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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 him Gasey Bundy, Dahmer, The Nightstalker VTK Every week another fascinating author talking about the most shocking and infamous killers in true crime history. True Murder with your host journalist and author Dan Zufanski.
Aaron Moriarty, a CBS News journalist for three decades, has been a correspondent on forty eight Hours since nineteen ninety. In addition to reporting for forty eight Hours, Moriarty's work is featured on all CBS News broadcasts and platforms, including CBS Sunday Morning, CBS Mornings, and the CBS News streaming network. Her reporting has earned Moriarty virtually every major journalism award available. Aaron Moriarty's award winning original true crime podcast, My Life
of Crime, returns for a fourth season. The captivating and thrilling podcasts from CBS News Audio and forty eight Hours, is available on all podcast platforms, with new episodes released every Wednesday. Moriarty takes you inside true crime investigations like no one else, taking on killers and those accused of crimes. In this fourth season, she delves into the labyrinth of crime within families and the secrets that kept them together
or tore them apart. Moriarty brings almost three decades of experience as a lawyer and reporter involved in murder cases, and she brushes past the speculation to the evidence and talk to the people directly involved, including investigators and the families of victims. Aaron Moriarty joins me now to discuss the fourth season of our original true crime podcast, My Life of Crime. Welcome to the program, and thank you very much for this interview Aaron Moriarty.
And it's great being here.
Dan.
You are a forty eight Hours correspondent and your original true crime podcast, My Life of Crime, returns for a fourth season. Tell our audience more about the production of the podcast and what ingredients are included to create this unique podcast experience.
Well, Dan, some people would wonder why I need to do a podcast since I cover trials and I cover crime regularly for forty eight hours, But I don't get to talk about all the ins and outs and some of the backstories, or even some of the feelings that we have when we're covering these stories, and so the
podcast allows me to do it. The other advantage I have of being a forty eight hours correspondent is it gives me the ability to go into prisons, to talk to the district attorneys in these cases, to talk to the victims sometimes and often to talk to the defendants. And I want to be able to share that because not very many people get to talk to the people involved. We all follow these crimes. There are certain kind of crimes that just capture every American's imagination. Sometimes it's fear
or sometimes just fascination. But I usually get to talk directly to the people, and I can take listeners with me, and I think that's kind of the experience of the podcast. You'll hear directly from the victims as I'm speaking with them. You here directly, in many cases from the defendant. Sometimes we know that person is a killer, and so it really takes you inside the crime and inside the case in a way not everybody can do.
Now, you have three other seasons, but in this fourth season, what is the focus that you have for this fourth season?
Well, we were thinking that when we're covering trials, the ones that get to us the most, the ones that stay in our heads the most, are ones that involve family members. You know, we think family members, you know, there's a closeness, you know, why would you kill someone in your family? And so we decided we would take a look at how sometimes secrets within families cause people to do things they would never do. These are in the cases we're looking at in this fourth season. These
are people who are by all accounts, normal people. Give you an example. There's a young man in Wisconsin. He was an athlete, a good student, had absolutely no part problems with his family. But he had some problems while he was in college, and he fell behind and he flunked out, and for some reason he couldn't face his parents.
So what does he do?
He kills them and then chumps them up. I mean, that is so out of character for this young man. And so why we did this story really is to try to get what would make a normal person, a person who by all accounts is is leading a regular life, do some kind of extraordinarily violent act.
We don't always get the answers, but we certainly analyze the cases.
What are some of the other story titles, Not to expand on them as of yet, but what are some of the other titles that appear in season four.
