You are now listening to True Murder The most shocking killers in true crime history and the authors that have written about them. Geesy 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.
Good Evening, The untold story behind the hit true crime podcast, The Clearing. This unforgettable memoir traces one daughter's moving quest to understand her larger than life childhood as she searches for the truth about her father, the serial killer Edward Wayne Edwards. One evening in two thousand and nine, April Belascio was searching online as she had been every night, for unsolved murders in the towns her family had lived growing up when she stumbled across the latest investigations into
the Sweetheart Murders cold case. All at once, the buried memories of her father's dark history were awakened, and she knew she had to take action. She picked up the phone to call a detective, and the rest is infamous true crime history. Blacio bravely reveals an astonishing tale of
a lifetime of manipulation, unexplained upheavals, and silent fear. Some part of her had always known what her father was capable of, but the full truth of how she came to these revelations is as riveting as it is quietly terrifying. The book that we're featuring this evening is Raised by a Serial Killer, Discovering the Truth about My Father, with my special guest author April Blascio. Thank you very much for this interview, and welcome to the program, April Blessio.
Hi Dan, thank you for having me.
Thank you so much, and congratulations on this book, Raised by a Serial Killer, Discovering the Truth about My Father. Now, let's talk about how your father met your mother in nineteen sixty eight on a city bus in Akron, Ohio. He was thirty five years old and she was twenty one. Tell us a little bit about the past that he had before your mother married him. Tell us about your father's background before we talk about your life growing up with your father and your mother and traveling the country.
Well before my father had met my mom. He well, originally he was born in Akron, Ohio, and he was in and out of an orphanage due to his mother being unwed, and then when he was adopted by other family members, his adopted mother ended up passing away, so he was in and out of the orphanages. From a young age. He told people he wanted to be a
crook and then and that's exactly what he did. From a very young age, he just set out to be a crook, from stealing bikes when he was a youngster to stealing cigarettes, stealing from his grandmother, and then those crimes just progressed. He turned into robbing banks, robbing gas stations. He ended up being on the FBI's most wanted list
in nineteen sixty He was actually out on parole. They finally did catch him in Atlanta, Georgia, and he was out on parole in nineteen sixty eight when he met my mom at a bus stop in Akron, Ohio.
Your mother was kay Lynn Headerly, But Wayne Edwards, your father. That's not his original name, was it.
No, His original name was Charles Murray. And then when he was adopted, they changed his name to Edward Wayne Edwards. And I always knew him. Everyone always referred to him as Wayne. I just always knew that everyone referred to him as Wayne. I didn't even realize that his first name was technically Edward until I believe I read his book. I was in seventh grade, and I think that was the first time that I, or at least it really hit home. I might have heard about it before, but
I just did. It just didn't stick in my mind until I was in when I read his book.
He told your mother when he had met her that he was free after five years of prison, and he was sent there for armed robbery. But your mother married him despite that criminal record, didn't she?
She did my mother when my father met my mom, my mom was actually engaged to someone else, and my dad was very charismatic, very much a womanizer, so my mom didn't have a chance. She was what some people might call, you know, a wallflower. She was very quiet, blended in, you know, didn't speak out much. She had actually was going to was just finishing up college to become a teacher, and when she met my dad, she just fell head over and heels in love with him.
And he did tell her about his past, and it didn't seem to bother her. I think she thought because he was honest and upfront, and that he was stating that he was leading a reform life. She believed him.
You talk about his past and is the developing criminal career, but it was plagued by stays in orphanages throughout his life as well. What did your father say to your mother regarding that upbringing and how did that affect his own parenting? What was his philosophy in parenting after being not parented at all in his life?
Well, I would I would disagree a little bit. He was parented off and on, and I really believe the only reason that he was put into the orphanage was because he was such a troubled child. Nowadays, we have resources to help parents with children who might be difficult or you know, going through circumstances that you know, we
don't understand. But at that time, the thing to do was to put them in the orphanage, especially you know, after his adoptive mom died, but his grandmother and his others, they were still involved in his life as much as possible, even all the way up, you know, to involved in
our lives. But his big philosophy was he felt in his mind that he wasn't loved, that he wasn't shown love, and so he would he would tell people and I believe he spoke on this when he went around and did his public speaking, was that if a children was loved, that that conquers all that if you just love your child and discipline them. He also believed in discipline, that a child just needed love and discipline and they would they would be prosperous.
Tell us about this. When he's in prison, he decides to turn his life around, supposedly and gets a book published. This metamorphosis of a criminal. So he's able to get a book published at thirty four years old in nineteen seventy two. Tell us about this book, the success of it, and the tours that he went on to support that book.
The book. He was out of prison when the book was published. Even when the book was being written, he dictated to my mom the book. My mom actually typed it up, so she helped him write the book, and that was his claim to fame. His book goes into detail about his childhood. It goes into detail and extreme detail about his life of crime. And in the book, you know, he mentions how abusive he is, the things that he did to women, even as far as raping them.
It's just it's it's just horrible. The things that he admits to in this memoir that you know, I as an adult, you know, looking at it now, I'm like, why would he admit to some of these things?
You know?
I just didn't understand and still don't understand his book as to why he did what he did.
