TED AND ANN-Rebecca Morris

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With new information about Ted Bundy's childhood, interviews with those who knew him best, and the memories of the Burr family, Ted and Anne, the mystery of a missing child and her neighbor Ted Bundy has been called an astonishing achievement by Greg Olson and fascinating by the late Great Ann Rule. Ted and Anne the mystery of a missing child in her neighborhood and her neighbor Ted Bundy with my special

guests Rebecca Morris, journalist and author Rebecca Morris. Welcome back to the program, and thank you very much for a Greenness interview. Rebecca Morris.

Anne Marie Burr. And you opened the book with August thirtieth, nineteen sixty one in Tacoma, Washington, and you talk about the day before and there was supposed to be a rainstorm was forecast, and you talk about Anne Marie Burr, which was eight and a half years old and Greg, her brother was five, Her father was Dawn, and her mother was Beverly. So take us, as you do, back

to August thirtieth, nineteen sixty one. What was the family doing, and tell us a little bit about their life in Tacoma, Washington, what that was like.

the Burrs and the Bundyes. And on that day, which is just before Labor Day weekend in late August in nineteen sixty one, Beverly Burr was getting She had five children, and Anne Marie Burr at eight and a half was the oldest. So that was you know a lot of children under the age of nine. But she was getting the children ready for school and ironing a new breast address for Anne Marie. And you know the kids who

were were playing. It was a very they were a very working class blue collar family, but in a nice little stone tutor uh very close to right right in Tacoma, but uh close to the University of Puget Sound, uh one of the private universities there. And Don berrh uh worked uh at uh at one of the military bases nearby. And uh bevber had gone to college, finished college, or more education than her husband had. She always wanted to

be a writer. She wanted to be a journalist. And you know that was uh a great gift to me because she chronicled everything that happened in her life, including uh the you know, nearly forty years she lived knowing that her daughter was missing. So they were just kind of getting ready at the end of the summer. Two of the younger children wanted to spend one last night in their fort in the basement, so basically downstairs, and

then Anne and her young sister Mary slept upstairs. The parents always slept on the main floor of the house in a back bedroom with their door open in case they needed to, you know, respond to the kids. And in the middle of the night, and you know, there was a storm at night on the thirtieth and we're

kind of famous for rain out here. But it was, you know, a really kind of harsh late summer storm, and some of the power went off around their neighborhood, and and it was so windy and noisy that, you know, you couldn't hear something if somebody was coming into your home perhaps or crawling through a window. The dog had sort of barked off and on, but the dog had been barking off and on for a few days. And there's been some proud in the neighborhood and some peeping toms,

so you know, the family was aware of that. But it was a rather ordinary day, which you know, is very poignant.

over on uh one side of the living room. And when she stepped around outside, she found that a a s uh a steps toool uh of of some sort had been pulled over to the window, and uh it looked like somebody had had gone in through the window. Uh. There was some things underneath the window in the living room side, some little figurines that she collected. Nothing seemed to be disturbed. But but the front door was open, the window was open, and that was, you know, not

the norm. She went knocking on neighbors doors and uh and nobody had had seen or heard anything. She went home and and they called the police right away. You know, she got her husband up and and they called the police, and that started the well, you know, the beginnings of this terrible, terrible ordeal. I mean, I've talked with a lot of parents whose children or loved ones are missing. But you know, she lived the next fifty years of her life not knowing what had happened.

is a search. You also talk about the setup because they believe that if it's a kidnapping, that they're certainly going to be a ransom or of somebody asking for a ransom. And in response, what did the police do and set up at the BurrH home.

but there was also a famous murder uh again in the thirties of uh the boy who somebody'd come right into his father's house and taken this child away, and at that point that was the largest missing person's search I think in America. Then in the thirties, not long after the Lenburgh kidnapping, and uh that boy was finally found,

uh murdered. But uh so they were expecting, they were expecting ransom demands and lots of times uh ransom demands, you know, something goes wrong, but uh, they they were expecting that. And yes, they did respond right away.

