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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. Gaesy, Bundy, Dahmer, The Nightstalker BTK Every week another fascinating author talking about the most shocking and infamous killers in true crime history. True Murder with Your Host journalist and author Dan Zufanski.
Good Evening.
What goes through the mind of a killer when they commit murder. Based on the massively successful Netflix documentary series of the same name, this book features ten of the most compelling cases from the first two series and is full of exclusive, never seen before material. The authors Ned Parker and Danny Tipping secured exceptional access to high security
prisons across America. The majority of the killers will die in prison, either by serving their sentence of life without parole or they are on death row waiting to be executed. In each of the cases, the inmates speaks openly about
themselves and reflects on their life and their crimes. To gain a complete picture of the impact of the murders, the authors spoke to both the families of both the perpetrators and the victims, and those in law enforcement who were involved in the case, leaving it up to the reader to make up their own mind about the killers
and their crimes. The book draws on handwritten letters from the inmates and full transcripts of the interviews to tell each story, and features exclusive material including personal pictures, crime scene images, and original police and court documents. This is a fascinating and detailed look at some of America's most gripping murder cases. The book that we're featuring this evening
is I Am a Killer. Inside the Mind of Murderers, with my special guests, documentary film producers and authors Danny Tipping and Ned Parker. Thank you very much for this interview and welcome to the program. Danny Tipping and Ned Parker.
Thank you for having us Ruby to meet you.
Dan, thank you very much, and congratulations on this book I Am a Killer. Let's start off with the genesis of this book. Why did you both decide to write this book.
We've been chasing the series I'm a killophone Netflix for well since back in twenty nineteen, well twenty seventeen, when we started into pick production on the series, and we generated lot of stories and that you can see as part of that series and now and it's fourth season. There were elements of the story that we couldn't always get to in a a forty or fifty minute documentary that we still wanted to explore and share with people. And also because of the success of the series, obviously
that that gave usn opportunity to do that. So we got together with a publisher and sort of started setting about selecting stories from the first couple of series that we could expand upon for the book.
Tell us about the criteria that you used to include these ten stories.
We were really interested with with I mckiller, in looking at stories which and all the sort of stories necessarily normally covered in kind of true crime broadcasting. We were looking for stories which had an unknown largely unknown to the public, but which touched on kind of bigger themes, which told us a little bit more about kind of a bigger topic than necessarily just the individual and their murder.
So we looked for stories which could kind of yeah, for example, the James Robertson is the first episode of the first series, and he also appears in the book. He was somebody who appears of first glance as a complete monster, And I think our approach to these was we wanted to find stories where you could say, Okay, yes, he's done horrific things and awful things, but no matter how awful he is, he is still a human being. He's not a caricature. He is a human being and
there is something human within it. And the important thing was to try and kind of find that and see there's something that you could relate to, not necessarily meaning that you've found empathy or sympathy for him, but you could certainly relate to the kind of the human motivations in his life. So we were setting out to look for those stories, and there's some things that we were going to go to whether Danny and will Will work.
Very clear, we weren't going to include any killers who were unwilling to admit what they'd done, or at least
they broad contacts to what they've done. That the point was that they had to speak open me and say, yes, I took another person's life, because we didn't want to get into the kind of who done it or or proving them or at the Gotscham moments, it was don't know if you can at least start with the fact that, yes, you admit he killed somebody's lives, and I think there's something we can learn from that.
Person.
So that was the first comic criteria, and we wrote to thousands of people across the US and everything was done by a hand written letter at the time, and it took a long time for those responses to go back and forth. So somebody who admitted what they've done, somebody who hadn't involved in a mass shooting or a terrorist thing or anything which could inspire somebody else into
a kind of a copycat killing. We also don't want anyone who was involved with sexual violence, crimes or et cetera, or anything involved children and the infantas side, because our point was not to troll kind of campaign for these individuals, but to allow a viewers to be able to view them, as I say, as human and I think there are some crimes which are just too difficult for anybody to sit and saying right within forty five minutes of the film, I can watch this and I can relate to this
person at all. You know, there are somethings will make them thoroughly unrelatable. So that was kind of our criteria, and we started on with just for people who receive death sentences, were either on death thrown or had been on death row, and by season two, we expanded that
out a little bit. One of the reasons was was we also wanted to have female voices because although most murders, but by far right away most murders are committed by men, there is something very different about the female experience and motivations and causes for a woman to take another person's life. So we started looking at that, and we included some female cases in second series and also all third and fourth series as well, So we've had a lot of
different stories. When we were looking at bringing it to a book, we wanted to select those which we thought kind of supported each other in showing we're not sure a thesis is the right work, but are kind of.
What we discovered as being.
The kind of the commonalities, of course, which lead people making these sorrific decisions.
Yeah, and I think I think the book with the ten stories in the book from you know, from the twenty episodes in the first two series, it's a good class section. It gives you a kind of a I think, a taste or I don't know if you have what we've turned in the series, and they're sort of contrasting stories, but of course there are lots of commonalities as we've said often that you know the extreme poverty, physical, mental, and sexual abuse in the home, drug and alcohol abuse.
