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You are now listening to True Murder, the most shocking killers in true crime history and the authors that have written about them. Geesy Bundy Dahmer, The Nightstalker DTK. Every week another fascinating author talking about the most shocking and infamous killers in true crime history. True Murder with Your Host journalist and author Dan Zufanski.
Good Evening. Fred Rosen is a former columnist for the Arts and Leisures section of the New York Times. He's also one of the most important and successful figures in true crime writing and the author of several true crime classics. He got off to an incredible start with Lobster Boy in nineteen ninety five, Blood Crimes in nineteen ninety six, and Gangmum and The Mad Chopper, both published in nineteen ninety eight. Deacon of Death was published in two thousand,
Needlework in two thousand and one. Both Body Dump and Flesh Collectors were published in two thousand and two, The Historical Atlas of American Crime in two thousand and five. When Satan Wore Across and There But for the Grace of God were both published in two thousand and seven, Deadly Angel in two thousand and nine, and Trails of Death in twenty eleven. Did They Really Do It was
published in twenty fifteen. Born to the Mob and Murdering the President were published in two thousand and sixteen, The Bayou Strangler in two thousand and seventeen, and Bat Masterson in twenty nineteen. We will discuss how he got started in what cases and killers in particular most shaped his remarkable true crime body of work. The episode tonight is Fred Rosen True Crime Retrospective. My special guest journalist and author Fred Rosen. Welcome back to the program, and thank
you very much for this. Fred Rosen.
Oh, Dan, I'm overwhelmed, I really am. I mean, as you were reading off those books, you know it brings back all these memories.
You know, Well, that's good. Yes.
Do you know what's interesting when you look back on a book and you know this, When you look back at a book, you don't remember necessarily yeah, I mean you remember some of the details about the case, depending upon what the case is, but you also remember what was going on personally, you know.
Sure, let's talk about the books in particular. As I mentioned and in the introduction, you got off to incredible start with Lobster Boy. Now, where were you previous to Lobster Boy in your career? And give us the particulars the circumstances in which this book, very important, true crime classic with the wildest and true crime history. Tell us about Lobster Boy, tell us about the genesis of Lobster Boy and your career as a result.
Okay, thank you. I'll tell you what happened. I had actually done another true crime book prior to that, called Doctors from Hell, right, And what happened was and and what happened was I was trying to sell a novel and I got friendly for various reasons, you know, with
this editor. His name is Paul Dennis, who really shaped a lot of true crime at Pinnacle Books, right, and he's and I was standing on the corner of Park Avenue and thirty fourth Street in the middle of Manhattan, ban and he said to me, well, you know what, I don't want to publish your novel, but like you to work on this book called Doctors from Hell. I need a journalist. And I was teaching journalism at the time, okay, at Hastra University, so uh, you know he offered me.
You know, I remember the wind. You know, it was almost like a what do you call it? A spiritual moment. You know. I was thinking, you know, do I do I do this? Because it wasn't something that I was necessarily looking to do. It was an opportunity and I went with it. And then what happened loss the boy. Okay, shortly after I do that book. Oh man, I'm in Florida, Yeah it was. I was. I was on vacation and I saw something in the local paper about a case
involving a lobster boy. And I'm going, uh right, okay and uh and I called and I called up pulled Dennis, the editor, and I said, you know, this is a weird case. He says, it's your next book. So what he says, it's your next book. Okay, it's my next book.
So I start looking into it, and uh, there was there was the What happened, okay, what happened was Brady Styles Junior, who's lobster boy was a circus I'm sorry, carnif Freak, who had ecodactyly which is what caused the feet and the and they hands to fuse and give him what looked like the lobster cause.
Okay, he was.
He was abusive to the family, blah blah blah blah blah. Anyway, loves for short his wife, working with her our son, who is his steps on, Grady's stepson, they harbor a hit man to come into the house and kill him. Well, uh I I uh the the attorney for uh for the wife sent out a video tape and it was it was supposed to be used and heard defense. So what it shows is Lops the boy wrestling with his song Lops the Boys Jr. Okay, right. And I get a copy of it, Dan, I don't know if I
ever talked about this. I don't think I have. And and I get a copy of it, and I, you know, and I listened to it, you know, I play you know, it's this is back in the nineties, so it's it's video. And uh, what you hear in the background is tibbetzy. I think I have to translate that. Huh right, timbosing is a Yiddish term for kidding around. You hear the family kidding around in the background. Okay, fade out, fade in.
I go to the trial. I'm at the trial, and the the the During the trial, the defense attorney shows the tape, except he turns down the sound and it's silent. I didn't know he turned it down. I found that out later. But when you look at it without sound, it looks like the fathers of using the son, Right, So what is what does your buddy do? He walks up to the prosecutor. I walk up to the prosecutor and I said, my copy of the tape has has sound and there's Kimbecy and he said, get me a
copy of it. Send it, Send it. It's evidence in a murder case. Oh my god, you know this this was you know, I'm going, what the hell do I do? Dan? You know, I'm getting involved in a murder case directly. And you know usually journalists don't do those things, and you know we report, we don't get involved. Well, let'll tell you what. So I have to decide. I mean, I got the tape, and you were asking what I was doing at that time. I was still teaching. But
get this. I get the tape. Okay, I'm in and I'm in a hotel room in Tampa and I get a phone call and it's from the school I was teaching at the telling me, I, I'm not getting tenured because my degree is in film, it's not in journalism. I'm not qualified to continue teaching. And I look at the tape and I'm going, okay, I'm not qualified to teach the journalism, but I'm about to break a major murder cake. And I had to decide what to do
with the tape? Did it was? It was one of the most pivotal moments in my life because I knew if I turned it over, she'd get convicted, and I was putting my life at risk. So I didn't know what to do. And I sat in the room, I looked out the window, and I went back to my childhood, and I thought, what would the lone ranger do? Because he was huh And so I said, the lone ranger would turn over the tape and would serve justice regardless
of the consequences. And that's always been the way that that I functioned, you knows, in terms of the way I work. And so that's what happened. I turned the tape over, and sure enough, the yeah, I got, I got, I gotta you know, I got, I got a threat from the family, but thank god, nothing happened.
