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You are now listening to true Murder, The most shocking killers in true crime history and the authors that have written about them. Geesy Bundy, Dahmer, The Nightstalker DTK. 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 Zupansky.
Good evening.
This is your host Dan Zepasi for the program True Murder, The most shocking killers in true crime history and the authors that have written about them. Today's program is with author Don Lassiter and his book Die for Me, The Terrifying True Story of the Charles Zing Leonard Lake Torture Murders. Inspired by a fictional book called The Collector ex Marines, Leonard Lake and Charles Zing abducted, tortured, and murdered women in a secret homemade dungeon, all the while videotaping their
ghastly deeds. They took the lives of at least sixteen victims and are among the most notorious serial killer teams in true crime history. Die for Me, The Terrifying True Story of the Charles Zing Leonard Lake Torture Murders by Don Lassiter. My guest. Don Lassiter is now working on his nineteenth and twentieth books. One was about World War II, one about the Kennedy assassination, and one called The Patricia Cornwell Companion. All the rest of in True Crime. His
first book was published in nineteen ninety five. Welcome to the program, and thank you for Green dis interview. Dawn Lassiter.
Thank you for a writing me, Dan, I've been looking forward to talking about Charles Zing.
Yes, very much. This is quite the story of an incredible story. Now, the first question I have to ask you. You've written about many other cases, what specifically made you decide to write about this one.
As a general rule, Dan, I prefer not to have high enough to deal with high profile cases like this one. I'd much rather select a small, relatively unknown case which has some interesting twist and its plot and it doesn't have high publicity. But in this case, my publisher gave me a bus and asked me if I would drop over to the trial, which happened to be a change of venue from northern California to Orange County, where I live,
so that was pretty convenient. I agreed. I went over and sat in the trial for a couple of days and was hooked. Obviously, this was going to be a very very important true kind of story. Now.
Wishaw author named John Fowls had written a popular fictional book called The Collector in nineteen sixty three. It ends up being quite significant to this story. Before we get to the significance, what is the book about and from whose perspective is the story primarily told?
The Collector by John Fowls is about a young man, Frederick Kleig, who is a butterfly collector and he falls for a very pretty young woman named Miranda, but he realizes that he is not in her class, and he just has a lot of fantasies about her. Clague comes into a good sudden fortune which allows him to buy a house out in the country, and he gets this brilliant idea to just capture Miranda like he does his butterflies, and hold her there until she falls in love with him.
The first third of the book is told from his point of view, the second third is from her point of view, and then finally the last part is his point of view. Again, he holds her, she does not fall in love with him he has he does not have sexual fantasies about her, unlike what we see in the Charles ing Leonard leg case, well.
Let me let me, let me cut you off right there, so we can and fold this story here because it is very complex story as well, so we've got to get everybody to get the fact straight here. Now, in the book the Collector, the imprisoned woman Miranda tries many ways to either escape or persuade.
Her abductor to let her go.
Does the Collector ever mention that he might let the woman go?
I think in the book he hints at it sometimes, but I think he has no intention to let her go. Ever, eventually she she comes to know that she's not in real, real danger, but she unfortunately dies anyway while under his control. Uh perhaps from pneumonia, we don't know.
Okay, Now, Leonard Think is one of the killers featured in Die for Me. And what was when Leonard Lake?
Like?
What was his background? And finally he was discharged from the Marine Corps because of medical reasons? And in the end can you tell us what that medical reason was? So give us the background on Leonard Lake? What was he really like and what was his some of his background, Well.
Leonard Lake was born excuse me, to an X Navy man and a young woman in San Francisco. The parents soon split up. When the woman decided to try to pursue her husband ex husband, she went to a train station with her two babies. She had asked Leonard, who was only six at the time, if you'd like to go with her, and she said no. But at the train station he decided he wanted to go and just had a big fit right there on the platform. But
he had to stay home with his grandparents. Psychiatrists later saied ugested that that was the beginning of Leonard Lake's hatred for women. He grew up and he never lived with his parents again, lived with these grandparents, grew up in San Francisco, I went to high school, had some
peculiar characteristics. One of his cousins later reported that Leonard had a huge collection of mice, and when he got tired of them, he gave some away and killed the rest of them, and the cousin once Leonard dissolve them in acid. That sort of gave a hint of what kind of a peculiar man he was going to be.
Yes, certainly, certainly now continuing with his pecurity behavior, maybe he could just continue with his background and also leading up to his stint in the Marines grret.
He went through high school and then joined Soon after high school, joined the Marines and went to Vietnam. There's some controversies whether he actually saw combat or not. He claimed he did later. I think he confess confess to one woman that he spent most time in a very safe place. But he came back all disillusioned, as many real Vena Vietnam veterans did, and decided he wanted to be a survivalist, preparing for a future holocaust in which
the world would be destroyed. And he decided he would have a bunker equipped with all kinds of supply so he could survive, and he would like to have a woman in there too. Eventually he decided that that woman would be his sex slave, and that became a fantasy for him, stemming from his having read The Collector when he was a teenager. But he perverted it somewhat Fowls character protagonist that just wanted the woman to fall in love.