You know that obviously, these come up time and time again when you're looking at convicted felons and killers, and not that any of those hardships excuse or lesson that the you know, the horrendous crimes they have committed, but it starts giving you a picture of how somebody could get the point whether they're able to take another human life. And that was something that we hadn't we hadn't looked at before, and it hadn't actually until he came on
to I'm a Killer Done true Crime. I'd done a bit of true crime documentary making, and we hadn't spent a lot of time, well, we'd spent no time at all actually talking to the killers and just.
Finding their motivations.
We're much more engaged with like a lot of true crime, in the actual mechanics of the murder and the investigation that happens afterwards. So I guess the idea for this series was to start at the other end, to start with the killers, find out how they got the point where they could take a life, and at every point that the biggest character, I guess, and it shows is the victim. That we're absolutely sensitive to the victim and their families and the events that have led to them
losing a loved one. So it's a lot to juggle actually in a single story. And I guess that coming back to the book, were able to expand a little bit on those stories in a book that in a way that we have we weren't able to perhaps in a in a fortune five fifteen minute documentary. So viewers of the series we'll see that we've gone into a little bit more detail on each of the cases.
They might already be familiar with.
Another thing, which is down which is is different with the book to the documentary series itself is but the documentaries we kind of established a format in which you hear firstly the voice of the killer and then once yeah, that's about the first ten to fifteen minutes or so of each film, and then you hear in turn the voices are of while the people committed to the case, they related to the victim, related to the killer, investigators, prosecution, defense,
whoever they are they might be, but you already hear from them one at a time. Now, the reason we did that is we kind of based off our experiences by having done jury duty in the day. In a criminal trial, you'll you'll have our witness will come forward and they'll give their testimony and then they're gone, so you don't kind of hear from them again. And obviously more traditional kind of trin crime documentaries, you'll hear voices all kind of cut together and you get little bits.
Here and there and everywhere else.
But we thought this idea of taking journeys, viewer has to kind of pay attention and listen. So, okay, something that you've heard fifteen minutes into the film and not have relevance until later on, that you have to kind of pay attention to it and you're not going to hear from that person again. And we found that structure worked really well for the documentaries. That's what we continue to do. That's what we think, well, it makes this
a series of films work well. But of course it means that if somebody is talking to you about an element of the story and they come in early on, it means if they you don't bring them back later on, and they might have had something really interesting to say about something that we were here later So going through all the transcripts of all of these interviews, some of them are like two three four hours long, and you know, we spend a lot of time with these people who
realize we had all of this material, and actually, in the way that we've constructed the book is that it's not it's a freer way of doing it. We can jump from person to us, and last think that helps when reading the books that if you haven't heard of the story before, if you haven't lost the film, you're all going to get a very full kind of picture
of it. But even if you have watched the films and need them to start to be able to draw lines and comparisons and conclusions that you might not otherwise have done. So although they're very differently seen, they're very complimentary. You know, they both kind of work well. But it's fun for us. So there was a suddenly interesting for us to kind of look at telling those stories in a different way.
This idea that you would have this second interview. What I think is not so clear for the audience is that every story is looked at through other people's eyes other than the killer, and from their perspective. So the anguish of the victims' families, the insights of the police, potentially attorneys and the jurors sometimes and the pain for
those that care for the inmate as well. But also in that that there is often I found you discover different information that was then initially the prisoner had conveyed in the interview.
Can you Yeah, that's right, and I think, well, one the break between the first and second interviews is quite often depending on which state you're filming, in provision of the court and our access to the prisoner, so that there has to be a break between you know, you
have three months between media access. So in most but not every case, we have to we do our initial interview and then we have to wait three months before we can we can get access to the prisoner and the prison again, which initially we thought might be a problem, but as it turned out, I think ned will embrace that as part of the format. That says, it gave us time to then go, you know, break through that first interview and then interview the other contributors to the show.
That the friends, the relatives, that family members, police investigators.
It was a happy accident, really wasn't done in a weird way.
Yeah, we established it in Texas was the first place we were looking, and there's a minimum ninety days between when you interview them, and you can only interview for one hour. So we thought, hang On wanted to go and hear these stories told by the killers themselves, but there's no way that they could cover thing we needed in the.
Space of an hour.
And that was that was our pot of Okay, well, when we just give them their first bite and then we'll come back three months later after we've managed to talk to everybody else, and will they.
Have their kind of reaction to that?
And that kind of inspired then our thoughts about this. This this kind of idea of based on the jury service idea of having each contribute to cover up one in too, And that's really kind of where the format came from. But I think, as Danny you was saying to you that this it means also they're very different in the two interviews. That is kind of that first interview. We don't press them, do we know?
And I think I think it was important as well to gain the trusts as well as the inmates, so obviously our telling us their story and to allow them so effectively. We've always said and I've said this before in another interview, is that the first interview is their
interview and the second interview is our interview. So we let them tell the story and the truth as they they're prepared to tell it, and then we come back then armed with obviously more questions, but also at the perspective we think may may or may not have actually happened. Once we've spoken to everybody else involved, we can press a little harder in that second interview. And sometimes people absolutely sick their stories and that's the truth they're willing
to share. And other times you'll see, both in the book and in the series on Netflix, you'll see the series that the stories rather change quite dramatically in some cases.
