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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. Gasey 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 Zupansky.
Good evening, This is your host Dan Zupanski for the program True Murder, the most shocking killers in true crime history and the authors that have written about them. When filming his TV series Race Relations On, Saffran spent an uneasy couple of days with one of Mississippi's most notorious white supremacists. A year later, he heard that the man had been murdered, and what was more, the killer was black.
At first, the murder seemed to twist on the old deep self race crimes, but then more news rolled in. Maybe it was a dispute over money or, most intriguingly, over sex. Could the infamous racist actually have been secretly pardon me? At first, the murder seemed to twist on the old deep self race crimes, but then more news rolled in. Maybe it was a dispute over money, or, most intriguingly, over sex. Could the infamous racist actually have been secretly gay with a thing for black men? Did
Saffran have the last footage of him alive. Could this be the story of a life time? Seizing his Truman Capote moment, he jumped on a plane to cover the trial. Over six months, Saffran got deeper and deeper into the South, becoming entwined in the lives of those connected with the murder, white separatists, black campaigners, lawyers, investigators, neighbors, even the killer himself. And the more he talked with them, the less simple
the crime and the world seemed. The book is Murder in Mississippi And with my special guest, John, author and documentary filmmaker John Saffran. Welcome to the program, and thank you for agreeing to this interview. John Saffran, thank you very much. Leave me John fine, Thank you fine, thank you, thank you very much for this interview.
I think we're a bit out of sync, but we'll be able to figure that out. I guess we'll just leave death after our sentences or something. But I'm very on your show. I listened to your show a loss, and your show directed me to all the true crime writers that helped me a loss with writing my true crime books. So I really appreciate it.
Well, thank you very much, and it was an honor to be on your program and the special sixth part six author sixth part true crime series that aired on the ABC this summer. Was fantastic to be on that program with you. So that was a great honor. Exert He's got some children running around, don't you.
Yeah, I'm trying to get into a quiet place. But you know, maybe this is good atmosphere. You know how I say, like sometime's right, the ice sounds good when you know there's a bit of noise in the background, like the same alive or something. Sure.
Congratulations on the book, by the way, this is a one wild tale. Maybe you can tell our audience to give up like you very much do in the book. And I think it's very important, obviously, because you are integral part of this story and you've put yourself inside this story and rightfully self. Tell us about your background and so we can understand how you came to this
story in particular. But tell us about your background in Australia and on Australia and the kinds of documentaries, the kind of filmmaker that you are, the kind of journalism that you have done. Tell us about your background, John.
You know, I do documentaries that have a bit of a twist. So I guess for international audiences something a bit like Michael Moore or even sometimes a bit like Sasha Baron Cohen Borat, where you go out to tell a story and it is documentary, but you've got you've got twists in them, and you try to make them
amusing too. And so I went off of filming a TV show and I I went to Mississippi and I filmed this white supremacist called Richard Barrett, and I played a little trick on him that I in the book, where I procure a saliva sample of him and then take it to be the DNA tested. And then I returned to one of his white supremacist meetings and you know, in front of the room, you know, announced that you know,
he's got a bit of African DNA. And anyway, obviously Richard Barrett, he wasn't happy with this, and he started legal action and that had and he was a lawyer as well as a white supremacist, and it was a very clever lawyer, and he just managed to threaten my TV station in a way that we just felt, well, they felt compelled to not air the story. So I
just ended up on the cutting room floor. I spent two days with this guy, Richard Barrett, and got to see inside his weird secret world, but we weren't able to use any of the footage. And that was that. And then eleven months late, I'm just schooling around the internet and Richard Barrett. I find out he's just been killed in his house. And you know, the house and both him were the killer tried to light them on fire.
And then the killer, a man, a young black man named Vincent McGee, was caught and you know, one of his first stories is, hey, it was self defense because Richard Barrett, the white supremacist, tried to make sexual advances on me. And you know, so that's been pretty wild. And you know, the trial was scheduled to start soon, so I just had to either jump on a plane and cover it or not. And you know, there wasn't really enough time to think or do anything, or try
to get together a TV production or anything. So just ye had jumped on a plane with my dictaphone and my notepad and then ended up spending six months in Mississippi following the case.
Now, was your original intention just in realizing that when you were searching the internet that because you do have a conversation with the guys that you were involved with that had been involved with the filming of Richard Barrett and when he was murdered, you guys had a conversation like, well, now we can use this footage, can't we? And so did you jump on that plane with the plan to write a book or did you jump on the plane just to follow up that story.
No, definitely to write a book, because yeah, as I said, it's quite exhausting getting a production up, like a film or a television production up. I mean, unless you're just going to run off and shoot it yourself. So I didn't kind of want to do that. And I also just felt this great freedom in kind of just being able to go on my own. And when you're filming, you have to like hustle a lot. You have to
like talk people into appearing on camera. And so someone can have an incredible someone can have an incredible story to tell, but as soon as you press record, suddenly they don't want to say everything like they would, you know, if they weren't being filmed. And then people can you know, not be really good talent for TV. For instance, they can be rambling too much, your lack energy or something.