and volunteers. Hundreds of National guardsmen were scouring fields and Tacoma waterways. But you also talk about that there was they had to question a couple of friends, and right away there's a fifteen year old boy that becomes at least someone to you know, not a suspect necessarily, but at least somebody they want to talk to because he is friends with younger children and he's fifteen years old. Is Robert Brews, and.

by the second one. But uh you know, I found him and tracked him down and it got to know him and talk to him, and he was just you know, scared to death, and you know, the police were pretty rough with him, not in a physical way, but you know, scared the daylights out of him. So he uh he, he stayed on their list, but kind of you know, at the bottom of the list, and they just had you know, it's just just really tough, no no obvious clues.

few leaves of grass on the floor. And I'm jumping ahead here, but but you know, in uh just uh oh five years ago or so, they actually uh did some DNA testing on something they had kept from the house in nineteen sixty one, and they won't even tell uh, you know, Anne's siblings what what it was. But uh it was with with no uh you know, success or conclusion of the the testing of it. So there was

some there was something. I don't know if it was, you know, the sheep they had kept her, oh what it was, because there's no there's no sign in the police report, you know, all all thousand pages of it, that anything was kept from her bedroom. And also Rubert was went upstairs because Anne was kind of used to being up and down during the night, and she may have come downstairs and you know, recognized somebody she knew.

obviously to understand the character. But tell us what she said about some of the things that she remembers Ted being famous for when he was young.

my entree into this was, you know, the birdcase. But then I very much worked to find people who'd never been interviewed, and one of them was Sandy Holt, this woman now in her mid sixties whose a brother was Ted's best friend, and she had photographs of the three of them together and celebrating, you know, a birthday at a birthday party and the boys were in cub Scouts, and you know, she uh had very clear memories of Ted and of some of the memories were of what

he was up to as a youngster. You know, they would play in the woods and she said that he would uh she saw him, you know uh uh, you know violate animals and cut up birds and the things we kind of think of uh as uh, how serial killers start their careers are frequently you know, animal abuse. She saw some of that. And she also said he liked to you know, drag little girls into the woods

and and urinate on them and uh. And then she told a story about her father's hidden uh stash pornography and how Ted you know, as a young person, had found that and and uh. And she also believed that her father, on a scouting trip, on a boy scout trip, uh, you know, possibly molested Ted that they were seeing, you know, coming out of a tent together and kind of right getting dressed. Uh. So her her brother is you know, off for the the radar these days, so I never

spoke with him. But then she talked about, uh remembering Anne Burr from the neighborhood. And so she's the only person I ever found or heard of who knew both Ted and Anne. Everybody always said, and even ends and mothers said, well, you know, she'd ch and didn't know Ted Bundy, who was a little bit older, he was fourteen. He'd lived in that neighborhood when he and his mother first came uh West. Uh. They lived with his uncle in the neighborhood, and later his mother had married and

they'd moved a little bit uh further north. But he's still you know, h roamed around in his bicycle and and he was a paper boy. He wasn't the Burr's paper boy, but you know, those were the days when you know, children could just roam.

So as you talk about in the book the psychological aspects of Ted Bundy forming at this time with a conflict over his parents, but also this adoration of his great uncle and that lifestyle tell us a little bit about that.

she go back and get the baby. So we know that, you know, that first few months is is pretty critical for a child ben you know, held and loved and nurtured, and so he was you know, on his own in this uh on wo mother's orphanage for for several months, and then they came back to Pennsylvania, and you know, they're all kinds of you know, there are just so

many stories and so many myths out there. Uh. One of them is that his mother made him believe that she was his sister and his grandparents were his parents, and uh then he didn't you know, he suddenly was you know, a young adult, a teenager in his twenties when he learned about his true parentage and and various

opinions on how that uh might've set him off. The closest I could get to d confirming any of that is that later in life, when Ted was on death row and there was a pro bono attorney working with him to get him, uh a new sentence, not a new Chriald, but a new sentence because in fact, his his conviction for killing the Sorority sisters in Florida and and Kimberly Leach had he he would never let anything