But he admitted to a host of different crimes, including arson and burglary and theft. But also there was all kinds of things in there as you write about just his behaviors, past behavior, beating women and treating women poorly, but also that you say that strangely, he would give this book as sort of a calling card. He was very proud of this book and would give it to neighbors and new acquaintances and friends, wouldn't he He did.
That was one of the first things that he did when we would go into move into a new neighborhood, is he would go knocking on the neighbor's door and present them with a book. Growing up, I didn't think much of it. Looking back now as an adult, I
would have been embarrassed. I would have been embarrassed to have a book that states, you know, all the things that I did wrong, the heinous crimes, especially crimes that he didn't even get convicted for that he omits to And that just shows you the way that he thought. He didn't think like most people. But he was absolutely proud of this, of this.
Book you talk about. In nineteen seventy four, with money from the book and tour engagements, Dad bought an empty lot in Doylestown, Ohio. And so you moved with your three siblings to Doyleston and to a rural farm community.
Yes, yes, we originally he bought the when we moved from Acron, Ohio. We moved to Doylestown, and we started out by running a home, a farm home, a farmhouse right around the corner from the piece of property that he had bought to build our home on. So we were living in this farmhouse as he was slowly building the house on the piece of property. The house on the piece of property was on Kevin Drive and the farmhouse was on Taylor Road. And I loved that farmhouse.
I just to this day, I have very fond memories of that farmhouse. But he ended up burning down the barn. He ended up burning down the farmhouse. He was never he never admitted that in his well the book was at was before that, But he never admitted that crime to me, but my mom knew about it, and my mom told me about it. My mom told me about
that when I was a teenager. And here he had burnt down the barn and he had burnt down the barn because he was going to or wanting to collect insurance money on the lumber that he had been storing in the barn. But what he had did before or he set the bar on fire was he had moved the lumber out and made it appear that there was still lumber in the barn. And then I think about five months later, he burned down the house. And here
again he did it for insurance purposes. He had insured the contents of the home which were not worth anything. I've actually have looked at the report from the fire department and what they said the contents were worth, or what my dad said the contents were worth, and I find that very hard to believe because we always had so little, very little, And I'm sure you know my
dad lied about that. But what happened was the house didn't burn all the way down, and there was talk about maybe evidence of there being arson, and he went back a couple nights later within the I'm not exactly sure how many days later, and he stuffed rags inside the electrical box and set it on fire, and then the house burnt to the ground. After that, I think talking to people that were on the fire department at that time and talking to people in the area. As
I've gone back in Denmine have done some investigating. He was suspected of burning the house down. People suspected him, but they didn't have any proof, and then it was just dropped.
Let's talk about before we talk about the numerous times that you had to suddenly move or soon move, or right after school ended you had to move. You talk about nine different bedrooms in your life. Do you talk about that there's two different versions of your father, and he was the family man, wanted to have a family, so you saw growing up these two very contrasting sides
of your father. Tell us about just a couple of the things that you saw yourself regarding your mother, and this sort of quick temper and turn in his mood suddenly.
Well for starters, and this is what I remember, or I choose to remember, don't. I don't like to dwell on the negative. I really don't even you know, talking about my dad. I will talk about the bad things, and obviously I have, but I truly tried to dwell and remember the good times. And my dad was very fun. He was very loving, very charismatic. He loved kids. He would organize block parties for kids, whether it had you know,
centered around Christmas or Halloween. Always had big parties, big get togethers the kids, the kids on the around the community. They love my dad, as did I. I hit my brothers and my sister, But there was another side to my dad that was very a flip. A switch would just flip and he would become very angry and very physical. I watched on you know, several occasions where he would hit my mom in the stomach and she was pregnant at the time. On two different separate two different step,
two different occasions. I remember her being pregnant in him punching her in the stomach. He punched her in the jaw and broke her jaw. She ended up having her He broke her jaw two different times. And even as a child, I write about this in that book. I remember my dad throwing me across the room and I
don't remember too much. You know, I don't really remember hitting the wall, but I'm told I did hit the wall, but I woke up, but he knocked me out, and I woke up with you know, being on the couch and him, you know, having a whole compress on my head and being very loving and asking if if I was okay. So the big contrast there and the violence was quite often, but and it was, it was very, very violent, but he was also very loving.
Let's get to a person named Billy. One of the young men were working on the house. Your father would surround himself with young men and young adults and have them work in construction with him. And there was a young man named Billy, and he thought maybe that Billy had touched you and asked you about it. Tell us about this incident and your dad's reaction.
Well, my dad, and my dad was always on the lookout for cheap labor, so he would hire and he did this for as long as I can remember. He would get young men, maybe right out of high school, in their late teens, early twenties, and he would promise them, you know, beer parties, barbecues, and these young men would work for my dad, and he would repay them with beer and barbecues, and I'm not sure if if he ever gave them cash. I never witnessed that, but I
don't know whether he did or did not. And one of the men, young men by the name of Billy, was came around and would help my dad work on the house and would come to the parties. My dad always having backyard barbecues. He loved to barbecue on the grill. He was famous for his barbecue chicken, and he just loved to entertain and have people surrounding him. The first time,
which I don't remember, this I picked. I first learned of this listening to my dad on a tape talking about how he had suspicions of Billy touching me and coming out of my bedroom when I lived on Taylor Road. And now I don't remember that, and I was probably four or five at the time. But Billy had been working for my dad for a couple of years, and it was when we were actually living on Taylor Road.