Well, I think one of my favor cases, if you could call it favorite, it is the Twisted Twins. Now in part I should warn you, Dan, I'm a twist and so I think I found the story fascinating and it made me do a lot of thull thirteen. Would I commit a crime to help my twin? I don't think so. And in this case, you have two identical twins. They are so much alike, they work in the same place,
they look alike, they're best friends. And when one decides he needs to commit a murder, the other one, who did not want to do it, but said, well, he'll get caught unless I helped, I'd better help, which was interesting to me. I don't quite know I would be able to do that. And then they set out to commit the perfect murder. And they watch crime shows. They
probably watched forty eight hours. They watch Dateline, they watch all kinds of crime shows to see if they could determine a way to come knit a crime without getting caught. And that's what really made the story fascinating, because they almost did pull off the perfect crime. But it was in fact the differences in all human beings, including identical twins, that trip them up. And so it's a really interesting
case about how they commit the act. And also, you know, one thing I try not to do is just focus on the killer. As interesting as these twins are, the investigators, particularly this da who was determined.
To bring them to justice. Scott's story.
I had actually gotten the case from him when I was at an event and he was there and he said, there are two twins, they're twins in my county who committed a murder. I know they did, and I'm going to get them. And I listened to a story and I said, I don't know. I don't think you're going to be able to bring to trial. And so he called me when he was taking them to trial, and
I got on the story that way. He's justice interesting, if not more interesting, because for ten years he tracked these guys, wow, ten years to try to get them to trial, and.
He pulled it off.
Credible.
Yes, those are the kinds of cases that I like to follow that make you interested in both the perch and the prosecutors and the detectives to catch them.
You have one of the episodes, well, you have many episodes. Pretending to Marry to Death is a title with ray Ella Leith. You also talk about the secrets that these families that tore apart the families or kept them together. Like you said, the two twins for so many years had that alliance, that they had that common bond that kept the secret and almost got away with murder. Can you talk a little bit about married to death?
Well, marriage is case that we just we've never seen anything like this.
This is a very proper, very elegant woman in Knoxville, Tennessee, who was suspected killing two husbands. A lot of people referred to her as the black widow. And even if you believe this man, she tried to kill.
Him, he was the husband.
Get this of the woman that Raynell's league husband was having a fair one grow and she tried to cheer it in. And then she got to hear the whole case because if she's guilty, she gets away with it all. And how she gets away with it is fascinating. We couldn't get enough the case. I'll just give you this as a hint. I sall sign it a trial both my producer and I that i'd never ever seen before
and ever seen since. Something that happened at trial and that's how Raynello Le gets away with it, and it's the most interesting, fascinating and surprising story that I think I've ever covered in a courtroom.
It's interesting too that you get with your incredible access from all your years of experience, but also as your background as an attorney and also a journalist and broadcaster for many years, when you get to interview jurors is very interesting. You point out, tell us what this incredible unique background that you have, what it does for you in terms of informing your perspective in this podcast.
Well, I do think that it helps me.
I think as a lawyer, it helps the pinpoint the cases that have really interesting legal issues that people may not be familiar with. Because I also think our job as podcasters is educate everyone about when the system works when it doesn't work. Back in my mind, I feel that one of the reasons why I think it's great that True Crime has a following is that we are
making better jurors. The more you understand the system, the more you've seen cases, the more you realize when it works when it doesn't, the better juror you are if you're called. And I really do believe that that's the impact we have that people today are more discerning. They don't automatically believe what the prosecutor says. They actually are open to the idea that maybe somebody who has been
charged with the crime is innocent. When I first started doing these cases, and I started back in the late nineteen nineties, it was surely after OJ Simpson's case I covered that. That's when DNA was introduced for the first time as evidence in a high profile case, and it was introduced in that case to prove that OJ Simpson had done it. What really DNA has now been used is to show when they have the wrong person in prison. And we've learned so much since then, since the middle
nineteen nineties, about why people are wrongfully convicted. And so to me, the OJ Simpson trial in two things. It got people very interested in crimes. People watched that member that trial went almost a year. People would watch every single day. It got them really interested in the case, and it made them realize when it works and when it doesn't work.
And that really got me started as a lawyer and.