Sometimes not always the way you expect them to. Sometimes they've not told you something in the first interview and you realize they're kind of they're holding it back, or they're consciously trying not to share that information. They're trying
to pain themselves on the best light. But of course you go back three or four months later and you say, well, you know, you didn't reveal this particular part, but we've spoken to everybody else, and you didn't tell us this thing, which makes you look far far worse, and they might have a reason why. But also sometimes they just don't tell you things which you think, we're really key, It would be really important to hear things which might give some sort of mitigation to their actions or at least
making you kind of think somewhat better of them. A lot of them have still being the victims of abuse, violence, abuse, or section abuse of some sort. Some of them surprisingly open talking about that, others aren't. And it's only really when you hear from other family members and something else. You hear something about their background, which makes things a lot easier to understand, But they themselves didn't present that,
so it's interesting. And we also decided that, you know, with the permission of the various people we interview, to play back to them the words which other people had said about them. Sometimes members of the victim's family happy for that to happen, or prosecutor or an investigator, and getting their reaction to that, I think is really important, and I think that gives the viewer a good chance to be able to sit and decide whether they yeah
how they feel about that individual. And again in the book, the same thing happens. You know, we played back quite a lot of stuff to them when we interview them, and we don't necessarily include all of those in the films, but when we were writing the book, it gave us a chance to kind of give more of their reactions to the things they've heard said about them decades after the event.
Let me list the chapters that you do have, and then we'll go back right to the beginning and explore them a lot a little bit further, and you can have some commentary on these extraordinary stories. The first story you have is the first chapter you have is Overkill David Barnett. The second story is intended Evil Charles Chuck Thompson. The third is Trapped Linda Couch. The fourth means to an End James Robertson. Of number five is Pyro Joe
Joey Murphy. Number six killer in the Eyes of the Law Kenneth Foster, then a silent Order Brandon Hutchison, then a family affair DeAndre Buchanan, then crossing the Line Kavona, Illinois. And the last story Owning It Charles Armantrout. Let's go to the first story, Overkill with David Barnett. Can you just give a description of this story and why you chose it.
I mean, this is one that when it went out on Netflix, gotten incredibly strong reaction from the view as No, I think that's that's fair to say. As an interviewee, I think David comes across as open and likable, one of a better word, and.
His story is tragic and very sad.
His crime is probably one of the worst we've covered in as much as he ends up killing his step grandparents or foster grandparents and fetal blacked out and can't remember, and he's accused of overkill, which is the title of the chapter and the film, because he stabbed them multiple times,
which is quite a shocking quiet. The background to the story is really layered, and it's very sad and tragic story that we I think we perhaps didn't until we were deep into it and we've done the interview and then started interviewing the other contributors probably hadn't fully appreciated, and I think that's fair.
So Yeah, when David was writing to us this episode was that the films was to direct by Zowie Hines, who produces the series with us, and David had been writing about sexual abusety experience for a very young age, and we've been passed through and foster care system from person to person. He'd had only one experience that kind of suitable parenting at all, that was fairly short lived, and it was we knew it was very, very sad. But then we read a lot of letters from inmates.
You never know fully to what degree that they're telling the truth, to a degree they're embellishing on things, maybe to try to get join this sympathy from you. But we didn't know as we set out, but as it became clearer and clearer talking to other people who were close to David and family and friends and others. He was a deeply, deeply damaged child and he had a
very difficult relationship with his adopted father. Was his adopted father's parents who ended up killing And regardless of what you feel about the level of responsibility as for that crime that he committed, I don't think there be anyone who wouldn't consider his child and his background and mitigation of some sort or at least it helps you to understand how we got there. And I think I think that's particularly least sorts of stories where there is a
commonality of abuse. I think one psychiatrists that we promo psychologists we interviewed all the time. I think, but if very well it is said, you know, these awful backgrounds don't make you a killer. They don't mean because you've you've been abused or anything else, that you're going to end up killing.
But it just.
Pushes you closer to the edge. It pushes you into a place where you are are more likely to make those bad decisions, those tragic decisions, which can lead you to this place. And I don't think it's a coincidence that you know, you turn to find not many of the we've written, with the thousands of thousands that have withinmates across the US or serving convictures from lurder, certain sentences from lurder, and most of them do not come
from well adjusted, stable families in middle class suburbs. You know, it's not to say that the people who've grown up in nice environments can't turn out to be murderers, but they're truly just far far less likely to do so. Where there is kind of pain and suffering in the childhood,
it leads people into bad places. And when people are in bad places, they end up making bad decisions and I think even if this wasn't a conscious decision from David, which is certainly what he claims, I think it's the stories which gives the kind of the one of the best examples of that. We've concluded too these stories of the book through people who are ready disturbing childhood abuse.
I mean thought it was important because a great number of the cases we've learned about and we haven't managed to produce these documentaries or write up about for one reason or another, so many of them have cited childhood abuse as being a factor in their lives.
In this story, though, there is another factor that is disturbing, and they say that, or someone says in this the story that it changed David dramatically. This is the issue that comes up in a number of stories in this book in that some people go to police for help and they don't get the help they're looking for. Can you explain in.
