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You are now listening to True Murder The most shocking killers in true crime History and the authors that have written about them Gasey, Bundy, Dahmer, The Nightstalker, DTK. 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 Zupanski.
Good Evening. What happens when ordinary people in real life murder clubs set out to investigate crimes, both recent and cold cases. The Netflix hit Don't Fuck with Cats was based on the twenty twelve Montreal murder of thirty three year old Lyn John by his porn star boyfriend Luca Magnauta. Previously, Magnata had anonymously posted videos of himself killing kittens. This spurred horrified Facebook Sluice into working tirelessly to uncover his
identity and location. Other investigations include a self taught forensic artist who uses computer software and coroners photographs to help identify victims by showing how they looked when alive, The mother who swore at her murdered daughter's graveside that she would get the gang who had sprayed her car with bullets. It took fourteen years in the case of one gang member, but she finally entrapped him via the fake profile she
created on MySpace. The retail clerk turned citizen sleuth who helped to match a photo of a missing man to a skull found in a bucket, which resulted in the conviction of the victim's best friend. Web Sleuth's matched the IP address of a suspicious contributor to a lottery winning victim's financial advisor, which led to his body being found Beneathan newly Ford concrete slab in his advisor's boyfriend's garden.
Sometimes citizen sleuthing goes wrong, though, with innocent people being targeted or accused of crimes they haven't committed, with tragic results. The real life version of Richard Osman's The Thursday Murder Club is grittier, with intrepid amateur investigators delving into truly gruesome, unsolved crimes in pursuit of justice. The book that we're featuring this evening is The Real Life Murder Clubs Citizens Solving true crimes with My special guest journalists and author
Nicola Stowe. Welcome to the program, and thank you very much for this interview. Nikola Stowe, thank you, thank you so much, and congratulations on this extraordinary book. All thanks don Now, let's first talk about because I wasn't familiar with the name Richard Osman, tell us who Richard Osman is and what is the Thursday Murder Club and you were asked to write this book and so what were you surprised with in this regard with the Thursday Murder Club and your real life Murder Club book.
So I was asked to write this book obviously by Adli Publishers. The idea of being Richard Osman is a TV presenter who had a wonderful selling book out novel called The Thursday Murder Club, which is about a group of pensioners living in a retirement village and there's a murder and they set about trying to solve the crime and they have a Thursday Murder Club where they all
grouped together. So the idea behind the real life murder Clubs, Citizens Sold and True Crimes was to find the real life citizen sloops, people that actually spend their time like their spare time around jobs searching the internet and trying to identified bodies and sold cold cases.
So what did you find from the fictitious murder clubs with this group of people that were surprising in the very beginning of this investigation into real life citizens solving crimes.
Yeah, it was a lot grittier, I must say. It wasn't like cozy like it's portrayed in the novel. But then that's you know, that's the novel, and these people are serious, tenacious, and dedicated. What I found particularly poignant was how people how the sleeves got into doing this.
They often had personal reasons for doing so. Like Billinda Lane that we're going to be speaking about daughter was shot and killed, and so that inspired her to go on a decade long mission to find her daughter's killers.
Now you say that you were hugely impressed by the skills and impressed by their skills and vast forensic knowledge, and you've spoke to many of these people. Now let's introduce these citizens Sloves via the contents of this book. You have. The first chapter is why did you kill her? And so we just mentioned you alluded to the Belinda and the crime of her daughter Crystal being shot.
Yes, that's right. So that's the first chapter in the book. Yeah, I found this really poignant and it was incredible the investigations she did tell.
Us about Crystal Theobald and March eight, two thousand and six in Riverside, California.
Yeah. So Crystal Theobold was a mother of two. She had two young daughters and a training nurse. One day, she's with her mum, Belinda Lane, and her brother and their friend one Patlan, and they decided one evening to go to the seven eleven.
It was just sort of.