A journalist into really examining these cases, I think with a different lens, not as entertainment, but really how important it is. I believe that many people are watching forty eight hours in Dateline and listening to podcasts because I think people have a lot of fear in their life, and when they see a case and they see the good investigations and they see people determined to get justice or victims, it gives them hope. It gives them faith in the system. And I think that is what happens
most of the time. The cases though, and I know you've looked at this like the Stephen Avery case, that troubles people because, as you have pointed out in your podcast, depending on how much information.
You get from a particular podcast or for a show, you.
Might believe one way and then you hear information that was kept and you think a different way.
I tried very hard not to do that.
I give you the wards and all, because I think that's I think that's why sometimes the system fails. You know, you have evidence that points one way, you have evidence of points another, and the jury has to make a decision, and the jury doesn't always get it right.
I think you're absolutely right with the education part of the podcasting and what has done reaching a bigger audience, but educating them as well, well, I found very interesting with your fourth seasons. A lot of the episodes was the twists that we always use that as an expression that there was twists in turns, but there are very many surprises and surprises that discerning people will see that sometimes people look very very guilty when we don't have all of the information.
Dan, I deal with one now, and I'm very honest with the listeners.
There's one that I have covered for the last year and a half and the defendant was convicted, but in my god, I'm so troubled by it, and I share that with the listeners because I know he's convicted, and I could argue he should have been convicted. There's evidence that definitely points to them, but there's a lot of evidence that that makes you say, no way, this guy could have done it. And so I'm very honest with it with the audience. I'm honest that he's convicted, honest
why he's convicted. But I also share with the listeners that I'm troubled by it and I don't really know what the answer is that. I mean, you know, I just want people, when they look at any case, to not just take the verdict as the end and there are some cases where jury's just might not get it right. You know what I find from covering so many of these trials, it really comes down to who tells the best story at the end. Is it the prosecution or
the defense? And I think jurors need a story. I think they need to have all the different pieces of evidence come together in a clear, concise, understandable and believable story. So when the prosecutor does that and the defense just says, no, there isn't enough evidence, you know it's there should be reasonable doubt. I'll tell you nine times out of ten that jury is going to convict. And I now believe that to have a fair trial, you've got to have
good stories on both sides. It doesn't matter that the defense doesn't have the burden to prove someone's innocent, but you better have another story to contend with the prosecutions, because if the prosecution tells it clear, well told story, that person's likely to be convicted. I mean I see it time and time again. I hate to put it
in those simple terms. Tells a story. I think people think if they present the evidence, but in fact, the prosecution is telling a story and the defense has to tell a story.
Too, tell us the story of just a little bit, and again, don't give it all away, but a broken heart. Who killed Linda Kaufman?
For example?
Oh that one Lena. Yes, Oh my gosh, Lena Kauffman. That is such a that was a tough story. That is a great, great story to tell, because I'll tell you just how the prosecution saw it. Woman found in her bathroom by her husband. She has marks all over her neck. But you know, so he's charged with first to grade murder even though when they look there's nobody's having affairs.
There's no problem with the marriage, right, And that is why I decided again, this is a Lena.
Lena's heart is very similar to what I'm telling you about the Prow's in it case in season four, because my I just thought, why would this guy kill this beautiful woman when he's not having an affairs, She's not having an affair by all account of the marriage is great And in that case, that's a perfect example. In that case, the defense tells a really great story to match the prosecutions and worked out for the defense.
I wasn't sure.
I mean, I really believed that he couldn't have done it. I know that she had marks on her neck, but we'll explain exactly how she got them. It's an interesting case, and it's scary to think that if he had not had enough money to hire good lawyers, he might have been committed. It's a great case, and those are the kinds of cases I love. And in that case, I hired my own medical examiner to take a look at the same evidence the prosecution was because we really wanted to.
Know what happened to Lena.
And I think at the end of the story, you will know and you will feel confident.
That's one thing I like. And I think I want people.
