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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. Gasey Bundy, Dahmer, The Knightstalker VTK 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 Stan Zepanski for the program True Murder, The most shocking Killers in true crime History and the authors that
have written about them. Rhode Island detectives knew they had a serial killer in their midst, but the victims were women who lived and worked in the sexual underground and whose bodies were never found. Then prostitutes began to talk about a man who played very rough. Police arrested Jeffrey Mailhat, a seemingly law abiding ordinary citizen, and an incredible duel of wits began. A brilliant police interrogation led to a
chilling confession. This book is an insider's account of a modern day Jack the Ripper, including the killer's own words, telling police how he killed women with his bare hands, cut them into pieces, and then went off to kill again. Ripper by Linda Rosenkrantz. Thank you very much for agreeing to this program in this interview, Linda Rosenkrantz.
You're welcome. Thank you for having me on.
Thank you very much. Now, what made you decide to write about this particular case. What was it about this case that interested you, that compelled you to write your book? Ripper?
Well, I had written two books previously about spouse on spouse murder, and my.
Publisher told me that two.
Crime readers liked to read about serial killers. So I began doing some research and I found that there was a serial killer right next in the next state to me. I live in Massachusetts and he was in Rhode Island. And I did a little research and found out that in fact, initially he was just the man next door, and I thought that it would be pretty interesting to find out what made him.
Do what he did.
What do you mean the man next door?
Well, he was so average, he hadn't even had a parking ticket, and then he turned thirty and he started murdering women, and you know, and even after he confessed to the crime. His co workers and friends and neighbors called the police and said, I don't care what he said, he just couldn't have done it. So he was just like every man.
Well, when you get people testifying that that there's no way he could do it, that's a little even unusual, even for people that are again they're incredulous that their friend could do something. So this person must have been very convincing in hiding his real true identity.
Oh absolutely, I mean.
You know, people hung out with him, they went, you know, went to clubs, he loved to do karaoke, and they just didn't have a clue what he was doing behind closed doors.
Okay, before we go on a little bit, we're gonna we're gonna get into his character right away because you're referring to that. But just for everyone out there, for those that may not know, what does the term ripper refer to in true crime circles, Well, it.
Refers to Jack the ripper who murdered prostitutes and then cut up their insides and slipped the throats, cut up their insides. And this is what this guy did. He dismembered his victims.
So it's also it to do with the organs, as us alluded to something to do with it. Okay, now let's talk about let's talk about the killer himself. What as per your research. Let's go back as far as we can and talk about Jeffrey Millhott. What was his family like, life like?
He had a very.
Normal childhood, a normal upbringing. His mother died of cancer when she was seven, when he was seventeen, he was in high school, and then four or five years later his father died. But he had a supportive family. He had aunts and cousins, and there was no childhood trauma or anything that happened to him in his childhood that could account for what he did.
And you say it was a very close family, there was no, there was. He did not he did not see a counselor or a psychologist or anything like that. And you spoke to you spoke to how many people in the family, how complete?
I didn't talk to the family. I tried to track them down, but I wasn't able to. But the police had information about his family. He gave them information about his family in his interrogation.
Right, So there's no history of any any kind of problems in school.
No behavioral problem, none whatsoever.
Okay, so what's his what happens after high school that he off? Does he graduate? Does he is he a fairly good student? Tell us a little bit at least about his adolescence life as much as you know, Well.
I don't know much about his adolescence, unfortunately, except that he was he was devastated when his mother died. He didn't expect that at all, and he was he could handle it a little bit more when his dad died. I think he was twenty two. He graduated from high school. He was working in a machine shop, various machine shops in the Wombsocket area, and you know, he just was an average blue collar worker, no criminal history whatsoever.
You know, he liked to hang out, as I said, he liked to.
Do karaoke coincidentally in a bar that the wumbsock At police liked to frequent to also do karaoke. So he had crossed paths with the investigators on the case previously.
But he was just your average guy.
Nothing in his background accounted for what happened.
Was he aware that this place where he went and sank karaoke was frequented by cops? Was he typically don't.
I think he did.
I think it was pretty well known, but it just it just happened that that was the place of wom Socket where he liked to go. I think it could have you know, it could have been coincidental that police went as well.
So he was a social animal. He was a gregarious guy. He was from all the evidence you have. He was a real outgoing guy with a lot of friends and as normal as normal could be.
Absolutely right.
Now, the story of Ripper takes place in a city that you called wood Socket, woond Socket, Rhode Island. Now, what is the you know population pretty well, and what is the nearest.
Big It's about forty four thousand. It's on the Massachusetts border, about fifteen miles north of Providence, which is the capital of Rhode Island.
Wool Sockets. You know, it used to be a mill town.
It's a very very blue collar.