This instance not careful, but David and his friend had gone gone to the thoughts and tried to, you know, raise their concerns and let them know the abuse that was happening in the house, and they didn't get they didn't get support.
They wanted them.
And this is any it's version events and complated by by offends and and of course that that did leave him frustrated.
I guess at that point he felt he.
Had nowhere, nowhere else to turn and as they said, this isn't you know, this had been gone a long time, he'd been in and out of care, and he had had a really, really rough childhood. And I guess that without using clon it was a kind of a straw that ba that camel's back. I think it got to a point where he had no one to turn to, and so it's really sad.
Yeah, And there's when people do do kind of make their claims to us and these backgrounds that they've received, you know, it's it's incumbentble last the troll makers to kind of cooporate that or make it clear to the view of what is known and what was not known. And I think yes, David and Enthroned testify that they went to it for all the police who were not taken seriously, and certainly there where we speak to the people the Chornese who were waltered in his appearance, that
was very much they had established themselves. And actually what they had was a very long record of instances or abuse that he had suffered which had been known about, and that information wasn't presented in his first trial as a mitigation. And we've spoken all the jurors in that case who I think had he known that at the time, would have felt very, very different. And so it's not just the police can do it, but there were records
there to show show was there. And even at the point when lives had been lost and his life was being judged, those things weren't taken two account in the court of law. Now, we're not trying to rewrite the legal proceedings. We very much feel that the law has had his partner, that's done its part. Then we're not here to campaign for anybody. We're not challenging convictions or
everything else. But we are asking viewers where our viewers and ourselves the opportunity to judge these inmates as human beings.
And I think if you.
Don't have that information, which is corroborated and supported, if you don't have that, then that antp you can make a fair judgment. I think we're expecting viewers to decide what someone's sentence should be, but just judged to say, okay, can I done that. CANOI honestly say that they find had the same experiences? Is that person would I know be in side placed now on Now.
Let's use this as an opportunity to hear from these messages.
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Now the next story you have is Intended Evil featuring Charles Chuck Thompson. Can you tell us just outline what the story is about and the issues raised?
If I saw this one, Donnie, and you can because I know it's a film. You've taken a lot trub Thomston was convicted of double learner of killing his girlfriend or ex girlfriend, depending on whose account you listen to, I will believe and new boyfriend. Now, the part which was kind of interesting in this is that he had gone to where she lived it had a fight with the other victim, but had returned sometime later broken into the house and he said it was a fight.
Over a gun.
That he had shot the new boyfriend and then shot Denise his partner or former partner, but that had been an accident and she survived the shooting. She got shot in the jaw, I believe, but she later died in the hospital, and there were some accusations that it was through well practice at the hospital, but I don't think that was it covered. But once there was a second death and it was at a capital crime, so he moved from being possibly arguing as a manslaughter or accidental
killing to a double homicide facing the death penalty. And I think the part which was for me the strongest in this philm was hearing from his victim's son, Wait who was only about twelve or thirteen years old at the time that his mother was killed. But the way that he was able to and willing to speak about his experiences and the measured one of that he talked about it and his opinions of Chuck Thompson. For me, Daddy, that's what I thought was was the really interesting point before.
Yeah, I think that interview really brought the whole film together and gave it the real core of the film I think comes suit through Wade and it's heartwache and obviously his mother. There's no real explanation for it, and Chuck Thompson doesn't really at any point I think agree that takes responsibility.
Was his line and said that I didn't kill a the hospital he did. You know, It's like, yeah, she wouldn't be in a hospital if he hadn't shove her on the head.
I mean, I think that's Oh, she died from complications due to the bullet that he shot that was lodged in her head. I mean, there's absolutely no way that Chompson, in my opinion, was not.
Responsible for that crime.
And whilst he admitted, which is absolutely part the first fire m killer, that he was there and pulled the trigger, he wouldn't take responsibility for death. And I think what's interesting having made you know a few of those with the team and we sit and we watched them, and we critique each other's work and we talk about the stories and how they've affected us. That quite often we all come to some agreement of how sympathetic or empathetic
we are to the character. And I think Chuck Thompson was one that listed quite a strong response from from the group involved in making a film.
Yeah, but the other part Danny and Daniel was saying saying earlier about this the second interview, the first interview, second interview. I think Chuckster was a particularly interesting one on this because he what he chose not to reference in the first interview was something which we later then found out, which was that he had after the killing, he had spoken to a female friend of his and told him what occurred, and she became a leading witness
against him. And whilst he was in prison, he spoke to an undercover cop who he didn't know was an undercover cop, and that since that that individual to execute the witness in his trial, that recording phone recording was deemed inadmissive in court, butul have for various legal reasons. But it doesn't mean that it's still level to all true. And that's all we could include in the film and I think shut to me at least, I don't know
if you feel the save down. He exhibited a kind of a level of arrogancy sort because it had been deemed in addrestline the court, but therefore it didn't exist anymore and we would never find out out about it and playing that according to him. In the second interview the director, she said that the look on his face, he felt totally confident that he had presented himself and got everybody inside the po. He's a supermasionly child guy, and I think he saw that everyone was kind of
in his pocket. And then when he heard that, he was like, oh, you've got that, you know, And I think that was really revealing, kind of low and to see his reaction and he kind of go he chose to be involved in this production and in this project, and he had the opportunity here to speaking from the entruthfully, and he chose to withhold information and kind of try and present a different version event. And I think that
was really telling. Like Danny says, thinking, there's a varying level of empathy and sympathy that the members of our team have for different inmates to wonder or another, but Charles Samson is one of those.