about his childhood or's background be entered into evidence. And you know, there were some some stories about uh uh, you know, psychological abuse and being exposed to his grandfather's abuse, not of Ted, but of of the grandfather's you know, wife and and children. And so finally uh uh and then Dorothy ought Now Lewis, who is a psychiatrist to Yale,

who uh helped with that. With that last effort to get him a new trial, they spoke with Ted's mother, who finally admitted that there had been a lot of abuse in her childhood home where he spent his first five years. And I'll never forget, I mean, Dorothy Lewis said that she'd seen this before, that a parent would rather their child be executed than than admits to family secrets.

It's just really hard many years after, you know, after these crimes and after somebody has been executed, to really sort out, you know, what is myth and and what his reality. And frankly sometimes I leave it up to the to the reader, but but I tried to sort

it out. So he terms and he he did idolize this uncle, his great uncle that they lived with, who was, you know, a music professor, and you know he and his family had lived in Europe and traveled and and that's what that's what Ted wanted at an early age, you know, not the blue collar stepfather that he had.

have influenced him. We talk about pornography, but we also talk about detective magazines. Tell us a little bit about what you write about about that influence and what he may even have read in those magazines.

years after she disappeared in True Detective. And usually I mean they're quite violent depictions of uh, violence against women. And uh that's what he would have seen in reading those was was you know, a million ways to you know, the women are always the victim. And except for the very very you know, lone woman who you know is is or self committing mur murder. But uh, there there they were quite you know, quite violent depictions, and he he was you know, drawn to that, you know, as

you you know, near the end of his life. Well, the night before he was executed, he did an interview and blaming pornography for his you know, for his killing. But you know, nobody, nobody in the world believes that pornography leads to you know, it doesn't make you a serial killer. So, you know, there were a lot of things that were influences on Ted.

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couldn't get any information out. So the police are setting up, continuing monitoring telephones again incredible, hundreds of people involved in searches, psychics trying to weigh in, and so the police had to follow every lead, and so the police were frantic as well to try to solve this case. For any suspects to come up. They questioned don of course, which is routine, but tell us where they were in terms of shortly after a month later, where were they in

this investigation with Zachkevich and Strand? What did they know what they had found?

an hour's south of Seattle. The the thing that made it a difficult area to search is that it's, you know, surrounded by a water on three sides. There are bridges leading to you know, peninsulas and islands, ah off of it. It's I it just it's an I A very difficult It was a very difficult thing to search. They also searched, they searched the the sewers and and I think you know, one of the pro you know, possibly UH really important place was that, as I mentioned, they were just they

lived just a block from this university. And so one of the things I did was, you know, look at all the sewer plans from nineteen sixty one, and at everything all the building instruction going on because Ted it's said, he you know, put her in a in a ditch, and there were seven buildings under construction, uh on the campus,

just the block from the birds. And in looking at all of that, there's a story that in in the police report, and and that of course Bevi had told me that when Dawn, her father and his brother Raally are out walking around searching, helping search for her, this is just in the first few hours of the first day, they see uh a building site, and that there's kind of a young man or a teenager standing by this deep ditch and kind of playing with the gravel with

his shoe, and who who looked right at them, and later, i mean decades later, Ted said he stood and watched as the people were searching for this girl and maybe she was in that same ditch already, maybe she wasn't. Dawn went back, uh to the house and told the police, you know, you've got to you've gotta look at these building sites on the campus, and they're all these you know, ditches and and uh, you know, basements being being constructed

and literally in the in the police report. Three days later, they go up to check and the area where he'd somebody seen somebody standing had been filled in. Yeah, they were too late, and it wasn't you know, within their capability to necessarily tear up you know, tear up a roadway or ah, a building site, uh, just in case, you know, somebody had been buried there a few days before.