Leonard admitted that he wanted the woman just to be a sex object.
Now, when we talk about the Leonard Lake doing a stint in Vietnam and Marines, he was discharged for medical reasons, like I mentioned. What was that medical reason?
Let's see. I think it was called him pending psychosis or something of that nature. He apparently had some very serious mental problems.
Didn't the psychiatrists say that he was harmed to himself or to others? With that a conclusion they made at the end.
That's correct, he probably would be a harm to others.
Okay, Now Charles Ng is the other killer featured and die for me? What was his background and what type of character was Charles Ng.
Charles Ng was born in Hong Kong to a middle class family. His father had survived the war and worked his way up to become a camera salesman for a major company, had three children and determined absolutely that his kids were going to have a great education. They lived in a high rise apartment, very crowded, with several relatives living with him. But Charles didn't seem to go along with the idea that was that important, so his father
sometimes had to give him a pretty good spanking. He was later accused of beating him severely, but it didn't seem to change the young man. Eventually, they sent young Charles Ing to England to live with a relative that didn't work out, and then by the time he was in high school age, they sent him to San Francisco to live with an ant. He did that for a while, but as soon as he turned eighteen, he joined the Marines. It's interesting how he got in the Marine because he's
not a US citizen. Somehow it was suggested that documents were forged to allow him to get in there.
Okay, I see now, how did Charles Ing and Leonard Lake eventually meet? You say they were both in the Marines. How did they meet and where?
Well, Charlie decided while he was in Conneaway Bay in Hawaii that it would be a good idea to steal some weapons from the armory and sell them for profit. He did, and he was caught and he was facing a court martial, but he escaped and made his way to San Francisco. While he was in in Hawaii, though he had met he had met with a few other fellows who wanted to be survivalists, and one of them mentioned that he knew a fellow in California named Leonard
Lake who was a survivalist. So when Charlie came to San Francisco, well, I'm sorry. We joined the Marines, he stole the weapons. He was going to be court martially escaped, and he comes back and he links up with Leonard Lake in a little town called Philo in northern California.
Now we spoke of the book and getting back to the book The Collector, the fictional tale of a man who was a butterfly collector who fantasized about collecting a woman instead one day acts upon his urges. Now, this book was Leonard Lake's favorite and why was it his favorite and what was it about The Collector that interested in him so much?
Well, he read it as a teenager, and I think he began this idea of having a woman as a captive, as have a complete control over a woman. But his was a perverse view. The protagonist in Fowls book just wanted to be loved. Leonard wanted a six slave.
Now there's another central character to this story and her name is Claire Lynn Baalis or Cricket her nickname, And you describe as the girlfriend, ex wife slash girlfriend of Leonard Lake.
Who was she?
When did they meet and how close were they? How well did Cricket really know Leonard Lake?
While Leonard was moving around from town to town after getting out of the Marines. He was a pseudo photographer. He lured young women and for various methods to lure them into posing. The usually tried to get the post nude for him. He found at one point in northern California, a man who owned a goat that had been its horn transformed a single horn to make it look like a unicorn. Leonard saw that as a great attraction to young girls. He took it to the Renaissance pleasure Fair
in Marin County, north of San Francisco. And while he was there demonstrating the goat and trying to lure young women to pose, this young woman came by, Claire Lynne Bella's cricket and they really hit it off together. She was equal to him in his weird sense of humor, his jokes, and he's interests in sex. And they became lovers and eventually married and eventually divorced, but they continued their relationship together for the rest of his life.
Now you say that they shared a mutual interest in sex. How important was sex to Leonard Lake and what were some of the features of the sexual desires even early on before his bunker was realized and was constructed. What were some of the features of a sex life that may or may not be in a precursor to some of the events that happened later. What was his interest like in what were some of the features of that sex life?
Well, actually she went along with the idea of capturing a woman and using him in a menagetoi forcing a woman to be in managertwa with him. But they didn't have to force it. In some cases they met young women who were very willing to perform with them. They were both highly experimental in sexuality. They one time, at one point made a tape of themselves and that was shown in the trial later to show that cricket bellas was it was probably culpable. And the murders that happened later.
Okay, the Lake Leonard Lake relocated and put his sex safe slave plan into action. Whose property was it? Where he did this construction of this bunker and whose property was this? And give us a little bit of background on the construction of the bunker itself and how this his plan to have a sex slave came to fruition. What was the what was the turn of events that led Leonard Lake to be able to begin achieving his his long, long time fantasy.
Well, let's back up a little ways at Filo where he met Charles Ang, where Charles Ain connected with him. He and he and his wife Cricket were living in Filo, operating a little motel. Charlie shows up and they're working. The three of them are living together. But because Charlie had had stolen those weapons and was a fugitive from the Marines, Leonard also had stolen some weapons.
