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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. Gazy Bundy, Dahmer, The Nightstalker DTK. Every week another fascinating author talking about the most shocking and infamous killers in true crime history. True Murdered with your Host journalist and author Dan Zupanski.
Good Evening. Fred Rosen is a former columnist for the Arts and Leisure section of the New York Times. He is 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, 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 and fifteen. Born to the Mob and Murdering the President were published in two thousand and sixteen, The Bayou Strangler in two and seventeen, and Bat Masterson in twenty and 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 am, 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 an 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 cover in 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 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 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 I'd like you to work on this book called Doctors from Hell. I need a journal list and I 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 Grady Styles Junior, who's Lobster Boy was a circus I'm sorry, Carnifreak, who had ectodactyle, 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 her son who is his steps on, Grady's step son, they harbor a hit man to come into the house and kill him. Well, uh, I uh. The the the attorney for uh for the wife sent out a video and it was it was supposed to be used and heard defense and where it shows is Lops the Boy wrestling with his song and Lops the Boy Junior. 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, our 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 tibbetsy. I think I have to translate that. Huh, right, tibbotsy 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 uh, the the the during the trial, they the defense attorney shows the tank, 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 abusing his son. Right, So what what is? What does your buddy do? He walks up to the prosecutor. I walk up to the prosecutor.
I said, my copy of the tape has has sound and there's kibbe say 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, I'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 mean, and I'm in a hotel room in Campa and I get a phone call and it's from the school I was teaching at there telling me I don't I'm not getting tenure because my degree is in film, it's not journalism. I'm not qualified to continue teaching. And I look at the tape and I'm going, okay, I'm not qualified to teacher 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 I functioned, you know, 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 hi, I just you know, I just rolled with the punctures.
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. Oh 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 uh, 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, you know, 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, gie Fred, it's a little bit weird. A Jewish guy talking to neo nasty blah blah blah, but I said, you know what, I'm working, and I talked to the guy who says, oh,
I need to live to the airport. I drove the neo Nazi to the airport and 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 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 UH the Uh Jehovah's witnesses are based. That's
where they have their world headquarters. So I was very familiar with with witnesses.
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 campaigner against team gang activity. What did the 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 cross publicly as an advocate against gangs, she had her own gang. And Uh, she running her own gang and eventually, uh uh, 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 tape of Florida?
Oh, 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 is it's awful he shopped, he kidnapped the young girl and chopped over warm. 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 detective on the case. It was just,
it was just 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 it, you know, an artificial arm, but you know, emotionally, forget about it.
The interesting thing was she testified that trial though remarkably. Yeah, she was able.
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 that 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. Did you have a couple again, sheeps and wolves in sheep's clothing? Pardon me, A couple of remarkable stories involving something that people would not believe if it were not for they would believe it, will have a hard time believing if it was fictional. This deacon of Death church, deacon Smithers. This is in Tampa. Yeah, by day he's the church deacon. But what's he doing at night? And what does believe 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 picks and he picks up girls along one you know the street that Hillsborough I think it's Hillsboro Avenue where we're prostitute. 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 caretaker, someplace out of the country, and he murders both of them and dumps him and ah, what do you call it? Uh, I don't know. A pond a pond right, and dumpson in a pond and uh it was Oh, and what happened was that both of the women were prostitutes. And what happens is all 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 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 you know, where somebody told after the fact, you know, after the case. But that was that was very upsetting. And yeah, that was very upsetting. And but you see, you Wilson mentioned a lot of those earlier cases took place in Tampa, Florida, in that area Hillsburg County, because that's where Lobster Boys took place, even though 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 you to let me know if they had any interesting cases, and they would.
Talk about interesting cases. 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 a 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 monor comes in and gets him out. You know, the church used its influence 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 you know, their take on the thing. Right, so you know so and and oh oh oh oh, I forgot one more thing is Colombo used to say, Uh, I Uh, this is the first time I ever spoke to an exorcist. Well, Dan, I got on the phone with an exorcist, 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. Uh, 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. 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. In fact, Oh yeah, 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. Oh it's just what that is. Briefly, what do you mean by there but for the grace of God. What do you include?