Now we were in the house, even though the house was very rough, didn't have running water or electricity, but Billy had been up in the room one of the bedrooms doing drywall work and he asked if I wanted to help him, and you know, of course, I think I was seven at the time. I'm like, sure, and you know, I would just hand him the screws or the nails. And I got bored eventually, and I just started riding on the floor with a piece of drywalks that acted like a piece of chalk. And he asked
me if I wanted to piggyback ride. And I remember this very, very adamantly. I remember this, but I never told anyone. I never told anyone until until after I turned my dad in. But Billy did touch me inappropriately, and I was on Billy's back when he was touching me inappropriately. His hand was up in my short area.
My dad called me down stairs, and my dad was waiting for me at the bottom of the steps, and he had asked me if Billy had touched me in places that he shouldn't, And I knew I should have said yes, But there was a part of me that knew that Billy would be in a lot of trouble, and I didn't want him to get into trouble, so I told my dad no. What I didn't realize until many, many years, and it was after I turned my dad in.
What I didn't realize was that my dad knew and he knew what Danny had had did, and supposedly that is the reason that he ended up killing Danny.
Let's move on now, because it's there are other incidents where there are cops coming to the house. One time you answered the door and it's playing closed Guys and it's FBI. So just tell us that they're about these incidents where he befriends police or police come to the door, sort of your dad's general practice of befriending police.
Well, I mentioned earlier that one of the first things my dad did was introduce himself to our neighbors and present his book to them. The second thing he did, or maybe in conjunction with that, was he befriended the local law enforcement, whether it was FBI, whether it was just beat cops. Details. He would befriend as many as possible. And what he did throughout his whole life, as far
as I knew, was that he would gather information. He would hang out at bars and gather information and present this information to law enforcement officers, making it appear you know that he was a good guy and that he was helping them crack down on crimes. And one time, I remember we were on Kevin Drive in the house that my dad built and FBI. I didn't realize they were FBI agents at the time my dad told me about it. I just remember these two men coming to our door and they talked to my dad for a
long time. He actually sent all of us kids outside, but they they came bearing gifts. They had given me a little treasure box. They a pocket watch, I believe, to another one of my brothers. I don't remember all the gifts, but they gave each one of us kids gifts, and I don't know the reasoning behind that. I just I love the little treasure box and it was something that I kept with me up until the time that I pretty much left home.
Let's talk about Aunt Lucille, and let's talk about your travels, because you talk about the numerous states that you travel to, some of it in a big win of Bago, but also that many times you moved suddenly a couple times at night or at least once at night. So let's just talk about just these road trips and what they entailed, and just some of the places that you went to that later become very important.
Okay, Well, first of all, Aunt Lucille and Lucille and uncle Ale Antocille was my dad's aunt, so she was my great aunt. She loved my dad very much. She was always in his life. She would go visit him when he was at the orphanage and she didn't end up having any children. Her husband, my uncle Al, had a stroke at a young age and she ended up, you know, taking care of him for all of their married life. But Aunt Lucille would come and visit us
wherever we moved to. She also was very generous and would send money to my dad over the holidays for our birthdays to help my dad. By presence. She was just a very loving woman and she loved my dad. But she even though she loved my dad, she knew his flaws. She knew the things that he had did. She suspected him of things that he had done, even after he said he was reformed. But she still loved him. And as far as all the places that we moved,
it was I believe nineteen seventy eight was our first time. Well, we after we moved from Akron, we moved to Doylestown and we stayed in the Doylestown area from my kindergarten through third grade, and then after that we picked up in the summertime, we moved to Florida. We stayed there for a year, ended up moving started to move to Arizona, but that my dad found that too hot, and we
ended up in Brighton, Colorado. We lived there for a year, ended up moving in the middle of the night, and ended up in After that move, we ended up in Watertown, Wisconsin, and we only stayed there for a couple months. Once again, we packed up in the middle of the night or middle we started in the middle of the night. I think we left in the afternoon, or vice versa. We started early morning and left in at night. I'm a little bit vague on exactly when we started and when
we ended up pulling out. After that, we landed in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, I stayed We still lived there for a year, and
then ended up in Slippery Rock, Pennsylvania. From Slippery Rock before that, I would have been By the time that we ed up in Slippy Rock, Pennsylvania, I was in seventh grade, and before we finished our seventh grade year, due to my dad burning down another house, we ended up going down to Atlanta, Georgia, and stayed there for a couple months, and then ended up coming back to Slippy Rock, Pennsylvania, because that's my dad got caught for arson.
Then we stayed in the Pennsylvania area, multiple places, multiple homes. One it was the longest time that we stayed in an area because my dad did end up going to prison for that particular arson, and then as soon as he got out of prison, we ended up moving to that which was in eighty six. We ended up moving to Burton, Ohio a couple of days before my senior year started, and then my father my family ended up
staying in the Burton area for years. I think it was probably not until nineteen so at least ten eleven years they stayed in that area.