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The FBI got wind of it and raided the place, captured Charlie and send him to send him for a trial and eventually wound up in Levenworth. Lake was also captured, but went to jail and his wife put up the bail and he became a fugitive from then on, operating under various fake names, and he moved around to various places in California on the run. He started building that
bunker in three different sites, but it just didn't work out. Eventually, he moved to a little hamlet in the Gold Country in Calaveras County in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada, into a house owned by Cricket's father, and it's very rural way at the end of a long, narrow driveway, and he decided that was going to be the final site and he went to work and it took him six months to finally build that concrete block bunker and with a secret room inside it covered by a hidden
shelves that were actually concealed door, and it was a sale for his six slaves. So on that property in Willseyville, he actually his fantasy came to fruition to have a bunker. And then when Charlie got out of Leavenworth prison, he rejoined Lake and that's when the murders began.
Okay, Now, Leonard Lake had kept a written diary for many years outlining his ghoulish fantasies while all the necessary construction was being done on the property in preparation for the Secret Dungeon. Leonard Lake, in preparation for the Secret Dungeon, recorded a video diary outlining the progress of the construction,
but also stating his philosophy in life. And I quote this tape which you are hearing now is going to be the lead in of the various phases of construction of a building which hopefully will be the first of a series of underground buildings. The main emphasis of the building, the whole justification for its expense and its effort, will be a hidden portion, a secret room, if we can call it that, that will house a cell, a jail cell,
if you will. The purpose of that cell will be the imprisonment of a young lady who probably at this moment is unknown to me. Whether I can do this or not will remain to be seen. Obviously, I have never done such a thing before, and it may not work. However, I want to try. I want to try. Life as I am living, it is boring. The challenge of this project. The excitement, the thrill of it will be citing experience even if it fails, as long as I don't get caught.
It's very attractive. It's something that I fantasized daily about. We'll see. I don't think there's much more to say on the subject. This hopefully will be a mystery. I can hardly wait.
Now.
What was Leonard Lake's basic philosophy regarding women which he included in the same incredible video diary, which is.
Very simple, Dan that women should be used at his whim when he wanted them, and should be put back on a shelf or in that little secret cell when he didn't want them, and he had absolutely no value on their lives at all. To him, they were nothing but something to be used. That tape you've just described, he made himself. He set up on a tripod and sat in a brown chair in the Willseyville property and tape that in February of nineteen eighty three. It was later called the Light Philosophy tape.
Incredible. Now you say the construction took about six months, and after that Charles Ing reunited with Leonard Lake. How long is it before they begin to abduct someone and how long till they kill and who is their first victim.
Actually, Charlie joined him before the construction was finished, because he actually they're photographs with Charlie ain't helping build that bunker. And it was some time, not very long after it was finished. But we need to back up again because Lake's first victim murder victim, incredibly was probably his own younger brother. In December nineteen eighty two, Donald Lake, who was somewhat I don't know, it's an old fashioned term retarded.
He had some mental disabilities, and Lake his whole life was very denigrating toward his younger brother, who was six years younger, and criticizing for being collecting Social Security disability payments, saying that he was just a maggot own society. He didn't deserve to live. But one time he shows up in San Francisco, where his brother was living with his relatives, and said, Oh, I have a great job for Donald up north. He's going to go with me. He left
the Lake and was never seen again. But Lake suddenly showed up in various places around the state using the name Donald at Lake and collecting the Social Security disability check that was probably his first murder victim was his own younger brother. His second murder victim was probably the best man at his wedding, a man named Charles Gunnar, a very heavy set fellow who had known Lake for many years and had been a friend. But Gunnar was
also collecting disability payments. He disappeared in May nineteen eighty three, and Lake was suddenly using his name where he went, So those murders preceded anything Charles Ing was involved in. Also, while Lake was living in Haye Ashbury in San Francisco, selling drugs for a living, several other people, a young man named Randy Jacobson, a musician named Maurice Rock, and a young woman named Cheryl O'Carroll all vanished. Their remains were later found up in the will just pieces of
their bones were found up in the Willseyville property. So the first victim that Charles Ing was involved was a family of three, Harvey Dubbs, his wife and their little little infant son, who lived in San Francisco and owned some very exotic, i should say, advanced video equipment. In nineteen eighty four, everyone didn't have a video camera, but he advertised he had video equipment and would do special filmings for people. Lake shows up with Charlie uh and
that that family three suddenly vanished. So that was probably the first murder in which Charles Ing was involved.
Now, I spoke at the beginning of the program about Leonard Lake and Charles Ing's fantasy of abducting women and keeping them as sex slaves in their in their dungeon, in their in their homemade dungeon. But you spoke of Leonard Lake's first victim being his own brother, and then his second victim likely most likely being his best man in his own wedding. Why were these people murdered? In the end, when the trial is finished and you've gathered all the information is why is this part of Leonard
Lake's master plan? Why does it fit in with the rest of his plan to abduct and kidnap a kill these people that are not women, but just have to be people in his in his circle, people that he's connected with.