I want them to know if I don't know the answer, that it probably isn't easily as her that no one knew really the answer, right, But I want them to state that I've at least told them every part of that story so that they can make the decision on their own, even if I'm troubled by it.
Maybe they're not, and that's good.
I just don't want to leave out something to have people think the same way I do.
I want people to make a decision by themselves.
In this season four, you write that it includes a teenager convicted of murdering her own mother. Also a husband who said he discovered his wife with an axe in her head. And also a Baptist preacher accused of staging his wife's suicide. And a story called loss of legend over the boxing legend Arturo Gotti? Was it murder or suicide? Can you just give us a little brief teaser of some of these stories?
Well, like ar Trurogatti, anyone who was a fan of boxing and followed boxing, I mean, was champion and he ended up at at a very young age when he was in Brazil with his very young wife, not beloved by his family, and for a while she was charged with murder and then they brought charges but the family too believing that she was involved.
And that's the story there.
That's a really interesting story, and we follow it all the way through and they prows in a case that's the one with the axe in That is the one where I struggle with and I share with the listeners exactly why I struggle with that case. And you hear all the evidence good and bad for the husband who says he did not put an X in his wife's head.
And we have the case of a young woman very by all accounts clothes with her mother, who's then accused of killing her mother, and not just killing her mother, was found.
With a butter knife and her eye. Yeah. So again I go back to Dan.
These cases of people who seem to be perfectly normal, They don't have any history of psychotogy, or they don't seem to be sociopaths, and yet when based with a challenge, instead of dealing with it the way most people do, they commit murder. And I find that to be endlessly interesting and scary at the same time.
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Ritual or add Simba Plus to your subscription today. Now continuing with just some of the stories that up here. In the fourth season, we talked a little bit about what you titled Preacher's Secret The Duplicity of Matt Baker. Can you just give us a little teaser on what occurs in the Preacher's Secrets?
Well, I stayed on that story a long time. I shouldn't tell you, Dan, how we got on it. We actually heard from Matt Baker's defense attorney. Matt had been accused of killing his beautiful young wife, drugging her, and then pretending that she committed suicide. There was a tight suicide note, and he the attorney, Matt Baker's attorney, this wonderful Texas attorney. Defense attorney asked us to cover it because he believed his client was innocent. So I sat down.
First person I interviewed was Matt Baker, and I believe that he probably was going to be innocent because why would the defense attorney allow me to talk to him first?
So okay, fine, I interview him. But he's a little bit strange.
But sometimes people accuse of crime are strange, that's why they're charged. So it didn't really bother me until I started doing research. And then suddenly I started realizing, I think this guy did it.
Oh my god.
And I was with my producer and we broke to Texas. We drove his tiny down in Texas and spoke with the defense attorney and said, we got to be honest with you. We're not going to do this as a wrongful conviction. Wrongful accusation. You know, he may have done it, So we're going to just do this right down the middle. And we stayed on this case, and we stayed on it.
So first he was charged, then the state prop charges, and then new evidence came up and the state reinstated charges, and Matt Baker went on trial.
And so I believe I did three.
Different on that and two different podcasts because it's it is quite a legal epic, I would say, or saga.
It was a legal saga, up and down, did he do it? Did he not?
There was so much new evidence that came the longer we stayed on the story, and I went to see him both in jail.
And in prison.
I sat through his trial. So there's a lot to tell. We have called it different names. We've called it the Preacher's Wife, the Preacher's Secrets.
It was quite a saga.
We spoke just before this interview about the fourth season and an exciting story for you and why it's exciting for you. You can tell our audience with about Barbara Ray Venner and genetic genealogy and the Golden State Killer.
Well, I love this story because I actually didn't start the podcast basically saying I think I'm going to tell you something you haven't heard, which is very exciting for any reporter to be able to say, I know something you might not know, and that is that I think we've all heard about the Golden State Killer, a man who for about a period of twelve years, you know, would commit these terrible crimes, rapes and murders, and then he just disappeared.