Right now, Jeffrey Mailheart does get in trouble. Obviously, he's a subject of this book, and he's now an adult. You say, his father died when he was twenty two, his mother died when he was seventeen. He was quite traumatized by that. If there was anything, what things, what behavior characterizes adult life and what was his and what was his overall behavior?
There was nothing out of the ordinary. He was someone that you'd want to have as a friend.
You know.
He went to barbecues with his friends.
They had beer, they you know, they would just go out, they would hang out together. There was one thing, however, that maybe set him apart from other bachelors, let's say, and it's something that the police were intrigued by. He was incredibly, incredibly neat. Even his junk drawer was organized, nothing was out of place. And you know, his closets, everything,
his DBDs, worth and CDs were stacked alphabetically. So he had a little i would say, obsessive compulsive disorder, but nothing that he ever sought counseling for.
Right now, you say that there's his behavior as normal as it can be as everyone else. But obviously there is some use and partaking of escorts prostitutes. When did this behavior begin, I would say.
In his twenties he started, although he wouldn't admit to it initially.
And then he said, you know, he would.
He would frequent prostitutes African American why it didn't matter. But he had a girlfriend, you know, and so who knows why men do those things.
He didn't.
He didn't seek them out initially, I don't think to harm them.
He just sought them out for sex. And I don't know why.
He lived in a in an area of Woonsocket where prostitutes frequented as well. There were various bars. It was a seedier section of the.
City, right, And he came across as you say, it's a blue collar town and and you say, this is a city or part of the city, but he would come across as well, just for for a term. Would he be more yuppy compared to the blue collar worker? Would he be really out of place in that area?
No, he totally fit in. He was he was a blue collar worker. You know, jeans and a T shirt, like.
To barbecue, like to have you know, throw back a few beers with the guys.
Totally fit in.
Was he a clean cut guy or was he absolutely absolutely clean cut? Okay, now you say that he had a girlfriend, So is that typical of him that he through this whole through his adult life?
Did he always well, he didn't have a girlfriend when this happened. He had a girlfriend for a number of years in his twenties, but he wasn't seeing her as a girlfriend at the time.
Okay, So let me get this straight and for our audience as well. So he's a regular guy, looks, he looks the part, he acts the part, but he does frequent prostitutes. And that's what say a close friend might know. Would a close friend know that he frequented the prostitute or was he more secretive than that?
How, I don't know the answer to that question. That question was never asked, So I don't know. I don't think it's something that he talked to them about at all.
Okay, so it was part of his secret life. Right now, Now, when did women become began disappearing? You say in early two thousand and three? Right now, who was the first woman to go missing? Audwye Paris.
She was a mother, she had three children, She was a daughter, she was a sister.
None of these women were really.
Into selling themselves just for the sex. They were in it to feed their drug habits. They were all drug addicts and that's the only way they knew to get money. They couldn't hold down jobs, so they had to turn tricks to get money for drugs.
Right now, how is Audrey Harris killed? And what was the circumstances of her disappearance.
Well, she had been at a party with her brother and he left and came back and she was sort of she was sitting on a chair in the kitchen and she was passed out on the chair, and the stove was open for heat, and he was concerned that gas was going to escape, and so he brought her into the living room and put her on a couch and he went out. And when he came back, she was gone. And nobody knows when she left. Nobody knows
what happened. She was walking up Arnold Street, which is a street in the Cedia section of Umsocket, and Mail Hut pulled up to her and asked, you know, if it asked how much for sex? And they agreed on thirty dollars.
And the fact that he was clean cut, I think.
Led her to go with him more easily. You know, they're used to going with with men who maybe aren't as clean cut as this guy. He wasn't unattractive, he was fairly attractive. So she went with him and they had agreed on sex, and she started to take her clothes off.
And he said.
She said to him, go, you know, get the money. And so he was going to get them money. And he came back and she was in the living room and he facing away from him, and he put his arm around her neck and choked her right the urge just came over him to choke her, and he just choked her and until she fell and died. And then what happened to her, well, then he put her in his bathtub. He was drunk at this point, so he put her in the bathtub and went to bed totally
not remembering anything that happened. He got up in the morning, going through his routine, went into the bathroom, not remembering any of this, and saw her body, and then it all came back to him that he had killed her. So he waited till at night, and he wrapped her up in a rug and he put the carpet in the backroom.
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His truck and drove around Woonsocket trying to figure out where he could dump her. And then he got really frightened and he said, someone is gonna see me do this. I can't just dump her body. So he brought her back home in the rug still, dropped her on the kitchen floor and went into the living room and sat down and had a beer. And as he was sitting there, he remembered an episode of The Sopranos with Tony Soprano killed a guy named Ralsey and then put him in
the bathtub and dismembered him. And that's what he did. So put her in the bathtub, draped her head over the bathtub, cut off her head. He used a saw, just a regular hand saw, not an electric saw, and just cut her up in little pieces and put.