Those murders were for nothing more than the minor amount of money he could get by collecting their their disability checks and catching them. That's it, nothing more. Isn't that amazing that it's it's it's chilling. To think that he was so so rejecting of the value of life that he would kill his own brother and his best friend just so they could have their small checks.
Yes, his desire to for his own, his own needs, his own physical and his own needs and sexual fantasy just seemed to be paramount over anything anyone else's concern. Now, who are the first women to be held in the cell, tortured and videotaped.
Probably a young woman named Kathy Allen. When Ing was in Leavenworth. He was in there with another a fellow prisoner, another Marine, Mike, Mike Carroll. Mike and Kathy Allen were lovers in the South San Francisco area. Suddenly, one day Kathy is working a Safeway and she gets a call where she's working and someone is saying that Mike it
needs her very badly over in Lake Tahoe. She is panicky, and she goes out to a car where a man, a bald bearded man is waiting for her, and that's Leonard Lake under an assumed name, and he takes her to Willseyville and she is the first one that is filmed on the so called M Lady's tape. The M standing for Miranda, and you recognize that name from the Fouls book the Collector, and so he used that as a code name from then on to identify his plan.
The Duck Women m ladies and Kathy Allen is shown on that tape being a street than and abused.
Now part of the part of the torture is the psychological torture that Leonard Lake and Charles ingu enacted on their on their victim. Just give us a little we don't want to get into too much graphic detail, but she had a there was a baby involved in this, in this crime, in this story of Kathy Allen and Mike Carroll, can you tell us a little bit about the psychological the type of psychological torture that these two men enacted on their victim regarding this baby.
Well, uh, just a slight correction there. The baby belonged to a couple who lived in a house up above the Willseyville house, Brenda O'Connor and Lonnie Bond, and they happened to be the next victims. And on that same m Lady's tape we see a segment of Brenda O'Connor also being tortured and she's asking where's my baby, and they're making these these terrible comments about the babies asleep forever or the baby's again given been given away to
a couple in Fresno. And she is just desperate. The poor woman is just begging, please, you can't take my baby, and they're just taunting her terribly while they're also forcing their strip and being abused. So the only two women who are actually videotaped in this whole series of murders were Kathy Allen and Brenda O'Connor.
Okay, now, how many more victims do how many more victims do they fall under? Leonard Lake and Charles Ing after Rende O'Connor and Kathy Allen and Charles Gunner and Donald Lake. How many victims are we up at now after the videotapes of those of those two women at that point, how many people have been murdered by this pair?
You know, Dan, No one knows for sure how many victims there were. There were bits of burned bones found on that property that represented anywhere from fifteen to perhaps twenty five. Some people have even guessed at the forty victims. Eventually, the trial involved charges for murdering twelve. So after Kathy and Kathy Allen and Brenda O'Connor and Brenda O'Connor's mate, Lonnie Bond, and that baby that we just mentioned, Lonnie Bond Junior. And there was another man named Scott Stapley
from southern California. So there were twelve murders and the eventual charges against Ing because a Lake was no longer around by that time.
Okay, let's talk about that. What happened at a lumberyard that led to Leonard Lake's arrest, and what happened to Charles Ing That same day.
Leonyard was still working on finishing up some of his bunker building and he and Charlie Ing went to South San Francisco to a lumber yard and hardware store to buy some things. While Leonyard is shopping around for the things he knows he needs, Charlie decides to be a good idea to steal a vice of all things, thirty pounds vice he picks up. He tries to conceal in his shirt and walks out, but he spotted and the
police are called. By the time they arrived, Charlie has put the vice in the trunk of a stolen car they're using from another victim, and Charlie makes a run for it. Leonyard comes out to talk to the police and offers to pay, but no, no, no no. They look in the car and they find some stolen weapons. They also find documents that suggest that Leonard Lake is not who he says he is. He identifies himself as Lonnie Bond, as we know now, one of the victims.
They take Leonard to the police station and he realizes he's in big trouble. Now. All through his whole life, Leonard has said he would never never go to jail again. After he was captured up a pilo and bailed out, he carried a Sinaide capsule with him from then on. While he's in the South San Francisco lock up, he begins to confess, tells those that yes, he's been involved in crimes, and he names Charles Ing as his accomplice, and he asks for a glass of water and a
piece of paper to write a note. He writes a note to his family, pops the Sinaide capsule out and probably in his collar of his shirt, drinks it and collapses. He lasts six days after that in a hospital on life support and dies.
Now what did police find when they searched Lake's bunker and what was carved on a plaque on the wall of the cell when officers first discovered the room.
Well as a result of the investigation after about the car, they find it belongs to a manager.
