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Lock Hope Radio, 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 Stahmer, The Nightstalker Dck. 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 Zupanski for the program True Murder, the most shocking killers in true crime history and the authors that have written about them. In September nineteen eighty nine, is a natural. By all appearances, twenty nine year old Wesley Allen Dodd was the perfect all American boy, model, high school student, camp counselor, and US Navy enlistee. But behind his mask of normalcy lurked a predatory sex fiend with a seventeen year history of
appalling acts of molestation and violence. Children were his victims, and the parks of the Pacific Northwest his personal hunting grounds. In September nineteen eighty nine, his unnatural desires had driven him past simple satisfaction to abduct, torture, and kill two young boys in Vancouver, Washington. Dodd killed a third innocent victim only weeks later near Portland, Oregon, but only when he was caught trying to kidnap a child from a
local movie theater. Was he finally taken into custody by police, confessing to these heinous murders. He was convicted on all three counts and sentenced to death. The book that we are dealing with to see profiling this evening is Driven to Kill, the terrifying true account of sex killer Wesley Allan Dodd, with my special guest, journalist and best selling true crime author, Gary C.
King.
Welcome to the program, and thank you for agreeing to this interview.
Gary C.
King.
Hi, Dan, I'm glad to be here. Thanks for having me on.
Thank you very much. It's been a while since I tempted to have you on and I'm very happy and I'm sure our audience will enjoy the interview this evening. You're one of the more important true crime authors today, and you're past with some of the incredible stories and some of the incredible books, and we'll talk about that a little bit later, but let's get to this particular
story now. You have a you've been in the true crime business for thirty two years, but specifically with this book Driven to Kill, about this incredible killer, Wesley Allen Dodd. What was it, how, what were the circumstances that came about that you felt compelled or were drawn to this story, or how did you come to write Driven to Kill about Wesley Allen dodd Well.
At the time, I was writing for the Detective magazines and I had written a piece I believe it was for True Detective, and that's what initially what my appetite, so to speak, for this particular story, and I saw it as something that really needed to be told, something that parents needed to be aware of. And my editor at True Detective also thought that that should be the case.
So she introduced me to an editor at Pinnacle Books named Paul Dennis, one of the best true crime editors I've ever dealt with, and he immediately wanted to do a book on this particular case. And that that's really how it came about. It started with a short nonfiction story and developed into a book over a period of a few months.
We've got to give the credit to though, I've got to say that Pinnacle is the kind of the independent publisher, the kind of publisher period that doesn't shy away from some of the stories that even some real big true crime, the biggest true crime imprints kind of shy away from Don't you agree with that?
Yeah, you're absolutely right. And I've published several books with them, you know, over the over the years, but this was, I believe, this was my first one that I had published with Pinnacle, and you know, everybody you know had misgivings about it. I mean, just the subject matter alone, yeah,
is horrific. But I had decided early on that I wanted to write a book that would really raise awareness to people like dot sexual predators who basically kept parents as hostages, you know, whenever they're they're committing their crimes. And when he was doing his thing, nobody knew who was doing and we, you know, we didn't know if he was gonna suddenly switch and go after girls, whether it was strictly going to be boys, And it really didn't matter because you know, kids are kids, and no
parent wants to see their kids become a victim. And I myself was a parent, I am a parent, and my kids were small at the time, and this was so disturbing. We wouldn't even let our kids play outside unattended until after, you know, he was apprehended and the killing stopped. So I decided early on this had to be a book that was geared toward raising awareness, at least in parents' minds, that they can't be vigilant enough over their child's safety. And I did it in a
form of shock treatment. For lack of a better way to say it, I guess. And the book is very disturbing the way that I wrote it, and it was intentionally made to be disturbing, because you can't sugarcoat stuff like this. It has to be told the way it is, and that's exactly what I did. And you know, I've been thanked over the years from parents who you know, are happy about it. I've been put down, if you will, by other parents who said that I've gone too far
with it. Personally, I think I could have went farther, but I did tone it down a bit, but I didn't sugarcoat it.
Yeah, I got to say that you really handle this well, and it seemed that you didn't really have much of a backglass. There's always somebody that has opinions about true crime authors, and you know that they just have a distaste for a period, so you never can really satisfy those people. But I really thought this was very uncompromising and unflinching and a lot of people, again, a lot of publishers might say, well, shouldn't have to include that,
but I think it's very important that you did. And like I said, I think I'm appreciative, and I think most readers would be appreciative of giving us the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Now getting to that, this very again, very very graphic and shocking book, and especially when you consider that we're talking about small children, we're talking torture, and we're talking about this person being very, very very candid. So this is an amazing portrait of
a killer. Definitely. Now, maybe to introduce our audience to how this book is written much different than most books in that the incredible access you had to all the information, but also the killer of themselves again being very very candid, and so that there's interviews of the killer, there's interviews from police. There is the diary, and we'll talk about
that right away because that's very important. But you really is because of the access, because of the killer wanting all of this information to be known and willing to be interviewed, and also this diary where he kept documentation. So with this incredible access, we also have and this
candidacy from this killer. We have a really good account, which is maybe unusual, what is unusual for to have and you know that as an author, So tell us from the incredible information you have his earliest life and his account of his.