Well, it's based on that old expression, oh God, help help me out here. Well there, but for the grace of God is about Oh boy, this is the most emotional book I ever did. Questions, Oh yeah, I mean it. This was a book. I interviewed survivors of sections and it was, it was, it was. It was a real education. In fact, 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've got to say that what was so hot? 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 sorority house in Florida, uh 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's 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 might have 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 lectric chair. But I gotta
tell you the emotion. I have never ever been that close to that kind of evil. I mean, I I 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 bundye vibes and I'm just talking to this woman, you know, luck. But again locally 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 Clime That occurred in Wasscilla, Alaska, a little place about forty two hundred people. She was an exotic dancer at this bush company in nearby Anchorage. Well, so it's 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 murderism. The thing is, later on this became the first closed case that the closed case squad in that area of 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 there a 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 juticated before you you publish. But this is but this is what happened. But of course it took years. You know. That's 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 you know, the the legal problems whatever.
Yeah, you have an experience with a particularly evil serial killer. They all, I guess 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 willways 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 from me than any other well, yeah, I think it 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 ends in Highah, 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'd got through a certain amount of abuse. Okay, and I and he 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 rail 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 in Florida and goes and sees him every now and then. So I've said to myself now for a couple of years, 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, right, you know where do you go with it? You visit a convicted serial killer and jail. The books will realit what am I going to write about? Now?
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You know sure, I don't know.
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 right, 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 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, it's it's it's sort of a random thing. But then eventually they wind up killing the cousin. 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 at day with a girl and it
really said he ticks her up in her house. And the guy's got tattoos all over his body, but he's a little clothed because when he picks 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 so 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 I just I don't, I don't. I wouldn't call Gary evil. Okay, bad maybe, but but there's 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 that the that the the UH the coast of Florida, New Mexico. You call it the Redneck rivy Era.
Wow.
Yeah, and that's just go ahead, go ahead, fred No, I'm just gonna say, I just remember that when I covered that case, a hurricane hit, and uh, a hurricane hit and the tree came down right near me. So I feel very lucky, you know that it got added out one alive.
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your first box at www dot fabfitfund dot com. Now, Fred, we were talking, were about to talk about one of the books that you in 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 food cases?
Oh boy, yeah, oh boy. I I have a I have a very strong interest, as you know, Dan, in history, American history, and uh 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 the what's his name? 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 Booths shot President Lincoln escapes 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 thought that were my research tan and I find I find that there was. There was a letter that Jimmy 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 them because it's not federal if something along rose part And he actually was correct. He
couldn't pardon because it was a military trial. But right, the first question, what's the question, why did Jimmy Carter write a letter? Why did you know? Why did he say that. So what happens. 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 faxed in the question. Dan. Wellin 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 opened it up. I opened it up, Dan, 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 and because it's because he did mess up. And this is important because at doctor Mudd's trial, his slaves testified that Booth had shown up prior to getting
his ankle set so he knew him. He knew him, and and and mud wound up going to the dry Tortugas which is down here off the coast of Florida, and he was pardoned because that had a yellow fever epidemic and he helped out. But the fact is he sure as heck knew what was gonna go on, and he's sure as heck knew. John Wilkes Booth.
Incredible.
So that yeah, and that that was what was so interesting about that book. In terms of the in terms.
Of the cases, let's go to the Bay You 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 and 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. Dominie and he is member remember 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, Uh, to to all of the dump sites 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 and I was taken to the dump sites, 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 got they got things going. But that was also very I got upsetting. But I got to tell you something. The cop on the case, she took me, she took me out for lunch and we went to this lunch place 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 they said I wanted to try this. I said, what's that? They said, French fright alligator.
If there wasn't a few of My response was gonna 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 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 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. He It was certainly, certainly an element of ego involved in this. And 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 contra.
Yeah, what happened was the history books will say that President Garfield dived from a wound by this fellow Gutou who shot him. And it happens that when I first started writing researching, this is when I did my antlas of crime. I got a hold of this goes back to fifteen years sixteen years. What ever, I got 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 the bullet in the president's body. And 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's name through for you know, basically for all the computer databases. And why do I find out the guy's a convent. 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. Claimed
this publicly. And so when doctor Bell and then it's the world's first medical metal detector and Alexander Graham Bell goes to the White House and and with the doctor too to uh uh use the machine on the president. And what happens. The doctor won't let Bell 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 a 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 the 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 blood poisoning and the doctor and then oh and then the other thing is you boy, oh 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 uh vitamins, stuff like that. You know, soup is waving, 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 Grandstont Tank Garfield. Mm hmmm, and we we've 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, 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 as the United States did, and what influenced crime, such as technology, medicine, communications, 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 what needlework? Oh boy? What 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 dan and I'm walking through the I'm walking through the airport and because I'm like, 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 mission again, 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 a it's about this couple and it's actually it's actually about a 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 insulin.
