KILLER DADS-Mary Papenfuss

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Her research includes some fifty in depth interviews of victim's friends and family, an examination of police files, and detailed profiles of the researchers who track these killer dads. She also presents expert's theories on the causes that drive men to commit these heinous acts, ranging from economic pressures, the stress of perceived failure and distorted egos, to the disturbing statistics on abuse of adopted children by stepfathers and the

connection between murder and pregnancy. Finally, she discusses factors in contemporary society that may foster such crimes and measures we can and should be taking to prevent them. Welser researched and often shocking Killers Dads provides disturbing insights into the dark forces that can turn family dynamics into the worst imaginable nightmare. The book that we're featuring this evening is

Killer Dads. The twisted drive that compels Fathers to murder their own kids, by my special guest journalists and author Mary Pappenfuss. I just got an email from Mary just moments ago, and she the number I had given her, she said didn't work, so there was some problem. I resent the number in case I did somehow give her the wrong original and number. So I guess she is calling in now with that number, I imagine. So again I apologize, ladies and gentlemen, for another technical error brought

to probably my heir her. But how about we just blame blog talk radio for right now and wait for Mary to come on here. She is. Good evening, Mary.

unique and very very interesting and different book. I want to congratulate you on that it's going to be a treat for our audience, I think tonight.

amazing the context you put this in. So tell us about the studies, who the researchers were, and tell us basically how you came to these studies and then now how you've used them as sort of a well a basis for the start or the beginning of sort of a connection evolutionary wise, between this violence that we're talking about, the sevening killer dads, the twisted drives that compel fathers to murder their own kid. In the synopsis, it really doesn't hint at this, and I think this is one

of the most fascinating aspects of your book. So please tell us about how you discovered this or when you discover this, and tell us about these fascinating studies and involving these languor is it monkeys or apes? Tell us about the languors.

think we're largely blind to. And then years later later, when I was in California, I covered the Scott Peterson trial, who, as you know doubt remember, killed his very pregnant wife Lacy, and I was again every day I went into that courtroom, and I thought, how can this happen? I thought this was against every conceivable instinct that you know, I thought. I was convinced the guy was guilty from day one, and I thought, he's going to go to death row

and he's never going to have another baby. How does this happen? I thought? Is it something in us innately or is it something we do to people in our society? And I just started, you know, I started doing some internet searches, and the things that the thing that really resonated me with me were some of the theories by the evolutionary psychologists who found actually reasons in our ancient past and our ape like paths of relationships to the people we love the most, of both our spouses and

our children. So I started looking into that and I've been actually reading about it for years The most fascinating study I found was the Langer monkeys in India, who are very easily observable because they are the monkeys you see in the city. So scientists have actually studied them for probably since the beginning of the century, if not, I mean the nineteen hundreds, probably even earlier. And something that was noted about these langers that that because people

saw them. A lot people remark that they would see apparently male langers killing baby monkeys and they couldn't understand why it was happening, and a lot of scientists dismissed it as you know, psychopathic monkeys or you know, a barreant behavior. They couldn't come up with any theory. Now, a woman in northern California, Sarah Herdi start was really fascinated with us. It was something that really intrigued her and she studied the langers over several years, and indeed

she saw this happen. She would see a new male come into a and systematically kill the infants that were already in the troop before he would mate with the females. Now today this is known this is well known as a male reproductive strategy that a like a male lion comes into a pride and he instantly destroys the rival male's infants, so the female becomes receptive to him and he can raise his own DNA. Of course, he's not thinking about DNA. He's just thinking about accessibility to the female.

But Sarah Hardy Hardy, this was like in the seventies. She was the first one who actually came up with this theory that this wasn't crazy, it was actually a reproductive strategy that the Langer's practice in a way to gain access to a female and that sort of monkey immortality by continuing to pro create, and then following that this was really a breakthrough that we've found this is the case, and at least fifty different species know that.

And I think what I drew from this is that the primal relationship for a male, at least in our among our ape ancestors, is with the love interest, you know, and the human case would be a wife or a lover, because that's really the way that the male reproduces himself, is the love interest. Whereas a female, because she has many fewer children in her offspring, is very tied to her children and has to protect those few offspring. If

her DNA is to survive beyond her lifespan. So Sarah Hurdie reassured people after her first study that, you know, don't worry. Men aren't out there, you know, wiping out rival men's infants, so don't worry about it. But some other researchers in Canada, Margot Wilson and Martin Daily, started thinking, well, you know, this is kind of interesting. Are there other kind of evolutionary drives behind male violence? Are behind you know,

what fuels violent familial relationships? And they said, well, let's look at step children, because that's what Sarah Herdy has found that stepchildren essentially are the ones that are wiped out. So let's take a look at step children. And they noted all the fairy tales in human culture across cultures about evil stepparents, and in fact it's probably more frequently

the evil stepmother. But they theorized that because the mother was telling the tales typically in cultures, that they were warning their children if a stepmother is brought into your life, be careful. It could be dangerous. So they began to look at Canadian statistics and American statistics and they found shockingly that having a stepparent was the number one risk factor for both severe child abuse and murder by a parent. They they weren't using the same sort of perspective that

