GITCHIE GIRL-Phil Hamman

with code program for a special offer. That's Stamps dot Com Code Program.

host journalist and author Dan Zupanski. Good evening, the sound of snagging, snapping twigs closed in on the five teenagers enjoying an evening around the blowing campfire at Gitchee Manitou State Park. The night of music and laughter had taken a dark turn. Evil loomed just beyond the tree line, and before the night was over, one of the Midwest's most horrific mass murders had left its blood stained spewed across the campsite. One managed to survive and would come

to be known as the Gitchee Girl. Harrowing memories of the testifying crime sent her spiraling out of control, and she grasps at every avenue to rebuild her life. Can one man, a rescue dog, and a glimmer of faith salvage a broken soul? This true story will touch your heart and leave you cheering that a good can prevail

over the depravity of mankind. Through extensive extensive research, interviews, and personal insight, the authors bring a riveting look at the heinous crime that shook the Midwest in the early nineteen seventies. Written from rare inside interviews with the lone survivor who broke really nearly four decades of silence, this

shocking yet moving story will not soon be forgotten. The book that we're featuring this evening is The Getchy Girl, the survivor's inside story of the mass murders that shock the Heartland, with my special guest, journalist and author Phil Hamman. Welcome to the program, and thank you for a green this interview. Phil Hamman.

And Getchi Manitu. In fact, when I was a kid growing up, I'm from Sioux Falls, South Dakota, I always thought Getchi Manitude, you know, with the whole park was in the state of Iowa. But I found out during the research for this book that a small portion of it does lie in South Dakota. So that's how close it is.

beautiful park. But you know, now it's got such a sinister background that you know, it's it's got a very uh, you know, you know, heinous reputation.

to the hospital. They had an inexperienced driver when her mother went into labor, and Sam made her arrival in the back seat of a car. It's kind of an interesting story. In fact, after the book came out, we didn't know this, but one of a lady contacted her and said, Sandra, I was actually in the back seat I delivered you. I was a young girl. My mother was the driver, and when we got to the to the rural hospital, you'd already been born. I wrapped you

in a towel and took you in. By the time we got back home, you know, you know what the seats probably looked like after giving birth back there, they were bloody. They took the seat out of the back seat of the car. They set it up against a barn, and a nosy neighbor thought somebody had been murdered, so they called the sheriffs who came and investigated and Sandra. So Sandra made her arrival in the backseat of a car,

and so some other things that happened to her. Dan there was a man in her mom's life that didn't really want the kids around. She was shipped off to a foster family, had real bad experience there. Then when she did come home, she was shipped off to a mission, a Native American boarding school. And back in those it was a pretty harsh environment, uh, you know, and she was considered too white by a lot of the Native American kids, so she was discriminated against and bullied, and

so she had she had a pretty hard life. And you know, and then of course to get umanitu incident takes place in her life. So this girl has had to overcome a lot.

always had a good relationship with her mother. Speaks highly of her mother, and you know, there's just circumstances of life, you know, dan as you know how it can go.

So just tell us where she's at in terms of sort of relationships with other people and sort of what kind of time is it in her life that summer.

You know, she had a lot of friends. She was very outgoing, very bubbly, very happy. She hung out with her brothers who were older. Some of her friends were a few years older when Sandra. This incident that gets you took place when Sandra was thirteen. Now I've known this girl personally since we've been teenagers. You know, she was a very beautiful young lady. She didn't look like

she was thirteen. She was thirteen, looking like she was seventeen, but she was still thirteen at the time this took place.

was three years older than her. Sandra's looking like she's seventeen. She happens to run into Roger Wresseam, who is seventeen, who went to sux Falls, Washington High School, same high school that I attended, And they just happened to running into each other at the concession stand of the drive in movie theater. They spark up a conversation, they kind of hit it off. Roger gets her phone number and he calls her up and they start dating. Sandra never

did tell him her real age. She kind of just kind of avoided that topic and just said that she went to Harrisburg High School, which was outside of the city of Soux Falls. And you know, that plays itself out in the book. We talk about that a little more.

very innocent relationship. You know, they kissed, held hands. It was it was a typical first love kind of a situation for Sandracewski.

was generally always with him because he drove. Stuart had a van and Roger didn't, you know, so there was always it was kind of like dates with two three four people all the time. They were always off doing something with a group. Was that kind of a thing, Dan, And so, yeah, her mom and again that night. You know, people will ask, what's the thirteen year old girl doing now with those boys. Well, it was nine o'clock. Her

mom was working when they headed out there. You know, of course, she had a little more liberal freedoms than some girls her age because her mom was gone working late at night. You know, her brothers were you know, older, and so of course she went off with their boyfriend for a date. That night, they went out to get you Manitud State Park with a group of friends and they were going to build a fire and hang out. Two of the boys were aspires. They brought a guitar along.