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There's been missing for several days. Paul Kosner, who is one of the victims, and the murder charges, and they realize that they've got something going on very important here. They send investigators and get the address. There was a piece of paper, a bill in the car that showed the address up in Willseyville, So San Francisco Missing Person's police go up to search, go up to look at the cabin, and they begin looking around more and more,
and I realized they've found something really interesting. They can't go in the in the bunker with our search warrant, right, so they contact the cricket Colilyn Belas, and she agrees to meet them up there, but she's not very cooperative. A matter of factually goes into the house and seizes a calendar and tears some pages out of it that
may implicate her in this thing. The police immediately get a search warrant and they go into that bunker and they they find the secret door and the cell, and they I don't think there's anything engraved on a I don't remember any engraving, but they did find a U typed piece of paper with rules on it. Would you like to know what those rules say? Sure? Certainly. Hang on to second. I need to pick up something. Oh, here it is okay. These are the rules posted in
the bunker for the women in there. One I must always be ready to service my master. I must be clean, brushed and made up with my cell neat. Two I must never speak unless spoken to unless in bed, I must never look my master in the eye, but I must keep my eyes downcast. Three I must never show my disrespect, either verbally or silent. I must never cross my arms or legs in front of my body, or clench my fists. And unless eating, must always keep my
lips parted. Four. I must be obedient completely and in all things. I must obey immediately and without question or a comment. Five. I must always be quiet when locked in my cell. Six I must remember and obey any additional rules told to me. I must understand that any disobedience, any pain, trouble, or annoyance caused by me to my master will be grounds for punishment. Those were the rules.
Now, police found a series of underground buildings, or possibly more than one building. Can you describe a little bit about what the police discovered in this home? The construction that Leonard Lake had done well.
The bunker is separate from the house. The bunker is outside and is cut into the hillside. The police realized that the perimeter of the place does not match the tool room that they see as they open the front door of it. So when they go in, that's when they discover the secret door. And the cell and there's a tiny cell in there with a bad in it, and a bucket for the use of as a toilet and a roll of toilet paper, and the rules. And that's it.
Now as far as Leonard Lake's accomplished Charles ng were police initially able to find him No.
At the lumberyard when Lake was arrested and took a cyanide. Later Charlie ran for it. Cricket, who later was claiming she had nothing to do with any of this, picked him up and drove by the lumberyard and saw the police talking to a Lake and realized that their big trouble is going So she took him to a bus station, took to Charlie to a bus station. He catches a bus to Chicago and crosses into Canada and is on the run for a while.
Now you say he makes it to Canada, and in your book you say he makes it all the way to Calgary. And they speculate that he has some family members that might have assisted him, but nevertheless he ends up getting caught in Calgary. Tell us how what happened and how did he get finally get caught in Calgary.
He's actually we believe he was probably stinguished in relatives for a while. But at that time when he was taught, he was camped out in a big park and he was in a department store and was spotted by the guard shoplifting some food, some canned items, some soft drinks and slipping him into his backpack. They confronting, and the guard pulls a gun and Charlie wrestles with him, and the guard is shot in the hand, and so now it's becomes much more than a shoplifting case. So they
arrest Charlie. Eventually find out if he's wanted in the US on federal warrants, but they try him in Canada and sentence ing four and a half years in a Canadian prison.
Now you talk about him being sentenced to four and a half years in a prison and Edmonton in the same province as Calgary for the charges stemming from the lumber yard altercation and arrest. And now he was placed in isolation or we call protective custody while in Edmonton, where he met a fellow inmate who was housed in the adjacent cell named Maurice Leberge. They struck up a friendship conversing while outside for their hour exercise and writing
notes to each other. What did Ing tell Leberge, if anything regarding the murders.
He told him just about everything, and he illustrated him too. They were in cells side by side, but there was enough space under the cell door that they could reach under and pass notes or books or pieces of paper
back and forth. At la Berge's request. He learned that Charlie was a pretty good artist cartoonist, and Charlie began drawing on eight and a half by eleven paper cartoons and so he not only told labours about the murders they had committed, been the things they did, but he drew cartoons obscene, disgusting, file horrible pornographic cartoons depicting what they did. One of them shows Charlie labeled it sometime in the future. He could see into the future, and
it shows him in a jail cell. And on that jail cell are posted drawings of Kathy O'Connor and several of the other victims with just terrible things I can't even say on this program about what they were doing to them.
Now this Leburge had encouraged Charles Ing to draw or recognize his talent, and there was a series of cartoons one hundred and fifty in total, if I'm not incorrect, and he had told him details about the murder, did Leburge also write down the tales of their conversations as well pertaining to the murders? And why was this Maurice Leberge even though he's you know, convicted of hainous crimes. That's why he ends up adjacent to him in this
isolation sell in Edmonton prison facing serious time. Why would Laberge encourage Charles Ing and then and then provide this information to authorities?