Sarah Herd he was. Her strategy or her theory was that male wanted access to the female. Their idea was that another evolutionary drive is this specific bond between our biological children, and that we will you know, if there's a burning building, we're more likely to save our own biological children over someone else's child. But in fact, I think there is an issue of access to the female because I think men can frequently they get jealous of

They can get jealous of stepchildren. You know, if there's a if their a household is full of children from another male and their new wife or their new lover is paying too much attention to those kids, I think

they can get angry. And in fact, one of the cases in my book, I think a man who cut the throat of his stepchild talks about how in the middle of an argument with his wife, the stepchild sort of intervenes and he becomes so angry he takes her and he kills her, and in his mind he sees that stepchild is coming between himself and the woman he calls his soulmate. So it's a fascinating theory because I think it does give us kind of a platform to

analyze all kinds of relationships among humans. And you know, now I see it everywhere, like you know, any kind of Shakespeare play, or for me, I see, like you know, women wearing burkas as part of this whole Langer thing that men are very possessive of women and they want them for themselves because it's very important for their DNA immortality.

that kept people from looking at maybe what was now seems kind of obvious that in every fifty species there's this evolutionary drive and it involves killing their own children. But what you included is not the dismissal, but you discuss how poverty, drug abuse, and mental illness really weren't as big a factors as maybe thought of before, or at least these other things in society that we're supposed to be key factors. So tell us a little just a little bit about that.

of proclivity that we have. And some of these researchers I spoke to said, you know, at one point it was just no one would ever accept the fact that there is an essential human nature, that we're all free and independent and we create our natures. But I think there is, and I think we to protect children in their homes, I think we have to be alert to

some of that. And in a larger sense, sometimes I think that all of society has this sort of proclivity, like there's this sort of acceptance of a certain amount of violence that that that we think, well, you know, some that are going to be violent, what can we do about it? Rather than saying this violence is unacceptable? Or you know these rapes going on in India now there, you know, some cities are talking about banning lingerie lays

and windows. You know, instead of saying violence is unacceptable, we're saying men are going to be violent and we have to figure out how not to provoke them. So, in a sense, I think we're all sort of you know, we're sort of in the thrall of this alpha male

that you know that violence is acceptable. I think today, I think, whether whether people were creationists or not, or intelligent design, I think it was all a little It was distasteful to everyone to think that we were as brutish as we may have been tainted by these evolutionary psychologists. But today it's interesting whenever I talk to people and I mentioned a stepchild killing, people say, oh, well, a stepchild.

So it's it's almost as you said, it seems so obvious to people now, but it was unheard of at that point. I think some of these same evolutionary psychologists since though, have also said that we also have a capacity for great co operation and intelligence that can overcome some of these things. You know, I'm embarrassed to say now.

I'm a child of the sixties, So I used to believe that there were there was no difference between men and women other than physical, or that if there were, we had no idea because we had been so tainted by social expectations. And now I'm completely convinced that we're practically different species. And I think society could be our way to grow and evolve further, and as long as we're alert to some of these tendencies, that we can change things and make things for the better and protect

the most vulnerable in our society. You know, a six month old baby who's killed by a father. We have to we have to start taking over, taking charge from that sort of alpha male mindset.

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the alpha male. If you ever watch a hockey game, and you know Canadians are supposed to be so meek and mild and polite, if you watch a hockey game and they take their five year olds to the hockey game watching people get punched out, so violence, there's a certain level of violence in sport, and of course sport is celebrated, and then you get the phenomenon of OJ sort of an OJ Simpson not realizing you know. You know,

so I agree with you with that. But at the same time, like you say, we did, man has this great capacity, but I don't think it's a far cry from the savagery and barbarism that we see from men, especially today and in the past. So there have been a lot of studies as well that when you look at the overwhelming ability of men to murder versus women. Then I don't think you have to apologize for saying, jeez, I'm beaten up on men here when we talk about violence.