They were going to play and sing and you know, hang out for a few hours. It was get you Manitud was a very popular hangout for teenagers. They'd go there and build a fire and hang out.

back cack or they were down in a basement. A couple of these old boys did have one did have some marijuana, and I'm assuming it might be one of the aspiring musicians, you know. And again you know, they had a marijuana joint and so but they had no alcohol.

When they went over there, they found the fire. There was still hot coals in the fire, and so they you know, they just assumed that maybe somebody was just there or going to come back, and so they went down along the river always about another seventy five hundred yards to another little area where there was a the ability to build a fire. So they were down closer to the river, up away from this block camp shelter, and that's an old rustic pink stone camp shelter, kind

of a neat looking thing. And then the big Siou River kind of winds through there. It's kind of a it's not really a stream, but it's not a real huge river. It's just kind of a medium sized river. And so a lot of trees are on there, and so that's where they went to build their fire.

up around the fire. You know, you can kind of visualize the singer's trees all around out croppings of rocks, and so it's probably about ten o'clock at night, but the fog rolls in and out's starting to get foggy, and and so here they're setting around this glowing campfire. You know, they're talking, they're playing, singing some songs. You know, and this is when they start hearing some strange sounds,

often in the tree line around them. You know, they're hearing snapping of twigs and like brushing sounds, kind of like a cold against a tree lamb, crumbling of leaves. And every time the kids would go quiet to listen, and the kind of the the sounds would go quiet started spooking them, is what happened.

a bear. Well, there's no bearers in this area, so they knew it was, you know, so they just kind of laughed it off, okay, and so they just you know, continued their singing and talking and they just went about their business. Okay, now we know we know what happened. It was those the murderers were sneaking up and spying on them, and then backing off and talking about what they wanted to do and coming back up again. That's where the sound were coming from, is what was happening.

Mike Hadraf, he's fifteen at the time. By the way, he was a tremendous athlete, played with him on basketball and baseball teams, multiple President's Physical Fitness Award winner. He grabs Sandra and drags her back away from the shooting into the trees. And they're back next to the river and the trees, hiding, and they can hear, you know, there's more shots. They can hear wailing and screaming, and they're back. They're just fright and confused. They don't know

what's going on. Sandra's thirteen, my best friend is fifteen. And they're hiding.

with the police department? Come out with your hands up, Come out right now with your hands up? Where the police? Well you got a thirteen year old and a fifteen year old right away? Sandras says, why what are these cops doing? And my friend Mike says, I don't know, but these police have already shot as whatever you do don't run, okay, come out like they said. So they duped them, They fooled them, Dan, they came out of hiding.

them get up. Okay. Now they start rounding the kids up that are wounded. Okay, and nothing looks like police officers. They're not dressed like police officers. So even though they say they're police officers, they say, you had some marijuana. We saw it, we could smell it. You're under arrest. While they're teenagers. They think we're under arrest. We did have some marijuana. But it's confusing. They're very frightened or confused. They're whispering to each other. You know, are they cops?

Are they really cops? Should you know? Should we run? What should we do? Confusing to these kids.

Obviously you know that. But they march these kids around and at one point, my friend, you know, who's wounded during while he's severely wounded, he's trying to talk to one of these perpetrators and asking him if he knows mister Jensen, who Sandra believes it was a police officer at the time. And we think that Mike was probably trying to see are they really police officers? Does he know mister Jensen? And you know, one of the murderer says, no,

I don't know him. Just shut up, keep your mouth shut. You're under arrest. And so they're marching around, they go out, they whisper. I think these perpetrators are trying to decide what they're going to do. I think they believed that Dana Baby was a female two from a distance at that time, Dana had kind of long hair. It was early seventies and he had a jacket on. He was young, he was fourteen. You obviously could tell Sandra was a girl.