I think he's on the lower end of that.
You talk about empathy and sympathy. And the next story is called Trapped with Linda Couch, So again a female represented it here. She's in her mid sixties and you'd speak to her at the Ohio Reformatory, and this is over the claim of the death of her husband, which she claims is an accident. Tell us just a little bit about what you found with this story Trapped.
Yeah, this is slightly different because this actually was a case that got a fair amount of news coverage at the time, that wasn't it, which is unlike a lot of the.
I' makiller stories.
Certainly it was picked up on the news and the open news stations because it's a woman who has killed her husband and an claims it's an accidentally in self defense, that the husband's coming home with a gun and they've struggled and has been killed. But then she she panics
and hides the body. And I think that's where what really drove the sort of interest in the news story that she initially had hidden the body of her husband in the basement and then unless the help of her children to move the body to the garden, where she buries the body wrapped in carpet. But then subsequently the police discover the body and she's arrested for murder. And obviously the fact that she's disposed of the body doesn't help in her defense.
In her claims that it was an act of self defense, but.
She tells the story of years of spousal abuse, physical and mental abuse are the hands of her husband. The abuse often came in violent and it was during one of these fights that she her gun went off and her.
Husband was killed.
So, on the face of it, relatively straightforward and you know, sympathetic elements obviously the tragic murder of her husband, but of the victim, Linda, who I think had, you know, quite genuinely had been through an extremely tough time in a very difficult marriage. But then, you know, as we investigate further and partially of what came up in court and then we heard later there was elements that suggested the murder was premeditative, obviously completely changes the complexion of
the case. They were the gun wasn't her husband's, It was a gun that she'd bought just days prior to the murder.
The kids have been sent to stay with the relatives.
She'd transfer lead to the house into her name only a few weeks before in a forged document.
Yeah, and made some financial financial altercations to the bank out so or you know, in the days leading up to the murder. So all of this points to a premeditated murder and not all the you know, the struggle for a gun in an argument with her husband that she suggested in court, and that's it. Ultimately, that's what the court decided, and Linda's been in prison for a very very long time. But regardless of the premeditation or not, I think, you know that it's definitely enough evidence certainly
that Linda, you know, did suffer in that relationship. She was she perhaps was pushed to the brink. But again for the audience to decide, well.
I think I think it's an interest in one daddy. I think I think that was It was an interesting case. I think one of the parts of the prosecutor in that case we interviewed from film and he will quote him in the book as well. There was quite a lot of social media comments about things that he'd said, because he said, you know, she claims to have had a history of domestic abuse, and he says, well, why
didn't she say? And rightly, I think all the people jump on lads say well, hang on, you know this is people who stuff on domestic abuse often don't say we know that to be the case, they will suffer in silence. But I think the polish which struck me as interesting as that she didn't raise this as a
defense at the time for a trial. I understand why people might not say, out of fear and the control lecture of abusive relationships, they might not say until the board that they slap or something happens and they end up in a situation like she did with her husband dead.
But she didn't.
Actually reference these this defense at a trial, and I think that was interesting.
There might be reasons why.
I think she suggests that she was advised not to that wouldn't go down well with the jury or whatever reason. But I thought that was an interesting part because this is one of the first female cases that we covered, and certainly something which means eminently clear, even right from the very first female cases we're looking at, but it has become a bundantly clear, which it all was.
We find on is that.
The commonality in female cases is about domestic abuse, and it's very rare that we we've corresponded with a female murderer who hasn't stated that that they've been a victim of domestic.
Abuse at someone.
Of course, you know, they might all be true, but they might will be true. And I think that's that just that element of doubt there. And although I don't think it was a healthy marriage. I certainly my impression of it was it was not a happy marriage, for a healthy marriage, and and I don't think she was in a happy place. You know, it's a not entirely sure if it if that is the case that the
abuse happened the way that she said it did. And we interviewed her daughter, who lives in Ghana in Africa, which was surprised to us having left Ohio, and it was quite a trip for our team to go out and film her over there. Yes, she relates very much to some of the abuse that happened, but then also suggesting that some of the things weren't true. So our point is not to say that we know these are not the definitive tellings of this story.
We are not saying that we know the answer. One or the other. But I think there are.
Question marks there and it's up to you the same way as as documentarians are that make it up, you know, trying to establish our own understanding of the case. We think it's important to allow the viewers to present them with the information that we have on the testament, we have from various connected parties, and allow them to make that choice. She's a very old lady, the grandmotherly figure, and it's difficult not to feel kind of sympathy for
her as she spent so long in jail. But yeah, the details of her case so complicated.