And whilst if you interview people and put them in a book, suddenly, as long as their story is really good, you can kind of dodge around those other things and sort of just not mentioned oh, by the way, this guy told me this story in an excruciating, long winded way that lacked energy, so like you just don't you just don't mention that bit and you've got like a nice, tight little story and so and yeah, there was a lot of freedom and it was really refreshing, and you
also you could just spend more time. Like when I'm filming, usually we land in a place like when we did the Richard Barrett thing, the original prank, Like we just landed there for like a day basically, and then everything else is travel and you just have to capture everything quickly, and you know, you can't always get to the essence of something, and whilst with a book I could, so yeah,
I really liked it. I also like the parameters of writing a book because often it's good to have parameters because it just kind of sets down something that you can work at. So for instance, if a TV station says, oh, you have to deliver a half hour show. It's not like, oh damn, I wish I could do forty minutes. It's like I wish I could do twenty minutes. It's like, okay, fine, there's one thing set in place that I can work towards.
And sometimes, I know this sounds of extrange, because everyone likes to creative freedom, but sometimes having parameters just you just get on with things and you move on with them. So I started reading lots of true crime books which I haven't read before, and I started trying to understand the architecture of them and how they work. And so when I went over there, I sort of had that in my head. I had these I saw what all these other true crime writers did, and I tried to
follow their directions of how they found out things. And it didn't always work, and that was that, And sometimes it sort of did the opposite of work. It didn't work at all. Like, for instance, I noticed a lot of true crime books start up where they just explain really simply the crime and then the rest of the book is, you know, the why or how did it
end up there. But when I went over there, the more I spoke to people, the more I started getting slightly different versions of everything, and I found it really annoying, Like, for instance, the mother of the killers, then Richard Barrett pulled up on the day of the killing. He pulled up in a black suv. And then you know, another person close to the case said, oh, on the day of the killing, Richard Barrett, he pulled up, but he
was riding a bicycle. And then I'm like, well, what do I write in that chapter in the book where I do I say he pulled up in a bicycle or do I say pulled up in an suv? And
so yeah, things like that drove me crazy. But then once I up back with all the all the material and I typed a lot of things, lots of interviews and written lots of nights, I realized, like, all that confusion, like, that's the book, and I might as well, yeah, not five, It might as well just write the book about how the further I got into the story, the foggy things got right.
Yeah, for various reasons, but certainly that's what you found. The more you talk to people, there more questions rather than answers. Yes, so let's get back to let's get to for our audience, that doesn't know too much about this. You've talked about Richard Barrett. Was there in your two days with Richard Barrett? Was there anything extraordinary about Richard Barrett?
Because I think it's you haven't really explained exactly why you thought you had this real story, this story that you could instinctively as a documentary filmmaker, you knew that there was when you do have a story that's extraordinary, when there's something else to be learned from this, And what did you think and what did you believe you might learn from this or what you might see or what it might be an example of, and hence you were interested in writing this book.
Well, we kind of thought we were. We thought me and the crew when we were over there, and we weren't particularly trying to trip him up on anything like this or whatever, but we we thought he was a big camp and we thought, oh, it's weird. He sort of you know, if I had to make a guess after spending two days with him, I'd be going, Oh, he's probably gay, you know, and which is kind of weird. If the guys are leading white supremacist then you know that had nothing to do with what we were filming
or whatever. So we didn't really like think about it that much, but that was that. And then so then when we found out he'd been killed and one of the versions of events was he may have made a sexual advance on the black guy, I was like, Oh, that kind of matches up with that. So I guess that became an interesting part of the story for me, like can you be a leading white supremacist who's like
hiding such a deep secret? And the more and the more the more I got into the book, the more I found out that one way into the book it is all about secrets and how you know it's impossible to get to them sometimes and Mississippi, Yeah, it's definitely.
It's definitely a place of secrets where people and I guess that it's kind of like the opposite of a lot of the modern world where everyone's just trying to take a hundred photos of themselves and put them up on Facebook every hour, and that's the way the world is going in one way, but in another way, there's still you know, lots of secrets and lots of people trying to hide things.
Now, you know, I found interesting too, and it was we have this in common is that our stories made Stormfront and this tell us of what Stormfront is and what sort of the what you've found out yourself looking online, what Stormfront have to say about you and this story.
Yeah, the Stormfront is a white nationalist website, like an international one, but people from all over the world, people from all over the world, you know, post on it. And I was a person of interest to them because I pranked in the past, in a totally separate case, I'd pranked this ku Klux Klansman where I tried. I tried to join the ku Klux Klan even though I'm even though I'm Jewish, and I thought, so I kind of go in there and I kind of act all naive,
like I'm like, listen, why can't I join? I don't do anything Jewish anymore, you know, I don't. I don't eat kosher. I haven't been into a synagogue since my bar mitzvah let me join. And yeah, and so anyway, so once that was aired, then the people from Stormfront were onto me. So were they were warning everyone, listen, if you hear Saffran's filming another show, just watch out.
So yeah, they're definitely onto me. Interesting and also they also the thing with Richard Barrett once I start once he was killed and I started looking into it, just all over message boards or white supremacist message boards, are people all suspect with that he was, Yeah, he was secretly gay. So it wasn't like I was the only one who had that impression. But then one of the sort of weird twists in the book is like it's
like the opposite of what you'd expect. It's like, at a certain point in my researching, when I'm over there, it might be the big reveal or I was thinking in my head, I was like, my god, it might be that he's not gay, like because you just instinctively think, oh, the way a book should be is there's this white supremacist and I don't know what's going on, and then daddah, I find this secret ever that he's gay. But it was more like everyone spoke about how he was probably gay.