Her in trash bags and then drove around Won't.
Socket and disposed of her body like trash in various dumpsters.
Now you you have repeated what you have put in the book as well, and so I wanted to question you about that. You said that he had passed out and when he awoke, and then he went to the bathroom and then he found the body. I mean, I was just involved in a case with the same story. It's even less plaus woven than your character, your subject, Jeffrey mail High. Now you put it that way, what do you really believe? I mean, it's the most convenient excuse geez, I just don't remember. It's very conned.
I believe it. I totally believe that.
Why is that he was so drunk.
He was just drunk, and it.
Could be I mean, I'm not a psychologist, but it could be that his mind just shut.
It off.
And he just went to bed as if nothing happened and totally forgot until he saw the body again.
I mean that that's what he said, and I believe that.
I just because based on Okay, here's the thing, and you don't go into it too much, he's frequenting prostitutes. Now, from the research that you've done for this book, is there any is that part of his uh not fantasies, but that's part of one of his characteristics that he likes. One of the fetishes in sex play is the choking. I mean, it's pretty characteristic for serial killers to do that, and to do it with prostitutes beforehand that have testified
at some of these trials. Was there any indication in your information is that that was a character teristic?
Apparently, because.
When they were searching his apartment, ed Lee found a photograph of him choking with the same choke hold, choking a stuffed animal. So apparently he had a tendency to want to do that. But that's the only thing that they saw that led them, you know, to think that that.
He enjoyed doing this.
Yeah, that's that's what I thought. I didn't. I didn't really see any evidence to to lend to lend me to believe that that that just happened to be an accident, because there seemed to be in your book indications that this was something that he did like. So he certainly he could He certainly could have passed out and did it by accident, but he certainly, No, he didn't.
I don't think he did that by accident. When I mean what I meant was he didn't remember afterwards. No, I think the killing was deliberate, right, but he just didn't remember it afterwards.
Well, it works in your benefit when you go to court and say that I didn't have the intent to kill you, see by saying that I don't remember it, so I obviously couldn't have the intent. But anyway, yes, so I mean, yeah, yeah, that's okay. Anyway, what I wanted to say was Okay, So now they have this first person, they have this first victim. What do the police do next? And you mentioned the person that is accredited with the being your co author here or with
Captain Edward Lee Junior. So he's an integral part of the story, very part of this story and this investigation and the interrogation. So tell us a little bit about what happened after.
Well, Audrey's mom went to police because her daughter, the last she heard from Audrey was I'm getting off drugs. I'm gonna which is what they always say, and said
I'm going to go into rehabit. I'm going to come and see you first, And she didn't, and she didn't keep in contact with her children, which she always did, so her mother knew that there's something was wrong, and she went to the police and found the missing missing person's report and so they assigned police to it, and you know, they talked to everyone she knew, they talked to her brother, but they had no idea what happened to her after she left that party, right and you know,
and then in October, I guess they assigned another investigator to her case, but they still couldn't figure out what happened to her. Then in April two thousand and four, another woman went missing, Christine Dumont. And as with Audrey, Christine always checked in on her children. She had two children. She always called her sons to make sure everything was okay. They were staying with someone else because she, you know,
she was into drugs. She couldn't take care of them and she hadn't kicked in with them, and her sister knew that something was wrong. So on a Friday, her sister went to the Wumsocket Police Department to file the missing person's report and the officer at the desk was very flip with her and said, you can't file a report because I just saw her last night, which he didn't, but he just didn't want to be bothered. He said, come back Monday.
It wouldn't have.
Made any difference because Christine was already dead, but nobody knew that at that point.
And this officer just didn't want anything to do with it.
So Christine went back Monday and went to fill out the report, and again it was the same guy on duty, and again he just wasn't being helpful, and he said, give me her description, and he said, oh, never mind, we have it in our system. So he was alluding to the fact that she had been arrested for drugs and prostitution and you know, so she was missing. What difference did it make.
So Christine's sister.
Madeline said she was going to go to the media, but the media didn't even want to hear it, you know, because over the years, other women had gone missing, and nobody at this point was saying serial killer. That wasn't on anybody's lips or in anyone's mind.
At this point, there was another.