I think they believed there were two girls because then they wanted toy asked the question how many girls are here? And they made them bring out IDs and show them. They took the perpetrators took it over by the headlamps of the pickup that they came to get umanitu in and looked at the IDs. So then they keep They make the kids sit down, you know, they go off, they talk, they converse. I think these killers are deciding

what they're going to do with these kids. Okay, now, what a terribly horrible thing for these kids.

see the blood all over. My friend, Mike, just knew that he was you know, hit. And then she's you know, he's asking her to help him. Obviously, my friend knows he's severely wounded. He's kind of trying to keep it quiet. I don't think he's trying to you know, startle or panic this young girl. But he's severely wounded. He's asking her to help him walk as they march these kids around through the trees and things. Uh, you know, he

can't feel his arm. He asked Sandra to lay his arm up against his stomach so he can hold on to it. You know, he'd been shot with a shot twelve gey shotgun. He's really wounded. Missandra is believing, you know, she they're telling her one thing and then she's seen another thing, and she wants to believe it's a tranquilizer gun. Are they cops? They don't act like cops. This is also scary and confusing.

You guys never should have had that marijuana. You're in big trouble. You know. They're they're doing this kind of thing to these kids. For the boys who are a little older, they're whispering, are they really cops? They don't, they don't They don't act like cops, even under cover cops. Would they use this kind of force on us, you know, and Sanders going, but they are cops who you know, you know, we have to listen to what they say.

as Jr. Now his real name is James Fryer. And then the other one, the youngest one who's twenty one years old, David fryar during the during the time of this scary session that's going on with these kids, he's referred to his hatchet face. So these kids are only hearing these guys being called by nicknames. Okay, so they're trying to think, is that because they're undercover, they don't

want anybody to know their real names, you know. Well, so it's the Boss Jr. And hatchet Face while these kids are being at gunpoint.

wire her hands behind her back. Okay, these three brothers had gotten together, and so Hatchet Face drives a pickup truck. They put Sander's hands behind her back, they wire them with wire. They tell her they forgot handcuffs, so they're going to use this wire. They put her in the pickup truck. Okay, and the boss, James Fryar, is going to put a gunnysack over her head. Now here's where I I think this girl one of the reasons she

saved herself in a sense. You know, when you're in a hosting situations, they say you're trying to always try to humanize yourself to your you know, to your perpetrator. When she was gonna put that gunnysack on her head, she kind of twisted her headway and said, no, no, don't put that over my head. No, please don't. And for whatever reason, he stopped and he didn't put it on her head. I think that kept her more human

at that point. Okay, now the other boys are made to stay, setting down and the wounded boys and Dana. Now Roger didn't appear. I'll just say right up front that Roger was killed instantly at the campfire. So you've got my friend who's wounded, You've got Dana who's unwounded, and you've got Steward who's pretty severely wounded. Okay, those boys are made to sit down while they put Sandra in the pickup truck. Okay. The boss the boss and gets in the pickup with Sandra and puts the vehicle

and drive and starts slowly driving away. Sandra looks back, makes eye contact with the boys and she said it was the most mournful things she's ever seen. She could just see it in their eyes. And the boss takes off with Sandra. Okay, and the other the wounded boys and danear left back with Jr. And hatchet Face.

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try to poach a deer. So those twelve gate shotguns, at least one of them was loaded with double lot buck shot. Anybody that knows anything about shotguns knows what they were using those. It's not small beasts, you know, you know, almost like small ball bearings, you know, something that will kill a dear. So it was pretty horrific crime.

a number. So it's you know, pretty heinous rhyme, and you know, like Leroy Greasy, the deputy who was involved, the sheriff and the deputy he told us, you know, I just hope those autopsy photographs are nobody ever sees them and just give them nightmarriages and you never forget them.

farm where they think drugs are stored. They have some other police business to do, and so he starts heading to a pre predetermined spot where after they killed the boys,

back to park. The other brothers are going to take Stuart's van and they're going to meet up with Actually, what they did was they took Stuart's van and they drove it into sous Fall, South Dakota, dropped it off and picked up a small car that was one of the perpetrator's cars, and then then proceeded to this abandoned farm and met up with the boss and Sandra out there.

all about. You know, there's there's obviously there's going to be more details and things in the book, you know, and you know, so we're not giving everything away, but you know, the readers would have to, you know, like like me and a lot of people, you're trying to figure this whole thing out. And just like the detectives here the next day, we're going to talk about that in a minute. You know, we're trying to figure this all out, but one of them rapes her.