But then I'd sort of like I met up with so many people who actually knew him, not knew him from one degree of separation, but like knew him and knew him when they were young boys, and Richard was a bit older and they didn't think he was it was like, anyway, so many people who had like direct contact with him and you know, really didn't have an agenda to stand up for him, would say, I listen, he was a jerk. I hated him. He was a creep.
But I've got to tell you, you know, I was fourteen at the time he was twenty, and you know, I can't remember him being a predator. And so it was like that became an interesting part of the journey, was maybe people just make up rooms and stories in their heads and then they just become the truth in inverted commas. But then you know it's not the truth.
Yeah. Now you have been to the US before, Like you said, you're in Orange County with the KKK. Now you're back in Mississippi again, and this is the state capital's Jackson, Mississippi. Tell us describe the people and the atmosphere of the geography. Tell us a little bit about Jackson, Mississippi. A little bit of a culture shock, I would imagine.
Oh yeah, definitely, there's been a lot of self segregation over the last ten years. So you have the Jackson which is in Hinz County and Jackson's like vast majority black. And then right next to it. You've got rankin county where all the white people have gone, and you know that's majority white. And because of the way people have voted in in America, in the little community, as soon as the demographic shifts in the community, you start voting
for people of your own race or ethnicity. So you know, the people in power in Jackson over the last ten years have you know, the sheriffs and the heads of police and the judges and everyone else that gets voted in.
You know, more black people have becoming in charge. But the one difference I really noted compared to Melbourne where I live, is there there was generally only black people or white people, whilst in I don't know what's going down in different places in Canada, but you know, in Melbourne, you know we'll have Arabs, or will have Greek people and Maltese people and Chinese people and Indian people and
you know, few Aboriginal people. But whilst yeah, in Mississippi, it seems like you're either black or you're white, and there were nothing none of these sort of like in between people that you have in multicultural places. So that was like really start, like, I don't think there's even many like Latino Latin American people there. So yeah, that was that was that was really stark and I really
noticed that. And also you turn up to some place and pretty much everyone's black, you know, like in a or pretty much everyone's white, like yeah, and that's that's
really notable. And I know I'm not going mad by noticing that because I found this promotion I think in some Jackson local newspaper where they're trying to encourage black and white people that like eat together at the local eateries and there were like twenty percent off if you dine with someone of the other Rakish and this was like two ten or something that that little promotion was.
Yeah, that's amazing. Yeah, so that's that's a culture shock. I would be for me too. That's exactly the situation here. It's multicultural. You see every reason ethnicity everywhere, and so it's very diverse in all the community.
So yeah, now you said, the other thing I noticed about Mississippi was very parochial, where like other parts have been in America. Like you say, you're from Australia and everyone kind of wants to ask you questions about it and what's it like, and everyone's really enthusiastic about finding out about some other place in the world. But in
Mississippi it was very parochial. They didn't really think of the rest of America except in really negative ways, like as if everyone in New York their only purpose of existence is to try to somehow keep Mississippian down, like the real bitter, paranoid view of the rest of America.
And then and yeah, not the rest of the world that doesn't even enter there generally, you know, generalizing, but compared to other places I've gone, Yeah, it's very parochial, not a very cosmopolitan outlook, and parochial almost to the extent of like the county in Mississippi you're in, so not even like the whole of Mississippi. It's like you're in your little county and you're really inward looking to that county and you're just not really that interested in what's going on outside.
Now, in your journey in Mississippi, you go to this trial and it's about a month before the trail occurs, So you're in Mississippi for a month, am I correct?
Yeah?
Yeah, for previous to the trail.
Yeah, yeah, that's right. I kind of base that on when I was just trying to guess at what I meant to be doing. I just decided I'll go a month early because in Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, that true crime book, you know, he's in the small town, the author John Barrant, way before the trial, and that really helps you, you know, get to know the locals and suddenly you're not just this kind of strange journalist is just rocked up, and you know, you get a bit of time to sort of build up
trust and sniff around. So yeah, I was there for a month, and you know, I met lots of interesting people that ended up in the book. And it's always like I couldn't have asked to bump into more interesting people that who were exactly what I was looking for for the sake of my book. So but then then the trial was delayed, and that's when I decided, well, I had other work to do, so I just went back left Mississippi, and then I came back months later.
I'm already confused about exactly how long it was, because then the trial was scheduled to happen again. You know, it happened again. So I returned again about a month earlier and then you started on my way again.
Now before this trial, before you see really what happens in terms of legally to Vincent, Who do you interview? What important characters do you interview? I mean, they're all fascinating characters, that's for sure, But tell us some of the important characters that you spoke to previous to the trail.