Earliest life, well, much of his uh earliest life was accounted to me, not only by him, but in the pages of his diary. We started calling it his diary of death, because that's really what it is. But he started out at a very young age experimenting sexually with you know, relatives, cousins and so forth, and uh young children, uh, a little bit younger than himself. And and a lot of it had to do with uh, you know, touching and you know, exposing and this sort of thing. And
that's that's really his earliest beginnings. And uh he was he was caught a few times, and you know, his hands were slapped. But as he got older, as he developed into an adolescent, he began uh uh doing these things in front of school children, uh, exposing himself and masturbating, uh in front of children as they walked past his house or his apartment. And that was a fairly short period.
It was because when the police.
Came that pretty much shut him down. He he stopped doing that, he realized that he couldn't do it from the comfort of his home, that he had to go out and start trolling the city streets and parks and playgrounds, et cetera, to find you know, willing or unwilling depending on the caves. Uh, victims, and and uh this is.
What he did.
And you know, in his earliest days, he was brought brought in and questioned and about various sex crimes, most of them relatively minor compared to the things that he ended up ultimately doing. And he was basically had his hand slapped. He he was you know, he received psychological counseling, but never finished any of it. He was never sentenced to any difficult time. Uh. He was always to sort of let go, or he slipped through what I like to say, he slipped through the cracks of the system.
Perhaps at the time people really didn't know how to deal with him. I don't know. But the point is that I'm trying to make is he was never punished for his earliest crimes, and he was pretty much allowed to continue until he, you know, started committing the ultimate crime of murder.
Can we talk about his diary and the extensive interviews that he gave to various people, various authorities. It seems incredible in your book that he talks about every detail of it seems rejection from and he felt intimidated from women. There was a rejection. He'd pulled his pats down. Some of the earliest things he had done with neighborhood boys
was pulling his pats down and exposing his venus. It basically, in sort of all you can get from the beginning is that he had issues with his sexual orientation or identity. He may have had this rejection, he may have felt humiliated, he might have had issues about his manhood in various aspects. But then he jumps to what we would think is more deviant things like sticking safety pins in his penis in so he was experimenting with some things. It is
a fairly slow evolution from flashing to molestation. So we're talking about nineteen seventy five, and like you say that, each time that he is either accused or questioned by police, he just seems to get the benefit of the doubt, and no one either recognizes or both recognizes and then punishes him. But we're talking about that in this diary.
Seems curious to me that he seems to rationalize his behavior, his making this leap to fantasizingable molestation and abduction, but he offers no real rationale for what happened other than his parents were arguing and he had these some of the same things that happen to most people.
I would think, Yeah, of course, a lot of people have been through the same types of things that he had been through, and they didn't go on and do the things that he did. But I tried to drag out of him during my interviews with him his sexual orientation, and he didn't really want to talk about it. I had the sense that they didn't really like women a whole lot. He did admit to me that he had dated one woman, but he wouldn't go into detail about it.
He's very evasive, and that's really all I could find out from him, you know, about any kind of uh orientation with the opposite sex. So but uh, yeah, he just uh, he just went into really great detail, uh in his diary. He when he when he talked to me, he didn't really blame others too much.
For what he did.
He he talked mostly about how, uh this was a compulsion that he had and that he couldn't stop and the only way he could stop was to die. I don't I don't know what you can take from that, but uh, he he definitely fits the mold if your typical every day sex offender who usually you know, isn't
helped with treatment, Some are, most aren't. But you know, it's really hard, it's really hard to pin down anything that might have contributed to this uh sickness, if you will, from lack of better better term, that caused him to progress, you know, to murder.
Anyway, Now he has these murderous fantasies. So part of the fantasy is that he documents his feelings and his plans. So what are some of the plans that he has and at what point does he make this conscious decision to probably target boys? And why is that other than his sexual orientation? Is there another reason as well?
I don't recall there being another or particular reason why he targeted boys. Perhaps, you know, it seems like something I recall. I recall that he thought it was easier to talk with boys, but he had extensive plans and even before he attacked the near brothers in David Douglas Park. He had set out very extensive plans on how he
was going to you know, carry this out. And it was over a period of a couple of days where he made plans to go out and stalk and and uh regret l you know, uh check the place out and and really it was like a reconnaissance mission where he he packed his lunch and and uh went out for the day and if he came out with a victim, great, If not, then he would go back the next day. And he kept it was a kind of like a trial and error that he went through at first.
Uh.
And I suppose part of that was building up his nerve to a certain degree to to actually, you know, make an abduction and and uh to kill someone.
But uh, he he.
Was very extensive in his planning. He had lots of future plans his uh, his diary detailed a crudely made torch wrack that he had actually constructed, in which I included a picture of in the book that he you know, hoped to tie his victims down on and commit surgeries on them while they were alive, you know, unconscious, things such as you know, removing their their their penis or their testicles. It was just it's pretty horrendous.
Yeah, he wanted to experiment with them and and also have sex with them after they had they were dead, so in necrophilia. Yeah, and he documents all of it.
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We talked about how we evaded any kind of serious punishment from authorities, but at one point he did get a ten year sentence, and just to illustrate how unfortunate he wasn't unfortunate the rest of is this is society and his victims were. He served only four months of
that ten year sentence. And it seems like those constant times that he spent one hundred and eighteen days in prison, and at some point he made that conscious effort to change the way he did things and be more serious about anyone telling authorities because he had been reported to authorities numerous times.
Right.
Yeah, Now we also goted to talk about he did move some three times, because we talk about in your book that he was where was it in Washington he was born? Sorry, hopefully I don't mispronounce this topping' Topinish Toppinish, Washington, and then he later moved to Seattle and then later to Vancouver, Washington.