So that that's one of the most part stopping I think moments in the in the search is that, you know, Ted later said he was watching the search and standing near a ditch, so they the it was very it's it's really, you know, kind of interesting to look at this as far as what how did we cover missing children in nineteen sixty one? What was what was the media doing then? Of course it was very different. There was you know, there was I don't know one or

two television stations in Seattle, certainly nothing in Tacoma. And there there was a day when a TV camera made the trip from Seattle to Tacoma to film some of the search, but that was about it besides the local paper,

the Tacoma News Tribune. One thing that Bev was very savvy at was knowing that it was kind of up to her in the family to keep to keep Anne's name and face in the media, and so for or you know, for forty five years, whenever there was an anniversary, whenever it was Anne's birthday, you know, Bev would contact the newspaper and make sure that there were some follow up stories. And you know, nobody knew who Ted Bundy was in nineteen sixty one because he was a fourteen

year old neighbor kid. But then later, you know, later in the eighties, when they you know, knew who he was and when he kind of you know, confessed in the third person to this crime, then there were a whole of course, a whole lot more stories.

said she'd run away for the day or something. But she, uh, you know, got into a car with a man who stopped his car uh at the park and Uh, she was reported missing later that day or the next day, and uh, they went off on a on a joy ride.

And I I don't mean to suggest that she was you know, implicit in this, but right he he drove, they drove around, They went to I believe, Idaho, and and uh maybe into Oregon, and he had her hair cut, he bought her new clothes, and and there were there were stories that were wondering if this is gonna be

another annory birthcase. But then he'd he drives her b up to Tacoma after four or five days and lets her out at a candy store and he just drives away, and she goes into the store and somebody says, aren't you know, aren't you gay in and she denies it, but they call the police and and she's found and she is actually uh imagine there were some other family dynamics at work because she was kind of held in protective custody and not didn't necessarily, you know, run home

to the welcoming arms of her her parents right away. And and she always you know, denied that there'd been anything untoward, but uh, it was it was very strange. And then they tracked him finally to a motel in Portland, and just as they're you know, knocking on the door and identifying themselves, uh, he shoots himself. So it's it's just hard to you know, they never found any connection between him and Anne were but it was a very

strange case. One of the other uh odd ones is that in the uh uh I'd have to look at my book. I think it was in the nineteen seventies, there was an inmate in Oklahoma who confessed to the crime, and they thought enough of his uh his story that they flew him out to Oregon and and the Tacoma police went down and he said he and a friend had been uh picking beans in Oregon that summer and had uh gone up to driven up to Tacoma to

try to find work. Uh you know, there are a lot of orchards in Washington State, and that they had, you know, just randomly, you know, taken Anne out of the house. They they and left and then took her back to Oregon into this bean field and they actually went digging to see if if they could uh find anything,

and they didn't find anything. But also there'd been kind of the major flood uh in all that time that had passed and everything was you know different on the farm and uh uh so they didn't find anything there, and he was you know, taken back to Oklahoma and and went back to his life in prison. But I mean, they're they're really curious stories just didn't seem to lead anywhere.

know that they'd taken the wrong kid. And if they wouldn't you think they'd check the address of you know of Don Burr, the architect, and and Don Burr the you know, he'd called himself a you know, just a lunch bucket because he he worked on a on a base. But they they you know, that was never proven.

And she was usually the one to contact the police or to you know, think that the call from the psychic was worth looking into. She's the one with the other kids in tow. She would take flyers around, you know, she made the flyers. She'd take flyers around to businesses and ask them to post them, and you know some would.

And then she was the one faced face with people in town who decided, you know, that she was guilty of killing her daughter, and you know, people with say things right to her face, you know, holding her accountable. And so she she was always kind of the face on this case, even from from nineteen sixty one on. But and again she made sure that on any anniversary, you know, there was a photograph she and Dawn and

the two detectives, you know, sitting and talking, going over things. Uh, anytime, you know, when they had a tree planted in Anne's memory at their at their Catholic paris, just you know, anything, she and that that's what parents, uh do you know. I've interviewed parents who when their child is missing, they call ed Smart, the father of Elizabeth Smart and Utah say what do we need to do? And his advice is his first piece of advice you keep their name and picture in the media.