And were you criticized by them? Were you criticized by the media at all? With your stats?
Oh yeah, well yeah, there were some people that criticized me. Yeah. Yeah. But the funny thing is Dan, as sensational as this sounds, it didn't get very much in the way of national publicity.
Really, I don't know.
Yeah, And now it could be because it was the mid nineties and you know it's different today, obviously, I mean, you know, but no, so, yeah, there was some people that criticized me, but I just, you know, I just rolled with the punches.
The publisher, Pinnacle at the time, must have been pretty happy with the results. And so you get to your next book. In nineteen ninety six, Blood Crimes. Yeah, Brian Freeman and his fifteen year old brother murdered their entire family mother, mother, father, and younger brother. And these are neo Nazi skinheads. Tell us just something that comes to mind with this, your second book, Blood Crimes.
I'll tell you what comes to mind. They were the brothers with Jehovah's witnesses, so they rebelled against the parents by becoming skinheads. It's weird, but they got friendly when they escaped after they did the killing. They went up to Michigan and they with some white supremacist friends. What happens during the trial, which is in Allantown, Pennsylvania. Their white supremacist friend's skinhead friend comes down to testify.
And I'm sitting here and I got to stop myself from laughing so much because what happens is I started talking to him.
You know, I'm a reporter, and you know, of course I'm thinking to myself, Jiefred, it's a little bit weird, a Jewish guy talking to neo Nazi blah blah blah. But I said, you know what, I'm working, and I floked to the guy who says, oh, I need to live to the airport. I drove the neo Nazi to the airport. All it was, it was, and you know it was. It was very interesting because he gave me the information about the brothers.
Yeah, amazing, and and and and.
The other thing that was interesting about that was that because I had lived in Brooklyn Heights section of Brooklyn, a neighborhood in Brooklyn, and that is where the the Uh Jehovah's witnesses are based. That's where they have their world headquarters. So I was very familiar with with.
Witness Okay, let's talk about Gang Mom. This is very interesting case of incredible deception. Was Mary Louise Thompson uh mother of a troubled team. She had been an active become an active painter against team gang activity. What did the neighbors find out about the model mother.
The neighbors found out in it was Eugene Washington that she was running her own, her own street gang. That while she was coming across publicly as an advocate against gangs, she had her own gang. And uh, she running her own gang. And eventually she her son, rather her son. What happens is she winds up, she winds up getting one member of her of the gang to kill a boy, a teenager that's going to testify against her son in a case. And that's why she winds up going to
jail for life, you know. And this is this is the Pacific Northwest. They don't get around with these things, you know what I mean, they're they're they're very you know, it's not someplace you're going to get away with something like that.
What do you remember about the mad Chopper type of Florida?
Oh boy, I'll tell you what I remember about the Mad Chopper, Oh boy. Uh. I had to take two trips. I always go to the scene of the crime always, and so the first trip was down to Florida where he killed a murdered a a prostitute. But then I went out to California because the reason he was called the Mad Chopper it's awful. He shopped, he kidnapped the young girl and chopped though for wrong. Yeah, and I mean it's and he wound up getting, oh, you know,
a lot of years in prison. And I wound up going.
Up to.
I actually went up to northern California to the area where it happened. You know, I went to the scene of the crime, and and I talked to the it was it was and I also was I remember Modesto. Uh, I had to go to Modesto and uh I talked to the police officer there who was the the detective on the case. It was just, it was just but
it was. It was a very very upsetting case because the girl, oh god, you know, she never recovered, you know, I mean, sure she got you know, an artificial are but you know, emotionally forget about.
The interesting thing was she testified that trial though remarkably Yeah she was.
Yeah, I mean, but it but it uh, it was, man, it was the mere fact that the law let and they changed it afterwards, I know they changed it. They let the guy out was ridiculous. I mean it was really really ridiculous. And uh so and when when they did let him out, no community would take them. You know, they had to move him around.
Incredible. Yeah, you have a couple again, sheeps and wolves in sheep's clothing. Pardon me, uh, A couple of remarkable stories involving something that people would not believe if it were not for they would believe it will have hard time believing if it was fictional. This deacon of death church deacon Smithers. This is in Tampa by day, he's the church deacon. But what's he doing at night? And what does it lead to?