Yeah, the film's about right, Yeah.
Yeah, Now, tell us a little bit about because we just skipped over this. Tell us about his stint in the navy, because that it seems interesting that he give us the reason why he even stated himself why he wanted to enlist in the navy, and how he did in the navy.
What was his experience, like, well, I don't remember anything particularly negative. In fact, I don't remember a whole lot about that aspect of his life. He didn't talk about it a whole lot. And you know, God, this has been twenty years ago. You've recently read the book.
Yeah, no, no, no, no, no. What I wanted to point out is very interesting. Again, a lot of people think, well, serial killers are very, very intelligent, but for the most part, they aren't. And this guy was the at least in military terms. He was a very serious military candidate. He went into the Navy and was the top of the top ten percent of his class, and then they put
him on sub submarine duty. But of course he was discharged for decent taking attempting indecent liberties, but again not really punished and not seemed to be recognized for the you know, they recommended it to get counseled or counseling.
So it seemed all along the way there if there really is a cautionary tale on how many times somebody could have intervened and should have intervened, because there seems to be gaps on exactly why he only did four months out of ten years, and there seems to be some of these very very strong questions.
And that's one of the really sad things about this case is the fact that intervention, you know, was not efficiently effective. Any time that intervention did take place, nothing happened. And and like you say, he was a bright fellow, he was intelligent, he I want to say clever more than anything. He knew how to manipulate people and he learned that, I think at a pretty young age to
be able to get what he wants. As far as his navy experience goes, it seems like he was honorably discharged or I can't remember now, it's just been so long. Do you remember what he was?
No, he was, it was it was. It didn't say dishonorably dishonorably discharged. But it was he was discharged and he was imprisoned for seventeen days, and it was attempting in decent liberties. So it was some he was molesting as soon as he got to the to the camp, and then there was a couple attempts and then he was So everybody was on to this guy shortly, and that was part of the moves as well, because it seemed to want a new, new, you know, a fresh start.
But then it all really was was that he was refining his fantasies and making it more serious. That uh, no one was gonna live to tell the tale.
Yeah that that uh that says it in a nutshell, uh really, because that's that's how he ultimately became. And he saw that as a way, I guess, uh, a way of preservation so that he could continue doing what he enjoyed doing best, and that is, you know, molesting and killing little boys. Those were his words to me, you know, he it's what he enjoyed doing, that's what he lived for. M and it it just it's sad. What's really sad, you know. I meant the fathers of the boys.
Uh, the vimes that he murdered.
And and you know, when you look into their eyes and you see the the depth of their their their their hurt and their sadness and the emptiness that's left behind is just I it's an awful, awful feeling. And yet these these gentlemen, you know, were supportive enough of me and what I was doing to actually appear on TV with me local talk show. And despite the fact that you know, they had to look at Wesley Allen Dodd's picture on the front of the book every time
they went to the grocery checkout stand. It's just awful. How but what a parent has left with when something like this happens, and you develop empathy really quickly when you deal with you know, survivors and victims of violent crime.
No, no, no, no, not at all. I am glad that you touched on that, because the thing is is that this again, for those that don't know this story, if they do any kind of research at all, and if they when they do read this book, this is one of the most graphic documentations of murder and this murder fantasy. It's it's very non typical so and the
depth of again, this guy's very very candid. A lot of these guys might not have might some guys like d Bundy would never really admit to necrophilia, or Gacy would downplay some of the aspects of his crimes. But this guy, like some evil killers, revels in it. But it seems to be not exaggerated. It seems to be for whatever reason, just very very candid, but very very graphic and shocking, disturbing and vile basically and some people.
So you've handled this with a great amount of care and then again to be able to have the fathers who really aren't true crime buffs or anything like that, and sometimes are you know, critical of some of the journalists or you know, the newspapers, the media itself. So it's a testament that you handle this with a lot of care and sensitivity. Was there a conversation at all about the inclusion of because you really don't hold very much back in terms of you haven't censored much of
this diary and its content. So was there a conversation at all about that with any of those fathers.
Not before the publication of the book, No, I did you know forewarn them. We had a few minutes to chat before we went on the TV program, and I did forewarn them that that much of the book was graphic, but I also took the opportunity to explain the reasons, you know, behind it, and they seem to understand that,
at least they indicated to me that they did. And it's it was just of all the things that I've written about, all the murders and crime, and I think I've published something like seventeen books now and like five hundred short articles, this is the one that has stayed with me. I've never forgotten it. It just it's just there all the time. You know, it doesn't take much to start dredging up the memories of me sitting in the interrogation room with him, and that in itself is
you know, another story. I mean, the guy actually enjoyed talking about what he did, and I suppose we'll get into.
That at some point.
I don't want to jump too far ahead because I'm sure you kind.
Of know where you want to go with this, but.
Well it's not it's not so linear. But you know, the thing is what we haven't actually spoken about, and you can go as far as as you like with this in terms of again we don't want to give much away or read from the book, you know, in terms of what he's actually said, just suffice to say that it's the depiction of what he'd like to do, the depiction of how he would like to kill, and in fantasies of future plans, again which seemed to accelerate
from from the murder that he had already committed. Murders he had already committed. So but tell us about the actual we were, if the audience is still with us, if we go back to the Douglas Park, the David Douglas Park, he had made a diagram of the park. He like you say, it was like recognisance in that he had these plans and extensive notes, and kept detailed notes of basically his hunt and when would it be the best time to hunt according to his observations so far.