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blue apron dot com slash murder. That's blue apron dot com slash murder to get your first three meals free blue Apron A better way to cook Now, Rebecca, we have obviously this horrible situation for the Burr family, affecting their entire family, all the children and them. Don has been questioned and cleared. Don's relatives were even looked at seriously by the police or looked at by the police. But we're talking about now something to give them a

little bit of hope. You're talking We fast forward to Ted Bundy on death row and all of the people that he's cooperating with. These books published about Ted Bundy and his crimes. But there is a Stephen Mashad and his partner Ainsworthy Ainsworth, Hugh Ainsworth, that are given you say, unprecedented access Ted Bundy. Some people have read a little bit about it. But let's talk about what kind of hope the burs had after Stephen Mashad had been interviewing

Ted Bundy. Tell us how this comes about a little bit of optimism, a little bit of hope for the Burr family.

governor there is not going to make any any deals at all. So Stephen Michaud and Hugh Ainsworth too, you know, very prominent and respected UH journalists, UH get Tid's UH approval to UH audio tape some UH interviews with him in uh in prison and you know, uh for your listeners if if they haven't to haven't read uh their

uh interviews with Ted, it's it's really worth reading. And one of the things I wanted to do, uh in my book was to look at Ted's own words, and I I think we often don't do that enough with with the suspect is you know, what did they say about?

And Ted would speak in the third person about about his crimes, but he did tell Michaud and Ainsworth about you know, he kind of re enacted he he'd loved being you know, dramatic and being of course the the subject of every everybody's attention, and he was you know, he was a compulsive liar, and he was you know

just uh, you know, really evil. But you know, given all that he'd he would tell the story about how special, you know, his very first crime was, and especially if it was a child, and that you keep that you don't ever confess that, you keep that really close to

you because that first crime is so special. But he also kind of you know, reenacted taking taking a child from a house and then in in nineteen eighty seven, so about the same time as the recordings there's a uh uh Louisville researcher, uh Ronald Holmes, who's uh talking to serial killers and uh that's in nineteen eighty six, and he d he doesn't say what came out of it until he's speaking to a law enforcement group in Colorado in nineteen eighty seven. Course the state where Ted

escaped twice from jail. Uh it was in Colorado. But he talks about, you know that Ted hypothetically uh killed a girl when he was eight years old. Well, of course that has been all over the newspapers, uh nationally and out here, and that does give uh v ber

some hope. And she begins a written correspondence with Ted and uh and I I print some of their their letters in the book where you know, she basically is imploring him, you know, I he has nothing to lose by, you know, by saying if he killed Anne or not. And and he just you know, to the very end

just uh denies it. But he had re enacted for for Ronald Holmes, UH, you know, taking taking this girl from taking a girl from the house to the orchard next door and there was an orchard next to the birds, and assaulting her and strangling her and putting her in

a ditch. So I don't think the Tacoma police ever, you know, once once they knew who who Ted was in the seventies and that he lived in Tacoma, and then his his so cold confessions in the eighties, and then and then even uh, you know, in more recent years. I don't think they ever really took him seriously because because he was so you know young at the time. I'm fourteen, but you know, they're i they did, you know,

they did check. You know, some DNA of TADS became available just a few years ago, and so there are you know, cities around the country trying to close cold cases by by having you know, checking his DNA, because he said he he alluded to hundreds of killings and said he killed for instance, you know, young women in

California where there was never anything attributed to him. So he may have just been you know, you know, toying with law enforcement, which he loved to do, or maybe you know, but so far, there hasn't been anything you know, new attributed to him.

what we mentioned. He said. The next day he went over and watched police talk to the Burrs on the front porch, and he said, and had a crush on him. What did Holmes did? Did Holmes believe what Bundy had said despite what other people thought? He did?

of thought recently. I as you know, as I say, Ted Bundy is alive and well on the internet, they're they're you know, their books, they're h couple of documentaries coming out. There's the feature film, uh schedules for next year. You know, there have been TV movies and and like other authors, you know, I wanted to kind of find out, you know, what made Ted ted. But it reminds me.