Woman missing, so nothing much came of that. But then in July, the last woman went missing, Stacy, and now the police are thinking, maybe we have a serial killer on our hands, and that's how ed Lee got involved. He typically wouldn't have gotten involved. He was a sergeant at the time, but he typically wouldn't have investigated missing persons cases, but his boss asked him to look into this because this was the third woman and so that, you know, they talked to people who knew Stacy and
the last thing that anyone knew her boyfriend. At the time, they were in a park. It was fourth of July, and she needed money for drugs, and she said she was going to walk up the street, Arnold Street, the same street where Audrey was taken from. She was going to walk up the street and find a john and turn a trick and make some money. And they never saw her again. So at first they thought it was him,
you know, they investigated him. And then as they're investigating her death, police got a tip from someone who said they had spoken to another woman who told a story about being taken to somebody's house and being strangled by someone. But this woman put up a fight.
And this was the thing with mail Hut.
It was about control, and the women who put up fights, he let them go because it sort of killed his high. You know, if you're not giving in, if you're not surrendering to him, then he didn't want.
Anything to do with you.
So he let this woman go, but she never told anyone, and he counted on that. He counted on these women not going to police because they were prostitutes and they probably had warrants for their arrest, and besides, they figured and he figured no.
One was going to believe them anyway.
Right now, you say that, it's kind of unusual. Actually, if you look at serial killers, that that reaction, that somebody actually resists him and gets away. It's almost the other way. If they're compliant. It's about the only way that they've gotten away from some of these serial killers.
Actually, actually the book I have coming out, the exact same thing happened.
Though.
Wow, the women who fought got away.
Interesting.
You know, as I said, these men are interested in power and control, and once once someone breaks that spell, then they sort of just don't want anything to do with it anymore. So, once the police went to track down this woman whose name was Jocelyn Martel, and she
told them her story. And so after she told him and she told them the house where it was at, you know, she led them to his house because she remembered, and then they went back into their files and they found another case of another woman who had the exact same thing happened to her the same house, and her name was Tithe Marris, and Teeth really fought and she, however,
went to police. He let her go and she but she had left her stuff in his house, her purse, a sweater, a wig, and she wanted that stuff back. So she flagged down a cop and she said, you know, I want to get my stuff, and so the cop went back to the house. But they couldn't They couldn't
go in, They couldn't do anything. But they filed a report, so ed Lee, you know, when they were looking through the reports and they came across this woman's story and then they talked to her and they realized that this was exactly what happened to Joscelyn mottal in exactly the same place. Sure, so they got a search warrant to look for the stuff that she had left.
So that was the premise for the search warrant, exactly.
Yep, look to look for her belongings. And so they waited outside his house for him to come home after work, and when he came home, they arrested him on charges of assaulting those two women.
Uh okay, now what evidence did they find at the house, If any.
They found, they they found Well, well, first of all, they were only looking. The search warrant was only for that, for those things, that's right, Fatis's belongings. And so as they were questioning him, you know, the police are looking, but they really couldn't look for anything else. And so they spent a long time questioning him, and first he
denied ever visiting prostitutes, ever soliciting prostitutes. And then he would say, well, okay, maybe I did this one time, and then okay, maybe you know twice, and no, I
really didn't. And so so in their interrogation they would they were trying to get to get him to be comfortable, so they would say things to him like, you know, we know things like this happened when men and maybe things got out of control, and you need to tell us now if something like that happened, you know, if if you murdered these other women, and he said, oh, you know, I didn't hurt anyone. I didn't I didn't
do anything. And and finally, through really incredible police work, they said, you know, if you did it, Jeff, just tell us and you know ed said his heart was like beating out of his chest because there came a point where he knew that that he that he had done the murders and he was going to confess, and finally he just looked at them and he said yes. And so they said all three and he said yes. So then they then they were able to get a search warrant for to look for anything that could implicate
him in the murders. They were looking, you know, they they looked for blood spatter. They found traces of blood in.
The back room.
And that was the thing. His apartment was so neat and clean, but the bathroom was really dirty that you know, the bathtub was just was just filthy. And and although he had he had each time he murdered a woman, he bought a new saw, and the first two he threw away, but for some reason, he still had the saw that he murdered Stacy with, and so they found that saw in the basement. And even his basement was neat.
His exercise equipment, everything was just neat, and you know, the police just thought that that was so strange that he is this bachelor and everything is neat. But yet, you know, his bathroom was was dirty, and so he confessed, you know, he said, I did it and how did you sorry?
You talk about the Captain ed Edward Lee that it was a brilliant interrogation, and so you you just skipped over a little bit of how exactly they befriended this person, how they played upon him and his conscience to be able to do this. You know, you go into it in the book. Tell us a little bit more about what exactly they did and how it turned from denial of even visiting prostitutes to this full confession. This really right, you know, this was this was instrumental at the trial.
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Well, there was no trial, Yeah, there was no trial. He he ultimately decided to plead guilty.
Well, that's what I mean. It negates the need for a trial when there's a confession, so that there is some bargain or some deal made.
Right.