Well? I also have a memory on that book too. What happens is what Sam is doing is at night, he leaves his house and he ticks and he picks up girls along one of you know the street that Hillsborough I think it's Hillsboro Avenue where propstitute. She'll do that on a way of work. Blah blah blah. I does stuff like that. But eventually he picks up two girls and he transports them to this house where he's the k taker someplace out in the country, and he murders both of them. Dump him in ah, what do
you call it? Uh? I don't know. A pond a pond right, and dumps in a pond and uh, it was. Oh, and what happened was that both of the women were prostitutes. And what happens is oh, must have been about a
couple of years afterwards. I mean, Facebook is amazing, Dan, sometimes because I started getting what do you call it pms the personal message from from a prostitute who've been working the streets with one of them, and she started telling me about the woman and basically what she's what she's telling me is she's lucky and she didn't wind
up that way. It was. It was really amazing. You know, once in a while those things happened, you know, not very often with some you know where somebody talks to you after the fact, you know, after after the case. But but that was that was very upsetting. And uh, yeah, that was very upsetting. And but you see, you've also mentioned h a lot of those earlier cases took place in Tampa, Florida, in that area at Hillsboro County, because that's where Lobster Boy took place. You know, it was
pretty far south in the county. But it's basically what happened was I formed a relationship with with the you know, with the police officers, and also with the public information officers, so I'd ask them to let me know if they had any interesting cases, and they would.
Talk about interesting case is when Satan wore across. This is nineteen eighty in Toledo, Ohio and again on one of the holiest days of the church calendar. You write the body of an none was discovered in the sacristy of a hospital chapel. Seventy one year old sister Margaret Anne been strangled and stabbed. And here it goes her corpse arranged in a shameful and stomach churning to say the least pose. Police had a suspect, Father Gerald Robinson,
tell us how what happens here? And then what happens twenty three years later in this incredible story, Well.
What happens is what happens is that Robinson is interrogated originally, but the mon senior comes in and gets him out. You know, the church used its influence uh uh uh uh and got him out. And then they moved him around from parish to parish. And funny thing on that case is, as I got into it, uh, there was a cop, former cop who had been at the crime scene and he uh, he had been I don't, I
guess blacklist. He had been blacklisted by the department because he didn't go with their what do you know, their take on the thing, right, so you know, and so and and again oh oh oh oh, I forgot oh one more thing is Colombo used to say, uh, I uh, this is the first time I ever spoke to an exorcist. Wow, Dan, I got on the phone with an exorcist, see, and you know, because they called in an exorcist and to help them figure out what was going on because it
was a satanic inspired crime. And then I and so I got to talk to the exorcist. You know, that was pretty That was pretty interesting.
Yes, no kidding. What was interesting too, is it twenty three years later. Really what we had and what you write about I thought was very interesting was that it was a different time and you know, it's twenty three years later, but the societal shift in attitude was really what facilitated Robinson being convicted because it was a different, completely different time. I you say, the church didn't have the power that it had with the exposing of all the scandals over the years in that interim.
Oh yeah, oh yeah, And that was what was so interesting about it and fact, Oh yeah, I just Robinson died in jail a couple of years ago. Somebody contacted me to let me know about it.
Interesting. You wrote a book called There But for the Grace of God. Well, it's just what that is? Briefly, what do you mean by there but for the Grace of God? When you include well.
It's based on that old expression, oh God, help come me out here. There. Well, There but for the Grace of God is about Oh boy, this is the most emotional book I ever did. No questions, Oh yeah, I mean it. It's this was a book. I interviewed survivors of septs and it was it was, it was. It was a real education exact. One of the survivors, who I'm not going to mention by name, but found a way to make money off of it. But I got to say that, uh what was so how? Oh man,
I'll never forget this. I met the woman who who was in the uh, the woman who put ted Bundy in the chair. It was when Bundy went into the so already how in Florida and Central Florida, And this woman had come in after Bundy had killed two of her sorority sisters upstairs, and she came into the the I was gonna say the ante room, but it would
be the living room. And she said to me she could feel her grandfather's arm on her, stopping her from going further into the room, because if she'd gone further into the room, she would have been close to Bundy and he bya killed her. But she was able to see him and at the stairs in a circle of light, pool of light. Whatever. And what happened was she she later testified against him and put him in the electric chair. But I gotta tell you the emotion. I have never
ever been that close to that kind of evil. I mean, you know, I don't mean to get you know, mystical or anything, but I just have to tell you that the vibe was just I could feel the Bundee vibes and I'm just talking to this woman, you know, luckily, but again lially she's vibed and had a life and so forth and so on. That was just very very emotional.
Tell us how you came to be involved and write Deadly Angel Crying. That occurred in Wassilla, Alaska, a little place about forty two hundred people. She was an exotic dancer at this bush company in nearby Anchorage. Tell us a little bit about what you remember about this.
Well, the thing I gotta tell you about that is that the woman, Okay, this is about an exotic dancer who allegedly lures one of the one of the guys she's living with out into the country in murdersm The thing is, later on this became the first closed case that the closed case squad in that area of and the state police handled. Okay, But she actually was later found her conviction was overturned by the what you called,
you know, the appeals court. So as far as the you know, of course of concern, she's not guilty.
There was no follow up to this. I mean normally even Pinnacle had a sort of a rule, didn't they didn't they have if this is a Pinnacle release, didn't they have a rule to wait till those appeals were exhausted. What was it that was the new evidence brought up later? Was it was circumstances.
It was circumstances. But but also the this wasn't Pinnacle, this was Harpercollin, Okay, and this was different. I have to tell you that that this was a different point in in in my career. It was. All I can say is it was different. Okay, And in terms of appeals, now that you mentioned it, yeah, you got a good point there. Usually wait until everything is is juty caated before you you publish. But this is but this is what happened. But of course it took years. You know that.