He even picked out the park, what entrance or where he would hunt, would be best to separate boys from each other, And then he documented, oh, I saw three boys age to this, eight to ten, and one was cuterer than this. So detailed sickening, disgusting, and horrifying notes. Now tell us about the actual abductions and murders. As they occurred, not to say dates, but in terms of what he actually did.
Yeah, well, he actually used the term the hunt or hunting in his notes, and you know, that's precisely what he was doing when he went to David Douglas Park, and he included details of how he almost had, you know, a victim on a particular day, but he was scared away, you know, because it such and such or encountering an adult or somebody else or whatever the case may have been. But on this particular day when he killed Billy and Cole near he basically was out in one of the
bike paths. David Douglas Park for people who aren't familiar with it, you know, covers a significant amount of acreage and it's a city park, but it's it seems like you're, you know, not really in the city. And he he went on these these hiking paths and these bike paths, and that's where he he saw these two boys and he stoked them for a bit and he approached them
at some point. They were riding their bicycles. They were actually out looking for golf balls that morning, because they would collect golf balls from a nearby golf course and turn them in for money and something or other. You know, they decided to cut through this park and and there was DoD and you know, he encountered I don't remember which one first, but probably the younger boy, but I
just don't recall. And basically he told them that, you know, he wanted to do things with them, and the things that they just you know, were too young to really comprehend. I mean, they understood what he was wanting to do, but they didn't know you know, why, or what the repercussions would be and what the ultimate end would be.
So there was some you know it I basically made made them pull their pants down and so he could touch them, and and you know, one thing led to another and and he ended up, uh, after I don't know, twenty thirty minutes of this, ended up stabbing the boys. He stabbed you know, one first, the other one tried to get away, caught him, stabbed him.
They both died.
It was it was a you know, it was really horrible.
Uh.
I don't know how to.
Yeah, to emphasize that point, but uh, you know, he ended their lives right there on the bike path. Nobody else was around. It was quiet morning, but did that answer.
What kind of clues did he leave behind? In terms of police, did they have any evidence and at the crime scene itself, what was their position. How did the police respond at that time other than we've got a couple young boys dead.
Yeah, well someone found the boys, you know, and reported it. It seems like he left a knife at the scene. Again, this has, you know, been over twenty years, so I'm using my memory. If I'm wrong, I apologize, But it seemed like he left a knife at the scene. As far as other evidence, I don't believe there was much. I think the ropes were there, they bound them with or whatever he used to bud them with.
I may not have been ropes strength, and.
They really didn't have anything to go on. Someone after the fact, you know, reported a suspicious character that they'd seen lurking around the park, and they provided a description which turned out to be pretty darn good. I mean, if you've seen the the the the police drawings of of the person of interest before they knew who they were dealing.
With, they they looks like dot mm.
So they had that to go on. But uh, the case really didn't didn't move along. It It just sort of was if a standstill until he you know, committed his next murder. Even then, you know, it didn't go too too far. I mean really, uh, you know, the way he was apprehended was almost a miracle, blessing, whatever you want to call it.
It was.
It was luck, and he would have had a fourth victim. But again, I'm getting ahead of myself.
I'm yeah, well, yeah, we'll just go back a little bit. Because now Dodd wrote in his diary that he'd like to be able to have more time for various types of rape rather than just a quickie before murder. And uh, and so after the two boys, he decided that he decided what when he would like to do his next murder, but he also wanted to perform experimental surgeries on his victims. He realized that rape and murder was not enough after two boys, so he decided that Saturday afternoon after work
was the best time to find a boy. And then he found h s third victim of Lee Ice. If I selly Lee? Yeah, four years old?
Yeah, yeah. He found him in Portland Richmond Elementary School. There there were him and his brother were out there playing along with a friend. His brother Isisley's brother was older than him, and he had taken his little brother to the park or to the playground that day, and cause Lee liked to go play on the structure they had there called the pyramid and uh, or at the volcano. Excuse me, the volcano. It looked, I actually looked like a volcano. It was made out of concrete or some
sub substance. And and he liked to play on this. And Dodd was sitting outside the playground in his car, you know, waiting for the perfect victim. And pretty soon when Lee Eisley's brother left Lee to play on the volcano, that's when Dodd moved in. And you know, he started talking to him and you know, promised him candy, toys and whatever if he'd get in his car and go for a ride with him and.
Me.
And the kid was four years old. Uh yeah, you know, Dodd seemed harmless enough, so he got in the car with him. And that's that's the way Dodd abducted the little boy off of the playground and he took him back to his apartment.
You know, didn't he let him watch cartoons?
Yes, he did. He let him watch TV. He bought him a toy to play with, He made lee Is as comfortable as possible at first, until he decided to start sexually abusing him.
And you know.
He he had his apartment all laid out.
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Connected to his bed that he would use to you know, that he planned to use to tie his victims up with. And but Lee, you know, being four years old, wasn't too much of a handful for him, and he did some of the things to leave while Lee was asleep, you know, such as you know, inserting a metal rod into the end of his penis and into his urethra and h taking it out. Things like that.
Yeah.
He then he strangled them while he was sleeping right.
Into unconsciousness and revive him.
It was.