I think it's another good example of one that did divide opinion, you know, with with some members of the team obviously feeling really very sorry for women that whose story is very believable, you know, and quite often these victims of domestic views aren't believed or they or they choose to keep quiet because they're ashamed or they're scared of the consequen especially when there's children involved in the in the relationship.
And so there was a great deal of sympathy.
For on that level, and there were others that you know, look at the facts, looked at everything, the pointed of premeditated murder, which undermines some, not all, of Linda's claims. So again, it was and I think it's a really good example of one that is not straightforward.
These stories aren't straightforward.
We probably ask more questions than the answer, but there's a lot for the viewer there to take in and you know, we're not we're not coming down on anyone's side, and of course we always remain respectful of the victim of their families. So it's another one that there is open ended.
But it raises so.
Many issues and as they said, touching on things spousal, lot of domestic views and and the like is another thing that you know, another corner that we've gone into with I.
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first month. Visit ritual dot com slash murder to start Ritual or add Symbiotic Plus to your subscription Today, let's talk about means to an end in James Robertson you had mentioned it briefly as part of the series. James Robertson for it's interesting for the heinous crimes of this James Robertson, For there to be any reason for you guys to cover this story, given that you don't want to cover sensationalized as stories and you don't want to go into any of the typical true crime analysis of
his crimes, or his personality or anything. Tell us why it means to an end has been included.
He obviously is an example something that didn't go to prison. He's been in prison for his entire adult life, but he didn't go to prison for murder. He was an adolescent at the time of his original crime, which is a breaking entry.
Is that right?
Yeah, he tried to still stereo the moon.
I think it's robbing a check. Yeah.
Once he got into the criminal system, the criminal justice system, and the prison system, was a very young man. He was really boardlined Adolessa at the time, whether or not he was going to be in juvenile detention or an adult incarceration. And he went into the prison system and just got worse and worse and worse, and his crimes multiplied, and I think he became very much a product of his fire, and not that he wasn't. He was already he had already fallen into criminality as a boy, as
a teenager. But I think we were here, we were seeing somebody that went down and take the path once he got into the prison system where he there was no real attempts of rehabilitation, and he became violent and molding himself to his environment in a way. And he was he was very physically capable of violence, and that became his his way life.
Once he was in the prison system.
And he eventually ends up killing somebody in prison in an attempt to get off the out of the general population and onto death row where he thought he could live the remainder of his time, his life in prison in a more comfortable environment. So he absolutely institutionalized, absolutely, you know, a product of the prison system. But you know, spent his whole adult life in prison and for a large portion of that in solitary confinement or close management.
So they killed it well.
I think the best switch twitch. There was a few ones about James which grabbed us immediately. I mean, first of all, when you see him, when just seeing his inmate photos, he is you know, he's straight from Central casting in terms of what you would imagine a dangerous psychopathic killer would look like. I mean, he does look terrifying. And that contrasted thing the letters that we received from him,
not in what he wrote way he wrote. His hand of writing is delicate and a small and reminded me of our school friend and I had an Asian school friend I had used to draw little hearts own our eyes. That it was very odd. But he wrote well, and he was extremely open about He says, yeah, I killed and I should be sence to death row for that,
and that just struck us as bizarre. But because he'd been in the prison system since the age of seventeen, we weren't sure we could find that the other voice is to be able to actually make this film to cover it.
The victim didn't have.
Any survive ful chamily who had taught to us and not what was known about him, and he didn't use that personal everything specifically that they done, or according to James, he'd just chosen somebody that he could kill again on death row. But also it's not easy to speak to people who are actually still employed by the prison system. So we weren't sure, and all that first season we had our teams went and we filmed fourteen inmates, and then we chose of those the ten that we would
go aheadward. And I remember seeing all call from the directors who who just interviewed James Robertson.
When we called, we said, I know it's going to be.
Difficult strewing to tell, but he is the most remarkable figure. This is one of the most remarkable interviews I've ever done. I mean, he's he's terrifying, but there is something else in there which is interesting. And I think that's that's
kind of you know. When I heard that from Ross and I spoke to Danny, I think we just decided, okay, let's just have a look atness whilst and we find and we felt some really interesting people's attorney and nurse who watched the prison there who could testify a bad Hill's behavior, and then most specially finding.
His cousin Darryl Loscher, who who made.
Contact with him with James James and since James had committed the murder, and the two very similar in so many ways. The one add alle family in stability, in the other one did and I think that's what he then started to see a human element about James in the way that he communicated with his cousin, with his cousin's children and they, you know, Daryl even took his children to go and visit their uncle James. There's this monstrous looking tribune. And in that film, the second interview
in tim he was different. He was very different. I mean, he's still the same person who has famous history of violent line within the prison system, somebody who willingly murdered another human being just to try to better his situation. You know, they're they're terrible, wowful things. But he wasn't the caricature that I think he wanted to portray in that first interview. He wanted to be shocking, he wanted
that kind of reaction from Moths. And once we spoke to all again and we knew all about him and his wife, he spoke very differently. And I think, as I said before, you know, it's just to make us as all of us as viewers, to watch these just to judge these people as human beings, because he is a human being and he's not at once so years and he's not necessarily advice human being something, not someone who might want to go and go on a camping
trip with or anything like that. But he's he is a human being and there are human elements to him, which I think he can start to understand a bit. So I thought that was a really important story for us to a couple.