The other thing it took you know, it took years. I remember that it was the stripper in the case. She came from joy Z. It's amazing how you remember those things. She came from New Jersey. But it was it was I didn't go now, see that's the case. That's the case where I did not go to I've been to Alaska, but I didn't go to Alaska on that Maybe if I had, you know, I would have realized, you know, the the you know, the the legal problems whatever.
Yeah, you have an experience with a particularly evil serial killer. They are all, I guess a certain amount of evil. But this Hilton, oh, Gary Michael Hilton, Trails of Death. What do you remember about this guy that struck in Florida, Georgia and North Carolina before he was finally caught.
By I gotta just say a couple of things about this First, you know, you always when you you know, except for like podcasts, which of course this is, you don't expect a tape of an interview that well, to stay around. I did an interview in twenty eleven with Yate Line NBC on this case, and they rebroadcasted a week ago last Friday. And the thing about Hilton that was different for me than any other well, yeah, I think it's probably different than certainly any other serial killer case.
But any I think any other case that I've done. Is what happened was I got friendly with one of his childhood friends in Hiah, Florida, not too far from where I live now. So Dan, I went over to Hialiah and his friend took me. Oh man, he took me down the canals they used to go down as kids. He took me to where they they what do he called they played as kids. And when I added it all up, Okay, I see the guy's background. I talked to his friend. I researched his background and found out
that he got through a certain amount of abuse. Okay, and I and he clear, and I sat behind him. Oh man, Dan, I sat behind the guy in court. I mean the only thing between us it was the railing, so I could hear all of his conversations with his attorney and stuff like that. Hilton, and I have to tell you that this was the first time I was in a courtroom where a man was sentenced to death.
I'd never experienced that. And I'll be quite frank and say, when I walked out of that courtroom after that happened, I shed a few tears. And the reason I shed a few tears is because it was pretty obvious from the when the defense argued for the guy's life, how he'd been abused, how he had brain problems for very
you know, he'd had some brain damage. You know, this was actually you know, it was it was very interesting, and so I felt badly, you know, I felt like, you know, I don't know, you know, just the idea, you know. Help. However, look and the guys and then what happened with that one? Here we go Facebook again. Somebody contacts me on Facebook who was a friend of his, who's who's in Florida and goes and sees him every
now and then. So I've said to myself now for a couple of years, she do you want to visit them because I never did an interview and I don't know where I go with it. Dan, You know you know where do you go with it? You visit a convicted serial killer and jail. The books are realt What am I going to write about?
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Yeah, let's talk about flesh collectors. Well, you call it misfit Jeremy Rogers twenty one and racist devil worshiper Jonathan Lawrence twenty three. They met in a Florida Penal System mental hospital. So a relationship made in True crime Heaven. That's nineteen ninety eight in Pensacola, Florida. Layton Smitherman. What happens with these guys? And why what are these guys really all about?
As you write, Well, these guys are they're weird. I mean even for killers, they're weird. One of them seems to be into the devil. But they oh boy, what they do is first they when they go when they fire at Smitherman, and it's it's sort of a random thing. But then eventually they wind up killing the cousin of one of these two killers, right because they and then and that's really the sad part. What happens is one of them goes out a date with a girl, and
it's really sad. He ticks her up at her house and the guy's got tattoos all over his body, but he's all clothed because when he ticks the girl up, the mother is there and the girl is just like I think, I think she was eighteen, she was just about to graduate. And what happens is they take her out into the country. I mean, you know, these two guys. I think this is one of those situations where those
two personalities became very working together, became very deadly. Yeah, and and and uh and so they they one of them shoots her, and then the other one, Oh boy, he uses a knife and he cuts up her calf muscle like he's gonna And then when the when Todd Hand who's the detective, comes into their when he goes to arrest them, and he comes into their trailer, he finds he finds the flesh and the refrigerator. Incredible, incredible,
I mean just incredible, but very evil people. You know, like when we were talking a couple of minutes ago about Gary Hilton, I just I don't, I don't. I wouldn't call Gary evil. Okay, bad maybe, but but these but these two guys, oh man, they're they're they're off the charts and uh, they're just off the charts. And it was very, very upsetting. And of course I went to the uh. I traveled to Pensacoa to well, it's it's across from Pensacola and it's it's the Redneck rivi Era.
That's where I first learned. Yeah, that the that the uh, the uh the coast of Florida, New Mexico, you called the Redneck rivy Era.
Well, yeah, and I can also say go ahead, go ahead for it.
No, I was just gonna say, I just remember that when I covered that case, hurricane hit and a hurricane hit and the tree came down right near me. So I feel very lucky, you know, it got added out one alive.
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the eighteen books that we're featuring today. Did they really do it? Tell us a little bit about the genesis of this book and what you cover in this book. Four cases.
Oh boy, yeah, oh boy. I have a very strong interest, as you know, Dan, in history, American history, and so I was interested in cases in American history where maybe there was some doubt about whether the bad guy did it or not. And I had to pick the cases, okay, And one of the cases that was pretty easy. It was uh uh that what's his name? That the bomber? But the the no no, no, no, no, I'm sorry, uh no, the the uh the the the the the the guy that was allegedly involved with the World Trade
Center bombing. Uh. But the point is, the point is when I was working on the cases, there was one case that really got to me. It was doctor Samuel Mudd. A lot of people don't remember this, but doctor Mud was a doctor in uh Maryland. Who's who what after John Wilkes Boo's shot President Lincoln a scape eight and he he uh and and he wound up coming to MUD's house to get his ankle set. Well, the question was did Mud know Booth before? Did he have any
idea that what what Booth was going to do? So I started doing my research, tim and I find I find that, uh, there was there was a a letter that Jenny Carter, our former president, sent to the grandson of doctor Mudd in the late seventies where he said to him, well, I think he's innocent, but I can't pardon him because it's not federal, it's not thing along bows part. And he actually was correct. He couldn't pardon
because it was the military trial. But the first question, what's the question, why did Jimmy Carter write a letter? Why did you know? Why did he say that?