Once he finally killed him, of course, you know, he put him in the clothset and hit him behind uh pillows or a blanket or something while he went to work, hoping that you know, the body would stay there until he got home and then he could abuse it some more, and uh and so forth. And he did this h until, you know, until decompensation started setting, which doesn't take long. I mean you're talking about a matter of hours, day
and a half whatever. Uh. And you know, and then he you know, eventually went out and downbed to the after he had sex with the little boy's dead body.
I mean, it's.
Yeah, took pictures as well.
Took pictures, Yeah, yeah, took pictures of the body hanging in the closet. I had forgotten about that. He actually, yeah, hung the boy from a a rod in the closet, and uh my god. I saw those pictures too, and I I don't believe I included any of them. I don't think we would have.
Yeah.
No, that's that's too much. Nobody needs to see that. I feel sorry for you. Yeah, So it was the other thing. He burnt all the clothing, but he kept the child's underwear Ghostbusters underwear. Yeah, put in his briefcase under his bed, put it under his bed. Is momentos under his bed, Yeah, for later use.
Yeah.
And then shortly after I think it's that day someone a hunter discovers Lee's body at Vancouver Lake.
That's correct.
Yea.
So now they're still looking for a killer.
They're still looking for a killer. The community is basically terrorized, or at least thinking parents are, and all you can do is turn on the news and hope that they announced that they've caught this this maniac. And that just didn't happen right away. Unfortunately.
Now the police are getting all kinds of leads. There are people have said they've seen Lee with someone. There was a lot of reports of the child's appearance in various places, wasn't there.
Yeah, it seems like there was. Seems like they went out for fast food or junk food at a convenience store maybe, But yeah, there were sightings with with him and Lee. And it had to be within that first critical period of time, you know, from when he abducted him and took him back, because he really he only kept him I think alive for like a day or so, but I remember correctly. Yeah, it wasn't no.
No.
Now are police at all looking at Wesley Allen Dodd for any reason during this time? Is there has anybody come forward? I know it sometimes when you get investigations like this, though, with so much emotion, there's so many leads that even good leads get mixed up with the not so good leads.
Well, you had the Clark County Sheriff's Department in Vancouver, Washington looking for this killer, and then after Lee Eisley, you had the Portland Police Bureau looking for a killer, a child killer. And I'm not sure if the Vancouver Police Department were was involved or not. I don't believe they were. If they were, it was peripherally involved, not directly because the cases didn't fall within their jurisdiction. But uh so you've got these two fairly big agencies that
are in fairly close proximity to one another. Portland's across the Columbia River from Vancouver, Washington, and they decided at some point they needed to work together on it, and they did. They started sharing information and and but as I recall there weren't any leads that pointed directly at Dodd just yet. They were pretty much at a loss as who was doing this other than the witness sidings and the police drawings.
Right now, now, Dodd Wesley decides that he's going to change things a little bit in terms of the park. So his ideas maybe to find a child at the movies, and so tell us a little bit about what happens at the movie theater.
Well, he first started checking out a movie theater in Vancouver and he didn't have any luck. So he moved on down the road a bit about fourteen fifteen miles east of Vancouver to a small town called Camus, and he went to a theater there called the New Liberty Theater. It was playing a movie called Honey a shrunk the kids at the time. So he thought, wow, this should be good. I had to be able to find a
victim in there, and so he did. He went in there, and he kind of waited and watched, and he saw this boy go to the restroom, followed him in, and I guess it was a fairly good sized boy, if memory serves me correctly, but not too big for Dodd to handle. So Dodd decided that the best way that he could get him out of there get him out quickly, just to pick him up and carry him.
So he did. He picked the kid up, walked to the.
Lobby with him. Kid, you know, was kicking and screaming, and Dodd recalled later that he he just figured people would think that was a angry parent, you know, dealing with his kid or some such. But Uh, an astute movie gore, who I think had his own kid or stepchild or something there to the movies, Uh, saw what
was happening. So he decided to follow him and he watched, and as luck would have it, a few blocks away from the theater, Dodd's car broke down, and this good samaritan you know, approached him, and you know, he saw what was going on. But if if I remember correctly, he had telephoned someone or the police, possibly before h he approached God somehow he had the police a yep, and Dodd was basically arrested at that point trying to abduct this kid from the theater. And it's lucky that
they got him right in an there. He would have had a fourth victim.
Yes, yeah, William Graves, Now we want to talk about too, is now that they have the reasonable grounds, they have a warrant, and they searched the house, and I alluded to this briefcase. Tell us about the briefcase and what they found at the house and what they found in the briefcase.
Well, when they went into his room, first of all, they noticed that it was very orderly, very tidy, very well kept. You know, everything had a place and it was in its place sort of thing. Many serial killers are like that.
And he.
Had the ropes attached to the ends of the bed, the bed posts, so they saw that the restraints were there, you know, waiting to be used. They found, uh, the uh, the briefcase under the bed. They contained uh newspaper clippings of the previous crimes.
Uh.
He'd followed the case fairly closely, very closely actually, and uh it kept those either as souvenirs or as you know, things to where he could just keep track of what was going on, to maybe stay one step ahead of the cops, you know. I'm not sure. But and also Lee Eisley's you know, underpants were in there. And I believe they found other ropes and restraints in one of the chest of drawers, one of the drawers in the
chest of drawers. Uh, what else did they find? I I can't remember, it's it's just been so long.
They did find the torture rack in the.
Yes, of course, how did I forget that? Yeah? Yeah, the torture rack was there. And that's how I got the picture of it. The police gave me the picture they took of it.