And I think it's it's a little bit of an old dad clich but James basically says in himself that you know, in prison you either get better where you get worse. And he chose a path like quite quite purposefully, you know, chows not not to be dominated and not to succumb to it, and he almost embraced that lifestyle in prison to the point where it was almost inevitable
that he was going to commit further crimes. And his prison's sense is just escalat, escalat until he ended up on death vat, which is at that point where he wanted to be.
But if he behaved himself, and he does, he could have been out maybe after six years or eight years, I think it was, you know, that was a possibility.
I think it might have been, but less than that for his initial crime.
Instead his forty years and then ends up on death row. And I think he is one hundred and eleven years of additional sentence they now on top of that.
So yeah, yeah, I will never say the outside of a pusiness sell.
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What I think one of the themes in some of these stories, just to go off on a little tangent, was this often misdirected anger and violence. There's a few stories with this where the wrong people are targeted from the abuse that they experienced.
Well rarely of the victims directly connected with the FA, so all mess ups the killers have experienced in early life. Obviously Linda cash is so it's different that that she at least her version is that she she killed her ABUSERR. But yeah, that's not often certainly not always the case. And you're right, it's that sort of the violence is directed not not necessarily to the source of the of the pain of the trouble.
But again, and I do have.
To keep we training, although we're something that we all feel very strongly about raising these issues, that there's no way that these terrible conditions which these people grew up in, you know, are often her endous abuse, and they've suffered excuses taking.
Another person's life.
And you know, these people, all of them or everybody's fature, I have made very very bad decisions.
Clearly they have had tragic outcomes.
So I think we just need to you know, we do need to keep as passionate as we are about making these circumstances known and the conditions and raising the issues. I think we do have to remind ourselves of that, you know, there's a victim in all of these crimes.
There is, and I think though that what it does show, like you say down that the victims of being the misdirected rage is that the assumption will be add that people commit murderer either horrific psychopathic beasts or or really calculated iniqulitive characters.
I think what it shows you these ones, these these are not The vast majority of the murders that we cover out are not taught through crimes. These are not criminal master warns.
These are They are.
Often not planned at all, often the result of just a moment's kind of actions. Were more interested in what has led to that that kind of slapping moment, that that moment wire some kind of does this thing. Yeah, James Robertson, he had planned and intended to kill his cell meet for his own benefit. But large numbers of the others know there's these These haven't been trying to pre plan and fall through these ould maaster warnings. Most
murderers are not the kind of the fictional ones. Depiction of murderers is certainly from the cases that we've been reading over these many years, that kind of characterization of the criminal master wind doesn't seem to appear in the vast majority of cases.
Let's talk about Charles Bill Arma Trout speaking of fascinating cases and misdirected rage. You talk about that at eighteen years old, he shot his father six times but narrowly avoiding killing him. But ten years later he beat his eighty one year old grandma to death. The interesting thing was that for fifteen years in prison, he claimed he was innocent and named another man as the killer. Can you tell us a little bit about this story of Billy Armatrout.
I think this is a story that both Daddy and I were determined would be in the book. We have it as the final chapter for very specific reason, because the contrast is that the crimes that Billy arm Trout committed possibly the most horrific we'd come across.
You know, he has got.
His father, but his father had survived. He was a methodict. He was thoroughly self absorbed, self obsessed, dangerous and the mature. And he beats his grandmother to death with the baseball bats in order to still want it for trumps and you just cannot and then blamed it on this track and you can't really think of the thing watch worse than that. But I think for me suddenly is the interview. And Charles Armtrout was remarkable because he knows he's not
going anywhere. He knows there's there's no effort to go. So when he's he's never getting out of prison. And the sense that I had, and I think Danny feels the same, is that what he's telling us what he did which he didn't do, she didn't admit to for such a very long type. He's not doing it with there is no other motivation upon from owning it, which is the name of the title of that chapter and the title of the film that it was based from.
He owns what he did, and for me or suddenly I believe he does, and that for me makes him one of the most interesting murders that we've spoken to.
He's done it.
I know you feel very bassionate about this area.
Yeah, No, I mean that absolutely.
I mean it was one we actually he ends up being an episode into series two, although he was one of the first people we contacted right at the start of the process and took a year in Pindush the first year with the letter writing and getting access the
vast prisons and the institutions. But so he was one of the people I'm talking to the very longest time, but timing didn't work out for the first season when we got to interview for the second, you know, so we really interested to do this one because that that she picked up on down that for fifteen years.
Yeah, yeah, absolutely adamant.
His friend, the guy that he was hired with at the time, was the murderer in this instance, in the murder of his grandmother, and fifteen years into his prison censers, with nothing to get, he changed the tune and told the truth. And I think partly he was, you know, he was deeply addicted to various drugs and it was a methodic at the time of his grandmother. I think there was a lot of genuinely a lot of confusion.
