Hello, it is Ryan, and we could all use an extra bright spot in our day, couldn't we just to make up for things like sitting in traffic, doing the dishes, counting or steps, you know, all the mundane stuff. That is why I'm such a big fan of Chumba Casino. Chumbuck Casino has all your favorite social casino style games you can play for free anytime anywhere with daily bonuses. That's your brighten your day, Lowe actually a lot, so
sign up now at Chumbuck Casino dot com. That's Chumbuck Casino dot com.
No purgescessary, d I lost terms conditions eighteen plus Lucky Land Casino. Asking people what's the weirdest place you've gotten lucky?
Lucky?
In line at the deli, I guess ah, in my dentist's office more than once.
Actually do I.
Have to say?
Yes?
You do? In the car before my kid's pta meeting? Really yes, excuse me? What's the weirdest place you've gotten lucky?
I never win?
And tell well, there you have it.
You could get lucky anywhere playing at Lucky landslots dot com.
Play for free right now. Are you feeling lucky?
Nope?
Just necessary boid long eighteen plus terms and conditions plus you will every details.
Hello, it is Ryan and I was on a flight the other day playing one of my favorite social spin slot games on chumbacasino dot com. I looked over at the person sitting next to me, and you know what they were doing. They were also playing Chumpa Casino. Coincidence, I think not everybody's loving having fun with it. Chumpa Casino's home to hundreds at casino style games. You can play for free, anytime, anywhere, even at thirty thousand feet. So sign up now at Chumbuckcasino dot com to claim
you're free. Welcome bonus. That's Chumbu Casino dot com and live the Chumba.
Laine process every dripo wherever. If I lost the Terms of Conditions eighteen plus.
Step into the world of power, loyalty, and luck. I'm gonna make him an offer you can't refuse. Were family canoli's and spins mean everything. Now you want to get mixed up in the family business, introducing the Godfather at champacasino dot com. Test your luck on the shadowy world of the Godfather slot.
Someday I will call upon you to do a service for me.
Play the Godfather now at Chumpa Casina. Welcome to the family. vdW group nopera is necessary if we were privateed by loss he Terms and Convisions eighteen plus.
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 Nightstalker BTK. Every week another fascinating author talking about the most shocking and infamous killers in true crime history. True Murder with your host, journalist and author Dan Zufanski. Good Evening.
This episode of True Murder is brought to you by nature Box. Nature Box ship's tasty and guilt free snacks right to your door with over one hundred flavors to choose from, like asiago and cheddar cheese crisps, pistachio, power clusters and Big Island Pineapple. You'll never get bored of snacking again. Try nature Box for free by going to naturebox dot com slash true Murder. That's naturebox dot com
slash true Murder for a free trial Today. Misfit Jeremiah Rodgers twenty one and Racist Devil worshiper Jonathan Lawrence twenty three, we're serving time for petty crimes. When they met in the Florida Penal System mental hospital, a friendship grew from their shared lust for sadistic brutality, and once released, they teamed up to hunt human prey. In March nineteen ninety eight, in Pensacola, Florida, while quietly watching TV, Leyton Smitherman was
shot in the back by assailants hiding outside his home. Amazingly, he survived, not knowing that he had been chosen at random by would be thrill killers. Their next target wasn't so lucky. Justin Livingston twenty died from multiple stab wounds, some more than six inches deep. The horror peaked on May seventh, nineteen ninety nine, when Rogers went out on a date with pretty Jennifer Robinson eighteen, with Lawrence tagging along. The young woman was drugged and assaulted first by Rogers
then Lawrence, before Rogers shot her execution style. But the worst was yet to come, an unspeakable act of mutilation that followed in the bloody footsteps of one of the most infamous serial killers of our time. The book that we were profiling this evening is Flesh Collectors, Cannibalism and Further Depravity on the Redneck Riviera with my special guest, journalist and author and show favorite Fred Rosen. Welcome back to the program. Thank you for agreeing to this interview. Fred Rosen.
Well, Dan, it's always a pleasure to be with you. How are you tonight.
It's always a pleasure to speak with you again, Fred, And I'm doing great. This is a wild, wild story that come to expect it from you, but this is one wild story. I've got to warn people right off the hop without giving anything away. I always say this, but we really don't want to give too much away because there's a lot to give away here. Tell us how you came to be in a position to write this book, Flesh Collectors.
Well, what happened was I had already written a couple of books about crime and Florida and I I've always been attracted to the state, and I eventually discovered that Florida has some rather interesting crimes, to put it mildly, and I was looking for an idea. It was just like one of those things, you know, where you're just sitting there and you're saying, Okay, what's my next project going to be, and I wound up going to I
want to say. I want to say I went online, but this is like, you know, fifteen years ago, so that would play me way ahead of the curve. But whatever it was, whether it was online or I did some you know, regular old fashioned research, you know, through paper copies. I was looking for people on Florida's death row and I was interested in what the stories might be, and that's when I ran into Rogers and Lawrence. And when I read it, I went, oh boy, and I
pitched it to my editor. And it's funny, I'm sitting here talking to you about it, and I can I can see myself pitching to her. It was at the Big Book Expo show that they have every year. It floats around that year. It was in New York, and I just talked to the editor there and she said, oh, yeah, I really like that boom. Next thing, you know, I'm working on the story. And then I you know, I started getting into it.
Now. I really love the way you layled this. And of course, of like so many of these incredible crimes are in really unsuspecting or at least you would least suspect kind of places. So tell us a little bit about Milton, Florida, just to demonstrate when we talk about Saul talk about Milton, Florida.
Milton, Florida is a small town in Florida Panhandle, which
is the northernmost part of the state. It's the part of Florida that sort of juts out and it's known, I discovered as the Redneck Riviera because right above Milton, Florida and that section of the state is Alabama, and of course Alabama is next you know, it's next to you know, Mississippi and so forth, and so people from that area would go down to the Milton area, which is right across the bay from Pensacola, and they call that the Redneck Riviera because it's a heck of a
lot cheaper to go there than it is the Riviera of in France. So it is it certainly gets a certain amount of tourism from those states. And so that was a very interesting bedan, you know, milieu, and it was very different from the western part of the state and the Tampa area that I was more familiar with. This is very rural, very small, very very self contained.
Everybody knew everybody. There's the kind of place where well, if somebody was a bad guy or somebody belonged to a family that had problems, everybody knew about it and talked about it. And that's what I discovered as I got into it. And the Lawrence family was one of those families. And so it's a very small, small place, and it just was a very interesting place to go down and do the interviews and so forth and discover what really happened.
Yeah, you mentioned the Lawrence name, and you said that in that area they would say there was a bad line. You know, that would be the Lawrence name. So we'll talk about the bad line a little bit later when we have Todd hand discover a little bit about the bad line. But let's talk about just the first meeting you have is very very interesting. You have Jonathan Lawrence and Jeremiah Rogers Lawrences, and so they meet around a little party, I guess a little bonfire party.
And uh so, no, they tell us Lawrence Lawrence. May I interrupted, said, Lawrence and Rodgers meet. They meet initially in a place in Florida called the Bedbug Factory. Boy, Dan, you can't make this stuff up. And the reason they called the bedbug Factory is the Florida Hospital for the
criminally Insane. So we got too bad guys Chatoocie, right, they got two bad guys who are in jail for various essentially petty crime, but they got a screw loose and they just hit it off, hit it off in this in this, in this mental hospital for the criminally insane, and eventually they are released. And h Lawrence is from
as as we said, he's from Milton in Florida. So he goes home and his buddy Jeremiah comes with him, and uh, you know, and they're sort of they sort of link up, and they're they're looking, you know, they're cruising for bruising. Basically, they're they're looking to make some sort of a score. What's so frightening to me is just the you know, the the that chance meeting of these two Adharan personalities and what it's going to lead to. That was what got.