Five minute drive away in Riverside, so they left. Belinda went in her own car and Crystal, brother Justin, and one were in another car following, and there was three of them. There's three seats in the front and Crystals in the middle. One was driving. Belinda gets to the intersection and all of a sudden, a white fud expedition in suv comes screeching around the corner. Her to swerve and stop. She then see a guy that looks youngish, a baby face she called him, possibly Hispanic, who gets
out of the suv and holds a gun. He pulls the gun out and goes to she ducks down in the car, thinking he's going to shoot her, but then she just hears this explosion of glass and at five bullets exploding. When she looks up that the SUV's sped off and the car her daughter's in goes off down the road. She tries to follow, loses them and to cut that part of the story, so she ends up
going back home and the police are already there. Son comes running up the street, her son, Nicholas, saying Crystal's been shot. So she ended up on a Crystal ended up on a life support machine and sadly, the medics said her brain had died, and Belinda had to make that awful decision that no mother should have to make, to tell them to turn the machine off. Crystal died in Belinda's arms in the hospital, and she made a vow to a daughter, I'm going to get the people
that killed and are going to make them pay. So that was what she said about doing. And then she set up with a niece, Jamie. She was at just fourteen at the time. They set up a MySpace account.
Initially there's a girl called Rachel and they've found members of the fifty one fifty gang who they suspected was behind the shooting, and there'd been a rumor that they were looking for rival, a member of a rival gang who was threatening to kill one of their members, and they were allegedly in a similar car to what Crystal and Judio and Justin werein.
Yeah, so what happens is that she does, along with her nephew or niece, set up this predecessor to Facebook MySpace, yes, and set up this profile attracting these fifty one fifty members gang members to be attracted to this profile in this well the state profile and photo that's right, But Belinda, being who she is, she gets sort of impatient and somehow decides to post her dodge Crystal's photo on another profile and then approach these fifty one fifty And also
there's an interaction with a detective as well, tell us the lengths that she goes to be able to pursue this person that she believes is driving the vehicle in which the killers shot her daughter.
Yeah, so she knew that obviously suspected that this gang
was behind the shooting, and it's a mistake. So she finds a name for the person she believes to be the getaway driver, who was William known as Joke Stella Stello, and she basically under this profile that they used Crystal's picture and called her Angel as she starts befriending this William Ctello and the dialogue continues, she's getting angry and angry because she went to Detective Rick Wheeler who was investigating the case, and they did get Ctello into questioning
after she he had Bitteres that he drove a Ford expedition at White SUV, so he went. He was called in for question but they didn't have enough evidence, so they had to let him go. So Belinda continued and
it's becoming even more frustrating. Obviously, she even got to the point where you know, it became justice and revenge became quite blurred, and she she had a gun, and she even set up a party called the End of Life's Party on the sixth, the sixth, two thousand and six, and she was going to lure to Tello and other gang members to this remote location with the idea being
to kill them. But luckily that didn't happen. And eventually, like everything just before that party was due to happen but didn't, she confronted Setello on MySpace, and yeah, that's where she was. She basically said, do you know who you're talking to? You know, I'm Crystals, theobold. You murdered me. Why did you kill me? And he didn't respond to that, and then he disappeared.
Right when he had originally spoken to police though he had incriminated this Julio Heridia, and so the police were working with that lead, unbeknownst to Belinda, and she had confronted this Sotello and he went on the run.
That's right.
She had contacted this Detective Wheeler and he had basically at one point told her to back off. But anyway, she continued to work and continued to look for this Sotello as well.