And did we mention that was the diary in the briefcase?
The diary was in the briefcase.
Yes, And what did that look like? What physically what does that look like?
It was just a number of sheets of paper that had been stapled together pretty much or you know, like a well, it was kind of a it was actually it was in it was a piece of paper that were stable together in a binder. It was like a plastic binder. And if I remember, Craig was black and they it was all handwritten. He took the time to you know, printed out.
He didn't he.
Used cursive at some points, but most of it was printed. And uh, it was just very very meticulous diary.
And there's the.
Sorry.
Then there's the anatomical drawings as well, almost like autopsy again to coincide with his experimental plans. An interesting, Yeah, and he had he had the drawings right, and yeah, it was it was awful. He had a Bible in there too. Actually he found that he had scribbled some stuff.
In the copy.
It wasn't really the Bibles, I think of the New Testament, and he had scribbled some satanic stuff, you know, and it.
And he had altered some religious pictures as well.
That's right too.
He liked like pictures for magazines and.
Do things with him.
Now, what was the interview like with police? How cooperative or uncooperative was Wesley Allen Dodd with police? How willing to talk was he with them?
You know?
At right from the get go, he was really willing to talk. I think he realized that it was up, his time was up, that that you know, he's caught now, he's going to have to deal with it. And he talked to them fairly quickly. I don't remember exactly when, but I do remember the circumstances of my being able to talk with him. I can tell you about that. Sure.
At what point was that that was?
That was about I don't know, four or five months before his execution, and I was over at the Clark County Jail, interviewing Lieutenant Larry Byler I believe was his name for a different story that I was doing. And I was already working on the Dodd book, and I really hadn't had any intentions of interviewing him. It just seemed so distasteful to me that I didn't really want to have anything to do with him, and I didn't
think i'd be able to either. But you know, when I concluded my interview with with Byler, he he looked at me and said, hey, you know, we've got Wes Dodd upstairs. You want to talk to him? Kind of took me by surprise, and I stumbled around a bit, and I said, well, sure, you know, if he wants to talk to me, I mean, what else am I gonna say?
Uh?
I didn't really want.
To talk to him, but I ended up going.
Upstairs into the it's a modern jail, it's a pod format, and uh, Dodd was laying in one of the the cells, and and Buyler told me that, you know, he lays there and masturbate, you know, would masturbate most of the day, probably fantasizing about his victims. And so if they went and asked ot if he wanted to talk to me. He told him what I was doing, and and uh, uh he said sure. So they put him in an interrogation room across from his cell with me, and uh
that was the first of our meetings. And we we sat there for a good three three and a half hours that first meeting, and he basically told me everything, you know, from start to finish. I mean, I had to come back and start filling in the details later on. But but uh, he enjoyed recounting his his uh, horrible deed.
Uh.
He would kind of roll his eyes back and look up at the ceiling and start recounting in very explicit detail what he did to these boys and how he enjoyed it and so forth. And he was definitely like
in a dream or fantasy state. And then he would come back forward, you know, and look at me and start talking to me like a normal person again and tell me about the good things, you know, that he had done in his life, you know, helping those ladies across the street, helping clem and change tires, helping neighbors out, the boy next door, you know, type of the good guy. And sadly there there seemed to be somewhat of a
good side to him. I mean, if it just didn't exist very often, and you could kind of see it, but you could also, you know, see through it. You could see through that that he enjoyed this, this telling of what he did. It's what he lived for. And that's what he told me. He says, I live to rape and murder little boys. And and you know when he when he said that to the court and said that he didn't want to appeal any of his you know,
it's conviction. He pleaded guilty, I mean anyway, and he didn't want to He didn't want to prolong the issue. He just wanted to be executed. His reasoning for that was because he couldn't do the things he loved to do anymore, not be in a jail cell. And he didn't want to spend the rest of his life in jail not being able to kill little boys.
Well, so he also kind of surprising too. He asked to be hung, he said, because he believed it was the most appropriate execution, because that's he said, that's the way Lee Eisley died, right, So I got give him a little bit of credit, not much, but but.
There's a lot of speculation about that too, and I even myself I wondered about that. Now it is that really why he wanted to be hung? Or did he I want to have one last thrill of sorts, you know, of some kind. I'm not quite sure how to go into that because I don't know much about that, but.
Yeah, I know what you mean.
It's it's hard.
It's hard for a hard for a person that doesn't never you know, doesn't even comprehend what the word remorse means, to have some quart of some form of remorse. So, yeah, I know what you mean. Not so genuine probably yeah, yeah. So did he give any definitive rationale or reason for I mean, like I say, I looked at the information that just seems to go from confused person sexually to now he has fantasies about killing, abduction, torture, cannibalize, you know, castration, experimentation.
Did he give any reason why he.
Thought why he thought?
What?
Well?
He thought? The reason why he became that he had these urges, that he was compelled to do this, that he needed to do this.
All he would tell me was that he couldn't control the urges that he would get these urges. He didn't know what came over him, but he couldn't control them. He said that he had to go through the process, and each time that he did go through the process, it was like a vicious cycle that you know, ended back up at step one after a while. And he understood this. He understood this to a degree that it
was cyclic, but he didn't know why. He just knew that these urges existed and would come over him and he had to carry them through.
It seems too like a lot of these these really extraordinary serial killers that they have an unusually high sex drive. They they claim to have an unusually high sex drive. But like you said, you said, they're not, they're not. The guards are witnessing what this guy is doing. In in your book, you document how excited he was after a couple of these abductions and murders, or when he was first doing this, being sexually aroused for an entire day.