Well, I guess Jim Giles is. I call him a white nationalist frenemy of Richard Barrett's because even though they were both white nationalists, they you know, they didn't like each other. He was a local. He lived in a trailer on his mother's farm and would broadcast a white nationalist radio show every morning, and he'd sometimes talk about Richard because they've lived in the same county, and he
was suspicious. He thought Richard might have been an agent for the FBI, or a police informer, a secret Jew, and all these other things. On top of all the negative things that other people have to say about Richard,
that they were his suspicions. And he's the one who applied for Richard's FBI file to be opened, and it was opened, and so that's that's how I got my hands on Richard's FBI file and I just turned up on his doorstep, really, but he wasn't there, and I don't know, left messages and then finally he agreed to meet me, and so he was quite nice in person, but as soon as I left, he's like, you know, a big talker and a bit sort of obviously he's
not that happy that I'm a jew for Antiant. So he's actually just very recently read the book or I sent it. I sent the book to most of the people mentioned in the book, and they're starting to receive their copy Cippy, and he's, yeah, he's already sort of going through my book with a fine tooth comb, sort of picking up any minor thing that he disagrees with, like that, just the most ridiculous, pedant things like oh well, John says that when I took the DVD that I
walked back to my trailer, But that's not true. John walked back to his car and sort of plating all these books, these little things that sort of don't make any difference, as you know, errors that sort of somehow reflect, you know, on me, and he thinks I'm also well, he thought I was an FBI informer too, so as well as Richard. He thought he was very suspicious about why this strange guy had just turned up in and you know, that's part of him was quite exhausting. But
again he was very energetic and an interesting guy. And also when I was face to face with him, I hung out with him a couple of times, like he I mean, it's I guess, it's just really interesting that someone who invests so much time in being a white nationalist and having all these views against Jews and blacks, like when push comes to shove and I just turn up there, Like it's not like he bashed me or anything.
He was like accommodating and humorous and yeah, So the world's a confusing place, which I guess is another thing that kind of comes out from my book because I do meet these people that are on the one hand, you might think they're like carting characters of evil. Then they've got their you know, everyone's a person and sure people woman, Yeah, people are confusing and like Jim Jars and yeah, so he was one of the people I met.
I also I met the son of this famous white supremacist who assassinated a black guy called Medga Evers in the nineteen sixties and the mega evers, like the airport's named after him. And anyway, I met up with I met up with his son, who is now an old man himself, and he also had all his suspicions about Richard, and yeah, he was trying to kick me up into like paying him thousands of dollars so you know, to be to be in my book and stuff like that.
He was trying to deal with me, and I just said, oh, listen, you know, I can't really do that. And yeah, he was pretty mad, and my name started getting around town. Like weeks later, I'd chased down some other white nationalists and they'd heard through you know, the grapevine that I was in town and to watch out to me. But I don't know, I just it seems it sounds really scary, but you just sort of go, well, you know, chances are I'll be okay, so just keep on turning up.
And I just had a rule for this because of my TV show that so fulls of like pranks and manipulation and trick in saying one thing to people but meaning in other because you're trying to do some comedy, I just thought I'm just going to be truthful for this whole thing, and truthful to the point that if I, like I met a white supremacist and they bothered to ask me whether I was Jewish, unless I really I just told them, I thought himself, maybe if I feel really,
really really threatened, maybe I'll lie. But otherwise no, So I'd be sitting, you know, I'd be turning up to some white supremacists little bungalow in the forest, and I'd be there on my own with him at night, and for some reason they get suspicious that I was Jewish and they asked me, and I just said, you know, I am, and then yeah, it seems it seems to take a lot of heat out of things anyway. It seems like when a lot of these people, when push
comes to shoves, they're big talkers. Thank God, they're big talkers, are not not, you know, actually violent.
Well, it was interesting in your book too, is that you ask because you really again, maybe I'll ask this question. And you can also talk about the idea that blacks were on lower on the wrong than gaze and you're maybe kind of surprised on their their sentiment about that. But did Jim Giles, did he believed that that Chard was gay, and hey, yeah, yeah, he.
Was absolutely certain, you know, he was this. And he said that he was certain because when he first met up with Richard, because they were both in the scene, he just started noticing Richard kept on ringing him again and again, and he just got this weird energy from him. It's like, why does this guy keep on ringing me? And then he thought, oh my god, this guy's trying to, you know, hook up with me or whatever. And he basically got the same vibe that you know I got
when I was filming my documentary show. It was the same thing. It's kind of everyone got that vibe from Richard Barrett. But yeah, as you said, I said, one of the interesting things was, I guess in twenty thirteen, we assume, oh, hang on, you know, back in the old days, you know, all those all the white people in Mississippi, they would have hated blacks and they would
have hated Gaze. But there was I did a bit of research into that, and like gay people who were around in the sixties, and the kind of thought was you were allowed to be gay as long as he
didn't quite say it. So, for instance, there were openly gay bars like everyone knew they were gay bars in the nineteen sixties and these when all this crazy stuff is going on with lynchings and everything of black people, and everyone knows they're gay bars, and you kind of you were allowed to go to them, but you just couldn't quite say it. You couldn't like seal the deal
and tell people you were gay. But everyone was allowed to know you were gay, and you weren't necessarily in a threatening situation like you were if you were black. So and I actually read this book by this guy called John Howard who had grown up in Mississippi and he was gay, and from think of the expression he used, but it was like quiet acceptance. So what was they mean acceptance? So it was more like looking the other wife.