Now, unlike the way you lay out the book, Let's talk about Jonathan Lawrence first and tell us a little bit about his upbringing so we can introduce these two main characters here.
Well, mister Lawrence came from a family where there are a number of people involved a number of people in the family that were of a criminal najor and he he was the He was brought up without the kind of boundaries one would hope to have, and he got into a lot of problems, you know, early in his in his life as a teenager, and that's what eventually will leave him to uh go to prison and eventually
get over to the hospital for the criminally insane. The problem is to Rogers, not that mister Rogers volks, but this mister Rogers is they're both psychopaths. So you've got two psychopaths that see something in each other, and it's it's another one of those situations where you have two killers.
And I think to myself about about the Perry Smith and Dick Hickock, the killers of of in Cold Blood, who when they link up, and it's essentially it's almost like they make one criminal personality, and that leads to the murders in Cold Blood and the same thing with Chris here So and mister Rogers, Jeremiah Rodgers, he had gone to UH prison. He put some oh it was I believe it was racist graffiti, some anti anti Semitic graffiti, that sort of thing. He put that on buildings and
so forth, and other petty crimes. And he also didn't come from the kind of background where he was given any sort of boundaries by his parents. And you know, I probably sound like some sort of fundamental with but it's true, you know. I mean, if you've got to have those boundaries, you've got to be taught right from wrong. And quite frankly, Dan, I believe that you also have to have heroes in your life and people that you can look up to, that you can admire and that
you can emulate, and whose values you will emulate. And unfortunately, both of these individuals were not around people who were of that nature who could give them proper values and Bbrow models for them. And of course we again we see this continually with criminal personalities. As you know, it's a commonality I would certainly say with this kind of you know, with violent crime, and the only way to mediate it is to recognize it as it was when
they were in prison. But what do you do when someone has a certain sentence and that they you know, however many years it might be, and then they get to the limit of it and they seem to be okay, if you're the therapist, what do you do. You can't just keep somebody. You know, we we we live, we all live in a democracy. You have to have a
reason to keep someone behind bars. So even though you think something can happen, this isn't the you know, that's that that TV show person of Interest, you know, where you can stop a crime in advance. You know, those things don't happen. So uh So, as a result of their lack of I would certainly say of the lack of proper role models were growing up, they wind up going the wrong way. But again, up until the time they get out of the bed buck factory, they haven't.
They haven't you know, hurt anybody physically. Yet that's all yet to come. It builds, and it builds.
One interesting thing that I just wanted to point out, though it's revealed later in the book, though, that John was witnessed to one of his other brothers just fooling around with a gun and blew his other brother's head off.
Yes, yes, that John was a witness the one brother. He had a couple of other brothers, the two other brothers brother and he sold one of them falling around with a gun, and it goes up by accident and kills the other brother. Now that's got to be an incredibly,
incredibly traumatic event. But there's one thing that I keep thinking about then, and you know, please weigh in on this too, which is as I go through these the personalities of the criminals that I've written about and certainly others have and that we read about it all the time, the one thing I always think about is this, no matter what hand, bad hand, your dealt in life, you get a choice at some point, always a choice between down the road of criminality and especially going down the
road of murder and not. And so for every individual who's who's seen a brother or another relative accidentally killed by a firearm, for example, well you can have ten people like that and maybe one turns out bad. You see what I'm saying. People make a decision about what they're going to do at some point, somebody, if you've got that gun in your hand, you make a decision.
Unless it's a self defense situation, and what we're talking about, you make a decision whether you're gonna pull that trigger. And certainly that's that's that's what happens here. These are very very very conscious decisions.
Now you talk about these conscious decisions. And again this is it's revealed later by Todd Hand, the detective that does this investigation. But for our audience to learn the characters of these two killers, what is some of the things that are influencing these young impressionable minds. Not to give them them any excuse whatsoever, but what are the kinds of things that these guys are doing. This is not I mean, young people could do video games and
you could have a lot of things. But tell us about some of the literature and some of the evidence that there was a little bit We're a lot more going on psychologically and otherwise in terms of murderous thoughts with these guys. Literature and choice of things to view and consume.
Well, again, it's indicative of the personalities involved. There was a certain amount of Oh boy, there was a certain amount of certainly Satanism, you know, devil worshiping, that sort of thing. Mister Lawrence have a thing for collecting books about anatomy, curiously, and that was very very curious. You know what, this guy didn't seem to want to be a doctor, so why is he collecting books about anatomy?
And he would you know, he'd go through the books, and he would sort of check off things that he was interested in. And I recall that one of the books he was looking in particular at a diagram of the muscles of the leg and I don't know, maybe the guy, you know, if you look at it from a distance, you could say, well, gee, maybe he's thinking of being a north orthopedist or something like that. But that was not where it was leading. I mean, it
was really not leading in direction. And so these guys were very they were very much into stuff that most normal people wouldn't be into in terms of the literature that they would read. And again, you know, I would emphasize that the whole the whole situation with worshiping Satan and you know, and that sort of thing. And of course I'm not giving away where the Anami books were about, but perhaps that the listeners can deduce where we're going with this.
Well, the other thing was too part of the literature was that these guys were serious enough to have incredibly I've never seen this before, but memberships pending in the KKK and you know, the United Satan International or something like some official devil worship group. The guy hadn't filled it out, but these and some interesting movies again, you know, I mean horror movies. A lot of people like horror movies.
But we'll talk about that a little bit later because there are a couple of movies that are again I don't know if it's irony or just just incredible part of the story that some of the movie choices that they do during this incredible story. So let's we basically know that these guys after. You know, what's interesting too is the length of time they got for their petty crimes. Four years and four and a half years. I was
pretty surprised. But anyway, they meet in this hospital, they have this in common, they join up, and then in your book we have them as I mentioned, at this party, and I guess it's it's time for these guys to put some of their fantasies into play. So we learn about, yeah, Jonathan Jonathan's cousin which is named Justin, and tell us a little bit about Justin and his and his disability and his relationship with Jonathan, Lawrence Sure and is Rogers Fellow.
Well, they're cousins. Justin as a younger cousin. Justin has some learning disabilities, but he is a high school graduate. He's about I believe he's nineteen at the time, and he was a very nice guy walking around the neighborhood and open. He talked to everybody. Everybody liked them. He would go over to his cousin to hang out. He'd go over to to Lawrence's and hang out and he would watch TV, whatever it might be. They'd have a beer,
they smoke joint, whatever it might be. And Rogers began to look at him in a very as a lower order of life. He looked at him as somebody who was expendable, and he didn't like him very much. And it would be certainly, it certainly would would be accurate to say that Lawrence was not the greatest cousin in the world. But you know, they they had whatever their relationship was, and so he would go over and he'd
hang out with them and everything would be cool. At least he thought everything would be cool, and so they had, you know, it was it was a pretty good relationship. But the thing is in that area, kids hang out in the back country and what they do is they'll go into the into the back country and they'll have a bonfire and they'll sit around and they'll talk and
whatever else they might want to do. But the difference is that Lodges and Lines are talking about doing things other than going to school, dating girls, going to the movies, listening to music, whatever it might be. They're talking about other things that there's something inside them that seek that's pushing them to commit a crime, to commit a murder,
to see what it's like. In fact, in some ways, and I mentioned this in the book, they reminded me of Leopold and Low, the famous Chicago thrill killers they would get. They felt that they were going to get a big thrill out of it. I can't I can't relate to it, obviously, and I'm sure most people can't. But we're dealing with a barren, psychopathic personality. So they think that it's going to be a really cool thing to do.