That's usus as an opportunity to stop to hear these messages. What we didn't talk about was in nineteen eighty at the Concord House in Waterton, Wisconsin. You mentioned your dad got a job at the Concord House and at night you say your dad frequented the bars like he did in most places that you lived, and he met a John Simon who said he had an old house to rent, and you talk about the house that had secret rooms
and secret passages. You love this home. But and also at that time you discovered your dad's stash of true detective magazines and you opened one and saw stories like raping the Coffin, and you read some of this stuff and were just amazed at the content. But at that time something happened at the Concord House involving two people. Take us back to Concord House and what happened to two people there at that time.
So in nineteen eighty we ended up, as we always did anytime that we moved, we always ended up at a campground before we found a place to rent, and we would always rent dilapidated homes that needed to be fixed up, with the understanding that my dad would fix
them up in exchange for rent. The Concord House was connected to the campground that we had stopped out when we landed in Watertown, Wisconsin, and the Concord House was it was a bar in the evenings, I believe it was a bar in the evenings, but it was also
like a reception hall. There was two different halls and on one way exactly when he met John I'm not exactly sure, but he met him at sometime and John was the farmer that leased land that there was a house on it, a farmhouse that was for rent So we ended up running this farmhouse on this land that John Simon rented, and then in the evenings my dad would kind of act as a bouncer at the Concord House. He also did some repair work at the Concord House.
And in August of nineteen eighty, my dad was working at the Concord House and he came across a young man named Timothy Hack his.
Girlfriend Kelly Kelly Drew.
Yes, thank you. I always want to say Nancy Drew because of Nancy Drew, and I know it's not Nancy. So he ended up killing them. Now, no one knew this, but you know, we didn't figure things out until you know, later on in this up in too be the investigation that ended up turning into a cold case that I ended up calling and turning my dad in or telling them I suspected my dad because what I remember is I do remember that this young couple came up missing.
And during the time that we were lived in Watertown, which was only a couple months, my dad was fixated on wanting to talk about Kelly and Tim, and I found that really strange, and he would he would talk about it with so many people, and especially with the kids around. And by this time I was in sixth grade, and I started realizing that some of the things that my dad did were not appropriate. But I also was at at that age that I really paid close attention.
And one evening I remember him coming home and he was all muddy, and that's that's It's a very vague memory, but my aunt Lucille recalls, because my aunt was staying with us at the time, that my dad came home this one night in August all muddy, and so between her recollection and my recollection, we realized that it was around the same time that Tim and Kelly came up missing.
But what I do remember is that, very very adamant about remembering, is that my dad showed up the next morning with a bloody nose and he had stated that it was broken, that he had broken his nose deer honey. And I remember thinking, dear hunting, it's in August. I don't think they hunt deer in August. I thought it was when it was cold out but I didn't, you know, being in sixth grade, I didn't think much of it.
Not until years later that I started putting, you know, two and two together, and which led me, as my memories came forth, led me to looking on the internet, searching cold cases and searching Watertown on Wisconsin, and came across that was called the Sweetheart Murders. And as I started reading about the Sweetheart Murders, which had just been reopened. The state of Wisconsin had just reopened it because they were giving funds, so it was all over the internet.
And as I was reading it, I remembered everything. I remembered the Concord House, I remember the campground, I remember the house that we stayed in. And when I did call up Detective Garcia, because that's who it was listed on the hotline, I gave him all this information. I explained the Concord House in detail. I explained the campground in detail. I explained the house we lived in in detail, the stained glass window, the spiral staircases, the secret rooms,
you know, being on a farm. And until this day, everyone tells me that it's amazing that they're amazed at my memories, how adequate or how spot on my memories have been. So that was the case that, you know, started this domino effect when I realized that my dad was guilty after the DNA match came back supporting you know, there was a match to the DNA that they found
on Kelly's clothing. I knew then that all the suspicions I had of other crimes I thought that he committed and other murders, because in the back of my mind, I always question everywhere we lived, people came up missing or were murdered, and they were usually young people, young women, or young couples. And you know, that's to me, even as young as I was, I'm like, what are the odds of that? How is that possible that everywhere we go were somehow surrounded by all these missing people or
these murders. And so I just I just knew that my dad had committed more crimes. To this day, I still believe and I know for a fact, because he even says if you listen to some of his testimonies that he doesn't give specifics as to where or to what state, but he states that he committed more crimes.
Let's go back, though, because you say, you're right, this This was an eventual realization that maybe you didn't even want to come to that realization, but you had a talk with your great aunt Lucille year before she died, and this was very important to your again realization of what your dad really was. Can you tell us about that.
Yeah, she was. She talked about that night in Wisconsin and about you know her, She remembering she remembered my dad coming home all muddy, his money, clothes, what he was wearing, and it bothered her because she had heard about the next day or shortly thereafter, about the missing couple. And when my aunt was talking to me about it, she said that she believed my dad has something to do with that missing couple. And we just we you know, we just talked and reminisced, and we shared our feelings
and we shared with each other what we remembered. But you know it, even after that, it took me, It took me years to find anything, anything tangible or you know, to do anything about it, because saying it out loud and having suspicions is one thing. Having evidence or knowing for sure is another. And but that definitely was started me thinking more and more about what all my dad might have done because my childre and we're young at
that age, and I you know, it was years. It wasn't until I forget exactly how many years later, at least eight years later, that you know, I didn't make that phone call. But there again, I had been looking trying to find something for a good year and a half, maybe even two years prior to me making that phone call, but I just couldn't find anything. There wasn't anything on
the internet. And the only reason that I finally found something about the Sweetheart murders was because it was just reopened. So it's very cold. Cases are very hard to find information on, especially when I started looking, because it wasn't Unfortunately, agencies didn't keep good records, or they they have thrown things away after so many years, or the agencies didn't talk with one another, and that's what happened with the
Sweetheart murders. There was two different agencies. I think there was the local police department and the state Police Department, you know, asking questions throughout the throughout the community, and they didn't always communicate as to what you know, if one person it might not have been relevant, that they might not have thought it was relevant. Where someone else would have might have found it relevant because they're they're there.