It is Ryan here, and I have a question for you.
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All these or all the Mississippians would like look the other way, and you know, provided you didn't quite say it, they'd let you get away with it, even in the bad old days.
Well, it seems pretty tolerant for the time in a pretty and a very intolerant place. That's that's the surprise out of the deal. Certainly.
Yeah, I think I think a little bit of it is that in the South, they're really they were really angry about being like a radical, like a political radical. So well, I didn't like black people at all. But then around the nineteen sixties, all the you know, like when New Yorkers came down and people were like left wing and they were radical, and they were hippies. That's who. That's who the white people there really didn't like. And so four the nineteen sixties, it's not like gay people
were perceived as politically radical. It was just almost like, it's this thing they do and it's a bit of a it was seen as a bit of a vice, a bit like, oh, I say, the town drunk or there's someone wasn't something like that. It's like, you know, it's best, it'd be best if they weren't a drunk, but they're a drunk, and let's just be polite about it. And it's kind of a Homosexuality was seen like that.
And it wasn't until the nineteen sixties that suddenly homosexually homosexuality got kind of an attached to being like left wing radical, and that's when that's when people in the South, or at least lots of them, like started being really negative about homosexuality because it was seen as this sort of radical thing.
Right, socialist or something. Yeah, socialist. Yes, Now you spoke to Vincent McGee's mother, Tina, When did you speak so before the trail? Now, what did you you see in terms of the motive, Well, she was.
The one who spilt the beans on Vincent. For a while was deny like when it was first arrested that he went through the motions of denying. He knew anything about it about Richard Barrett being killed. Rich about sixty five years old by the way, at the time of when he was killed. And then he kind of weazled around and said, well, yeah, I saw him that night
that I left and he was fine. But then his mother who was also pulled in to rather the time Richard was murdered and they realized Vincent had done it and they caught Vincent. She just spilt the beans and she said Vincent had come home and he had blood all over him and he said that, you know, Richard tried to rape him and that's why he had to fight back. And then it said there's only like two properties in between the mcgeese and Richard Barrett. That's an
other kind of strange thing. People found it strange that Richard Barrett, a white nationalist, was in this little pocket, this little community where a lot of people were black, and yeah, he lived pretty much next door to the to the mcgeese. And so then when Vincent found out his mother had fessed up something, then he sort of had to negotiate how he was going to come up with some sort of confession that sort of ticked all these boxes. But it became, you know, it became increasingly impossible,
like he was trying to reconcile. Well, yeah, my mum's kind of telling the truth, but she's not. And Richard
attacked me, but it wasn't sexual. And yeah, I saw the interrogation room footage quite late on in My journey, and you just see everything picking her away in his brain as he's as he's sitting there in the interrogation booth, and he doesn't know what other people know, he doesn't know what the investigators know, what his mother's said, and he's just trying to work out how is he going to weave his way out of this situation, which was really you couldn't really weave your way out of it.
And then Vincent started claiming that his mother had said that because the investigators had threatened her and saying because she was dragged in before Vincent was arrested. So he says that she says that the investigator says, listen, we're hunting for Vincent and unless you tell us what's happened, you know, we're going to kill him. And so she was so scared that Vincent was going to get killed that she just that's why she came up with this storky and she came up with the story about the
sexual assault because it was a credible story. I mean, this is another confusing thing. I totally appreciate the listeners. Now we will be getting very confused. But Vincent, after saying that Richard had made a sexual attack on him, he kind of walked back from that. He said, oh, no, it wasn't that. It wasn't that. He just attacked me and for these really weird reasons. I ah, we had a fight over faithbook. He wanted me to get off
the computer. I've done his house on Richard's computer, and he wanted to get off the computer, and one thing led to the other, and then you know, we I killed him. And Angeloa was like, what that doesn't even
make any sense because Vincent. The other thing I realized that I should say is Vincent had done yard work for Richard Barrett, so it was kind of you know, several several times, and so that that was their connection where where on one level, it makes sense that Vincent McGee was in the house of this white supremacist Richard Barrett.
And then the confusing thing about him stepping back from the sexual assault claim is that would have been his best defense, like both on paper and in the real world, because on paper, it's like, well, that's self defense. And then in the real world because in that part of Mississippi it was a conservative county and they possibly would have been sympathetic to a man saying this and I had to fight off another man because he was trying
to sexually assault me. And so why did he Why did he step back from that story if that was his best defense, and I yeah, it's very confusing. And then one version of events is he stepped back from it because him and Richard were actually in a consenting relationship where Richard would pay him for sex and Vincent was so determined that he did not want this sort
of like coming out in court or whatever. That's why he kind of stepped away from it because it just it would have been like the ultimate taboo, right.
But what was his defense to police finally after you know, after they got through that his mother had had already spelt the beans, like you said, what in the end with the police, what was his was it self defense that Richard had pulled a knife on him and he in return had had a knaighthe is that the.