Now, the plan is is that they want to deal with again. You say, Rogers is thinking this guy's a mooch. He's coming over bumbing cigarettes and he's just a bum me anyway. But obviously and his cousin are in on this plan. And and so the plan is that Jonathan has an upcoming birthday, so they call Jonathan, calls his cousin Justin and tells him about the birthday party. So take it from there. What what does does he tell us about this birthday party and the plan, Well.
The plan the player, well the birthday, the birthday party is the idea is to is to lure him over for a birthday party. Right, and then they have.
Okay, round two, name something that's not boring laundry, computer solitaire. Huh oh, sorry, we were looking for Chumbu Casino. That's right, chumbacasino dot com as over one hundred casino style games joined today and the plan for free for your chance to redeem some serious prizes. Casino dot com.
Have something in mind, and what they have in mind is murder, and they planted out so that they lure him in this particular section of Milton, Florida. Again, it's across the abandoned Air force Field, and so they wind up going over there. And the thing I emphasize right now is that the Air Force because it's it's still with the property of the United States government, it's federal land. So if something happens on federal land, it's a different
police force that would deal with it. Obviously, to be the federal government. Now they're not thinking this, you know, but in any case, they run him over to this place looks like a landing strip, you know, small landing strip, and Rogers is talking to him. He's he's sort of conning justin into thinking that everything is cool. And then he takes out a knife. Should I say what happens now?
Yeah? What I wanted to you know, what I wanted to say too, because it is important. A little bit later to the story is that they had lured him over with this idea. There was a party. He came there all dressed up in his finest cowboy.
Where he was really proud of the boots and reminding me, I forgot that. But yes, that's true. They've larned him. Over comes over. He thinks he's going to a party.
Yeah, yeah, no party, and he wonders about that because he's he's you know, he might be slow, but he's not, he's not stupid. So he says, where's the party? He said, well, don't worry about it. Where it's It's going to be okay. And so they're watching a movie. But there's an obstacle, and that is that Jonathan's brother is there, Ricky and
also his uncle and his uncle Roy. So they have to wait till Ricky and Roy finish fixing a car in the yard, and then they take off and then they around eight o'clock they put this plan into or sunset they put this plan in and go to this field and so and now what's interesting in your book is you talk about you really get the inside scoop on the dialogue from these psychopathic killers and what they're saying to this poor disabled boy because he knows something's up.
And even Roger says to him, you know you did something wrong, So he almost can't kill the young man because he knows the young man knows that there's there's something wrong, so maybe he can continue there that the level of deception you probly do.
Yeah, they're playing mind games with him and they're saying he did something wrong, and he's wondering what the heck they're talking about. And the I think the important point here is that he's a very trusting person, Justine. In a sense, why wouldn't he be. It's his cousin, and the last thing he's expecting would be that something is physically going to happen to him. I mean, up until this point he'd go over and he just have a good time with them. But now what's happening is Rogers
is playing my games. You know you did something wrong, blah blah blah. And of course Justin would we would prob was probably confused by it. And the reason that I was able to write about the dialogue was because write the dialogue is it's all in the h it's all the public record. He's a statements that were given by the by the dead guys. So luckily we have
that material. So you actually when you read the book, to read the actual dialogue between the killers and their first victory, which is pretty unusual, and and and but it's chilling. And as we're talking, what's kidding me about this case is that it was it was it was this. This was the most difficult book I ever wrote, ever wrote. And I'll talk more about that as we go along.
And so what I've discovered since is that other people who worked on cases like this we tend to we block out, which you know, we're just the same as anybody else. When when you hear something that's particularly traumatic the details, the writer, just like police officers will do this. You tend to block it out, you know what I mean, Dan, because it really gets to you. And we're only dealing with the first murder, and so if I'm a little lighter,
I'm recalling some of that. That's the reason why, Okay, because this was a very this this book was very difficult and I might even say a little bit traumatic to write. I just, you know, I just never expected it. It just, you know, it just was something that you know, I just I just never expected it. And when when I read about how they killed oh boy, how they killed Justin and how he was just he was totally histified, surprised. I don't have any adjectives or adverts at what was occurring,
even as his lifeblood was seeping out of him. It's it's it was a real it's a real tragedy, quite frankly, because this kid, hey had a lot of potential, and he was and he was a good kid. And I
mean not that that should make any difference. One life is the same as another, but he was somebody who had a couple of strikes against him, who was doing the best that he could and then you know, boom, he gets trayed by by his brother and his brother's best friend, by his cousin and his cousin's best friend.
Yes, Fred, we're going to use this as a pause. We're going to pause to talk about the sponsor of this episode of True Murder, which is Nature Box. And I wanted to just say about Nature Box that I had my sample. My free sample was sent in the mail a couple of weeks ago, and I was very anxious to get it, and I dug into it and it was very, very good, experienced delicious snacks, really unique flavors and unique descriptions and flavor ingredients. It was really
a unique snack experience. So with nature Box, you know you're going to snack, and when you do, you want it to be worth it. Something that is tasty and satisfying, what doesn't make you feel guilty afterwards. What you need or snacks from Nature Box choose from over one hundred healthy and crave worthy options to be delivered right to your door. All of their snacks are all made with zero artificial flavors, colors or sweeteners, zero grams trans fat fats,
and no high fruitose corn syrup. Best of all, they taste amazing, so good and so much better for you than the other snacks options out there, So next time you're hungry, grab surround roasted cashews, white truffle popcorn, and peanut butter nomnoms or personalized to your own favorites and get smart about snacking. Right now, if you go to nature box dot com slash true murder, you can get a free trial of your favorite snacks, free snacks delivered right to your door. So what are you waiting for?
Go to naturebox dot com slash true murder to start your free trial free sample today naturebox dot com slash true murder. Now, when we last left off Fred, we were just going to get into the gory details of what these despicable psychopathic fantasizing about murder. I guess Satan himself will be proud of these guys. So tell us, well the actual details of this poor disabled man. Again, you say he was right to the very end not realizing why his cousin and his seeming friend would be
doing what they did to him. So tell us what you write in the book in terms of what they actually did to this man and what they did in the end to dispose of him too.
To uh when they judged it, when they welled it? Yeah, when when they killed him, was they stabbed him a number of times? And as as Rogers again, it's it's all in the book that the dialogue, it is Rogers is stabbing him. He's making him think that he did
something that he shouldn't have done. And and it there he he stabs him and goes down to his to his knees, and he he knows that he's in trouble certainly, and he of course would love to have his cousin help him, except that his cousin delivers the fatal wound fatle stabbing means. And once they have killed him, just like in any situation like this, you have to dispose of the body. And so they take the body and they dispose of it at someplace in the that country in a shallow grave.