My dad was interviewed and but they they even questioned him about his nose, and he came up with the excuse that he had been shooting birds in the barn, and they believed him. But they didn't. You know, if they would have just done a little bit of background check, they would have realized his criminal his past crimes, because you know, he had a book, he was on the FBI's t had most wanted lists that should have raised some red flags, but it was never looked into.
Let's use this as an opportunity to stop to hear these messages. What we didn't talk about is that before you reached out to authorities, you were tentative about it, but also you confided in your family. Your husband said to you deal with it, but you had to deal with your family and your family parts of your family. Your brothers didn't want you to go to authorities and were angry at you. But you reached out to your sister Janine, So there was some trepidation about coming forward.
Let's talk about that coming forward to Chad Garcia now and when they go visit when he did go visit your father. What was the state of your father, What was the condition of your father? And let's talk about that. His demeanor when questioned finally by police, what I finally.
Made that phone called Chad Garcia. Chad had to do some of his own investigation. Chad admitted to me later that when I when he first heard me start talking and he realized here I was the daughter of the person that I was suspecting of this crime, and I lived out of town. He thought it was a crank phone call. Anyway, when I called Garcia, Garcia thought that I was a prank phone call or trying to I
had a vendetta against my dad. And then it was he was, you know, doing He loaded up or loaded up his computer and started realizing cross referencing things and finding out that, oh, look, you know Edwards. Wayne Edwards was interviewed, et cetera. So which led to Garcia calling me back weeks later asking if he could come to my home, and he did and interviewed me in length, took a DNA sample. But what I didn't know, and
I think I forgot to ask Garcia exactly. But what I do believe happened is they didn't even use my DNA sample, because I think what happened was as soon as he left my house, they went down I lived in Ohio at the time. They went down to Kentucky and talked with my dad right away, and something that I said gave them enough evidence, I believe, to get a subpoena to get my dad's DNA. So when they knocked on my dad's door, you know, my dad was
extremely overweight in a wheelchair on oxygen. But at the same time, I'm not saying that my dad wasn't in ill health. He also was a hypochondriac and he would play it up and make himself out to be sicker than what he really was, and he did that his entire life. They you know, spent a short period of time questioning them, and then they asked him if they
could take a DNA sample. My dad had said no, but then they they should let him know that he will hear we have a subpoena, and they took his DNA sample and it was shortly A couple of weeks later they came back again to arrest him. But in the interview you can hear my dad playing it up about his ill health, and I could hear I've listened to the interview and I could hear what I call his lying voice, and I can just hear his lying
voice throughout the interview. And when I listened to other tapes that because my dad was very adamant, he recorded and take on tech cassette tapes. He recorded conversations. He recorded so much, and as I've gone back and I've listened to these consette tapes, I can pick out his lying voice and it just it just irritated. It just really irritates me to this day. He just lied so much. I think he lied more than he told the truth.
It's interesting the horrible crimes that he does talk about. When you talked about that person, Billy Labaco, dad admits that he thought I knew that he had molested you. So you get to hear him his account of why he murdered what and the details surrounding those murders.
Didn't you I did, yes, I did hear that tape. I didn't listen to that tape or that recording. I didn't listen to most things until I started writing my book, or after I wrote my book, because I didn't want my memories this is one thing I was very careful about. I wanted to protect my memories. Even though I did the podcast, I protected myself from diving too far into the crimes that I thought I remembered my dad might committee.
So I didn't want to taint memories. I didn't have a problem diving into and investigating crimes that I wasn't alive for or didn't know anything about. But so there were some things that I didn't listen to or dive into until I had most of the book written, just because I wanted to protect those memories in listening in hindsight and listening the cold. He was so cold, you know. I remember listening to him when he talked about Billy
Lavico and Judy. When he killed Billy, he stated that, you know, Judy was there at the wrong time and that he didn't have any intention of killing her. And I believed he was lying because my dad that Billy and Judy were going to be at that spot. It's a spot that they had gone to in the park before. My Dad was familiar with it, and there's no way that he went there thinking that he was just only going to kill Billy with and leave a witness there's no way my dad. My dad is not stupid. He
would have never done that. So to hear him say that, I'm like, why, why do you want to lie and try to manipulate people? Even now? You know? So, even when he confesses to things, he doesn't confess the entire truth. He puts spins on it. So I find it very irritating to listen to things that my dad has recorded, and also very sad, a whole range of emotions when I listen to tapes. And I haven't even listened to all of the tapes. I just haven't been able to
bring myself. I have hundreds of hours of tapes, and I just to this day, I just haven't listened to all of them. I don't know if I ever will.