they were a cop. And this is what she was going to have to live through to not be put locked up or put in a detention center. This guy is going to just get by with what he wants to do with me. You know, she's just demoralized, she's confused, she's degraded and in her mind, she's still trying to process this whole thing.

back and check back into jail. Okay, So hatchet Face David Fryar. After the rape, he drives James Fryar back to the Sioux Falls jail so he can sign back in and lock up. But there was a many hours. James Fryar was a tow truck driver. That was his job, which gave him liberal hours. You know, he could sign out at night. Tow trucks operate, you know, twenty four hours a day. But there was a lag somebody at

the jail was not checking. Why was there this big several hour lag in between when you punched out of your job as a tow truck driver and you don't return to the jail until you know, three o'clock in the morning. See what I'm saying, two o'clock in the morning, whatever time he checks back in. There was a lot of backlash in that in that community when when the community found out about this. So the two brothers take off.

They leave Sandra with the boss, James Fryar, who is supposed to finish her off tape or excuse me, Alan Fryer is supposed to finish her off back at the abandoned farm, and the other two head to Sue falls hatch of face, drops James off, he goes into the jail, checks himself back in, and David goes to wherever he goes. So now we've gotten We've got the boss, Alan Fryar, and Sandra back at the abandoned farm.

the abandoned farm. He pulls out a wooden axe handle out of the back of his pickup, and he takes her up there, and he says that they're going to go inside see if there's any critters to kill inside that well, her instincts are saying, no, this isn't good. When they get up to the abandoned farm, she stepped back. She goes, no, I'm not going in there. It's too spooky and creepy. And then it's like he doesn't know

how to respond. Okay. He looks at her and she starts back, and when he says, I'm not going in that abandoned house, and she starts walking towards a pickup. Well, at this point, you know, you're wondering, you know, why isn't he doing his job. Why isn't he finishing this girl up? Maybe somewhat she's humanized herself to him, been a little forceful. He's not functioning it with a real high IQ, you know, But he doesn't. He lets her go walk back and get in the pickup truck. He

walks back and gets in. Then he just starts driving. And then he tells her where do you live? And I'm going to take you home and so lo and behold. He drives her to the small town of outside of Sioux Falls called te South Dakota, where she's living with her mom and brothers, and he drops her off very close to her house, lets her go.

his police matter. I need your phone number, and I'm gonna drop you off at home, and he goes, by the way, I'll give you a call sometime when I'm in the area. So did he get a weird obsession with this girl too? You know, you read the whole book, you start getting these different ideas. It's just, you know, so many so bizarre twists to this thing, Dan, you know, And so he just gets the phone number. Yeah.

they do not sound like real cops. You've got to you need to go to the police, and she says, but what if they are. I gave them my phone number. They know where we live, and he says, Sandra, I don't know, but they don't sound like real cops. You're going to have to just think about this and tomorrow morning we something's got to happen. This is just think about it. So she goes to her room to think

about this. What does she want to do. She's still so confused, traumatized what's going on, and so I think she kind of slightly dozes off. She's kind of half in a stupor. By the time she realizes it's like eight thirty in the morning. She gets up. She goes and her mom has already left for work. So she gets on the phone and tries to call her her boyfriend, Roger, who's been hit with a tranquilizer gun. She thinks she is he home. No, she keeps calling and he's not home.

Her mom says he must have spent the night at one of his friend's house. He's not here. So she's desperate to try to find, you know, find her boyfriend. She calls a friend, tells her friend to come over. The friend does come over, they don't know what to do. She wants to talk to Roger or one of the boys. So they go to the Interstate and she's going to hitch hike back out to Get You Manitude Park to

see if the boys are out there. And then on the way through Sue Falls hitch hiking out to Get You Manitude, they stop at a payphone and call her boyfriend, Roger Essam's house one more time, and by this time the family has been informed that Roger is dead, and one of Roger's older brothers said, Sandra, stay where you are.