So?
Uh? What what happens? H? I'll never forget this. I get on the phone and I call up the Carter Center in in Atlanta, and uh and they and they said, I said, I had a question for the president. This is about history. And they said, okay, fax it in. He's in town. I said, he's in town. He's not in planes. They said, no, he's here. I said, okay, So I fax in the question Dan. Well, then five days I go to the mailbox. I opened my mailbox and there's a letter and there's no stamp on it.
And what wait a minute, only presidents have franking privileges. Sure enough in the back, it said Jimmy Carter, I open it up. I opened it up, Stan, I opened it up. Carter took my facts and wrote me a note, and he said, dear Fred, I did what my people told me to do. And I thought to myself, what former president would say, I messed up that way and get back to you so fast. Except Jimmy Carter, you know.
And and because it because he did mess up. And this is important because at doctor Mudde's trial, his slaves testified that Booth had shown up prior to getting his ankle set, so he knew him. He knew him. And mud wound up going to the dry Tortugas, which is down here off the coast of Florida, and he was pardoned because they had a yellow fever epidemic and he helped out. But the fact is he sure as heck knew what was going to go on, and he's sure as heck knew. John Wilke spoof.
Incredible.
So that yeah, and that was what was so interesting about that book in terms of the in terms of the cases, let's go.
To the Bayou Strangler. Ninety seven bodies of young African American men began turning up in the cane fields of New Orleans suburbs. You had direct access to this investigation and Dominique's confession, and you went explored this community here to be able to write this story, The By You Strangler. Tell us just a little tidbit about the By You Strangler.
Okay, this is about a guy named Ronald J. Dominate and he is member for the Killed Totals.
But you're breaking up, Fred, Sorry, can you repeat that again?
He murdered twenty three men and I was taken the investigating officer, a woman to all of the dump stypes where the guy dumped his body. That was something, I mean, it wasn't it really? Oh boy, you know it's it really? You know it really talking to you, what it really comes to is if you're going to write a true
crime book in essential being a detective, you know. And I was taken to the dumbstites, and I'll tell you it was it was very, very emotional, the fact of that he had picked on gay or bi sexual men. And that was what was so interesting was that because he did, the case got very little national publicity. Nobody wanted to publicize it because it you know, at least at that point, they didn't. Maybe it would be different today.
I don't know, but I mean, but so when they finally finally formed their task force to get the guy, it really pushed things, you know, it it got they got things going. But but that was also very I got upsetting. But I got to tell you something. The cops on the case. She took me, she took me out for lunch, and we went to this lunch place and and uh, you know we're right, you know, we're rural Louisiana, right on the Gulf, and there were all these other cops there and and uh, they said, I
wanted to try this. I said, what's that? They said, French frieda alligator. There wasn't a few of My response was going to be, you know, and of course I knew I was being uh, you know tested. Uh, but they did. They This was a case where the cops did a very very they did. They did a great job. They really did a great job, because if they hadn't gotten this guy, he still be out there.
Yeah, and he was, as you're right, he was flying under the radar for years. He's working as a pizza delivery man and a meter reader.
Oh.
He didn't fit anybody's profile, did he didn't.
No, not at all. And I only that what he didn't do what you would have thought a serial killer would do in the bayou, which is dumped the bodies in the bayou. He didn't do that. He dumped them by the side of the road. It was certainly certainly an element of ego involved in this, and uh it Yeah, certainly an element of ego involved in it.
Tell us about I know this is close to home to you. This is more recent books for you, murdering the President. Ooh, James Garfield shot by Charles Guiteau. Tell us about the history books, what they did say and what you found control.
Yeah, what happened was the history books will say that President Garfield dived from a wound by the fellow guito who shot him. And it happens that when I first started writing researching, this is when I did my Atlas of crime. I got a hold of and this goes back to fifteen years sixteen years whatever. I got a hold of a scientific journal in which Alexander Graham Bell writes about inventing the world's first metal detector in eighteen eighty one to find a bullet in the president's body.
And I'm going, oh, that's really interesting, so, you know, so I of course I kept going with the research. But what I did was I ran the doctor his name through uh you know, basically through all the computer databases. And what do I find out? The guy's a con man. The guy claimed to have a cure for cancer. He oh, he was a coward in battle. Most importantly, he claimed that the bullet was on the left side of the
President's body. He claimed its publicly. And so when doctor Bell and thence the world's first medical metal detector and Alexander Graham Bell goes to the White House and with the doctor to to uh uh use the machine on the president. And what happens The doctor won't let Bill.