Deal, Well, the the kind of exacerbating, exhausting thing is which is just so confusing. It's so confusing for people who kind of want a neat thing or for things to make sense, is that rather than go to trial, he decided to plead guilty. And at this point there was like the death penalty wasn't on the table anymore, like had been long taken off the table, and because there was original around the table, so he played, he
played guilty. And usually when you play guilty, you get like a pretty good deal because you're saving the court all this time and you're giving me the investigators what you want. But they gave him sixty five years. So he accepted a plea bargain where he got sixty five years jail, and he's like twenty two or whatever, so he's not going to get out till he's nearly ninety. And so then the question became, why would you what would you plead guilty if the best I was going
to give you is sixty five years? Like why not just roll the dice and have a court case, because you know, anything can happen, and then if the worst happens, it's not like you're going to get anything much worse than sixty five years jail. So anyway, but his actual and his plea bargain it said, it was it was this really Weasley language where it was we accept sort of that there was an element of manslaughter as opposed to murder to this, but having said that, Vincent didn't
have to kill Richard Barrett. So it was like the most real Weasley thing where where because obviously, if it was actually man's laws, why would why would they have given him sixty five years or why would he have accepted it? And it was a very it was a very complicated thing where where the most the easiest explanation is Vincent just wanted at any point just to not have to appear in court where it would have come out. But he had a relationship with which Richard Barrett.
Didn't he say to you that he wanted to move from one prison to get out of a particularly bad prison. Again, he doesn't make a sense.
Yeah, no, no, that is true. There's so many layers about like why would he have accepted this, But that's very true. What you're saying is that he and this was quite credible. He was saying that the just in the small county jail, he was a victim of attacks and violence and racism from the White guards, and he felt so threatened there that he thought if he pleads guilt, he will get moved out of there into the bigger
Mississippi in prison and he'll be safer there. So, yeah, that's actually very true that that could have been another reason why he decided to take this incredibly bad plea bargain. And it was kind of like the sentence was like perfect for the district attorney and for the because it's
so expensive the prosecutor death penalty case. And at the very start they did keep that on the table because and this was when it looked like it was going to be this big theatrical trial and all the media was going to be there, and but then it kind of died down, and so suddenly the district attorney he kind of didn't want to prosecute a death penalty case anymore because they're so difficult, you know, they go on for years forever, and they cost a fortune, and so
you know, but he couldn't look like he couldn't look like he was backing down and letting this guy off the hook. And so yeah, he got he got the perfect thing, that distric attorney.
He got this.
He got this sentence where unless someone was really altered, really pro descinalty, like she hard to complain about the sentence, like Vincent's not going to get out till he's ninety years old.
So yes, well he believes he might be Elton thirty. He does have the possibility to get out in thirty. So yeah, I mean that was his great spot to you. He said, why, well, well we'll be in here for sixty five only, here for thirty only.
Yeah, I mean there was another layer to it. I mean, as you can see, there's just so many insane layers to it. I guess this even ties in with secret.
So one of the other interesting things I found out about the little counties there in Mississippi is that they kind of the way they get voted in is by being really tough on crime, But being really tough on crime is expensive, and also people don't want taxes raised, So it's this impossible thing where if people want people locked up forever, plus they don't want to pay any
extra taxes, and something has to give. So I started finding out that in these small counties, at least in Mississippi, you'd have the district attorney making this big theatrical show of this person's going to be in jail until there are one hundred here's the sheet of paper showing it. And then when everything dies down in ten or twenty years and you know, everyone's forgotten about that and there's not going to be too much trouble, but you know,
they sort of like softly kind of release them. And so there's a difference between the theater that they make about how tough on crime they're going to be and how long they're going to imprison people and how long they actually they actually do that. And in fact, the reason Vincent McGee was able to kill Richard Barrett in the first place is Vincent had been in jail before, and he was meant to be in there for this really long time, and they just released him early. Like
everyone was quite when Richard was killed. Some people were shocked. They're going, hell, and isn't it there that guy who should still be in jail? And it was, Yes, it was that guy who should still be in jail, but they released him because of budgetary pressures. Where you relieve a bit of those budget pressures if you let out prisoners early.
You found out through this entire ardyssey, here, this journey, whether you felt that there was some element of self defense. And again it's hard to tell exactly the real turn of events, but you did find out his real registered or at least a verifiable violent pass.
Tell us about that, Yeah, he had a very unattractive violent past. Where again, did I stay there so long? I got to meet the people, so, for instance, I got to meet his ex girlfriend and ex girlfriend's mother. And suddenly, when you start hearing the small stories, even if they're not as dramatic as a murder, they're just like,
they're awful stories. They're awful stories about him threatening his girlfriends, want to have power over her, and you know, him striking her, and yeah, so suddenly because I went I went in there, and I guess in one way, I
wanted the story to be simple. I wanted to be about, you know, this young black guy and he's been unfairly you know, prosecuted in the Deep South, and you know, and they're picking on him because he's black and because you know they're they're all in cahoots with Richard Barrett, the white supremacist. But then when you start hearing about the little stories about his past, you realize the pretty
unattractive character himself. Vincent McGee, he was in his own way as unattractive as Richard Barrett because he was like a bully, and he was also he was very intelligent and very charming and very funny except and very very handsome. But he only he'd only like show that side of him when there was something in it for him. So with men, it was like, well, can I get money off this person? And if it was women might have been you know, can I get sex off this girl?