I'm coming to get you right now, and he goes down to pick her up at the payphone and her and her friend and takes him downtown to the Soue Falls Police station the detective bureau.

just off the road. So of course they raced back and called the authorities right away. That's how the bodies were discovered. The boys still had money and identification right on them, so it didn't take the cops very long to get a hold of the families.

young lady? And what murderer takes you and drops you off by your house when he's done murdering everybody? You know who this is, you were either in on it or you know who did it with it. A jealous ex boyfriend who came out there was mad at you know, for those of you being with those boys who did this. She's desperately trying to tell them this story, and it's Sue falls South Dakota in the early seventies, a sheltered environment,

and they're not believing this. They're going, come on, this is a stranger murder like this is too bizarre, This doesn't happen like this. Three perpetrators that don't know anybody just walks in and does all this. So you can understand from the detective standpoint why they might not have believed her at first.

out to getchee. We have that part of our investigation. We have a photocopy of that, very detailed and many of it, much of it go right through what I'm telling you right now for your listeners and you tonight. And in her mind, she wants to believe that the boys are not dead. You know, she knows her shot. There's been all this trauma. You know, she saw, she witnesses shooting. You know, she was frighted, she was traumatized, but wanted to still believe that they were alive. They

were hit with a tranquilizer gun. And then when her mother's lolo shows up at the police department, Sheriff Craig Vincent, who becomes a main player in this thing. Now, remember he's the Sheriff of Lyon County and Deputy Leroy Greasy were the two jurisdiction law enforcement agents for gets you manit to. Sheriff Vincent shows up down there when she brings her mom in, and Sheriff Vincent tells the mom she's written a detailed thing. We hope we can find

these murderers of those boys. And then Sanders said, murderers murder? Is that what homicide means? And then she completely breaks down. Now she realizes the magnitude of what has happened.

He kept reassuring her, he gave her more confidence. And now this you know, and of course we get into more of that relationship in the book. But this relationship between Vincent and Sandracewsky starts to flourish in the course of this investigation, and it's a you know, it's a very un usual way that they use this girl to try to apprehend these killers.

So they put her in a safe house for their family. There's a man hunt going off with these guys, but yet there's still a faction of the detectives going there's more to this and meets the eye. This girl's not telling the truth. But Vincent believes in this girl.

So sure if Craig Vincent decides to get this girl and a detective in the vehicle each morning and start driving a grid, a circular grid around Sioux Falls, getting wider and wider, going past every farmhouse they can think of. Tell Sandra, maybe we'll see something that she would recognize by that abandoned farm.

a band and then has a red gas tank. Okay, we didn't we didn't get to this part when when Alan Fryar first left to get you manitude, when the when the boys were left back there to be executed, he into a farm where he had some keys, and there was a big red gas tank sitting next to a barn, and he gassed up his pickup truck with that key, the key to the paddlelock that he had, and he and he gassed at vehicleub then he took

off and left again and drove her to the abandoned farm. Well, it turns out that Alan Fryer was a hired hand on that farm, so he did have access and keys to that gas tank. So they were not only looking for the abandoned farm, they were looking for the operational farm that had the big red gas tank setting next to the barn. But they're driving day after day, we goes into weeks. They're just driving and driving and getting frustrated, and Sheriff Vincent is trying to keep this girl spirits

up see anything, and then lo and behold. One day they're driving down the road and coming at them as a pickup truck and Sandra starts screaming, there he is, there's a boss right there, And it was Alan Fryer, the boss coming down the road. He had just pulled out when they when they drove after they uh the detective that was riding Sheriff Vincent dropped Sandra off, and the ditch with him turned around and went after Alan Fryer.

When they got him handcuffed. He had just come out of the farm where the big red gas tank was. So in a strange twist, this young girl was also involved in apprehending one of the murderers. There's a lot of other twists too, they go with it two.

And now for a year and a half the murder trials are going on and this young girl is used as a prime witness in the course of this. Jr. The rapist and Alan the Boss Friar are locked up in the Lion County Jail in Rock Rapids, Iowa. It's it's the old time jail. This is like something out

of Mayberry. The Sheriff Vincent's wife cooked the meals. Uh you know, it was the old time jail for you know, Barney five is working there and they had you know, Sheriff Vincent's kids would play out in the front yard and Alan Fryar would yell out to him, and they'd have a dog and he would bark like a dog and try to yell the and the you know, the parents were telling the kids to stay away, don't talk

to him, and uh. The sheriff and his family lived on one side of the wall, the block wall, and on the other side with the jail cells and the office. So it's just kind of like the old time Maybury County Jail.

star witness. Obviously, this woman that has endured so much, that was such an innocent young girl, is now have to somehow mature rapidly to be able to handle this vicious basically cross examination at court because it's just not as easy as making getting a conviction with the obvious

people being guilty. And the other part of the most important part of your book is the recovery if there is anything or or how she tries to recover anyway her I guess ongoing recovery from this incredible crime, and

also the she was considered the Getchy girl. And unbelievably, this is one of the most I guess profound things and more unbelievable things, is the criticism that she got and the isolation that she encountered because of the stigma of being the Getchy girl, and people their children weren't allowed to hang around with her despite the trial and everything else. So I thought that was an amazing story of survival and overcoming these incredible odds and events and discrimination.