now I found that very moving. You know. Part of the reason I focused on men is because there are more of a black box to me. I think, you know, women do kill. They tend to kill when they're I think in the throes of postpartum depression, or they feel wrapped, or you know, of course there's you know, mental illness cases. But something that struck me about men as this sort of cold calculated planning to kill. And there's a lot of murder of biological children to punish the you know,

the lover or the woman who is divorcing. And I just can't understand that. I can't understand, you know, like losing control and wanting to kill or being in such a rage that I could hurt someone. So I decided to study that. But you know you do have to. I mean it is I think, you know, we have brains that we can override our emotions sometimes, I hope.

of a killer dad, it's this one. And let's first talk about Scott Peterson and why you chose this case and what you want the audience or the reader to really what you're trying to convey with this particular case study, and then we'll go to another case that's like say James, which is much much different. So let's start off with

Scott Peterson and the case itself. For those internationally and our fans everywhere, outline the case a little bit because it's particularly bad when you talk about the timing of it and his behavior and the affair, and so let's get into how bad Scott Peterson and what his case particularly shows in this examination of killer dads.

I believe it was Christmas Eve. So there's the holiday time and Scott crying looking for his you know, very pregnant wife, and it was sort of this sad, tragic holiday story. People were looking, you know, they were reporting sightings of Lacey, hoping to find her, hoping the baby would be okay. And I don't know, I was suspicious. Of course, when you're a journalist, you know, you see you see these vigils, and you see the spouses crying, and of course, and any cop will tell you, you know,

anytime there's a kid murdered or a spouse. The number one, you know person they look at is the family member, the spouse or the other father or the mother. So you know, I was suspicious right away. And then he was kipping some vigils, and you know, it turned out that he had a mistress on the side. And after the end of the case, I thought that Scott was a psychotic all's life. He was very us a very

spoiled child. He was the last child of a uh, the last late child of a of a late marriage to people married who had previous children, and Scott's mother had put up two or I think two or three children up for adoptions, so Scott was sort of her baby. And I think this was the He was a modesto, a fertilizer salesman. He had rather a mundane life. He had.

He met Lacey in southern California while they were both in college, and he for a while he ran a restaurant, and uh, I think when he you know, he was in Modesto and he thought he had a baby on the way, and he thought, you know, I just don't like this life. It's a little too pedestrian. And he's a very handsome guy. And when you see him in person, you know, in the courtroom, I just thought he was kind of stunning. Really, he looked like an actor or something.

He was very handsome, so I'm sure he, you know, had a lot of looks from women. So after Lacey was pregnant, and this was just you know, a few months before she disappeared, he set out to find a lover. It's not like he saw his lover across the crowded room and thought, I can't live without this woman. I'm going to have to excrete myself from this marriage. I think he decided he wanted to end the life he had and start a new one. And I think to

do that takes a particular lack of emotion. And as far as I could tell, and as far as anyone could tell, there was absolutely no hint of trouble in that marriage and Lacey. Everyone said that Lacey's best friend was her mother, Sharon Roach, and Lacey never shared any problems with her mother. In fact, her mother's husband, they were Ron Gransky. I don't think they were married, but they've been living together. He actually raised Lacey. He said at one point that Scott put up with too much

from Lacey. Because Lacy sometimes could be a little pushy and talked a lot. He called her jabber jaws. Scott never argued with her at all, So they had a two perfect relationship, I think. And then just some of the trial transcripts that I have in the book are you know he was like a pathological liar. So he started to woo this woman, Amber Fray, And you know, of course he had to explain away his double life because he had to be with Lacey, had another life.

So he would tell Amber that he was traveling to Europe for work, and he would call her on his cellphone saying that he was looking at the new Yar's the fireworks at the Eiffel Tower, and meanwhile, you know, people were dragging the canal for the bay for Lacey's body.

And he keeps saying, what I can't hear you, Amber, I can't hear Like he's having a bad Internet connection, and he's talking about the cobblestone streets and Brussels and and he says that, you know, his family has a compound in Maine and he's going to go fly fishing in Alaska. And I mean, just the lies were just appalling and yet he was a totally attentive, incredibly creative, romantic partner to Amber, just the way he was with Lacy.

He took Amber one night out on a hike with her three year old daughter and they, you know, looked at the stars, and he made dinner for and bought her groceries. I mean, like romantic flourishes that my husband wouldn't have a clue. But you know, there's something about that sort of psychopath that's very predatorial and knows exactly how to get what he want wants so and I

think there's very few killer dads like that. I mean, the ones I mentioned in the book are Jeffrey MacDonald who killed his three, his two daughters and his wife, and Joe mcguinnis did one of my favorite true crime book is A Fatal Vision, and I think the most fascinating aspect about that book is what Jeffrey McDonald says about himself. He's like such a liar and he doesn't

realize it. You know, he talks about they have a perfect marriage, and then chapters later he'll say, you know, the affairs had stopped, and I thought, oh, what affairs?