Yeah, it's interesting, Jeremiah Rogers. You say he's five foot seven, but he's a stockyar bild he's about almost one hundred and seventy pounds, so he's a pretty built guy. And he's got tattoos, and he's not worked out in prison, so he's a pretty tough guy. And he eagerly you say in the book again from the evidence that you uncovered. He eagerly dug that grave himself, and then they placed
Justin livingstone in the grave. He couldn't quite fit, so they compartmentalized him, kind of cramped him into that grave. And then, as you read in the book, don't one of them wanted to do nobody No. But what I found interesting is that you it's a juxtapose between this ghastly deed. And then one of them said, geez, you know they got those new Doritos three D chips. I like to try those. So that was their next The next goal was to try those specific potato chips.
But see that again. Yeah, And and what that show is, of course, is the knack orse. There is no empathy. There is no empathy, there is no feeling for Justin as a human being, which again is very very typical kind of these kinds of this kind of murderer, murderers where they can't relate, and so to them, they get their kick doing it. And then what's the next thing that that happens. The next elemental thing that happens is, oh,
I'm hungry, let's get some Doritos. You know, I'm sure the Dorito's people are not gonna like that very much. But in any case, you know that's what they decide to do, and you know they're able to do this and then go to sleep and you know, not worry about it. I mean, it's ridiculous when you think about it. I mean not ridiculous, but it's it's unfathomable. You know, it's unfathomable. And this is just the beginning. Now.
Meanwhile, again you always do this. Meanwhile, you cut a way back to Elizabeth Livingstone and her boyfriend Corey little A Laddell and basically be there, you know, just beginning nightmare. So they know that uh, Justin's supposed to come back for his medication. He's schizophrenic and he's a d D and he does understand he needs the medication and it's very very unusual for him not to be back. And so what do they do.
They contact police, they've contact the police, they contact you know, they try to backtrack his movements through the neighborhood. They and they wind up talking to two to the bad guys, who of course are or specifically mister mister Livingston and I'm not living mister Lawrence Livingston, Lawrence boy boy. It gets confusing sometimes and again because of the these guys are liars, so I mean, you know, like again like many killers, they're they're great conness, and of course the
family is tremendous. They worry about where this this kid wait, like you said, you know, he needs his medication, and they notify the police, and the police start an investigation, and it really doesn't go any place, at least at first.
What's fascinating about this book is again all the amazing characters that come out of this tragedy and out of necessity they become detectives on their own and do the work of police before the police can even get to it. So Elizabeth Livingston says, well, I'm going to take matters into my own hands, and she makes up a poster and on this poster's description of her boy, but also a couple of contact numbers with Jonathan and Jonathan Lawrence's
number and Jeremiah Rodgers' number. So with this effort, then what happens in terms of this poster and the result of that poster, Well, I mean, what's what's.
The result of the of the of the poster, the result of of you know, they're they're trying again. They they wind up of being able to figure out through information that they get that Justin had gone over to Lawrence's house. So the question becomes, well, what happened there after he went to Lawrence's house, And of course Lawrence is not gonna say anything, He's gonna lie through his teeth,
which is exactly what happens. He says that that the kid went to rent a video, so this is you know, we're going back a couple of years, so people could still rent the videos and videotapes and uh, and the police keep trying to track it that way. They're sending him on a wild goose chase, obviously, and while that is happening. While that is happening, mister mister Rogers has his eye on a young girl, so that is also happening. At the same time, the young girl works in a nearby convenience store.
What's interesting is Elizabeth Livingstone, though with the poster, has those contact numbers, and those two characters come by her house and say, listen, we want you to take our names off of those posters, which had a little light bulb go off in Elizabeth's mind to say these characters are involved. They have something to do with this, So she's the first person that could almost definitely sense that there was something with them.
Well she combles to it, but it still doesn't mean anything without any sort of evidence. So sure she tumbles to it. And again, you know, she would know that the you know, obviously she knows the family, So she tumbles to it about they're involved in some way. But does any parent want to believe that they're missing, child is dead, let alone that their cousin had anything to do with it. And of course that's the challenge for the police, which is to try to find a way
to put this together. You've got to have evidence. You can't you know, just because just because these two guys serve time in a criminal hospital, sure they would be suspects. But that's all it is. I mean, you know, you still have to have some sort of evidence. You know, you could probably make an argument that, well, it doesn't make any difference. They sure of arrest them. Well, no, that's not the way the system works. You know. The way the system works is you've got to have something.
You've got to have evidence. You've got to have something physical or confession or some think of that nature. And they don't have anything, and That is the real tragedy is that these guys were small enough to cover their tracks. And yes they did go over and say to missus Livingston, take our names off, et cetera, et cetera. And sure they would, that would that would point the finger of suspicion at them. That's all it is, is the finger
of suspicion. That's the that's the frustrating part. And that's the part that really hurt as I was writing the book, because you start, I don't know how it is to anybody else, but I start living some of it, you know what I mean, thinking about what's it like to be bending down there and your cousin's over you, you know, with a knife, I mean what you know. And I'm just talking about what the victim was was thinking about what the victim was feeling. I mean, we all have
problematic relatives that you know, problematic relationships with relatives. I mean we all do, including me. But did that mean that one of them would would kill me? Well, let's see, I'm a true crime author. Let me think wouldn't even kill me? Yeah, I don't think so. But I do have a cousin who is a crazy cop. But that's another story. I'm sorry, a crazy former cop, but he's not listening to who cares? There you go.
Now, one of these heroic one of the heroic characters in this book, if there is is one, is a detective hand and Todd is in nineteen ninety seven. You write what he's doing is he's working in security. He had followed his ex wife to be with his child, to have more access to his child. So he had quit a job he loved as a detective and went
to Pennsylvania. And at the time you introduced this character, Todd is working and having a pretty good time and he meets Michael Keaton working on the set of the movie Desperate Measures. So after this meeting with with with Michael Keaton, he comes to a revelation. Maybe tell us about that and and how he comes to be involved in inextricably involved in this case.
Well, just that, just that Todd. In fact, I spoke with Todd. He called me up recently. He was giving a presentation on this case, uh to some police organization and Todd I, I, you know. The thing I would simply say is that Todd is first he's a very very smart guy, very smart guy he is a person who takes responsibility for his actions and for his children. He feels that he can make a contribution in law enforcement. And again you point as you know, as as I mentioned,
he wanted to be closer to his his child. So he winds up moving down to h to Clorida, and in fact, he let's see, he's working uh as as as a detective and uh In in that area, in that county, and later on he winds up, well, I'm not getting anything away, it's not a book, but I'm just saying that he progresses, you know, and he winds up being like, you know, he's like a captain lieutenant or a captain of detectives right now on the west
coast of Florida, and he works for the state. So he just has this calling to help people as a police officer, and he certainly has a talent for what hand.
The first case that he works, he's handed the case about Justin Livingston. He reviews that case, he goes to work. He starts trying to track down, eliminate where Justin could have been in the last place he could have been. He goes to the video store, so he finds a neighbor named Jim Kelly, and Jim Kelly says that he witnessed a truck stop dropped Justin off. Wait a few minutes, Justin went back into the truck. When he's speaking to Elizabeth,
Elizabeth says, well, that sounds like Ricky Lawrence's truck. He lives with his brother Jonathan. So now Todd Hand tries to contact Jonathan Lawrence Jeremiah Rodgers. What is his first impressions in the contacts with these guys. He doesn't speak to them face to face, So what's his impression, Like, what does he get from this meeting or these conversations with these two characters.