So I could say there's at least a half the story not to be told here in this interview.

and for those boys. She you know, she didn't want a medal or anything, but She thought people would appreciate what she did. She gave up school for a year and a half, you know, gone all the time to these trials and finally wins the victory of getting these guys locked up. And you know how the defense attorneys can be, they tried to discredit this girl, trip her up.

They wanted to get a statement, They want to get pictures of her. She was a big celebrity to be seen by all the you know, the the gawkers and the court spectators, and so she had to go through all that as a young girl. And then when it was all done, she just thought people would appreciate it. But she turned out to be the gitchy girl. That was her nickname. And I remember when this happened to this girl, people shunned her. It was like she had done something wrong. And you know, Dan, it was a

different day and age back then. Oprah wasn't on TV. It was like, you were raped and you were a sexual assaulted. What did you do wrong? What were you wearing?

I was the gitchy girl. I didn't fit anymore. People didn't want to be around me. She dropped out of school, her life started spiraling out of control. It's you know, you know, she physically survived that night. She was a survivor that night physically, but the emotional and spiritual survivor survival for that girl took many different paths that we talk about and how her life went. And you know, Dan, I say, she'll forever be the Getchy Girl. Even to

this day she's doing. This book has been immensely good for this girl. We've gone to book signings where hundreds of people have turned out. It's been amazing this book. The hugs that she's getting to tears, She's finally opened up. The girl physically looks better than when we first started interviewing him for this book. She's starting to her emotions

are starting to surface. She's finally getting to release through Getchy Girl and through these books signings, and through going and being with me when we do discussions and talks and go places and talk to people. She's really starting to open up. She's really starting to heal now through this book.

She almost didn't make it. She was throwing up, she had insomnia. Just the courage it took to her to go into that maximum security prison and face this guy after that many years, and she finally gets to question Dan, she gets to question answered why. He tells her why he didn't kill her that night. But we're not going to tell him that.

But she she's you know, she she's got so much good in her. I mean, she's an amazing person and I'm just so proud of her, and you know, proud that she opened up and allowed my wife and I to do this story. We thought this book would sell around the soup falls ere. We had no idea the number one national bestseller. We had no idea of the call we're getting, you know, to go speak of the book signings. I mean, it's just been incredible. It's just the book has gone better than we ever thought it would.

But I you know, I guess now that people are telling us it's got all the right elements.

kind of came out as a fluke. I'm a high school teacher in English, and I wrote these memoirs and about overcoming a very impoverished neighborhood, federal housing units, a lot of domestic violence, a lot of bullying, having a lot and do a lot of fist fighting. You know. You know, between me and three of my buddies when I was a young man, we accumulated fifty two arrests

felony charges, two shot to stay, one paralyze. I made the road the only one that didn't go to prison and jail out of that long term jail out of that group of friends of mine, my life got turned around. I became this high school teacher, I sidestepped felony charged. My life changed immensely when those books land and those books landed rare publishing contract. So I had a connection with a publishing company out of Texas, Electal Publishing, and Sandra I ran into her periodically. I gave her my

memoirs to read. Her brother said that was kind of a turning point for her. She thought maybe she could help other people if she shared her story. So we knew this book was going to be even though it could have been a thousand page book. Now for your for your listeners, it's not a very long book. We wanted it not to be a real expensive book or people to have to sit and read for three weeks. So I got my wife on board, who's also teaching

reading and writing here in the Susiti school district. She did lengthy interviews with Sandra Chesky emails, She interviewed law enforcement people, she crossed, referenced a lot of things on the internet. You know those murderers, the Friar Brothers. They would say one thing one time, and then another thing another time, and then the court records would say another thing. So we had to in order to get it as acridate as possible. And then while Sand my wife, Now