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 uh 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 the In fact, I think
I recently, yeah, I recently got contacted. I tried following through one more time on Facebook. One the woman that went to jail had two kids and one of those kids is now an adult. In contacted me through Faithful and I was trying to follow up that 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. You 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 intough Gypsie, and so I was acting 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 uh, I went. I became friendly with one of the detectives. Again, this is a serial killer, Kendall Francois, and he would kill these
women and bury him in his house. Not very uh 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 uh, 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, Francois gave
off bad 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 being 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 house.
Well, and in the case of Kendo Francois, he lived with his sister and his parents, and none of them they all claimed they didn't smell anything because the place was very dirty. You know, I'm not going to get started, 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 one. Now I don't think I did.
They sold it eventually. In New York they 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, uh, 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, 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 uh co author this book?
Oh boy? That 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's Satio. He would he had been a member of the Bananas and he he 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 him. But uh, I gotta 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. 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 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. Matt 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 this I started out watching the TV series Abottom called bat Masters and 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 his fiancee because he doesn't want to marry her. Well, that became the basis for Dreiser's novel And American Tragedy, and later
the film A Place on the Stunt. 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, and then he knew what happened, okay, And he actually was very upset when Chess that you let the elegen murder was convicted and he felt and he wrote an article about it with a headline news style lechlaw in 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 Masterson 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 well, also, I'm friends with you, so I wanted to tell you eight this guy's a great Canadian.
Now, so what I wrote, 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 there's seven murders in the in the book, seven different mercis, 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 really were pivotal in your writing career, either changing or reinforcing or moving your career ahead.
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Well, that's the hell of a question. Well, certainly, certainly the first one is going to be would be Lobster Boy. Lobster Boy, Oh, and Flesh Collectors. When I wrote Flesh Collectors, I didn't mention this. I had I totally the the the DA 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 had that. You know, at that point my daughter
was she was young, but not that young. But the point is I had some id identification, you know what I mean, And so so I I said, I don't think I can write another two combooks, and 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, That that that really changed me. You gave me an impetus. I mean right now, for instance, you know, right now, I mean
investigating Natalie Woods's death. But the reason I'm doing it is because I don't know anybody else is fail here. She deserves justice as much as anybody else. So that that's that certainly had a lot uh 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 will, I will. I didn't even
look until a couple of years ago. I didn't know. There's a song called hang down your Head Tom Dooley, right, folks swung by the Kingston Trito. Well, I had no idea Tom Dooley was a real guy. Yeah, And well that's the way they pronounced it, but it spelled it differently. But that's not the point. The point is, yeah, 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, oh, you know, it's like when the legend it's like they say, and the men who shot Liberty balance when the legend becomes back, drank the legend.
Yeah. Yeah, we talked about you mentioned an early influence in your writing, and I'm curious as well, 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 editors, 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. Tell us about the shape this some of the shaping 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 teacher. She encouraged me. But when I got to graduate school and I was at USC, I was taught to write film, and so I took even though film, of course is different than than than than a print, I the same techniques of move the move the story along. I'm a story's gotta move, you know. When I learned that also, I'll tell you I learned a lot of that, you know, the in terms of uh how to write, uh from people that I read. I'll tell you who I learned the most from, probably
Sir Roth Connan Doyle. Ah, Sir Routhur Connan Doyle and uh, 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 gonna I thought I was gonna do fiction. But then I got the opportunity to do nonfiction and in true crime, and I took to it, you know, I 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 the 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 Humer 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 thought the 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 put it together and use logic, you know, and and so forth.
Yeah, what is 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 me asking me difficult questions? Uh, 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, Uh, that's one thing. I'm definitely just as we're talking, you know, I'm gonna keep going with Natalie would 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 incredible. 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 looses all over her body? How you do it? You can't, you know, you can't. So but I'm gonna 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 mini series, by the way, you know, Davey Krockett was a mini series, sure, but he did a miniseries in the ooh late fifties early sixties called The Nine Lives of El Fago Baca. Alfagobaca was a Mexican American lawman, a legend, and I just think that would be a very very good true crime book because I wanted things I discovered with that are 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, oh boy, they discriminated, they discriminated against him, They tried to tried to kill him, you know, yeah, it so I would like to do something on him.
Sure America might be ready for it. Yeah, yeah, Fred, I want to 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 we 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 Dan.
I want to thank you so much for this retrospective. I don't have words, thank you, sir, Thank.
You so much. Is there 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 fred Rose.
And.
There we go.
That's it. Just either go to Amazon or of course Facebook or fred rosendot net.
We're all over the place. Yes, thank you so much, Fred.
All right, thank you Dan, Thank you so much.
Fred. Here suck to you again to say goodnight.
Okay, idio.
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