And no one knew who he was.
And you had the FBI, you had say police all through this, because he went up and down the state of California committing these crimes and then just disappeared, and you know, there were people who were determined to find it. And so we heard about because she's writing a book this year, a woman by the name of Barbara ray Venor, and how she got involved was there was a detective in Sam Bernardino who asked her. So, Barbara Rayvenor is an expert at genetic genealogy. He's put her own family
tree together. He and she was also what they call a search angel. He would help adoptees find their biological parents.
So she could put together anybody's family tree, and she did it in one criminal case in Sam Bernardino involving what they call a living Jane Dell, a young woman who was alive, but no one knew who she was, and so they asked Barbara ray Vener, and this was in California, Sam Bernardino, so they asked her to identify this young woman find her family, and Barbara did by making a family tree, and everybody start hearing about that
in California. So they came to her in twenty sixteen and said, could you do this for the Golden Stake killer. She didn't start on it right away. She really didn't start on until twenty seventeen.
It took her. I asked her.
I said to her, you know there were FBI agents, there were state police, there were county sheriffs working this case for years. Why did you think you could do something that they didn't? And she goes, because I knew the DNA would work, and they had never used DNA.
In the past.
And so sure enough she's working on it. She puts together the family tree of this unknown killer who had you know, by using there was DNA left at some crime scenes, and the investigators uploaded it to jetmatch, which is one of the public databases, and I think it's family tree.
DNA was the other.
One, and it took her sixty three days and then she said to me, and it was three o'clock in the morning, and I looked and I said, I know who you are. And I said to her at that moment, where you the only one in the world who knew who the Golden State killer was? And she goes, yes, well he knew as well, and sure enough, so of course they didn't take her word for it, because you can't, right, she said, she had to wait ten days because what they did then, so this is where real investigative detective
work was needed. They started following the suspect that she had named, and they followed him inside a store and they got DNA off the door handle, but they didn't think that would be enough, so they followed him a little bit more and he finally dropped a cup and they took that cup, and they took the DNA that had been on his door handle, and it matched the person that she said it was going to be, James
Joseph D'Angelo. And sure enough, in spring of twenty eighteen, arrested James Joseph Dangelo and they had to go and stay killer. So she didn't do it alone alone. They had to verify, they had to get his DNA. But for that one moment in time, at three o'clock in the morning, he was the only person who knew who the Golden Stake killer was.
I love that. Yeah, that's a fantastic story, incredible in all your years reporting. It's also and it was for me as well, just to see this victory for law enforcement, as I said to you previously, just as such a great story, so many people involved, with so many ordinary people involved, and then a great story for law enforcement in the arrest and conviction and just getting to the root of this incredible murder mystery that had elapsed so
many years, almost forty years. You also have a story called the Snapchat tip Off, and it just, I guess it exemplifies the differences and the developments in forensic evidence gathering, and DNA is right at the top of those advances. But just what forensic evidence is doing and the changes in forensic evidence gathering and the Snapchat tip off story. Can you tell us a little bit more about this?
Well, I mean, you really you hit on the head one of the I guess determining factors when I pick a story, is is there some incredible forensic tool or technology that I haven't seen before that other people could
benefit from seeing. And in that case, boy, these were two detectives, county detectives who really had to try to find this couple, these two people who are missing, and they use really amazing technology including so they believed that the couple's son might have been involved, but they couldn't prove it. They had no way, There was no evidence inside the house, nothing for them to even get a
search for it initially. But it turns out that this young man was not always the most faithful boyfriend, and so his girlfriend had insisted that he allowed her to follow his whereabouts.
On snackchat, and she had become worried about him.
One morning, is parents were missing, and she was worried about him, and she looked at the snapchat when she was just you know, snapchat doesn't always stay on your phone, It disappears. But she looked down and she saw that he was about twenty five miles away from where he said it was, and she was worried about him.
His parents are missing, He's not acting right.