He hasn't mentioned this before and Neil Entwissel who shot his wife and baby in Connecticut, the same sort of thing, this sort of really chilling lack of any real emotion, and of course, you know the the that's the definition of a psychopath, that they don't have human emotions, though they're very good at mimicking them, and they know how to satisfy by people, to give them what they want without having those needs themselves.

most fantastic tales. Scott Peterson's tales were sickening, but he was still trying to spin these yarns. And Jeffrey McDonald's the same thing with his wild band of drug crazed hippies killed his wife and you know, so right, and.

And that was the first time people realized, Hi, you know, there's something really wrong with this person and they just don't operate by the same moral compass that the rest of us do.

relationship with the person that had killed anyone. So again, tell us about either one of those right now.

he read the book. His you know, his victim's name is in the book, and also his photos in the book. I said, are you sure you want this photo? And he said, yeah, don't worry about it. I just I don't know. That was the line he drew, but I happened to find. You know, it was just the case

that drew me because it was particularly brutal. And one of my evolutionary psychologists, Martin Daly, had been interviewed about this case and he said, wow, you know, that's really brutal, and that's something he Martin Daly had found in his research that step children the level of brutality tends to be much higher with the murders of stepchild children or abuse. There's there's even a higher level of viciousness in those attacks. So they reached out to him, you know, the reporters

reached out to him after that case. So I looked up James on the internet and I sent him an email and I said, you know, I'm working on this book. I'd love to talk to you because, of course, a couple of my killer dads are dead. They committed suicide, and I really was looking for insight. And you know, he wrote back to me, he said, sure, if it would help anybody. And he's pretty amazing because he feels horrible about what he's done and he makes no excuses

for it. Although you know, he was troubled. He knows he had issues with rage. He shortly before he murdered a stepdaughter, he was being treated. He was diagnosed as bipolar. And the good news about that case is that he did reach out for help. He was seeing an anger

management therapist. He knew he was having trouble, and you know, he says, the therapist said, well, our work is done here, and James said, you know, I didn't think it was done you know, if he had connected with the right professional, maybe this wouldn't have happened. But he was someone you know,

his sister was on the scene. He killed his stepdaughter during a family vacation, which he said was always really stressful for him, and he and his wife, who he loved desperately, were arguing on the vacation and he was feeling sort of a build up of stress. They both worked full time. She had two young daughters from a previous marriage, and he felt like he was being exploited

a little bit in taking care of the kids. His wife was a nurse, and you know, he told me she rolled out of bed in the morning and he had to get the kids ready for school, ready for preschool, and feed them. And he felt like he was being disrespected a little bit or unappreciated. And his wife, meanwhile, they both spanked the kids to discipline them, and his wife was concerned because she thought he was a little too angry when he spank the kids. So these are

some of the issues that happened. And he actually, you know, I asked him, he wrote a chapter of the book. I said, if you can just write down everything you can think of that might have something to do with what with why this happened? And he turned out to be a very articulate writer. And yes, I think most of the issues. I mean, he came you know, he came from a broken family and there's a lot of

drinking and some abuse. I don't think it was you know, it didn't seem extreme, although interestingly there were two step parents in his life. He did he was worried about his rage. He said, you know, he pushed his brother down the stairs one time. You know that can happen. I don't know, but but things like that made an impression on him. He said, looking back on it, I think that was wrong. And when it came to the actual Murphy had a hard time writing about it, and

he sort of dictated what happened to me. So I took that down. He got very very upset, you know, his voice started shaking and sadly, now, I think you know he would he would like to do something to make amends for what he's done. He knows he can't make up for it, but he would like to do something to make up for maybe a fraction of it somehow, and he just doesn't have that opportunity in prison. I mean, he just sits and waste time, just sits in the cell.