Yeah, that's correct, and her radio was the actual gunman and he actually got life in prison without parole in twenty eleven, but that happened later after he got lot. He did the death penalty. Was Belinda did fight for that at the time and then changed her mind. Yeah, but then she Soletto went on the run, as you say, and it wasn't until twenty fourteen when she had a breakthrough. She by this point handed the MySpace account back to
Detective Wheeler. Meanwhile identified two other gang members who were brothers, William and Manuel Limas. They actually gave information on Heredia about the gunman for immunity and then and then Herredio was jailed. But the twenty fourteen breakthrough came when she was Belinda was searching on Facebook and she was still looking for Catello and she was searching on Facebook and found a profile of him. He was using Crystal's picture
but had using a different name. So she went to a detective Wheeler with this information, but he said, like, he's in Mexico, but he said, we can't, you know, we can't do anything without an address for him. And anyway, she managed to get an address through some beauce that she met on this profile, and they captured in Mexico
in twenty sixteen and there's led to him. He pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter and gang on firearms charges in like a plea bargaining with prosecutors and was sentenced to life without parole.
Right and very interesting too that two people were given life sentences with no parole and this person that she started right to the end the drive got twenty two years. So she was very very successful in her sleuthing.
Yeah, definitely. Yeah, you know, she never wanted to give up. She admits became become quite dangerously scared herself, you know, when she was trying to learn them earlier on in the investigation. But no, and she now helps other people. She's got a Facebook group, So yeah, I reckon she'll go on to maybe get some results in other cases, hopefully.
In the contents to your next chapter is the world's first cyber Sleuth and you s like Kerryville, Campbell County, Tennessee, Autumn two thousand and nine and Todd Matthews's Citizen Sleuth just briefly tell us a little bit about what kind of sleuthing is employed here in this citizen Sleuth story.
Yeah, so Todd Matthews, he was in spite of it because he's younger. Robin's sister died when they're just like babies. He liked the fact that he would go and see
their names on the graves. But his stephan came about when he met his well who became his future wife, Laurie Riddle, And they were at school one day and they were telling like Halloween stories, and she told a story about how a dad Wilber was founder body in the canvas tent bag and the woman she was believed to have been the aged between sixteen and nineteen, and she was completely decayed and she was never identified as
she just became known as Tent Girl. He found her in nineteen sixty eight and Todd Matthews became obsessed with this story and consumed him for over a decade. He managed to identify her eventually. But yeah, he's very much into giving people their names. He likes mysteries and finds it, you know, like some of these cases where people haven't been like the case of tenth Girl identified for years. But to give people back their name, it means a lot to Todd.
Absolutely. You talk about the third chapter is my first soul?
Yes, that's Ellen Leech.
And tell us what contribution she has as a citizens.
Yes, so Allen Leech. She works at hobby center hoobby Lobby it's called, and she spends hours like checking the internet for missing people and unidentified bodies. So one evening and her journey started really in two thousand and four when she was she got home from work and she's spending the night looking on the internet for clues that might match around identified bodies to miss in person cases.
But she found herself drawn to a picture uploaded to the dough Network, which is actually set up Todd Matthews was a co founder of It's a List of Unidentified People and the image this image showed a reconstruction by Jack Bender of a head that belonged to a man in his fifties who had been murdered. So she looked at this picture and she was drawn back to it.
But she was also interested in this story about a head been found in a bucket outside a Lorry layby, and she because this reconstruction been done and the picture of the missing person she'd seen, she it reminded her of this missing person she'd seen, and she that they managed to identify this guy that she didn't match them up eventually.
Yes, it's an extraordinary story. Your fourth chapter is we can I'd like to discuss further because she's such an important person and well known, and this is the title is web Slues, And yeah, you take us to how she became involved in being a citizen Slouth Murray, Utah, September nineteen seventy four Bisha Griffith and the Fashion Place Mall and Tricia Griffith is just fifteen years old, tell us how she comes to be a citizen Slouth.