So she takes a screenshot of that not, you know, thinking anything of it, but she wants to ask him about it later. Well, it turns out though, when they bring the sun in, they they're wondering, is he involved with his parents' disappearance. They bring him in and they bring her in. At the same time. He doesn't know, you know, she's thinking, oh, he couldn't have possibly have had anything to do with his parents' disappearance. So they said, can we take your phone?
And she said true.
So they took her phone and they see that screenshot and the time and it's right right the day after his parents were disappearing, and he's twenty five miles away, right near the Wisconsin River. And these cops say, wow, let's go there, and they did, and they found some evidence of his mother, and that broke the case.
That was using their phone.
The information was on the phone, and knowing that that greenshot of his whereabouts at that time was an important clue and that wouldn't have happened obviously years before without the phone, you know, there was no evidence to connect this young man to his parents' disappearance, you know, unless he had confessed, or unless they found the bodies a different way a case might have gone cold, but there was that evidence on his girlfriend's phone, and he had
been so careful, but he allowed her to track him down because he had not been so faithful in the past, and she had talked him into it. So even the smart killers who think they've thought of everything, don't usually think of everything.
Let's talk about a teenager convicted of murdering her own mother.
Well, that's a sad one.
That's a really sad one because when you do research, which I did, daughter's killing mothers, even kids killing parents is unusual. It's I think it comes out to about two percent of all murders. It's unusual. You know, you have problems with your parents, your parents have problems.
With you, but you don't usually kill them.
But when a daughter kills mother, it's usually, according to some of the research, in complex relationships, where the mother and daughter are really tied together emotionally, but one wants out. And I don't understand exactly why murder seems to be the only way, but yes, and when I actually interviewed that young woman and in the podcast you will you will hear from her. She was seventeen years of age
when her mother disappeared. She was nineteen when I interviewed her, and she was sticking with her story even then she didn't do it, even though there was overwhelming evidence that she was involved in some way. And that is the kind of story where you listen just because it's just you have to wrap your mind about.
It, you know, you just you know she's not a serial killer.
What made her take such a drastic step with someone that she did love, that she did need. And that's why that case kind of sticks in my animal stick in yours as well.
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Now, you have another story called The Long Con with Clark Rockefeller as the subject of that episode.
Yeah, that was that was actually a murderer. He was, but he was also just a con man.
And what's so interesting about that story was how long he pulled off a con and on how many people.
Yeah.
Now, sadly two of the people that he pulled the con on ended up debt and that is what he was charged with. But most of the people he just stole money or he just and he turned himself into so many different characters and the fun part of doing that story, if fun is the right word. So anyone who watches forty eight hours knows that we often ask people to introduce themselves. I am you know, I'm so and so a prosecutor, and so and so the mother
of the victim or something like that. And so it occurred to me, since this man had so many different names, I would ask him to introduce himself. And that is actually a funny moment because I catch him off guard and he doesn't know what to answer, and he trips all over himself and he'll go, well, everyone knows who I am, and I'll go, no, no, no, they don't.
So who are you? What is your name?
And he just because of course, he was telling me he was Clark Rockefeller to the end he said he was Clark Rockefeller, and in fact he's not. He was a young German man who dreamed about going to the United States, and he was a wonderful mimic and he could put on absents at a drop of a hat. He is just the case of somebody who is smart and thinks that he can con everybody, right, and sadly he's sitting in prison. I don't think he's conning very many other cons right.
Tell us a couple more stories that are featured in the fourth season of My Life of Crime.
Well, we do a number of different cases. As I mentioned, we do a young woman who is accused of killing her mother. We're also taking a look at a young man who was accused of killing his parents. It happened in nineteen ninety and he had very wealthy parents, and everybody believed he did it, and that's how I kind of started the podcast. But in fact, that's what the police thought, and that's what local news thought because the police told them.
It was true.