That's all he does. And we really off you know, we don't offer people any any way out, any way towards some kind of redemption. But what really struck me about James after, you know, the whole Scott Peterson thing, is that he's he's very personable and you know, he's funny. And he talked about his sister was at the cottage where the murder occurred, and he said, you know, my sister. He was very close to his sister. He said, my sister hasn't talked to me since that happened. And he said,

that's really hard on me. And he said, but of course, you know it's much harder on her. So I thought, you know, that's the kind of thing Scott Peterson wouldn't have said because he was thinking about someone else's feelings. It wasn't all you know, me, me, me, and for me, my sister's not talking to me. It's like, well, you know, I brought this on and what a bad guy I am. And you know, my sister's so horrified she can't talk to me. It's funny though. Once the book was probably

I thought gee, was he a psychopath? Did he just like totally lead me on? But I don't think so. He just seems really genuine, and you know, he's friendly and and he just you know, he was in a rage. He killed his stepdaught. He was having this fight with his wife and the five year old is being kind of needy and he just picked her up. He told the kids he knew he was going to kill her. And I asked him about it, and he said, in

his mind, he kept thinking her name was Claire. He said, if Claire's not here, then Sarah and I can't fight. If Claire's not here, Sarah and I can't fight. So I thought, there's that sort of you know, access to females again. Like the most important person in James's life was his wife, and he wanted to get the kid out of there because he wanted to relate better to his wife. And you know, he thought she would die instantly, and she didn't, so he sort of came out of

his whatever it was. And then he hoped desperately that his wife could save her daughter's life because she was a nurse. Unfortunately it didn't happen. I think partially because responders were concerned that the killer was still in the house. Of course, even his wife says on the nine on one call, he's fine, he's not any threat. It was like over, he had this rage and then it was

over and spent. So yeah, now I feel like I'm the only conduit to the outside world for this guy, and someone who's just going to suffer for the rest of his life.

he says he never does well on vacations. His wife had talked him into calling in sick and extra day, so I think Monday was like a holiday. He called in sick Friday, which he felt guilty about and anxious about. And then as he was packing up, he said someone had lit a brush next to him on fire next to his house on fight. So he said he was

very sort of discombobulated and nervous. And his wife even said, should we just call this off and do it another time because you're so agitated, and he said no, no, because he wanted to see his sister. And his stepbrother also went along, and it was, you know, it was pleasant for a while, and then he said he and his wife got into it. They just you know, started fighting, and she threatened at one point to take the kids and you know, leave him behind, get in the car

and go home. And and then he said it calmed down, and then the five year old is being you know, she was sort of misbehaving and causing it more anxiety. And then he went up to his wife was up in the bedroom and he went up to talk to his wife about making dinner, barbecuing something, and they started fighting again. She was still angry at him. And then his stepbrother walked up with his stepdaughter and like, you know, saying, you know, Claire needs something, and he said, I felt

like everyone was calling me a bully. And he picked up Claire and he went down the kitchen and he said, the one thing he said to me was I wanted everyone to hurt. And yeah, I don't think he understands it, you know, he and he says he thinks about it every day of his life. And you know, he said if he could give his life for Claire, as he would, and he knew, you know, he was on some kind of medication for bipolar. He said, he knew he was getting angry again and agitated, and he said, you know,

maybe I needed other medication. He said, you know, I don't want to blame the medication. It was totally my fault, but he was aware that things were starting to spin out of control. And shortly before that, he said, he slapped his wife, something he had never done in his life. And he said they were both stunned by it. So just you know, a man who didn't really have very good control of his rage and you know, whatever things in this life were building up to trigger that.

And he said, we need to refine a little bit about, you know, what might be leading to these And Websdale's addition to that body of thought is, you know, he thinks there's something in the American culture that might be particularly tough on males. He feels like, you know, we have the sort of rugged individualist culture that you know, we have to stand on our own two feet, and

we don't got to. We don't get a lot of support from you know, we don't get a lot of financial support or social service support, and that that men, you know, the the demands and men are really difficult to meet. You know, men have to be super competitive. They've got to be financially successful. They've got to be aggressive in the workforce. But they've got to be nurturing and kind at home and romantic. They've got to help

raise the kids. So he says that there's two types of family nihilators, one which he calls he goes the livid coercive, which is the man who murders his family and rage, and the civil reputable, which was William Parente. They they tend to be white males in their fifties. They tend to be very successful businessmen and very devoted

to their families. Probably maybe too devoted. I mean, one thing I found out about William Parrent is that he didn't seem to have much of a life outside work and family, and there's usually absolutely no history of abuse or no complaints of any kind of abuse, psychological or physical, but there is frequently some sort of financial fall or in some particularly humiliating financial issue, like maybe you know, a lawsuit or a firing at work, or maybe fraud

or something like that. So in William Prente's situation, he lived in Garden City, Long Island, he worked in Manhattan, and he had been running maybe a tenure Ponzi scheme, maybe longer than that, and he wrote, he wrote several checks before this family and notilation and worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, which he knew were going to all bounce.