Well, you know, the.
Police wanted they tried to play to the fact that he lost his parents when he was young, and they said, you know, these women have families too, and they and those families need closure. They need to.
Know what happened. You know, they need to know what you did to the to these women. And you know, if you did it, you have to tell us.
You'll feel so much better if you tell us. And and he, you know, he he didn't want to, he really didn't, and but they just they just befriended him, and you know, he thought they were his friends.
And again they said, you know, we're all.
Men, and we know what happens. And maybe things just got out of hand and you couldn't control it, but you need to tell us now, you'll feel better. And and you know, and they had never dealt with anything like that before, and they weren't they it was new territory.
And and you know, and and they just they just finally wore him down, and you know, and.
He's and he decided to confess. And but he never he never said he was sorry for murdering the women.
You know, he he never felt bad for that.
That's something that always struck me. He apologized to the families, but he thought he thought he was doing the police a favor by killing these women who didn't mean anything to anyone and were just prostitutes and who were they? And nobody cares if they're dead?
And I'm helping you, right, Well, that's the thing. Uh, there's a rationalization. Now he gave you say, this is a shocking confession. And a day did he he had to give the police all the details, all the graphic details. And was he forthcoming with everything?
Absolutely? Was he absolutely was. He told you know how he dismembered their bodies, and one of the women he cut up in smaller pieces than the other, and how he would put an arm and a leg in one bag and maybe feet in a head in another bag to make it easier to dispose of, you know, to
make it easier to carry. And then everything went so he had to tell them what dumpsters you know, he disposed of them in and then the police you know, went to the landfill and talked to the people who ran the landfill to see the section of the landfill where those particular dumpsters would have would have gone with the trash would have gone from those dumpsters, right, And it was you know, it was like, I don't know, a week in the hot July sun, and it was
a miracle. They did find a bag with the remains of one of the women, with Stacy's remains, right, and those were the only remains that they ever found. They never found the rest of the bodies at all.
Now, finding the remains as per described by this person, knowing how difficult it is sometimes just to have a confession from one of these people without any real physical evidence, did that lay convince the police Edward Lee to say, yes, given everything, we definitely know because we have one body that despite not having the other two, we definitely are convinced that this guy is telling.
The truth absolutely absolutely, you know, he even with a confession, you need physical evidence, and they were looking for evidence of these women at his house as well. They needed something because they were they were under the impression that this was going to go to trial, and so they wanted to give the DA some concrete evidence.
And they dug up.
He said he had some of the blood he had just flushed in the in the bathtub. It just went down the drain, and so they dug a big hole in the street and were trying to see if they could find.
Any evidence.
They put cameras in the pipes, and they found some worms, and they thought.
That the worm the worm, the worms were drawn.
To protein, and so they thought that this was evidence of the remains of the women. It turned out, however, it was just his protein shakes that these worms were after. So they didn't find evidence of the bodies in the pipes. So they needed some concrete evidence, and it was it was I think a cadet, someone just out of the academy who found the bag, you know, and Ed said it was one of the dirtiest jobs that anyone there
had ever had to do. But they they wanted to do it that, you know, they wanted to help the families get closure as well. As finding the evidence.
Certainly, certainly, now tell us about Edward Lee Junior. Why did he want this story to be told? I'm jumping ahead just a bit, but why is this an important thing for him to tell? I'm sure he doesn't have a dozen books out with his name on it. So why this story?
Well, he wanted the story to be told, I think.
To show that.
I'm just speculating now, but I think it's because he wanted people to know that your neighbor, you know, this could be anybody, right, And I think.
He wanted.
I think he wanted to let the women know that, you know, to be extra careful, you know, to to watch who you go with, because someone looks clean cut and like your average guy, and you know, and and the next thing you know, you find out that that he's a serial killer.
Sure, now, why did he not exercise his right to have counsel when he was questioned at.
The police when he was questioning question, I don't know. I don't know the answer to that question. I think he just I think, deep down, on some level, he just wanted to get this information out. He just wanted it over with, And so I think I think that's why he didn't, but he never once invoked at all.
Right, now, what was his demeanor like when he was recalling the all the circumstances surrounding the murder and the dismemberment and disposal of the body. What was his demeanor like.
From from talking with ed A Because I didn't well, I saw a little bit of a video, but he was pretty calm, you know, just telling the story.
He wasn't. He wasn't all that upset at all.
And you know he and after he wrote a letter to his boss saying, you know, I'm sorry I did this. I mean, he wanted people still to think that he.
Was a good guy, all right, and he rationalized that murder as well. He wasn't. He wasn't very truth full with his boss about the circumstances surrounding that as well. Absolutely not, which is real indication too that he doesn't, you know, recognize what he did or and he certainly is rationalizing her right to the very end.