Doesn't trust him? I mean, you know, he doesn't trust him, and they're trying to put him off, and they're trying to be essen about about about Justin. So if he's he's suspicious. But again we've got a big problem. It's cold Evans, and you know they're not you know, they're not about to admit to anything. They're really not about to do something like that. So he's you know, he's
terribly terribly frustrated. In fact, he was telling me the other day when I spoke with him or a couple of weeks ago that he still regrets that he wasn't able to put the case together against them earlier.
Okay, Brown two, name something that's not boring laundry.
Computer solitaire?
Huh oh, Sorry, we were looking for Chumbuck Casino toumba. That's right, chumbucasino dot com as over one hundred casino style games joined today and playing for free for your chance to redeem some serious casino dot com.
For Justin's debts, which would have prevented another crime from happening. See that's what's so interesting to me, Dan, which is see, I don't know how it is in other places. Okay, I can just tell you that the police officers I've dealt with in Florida, Uh, there is a a level of professionalism and a level of humanity that I found here, and I I I can't explain it. I honestly can't explain it. But every police officer, every prosecutor I've met
in Florida has had that kind of commitment. I don't know. You know, if you're a writer, you can come up with the right word. And so he's very, very, very frustrated, and of course he knows that if if they are involved, they could easily do this again. But again, what are you gonna do. You gotta have evidence, You've got to have a confession, you gotta have something. So it so's he's doing his interviews with with you know, with with the people around these guys, and eventually he talks to
these guys. But it doesn't make any difference. It really, it doesn't make any difference. I mean, all the details from the book, but it doesn't. You know. The point is, what do you do? You know? And unless it's it's a TV series like Person of Interest? There I go again promoting CBS. I think they should save me some money. Uh, unless you have you know, unless you can you can stop a crime before it happens? What do you do? You know? That's that stuff. That's the hard thing about this,
you know what I mean? I mean, when you're coming, you know you've got the bad guys and you know that there.
Are involved in something fascinating is todd again as it's always a meanwhile in this juxtaposition between law and disorder. Here while he is and he goes to these lengths, like you say, he can only do so much, but they try everything they do voice stress analysis, which is again I read I learned a lot from this book in itself in terms of this is supposed to be more accurate than a lie detector test, and you're actually your body temperature raises to this certain levels that can
be detected and be regarded as lying. So they give Jonathan Lawrence. He submits to it. Todd hand says, listen, I think this guy's more helpful. This is the guy
I'm going to go for. Their stories are line up completely, but Todd is very suspicious because he knows that the movie they said they were watching, ironically, is The Shining with Jack Nicholson, and they claim both of them that supposedly at the climax of the movie which he wanted to watch this movie justin apparently this guy that really wanted to watch this movie got up right before the climax and went to go rent another movie. That's Todd believe it, sure.
Because sure, and it makes absolute sense because in that particular that's of course, that's the Stanley Kubrick film, and in that film, the climax of the film. Sorry, folks, I feel comfortable giving it away that we're thirty some years old and besides, read the book. The ending is much better in the book, by the way. But anyway, you know, the in the ending of the film you're talking about Nicholson's character has gone nutty and you're waiting to see what's going to happen, and of course he
goes after his son in the film book about a betrayal. Okay, and we won't give away that final closing, right, but that's the sort of thing you wait around for. You know, you're sitting on the edge of your seat, waiting to see what's gonna happen, and suddenly Justin leaves Well, yeah, Todd's right, it doesn't make any sense, especially especially considering
it was the Stanley Kubrick film. For god's sakes, Cooper's the kind of guy that when he made a movie, you sat, you set, you sat with your you know know what in the chair. So yeah, I mean that's one of the things I noticed them. And so in any case, you know, we're back to square one. Essentially, we're back to square one. We got to wait it out.
Now. These psychopaths don't seem to feel this heat. Jeremiah Rodgers and Jonathan Lawrence and Todd hands On them, and he's done a voice stress analysis. They're being asked to come in and be questioned, and and yet they're planning something else. And like you had mentioned just a few minutes before, Jeremiah Rogers spot is a young girl world that's just getting out of high school. She works at a convenience store that her uncle has something to do with.
She's got red hair. She's a vivacious fun girl, but not an experienced girl. And she doesn't She's from a good family. And Jeremiah Rodgers meets her at the corner store. So tell us a little bit more about this.
Sure, sure, this is the hard part. I'll do the best I can. Close to to Jennifer's mom, and you know it happens. You know, you get close to the families of the victims, you know when you talk to them because you want to find out what the victim was about, you know, so you can so you can paint it accurately. What happened is Jennifer Robinson is working in this convenience store and Rogers comes in and he's a really convincing dude. He's a con man, and he
decides eventually to ask her out on a date. And Jennifer says, you got to come to the house and meet my mom. And Rogers again, he's so smart because he's got tattoos all over the place, as you mentioned. But this but when he comes over to pick her up for the date, he's he's wearing long sleeves, so is the So Jennifer's mom can't see that, and of course some of them are prison tattoos. And he just seems like a very well spoken young man, and and so and so the mom says, oh, that's cool, you know.
And and she's eighteen years old, and I wouldn't you know, there's no there's no evident she was very experienced with boys. But I mean, she's eighteen years old, for God's sakes. So they decide they're just gonna, you know, go out and you know, maybe you know, Rogers bss the mom with some you know, some story I don't recall what it is, but doesn't make any difference. And what happens is now, this is where it gets. It's dicey here,
Dan and interrupt anytime you want. When she gets to that, you know, she sees it's the car, it's mister Lawrence is there, and so he's coming along, so's it's just essentially like as he's the best buddy of you know, you know, it's his best buddy, and he says it
will come along to whatever, and she gets in. So I think maybe the first thing we should say here is if your child is going on a date and he's going to start on dating, tell your child to make sure that if you if the boyfriend pulls a fast one like another dude's in the I don't want to see anything happen to anybody, because this girl does get in. And what happens is this is where I discovered this thing. I'd never heard of it. I'd never heard it ever Clear? Did you ever hear that ever Clear?
I must be the most naive guy in the world. I didn't realize it was pure alcohol and there's no real taste to it. And so what mister Rogers does is every time I say that, I'm thinking of Fred
and Rogers, please forgive me Fred. And but what Jeremiah Rogers does is he spikes her drink with ever Clear, and the drink is I I can't it's like seven uppers or you know, whatever it is, and they wind up going out into the cane break the Florida Panhandle, which means they're in the middle of no place with a lot of bushes and trees and all that other stuff. And she gets loaded to the point that she doesn't really offer any according to Rogers resistance when he sexually
assaults her. And then mister Lawrence does the same thing, and she gets out of the car and he wants to show her something. I think what he says is he wants to show us some marijuana or something like that. You know, that's right, You know that that's been what he called plant in someplace which wouldn't be unusual nearby. And they and what she doesn't realize is he's got a weapon. He's got a gun, and they walk down.
She follows him to where this marijuana patch is supposed to be and she's wondering where it is, and he takes out the gun and shoots her. You can read all the details of the book, but that's just the beginning.
We won't go into that's good. What we'll do, though, is that what I'm just going to go backwards just a slight bit. What's interesting is while Romeo Jeremiah Rodgers is picking up his date. He's trying to avoid, like the plague, meeting the mother, but she insists, well, no, my mother has to meet you. So they meet. But meanwhile, meanwhile, what you have, and this is going to be you can't get any more striking evidence. You really can't. John
Lawrence is making a list and checking it twice. Number one cooler vice for her meet, two strawberry wine, three ever clear.