You know, this, this these sexual desires and thoughts and fantasies really dominated his being.
Really yeah, yeah, they did.
And my first meeting with them, and you know, like I told you, it was very lengthy. I actually felt really really dirty, afterward ends with this guy and his hands were cold and clammy and almost, you know, kind of wet. It was a horrible feat. I could never never forget it. The first thing I did when I left there that day is I stopped at the men's room and washed my hands for about ten minutes before I left the building. I just felt awful. Yeah, I
felt like I was just unclean. Yeah, but yeah, it's all about the fantasy.
So this you had to. You covered a story because you were initially thought it was important. Then you got probably more involved than you ever wanted if you were interviewing the killer when you had no idea you would even be doing that. And like you say, you wash your hands for ten minutes so and the memories are still there. You saw the crime scene, you witnessed the crime scene photos which I've never seen any And I don't know if I volunteer for it. This is a
cautionary tale. What do you come away from from writing this book that you might not have thought before undertaking this endeavor?
Well, I really, when when I walked away from this, I told myself, you know, never again, no more child killings. I can't deal with it. It's just too you know, despite the importance of getting the information out and presenting it, you know, like it really happened to make people aware. I just felt like I could never cover another story like that. Didn't turn out to be that way, but that's how I felt at the time. I mean, I I did end up writing you know, more later on, you.
Know about uh Joseph d Or Duncan Shaster Grony case.
But what I came away with were some really bad memories. Paul Dennis, the editor, flew out from New York to meet me in Walla Walla, Washington at the State Penitentiary.
There.
You know, we went to the execution. We didn't witness it, really I didn't. Yeah, I didn't really want to witness it. But they had a lottery system in place at the time to where you know, we drew tickets and my number never came out, neither did Paul's. I was thankful mine didn't. But we did talk to all the witnesses who did see, you know, see him execute it, so we got the the report you know, from them, and but that was that was an experience of itself.
What was what was his demeanor, how did he react anything?
Or the daughter or the editor of God Well.
No, God, Well he uh he basically took it as much like a man as anybody could. I. Uh, I don't remember his exact words, but uh, I know that uh he did say some words. I think he might have even apologized. I I I should have read the book before I had this interview.
Sorry, it's okay, it's fine, but.
I uh I, I try to put it out of my mind. Uh, all of these things that I write about, I try to limit the time that it spends inside my head before I go on to.
The next one.
But uh mm, uh, as I recall, he took it like a man and and didn't resist. I've seen heard about a lot of them resisting and having to be dragged, you know, to their execution. But he walked right up to it. They put the net the news around his neck after they you know, hooded him, and.
And uh that was that.
Yeah. So how long was the the entire project? Again? Like again, it it It stays with you and it will stay with you forever. But how long was the entire uh project? Uh? In terms of lengths for you, it was a.
Pretty fast track book. I did it, and I believe we started it in September October, and we finished it right after the execution, which was in January of ninety three. I think that's right. So it was about a three or four month project. Yeah, I typically take longer than that, but we didn't have much time on this one.
And this was not to say that anything's open and shot and there's no surprises, but this was a foregone conclusion where this person definitely qualified for the death penalty. It's pretty hard to find any mitigating circumstances. I would think wasn't an issue of insanity? Was it?
No?
No, that never came up, really, I mean, if it did, it was never considered. Seriously. There's a part of me that really hated to see him executed, simply because he was so willing to talk. I think if they could have kept alive, that psychologists have learned a lot.
From him about I think so too.
Such anomalies of nature, because that's really what he is. Yes, but you know that didn't happen in a way. That's unfortunate. Plus life in prison would have been a better punishment for him. But that's what he would do.
I would think, Yeah, I would think, you know, I don't know personally, but I think Jesus, if you can tell me that life in an eight x twelve cell is is good or somehow not ample punishment, I don't know. I think it's I think it's I think it's ample punishment the rest of your life sitting in a cell, I think, yeah.
Well, not to mention, you know how other inmates treat people like that exactly, his life would have been a living hell.
Yeah, and then he would have at least, and not to say, that's what you want, but that's just the order of things. He would have experienced the kind of fear and apprehension that just the taste of what his victims experienced. But at least he would have that, you know, universal thumbs down from society and even the convicts and everybody. You know, he would have that, he would have that to live with, at least. I don't believe in the death penitely because there are mistakes.
So I'm with you. I used to believe in it. I've kind of sat on the fence for a while and believe it or not, there are killers out there that I could probably pull the switch on myself there, but there have been far too many mistakes made. Too many innocent people have been cleared by DNA, and if one innocent person is executed, that's one too many in my book.
Well, the whole system is that they would rather let, you know, whatever it is, the fifty innocent people go or fifty guilty people go, rather than one innocent person be convicted. Well, don't that's just you know, that's just flapping your lips when you let somebody die because you
made a mistake. And you see a lot of resistance from district attorneys who prosecuted the cases to ever admit any kind of mistake, even though it's a matter of life or death for somebody who's been sitting in prison. So it's shameful. Actually, so it is, I think, and I think the court cases don't really get people, don't really pay attention to them, and they're conducted completely differently. When you're dealing with a death penalty, all of a sudden,
you're just worried about that. It does it it's a completely different Yeah, it's a completely different situation for a trial. Here in Canada, we have abolished a death penalty, I think officially in the seventies or in practicality in the seventies, so it does not become an issue.