Well, he eventually began to see that he could use it as a Laberge could see that he could use that as a leverage to get himself a shorter sentence, and so he began talking to authorities. He also professed a discuss for what Ing was, saying that at first he thought he was just an another guy, a shell mate, but it turned out to be such a monster that Leburge felt conscience stricken to tell what he knew about him, and it probably did help Leberge a bit. He got out soon afterwards.
Now, how long was this correspondence between these two, these two people.
I think it was a good portion of the four years, at four and a half years that being served in that prison.
Okay, Now, the Canadian justice officials refused to extradite Charles Ing because he would likely be sentenced to a death penalty once extraded back to the US. Now, can you tell us a little bit about I guess how the story resonated in the US concerning this refusal to extradite a convicted and very very serious, high profile murderer.
Actually, for the whole four and a half years that Charlie was in prison up there, there were negotiations going on between the two countries. The US saying we want this man back to pay the penalty, to come to justice for incredible crimes that were committed here in Culiverse County. Meanwhile Canada is saying, we do not send people back for the death penalty. I guess in Canada there is no death penalty, so they didn't want to comply with that.
The United States representatives said, yes, do you really want to become the place where all murderers go? So they've con avoid the death penalty. I think that carried some persuasion. I can't say what the final decision was based upon. But finally in legal hearings it was decided in Canada that they would indeed extradite Charles Ing back to the US for trial. Okay, now.
You said, finally Canada relented and that was in nineteen ninety one, who sent back to California for trial. Now, Clara Lynne ballas Cricket Leonard Lake's ex wife, becomes a central figure in the trial. Can you explain that? Why did she become a central figure? What was her role in the trial? Tell us a little bit about that.
Well, Charles Ing was clearly involved in a lot of these murders, but there was no forensic evidence connecting them to them. There was the m lady's tape shows into abusing two girls, and there was a lot of there were remains found on the property, but nothing really connected Charles Ng forensically to these murders. The authorities thought that Clara Lynn Belas would be able to cast some light on that, so eventually they made a deal with her.
They offered a complete immunity for her testimony in the trial.
She gets complete immunity and what can she how does she testify? She testifies against Charles Zing, But what does she have to say about Leonard Lake in the trial that helps help convict Charles Zing as well? How is that connection between Charles Ing and Leonard Lake and Cricket helped to convict Charles Ing at trial?
Actually it didn't. Clara lynn And came to the trial in Orange County. It was moved from Calaveras County because there were so many there were so few people in that small county up in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada, that it was decided he couldn't get a fair trial there. They would all automatically believe he was guilty. So it was moved to Orange County down here in southern California.
Clara Lynne was given immunity. She showed up and I was sitting in the courthouse that day and watching, and they called her up to the stand. They said, what is your name? She said it, thank you. That's all. No more questions than they excuse her. It's inexplicable. I have no idea what they were thinking. I have no idea why they offered her immunity in the first place. She should have been tried, I believe, but they got
nothing from her. The evidence presented against Charles ng mostly with those cartoons and a lot of other circumstantial things that eventually led the jury to a verdict.
Now, you talked about that her deal for immunity, in your opinion, was wrong and that she should have been sharred. Definitely, she had something to do with these crimes and very willing participant. Now, was there some outrage when the public
found out about this deal? Was there anything resonating in the in the in the in the media from the public talking about was there anything to the story itself that people thought it was unfair that this person was receiving immunity despite her involvement in these crimes.
Well, we have to be very careful about this. I'm not saying that she is guilty of anything. She may or may not be. A lot of people suspected she did, and I suspected it, but we don't know that. We can only go by what the what was presented in trial and in the newspaper accounts. So we don't know whether Clerlande Bellas really was involved in murders or any
actual crimes. But it turned out that she said nothing, did nothing to actually help convict Charles ng and it was countniversial, no doubt about it.
So there was outrage from the public concerning this.
Well at that I know the newspapers had to be very careful too and what they were saying. So I don't know how much the public knew about Clara Lynn belast I tried very tried to be cautious in my book about indicting or for anything that she may not be guilty of.
Certainly, Now, what was the how high profile was this trial and this case and how prominent was as it appeared in the media at that time, How big a story was this.
Well, it's a huge story. And I have to admit my publisher was Ryan and convinced me to do it.
Because this book is now when it's thirteenth printing, and has been a bestseller for nearly ten years, and has resulted in my appearing on four television documentaries and a couple of the live talk shows, and it has legs that people are interested in this thing because it's so mind boggling, It's so staggering what these two people were convinced themselves the right thing to do, to kill people for their own greedy, disgusting perversions.
Now at the trial, it really struck me as probably being the most horrific, or one of the most horrific the moments is the recalling of the actual video itself and playing of the video at the trial where they were featured Kathy Allen and Brenda O'Connor on videotape. Now, how did the courtroom attendees, including the family react to that videotape being played at the trial?