Yeah, so this when she went to the fashion place small in Utah. She was her first trip to them all alone without her mother, and she'd given her money to buy clothes for going back to school September time. So she's very excited, obviously, and she's a brother drops her off there and she walks through one of the first department stores, and then she's approached by this terribly attractive man who's just really handsome. And she described herself
as being boy crazy at the time. And he approaches her and asks her for directions to a shop said CMI was, and she says, no, let's not here. It's in Cottonwood, More, which is like about a ten minute drive away from here. So he's walking along with her, chatting to her, and she's quite taken, quite smitten by this guy because he's so handsome. And then he says, well, I've got my car, why don't you come with me? You can direct me to them all. So alarm bell
started ringing Patricia and she managed to get away. She fortunately she saw her cousin at the mall and she phoned her brother and he came to collect her, although he wanted to go after this guy. He's brought a hammer with him, so that sort of you know, that happened and it shook her up, but she didn't think any more of it until a few years later when she saw an article in the newspaper like the seventh Faces of Ted Bundy, and she recognized him as the
guy that approached her at the mall. So she did ring law enforcement and report this, but obviously they you know, she she just felt the incredible guilt after that, because not long after Tricia's incident, Carol Durnch was approached by Ted Bundy at the same mall, right, and she posed as a police officer then said that it was something
wrong with her car. They needs to go to the police station and she probably no got her into her car and ended up like taking her to a remote spot, trying to handcuff her and threatened to blow her head off and pulled out a gun and then she got out the car and he chased them with a crowbar, but she did get you know, she get away, but he did get jailed for that. Yeah, So when she you know, she just felt terribly guilty Trisha for not speaking up at the time, but obviously she didn't know
it was Ted Bundy. So that kind of got her into to sleuth and that and the Jean Bernet case as well that she round back the end. It was just the time, as you know, start of the inn I ran about nineteen ninety eight, so she had like an old fashioned dialogue, yeah, but she did end up
like joining it. She found like this forum about John Benet Ramsey and she she started like typing on there, and then that led her to set up forums for justice dot Org, which was, you know, like another sleeping forum that's to discredit scandale accusations that were going on luggage, which of course would do happen online. But then it was so then she always had this massive, interesting true crime but the Ted Bundy situation did inspire her the most,
something she's never forgotten. And then in two thousand and four she bought the webs forum and this yeah, it's got over two hundred thousand members I think now.
And you researched and discovered what kinds of people make up this diverse group of people, and what kinds of people are on these kinds of this site in particular.
Yeah, it's a it's a kind of mixed. I mean some people are you know, like ed and Leaps. They do their day job and this is just something that intrigues them that they do in their spare time. You know, they might not have any that law enforcement background or anything like that, but you do get like some like retired detectives or lawyers, nurses, They had a forensic handwriting expert as a member. So yeah, it all walks a life really.
You also talk about another case that was really instrumental in making web explode, and that was Keighley's Anthony's death. And also you write about the Florida Sunshine Lawn and what that meant to a group like webs especially at the time of Casey Hilley Anthony's death and Casey Anthony being accused.
Yeah, the law means that the police have to give over handover all evidence unless there's a special reason for not doing so. So they had a lot of access to records. Certainly is the case in America or so then over here anyway, So yeah, that was one of the biggest cases on websites. Tricia said. The Kaylie Anthony case. They found they did look that they did like a ping map. They managed to prove that Anthony wasn't where she was like I said, tracking the phone calls when
she said she was. They found another on a she searched another major search for full proof suffocation on another search engine. It was later found out that that was the case and that evidence wasn't put forward at trial.
You're right too that one of the detectives Tricia mentioned was that he had contacted web slues and thanked them for their contributions. Let's use this as an opportunity to stop for a second to hear from our sponsor. Often people wait until something bad before they consider even talking to a therapist. Therapy can dramatically change the way you look at things in your life and then find actual
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support for the show. That's talkspace dot com slash true murder Now, Nicole, we were talking about Trisha Griffith and Websluse, and there was another incredible case that Tricia Griffith and Websluse were involved with, and that was as you write about Abraham Shakespeare, a forty two year old who had won thirty million dollars in a Florida lottery three years before, and then he was reported missing November two thousand and nine, yet nobody had seen him since April of that year.
As the Forum's debate you write about Shakespeare gathered momentum. Sluther's became suspicious about a prevalent poster in the thread. One person named Dories d D. Moore, who had befriended Abraham Moore, had come into his life claiming to be an author working on a book about his rank to Richest story and how people had taken advantage of him. Now Moore's apparently had taken over the lottery winner's assets. So tell us about web slues and what they do with this information and how they do it.