But I think also he's like he's been lying to himself for so long and telling the same story in court and in the vast prison therapy sessions and the workshops, and he'd been telling the story, the same story again and again again. I think he genuinely believed it. I think he could he you know, at any point in those first fifty years of his prison sentences, he's asked him, he got exactly the same answer, you know, and he you believe that he wasn't responsible, He couldn't he couldn't
come to terms with what he'd done. And his grandmother was one of the people, one of the only people in his life.
I think i'd really well, she took him in, didn't she when when no one else.
Would, Yeah, cared for him.
Yeah, yeah, absolutely, And you know, and I think he couldn't come to terms with it, and then he did. It was almost not in a religious sense, but an epiphany of sorts, and he decided to take responsibility for his actions. And that's how he's chosen to live out the rest of his time in prison, you know, with the full burden of his crimes.
And he's quite you know, he's an old man now.
He went in as a relatively relative young young man, and he is an old guy, you know, boarding old guy with a gray mustache and glasses telling his story, you know, and there's a there's so much his face. I mean, it's no less tragic or on his crime, no less hard fine, but you know, it's a whole life he lost the day he took his grandmother's life.
We interviewed him for about the totalizing over three hours, so there's a lot that he spoke about, and I think that was a big part that we wanted to include. At extra parts what he talked about in the book, because I mean I could set and listen to his whole interview the way through. It's, as Daddy says, is this this old guy, something slightly kind of mold like
about him. Is kind of quiet and straightforward person. But knowing that he has nothing to gain from telling people and telling us what he did, telling us that he's truly remorseful for it, I think really really strikes to
call it, doesn't you know. One of the phrases that we hear so very very often corresponding with in mass they say, you know, I'm not that person I am now is not the person who I was then, right, And of course you'd expect that you'd expect them to say, no, I committed the crime, but I'm different now, better now let me out.
But the it's very hard.
You know. We have we have footage that we found of Charles being interviewed by police shortly after the murder, and he was still the high out cracking. You look at the images of that and the images of the man that we interview, and it's difficult to believe this is the same man and he's not arguing for to be released. He's not being for his case being reconsidered. He's not doing any of those things. He's just as he says, he's owning it. Once the battle rings, that
can't be untrolled. This is what I've done, and I think none of us would want to be judged from the single worst action we've ever taken around our lives.
And we were more than that.
But there's something about Charles who he accepts that that is that's to find his life where he is, and I think that that's the part that he I think he still struggles with. I mean, we tried ry Danny to be impartial as filmmakers and to put through our feelings too much about that the individuals will just allowed the viewers to make their own mind. Well, I think both of you and I were very keen on this story because I think we just both kind of believe
that this is a guy who is being honest. And what a welcome thing to hear something you all this recollections from somebody who committed crime, So water, how do you look with yourself? And I think that's a really form lesson for us to learn.
You righte that he changes his life and it was because of this confession it was a powerful turnaround in his life. Tell us who Wendy and Mary are and its impact on them.
Well, Charles had a pretty divided it up family. His father doesn't sound like he was an easy asked him to be the son of and his father had had remarried, and so Charles had a stepmother and a stepsister by appeared in his life, and he then robbed from them and was intimidating to them as well, and he had sav any kind of communication with them, and he didn't have any communication and then the rest of his family.
But as a result of us waking this film, you obviously it's common on us to try and approach and to speak to everybody who we can who's connected to the individual, And Wendy and Mary were really interested in aspiring individuals assist his former stepmother and stepsister. They took it upon themselves that they wanted to reconnect with with Charles and let's shore as a result when he went to visit him in prison speak to him, and they
believe they've remained in communication since. So we often get asked you, why do you give these people a platform?
And do you pay them?
They get money for this, but I friendly know, not intending to give people a platform. We're just trying to learn from trough of the things I have to say, and nobody would ever get paid and we wouldn't give anyone of any kind of compensation about crimes they committed.
But I think it'd be fair to say that Charles from this will who has perceived a benefit from it, and let's be disease, these managed to reconnect with it with somebody who they knew him as a young boy, They knew him before he became the person who committed those terrible crimes, and now they know him mister who has changed once again.
So yeah, it's a very moving story, I think absolutely.
I want to thank you both, Bennie Tipping and Ned Parker for coming on and talking about I Am a Killer, What makes a Murderer? Their shocking stories in their own words. For those that might want to take further look, tell us about your Netflix series you say it's in the fourth season now, and tell us how they might find out more information about this book and any social media that you both are taking.
Yeah, well, there's four seasons available right now on Netflix internationally.
Just search on Killer and there's also the company series I'm a Stalker.
Yeah, so that's that was it's been a face similar to I'm mckillner as much as we take. We interviewed convicted stalkers who you talk about their clients, but of course in this instance we get to to meet their victims as well. And that's a real life because I think stalking was a crime that we we knew, we found we knew even less about than murder. So there's
arm a killer. There's episodes of Armored Stalker and a book which is out in September in the US, which will be available from all your favorite bookstores and online retailers.
That's great. Thank you so much, Danny Tipping and Ed Parker.
Thank you Dan being a real pleasure.
Yeah, thanks, thank you so much, and you have a great evening and good night.
Yeah, thanks for having us doan thank you, Bye bye bye