I don't know if you've ever read Ron Rosenbaum's work, but his book Explaining Hitler, which I find a lot of parallels to this, is that is that we get caught up and trying to you know, it becomes a cottage industry trying to explain Ted Bundy, like trying to explain Hitler, you know, and understand, well, why, you know, what makes a person like this. Dorothy Ottell Lewis, the psychiatrist from Yale, wanted Ted to you know, donate his brain, uh after he was executed, and and he you know,

refused to. But there are a lot of people doing uh brain research of of murderers and prisons and of serial killers. And you know a lot of them have had some head injury as a child that perhaps contributed to you know, and and a very obviously a rocky childhood, uh contributes to to you know, committing crimes later. There's no doubt about that. But isn't it interesting how you know we consider I think people look at Ted Bundy

as kind of the heart throb of serial killers. Yeah, and because you know, he was good looking and charming and and uh, I'm gonna digress here a little bit more. But I thought a lot dan about you know, if you took Ted Bundy versus Gary Ridgeway, who yuh you know is on dethro and Washington State, but we don't w you know, we have a ban against executions. But but you know, Gary Ridgeway uh admitted to forty nine killings and they're possibly more. But you know, Ted was

good looking. Gary Ridgeway was not Uh Ted had these you know, white pretty co ed victims. You know, Gary rag Ridgeway killed basically African American prostitutes. And and but there's a fascination with you know, uh Ted Bundy that is, you know, far beyond any kind fascination with Gary Ridgeway. It's just that's something I've been thinking about lately, is you know, why does somebody capture the imagination like Ted Bundy and somebody else doesn't.

in Utah, Well she got them. She gets media attention because she was, you know, twenty nine years old, white and pretty and a Mormon, and you know in her city, murder is you know, those people aren't going to get the same media attention as as as other victims. So it depends on, yes, the the age and race and of the victim, and if they're attractive or not. And you know, how attractive is the murderer.

always believed that he had killed Ann Burr. Ann Burr is only mentioned in the you know, there's an there's an update in the back of The Stranger Beside Me maybe from the nineteen nineties, in which she she mentions Anberr because you know, when she was writing The Stranger Beside Me, no, we just hadn't connected any of adults yet, right, But she was and you know, she was a fierce competitor. She uh was really you know, I did did some

some really great work. I I think The Stranger Beside Me is a classic, and and you know, I think the other book about the case of Diane Downs, who you know, shot her children and in Eugene, Oregon, was is just a really terrific book too.

But I think the only time I actually cried working on the book was when I finally put put it together that and it wasn't obvious that the spot where Dawn had seen, you know, somebody standing over the ditch. That then then it was too late when you know, when the police went up to check, and that just seemed really you know, futile.

the record keeping or something, or interviewing people. I she was never she was never visited at by the police, you know, the zach Kovic and Strand after they retired, would you know, kind of keep in touch with Bev And they told me, I mean their children told me they would, you know, they'd meet every week for coffee after they're retired and talk about this case and what, you know, what the what they could still do even

in retirement. But nobody ever visited the Burghs, I would say after you know, nineteen sixty three, it just was, you know, put aside. They kept you know, as you'd seen police reports, they if they had a tip or something, but there really wasn't much contemporary you know, pretty much the police report stops. And I believe sixty two or sixty.

four on they had a first name because Ted. When he abducted two women from Lake Samamish Park just east of Seattle and killed them on the same day, he's was overheard as saying his name was Ted. So that search for Ted lasted years, and uh supposedly Keppel was just very close. You know, they were actually using a very early computer to winnow down you know, the people who owned tan volkswagens and you know who had lived around the University of Washington where some of the victims were.