And we have our own.
Problems here in Canada with how we conduct murder trials especially, but.
I think that's.
Why it bankrupts. It takes some time in some states, as you know, twenty years to get the execution done anyway, and almost bankrupts the state going through the appellate process. So true another good reason not to do it. So now, Gary, like I mentioned in the introduction, you've been doing this for a long time. Thirty two years, five hundred articles
published about true crime. You were one of the, like I had mentioned, one of the more important, one of the most important true crime authors in America, which means and that's the world basically. Tell us you have seventeen books. I know I counted as well. Tell us about your website and how people might contact you, and just tell us where they might take a look for some of the other titles that you have written over the thirty two years.
Sure, you know you can always contact me through my website at truecrimeking dot com. I have some podcasts on there too that explained why I write some of the things that I write, and all of my books are available through there. There's you know, links to purchase on Amazon dot com or Barnes and Noble or various other outlets. And I also have a new page up with Facebook. It's Facebook dot com slash true Crime King. And I'm
always happy, you know, to interact with readers. It's one of the things I enjoy.
About this job.
I mean, you look for things to enjoy. Yeah, it's really not fun to actually do the writing about them, but I see a need for it, so that's what I do. But those are the two best ways to contact me True Crimeking dot com or Facebook dot com slash true Crime King, little play on the name, but.
Yeah, and what's interesting too, and I'm really glad we've finally got I convince you to come on the program is because, as the title indicates, the most shockingkillers in true crime history. And it's not like I'm not interested in one off killers or you know, wives murdering husbands. But the thing that most fascinates me and was the killer that I profiled in the book that I did, Trophy Kill, was very a lot of shared characteristics with Wesley Allen Dodd and some of the most heinous Dennis
Nielsen some of these people. And that's and even before that, I always found those type of killers, for some odd reason more interesting than everyone else. Again, because they seem to be such a freak of nature, whether it's mob killers are interesting to me. And I've read numerous books, but something keeps gnawing at me to try to understand. And this book, Driven to Kill is like no other in terms of getting inside. I know it's a cliche,
but inside the mind of a serial killer. Again, you need a mental shower after you read this book, because you get inside and outside, and as fascinated as you are, you need to read about Wesley Allen Dodd. And so I want to thank you for Driven to Kill, but a lot of the other titles that you've done as well, including Texas Seven Important Cases, but also featuring some of the most shocking killers in true grime history. So I got to say that.
Yeah, I've written about a few of them, and I've veered off the path a few times, and I always keep coming back to these kinds of killers because I'm fascinated by what does go on inside their minds, and it's always a challenge to see if you can, you know, get a glimpse of what goes on inside their minds, and that kind of drives me. I mean, you can't tell that to an editor. That's one of the reasons I went indy because they keep, you know, wanting to
do what they want to do. And frankly, I need to do what I want to do because I know what it is I like to write about and study. And but I'm with you. I think these people are fascinating and people need to learn about them.
Yes, absolutely, And you know the thing is too when you talked about going independent as well. I think the publishing industry is going through, you know, a major evolution, I guess, but I think a lot of authors that have paid their dues like yourself, and paid and paid and paid and got not so much of the profit. I think it's hopefully the Internet is going to be one of those things that levels out that playing field.
And obviously people can access your books and get the information and find out about these cases and then find that you've written a book about that particular case, and so not to say goodbye publishers, but hopefully it ushers in a new time in that's a little more equitable for authors.
I think so.
Yeah, Well, I'm very grateful to the traditional publishers. You know, they gave me a break when I needed it, and they helped build my name recognition and that's all helped. But now it's a new day, and in that sense, I'm just beginning.
Yeah, And I want to say too that for people that might miss this as well, this book was originally released in nineteen ninety three, so it seems like Pinnacle is coming out with this the true crime classics, and this book did exceptionally well and super well received. So I got to congratulate you too that It's Driven to Kill is one of those official basically a true crime classics. So I urge people to go out there and seek
this out and get one of those classics. So I want to thank you very much Gary for coming on the program. Hope to speak to you again. What is your latest project that you have released and or what are you working on soon to be released?
Well, my latest project is called Crime Scene True Stories of Crime and Detection. It's a compilation of fifteen pretty fascinating stories that I've written throughout my long writing career and I just put it in a book for him. It's available as an ebook as well as a trade paperback, and so far it's being pretty well received by readers. I didn't know if it would be or not. I've never done anything like that, and I'm working on that.
And right now I'm doing an Amazon non fiction short on the mystery deaths of the Spreckles Mansion in San Diego. It's not a mystery as far as the police are concerned, but it's a mystery as far as the relatives of Rebecca Za Howe and Max Shag and I are concerned. There's some things that need to be answered. Hopefully they'll reopen that investigation at some point and come up with either the same determination but with more answers, or a
different determination. But that's my latest project. I hope to have that released in a few weeks. But aside from that, I've got some other stuff coming down the chute.
Well great, Well let me know, and we'd love to have you back on, or I'd love to have you back on, and I'm sure the audience will enjoy that as well. So again, I want to thank you very much Gary for coming on and talking about Driven to Kill, the Wesley Allen Dodds story and thanks very much and have your stuff.
A good evening.
It was my pleasure, Dan, thank you. I enjoyed speaking with you tonight and I hope that you will.
Have me back someday.
Absolutely, good night, all right, thank you, good night,