I don't think.
I don't think he felt one ounce of remorse none whatsoever.
You know, I think the thing is if you are you are capable of remorse, you wouldn't be capable of killing women and just getting rid of them like trash, would you.
Well, I'm going to disagree with you there, Dan, and I'm gonna again I'm gonna reference the next book I have coming out, which is called Bone Crusher. I know I'm getting ahead of things, but it's okay.
I've written.
Bone Crusher is my fourth book. And the first two is I said was spouse on spouse murders, and one uh doctor murdered his wife, and another woman murdered her husband.
And then there was Mail Hut.
None of those people I ever thought felt an ounce of remorse. But Larry Bright, who murdered eight women in Puri, Illinois, I truly believe he was sorry for what he did. I saw hours and hours and hours of videotape, and in one of them, he asked if he could make a statement to his mother, and the police said sure, but anything you say we're going to use against you.
He had already confessed at this point, and he was sobbing, and he was so sorry that he murdered the women, sorry that she had to have a son like him, and as a matter of fact, he wanted to stop so badly. He called in a tip on himself. He called in a tip to the hotline and said you should investigate Larry Bright because I think he's doing this so and I and I really felt sorry for this man.
I think he wanted to stop. He didn't want to do this, And I think sometimes there are people who commit these pin as crimes, but for whatever reasons, can't stop. He was on crack and he heard voices that said kill, kill, and then when he was not on the crack, he wanted to stop, and he.
Didn't know how.
So I think that sometimes people can commit these awful murders and then really feel sorry that they did and feel sorry for the victims, feel sorry for the families, not just sorry that they got caught.
Sure, sure you include in your book, and I thought it was interesting a story about Joscelyn Martel. You give the follow up of one of the women who appear in the book, and she was involved in this as well. You say that she was attacked by Jeffrey Maillott. Why do you feel necessary to include that information in the book and give us that story of the follow up for us.
Her, it's both of them.
It's tease as well, you know, Jocelyn said at the hearing when he pleaded guilty. She made a statement and she said, I think God saved me so I could be here to help other women and you know, and get and you know, help them get off the streets. And she was going to get off the streets, but the lure of the drugs is so great that she was back doing the same thing and she was attacked by someone else, as was Piece Mars. They wanted to stop, but they couldn't and and they went back to doing it.
And it's just it's a shame. And I wanted I want people to.
Know that these are real people with real problems.
They're not just prostitutes.
They're not people who can just be disguised thrown away as trash like mail Hut did. And I just wanted people to know what happened to them afterwards. Unfortunately, they couldn't stop doing what they were doing. They couldn't get off the drugs, and you know, and that's.
What pushes them into this life of prostitution.
Well, I think the thing is too I applaud you for doing that as well, but I think it's we have to counter. I mean, you have to counter as well. Is to focus our disdain for the killer and not try to attribute any of the blame. We'll say to the victim. We always say, well the innocent victim or all victims are innocent, right, you know, So you always see those kinds of terms. And the prostitute is the person.
It's almost nobody else is identified by their and I use this word loosely occupation rather than who you know, they were just a prostitute rather than a mother of two. Why wasn't a mother of two killed when it's reported in the media. No, it's a prostitute.
You're right, You're absolutely right, which is why I talked to Stacy's the father of her children, and I talked to Christine's sister, because that's exactly.
What I wanted people to know. You know, who they were.
They were, as I said, daughters and sisters and mothers, And they weren't just prostitutes. They were women who made bad choices.
Yes, absolutely, But you know again, like I say, the focus is is that these people just happen to be the most vulnerable people, people that are willing to jump in a stranger's car, and they are the people that the serial killer picks for various reasons. And then that's what we have, so we have a situation where these people are just the most vulnerable people. I think it's something to consider as well, and rather than having any disdain for people that are the most vulnerable people period.
Right now, how did the researching and writing of this book personally affect you if at all?
Well, this is this is an interesting phenomenon.
When I'm writing and researching these books, I don't think about what I'm writing and I am My style of writing is I don't even write from beginning to end. I could write the middle of the book. First, I write whatever I have at the time, and then I put it all together and I send it to my publisher. But it's not it doesn't hit me at all.
And then it goes you know, it goes to the lawyers, and.
Then it goes to the copy editors, and I get it back and I have to you know, I look at pages that the copy editors have marked, and you.
Know, I made a spelling mistake. This date is wrong.
But again, I'm not thinking of this story as a co adhesive whole at this point. Then it goes to the proof readers. Then I get it back and I have to read it from beginning to end, and I read it as a reader and I'm horrified. That's when it hits me. That's when it affects me, when I think of, you know, what happens. These are women, These are human beings who were murdered.
But when I'm.