Four.
Ah.
He needs to clean the blade and clean the saw and tomahawk sharpen. Yeah, he wants to sharpen the blade and clean the saw on tomahawk, a film for Polaroid camera, gallon sized zip lock bags, once washrags, rope, juggle water, extra round post, shovel and he put.
All that in his trunk. That's right, that's right, And he's of course that You're right. You can't get any better than than that for evidence. They're planning this out now, Now, why boy, that's a whole other story. You know, there's a reason why these guys are in the bed pub factor. So yes, I mean he's planning all this out. And this also goes back to what we mentioned earlier about his anatomy folks and a couple of things happened after
she shot mister mister Lawrence commits necrophilia. And then which I keep going. And then what he does is he puts into action, hm, what he has read in those books, and he flays one of Jennifer's calf muscles and cuts out part of the calf muscle, puts it in the cooler. Purpose of that is to take it home and cook it and eat it. And then of course they they bury the body in a shallow grave and then they
leave just like nothing has happened. And now two young wives have been lost to these individuals, these criminals.
It's amazing too. He goes home and of course he once unwined after the murder, so he pops in a video and he watches the Donner Party. The spell our audience again, I'll ultimate irony. I mean, what's the Donner Party about?
If you don't know, The Donner Party was a group of pioneers who were trying to go through the Sierra Madre Mountains in the middle eighteen hundreds and they hit they hit bad snows and they could not get through and as a result, they had to lay over until things got the weather got better, and as people would die, they would eat them in order to survive. They would
cannibalize the individuals in order to survive. So there's certainly a certain irony in that he's watching that movie after what just happened to Jennifer.
Incredible now again, Meanwhile, Dennis Randall's waking up. Diane believes her daughter went out. The next day, she had a they call a skip senior day, so she didn't have to go to school. But she was up and Diane's boyfriend, Diane, Dennis Randall looked in on Jennifer Jenny and she wasn't there, so she hadn't made it home. So the panic began for Diane and Dennis. There was a clerk at the store where she worked, where Jenny worked, and Elijah walked in and she she she said, have you seen Jenny
because she didn't come home last night. She had, and she told him that Jenny had gone out with Jeremiah er Rogers, right, that of which Elijah is his brother. Right, We've got to say, so this is through Elijah is his brother. Now he hears about this story, and Elijah goes and tries to find Jeremiah find out what's going on. So what happens when he finds him, And what does Jeremiah tell him about Jonathan's involvement and Jennifer.
You know what, I wrote the book and I'm and I'm blinking. But well, basically, he's he's he's lying through his teeth. Anything he's gonna say, he's gonna lie through his teeth. He claims that that he dropped her off someplace the night before. He claims that he dropped her up someplace the night before, and that that's basically, in a nutshell, he just lies through his teeth. You know that, you know nothing, nothing happened.
Well, there's an incredible Again, this this story just gets wilder and more wild as you go on, and so it's it's hard to remember everything, but I just read this really fresh, So I that's why I have the advantage. But but what he does too is when he sees his brother, Jeremiah Rodgers, the twisted psychopath that he is, pulls out about ten polaroids. Remember we had they, We made sure they had a polaroid camera. So he hands
his brother these poolaroights. What are what's what are on these polaroids?
Of course.
The kind of the polaroids?
Yeah, death.
Yeah, mutilation, mutilation.
Death, that's what's on those polaris. I mean, the guy is nuts. The guy is just absolutely out of his mind. First off, it just made if his brother, his brother now has knowledge about this, which makes him an accessory after the fact if he doesn't, you know, if if
in any way he helps his brother. So it's it's you know again, you the reason that they bring that, you know, the camera, Well, boy, we're talking about old technology polaroid is you know, hey, we've we've got to get some pictures of of the of the murder, and we got to get some pictures of the mutilation, and you know, we need some some souvenirs. We need to take that stuff home. We need to show everybody. Yeah, it's pretty crazy.
Yeah. And you what you really talk about too, And you make this point because like it's true, is that Roger seemed to really covet these polaroids as prize possessions. He was even wiping the dirt off to make sure there was no smudges so they could put them back in his pocket. And Elijah is overwhelmed and says, listen, because Jeremiah says, listen, I'll take you to the bodies come into the woods and I'll take you to where the bodies are. And Elijah's going, no, no, no, no, no, listen,
we got to go see our other brother, Lamar. And so they go see Lamar again. Jeremiah pulls out his prize possessions, tries to give him the photos. Lamar looks at the first one. You know, he didn't look at any other than just the first photo. He said, that's enough. I don't want to see these. And they said they had to do the responsible thing. You know, there was another person named Wix that was involved. These people just decided that this was way beyond any kind of loyalty
that they needed to get the police involved. They also said, listen, you got to go talk to Jenny's mother, because another horriffic part of this was the responds that she got Jenny's mother from Colin Jeremiah, Wheremiah first pretended that he had didn't even know who she was. Then he said yes, and I'm not efing responsible for your daughter. So her nightmare was being exacerbated. Not only she thinks he's missing,
she might have been raped. And here's this callous clown that's obviously involved.
So well, there's no place, you know, the only place for her to go with that is to let mister Hand know what's going on, to put it in his hands, no pun intended.
Yeah, So by this time, there's enough evidence that todd Hand can get involved. So just tell us a little bit about what happens in terms of these guys. Obviously there's gonna be these guys are charged, So tell us a little bit more about todd Hand and what he does with these guys.
Well, the thing is he decides to, uh, he's certainly going to question them. And for some reason, I always remember the stop sticks and when and what happens is Jeremiah Rogers decides to flee, and the police eventually give chase, and this is eventually going to be a police chase, just like in the movies and on television and even and when they finally corner this guy, he holds them off off by claiming he's going to kill himself. That's how he holds them off, by claiming he's going to
kill himself. Of course he doesn't need to do it, he just has to hold the cops off and uh, you know, of course that's not gonna work, you know, they're gonna stay there as long as possible until they can get him out of the car and arrest them. And they use these stopsticks to eventually stop the car, you know, you know the the and uh, it's it's, it's, it's. It's a pretty dramatic scene, certainly the chase.
No, eventually, guys are sorry, go ahead.
No, I'm I was just gonna say that Todd. Todd is very very directed in doing this and to say something about this case, which is I uh I. I didn't write another truth after I I wrote this book. Well, no, before I wrote the book, I spoke to John Moulshon MLHN, who was the state's attorney, and before I left Florida, I said to him, I don't know if I can ever write another true crime book again. It's what happened since Jennifer just has got to me. I identified too much.
And I said, I just don't know if I can do this work anymore. And he looked at me. I'll never forget it, and he said, Fred, we speak for the dead. And and so I went and I wrote the book, but I didn't write another true crime book for four years. I wrote other things. I was able to get into history, which I love writing about. But what John Moulshon said kept going around in my head dance, you know, which is we speak for the dead, And eventually I realized that that was one of the things
that I'm called upon to do. And and so I, you know, I got back into into writing and investigating true crime because I realized it's one of the you know, John, John was right about it. Ask me a question, but.