It was very, very sad that believe me. They used that video over and over and over in the nine months out. But I saw it fifty times, they just said, and that was so weighed heavily against Charles ing And and many of the family members of those victims were at the trial. Kathy Allen's sister was there and she was crying. And Robin Scott Stateley's mother and father, who had followed the trial. They'd gone to Canada and listen to hearings up there. They'd gone to the hearings in
Calaveras County. They virtually exhausted their fortune to follow this all the way through. So did Paul Kosner, whose car was stolen and that's the one that was found at the lumber yard Paul Kosner. His sister Sharon Salito followed this trial all the way through from again from Canada to Calaveras County to Orange County, and they were so absolutely determined to see justice done. And I sat with these family members and I got to know most of them pretty well, and I could just feel their pain.
It is so sad. Cliff Peranto was a co worker of Charles Ang that was one of the murdered victims. And Cliff's half brother was there and he told me these long tales of what a good boy Cliff was that they had been the whole Several of the siblings had been put out to foster homes and some of them were pretty mistreated, and Cliff, being the oldest sibling, would escape from his to go ten to his siblings
and help them out while they could. It was just heartbreaking to feel the pain that these people were going through all through that nine months of trial.
Now were cameras allowed at the trial itself?
There was no television coverage of it. The seal cameras were allowed by news reporters, but no television.
No television. Okay, now I understand the trial ended up, and this is surprising ended up being the most expensive trial in American history, even more than the OJ Simpson trial. What made this case so expensive, well two key reasons.
Dan. One was though very length of it, nine months, it's a long trial. And two is Charles Ing. Here's a guy who with high school education and raised in Hong Kong. And we have a million or more people in prison in the United States and they there are many of who regard themselves as jailhouse lawyers. But believe me,
Charles Ing was a master. He learned the law, and it was said that he did it while he was in Leavenworth and in the Canadian prison he spent he spent just as much time, and he had a lot of time on his hands studying law. And he learned that you could there are so many ways to set up appeals. He learned that if you fire fire your lawyers, it's called a Marsden motion here in California, and he
learned how to use that, and he fired lawyers. He had six judges replaced over the period of time, and he had his defense attorneys three or four sets of them changed. He was just an a master of manipulating our system here and each time he would successfully launch one of these appeals or objections, it would take time and expense. So he was a very costly fellow to convict here in California.
Now, you talked about him delaying the trial and studying law so that he would be more prepared. Now, given that, how effective was he and his defense at the trial? And maybe you can tell us a little bit about the missing bullets and the eyewitness testimony that was not able to be used at the trial and what that effect was. What was that effect in the terms of the trial at Charles King, Well.
I'm a little puzzled by the missing bullets. I'm not sure that there were There were no forensic evidence at all that tied him to any bullets or smoke gun or fingerprints anything else. His attorneys tried to just say that Lake was the mastermind in this and Charlie was nothing but a gullible bystander who just went along with it but did not participate in the murders. That was the defense his lawyers used. But they made a terrible blunder,
in my opinion, laid in the trial. Charlie testified in the trial, and that's unusual too, and a great majority of time murder defendants do not testify because the subjects in the cross examination, which can get them in a lot of trouble. But Charlie testified, and while he was testifying, the assistant defense attorney brought up the cartoons. The prosecution hadn't brought them up, and the judge even told this
attorney said, why are you bringing these up? Well, because I want to bring it up myself before the before the prosecution does, but the cross use hasn't done it. And he asked the attorney asked, King, did you say that any he would say all these these profane things that were spelled out in these these cartoon papers that Charlie drew, and did you do this? Did you say this?
Did you do that? And it made it so explicitly clear that he had done those things and said those things, and the prosecution didn't bring it up, but the defense did, and I feel that had a great deal of weight in convicting him.
Now you talk about the artwork at the trial and them examining it. What was it about the artwork?
Was the artwork? Did it?
Did it match forensic evidence? And is that why the artwork was very important?
No? But it metch names and events. It spelled out Kathy H and showed a picture of Lake, a drawing I should say, of Lake and ing abusing her and then identified her by name, and it did that was quite a few of the other victims too, So it was very clear that Charlie was present when those those abuse and the torture was going on. And obviously the killing tube, and so that connected to it in the in the minds of the jurors, I'm sure. And there were one hundred and fifty of those cartoons, so it's
not some minor matter. One hundred and fifty pornographic cartoons depicting torture and murder.
Now what I talked about both the bullets, and I don't labor this point, but what it was is that there was an eyewitness, the victim's roommate, that could not positively identify Charles NG and then there was he was wounded, and those bullets were ended up lost by the police force in San Francisco, I believe.
Oh, okay, I know what's talking about. A man named Donald Giolletti who was a disc jockey in San Francisco, and he was gay, and he put an ad in for uh that he would service give certain services and and uh Leonard Lake showed up at his place and uh uh took took advantage of those services and then shot Gioletti. Uh. But that really didn't involve Charlie Ing. Charlie's Charlie Ing was not charged with that particular murder. As a matter of fact, no one was ever charged with that murder.