Writing it, I'm writing it with more of a sort of.
A clinical eye.
I guess you would say, I don't feel any emotion when I'm writing it, whatsoever. It's research. I'm a journalist, I'm telling a story. I'm not being affected by the story until I read it as a reader.
Right now, A lot of people ask, and people are very surprised how many women that the majority of the true crime market are women actually, and that a vast majority, or at least I won't say vast majority, but a good, really good percentage, if not fifty percent or more. Of the publishers, the agents, and the authors themselves are women
in true crime. And a lot of people would want to They wonder why anybody would handle some of these subjects, the gore or the graphic details, just the heinous nature of some of these crimes. Why do you think, why do you think women are involved? Why do you think they're interested in true crime. Why do you think they're interested enough to write about it like yourself.
I can't answer for anyone.
I know.
Anne Rule was a police officer before, so that was her interest. I'm an investigative reporter. I've been a reporter for twenty years. I always thought I would love to be a homicide detective. I would want to solve these puzzles. But I never want you know, I never wanted to stay at the bottom and walk the beat. I just wanted to go right in to be a detective.
So that was never going to happen.
And I used to read to Crime all the time, and I was fascinated. You know, what makes people do this?
I wanted.
I just loved the story, and one day I said, I can write this. I'm a reporter, I'm a writer. I'm an investigator. I want to tell the stories.
I want to see what makes people do these things.
And that's how I got into it. I always read and Rule. I just really really really liked the investigat investigative part of it, what the police did.
Yes. Absolutely. Now getting back to the subject of your book, Ripper Jeffrey may a Lot. Is there a death penalty in Rhode Island. What happened in the end? And where's he?
He's in the adult correctional institution. I'm in Rhode Island for life, no possibility of.
Parole, No possibility of parole, okay, and so so was he what?
So?
There was no trial at all. There was just just a just a hearing to confirm were they I'm sorry, you know, I.
Hope I don't have that wrong.
I thought it was without parole he could maybe he's eligible when he's seventy something. I'm sorry, I just don't remember, right right.
Regardless, is unlikely he'll be ever released from prison.
Absolutely no, there wasn't a hearing. Victims, you know, made their statements, and then you know, he said I'm sorry for the families, you know, again, never apologizing to the women, right.
Well, I mean I think that it's sometimes it's a relief I know in this country that criminals actually get, i mean, actual credit for at least pretending or showing remorse. I mean, I have a hard time finding that remorse. If they didn't have enough remorse to confess, didn't have enough remorse to turn themselves in, it didn't have enough remorse not to talk to another inmate in the institution
and laugh and brag. You know. What I'm saying is that some of those people are will give an apology at the trial and on the advice of their lawyer, I would imagine, but you know, I don't think it's very genuine. I think it's disingenuine anyway. So I'm relieved when they don't, When they don't show any remorse, it's
because I don't want it making a difference. I mean, I think it would be maybe the families would be would be would But you see, most of these guys realize at least that they should apologize to the families for their own families. So I think that's enough that they aren't cackling in court, because it could be worse. There are some people even like that, taunting victims after the fact or at court or at trial, or putting the families through trials and then acting up at the trial.
So I guess it's a bit of a relief, you know, right, You know, so I think maybe what you can tend to too that he's not the worst of the worst. Maybe there's some credibility to that, or some validity to that. So now what's your What was the contribution of Captain Edward Lee. I know, obviously he gave you some behind the scenes information.
But that's that's exactly what he did when I when I decided to work on this case, I called him and I told him, you know, I was interested in writing a book and my publisher was interested. And he said to me, I'm thinking of writing a book, And I said, I have no problem working with you and putting your name on the book in exchange for getting all this information from you. So that that's what we did exactly. And so you know, I credit him, credited him as my co author, although he will tell you
he didn't write a word. But you know, he gave me access to all the information, access to the other officers, you know, numerous interviews.
He took me to the that you know, one of the families.
So he was very very helpful. I couldn't have done it without him.
Right right now, So, what has been the reaction from the say, the community with this book itself in Woon Socket And has there been any criticism of Captain Lee at all for his participation in this book.
No one, no, absolutely, not absolutely not. Everyone was glad that the story was out, you know, and and the newspapers, the Providence Journal, they all interviewed him. The families were, you know, we're glad that that people knew the story. No, there was no criticism whatsoever.
Well, that's very good, that's very encouraging. How big was this story? How how far did it resonate outside of woon Socket.
It pretty far.
Cold Case Files did a story on.
A segment, so it pretty far.
I mean, you know, Wumsucket, you know, wasn't used to having a serial killer.
No, no, it's very unusual. Right now, we have a few minutes left. Maybe you can tell us about some of your projects that you're working on now after this incredible book, Ripper, tell us about your next latest one, and then maybe he can go back to your earlier titles.