And you know, just before they got to looking at Ted Bundy, he was arrested in in Colorado. I believe that was for having the burglary items in his his back of his car. So then he was kind of on the radar, so Kepel never really you know, never really caught him. It was, you know, random that he was was stopped in Colorado.

But that right after they played the tape for us, he said, well, anybody for some coffee and apple pie?

And her way of of coping was to offer apple pie or coffee and basically, you know, change the subject. But that was. Yeah, the the mouse they thought they heard were was her, you know, a a physical manifestation of her emotions that she could not bottle up. Right then, you know, she was murmuring and and then she stopped

and offered them coffee and usually was apple pie. In fact, I think, uh, at one point in my book, I talked about, uh, how how similar in a way Bev were and Louise Bundy were because you know, they both had five children. Louise went on to have you know, uh Ted, Ted had four s four step Uh I'm sorry, force, uh yeah, have siblings, have siblings, right, and and and Bev would offer people apple pie. And that's what Louise

Bundy would offer people, apple pie. So I did find some some anecdotes and some stories that I think well,

had never been told before. And one of them is you know that infamous picture the last night that uh uh, just before Ted was executed, when he's on the phone with his mother, and I uh interviewed uh for quite a while, the the photographer and the reporter who were the only people in the house with uh Louise and Johnny Bundy just hours before Ted was executed, and the fellow who took that famous photograph, and you know, I mean it's I think it's a fascinating story of how she,

you know, speaks with Ted and what she says and what he says, and then and she's kind of you know, she's kind of cheering, and then she they hang up, they say goodbye, and then because Ted's sister won't accept a call from him, he calls her back and it's kind of anti climactic. And you know, so I was looking for for people and for stories that had never been told about, you know, Ted's life, and I I just I still think that was a really great one.

Imagine being in that house alone with his mother as she's saying goodbye to him.

very sporadically attended uh two different law schools. I don't know that he even finished, you know, one semester. But at one point he volunteered for the r Young Republicans in the state of Washington. And you know, was a was seen at somebody as uh at these at these gatherings, uh in the seventies, of somebody who might really have a future in politics. Yeah, cause he everybody thought he

was bright. His his last attorney, pro bono attorney, said, you know, he really wasn't He was not particularly bright, but he you know, he was an actor his entire life. I mean, he created a character for himself, and that's that's what people saw this faciety.

even his eyes would look different. And then and he also had this preoccupation was startling people right from when he was a t a child and and so he was sort of had a unnerving way about him early on.

was on death row. That one psychologist who was uh assessing him said that he even gave off kind of a kind of a an odor when his eyes changed. Mm that you know, very kind of animal kind of instinct. And who knows. I don't I don't think it was was that he wasn't bathing. I I think there was something p you know. They they said they could see his his his eyes change and go very very dark,

and and UH think Michaud and Ainsworth. Uh witness that too, that he could, you know, he would and he referred to his you know this other shelf, this other empathy, oh, you know realm that he would move into when he was Uh, he seemed to you know, I think he said that he he actually controlled it by killing. I mean it was lee. It was always like that when he would when it was he was leading up to killing.

I just thought, how dramatic was that from all the false leads there was. Again, it's not like the police were continually over all those years updating them, but there was a time when you know, there might have been some hope what happened when this information was revealed and the at least didn't respond.

older and retired. But I think it just confirmed for her that there was I if she was ever gonna learn anything, it would it would come from her herself. Uh that you know, nobody was gonna knock on the door and say we've we've solved this. And you know, she also, as I say in the book, she just

had you know, there were just some terrible years. Uh. One of her her daughters, uh became schizophrenic and and was home listen on drugs and had two children, and uh one of them, you know, with with a lot of uh disabilities, and Bev and down just were kind of you know, literally bailing her out a lot and one of the things I I mean, I've done a lot of books since then, but it was the first thing I did where I could clearly see how something like this is the effect of this on a family

has passed down in the generations. Sure, and the children and grandchildren and and on and on that there's something I mean about a murder or a missing person that is, uh, becomes it just it it becomes part of of who you are and learning to to live with it and or or not learning to live with it.