I see, sorry for the confusion. Now, what did the jury finally decide for Charles Ng?
Well, he was he was charged with eleven or twelve murders, twelve murders, and they they found him guilty of eleven of them. Uh and and sadly the one of uh for Paul Kosner, and that was the one I mentioned
that his sister followed all the way through it. And she was partially responsible or was I should say, largely responsible for the investigation being launched in the first place, because when her brother went missing in San Francisco, she was extremely persistent in demanding the police stay after it, and she would not relax and let them just shove
it aside. And she just pushed and pushed and pushed and was instrumental in keeping investigation going it was his Honda that was stolen and stolen and his Honda that was in the lumber yard the Ing depositive device in the trunk of when Lake was arrested. So, but the evidence seemed to indicate that Lake and Ing went for a test ride in that car which was for sale. Paul Cosner put it up for sale. They went to test right, and then Paul disappears and they have the car,
and Charlie was obviously very involved in that one. But for some reason, the jury just did not see convincing evidence that that Ing had participated in the killing of Paul Cosner. So they had a hung jury on that particular count, but they got twelve other contion eleven other convictions on him.
What was he finally eventually sentenced to. What was his sentence?
He sentenced to die in the gas chamber. We had a gas chamber at that time. But Charlie's still up there. This has happened what in nineteen ninety eight, this trial began and Charlie is one of seven hundred convicts on death row in California. We have executed thirteen since it was reinstituted in this state in nineteen seventy three, we're getting a way behind. We're not ever going to catch up.
And Charlie's Charlie, by the way, in this state, and death pinally is automatically reviewed by the Supreme Court, automatically appealed to the California Supreme Court, Charlie's hasn't even gone that far yet in ten years, over ten years since he's been convicted.
Now, talking about the death penalty, and given the extraordinary delays to the death penitently and the exorbitant cost for these numerous appeals, what is your opinion regarding the death penalty? And did this case in any way change your mind at all about the death penalty?
And I'm glad you asked. I've been sitting here thinking about writing a letter to the local newspapers about the death penalty. Here we are in this state, our governor is trying to find desperate measures to cut back. We have a like more than a twenty billion dollar deficit in this in this state, and he's trying to find ways like selling of fair grounds here in Orange County. And yet we continue to pretend that we have a death penalty. And in this state, when you when a
defendant has found defendant is found guilty of murder. Then we have a penalty phase, which is very expensive packed on the end of it, and then we have the automatic appeals, and then we have the appeals beyond that, and then we have re trials when the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals overturns these death penalty cases, which they
do with great regularity. We are spending billions of dollars in this state pretending that we have a death penalty when we're not ever going to catch up, as I say, seven hundred people on death row and it just ain't going to happen. And now we're considering building a new death row at great expense because this one's getting overcrowded. These guys sit up there on death Row and it's no great pleasure. It's not a country club hotel. But
they do have computers in there and single cells. Where many other prisons there are three or four or five into a cell. Death row inmates have a single cell all to themselves, and it's just outrageous to me. I'm a proponent of the death penalty, but not the way it's administered in this state. We need to get rid of it. I see.
Now, how did writing this book affect you? Given all the books that you've written, how did this book affect you?
You know, I think true crime writers tend to be like homicide detectives were Pretty soon we developed kind of a thick skin, and you just look at it as something to our job that we do. But I can't help but be emotionally impacted by this. And let me tell you this. There were twelve jurors whom I befriended. I was really a lucky guy at the end of the trial. You never even talk. You don't need to
say hi to a juror during a trial. But afterwards then I approached one or two of them out in front of the courthouse and ask if they would be considered an interview. And I guess my approach work because I got a call the next day and all twelve of them were willing to give me an exclusive interview, and I became friends with them. I went to their reunions for a while. Now, how it affected me is
one thing. How it affected them as another. Several of them had to go through post traumatic stress syndrome treatment after spending nine months watching the horrors of that trial.
Certainly, certainly. Yeah, it's an incredible story and an incredible impact on everyone. I want to thank you very much, Don for a very informative program, and thank you for green to come on the program at all. And I just wanted to tell people if you have a website, could you do you have a website at all? Web website address?
You know, I've never developed a website, but they could reach me on my email address, which is easily found anytime, and I'd be glad to respond to any of that. I get letters in the US mail and on my email quite frequently, and I love to respond to my readers. So thanks for that offer, and I thank you so much for allowing you to go on your program. I've enjoyed it.
Well, thank you very much. I've really enjoyed it.
And have a good night. Thank you, Dan, good night, Thank you Don.
You've just listened to Don Lassiter and he's the author of Die for Me, The Terrifying True Story of the trials ying Leonard Lake Torture Murders. That's on Pinnacle Books by Don Lassiter, L A. S.
S E T. E. R.
You've been listening to the program True Murder the most shocking killers in true crime history, and the authors that have written about them. I will talk to you next time.
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