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Use the the machine on the side of the body where he where he said the bullet isn't because he didn't want to look bad. He didn't want him to find the bullet and then and then and then and then he would look bad. So so the wind up after that is, uh, Garfield is dying from bullet from blood poisoning, and the doctor keeps operating without without uh scrubbing his hands, even though at that point sepsis was
something that was coming into vogue. Well, right, Garfield gets the the the blood poisoning and the doctor and then oh and then the other thing is you boy or boy? This guy decides to give the president of the United States a nutritious enema. I'm cleaning it up and where he's gonna pump stuff up into his rectum that contains vitamins, stuff like that. You know, soup is waying, Yes, soup. He pumps soup into his rectum. It's ridiculous. He thinks he's he thinks that the that the that the body
will absorb it. Basically, he was torturing the president. That's what he was doing. And and the other thing is, you know, this was a book that I felt the personal attachment to because through circumstance I had gotten friendly with with with with the President's great great great grant stud Hank Barfield, and we'd hit it off, and so I felt like a responsibility Dan, because this is my
friend's family. You know, it's amazing, you know some of the things that you wind up working on that you never think you'd work on.
Certainly, tell us about the historical atlas of American crime?
What is the historical What happened was I wanted to write a history book, and in fact, I just got the rights back to the book. I just have to find somebody to publish it. And I decided to take
a different look at crime in America. I decided to look at crime in America from the point of view of how crime spread across the continent the United States did, and what influenced crime, such as technology, medicine, communications and I and I dealt with all of those things in this book in terms of how they influenced certain crimes.
Let's talk about needle work.
Ooh, needle work, oh boy? Yeah? What uh? Aside from the fact that the plane that I was supposed to take from from Uh, I was supposed to take this plane. Oh, I'll just say it, Okay, A plane I was supposed to take from Newark Airport was the Lake because the weather dn And I'm walking through the I'm walking through the airport because I'm I'm going to get on a plane to Michigan. I'm walking through the airport and who do I Who do I see in front of me?
Uh?
Oh? God? What's his name? He played Captain Captain Cisco on Star Trek the Next Generation? What's his name? Well? Anyway, well, anyway, what happens is what happens is I want to walk up to the guy and say, she, can you be us out of here? But I luckily I didn't because he had a really scowl on his face. So anyway, Uh, I went. I wound up the next day going to Michigan. And actually I think, yeah, that was I think that
was the first time I went to Michigan. And that was an interesting one because it's about Ah, it's about this couple and it's actually it's actually about it. What do you call it? A triangle? It's a romantic triangle.
This woman is married to a drug dealer. He sets up shot down the block from the police officer police department, and because he figures nobody will know it's him, and his wife gets involved with a guy and eventually what happens is they working together give the husband a hot shot of heroine, which kills him instead of he was
a diabetic, instead of giving him the insulince. And then there's a woman who's a friend of hers and she learns about some of this stuff and they wind up killing her, and then they and then they've got to then transport her body to another part of Michigan and
burn it and you know, stuff like that. So that was a very that was in some ways that was almost a straightforward case in the sense that the police were very helpful, both the two police departments, but the the In fact, I think I recently, yeah, I recently got contacted. I tried following through one more time on Facebook. The woman that went to jail had two kids and one of those kids is now an adult and contacted me through Faithful and I was trying to follow up and nothing's happened yet.
Wow. Yeah, that's amazing, amazing the contact you do get after these books. And even if it is years later, these books still get people's attention in order for people like this to come forward.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Let's talk about body Dump October nineteen ninety six. Say, women began vanishing off the streets of Poughkeepsie, New York, all young, pretty and petite, but most were hustlers and crackheads. You say, unfortunately. Yeah, the death toll was eight victims. What do you remember about body Dump?
What I remember about body Dump is the fact that this case took place near where I was living. I was living in Woodstock, New York. This was across the river in Poughkeepsie, and so I was actually able to go. It was It was a very easy It was very easy in terms of investigating. I didn't have to get in the plane, but I went. I became friendly with one of the detectives. Again, this is a serial killer, Kendle Francois, and he would kill these women and bury
him in his hand. Else not very store them, excuse me, store them.
Yeah.
And I was in the courtroom when he was sentenced. And New York does not have the death penalty, so you know, they did for five minutes, but then they got rid of it. Well. I listened to the victims families delivered victim impact statements. It was very very emotional, very very very emotional. I remember that vividly. And then I remember looking at Francois. I wasn't I certainly was not as close to him as I was the Hilton, But the vibes were completely different. I mean, France Woaugh
gave off vibes, you know, Gary didn't do that. This guy gave up bad vibes and it, you know. And I went down the streets where he picked the women up. I think I talked to at least one of the prostitutes. It was, it was, it was, It was pretty. It was pretty upsetting.
Absolutely. Yeah. It reminds me of the case in Cleveland where that person. Again, it's incredible to think that people could keep rotting bodies, not like Gacy in a basement where some of the smell would be contained, but rotting bodies in the home. Pilot eyes well, and.
In the case of Kendall Francois, he lived with his sister and his parents, and they they all claimed they didn't smell anything because the place was very dirty. You know, I'm not going to get started but but it was just you know, and I remember looking at the house, photographing the house. I think at one point it was I don't think I'm trying to remember if I got
in now, I don't think I did. They sold it eventually. Uh. In New York to have a law that you got to tell people, you know, for place, for murder took place, you got to tell them. But anyway, uh, yeah, and it was just a very what do you call it, very average, ordinary, h middle class neighborhood. You wouldn't have thought of anything out of the blue, you know, out of the ordinary.
Rather, yeah, you took a little bit, uh, a little bit of a detour and true crime for people. Most people would stick to the same serial killers and those types of killers. But you wrote a book. I guess it was. This was co author too, Born to the Mob. Tell us a little bit about Born to the Mob. About co author this.