But the real story was really the story of men career Criminals was of bepoart of a seventeen year old kid who was framed by his thought, well we think by his father's business partner. And so that's quite a tale and we tell that in season four as well.
Any cases that people hadn't heard of that we are covered in the fourth season.
Well, that's an interesting question. I think most of the ones, I do a few people. There'll be some people who know, like in that community. But I think even if you know about the case that we're telling, we're going to give you more information about the case. And I think I mean, especially with when we did the marriage to Death, we spent we really went into the backstory that people
had heard. If they heard about the trial, they did not know about Renella Lease's background and her a couple of husbands, and her the accusation of trying to shoot friend. So even if you think you know a case, I'm hoping that you'll stay all the way to the end of the podcast because you'll learn more than you knew before. At least that's what I try to do. You know, when you've been doing this as long as I've been doing this, I want to. I want to educate myself.
I want to know more, I want to get to the bottom of it, and I think that people listening feel the same way.
Do you think crimes are different today and if so, what way? But definitely crime reporting is different. You've seen all the changes and this My Life of Crime is a testament to those changes. What are the ingredients in my Life of Crime that give it this unique perspective besides your own unique perspective from being in an attorney and a journalist and a broadcaster for so many years, What are the ingredients that are in this unique podcast?
Well, first thing, I do think that crime reporting has changed, and the interest in crimes has changed now because you can go into a court when you couldn't do that really prior to the Menandez Brothers or OJ Simpson. Now you know, we have these trials that are streamed so you can actually sit in the courtroom, and so people become really interested in it. And I think that's really
what we kind of offer. We kind of have the currated a view of a trial, so you get to hear from the actual participants, the defendants, the prosecutors, the victim's family, sometimes just reporters. We talked to other reporters covering it, so you actually get to hear directly from those people, but kind of in a curated way so that you understand what's going on. Is so that it's not sometimes when you go into trial and you see a medical examiner on the stand and they're just talking
about what they found in an autopsy. That's one thing, but we try to put that in perspective. Why did that matter in this case? Why did that lead to either a charge of murder or the person was not charged, or why looking at that person instead of the husband or another suspect. So I think what has changed is that we can now go inside the courtroom. We can
now talk to everybody in just about every state. People can talk once a person's been convicted, we can get a hold of the evidence as long as it was introduced to trial. It is public information, and so we can get all of that and then put it together in a clear, very honest, journalistic way.
It's not entertainment.
It is news the way we do it, and people get a look into a case the way they never have before. I do know there's an interest wherever I go. People even when I'm working. I do stories for CBS Sunday Morning, which I love, but it will be people coming up, Oh my God, tell me about this case, what happened in that case. It's crime that people most often approach me and want to hear my take on something.
Well, you've done an admirable job of raising these stories that were once dismissed as not being certainly not involving anyone high profile in terms of the killer or the victim, but taking these what some people might think we're too ordinary a story, highlighting those very very interesting and unique aspects, and raising the story up to the level of national and international attention brought to it.
Well, I think that everybody has I mean, I think every single person involved in a trial, and I know you will think the same thing. These are extraordinary circumstances, and sometimes people act very heroically under those circumstances and fight to get justice for the victim or the victim's family, or they so heroically. Either way, these are interesting stories, whether you know that person's name or not.
I'd rather not do the high profile case.
I mean, sometimes cases has just become high profile, like Gabby Petito, the young woman who goes off on a adventure with her boyfriend and then disappears. And because again we had video and we had bloggers who were so interested in finding out what happened to Gabby, that became a national story. But these were just two normal kids who both ended up in tragedy. That story just broke my heart and I thought it was worth following because that almost could happen to anybody.
You know.
I think he panicked.
I think the cops did not do the best job they could and discerning whether there was violence going on, and it was a tragedy all the way around. So I think these stories, whether you've heard these people's names
or not, there are very interesting stories to tell. If not the individuals, then the forensics used to solve the crime, or the prosecutor who is taking this case as far as he or she can go, or the police officer who doesn't give up just because there isn't enough evidence to bring a person to justice.