that's the confusing part. Sandra Cheskey is the getchy girl, my wife Sandy, they both had the same name. My wife, the author goes by Sandy. Sandra is a gitchy girl. So while my wife Sandy was doing interviews and cross referencing things, I was going to the clerk, of course, digging through boxes of investigative records, autopsy reports, doing all that kind of stuff. Then we'd bring everything together, lay it out. What do we want to keep, what do we want to throw out, What is going to appeal

to the male reader the female reader? Do we want it real long? Okay, So we had you know, that's kind of how it is, and that's how it went, and then of course we worked with Sandra Cheski. Now when it was all said and done, you know, on Amazon, it's got lots and lots of reviews. It's you know, uh,

getting very good ratings. And we've had a few law enforcement uh people that were actually part of the investigation or involved in this thing have actually got on Amazon and given reviews and said, this book is very accurate. I know for a fact, I was involved in the investigation. I know the actual case file. So we did a pretty good job of the accuracy. So we've got we've got a multi level story. It reads with a little bit of flavor of a true crime, which it is.

We give some investigative stuff, but it's got a deep human interest side too, and so it's it's not lots of you know, real lengthy kill. On one side, it's a pretty balanced book. I think we try to do a pretty good job of balancing the book out for a variety of readers. I think that's why it's been pretty popular.

this one has those unique elements to it. And mostly in that how this woman starts at thirteen and how she can evolve, because really she should have been damaged beyond repair from this age and what she had seen, what she experienced, because like I say, when she thinks that her friends aren't killed or killed when she's arrested, she's detained, she's used to find these inmates, they escape, her family has to be put in isolation. It just seems to never end for this woman. But like you say,

incredible optimism. Once she confronts these people at court and at trial, then goes to see them see him in prison. This woman does everything in her I mean that I've ever heard of in my life to be able to heal herself. And unlike many other books where you say, well, no one really recovers if there ever is a tale of recovery. It's this woman just because she feels it's her inherent right to be able to recover from this.

to help this girl, but they didn't. It was like, you don't talk about it, don't talk about that night that night, just don't open those old wounds, and it'll just go away on it own. Well, it stayed in. This girl infested, and she had to find all these ways, like you said, her inherited right to try to survive this thing. So she's constantly working on her emotional and spiritual survival with all these different methods. And that's kind

of an interesting part too. How this girl comes around And Sandra said herself that she hopes that her story will be able to give inspiration to people who have gone through hard times and know that they can survive and they can find ways and not to give up, you know, And that was one of the things. And another reason why she opened up this late and told this story is that she now has grandchildren who are about the age Dan that she was when this Getchy

situation took place. They're now old enough to become interested in this case. And there's lots of untruth out there on the internet about this murder. You know, there was a lot of controversy, a lot of bad talking about Sandra, and there still is. This girl was just bullied on social media like two weeks ago for telling this story. Wow, I told Sandra, when this thing comes out, Sandra, you're gonna you're gonna you're gonna have to go back to

You're tough, You're a survivor. You know how it's gonna be. There's gonna be a lot of people that are gonna love the story. But there's always those people like Dan, You're you know, blog talk radio is the best show around, and there'll always be somebody that's gonna knock it. There's always those people that it's about who it's about them. It's not really about Sandra, the godge girl. It's about them. And I you know, I've had to talk to Sandra

about this. You know, she's still you know, emotionally fragile. And then you'll get these people that will bully her on social media. You know, there was a particular relative of one of the boys that were murdered that didn't want this story told, you know, just don't bring it up. And so this person's been you know, mean to this girl, and so that's what I'm saying, She'll forever be the gidgy girl.

had classic survivor's guilt. She had post traumatic stress. You know, it's just still you know, those terms weren't coined until a lot of those guys came back from Vietnam and then they started realizing the people that have gone through a traumatic situation, you know, they've they've got these symptoms. This girl had classic survivor's guilt. You know she uh, you know, she didn't think that she should be alive when the boys were gone. You know, it's a classic

survivor's guilt. It's just an amazingly strong girl.

all kinds of stuff that'll pop up. If they top pop my name in there, Phil Hammond, h it'll pop up, and yeah, they can get a hold of me. And I'm always interested in, you know, doing other things for people or answering people's questions. I try to, you know, spend a certain part of the day just answering you know, private messages and emails and things like that.