He admits to four murders and then talks about someone we haven't mentioned, person named Danny Boy. Can you tell us brief about Danny Boy and finding out about his murder?
Well, when Danny Boy, I knew Danny I wasn't living at home when Danny Boy came to live with my parents, or even when Danny Boy started hanging around my parents for a long period of time. But I didn't know Danny. I didn't know who Danny Boy was. I actually knew him in school. He happened to be on the wrestling team with my brothers and he would come over to the house. He was raised in a foster home. I knew his foster parents, I knew some of his foster siblings.
So I didn't know him extremely well, but I knew him, you know, a little bit more than an acquaintance. So and I knew I had heard that he had moved in with my parents at one time, and I remember thinking that my dad did this because he could manipulate Danny. Danny was a very nice young man, and he was a young man who liked to please, but he wasn't always he didn't always make the smartest decisions, and he
was easily you know, like I said, easily influenced. So when I heard that Danny moved in with my parents, I believe from the get go, from the very beginning, that my dad was using Danny because my dad needed someone to do things around the house because he couldn't, you know, And not to mention, he was probably charging Danny rent as well. And my dad was always out to get money anyway that he could, so that concerned me a little bit. And then when I heard that
Danny he did join the army. I do remember hearing that, and my dad was there was a news article I remember reading because then it would make four members of my family if you included Danny as our family, which I don't. By the way, I don't include Danny as one of my siblings. He was never adopted by my parents. But there was a news article about, you know, having four Edward's children in the military, because Danny did legally
change his last name from Glockner to Edwards. And then shortly after that, my dad gives me, calls me up, and I remember exactly what I was doing. I was laying on and it was in ninety six. I was laying on my living room floor trying to take a break because I had three young children, three toddlers. I had three children within three years. And I was laying on my living room floor as my kids were taking a nap, just trying to get a little bit of rest.
And my dad calls me and he starts talking about a duffel bag that was on his front porch that had some photographs in it, and there was some teeth in it, and I'm and I was kind of foggy at first. He started talking and then I'm like, what are you talking about? Dad? And then he went on to tell me about Danny Boy was missing, and he think this had something to do with Danny Boy. And I remember thinking immediately the fog lifted from my brain.
You know, I was wide awake now, and I remember thinking, you killed Danny. I know you killed Danny, and but how to go about proving it? I didn't know how to go about proving it. And I had heard one of my siblings had told me that they had actually went to the Burton Police Department and told them of their suspicions. Now, they don't have any record of that in the police department. I've checked, I've asked. I've not found any record of that. So I don't know what
happened with that. He my dad ended up killing Danny Boy, and he this is what makes us so heinous. Not only did you know he went around saying that Danny was his son, and Danny referred to my dad as Dad and called my mom mom. When my dad was
plotting Danny's murder. My dad had been plotting it for over two years, and he had to change a little bit at the end because Danny ended up was going to get a medical discharge from the army, and my Dad convinced Danny to go a wall one day before he was going to get discharged on a medically discharged and during that time he convinced he came up with this elaborate plan with Danny, saying that he was using this plan to extort money from one of Danny's enemies
and which happened to be one of Danny's foster brothers. And my dad is recording this conversation on a cassette tape, and of course he has this whole scenario and you and when you listen to the tape, because we do have the I do have the recording, you can tell that my Dad is prompting Danny to say some things that Danny fell off script, but he used this and this was supposedly evidence that my Dad turned over to
the police. But here Danny is participating, providing an alibi, participating in his own murder, and he doesn't even realize it. My Dad, after that tape recording, meets Danny up in the cemetery Ohio a little place called Troy Township in Ohio. It's right outside of Burton, and he shoots Danny in the back of the head twice. Danny never saw it coming. And it's just it's just awful. It's just for all
no murder. There's no excuse for murder, any of the murders that my dad committed, but that particular one just seems extremely over the top. You know, it's even even now, after all these years, it's even hard for me to wrap my mind around it.
That Jesus has an opportunity to stop to hear these messages now. Tell us about the circumstances in which your father is confessing but also wants the death penalty. Tell us about the scenario and how police suggest that he get that his wish.
Well, he never, really, he didn't. Even though he was extradited to Wisconsin for the Sweetheart murders, he hadn't confessed to them yet. And he hated Chad Garcia. He hated me, and he hated Chad Garcia. Chad because Chad is a no no, Chad is very good at his job, and Chad is a no nonsense kind of police officer. He didn't put up with my dad's bs. He thought through my dad, and my dad didn't like that, you know, because my dad had the ability to rap law enforcement
around his He manipulated people. He was an excellent manipulator, and he had many people fooled, even in law enforcement, and Chad was not one of those. So my dad hated him. And my dad did not want to be anywhere near Wisconsin or anywhere near Chad. So he came up with this idea that he would admit to Billy and Judy's murder. So he had dictated a letter to an inmate up there, and while he was in Wisconsin, to the Norton Police Department, and they received a letter
but didn't know exactly what to do about it. And as they were talking about what to do about it, my Dad then wrote another letter to the Norton Police Department stating that you're going to want to put a needle in my arm once you hear everything I have to say, and he referred to Billy and Judy's murder. So they came up. John Canterbury from the Norton Police Department went up to Wisconsin and interviewed my dad, and
my dad said that he wanted the death penalty. He wanted to be extradited back to Ohio, and they were like, okay. But what John Canterbury didn't know at the time, and no one realized that at the time, was that when the murders were committed in nineteen seventy eight in Ohio, the death penalty wasn't in place, right And they didn't realize that until after the fact, after my dad did this confessing and then they broke the news to my dad.