Yeah, well, Tricia became quite suspicious of this Dori ste d Moore she was posting. She said, she seemed quite sort of flashy show offee person. She was claiming to be best friends with Shakespeare. She said that he'd granted her power of attorney. She'd helped him get out of town after his lottery win because you know, it was being bt by gold diggers. According to More, she was posting on the on web sleeps stand, I'm taking care of his money. But as Tricia said, she seemed flashy
this woman, and she became very suspicious. So they started looking into two more and one member of web Slues managed to get her bank record to believe, and when confronted by Tricia Black, I think Tricia did contact More and she denied it was her posting on web slues, and she said that somebody else was fraudulently using her address. So Tricia obviously she knew she More was lying because the IP address of dd More atched the IP address
of the email that she'd sent back to Tricia. So Tricia confronted her and she said, look, somebody must have broken into your house and used your computer. Then at this point, Tricia's convinced that she's behind maybe that Shakespeare's disappearance is more to it. So she made one exception because web slue is tightly moderated and she has a strict like no name in a shaming policay, Tricia, she made one exception and she posted saying D. D. More
killed Abraham Shakespeare. More went crazy and started contesting every piece of incriminating evidence against her. Basically, I've been had, More was saying, but you know her actions they just goalvanized web suspicions even more, and she was eventually exposed as a scam artist and became a person of interest when Abraham Shakespeare's body was found underneath Moore's boyfriends concrete in the patio in Mah's boyfriend's back garden. It shot twice in the chest and buried five feet below a
newly built patio. And this is great result for web slues because law was eventually convicted the first degree murder and sentenced to life in prison. And that's when the detective contacted web sloues to thank them later.
You're right though that, and I think this is somewhat understandable. When Rolling Stone wanted to do an article on Webes, Florida, officially police department said, now, we no one contacted web sloops.
Yeah, that's what Trusia said. She said that they which was frustrating for her because she does say that, you know, it's hard to be taken seriously at times by law enforcement, and that's one of her goals is to well, one of her goals, she says, is to drag law enforcement kicking and screaming into the twenty first century.
It's somewhat understandable that they just, I mean, if police forces came out of jurisdictional conflicts, never mind what they might consider non professionals interfering as you write in cases or the potential for people. So I think this public acknowledgment, I don't think it will come. But a private acknowledgment, as Trisha talks about and has said to you, does occur.
Yes, yes, that's right. I think there have been occasions, several occasions where detectives of contacted their baby and thanks.
He absolutely, you're next chapter you talk about the mother Load and Paul Haynes, a Los Angeles citizen and his partner Michelle namara. People might know who she is. Tell us just briefly about what you write is the mother Load and what Paul Haines and his partner, what their goal is, their mission and what they actually accomplish.
Yes, so the mother Load refers to It was records hell that the Orange County sheriff Department's headquarters and the room basically containing containers of information for the Earon's case, and the EURONS stands for Easter AIA Rapists and Original Nights Talker. So it was the case that had gone cold, as you know, the rapes and killings that were free crime spreeese really across California, but the case had gone cold,
and Michelle McNamara was a crime blogger. She became obsessed with this case and felt that needed more lightshon on it too, so she started looking into him and writing about about this attacker, and Paul Haynes joined her basically became her lead researcher, and the pair of them together like spent five years obsessively researching these reams of data which they managed to get because Michelle had good contacts
with detectives and everything, they trusted her. So basically they went on the mission to the Orange County Sheriff's Department. They called it a heist to get the mother load from the evidence room so they could investigate all the paperwork and evidence that might have been overlooked during the
investigation years before. So they managed to so her contact, they managed to sort of let them into the room, and then they transported all the documents it's thirty seven containers boxes i think altogether, into the back of the two SUVs and they made away with it in Shell's house and then they began going through all the paperwork and trying to identify who the Scarea rapist, original nightstalker was.