And he collected his wife and his eleven year old daughter, Catherine, and drove to Loyola College in Baltimore so that his college age daughter could die with the family in a hotel room. And of course that case struck me because

it was family annihilation. But also this college daughter, Stephanie, is so heartbreaking because this was the one member of the family who was almost beyond the orbit of the family, someone who was striking out on her own, and you know, at the beginning of her adult life and also the thought of driving down there, and he spent like four or five days before he killed them all, and you know, to think what was going through his head, like you know,

taking them shopping and taking them out to dinner and thinking I'm going to kill my family when this is all over. It's and Websdale talks about those kinds of murders really shake society because these people tend to be pillars of themmunity. But they also you know, they're clearly I think, suffering in silence. They are strong, but he knew his world was crumbling. And the idea is that their egos are so big. Typically that's partially why they're successful.

They're very they can get things done, and they think they have the power and see themselves of having the power. That they have a hard time seeing where their egos end and their families begin. And they think if they're suicidal, and the best thing for them is suicide, and the best thing for everyone is suicide. But I think too, they don't want their families talking behind their back. They don't want their families to say negative things about them once

they commit suicide. So I think there's a lot of narcissism involved. And the other family annihilation Do you want me go into the Josh Publl case. So the other example of the livid coerce of family annihilation with Josh Paul who his wife went missing, his presumed murdered in near Salt Lake City, and then he blew up himself and his two young children in Washington State in a very notorious case. His wife's body has never been found.

But in that case, Websdale would say, Josh Pael came from a very troubled family, broken family, He had a lot of problems. When he's a teenager, he seemed he married a pretty Mormon girl from Washington State, near where he lived. He seems set on finding a woman he could marry, wanted to start a family, which is very

typical of this type of family annihilator. Websdale would say that his ticket to normalcy was his family, and a killer like Josh Paul wants to find a family so he can support them and look like a normal member of society. And yet he's a little too demanding in grasping because he's so desperate for the legitimacy of a family, and he can he can scare the family. He can you know, destroy the love he seeks so desperately because he's so grasping, and they tend to be abusive and controlling,

which Josh Powell absolutely was. He moved with his family to West Valley, Utah, and his wife was actually probably the primary and often the sole breadwinner, and yet he totally can fine controlled finances. She had to fill out all for grocery purchases and an Extel and Excel spreadsheet at his desk. And the interesting thing about that case was that Susan Powell kept it a journal all of her life, and she explained what she was going through

to her close friends in a series of emails. I think a lot of people say, how can a woman stay with a man like that? What's wrong with that woman? And you see in these emails which become their own chapter. So I actually have a I have a victim chapter as well as a killer chapter. She was a very intelligent, articulate woman and someone who wanted desperately to save her marriage. But to a point. So she continues to talk about

how you know, she's clearly afraid of Josh. She said she doesn't specify what the threats were, but she said, you know, I worry about myself and my kids if we do try to leave Josh after what he said, And she actually left a note for in her office that police found saying, if I die, it may not be an accident, even though it might look like one,

because you know, my husband's out to murder me. But she was going to give him an ultimatum that he had to get therapy and maybe medication or she was going to leave him, and I suspect, you know, she finally did give him that ultimate made him and the result was that she lost her life and he subsequently

had custody of the kids, which is mind boggling. And in Washington, he moved back in with his father in Washington State and he rented a home and he booby trapped a home with several gas tanks and he set the place on flames, and they also found hatchup marks and then two boys, Bryden and Charlie. Now Susan's parents, who still live in Washington, are desperately trying to find her remains. They think she might be somewhere along the

highway from Utah Salt Lake City to Seattle. So that's really heartbreaking, incredible.

in there. The prosecutor described it as an honor killing because Jessica I believe she was maybe twenty at the time. He felt that Raheem felt that he was she was too western. I she wasn't wearing her veil uh. And then it turned out that he had raped just at one point, so there's different issues. I think, you know, he was a stepfather, so it was a stepchild killing

for one thing. And also, you know, it seems like her mother told me, you know, maybe Jesse was more like his wife, a wife who was trying to leave him, rather than rather than a daughter. I think there were definitely aspects of an honor killing, because there's this sort of control, and they did fight over, you know, whether or not to wear a veil. But I raised it because there are definitely, there have definitely been honor killing

as an America. And I think it's it's another iteration of father's killing children, one that we have to look at, you know, in a strange way. It's like an inverse of a family annihilation because supposedly the father feels like his humiliation reflects badly on his family. He's trying to get them, find a way out for them, so he kills them all. In an honor killing, it's the daughter's