It was actually another detective. It was a detective Brian Johnston, who was from Burton, Ohio. So he came up to talk to my dad and him and my dad became really good friends. And Brian came up to talk to my dad and he broke the news to him about the murders. You know, you couldn't you can't get the death penalty because it wasn't in place at the time. But he said, you know, but in nineteen ninety six,
the death penalty was in place. Do you have anything that you want to talk about in nineteen ninety six, And he was referring to Danny Boy's murder at the time. So my dad does eventually confess to Danny Boy's murder. But he's been trying to manipulate everybody. He wants to go. You know, if he's going to go down, he wants to go down his way. He wants to manipulate people. You know, he's because he doesn't know anything else, so he wants things his way. And that's the only reason
that he confessed to the ones that he did. Matter of fact, he states also, I have another letter and a tape confession that if they didn't want to do anything about the Norton murders, he has another state that he could go to and have them come and talk to him. And that right there says that he's committed other murders. But you know, he never did confess about anymore to those murders, at least not to authorities. I have my suspicions that he might have confessed in a
letter form to one of my family members. I don't have one hundred percent proof of that, but there's some evidence that points towards that. Some other letters that I have copies of that were written my dad wrote while he was in prison up in Wisconsin. So the whole thing was is that he was just trying to mimulate, and he wanted to say and how things were going to go. So he eventually got extra diite it back
to Ohio. And it's not so easy just because you say you're guilty and you want the death penalty, It's not that easy. So they had to go through court, and they had to go through different prestige procedures. I ended up talking even had talked to my dad's lawyer from Ohio, and my dad lawyer from Ohio talks about
how conflicted he was. You know, it's his job to stop things from this, like things like this happening, and here he has a client who's saying that he wants the death penalty and that he needs to fight for him to get the death penalty, and it went against everything that he believed in. But eventually the courts agreed and my dad was sentenced to death by the ejection I believe. But he ended up dying on death row a couple months before that was supposed to happen.
You're right about that. Seven months before your dad passes away in two thousand and ten, you get a call from John Cameron, a retired detective working for the Montana Parole Board and he'd read about Billy and Judith murders in Ohio, and he thought of the infamous double murders in Great Falls, unsolved after fifty years.
So I did get a call from John Cameron. I didn't know who he was other than that he had told me he was a retired detective and asked if he could come out and talk to me. And I was a little skeptical because it was a little bit different than the other detectives who had called me and wanted to come out and talk to me. So I had to, you know, call up and find out if he actually was a detective at one time, and come to find out he was. So he came out to
talk to me and shed light on some things. He had a whole theory about a lot of other things that I disagreed with some of the things that he mentioned. I told him that I agreed with him, and actually showed him news clippings that I had of my father my father had saved and that that I had that were in regards to the murders in Portland, Oregon, some things about some clippings he saved about the Zodiac killings.
John was very much, very much interested in my father in stating that he was responsible for many other murders that were cold and was trying to find evidence to back those suspicions up.
So John Cameron thought that your father was responsible for many more murders. I interviewed John Cameron in twenty fifteen about his book It's Me, where he makes the claims that your father, through various methods and for various reasons, was responsible for many crimes other than the five he confessed to. In fact, many high profile crimes, John Cameron claimed. Tell us Now about the collaboration for the podcast The Clearing in twenty sixteen to twenty nineteen.
Joshteen, whose investigative reporter, was actually the first reporter that I talked to. I finally came forward to talk to someone, and it was the reason I ended up talking to a reporter was because I was getting calls from lawyers asking them to come testify on the behalf of their clients to overturn their conviction or to help them to be proven that they didn't commit these crimes. And the last the one that just after the last phone call
I received, it was actually from Scott Peterson's lawyer. I don't know if you are familiar with the Scott Peterson Okay, Well, I got a call from his lawyer asking me if I had any information that I would be willing to
share that would hopefully help overturn Scott's conviction. And I'm like, no, no, no, And this was just one of many rabbit holes that people were going down because of a detective named John Cameron, who went on this elaborate I don't even know what you call it, you know, saying, you know, believing that
my dad committed all these other crimes. And I was so tired of people talking about these supposed crimes, these high profile crimes that I knew my dad didn't commit, and they were not concentrating on the crimes that I believe that my dad committed. So Josh, I call him Joshteen. His name's Joshteen, the investigative reporter. I jokingly referred to him as a last man's stand because I had over the years, the months, not the years, over the months,
you know, actually was year, sorry, over the years. After turning my dad in, I refused to talk to anybody I didn't other than detectives. I refused to talk to any reporters journalists. I turned everybody down, but Josh kept texting me and just reaching out to me, and he actually happened to reach out to me a couple days before Scott Peterson's lawyer had reached out to me. So after I hung up the phone with Scott Peterson's lawyer, I immediately texted Josh and I said, I'm ready to talk.