The next chapter is Snaring the Golden State Killer again. The East Area rapist, the original Nightstalker, Golden State Killer one and the same and how that used genetic genealogy to finally bring him to justice over forty years later. Incredible and to also sort of validate many of the things that Michelle had written in her book that came out just before. Anyway, the outcome, let's talk about your chapter Forever Young in New York twenty and fifty paral Koppleman.
And he creates digital illustrations of unnamed dead people.
Yes, and it's incredible what Carle does. He uses that coal paintwork. It's a package and basically he so work from all topsy pictures so people that and then he'll create, like find an image online of someone around about that same age and will get like colors of their skin tone, and then he makes it translate that sort of about ninety percent translucent and then builds layers and then gets a close resemblance. So he believes that person wouldn't like
when they're alive. Yeah, he's it's really fascinating what he does.
Yes, he did a real service for the family and friends of Tammy Joe Alexander, which was she was called the Caledonia Jane Doe and that she was found in a field in nineteen seventy nine, but not until June
twenty fifteen. Thanks to this person, Carl Koppleman, he was able to do this for the family and friends of Tammy Joe Alexander, your next chapter is it started with a murder and in New Jersey and a person named Tracy Boyle and the influence that her late father, Patrick Boyle, a detective in Pompton Lake's police department, was assigned the case and the influence he had on this citizens lou Tracy Boyle.
Yeah, so her father. When she grew up in Pompton Lakes in New Jersey, Tracy, it's a small town where not much crime happened. Her dad was a police officer, and then one day a woman was bloddoinged to death
in her apartment and shocked the whole community. But her dad brought home the files for this case he was working on it, and she started having a peak at these files and from there she became fascinated in true crime and now she works for today Like Tracy works for the DNA dough Networks, which helped identify missing bitwell people that have gone unidentified to give them back and John and Jane does to give them back their names. And so she's worked on a lot of cases.
Your next chapter is Don't Fuck with Cats, and the following chapter read after is unmasking Luca Magnata. As we as I read in the introduction, many people will be familiar with the Netflix documentary series Don't Fuck with Cats and his relation to Luca Magnata, the cannibal killer from Montreal that Rena was on the run and found in Berlin.
What's interesting well this story is you just at the very beginning of this story Don't Fuck with Cats, is that there is an attendant at a cafe in Berlin that thinks, see that someone in this that's at one of the computers booths looks familiar. I'll tell us just a little bit about this harrowing scene that you write about in that chapter.
Yeah, so the guy I've worked in the Insect cafe, he sees this. This guy comes in, young, issue in his twenties, sunglasses, quite a nice looking young guy, confident, and he just walks into the cafe and says, bonjour Internet. So he has signs this guy a boost. But there's something about him that looks familiar, you know, so he's just a cadea. His name is the guy that works
at the intet caver. He's sort of pottering around like empty and bins and keeping an eye on this guy because he does look familiar, but you can't think where he's seen him. So but when he's looking over his shoulder, the guy, the guy who's coming to use the Internet is looking at the interval message looking for Luca Magnotter, who's who's on the run the wanted sort of poster, you know, and he's and then he's looking at other news articles about this Luca Magnota, who's wanted for the
killing of journalin a Chinese student. When he looks takes a closer look at the picture, he realizes that the guy in the Internet boost is Luca Magnota. Eventually got luckily goes outside and there's a police fan going by with trainees and he managed to wave them down and they come in. If you've see the Netflix service or say there's CCTV footage of this happening and Luca Magnotter is.
Arrested, yes, and what the Netflix documentary for those people that didn't see it, and we have to talk about it here is that it was an army of people that were interested first in Luca Magnotta because they only knew him as this person that was posting videos of
killing and torturing kittens. So of course people are very serious about their cats, and there are an army of citizens sleuths ready to attach themselves to some project or case, and in this particular case, there was an army of people looking for this person that ended up being Luca Magnotta.
