number seven I believe, or maybe it was eight. I can't recall for sure she was recently identified and attributed to him. She was one of those found in the forest. Now, what was Roger's idea? One can only guess that he helped to elude detection by cluster dumping the bodies up there in the middle of this forest. I mean, it's really creepy.
If you've ever been up there, you would know exactly what I was talking about, because it's there's nothing there, you know, in the middle of a massive, dark, wet forest with forest sounds and nobody around for miles. I mean, it's perfect opportunity to get to get rid of a body, and he evidently thought that it would buy him more time by placing them there. He just never thought ever Danyard would come wandering through there one day.
But was was he careless with the with the cluster dump itself at some point or how was I'm sorry if I didn't understand exactly how this hunter found something that. You know, he took a lot, he took a lot of effort to be able to do this. So how did the hunter actually stumble across that?
I think the hunter just you know, I mean got lucky. I mean, I mean, you call that luck. But he to me, when I viewed a lot of the pictures that were taken from up there, it looked to me like he was careless. It didn't seem like any extra care had been made to you know, cover the bodies or whatever. He just find a place that you toss a body out here, it's not going to be found for a long time. And I think that must have been a certain amount of his thinking. I mean, you know, one can only guess.
But what do you attribute to him being so careful for so long? And then in the last instance with Jenny Smith, what was in public in a crowded you know, what happened was that this is descent into as we see sometimes with serial killers, where they are quite organized. Even Jeffrey Dahmer was quite organized and careful, but then wasn't what would.
You I think he lost a certain amount of the control that he was having over Jenny, and I think a certain amount of it was panic. I think a part of it might have been the build up phase, where's he's building up the excitement, and I think he got a little bit too bold by using this parking lot of a Denny's restaurant.
It was.
It's a very dark parking lot, I should say where it's located. It at that time of the early morning, it would be difficult for someone you know to easily see him, but in this case it was made easier
to be seen because of Jenny's screaming. And then once of course a person has been able to eyeball the source of the screaming, they can see that there's a naked woman out there, partially down, covered in blood, and this guy's you know, hovering over or stabbing or but I think the part of the excitement or the build up it got to him and he couldn't hold back, couldn't wait, caused him to become careless. And then of course you had Jenny, you know, trying to escape. That
threw him into a panic situation. And one thing, panic witnesses had seen him, and one person chased him, you know, got his license number. It was really basically all over, just a matter of time for everything was put together.
Now sometimes cases like this warrant I guess a good response from the public or interest from abroad from international media, but sometimes when the story is particularly shocking, sometimes even the media kind of gets a little gun shy. What was the media and the public response to this trial?
As I recall the media, you know, it was all over it for you know months, and the public's response was you know, one of typical you know shock and oh my god, you know, I can't