Book, Oh boy, that the only reason that book happened was because I had an agent at the time that put me in touch with a guy who had contacted her wanted to write write a book named Frankie Sashio. He he had been a member of the Bananas and he was actually a member of all the crime families because he was an earner, and so I got together with him. Oh boy, that was that was a very tough book because I made the mistake, mistake of trusting him, and that was a big mistake. Once in the mob,
always in the mob. You know, that's what their their their values are and so you know, I wrote the book with them. But uh, I got to tell you I would never ever, well, I shouldn't say never. Sean Connery did that once. It didn't quite work out. But uh, I wouldn't go looking for another Mob book. It doesn't interest me one way or the other. I'm not interested. I know too much about it, you know, I think I think that's part of it. I think when you're writing,
you want to learn something. You know. I don't need to. I don't need to know the intricacies of the mob families. I know all about that. I'm more interested in the other stuff. You know, what if people do what they do, who are they? That sort of thing.
Yeah, let's talk about something that you was close to your heart. You had thought about it and conceived of it long ago, and this was a subject that you wanted to write about and you finally did in twenty nineteen, Bat Masterson tell us a little bit about Matt Masterson. Why this story, this book is so important to you.
Thank you, Dan oh Well, this book is so important to me because I wanted to write a book about this guy for forty years, and it's taken me a long time to put it together. Why it's percolated for so long? And I realized what it is? Which is it? I started out watching the TV series Votam called Bat Masterson, starring Jane Barrett. But then I did my research and I found out he came to New York at the turn of the century. I found this out in the seventies.
He came to New York in the nineteen hundreds and became a reporter for a local paper. Well, but then I found something else out. I found two things out. First was Masterson was involved in the most sensational murder case in New York state history, which became the basis for the Trial of the Century, involving a guy who allegedly what he called drowns his fiancee because he doesn't
want to marry her. Well, that became the basis for Dreiser's novel and American tragedy, and at the film A Place in the Sun. Sorry Montgomery Cliff, Elizabeth Taylor, and Shelley Winters. But in every single, every single iteration, what they got wrong was that bat Masterson covered the case
and salted for this newspaper. I mean, he knew what happened, okay, and he actually was very upset when Chester the election murderer was convicted and he felt and he wrote an article about it with a headline news style Inchlaine, upstate New York. And when I found that out, and and just and then really just in the last couple of years, I became the only one to find out that Master was an illegal alien. It had been reported for a long time he was born in Much in Quebec Province,
but nobody ever reported he was illegal. And originally when it came to America, the borders were open, but then they changed it. That's one of the things I learned, and so I said, I have to write this book now because of what my country is going through. And what was really educational was with all of the criticism being leveled at the current American president regarding his way of treating immigrants, it turns out there's nothing new under
the song. This has been going on since Miller Fillmore was president, going back into the middle eighteen hundreds, there's always been problems. But I felt like I had a responsibility as an American to tell Masterson's story now because he's considered to be an American legend. Yeah, and also I'm friends with you, so I wanted to tell you, Hey, this guy's a great Canadian.
Now. So what I wrote in go ahead, Sorry.
No, no, So that that's it. So I wanted to write it, and I finally was able to get it to do it. And and there's seven murders in the in the book, the seven murders seven different mercs, which is pretty cool.
Absolutely. Now, what I mentioned in the introduction was that we were going to discuss how you got started, and we did talk about that, but what cases in particular, and cases and killers included with those cases most shaped your remarkable true crime body of work, which talk about just briefly about some of the cases that that really were pivotal in your writing career, either changing or reinforcing or moving your career ahead.
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Wow, that's a hell of a question. Well, certainly, certainly the first one is going to be would be Lobster Boy way, oh and flesh Collectors. When I wrote Flash Collectors, I didn't mention this I had. I told the the the the d A on the case. I said, I don't know if I can write another true crime book because of the way that they killed this young girl. And I had at that point, you know, at that point my daughter was she was young, but not that young.
But the point is I had some ident identification, you know.
What I mean.
And so so I I said, I don't think I can write another two crimebooks, and and and the the The prosecutor says to me, Fred, I hope, I hope you changed your mind. I said, why, And that's when he said to me, Fred, we speak for the dead. That changed. That changed me.
Mm hmm.
That that that really changed me. It gave me an impetus. I mean, right now, for instance, you know, right now, I mean, I'm investigating Natalie Wood's death. But the reason I'm doing it is because I don't know anybody else is doing it. She deserves justice as much as anybody else. So that's that certainly had a lot to do with it. I will also say that when I wrote the Atlas of Crime, the it got me into writing about history.
And I think, yeah, I didn't realize at that point because everything I had done, was I've written to that point, was current cases, and I for some reason I hadn't thought about historical true crime. And that turned me around, you know, and got me looking at historical true crime. But you know, I mean, you know, and it's so interesting, you know, and and and and bought you know, what bothers me? What bothers me is like when it always bothers me, when somebody is convicted of a murder and
they didn't do it. And that's that's where, you know, did they really do it? The idea came about for that, but you know, I look, I didn't even look until a couple of years ago. I didn't know is a song called hang Down your Head Tom Dooley, right, folks swung by the Kingston Trio. Well, I had no idea Tom Dooley was a real guy, and it's real and well that's the way they pronounced it, but it spelled
it differently. But that's not the point. The point is, you know, I look at it and and I you know, when I start reading about these cases, I go, gee, nobody ever said this, you know. And it goes back to what we were talking about before, which is, after a while, you know, well, you know, it's like when the legend it's like they say in The Men who Shot Liberty Valance, when the legend becomes back Frank, the legend.