So he would be definitely he was able to turn on the charm and intelligence when he wanted, but then as soon as he didn't need, you know, like as soon as he was bored with people, then he'd instantly turn that off and he would be happy to be violent. And it was hard to know what to make of it all in so much as he'd had such an awful past, totally absent father pretty much, and his mother arguably wasn't she was also absent in her own way.
And so there is an element where I look at it and see like my childhood and look at his childhood and go, well, how can I, you know, how can I judge this guy? But having said that, he had a brother, Vincent McGee, he grew up in the same circumstances and he didn't end up, you know, murdering people and beating women, and you know, so, yeah, I guess like the world's just a mess, really, and people's
lives are mess and situations are messes. And because I stayed there for so long, I got to see the mess and all the complications and all the way everything's just tangled up. Like if I was there for a short time, if I was there for a couple of weeks or maybe a month, I might have been able to write a book where it is all about Vincent McGee, the guy who should not have been put in jail because you know, he was attacked by a white supremacist
and and they're picking on him because he's black. And but you know, like, yes, as I said, the more the more I spoke, the more the deeper I got into things, and the more you started to see the ugly violent side of Vincent. He even threatened me. So there's almost no better example of it's not when it
comes to Vincent's violent nature, it's not even hearsay. It's like, you know, I was there on the phone to him, and then as soon as he couldn't get what he wanted, he'd make these pretty horrific threats against me, which he talked about how he could he had people on the outside even though he's in prison, and he has people who can like come to my little place in Mississippi that night and can kill me if I don't give
him money. And you know, so when I when I And that was kind of interesting because one of the stories about why Vincent cracked and killed Richard Barrett is that Schard owed him money for doing from yard work and Richard tried to rip him off and not and
then he just went crazy. It's his money was denied him, and that seems a parallel exactly what was happening with me, where Vincent was demanding money off me and I didn't want to give it to him, and then he just instantly snapped and started threading, threatening me with death.
Now is this guy was he trying to come across? Do you believe like sort of a gangster guy. He's got a bunch of tattoos, a tear drop tattoo, he wears the dow rags. You have a story in there where he says, I took this do rag off a guy in prison. He came back into my cell and so then I shoved the bottle up his ass. So, yeah, tell us, is this guy a gangster guy? He talks
about pimping women. He's a violent guy, taking a woman's car and then smacking it up and saying, oh, well, is that what he's trying to portray himself as.
But I think he was a gangster without a gang though, like so many people in the book, they were lonely men who like Richard Barrett and Jim Giles I spoke about before, and so many people were off on their own and almost like making up a fantasy world in their heads in some ways about their position in the world. And he was he was a violent gangster, and I'm sure he did all that stuff, like in a very
micro way. I do believe that he picked out this girlfriend of his, and I do believe he Yeah, he did violent things and stole things and everything, but I don't think he had a posse, and in fact that that was where he was similar to Richard Barrett. Richard Barrett tried to pitch himself to the world as he's this white supremacist leader with all these followers, and he scratched the surface and he sits alone in his little
house every night. And I think Vincent's mayor had that abyss in that he you know, he had these tatoo marks that suggested he was I think from the Vice Lord's gang. But yeah, I didn't really believe it. Like when he threatened me and said he's got these gang members who can like come over and get me, I just didn't believe it. But at that point I was like, no, no, you've got a fantasy world in your head.
Of the self importance. And Jim Giles too, on his mum's property in the middle of nowhere podcasting.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, what he was, Yes, and it was interesting. I didn't really think about this until after the book was printed. But like so much of the book is about like lonely people who just are out on their own. Like there's not really big themes in the book where I hang out with the district attorney and his family or anything. It's all about Jim Giles alone in his caravan, or Ernest McBride, the black journalist alone or day and
if everyone's just on their own. So yeah, that's a bit melancholy, I guess.
And you did have a fair amount of cooperation, even though not everyone cooperated. You've had an incredible amount of cooperation from local people that must have thought, you know again, not even used to outsiders, and let alone someone from Australia that's uh, you know so, and and also cooperation with prosecutors. And a lot of people spoke to you and gave you a lot of information. So you've got
a lot more questions and answers. But a lot of these people you spoke to a heck of a lot of people doing this.
Yeah, for sure, And I think I reckon I could have got payoffs if I would have written the book slightly differently if I could just settle on believing these people, like the investigators, for instance, they gave a version of events which is so dramatic and colorful because basically what and as soon as Vincent pled guilty and so that there wasn't a trial, what I did was I went and witnesses that are already been subpoenaed in the anticipation
of a trial. So I got those subpoenas and I just went around to all the people who would have been witnesses at the trial, and you know, lots of swake to me, like the investigators, and the investigators did give like this incredible theatrical story of what happened on the night and Vincent's real relationship to Richard. And I guess if I was a different sort of writer, I would have gone, Okay, I'll make that the end of
the book. I'll make that that's what's happened, because there's definitely enough action in there, and there's definitely enough closure in there. And probably if I would have got got on a plane and left back to Australia after I met the investigators, maybe I should have because that could have been the end of the book, and I would have had a more maybe a more kind of conventional, satisfying ending. But I made either the mistake or not
the mistake of just sticking around. And then people started questioning the investigators, and I just I could never bring myself to sort of finding that what a person said was the whole truth about what happened.