I think there were some twenty or thirty UH albums where uh, even even in recent uh decades, it might start with, you know, the web pictures of the wedding of one of her children, but the back half of it would be all about Anne, right, you know, with pictures, oh sorry, with pictures that she'd never found another place for, or or newspaper articles over the years, or when she and Dawn UH traveled some uh she'd always you know,

keep a a little journal. And I think the strangest coincident she ever told me is one time they were on a UH bus caravan trip to oh to the to uh Missouri where the where the old when the grand old opry is right, and and she said that that Johnny and Louise were on the same bus to her and I never had a way of confirming that, but she said they were. They were seated alphabetically, and you know, oh they would run into each other around town once every decade or something and never never spoke.

her own writings and and lots of things. So she was, you know, uh very much a player in it. But she I think she must have wondered, you know, you're watching Judge Judy with me, So what what does this have to do with the book? But yeah, I I just always think you have to you have to spend time with people to to really uh get to know them. So I don't know if it would be uh cathartic.

with her again asking for her story. She wanted to be a journalist, so she had all of this information chronicled to use that information to get that story out, to tell her story, the thing that she'd lived with. I just thought that your involvement would this book, even the the future book that she didn't know, she didn't get to see it, realized that that would be cathartic for her. There would have been helpful for her, someone to listen to her and understand that and she was a.

important and I hope someday we find out what happened. Right, she was just you know, letting me do whatever I you know, thought I needed to do, so it And I think she was, you know, she was that that year. That year, she you know, really faded. But I'll say that they're one of the things. And I I don't think I've ever written a book where I've pointed fingers at the police. I think I think it's very appropriate for an author to ask questions about, you know, why

things were done a certain way or not done. But I will say that I don't understand it's now, it's now how many years since nineteen sixty One's fifty five, fifty six years? You know why the Tacoma police they never would speak to me, and this project started in two thousand and seven. They still won't speak to me. They won't tell Julie, the oldest sibling, what they took her d and a few years ago to test something and to test the blood sample they had of TEGs.

They won't tell her what. They won't tell her the result. They won't well, they said it was kind of inconclusive. They won't tell her, well, what was there in the house that they were testing. And I know from the Susan Powell case in Utah, which is now she's been missing since two thousand nine, you know, and that case is you know, closed because the best suspect, you know, Josh, her husband is dead. And but they won't tell the things that they won't tell the parents. They won't you know,

give them the police report. They won't tell 'em, you know, for for cases that are decades old. I just don't see the point in that. And I don't know if it's because they're not they're gonna come up, They're gonna be questions. Yeah, but I don't know.

And so you know, again they said, well, it's still an open investigation, but it's a cold case, and none of the family, the father the mother, have received no information. So you have to take it from them to say, especially when they explain how far this is how I mean, I understand certain things being withheld from anyone in an open investigation, but like I said, I agree with you, there has to be some information released to the family that can be harmless.

the case here. It's also the case with you know a little less so with the book you and I talked about a few weeks ago about the murder of my high school classmate fifty years ago. You know, I I everything was lost, the evidence was lost, the police report was lost, and finally found it. And and I don't know that in that case, if Dick Kitchell's parents were ever told, Okay, we've got we've got this suspect, this guy, he's flunked three polygraphs. We just can't arrest him.

I don't know if they were even ever told that. I saw no sign of it.

and Don to keep it in the public eye. And they they did, you know, what they could, and you know, and I wrote a big article about her as I was, and then I started the book, and then I wrote a second piece, you know, right after she died that also addressed some of this, you know, just going all those those decades without knowing.

or get involved with the fairs. And then some crime anthologies with Ray Olsen, and then If I Can't Have You about Susan Powell and killing an Homish country, about a rare, very rare murder among the Amish in Ohio. And then this this year's new book, The Murder in My Hometown, and so I'm onto another book. Now sounds great.