reputation that reflects badly on the father. You know. Unfortunately, in both cases the daughters get killed, so there's no breaks. But I also thought, you know, this whole idea of honor, you know, isn't it isn't doesn't it exist in some of these other killings, you know, like these these men who are so angry about their wives leaving that they

kill their children to punish their wives. You know, there's just Aaron Schaffhausen in Wisconsin just got three consecutive life terms for killing his three young children, three young daughters. He was furious at his wife for divorcing him and not getting back together with him, and you know, he murdered them all in her home and called her up and said, you can come home now. I've killed your kids. Of course they were his kids as well, But isn't

that a kind of honor killing too? I feel like, you know, it's it's humiliating for men to lose control of their of their wives and they punish them. So, you know, this whole concept of honor, it's not just in you know, a young a young adult daughter who's you know, trying to become independent in not following her father's ways. But there have been some horrific honor killings

in America. And I just noticed I think there's something in southern California right now, a young girl who ran away from home because she was going to be forced into a marriage. But you know, and you know, I don't mean to beat up and I certainly don't think that, you know, Muslims have cornered the market on paternalism, but it's something we should look at. In this concept of honor, which you know, really cuts across cultures. I think that can be deadly for females.

like he corrected her, He gave her spanking. He smacked her, actually, you know, walked up behind her and shot her in the head. So it was a weird, sort of fatherly thing to say.

eighty four days. At least tell us about some of these statistics and some of the things that where you talk about terror, you create. You compare the example, the budget and the emphasis on terrorism homeland security, and then compared to this what maybe we might should call an epidemic, or at least should look at a lot more carefully. Tell us about some of these statistics that you found alarming and what you have to say about it.

And that's only in news reports in America. I tell people that and they think, and they say, oh, you mean around the world, I know, just America. And there were an additional I think thirty three fathers who were sentenced or convicted of earlier deaths, including like Aaron Schaffhausen. And I just don't get why we aren't upset about this, you know, we were so upset about Sandy Hook and that number of kids are killed every week by their parents.

So I just don't know why we're so blind, and I you know, it might be just this, I don't know, you know, maybe evolutionary psychologists can explain why, you know, it just doesn't seem to ring any alarm bells, or because they you know, we read about them now and then it's not a big impact. But you know, there's approximately in the last several years, there's been about fifteen hundred kids, at least fifteen hundred kids who die of

maltreatment in America. And that's you know, mothers, fathers, both mothers and fathers. Though in almost all cases I've ever come across with mothers and fathers, usually the mother is charged because she hasn't protected her child or because she knew about the abuse, and it's really the father and the others are typically lovers of the mothers who are

in the home. They're not you know, married, or they're not officially step fathers, but they're males in the home, you know, And that's half the toll from ninety eleven every single year. You know, why aren't we doing something about this? And you know, in the huff Post story, I mentioned that, you know, if a three year old were kidnapped while an American family were touring the Mid East, for example, kidnaped by a terrorist and bludgeoned to death,

it would be an international incident. We might go to war over that. But you know, just earlier this month, Jeremy Kramer was charged in the killing of his three year old son Brodie because in Washington State, his wife told him they couldn't go on a vacation this summer because they couldn't afford it, and he was apparently angry. And Brodie's bones were found in the Wisconsin in a Montana park later the next day, So you know, why

aren't we talking about that killing? And I think there's sort of this attitude, well, you know, what can you do? You can only get violence so low, and then what can you do? But America has the highest per capita number of maltreatment deaths of any industrialized nation in the world, well second to Mexico based on UNIS of figures, so that's like twenty seven of the wealthiest countries. We have

the highest per capita maltreatment and death rate. And those maltreatment death rates do not count homicide rates, like you know, like the Brody killing, because those are only cases that have come before a child welfare agency or where there's a there's already a history of abuse. And the GAO did the Government Accounting Office did a study of those numbers, and I thought that they you know, they're probably significantly undercounted because a lot of cases can never be proved.

I mean, a father can drown his kid and how do you know. You know, you can say I answered the phone and my baby slipped under the water. In fact, he might have been furious at the kid and held him underwater, But who can prove that? And if people in the household are terrorized, are they going to talk about that? So I know, I feel like, you know, I don't know what the answer is, but I think

we have to start with this perspective. You know, we the last campaign, all we talked about was abortion, and you know, it's like, we're so concerned about the unborn, but we don't care about the born. You know, these people, you know, these babies who are completely defenseless. All babies can do is scream, and we just don't seem to want to intervene to protect those kids. I don't get it.