Yeah, that's correct. It was on the two main sleuths in the series, Deanna Thompson and John, a guy that you who's the name. It wasn't his real name, John Green. Yeah, that's that's how it all became began in twenty ten. Deanna being a animal lover, when she first saw the cat video, she thought it was going to be a cute kitten video. There was that these little two little kittens sitting side by side on a silver blanket with a picture of a wolf, and then of course it
just gets darker and he suffocates the two kittens. So this obviously had really disturbed her and they started trying to find out who who the person was because more videos did follow as well, and you fed to hit into a python, drowned another in the bath. It was horrific. But they realized that he was using like sock puppet accounts and they really did delve into finding out who he was and eventually did link this the guy in the video to Luca Magnotta.
Absolutely, and it's so interesting the various the separate skills that were employed. They were looking at the background in the video itself, items itself, trying to see any differences, and it was amazing the connections that they made and wore be able to put together and really displayed the strengths of a group versus just a single person doing an investigation of the sort.
Yeah, definitely, I mean they haven't. They spent hours and hours and hours, and I think that the final photograph they because like Nosti used to post pictures of himself, like doctored pictures of him, like by the Eiffel Tower and all these exotic locations, and I think it was John Green that first noticed that that's you know, the skin color and his neck was different to his face and realized that they edited these pictures. But the picture that they did find was him standing by a wall
university in Montreal. But they managed to go on to Google street View and I think it was through the through the traffic lights and the shape of the traffic lights in one picture and the wall. It was like a like a rock ball, and they're able to find that location which put him in Montreal.
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Now, the next chapter that you have is called The Lord of Bioinformatics and you set it in Stateville Correctional Center, Illinois, May tenth, nineteen ninety four. And everybody's favorite serial killer, John Wayne Gacy at execution. Tell us about John Wayne Gacy's brain, Yeah.
They retained after he was after was given the leaf for injection, because I think the idea of being that must be something abnormal there to cause him to commit these terrific crimes. But they couldn't find anything untowld. But it was I think they do do this in some cases with serial killers, that they keep the brain for scientific study.
Absolutely, they found nothing wrong. They were surprised. But the one thing that he went to his grave with was the identity of eight bodies, eight unidentified victims. And you're right. By twenty eleven, with DNA advances, within weeks of them testing DNA, they had their first victim, William Bundy, a nineteen year old. Then it took six years later twenty seventeen Jimmy Hackinson. Then in twenty twenty one, Francis Wayne
Alexis pronounced his last name. So you spoke to a person named Kevin Lord, an engineer in genetics salute at the DNA doc project. What tell us about this conversation?
Yees, So, Kevin they managed to get Obviously, like France's Wayne Alexander, he was just known as Victim number five wasn't identified obviously for years, but Kevin worked at the DNA Dough Project, so they managed to They managed to get some DNA from victim number five's molar teeth, which they sent away for sequencing by experts. Kevin basically from there, he's got quite a unique role within the DNA DOE project.
I'll read you the title. He said. It's some director of leven Agency Logistics at the DNA Dough Project and he's basically the main point of contact with all the agencies the beginning of an investigation. So he did the DNA sequencing based on this this sample, and then they go to like put this into JED match and then he was able to find relatives which eventually led them to France's Wayne Alexander and he was identified as John Waye Cases.
Yes, extraordinary genetic genealogy too. Years later identified these victims and give some solace and again overused cliche closure to some of these victims' families. But it is important to victims families or this kind of somewhat closure, isn't it.
Yeah, definitely. I mean imagine that people are waiting decades not knowing what happens to their loved ones, and then you know they finally find out the answers are never going to bring their relatives back because it does think just to see justice served as well in many cases, it's some comfort for familiest.
And this testament to how many people are involved in
these groups as volunteers. They have day jobs, many people, but they are still contributing hours and hours of their valuable expertise to be able to contribute the kind of closure that I spoke to and solve some of these cold cases that are beyond the police resources or as you see with these big groups that galvanize over a particular case, that they can be much more effective than the limited investigators and the way they have to approach a case, especially a cole case Meyer.