So Josh and I met. We actually met in my lawyer's office because I was so afraid. I didn't know anything about reporters, about journalists, and you just hear all these horror stories about how their stories get twisted and they don't print the truth. And so I agreed that I would meet with him in my lawyer's office and that the recording it had to be recorded so that I had proof as to what I said and what I didn't say.
Right.
But Josh is a great guy, a really great guy, and we got together and ended up it was his idea to do a podcast. As a matter of fact, when he mentioned a podcast, I had to ask him what a podcast was. I had no idea what a podcast was, so we laugh about it to this day. So he and I and Jonathan went and traveled throughout the United States, going and to the traveling to the places that I had lived, asking questions, diving, talking with
the detectives, talking to people in the community. And this led to the podcast called The Clearing.
What was the effect for you, people talk and throw the word around, bandy, around the catharsis that some kind of healing would be from unloading and releasing this burden that had beset you. What was the result for you?
The first the healing process was something that took many years. The first step, the first domino, was when I made that call to Detective Garcia. And even when I made that call to Detective Garcia, I still was hoping that my suspicions were wrong. Matter of fact, I did not truly believe it until I called Chad up when I was on the way to visit my mom after my dad had been arrested. I asked Chad. I said, Chad, I hear what the news is saying. I see what
the newspapers are saying, but I need to know. I need to hear it from you. Is that DNA a match? And Chad was like, April, I'm sorry, but yes it was. I'm positive. It's a positive match. It's ninety nine point nine percent, you know, accuracy, And I'm like, okay, and that's when it really hit me. Then I was slow starting to deal with things because then I started to
have to slowly start talking to other detectives. Because when I originally talked to Chad Garcia, I gave him a timeline of every place I had lived and where and what towns I suspected my dad of crimes and what particular crimes, at least some of the particular crimes. So then this brought forth other detectives. So every time I would talk to a detective, it started cracking open, opening that healing that that you know, it was starting to that wound was starting to open up more and more.
And then when I eventually started talking to Josh, and that was talking to Josh, which took hours, was the longest I had talked to anyone, and I, you know, there were I had my migrains. I remember laying on my head on the desk, my my arm on the desk, with my head on my arm, and I'm just thinking, I do not want to be here, I do not want to be doing this. And then as I continued
to talk to Josh. You know, more healing happened. And then as I did the podcast and I got to meet uh while I reconnected with some of my childhood friends and even that happened started TAPPA before the podcast, and then Dave and Judy Hack reached out to me and they were Timothy was was Dave's son that my dad murdered up in Wisconsin. They reached out to me, and they were so loving and just embraced me and you know talking with them. So it was just every
time I talked about the story. And even now I still get I still get choked, choked up, and it's still a continuation of healing because there's things that I don't talk about in the book I don't want to talk about I don't know that I'll ever talk about. So the healing is still it's still continuing and it
probably will for the rest of my life. Definitely, you know, starting to talk to people, you know, it started with talking with the detectives and then talking with Josh, and then in definitely doing the podcast, and then I really thought I was good after the podcast until I started writing the book. It took me almost five years to write this book. Wow, and let me tell you it was very, very difficult.
Yes, I guess the hardest thing to realize too, is because of this public showing of this, that the public release of this information. But it must have been so hard to realize, Like you say, you didn't come to it right away, to realize the monster that your father really was. All along the way, you could see signs that he was a criminal. He would steal from his workplaces, he was a he was a compulsive liar, and you notice that right away. He was a bad man in
many many ways with his behavior. But it must have been incredible to realize that your father was the monster that he was.
It was. It was crippling because not only did I come to that realization that all my suspicions were correct, because you know, all those years that I had those suspicions of some of the heinous crimes, you know that I suspected of home, suspected him of doing. I also felt guilty for feeling that way, for thinking that way,
because this was my dad. And then after I turned him in, you know, realizing that my suspicions were crue and that were true and or confirmed, and then that there was even more out there, and then the guilt of turning my dad in, but the guilt of not turning him in sooner that if I would have turned him in sooner, you know, Danny Boy would have been
would still be alive. So there's just all kinds of conflicting emotions, you know, you know, guilt, guilt in multiple ways, and then realizing this is you know, and this is a man, he's my dad. I still loved him, I still love him, but it doesn't mean I can don't. Yeah, it doesn't mean that I condoned his behavior.
Yes, absolutely. I want to thank you so much April Blascio for coming on and talking about raised by a serial killer, discovering the truth about my father. This is a memoir. The release date is December third, which will be next week when this podcast will air. For those that might want to find out more about this book project, can you tell us if you have a website and do you do any social media?
I am just now starting my social media. I've just started today or try today to make an x account. I am on Twitter. Of course Facebook. I'm the older generation, so I still do Facebook. I'm in the process of setting it up and everything would be under my name. That's one thing that's nice about having a very uncommon name. All my social media can be under my name and it's not taken. So I am in the process of setting that up and working with people to set that up.
So keep an eye out, and you know, just google my name and you can find all kinds of stuff.
Yes, raised by a serial killer, discovering the truth about my father. April Bilascio so much, Thank you so much for this interview. And you have a great evening, and good night.
Thank you, Dan, and you have a great evening.
Too, Thank you so much. Good night, good night,