It's just like, you know, we have to step through the looking glass and see things very differently to do anything about this.

like this. What was your conclusion in terms of evolutionary drive, our primal instincts, or our throwback to our ape like ancestors, in terms of a case like James, which almost wet almost it fits right into your theories and your and your study itself in terms of this person that seemingly is remorseful, genuinely remorseful and really didn't have any any

violent background that would predict anything like this. But what would, if anything, What kind of conclusion did you come in terms of this evolutionary drive and a connection to human beings now presently and their ability to kill their own offspring.

talked about in the book. They had a real problem with family annihilations and they they decided we're going to do something about this. And one thing they did was, like healthcare workers were much more intrusive about questions, you know, like asking the mother, how are things going at home? When you bring in your baby for a well baby check up, you know, how are things going, are you

stressed out? How is your husband dealing with it? And just to try to find out what's going being a little more intrusive, trying to find out what's going on in the family and reaching out, giving these people like you know, therapy or social service help or parenting classes, whatever they need, whatever they need. I think we have to be more aggressive about that. I think just some of our attitudes about violence have to change, which is, you know, really difficult to do. But you know, men

I think are frequently rewarded for being violent. Like you said, you know, sports like hockey, you know, the more violent guys are, they're rewarded. They can become professional athletes. You know, they're cheered when they when they fight, you know, I'll fight on the ice, or you know, guys who fight in a bar over a woman. You know, there's a

certain kind of admiration for the winner. And certainly I think you know, our culture, our culture is very competitive, you know, and very violent, and I think we've got to give up that sort of you know, pecking order, that sort of alpha male lang or mentality. And I think it's it's you know, individuals have to do it, but I think we have to, you know, we have

to sort of re educate ourselves and deal with things. Interestingly, you know, I'm the whole abortion thing, I think too is kind of it's like this sort of instinctive push or this push for life. Just like the Langers, there's this constant pro creation, but it's like, you know, once the offspring are on the ground, it's like, well you know, catches catch can they're sort of on their own. And you know, like the Langer, society can be really brutal.

In our society can be really brutal for children who you know, end up in the and the wrong families. One of my one of my experts said something, you know, the best thing, the safest way kids can be is to be born in the right families, you know, the safest families. The next thing is, you know, be protected by society because they you know, they can't protect themselves, and we owe it to these kids to help them, and we owe it to these you know, the horrible

the victims that I wrote about. They haunt me and I wish we could stop more from joining them.

excusing the behavior murders. In terms of evolutionary drive, we're told there's so much conversation now about prefrontal cortex damage, the difference in certain offenders brains, maybe even the effect of brain damage. And again that doesn't really help you in court in murder cases too much. Do you fear any kind of excusing of behavior when you can get a person like Josh Because I know that in Canada

we have a much much different system. Just for example, what was in was big media story in the last ten days or so. These were the details that were released to the public through the media. Two children were found dead killed. They presume that the mother had killed these children. Then there was a search for the mother. They were asking her to turn herself in, and they were dredging the river and they found her. I guess

she threw herself in the river. But the difference between America and Canada is stark in the way that story was portrayed in the news. They weren't hunting this killer. They were looking for a mentally ill woman that must have been mentally ill to do what she did. So you can see a difference in how we are looking at something like that. But is there any fear that this evolutionary drug I might be used to excuse still the urge too, they're in the intent to kill.

be released completely. He is now an unescorted passes outside of the institution, and they are they are claiming that he is making incredible strides because he is benefiting from his medication, and it looks like they're looking they're using him as a poster boy, when I say, a poster boy for psychiatric rehabilitation.

person is clearly psychopathic. But you know, the attorney will never make that sort of argument because it's just never made in American courts, and I don't see any kid killers who actually come to court don't ever seem to get off easily. I think the public seems more sympathetic to women because women frequently kill, you know, postpartum depression or you know, sometimes a baby, there's an exorcism going on.

The woman is clearly out of her mind. The sort of case you're talking about with a family annihilation is really unusual for women there. It's like ninety six to ninety eight percent are done by men, and women almost never kill that their husbands. They don't feel that sort of ownership of their husbands. So I don't really see that.

I think the thing that's happening here is that people are never even brought to court because they're very smart about you know, there's this case in Colorado now that I don't I don't know really what's going on, but the kid, Dylan Redway, when missing during a court ordered visitation with his father, and you know a few of his bones were found in the woods. I mean, how do you prove that case against anybody? So I think that's more of the issue that some people are missing

and they're never found or cases are never made. But I think once they come to court. In the US, I can't think of a single kid killing case where people have gotten off easy, and I don't think that's ever going to happen on this side.

the One province. It really wasn't much of a story, but there was there were major protests in Quebec, but in the One province, but that was about it, and quietly that he's out, and.