Yeah, you can't come to that because you're not. I guess, I guess what it is. Possibly is there a documentary sort of have a forced angle that you're looking at something, But with a book it's yeah, you can't, you can't, and so you don't. And then at the end you've got everything there and all you can do is present it. So you spoke to which was very interesting conversation. Is you finally track down You'd heard that Richard Barrett had
a sister, so you spoke to her. What did she have to say about her brother?
Well, she started off by sort of trying to defend him as much as she could, like she didn't she didn't like agree with him politically at all, and she lived in Miami. But she was just being the dignified relative who was trying to present good sides of Richard. But then ultimately she sort of cracked in her own way, and she had so much personal anger about little things like the way that Richard Barrett had hurt other people
in other ways. Because the interesting thing about Richard Barrett was he was a very unattractive character, but almost like, I mean, obviously being racist wasn't good, but that kind of like wasn't the worst of him. Heels like he would have been a weasily awful person even if he wasn't a racist, and he'd do things like he'd rip people off, and he'd misrepresent other people in the worst way, like,
for instance, he'd misrepresent white Mississippis. He'd tricked them into coming to his events under the guys as they're just it's a patriotic American thing. So all these white people are coming thinking, oh, we're celebrating America, and then you know, takes photos. Yeah, Richard takes photos of it all and puts it up on his website, and suddenly this crowd of white people are presented as they've turned up to his white supremacist rally. So he was just like, he
was such an awful person. And so then his sister in her own way had all these like micro awful stories that really reflected that. I like when she actually cracked a bit, like stopped defending him, was when, out of all things, I started talking to her about chess, because apparently Richard was very good at chess, and then she goes, oh, yeah, Heed to always beat me at chess. And then she says, but you know what, I think
he cheated, and then she was like angry. Started I could see the anger in her face at her brother cheating at chess with her when they were both young.
And then she just told incredible stories such as how when the fly used to go out for a meal and then the father would leave a tip on the table, and then they'd all leave, and Richard would sneak back and steal the tip from the way through, and then the father would like shame, the ashamed father would have to walk back into the restaurant and and give a second tip. And just all these little mic and stories, and so she definitely validated other people's impression of Richard Barrett.
Yeah, and she she was hurt too by him being a cheap skate and being an insensitive guy. Even though you could see that she did have a respect for him because not not too many people speak highly of them whatsoever. Well, yeah, it was interesting the more you speak to people, how that truth just seems to come out and she's trying to be nice, but then she has to tell you the truth and she's co operating. So amazing.
Yeah, definitely.
Now, John, we're almost at a time, and I know that you have to go because you have a program on Australian radio yourself, and maybe you can tell us a little bit about that, and also how they might have people that would like to contact you, might be able to contact you, and of course we know just tell us where John, this book can be available Murder in Mississippi, The True story of how I met a white supremacist be friend of this black killer and wrote this book.
The well, my website's just John Saffran dot com and that's got links to like my Twitter and my Facebook and my emails. Anyone can get to me that way and with the book. The sort of good news bad news is for Americans is anyone can order the hard copy book from Australia. But you know it's slightly complicated and you have to pay post gig, you know, like
you just find them online thing. But it's not out in America yet as such, it's only out like you can get it posted from Australia to America or we're wherever else. But we have got an American publisher now who's going to release the book. They're going to release the book in America. Fall. We don't have Fall in Australia, but I looked it up on Google. That's awesome, so we went to yes. So it's going to be released like around in twenty fourteen September in America. And you know,
true True Murder Exclusive. They're changing the titles, but we haven't. They haven't. They haven't decided what. They haven't decided what they're going to change the title to. So yeah, they'll be exciting because I get to, you know, any remorse I have about which I changed this or that, and ah that's always been bugging me. I get a second shot of it in this American version. But I think yeah, And so it's kind of annoying unless you're in Australia
or New Zealand getting the e book. It's like geo blocked, so you can't get it. So but yeah, as I said, it will be if someone really wanted that, they can order the hard copy from just any any online bookshop that's in Australia that posts internationally. Or yes, Americans can wait until the fall too, hear the to get the American one, which will have a different title. But I'll no doubt the I'll make that known on all my social media and stuff.
Well, we'll have to have you back on too to tack about it again and just introduce people the American public to the book once it's available again. So we can obviously do that.
People who get people who like your show, will your podcast True Murder they'd like because I did a sixth part show called John Safran's True Crime, which is just downloadable anywhere in the world as a podcast, and it's me interviewing true crime writers, including Dan Sepanski, and the s ot of the idea behind it is I've just come back from Mississippi and had this crazy adventure trying
to write a true crime book. And I talked to all these other true crime writers who had their own version of that, and we kind of compare war stories. So I got to speak to like John Barren, the author of Midnight in the Garden of good and evil and rule, a stranger beside me and just yes. So it was fun and insane. Yeah.
You you were able to able to secure interviews with some of the biggest people and some fascinating interviews. And I saw, well it did on iTunes charts as well. People really enjoyed it and so and I did immensely. So it was it was great. I want to thank you John for coming on and talking about murder in Mississippi. A fantastic story here and an incredible journey into America from us from Melbourne to Mississippi. Thank you very much for coming on and sharing this story with us this evening.
Thank you very much. Okay, bye bye, good night, good nuye, good nye.