Mm hmm it too again you said it was it was traumatic, and I can understand that the more details in it. Of course, you're you're letting the reader in on this, and it's it's so vivid that it's you're you're almost feeling it and you're almost experiencing it. So I can only imagine what you go through having to research it and really get close to the families to be able to get this kind of material and and and the story. So it has take. It has to
take its toll. If an actor talks about playing some fictional role in it taking its toll, how about a non fictional role where you're there with your sleeves rolled up and this this is tragedy at some kind of colossal level. When you when you talk about Justin's mother looking around and her boyfriend, and then Jenny's mother right out of high school on really one of her real first dates, really never really had a boyfriend. Everybody wishing
to be best for the children. Yeah, just incredible, now, very much, Yeah, very much like every true crime book has to have the trial, and there are no as we know, in true crime books. Just when you think it might be a foregone conclusion, it really isn't that simple. The death row, the capital case makes a huge difference on how everything proceeds. But again, in Florida, they are a very serious capital case state, aren't there.
As I pointed out earlier, Uh, Justin's death occurs on federal land, which means he then asked if they have to be then be tried in a federal court, whereas with with Jenny it's a state court. And in Florida, Uh, then and now, the only difference is that you know, then and now there is capital punishment if you're convicted of murder. I now, when this occurred, they still had the electric chair, so they would have gone if they were convicted, they would have they would go to the
you know, to the electric chair. Now of course that's changed. They call it the death chamber and all that stuff. But again, it's it's it's it's you know, it's putting the case together, and nothing is ever a foregone conclusion.
When you've got twelve women and men who get to pronounce guilt or innocence, you know, nobody there isn't any prosecutey for that manner who goes into something like this expecting that the jury will absolutely positively see things their way, because if that were the case, they'd be pretty damn rich by Beton Vegas or whatever. So you just never
know how these things can turn out. How do you know that if the if the defense puts up mitigating evidence about the backgrounds of these individuals, that the jury might take pity on them. Look at what's happening right now in Boston, Massachusetts, where Zolkarstarnaev is being tried for the Boston massacre, and the defense is not arguing that he didn't do it. They're going to argue that they're mitigating circumstances during the penalty phase because he's going to
be convicted. So you don't know, See that's the point. You can convict somebody of murder as you do in this case, that's what does that mean they're going to give them the death penalty? You don't know. I mean if a good you know, it's a good, terrific, use any adjective you want, defense attorney, they can get somebody off,
you know. And if the goal is to put them in the death chamber, it's not going to happen if the defense can make a case for what are called mitigators or mitigating circumstances, whatever those might be.
Certainly, and again I urge people not to if this is an incredible book from start to finish. Like I mentioned to you, fred I, you usually don't use this because I think it's too cliche and lots of times it really isn't true. But this is an absolute page turner. This book just sucks you in with all the characterization, all the really sad stories. And again I guess I liked these stories where the psychology is just off the charts.
These guys are very very interesting. What I wanted to ask you too, because I just wanted to mention that these guys again have these heroes, you know, Bundy, pardon me. Gasey im Nielsen, a son of Sam and yeah, maybe it was Bundy or I'm not sure. So anyway, which of these serial murders were these psychopathic devotees really enamored with, because you allude to that in this book.
Boy, oh boy, it's been a while. I want to say Dahmer because this is too fat. This is back before the boy. I can't believe this that before the turn of the century. Uh, Dahmer. It's certainly one of the people that was involved that they that they liked. I'm trying to remember. Quite frankly, I think also mister Bundy.
They like Bundy. But you can as you can see that they're one of their favorite movies. And you point this, well, you mentioned all of them, and and really the only guy that comes out is Dahmer because his favorite movie was Silence of the Lambs. And at that same time the Silence of the Lambs was was released. It was the real life for her story of Jeffrey Dahmer. And if you're gonna eat, there's no bigger, no bigger role model than Jeffrey Dahmer.
I would think, well, certainly, yes, I think that's probably true. I mean, I you know that I don't know, that's sort of that's sort of a conversation that probably there's a whole bunch of other Cannibals that were not recalling. I think ed Geene is in there too, but they're inadmored of these individuals. And I guess what's so interesting is how up until this happened, it all goes under the radar. Nobody really suspects what these people are capable
of doing. And I think that again that when they got together, they formed one murderous personality. That's what I think happened. I mean, that was you know, you know, my impression of the whole thing. And but I'll tell you what I took away from this was just the incredible, the incredible tragedy of the whole thing. I mean, I don't know if you could tell from my voice, but sometimes when I took a back Jennifer, I have to
watch myself because I thought breaking up. Yeah, because what I wanted to do go.
Oh sorry sorry, no, no, no, no, no, finish what you're okay? I I wanted to ask bad sorry, there must be like an overlap here with our signals. But what I wanted to ask was when you last spoke to Todd hand he was using this He was discussing this case many many years later with an audience. So tell us a little bit about what about the case he was discussing, And tell us a little bit more about him discussing a case many years later.
What was he.
What was the nature of this meeting that he had or this talk that he had explaining this case to an audience.
Well, what Todd was explaining to me was he was going to talk about the uh, the psychology involved, the psychology involved, and you know, and and and how what you know, what the what their cycle the indications of their psychopathic tendencies, because in any in any of these conferences, the idea is to try to try to find the idea was to try to show them what these people's, what these individuals personalities were, so that in their own so that when these other police officers are going out
and doing their work and so forth, they can spot it and maybe stop it, you know what I mean? And and and it's I mean, but you see, we go back to this same thing, which is that's all very that's all well and good. Okay, I can spot a psychopathic personality. What the hell does that mean? It doesn't mean anything, unless you find a way to follow the individual. See, that's the problem. These two dudes get
released from the state hospital. Nobody follows them. Now, somebody, if there was some way of checking in, of following because they're not, you know, of checking in or whatever, then maybe you can you can go someplace, you know, because of the fact that we live in a free society. Thank god, we can't just you know, so we can't, you know, just because somebody's got a psychopathic personality. And let's just say for the sake of discussion, it's a
situation where talk is talking to these individuals. He says, Okay, look for this, this, this and this this, you know, and then the next thing, you know, fade out, fade in. A coup sees some dude and he beats the crap out of somebody, and he says, oh, that's a psychopath. Okay, fine, the guy's a psychopath. And now I used to be
charging with assault battery or something like that. Okay, and he and he, But but what happens from that point onward is the individual going to get some sort of therapy? Are they going to put him on medication? What are they gonna do? You see what I'm saying. It doesn't. This is there's an inherent flaw in the in the system here in this country where we're all about punishment.
We're not about prevention. We're about punishment. How do you let's talk about preventing it, guy, Let's talk about preventing it. You know, the best way of my explaining where I'm coming from is to say that Lee Harvey Oswald went to junior high school in the Bronx, New York. And you know what happened. He was taken to the school shrink who said he's a psychle path. But what you know, he acted out in some way. And this is in
Gerald Poe's his book Case Closed. And when I read that, I couldn't believe it because all I said to myself is, wait a second, this guy's a psychopath. What they knew about it, well, they didn't do anything about it. See my point, it's like, what do you do? You know what followed somebody physically? But yeah, go ahead, I'm sorry.