But they all do you know, they do give up their spare time DNA day project. They're all volunteers. You know, it's not paid work, but they're dedicated to the cause. And it's inspirational to say.
Now, your last chapter is when sleuthin goes wrong and you said it at the Boston Sheridan Hotel April eighteen, twenty and thirteen and a FBI chief Rick Laurier and of course the Boston Marathon and suspect one and two and how the police are enlistening immediately the public to help and the cc the images that were captured tell us how all of this plays into when sluthing goes wrong.
Yeah, so of course there was a Reddit gripe started and that seens these pictures are out there, these reddit uses rising about who these two suspects could be and bombos in this this site with comments and pictures and video footage and basically like from the identifying people on the on this site, and it all went terribly wrong from there.
The one thing that police warned was that the CCTV images were the only official photos that people should use, and there were the only photos that were credible. Now in this regard what happened.
Yeah, well that's they wrongly identified one man who was known as Blue Roadman, and it ended up on the New York Post basically because one of the pictures that the guy of his bag became known as Bagman, and the New York Post did a story so bag men fed to seat these two pictures at the Boston Marathon that the actual the real person wasn't anything to do. Wasn't the suspect at all. They were just a pair of running enthusiasts you've gone to watch watch the race,
So yeah, it's a case of misidentification. But because people getting oded on the Reddit site and.
What was again uses as your last chapter, is there is this a cautionary story compared to the other stories where you have the moderators or the people hosting these sites saying no rumors, no naming, no shaming, but still like Tricia Griffith throwing out people that are troublemakers. So there is some policing of how people operate and conduct
themselves on these sites. Is this a cautionary story on how things can innocently go wrong or that it's a breakdown in how things should work on any site, especially when you're dealing with something so important as this.
Yeah, I think it's certainly very dangerous. I think it's a dangerous example of how it can go terribly wrong, you know, putting two together and five. So, yeah, it is a cautionary tale. And I think things have tightened up a lot since. And I think also with you know, with online everything being online now online news stories even
you know, it travels so fast news. You know, all it takes is one rumor by someone and it's somebody else that another news site has done a story on it, and yeah, results can be devastating, especially for innocent people.
And especially when you see that once a person has been accused, whether there is retraction, it seems to not be benefit of this person, and the damage has certainly been done by that time.
Yeah, I mean it's still out there, isn't it. I mean it's all you have to do is look on Google and it's there, So it doesn't go away just because it might have been taken down from one site. The damage has been done, as you say to that family already, you know it was there.
In doing the research for this book, tell us just how interesting it was speaking to these real life citizens loves.
Yeah, it was fascinating as a as a family introduction. As a journalist myself, it was. It was interesting to hear about the methods they use and the the systems and the lengths they go to to try to gather evidence and ultimately solve crimes or give names to people. And I just love that they're all so passionate about what they did as well, which was really lovely and it was interesting to see that most because most of the
stories obviously apart from Luca Magnotta, were in America. Over Here it doesn't seen such a big thing, maybe because we don't have access to as many records as you do over there, so that was interesting. When I was trying to find interviewees, I did struggle to find anyone in the UK. It was all many people in America, and they were also generous with their time and forthcoming,
so it was a brilliant experience. I just got a lovely message from Belinda Laane yesterday saying how much you enjoyed the book, So that's always heartwarming when people do that.
Wow, that's incredible. I want to thank you so much for coming on and talking about the Real Life Murder Club Citizens Solving True Crimes for those people that might want to take a look to you have a website or do any social media?
Yeah, my webs that's just Nicholas Stowe dot co dot uk and that's Nick Writer on Twitter.
I want to thank you very much Nicola Stowe the Real Life Murder Club Citizens Solving True Crimes. Thank you very much for this interview and you have a great evening and good night.
Thank you, thanks for lot Dan, thank you, thank you,