And right, well, as I was mentioning, Bone Crusher is about Larry Bright, a serial killer in Puri, Illinois. It'll be out I think October fifth.
He murdered eight women.
Eight prostitutes. Well I'm not even going to say they were prostitutes, eight women who were working to feed the drug habits. Right, and he, as I said, he was on crack and he heard voices that told him to kill, and he burned.
He dismembered four of.
The women and burned their bodies in a fire pit in his backyard, and then after everything was burned, he would crush the bones into ash, so hence the title, and then he would dispose of the ash in various places in Peoria and in other towns nearby where his grandmother lives. And four of the women he disposed of their bodies intact, and which is unusual because serial killers usually have one method of murdering people.
And so the police thought that there was some.
You know, devious method to why, you know, were they trying to throw the police? Was he trying to throw police off the track by you know, burning some women and then just disposing of the other ones. And so they asked him and he and they said, you know, why did you not burn those other women?
And he said, I.
Couldn't because my mother was having company me and so I couldn't use the backyard to burn them. So it was just a matter of convenience. And yeah, but you know, I was always thinking, didn't anybody smell anything? His mother did once and she asked him about it, and he said he was burning plastic and.
She believed him.
I mean, he was such a mama's boy. And you know when I watched like forty hours I think a video of his videotape interrogation, and.
He was he was He just was so different from Mail hot.
He just was really like a regular guy.
Like someone that you would want to hang out with. And again, I just really believed that he was so sorry for what he.
Did and he wanted to stop, and the only way he knew to stop was by turning himself in. And although he couldn't bring himself to do it physically, he did call the police and say, you know, look at
Larry Bright, he's doing this. And the women again the same with Mailhaut, the women who fought him, he let them go and because you know, again he didn't think that they would go to the police, which they didn't, and because you know, one woman got away and she never went to the police because there was a warrant out on her arrest, and one of her friends finally went to the police and said, you know, I think you should talk to her because I think she might
have had the same experience. But at least she made it out alive.
Right, How did you come to have access to this forty hours of physical.
The state's attorney everything since he confessed and there were no appeals. They it was all public information. And so the state's attorney for Peoria just gave me all the the DVDs. So did you third three thousand pages of other police reports and everything.
Wow? So that is featured prominently in your book as well some of the transcripts.
From the transcripts.
Yeah, absolutely, yes, And it took you know, he took them everywhere too. He took them because to find the you know, the bodies were found, but he took them to the places where he said he dumped the bones and ash of the other women so that they could have something, you know, for the families, although they didn't you know, they did find some ash, but they just didn't find everything.
So it was pretty well the evidence that he pointed them to was pretty inconclusive. Is that what you're saying?
Well, actually, the evidence for the four women who were dismembered and burned, they couldn't get any DNA whatsoever, So it was only his confession. They did get DNA from one of the women with whom he had sex, one of the women whose body he disposed of intact, so they got his DNA from her. But the women who were burned, they the bones were so small they couldn't even identify those women. They only they only knew who they were because they they had gone missing and people
had reported them missing. And then he looked at their photos and said, yeah, you know that one and that one, and there were two other women missing. But he said he had not murdered but he said he had nothing to do with them, although police weren't convinced, but they had no evidence to tie him to those other cases.
And when does Bone Crusher do to be released?
Sort of October fifth oct talking to Yeah, beyond Kindle as well.
Oh, great, great and e book as well as is Pinnacle Publishing ebooks. Yeah, they are great, great, yes, uh, and you have a couple of other books as well. You mentioned a couple of Yeah.
One is called Murder at Morse's Pond about a world renowned allergist who murdered his wife, and the other one in Massachusetts, and the other one's called An Act of Murder about Kimberly Rico who murdered her husband in Maryland, and both you know, both those cases were prominently featured. Uh the first one, Morse's Pond was on, They had Dateline did a story about doctor Dirck Grinder, and Kimberly was on Forensic Files. So they're pretty high profile cases. Right.
That's great. And you are working, obviously as a journalist, so you're still are you working full time as an author.
Or you're doing no, I'm I'm looking for another case at this point, but I do freelance writing and ghostwriting as well, so you're.
A very busy journalist and writer.
Right.
Oh that's great. Well, I want to thank you very much for a fascinating interview about a great book, Ripper, and I want to thank you very much for spending this time for us and a spell binding story here for us. So thank you very much, and you have a good evening. Thank you so much, Dan, thank you very much. You've been listening to Linda Rosenkrantz. Good evening listening to Linda Rosenkrantz, author of Ripper and this is true murder, the most shocking killers in true crime history
and the authors that have written about them. Have yourself a good evening, Good night,