Those that's what makes the stories great.
And there is some at least conclusion to these stories in terms of all of the reporting that you do with these stories and these episodes, because you have handled all kinds of high profile crimes. But many remain a mystery, like John Benny Ramsay, you say, the ongoing story of Robert Durst, or even the controversial case of Brooks Schuyler Richardson. So there is a difference in these episodes in terms of conclusions compared to some things.
Yeah, I think the Robert Durst case is pretty settled and most people's had even though death allowed him to escape any kind of conviction. I find that's so ironic. They worked so hard to convict that man, they finally convict him, and then he dies and escapes conviction because he didn't get a chance at an appeal. I found that to be an amazing ironic. But you're right in
some cases, you know, with the John Binay Ramsey. I struggle with that one, and I keep hoping that again, when we're talking about genetic genealogy, the Barbara Ray vendors of this.
World, and somebody's done it. There is DNA in this case.
I don't understand yet why I know there's DNA in that case, And I don't understand why there hasn't been made a kind of profile that could be put into these public databases. You know, it's back in the hands of the Boulder Police and maybe someday we will know. But yes, that's one case that should be resolved, one case that without question, it's only fair to either the you know, the brother who was painted by it.
Let's put that.
DNA allow a genetic genealogists to go as far as that person can and find out who killed Jombin and ramsay, it will never be too late, but we should have the answer to that.
It would be an extraordinary victory for law enforcement. But also if there ever were a believable confession, I'm sure the world would want to hear what that was.
But you know, there have been confessions in the past and they weren't credible.
You know, there was a.
Person that everyone bob was actually the killer and sure, and he was a predator of type.
But I mean that's the hard part. It's I think you need science.
Nobody will know for sure until you have science, and genetic genealogy is probably that's loosest. Yes, that we would come to having some answer, some name that people could believe in. You know, I would have a hard time even now with a confession unless there was evidence to corroborate that confession. Of course, you know, that's the hard part, so I keep hoping that's going to happen. Genetic genealogy is really a breakthrough, yes, for crime solving, and it's very exciting.
Well, it's also a breakthrough DNA in and in itself in that when there were convictions and even people executions, but certainly murder convictions that were now overturned wrongful convictions with the work of DNA and then now genetic genealogy. But DNA itself is a godsend, and it also unfortunately or fortunately put a proper perspective on some of the other forensic sciences and their use and credibility in the courtroom.
Absolutely, really what DNA to me, the best part about DNA is not only did it show that some people were wrongfully convicted, but it showed why.
So we had had faith in eyewitness testimony.
I think most people thought, if you're frightened, that face is going to be imprinted on your memory, and in fact it what's the exact opposite, and the largest reason for wrongful convictions is faulty eyewitness testimony, eyewitness identification, and everyone.
Had faith in it.
One quarter of the people who are exonerated with DNA one quarter confessed to it, so they confess to saying it didn't do So now we know people can be coerce and just saying that they committed a murder they didn't and that's.
Because of DNA.
And so to me, DNA has not only just shown us who might have been wrongfully convicted, but it shows why and that allows us to try to prevent it in the future.
That's exciting to.
Me, absolutely really is. I want to thank you so much Aaron Moriarty for coming on and talking about your season four of your podcast My Life of Crime forty eight hours and CBS as presenting. Can you tell us where people be able to listen to My Life of Crime?
Well you can, of course wherever you get your podcasts. All you have to look up for is My Life of Crime with Aaron Moriarty, or you can always just google it. It will pop up My Life of Crime with Aaron Moriarty.
Dan, it is a.
Privilege to be able to be here with you, so I really appreciate being able to talk about crime with you.
It has been a big thrill for me and an honor. Thank you so much Aaron Moriarty for coming on and talking about your hit podcast, My Life of Crime. Thank you so much for this interview, and you have a great evening, and good night, good night.