I have a whole problem. I have a whole problem with Robert Hare's whole idea about this psychopathic personality, which means not only were we talking about Jeffrey Dahmer and Ted Bundy and these guys. No, we're talking about your boss, you're talking about yourself. Because it's so generalized to say that somebody doesn't have remorse. All of us don't have remorse all the time, or empathy. We can be self centered, we can be selfish, we can be cruel different times
of our life. What I think is that what you're talking about is the only thing you can get from these people, and getting the very much like I did with with the killer that I profiled in my book, you get a glimpse of how these people really really think. And it's rare to not have that buffered by these people lying to get out eventually, or lying to avoid the death penalty, or very much like Jeremiah did initially
try to put the blame on his partner. But really, when you get this opportunity, and this is an opportunity where you see a list and to see a really good glimpse into the mindset of these psychopathic killers, and that's the difference. There's psychopathic killers, not just psychopaths.
That and the only thing I mean, go ahead, I'm sorry, go ahead, no, go ahead, No, I was just going to say, we need to make a differentiation between a sociopathic personality, which is different from a psychopathic personality. The words are or have been used interchangeably, but they're not. When we talk about sociopaths, we're talking about exactly what you were saying. Individuals you'll see in the course of your daily lives who have no no who don't feel
any guilt, who don't feel empathy. Well, that doesn't mean they're gonna go out and kill somebody. But when you have a psychopathic personality criminal tendency, there's your difference. There's your difference that they'll they'll act out in that respect. Now, I mean, it's it's certainly beyond you know, my uh uh powers to say what you're going to do when you identify these individuals except maybe find a way to track them, et cetera, et cetera. I don't know, you know,
we're talking, that's that's almost talking. You know. Then we're getting again into a into sort of a futuristic kind of thing, you know what I mean, preventing the crime it happened.
Well, like science fiction in Canada believes in that kind of stuff. That sence the science fiction of rehabilitating everyone no matter what, either with drugs or through talk therapy. But my point is that I think what Todd Hand can learn and what you have learned and anybody that reads this book, and a lot of this audience is criminologists and students of law, and some lawyers, but people that are very, very interested.
In the law.
And I think what we can find is that when we have an understanding of this mindset, you got to think the normal police procedure when they encounter a person like this and they're not familiar with these type of personalities, is when you've got a body in the back like Jeffrey Dahmer had, he coolly can deal with the police because he is a psychopathic character that's cool, calm and collect where a police officers trained to deal and sense or recognize when a person is usually lying, usually is
under pressure. So almost everyone ninety nine thousand and you know, I mean ninety nine percent of the people are not going to be feel cool and calm and easily get out of a jam like a body in the back seat. But what we can learn is that when police are initially interviewing guys like this that seemed to be there's no Wow, we don't have any warrant. We don't have any real grounds that we can You could see that behavior for what it is and what it may not be.
And I think that's what the only thing we can learn in terms of prevention. It's like a movie when we recognize that the psychopathic but with criminal tendencies exactly define what criminal tendencies would be. And what would we do if a guy was lighting fires and breaking into homes and.
Beaten up dogs.
I mean, what would we legally be able to do?
You know?
And again when you say that, it's you know, we're talking about a draconian system in a lot of areas anyway. So I think we would be on a very slippery slope of a draconian system if we start right, you know. So I think there's no such thing as prevention. I think the only thing can happen is if, again, with responsible family, when somebody said, listen, I'm fantasizing about killing people, most famili they would know if their son was reading
KKK literature or devil worshiping. I mean, again, you can't really, you know, you can't legislate responsible parenting or anything like that. So I think the only thing you can learn is that when you're talking to these people, despite their good looks, despite their charm, despite they look harmless, they may be the exact opposite of all those three things.
I couldn't say it any better, No wonder, you're a terrific writer.
Now I've read I just I really really love this book. There's so much more for the audience to read in this jam packed action non fiction examination of two very very interesting killers and very very sad backdrop of the families of Justin and Jennifer and all the people that were involved. That these people touch their lives, they're very very again, it's a very extreme example of how innocent some people are that get killed the most undeserving, not that there is any deserving people.
Fred.
What I wanted to ask too, is that what are you working on now? I know we won't any mention, We won't mention anything about a case that people have asked for updates, but we won't be talking about that. But what are you working on right now? And let us know and tell us a little bit more about this reissue that's brought this great book back to everyone's attention. With the reissue, sure.
Well, First, as far as the book is concerned, Flesh Collectors has been republished by Open Road which Open Road Media as a an e book and as well as a print on demand and very affordably priced. I might add it's also going to be an audible book. And they've they've republished a lot of my backlist, meaning a lot of older books that I've done that haven't been
out for a couple of years. At the same time, I'm working on a book about uh being about the murder of President James Garfield, and I'm going I'm going to name the real murderer in the book, and it's not the person that history says murdered him. Ah and I and I got access to certain information and even though it's it's a little bit perhaps, I'm gonna na the murderer. And I've got the help of the president's great great grandson. He's been very helpful helping me with this.
And uh So I'm working on this book and it'll be out some time next year.
Wow, what a scoop. That sounds amazing. So it will be another another good reason to speak to you about that. I mean, that's that's incredible. We've had a few historical crimes that just it's it's amazing the stuff that's une earthed thanks to the Internet. It really helps that spend
that called the library. So yeah, so it's incredible. If people want to find out all the list of the fantastic true crime books you have written so far and and and you would like to maybe even send you a message or note, how would they contact you and find out more about Fred Rosen.
Well, first off, if you if you're interested in in in any of the books that I've written, just go to Amazon dot com A Barnesonnoble dot com in my name Fred Rosen and all the books will come up list of the books. Or you can go to open road I think it's opad dot Openrooadmedia dot com, which is their website, so you can get it from those places. And if you'd like to get in touch with me, that's a pretty easy thing to do. Just go to Facebook to look up Fred Rosen. Then just send me
an email. You know, yeah, I think that's go with email right and just send me I'd love to hear from you.
Great. Well, I want to thank you very much Fred for coming back on and it's always a pleasure, and this book is I just had a fantastic time reading this book. I wish it was maybe three or four times as long so that I could have read it for more than just a couple of days, because the man was a page turner. So thank you very much, Fred for coming on and talking about this very very touching and I know, still very tender. You know, you're
still it's still emotional. I can hear that emotionality in your voice over.
Yeah, well it's Dan, it's it's it's always a pleasure to speak with you because you know so much and you're and you're so smart, and I'm not just you know, kissing your you know what. It's just that you know, when you do enough of this work, you begin to realize there's some people who get it and some don't,
and you really get it. And I think you do a service, uh, for the for the listeners, because you're point them in I'm not talking about myself, but some of the other offices that you've had on like mister Burl Bear and others, you point them in the right direction to individuals who are really committed to writing good stuff. And I thank you for that. Well, I just.
Feel like I'm just privileged to be a part of this true crime community of the fans, the fantastic writers, the people like Burl Bear that do it all basically have a radio show as well, the new generation of stuff that's again Generation Why Sword and Scale Crime Beat, some really good shows, and it's it's a really good community of true crime authors, fans, people that appreciate true crime,
and people that are helping support that whole thing. So I just feel privileged, and I know the audience is very appreciative. I get messages from all over the world talking about enjoying the interviews with the authors and the fantastic stories that therein lie in these books. So I want to thank you very much again, Fred, you have yourself a great evening.
You too, sir, Thank you very much. Good night.
This episode is over, and it means it's time to get your free snacks right delivered right to your door from naturebox dot com with over one hundred options to choose from. Get the bold flavors you crave and feel smarter about snacking. Go to naturebox dot com slash true Murder to start your free sample trial today. That's naturebox dot com. Tom slash True Murder, Good night,