Yeah. Yeah, we talked about you mentioned an early influence in your writing, and I'm curious as well as like I'm sure the audience is curious, how much of a role or what was the role of this lawrence, this editor that you talked about in other edits editors at Pinnacle and HarperCollins in sort of being able to capture your true voice and also just I guess urge you to or the end product to be very very concise, a very very enjoyable. I can say, easy read, but
a read where you're wanting more at the end. Well, tell us about the shape this some of the shaping of the of the style of the books.
Well, actually, actually that goes way back. It goes back before I became a true crime author. That goes back to film school. I learned how to write in film school. That was the first place where I found out in my early twenties that I was a writer. Up to that point, I thought everybody could write, right, I didn't know.
I'd had no teachers who encouraged me. But when I got to graduate school and I was a USC, I was taught to write film, and so I took, even though film, of course is different than than than than a print, the same techniques of move the move the story along. I'm a story's gotta move, you know. I learned that. Also, I'll tell you I learned a lot of that, you know, in terms of h how to write from people that I read. Now, I'll tell you who I learned the most from, probably sirroth Conan Doyle.
Sir Rothur Connan Doyle and you know, an incredible writer. And then then later on Raymond Chandler. I read all of these mystery novelists, and you know, and I thought I was going to do something. I thought I was going to do fiction. But then I got the opportunity to do nonfiction and in true crime, and I took to it, you know, like you know whatever, and it did. Really it's been good. You know. Of course things have changed, you know, like Paul Dennis, who I mentioned earlier, was
a terrific editor. But that's it. As far as any other editors, no, there's nobody. I will tell you one thing, uh, quick, quick story. I have become friends with a writer named Alison Adams. Why well, at a certain point, I her fault. Well, at a certain point, I started investigating her father's suspicious debt. Who's a father? Nick Adams. Nick Adams was one of my childhood heroes. He played Johnny Yuma, the Rebel on ABC TV, and he died from an apparent drug overdose.
And I started watching the old his old show, The Old Shows, and it turned out that in the show, the character of Johnny Yuma is a writer. And I started thinking to myself, she could not have influenced me, you know, and I felt again and I felt an obligation to help out Alison, which I did, and and in fact, she wants to do I think you may have talked to word at some point. She wants to do a podcast. And but so he Nick was certainly
an early influence. And we mean early in terms of writing, but but really in terms of structure and stuff like that. I learned a lot at school, you know, I learned a lot at school. And but when it comes time to you know, it's from Conan Doyle that you find out, you know, you got to talk to people when you're doing this work. You know, you got to talk to people and and put it together and use logic, you know, and and so forth.
Yeah, what is uh down the pipe for you? What? What are you working on now? Or what do you hope to work on? What is the subject matter that you may want to work on? What is next for Fred Rosen?
Oh boy, you ever get tired of it? Asking me difficult questions. Uh no, it's a good question, all right. I want to do There's a murder case that somebody told me about out in Louisiana. The problem is that they got one guy, but there's probably the other guys that did it, and there's a really good there's a possibility that some of the officials in the parish are involved.
So that, you know, I try, Dan, I try to stay out of dangerous situations, you know what I mean, when somebody wants you know, you know, if somebody wants to hide something. Now, that's one thing I'm definitely just as we're talking, you know, I'm going to keep going with Natalie Wood and see what I can find out. I don't have any any any you know, I don't have any place. I'm going with it because it's that's
that's an incredit. How the heck do you prove that a woman would shoved into the water by her husband when she's got when when they when the autopsy show she's got bruises all over her body? How do you do it? You can't, you know you can't. So but I'm going to keep I just saw I'm going to keep investigating. And the other thing I'm going to do. Is I I want to do a I've been thinking about this. I keep going you know, it's I think it's I keep going back to my childhood. But there
must be a reason. And when I was a kid, there was a mini series that Disney did. Disney pioneered a mini series, by the way, you know, Davy Crockett was a mini series.
Sure, but he did.
A miniseries in the ooh late fifties early sixties called The Nine Lives of al Fago Baca. Al Fagobaca was a Mexican American lawman, a legend, and I just think that would be a very very good true crime book because one of the things I discovered was that one of the cases Baca worked on in the eighteen nineties,
he used forensics to solve the case. Yeah, you know, but also you know these days, you know, I don't I don't want to get political, but I think it's I think it's relevant that in this Mexican American woman both boy, they discriminated, they discriminated against him, they tried to tried to kill him, you know. Yeah, So I would like to do something on him.
Sure, America might be ready for it. Fred. I want to thank you so much for coming on and talking about all of the books that you've written, and we've missed a couple that you've co authored, and you have some crime files, and could we could go on some more about other things that you've written. But these are the major eighteen works, your body of work, These eighteen books that I urge people to go to. These serial killers. As we know now it's the age of spree killers
and one off killers and those kinds of killers. So these books in a sense in essence become true crime classics because of the killers, because of the investigations, because of the forensic limitations at those times enabling these serial killers to go on and on and on. I want to thank you very much, Fred for coming on talking.
About and I want to thank you so much for this retrospective. I don't have words. Thank you, sir, Thank.
You so much. Is there can people refer to Amazon page? But do you have a website in case people might want to contact you? Tell us how people might contact you or look at other.
Work fredrosendot Net.
There you go.
That's it. Just either go to Amazon or of course Facebook or fredrosendot Net.
You're all over the place. Yes, thank you so much. Fred.
All Right, thank you Dan, thank.
You so much Fred. Talk to you against good night okay.