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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 Gaesy 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 Zupansky. Good evening, This is your host Dan Zupanski for the program True Murder, The most Shocking Killers in True crime History and the authors that.
Have written about them. My special guest this evening is an author named Kathy Scott. This is her sixth true crime book. Her most recent is on Saint Martin's Press, this one being a Penguin book. This is called The Rough Guide to True Crime, Organized Crime, serial Killers and Expert psychological Profiles. Welcome to the program, and thank you very much for this interview. Kathy Scott, Well, thank you,
happy to be here. Thank you very much. Let me just give for our audience a little bit of the contents of your book, and then we'll go through some of the really fascinating stuff that you've compiled in this Rough Guide to True crimea The first part of the content start with Outlaws, The Money or Your Life, including Billy the Kid, John Dillinger, Pretty Boy, Floyd, Oh, pardon me,
pardon me, Yes, Outlaws The Money or Your Life? Sorry, Billy the Kid, John Dillinger, Pretty Boy, Floyd, Babyface, Nelson, Bonnie and Clyde, and Mab Barker. The next the section is Heists and Robberies, art Theft, Diamonds and Pearls, cat Burglars and lone Wolves. The next section is kidnapped, White collar crime, deception, the Art of the Khan. Next section is homicide, unsolved murders including Lizzie Borden and Jimmy hoffa
section and in that as well. Under homicide is women who kill, including Betty Broderick, which we'll be talking about today a little bit, murder and the Media, the trials of O. J. Simpson, and also under homicide offspring who kill,
such as the Menendez Brothers trial. The next section is serial killers, including a Son of Sam, David Berkowitz, Jerome, Henry Brutos, Jeffrey Dahmer, John Glover, the Granny Killer, Ted Kasinski, the Unibomber, Richard the Iceman, Kuklinsky, the Green River Killer, Gary Ridgeway, Doctor Harold Shipman, Doctor of Death, and the Yorkshire Ripper. She also includes another section called organized crime, the US mob, al Capone in the Chicago Outfit, John Gaudi,
and the Gambino Family, the Luchese Family. The next section is organized Crime Worldwide, Asian Gangs, Yakuza Triads and Big Circle Boys. Also includes Pablo Escobar and the Madeline Cartel, the Russian Mafia and street gangs, Los Angeles street Gangs, Bloods and Crips and criminal tattoos, Gangs of New York, Westy's Black Spades, and Latin Kings. And she includes another section called Dirty Cops and Bad Apples, the LAPD, the beating of Rodney King, the New York City Police Department,
Mafia cops, Louis Epelito and Stephen kra Kappa. And she also includes in the last section lesser Violations, celebrity, missed demeanor's, obscenity, blasphemy and free speech including the Larry Flint story and also absurd laws and another section called cyber crime. So that is an amazing compilation of true crime.
That's my most lengthy book thus far. Was a one hundred and thirty five thousand words.
So right now, how many how long did it take you to do this project, specifically from beginning to end, and how many years did it take?
Well, probably about a year. I was actually working on another book at the time when my agent at the time came to me and said Penguin had contacted him and they were looking for an author I think one had fallen through or something, and did he have any authors who could pull it out? Another word, somebody who could stick to it and get it done because it was a lengthy book. And so the good thing is
I didn't have to do a book proposal. And then I got together with the editor and we went back and forth and he had a proposal and he had my books, you know, and that sort of thing, and they chose me, and it was like giving birth to a baby. I mean, it was all of that is sort of a fog right now because I've done two books at the same time. So but but it's I'm really proud of it. I I sweated through this and learned a lot about about some stories I didn't know about.
What I tried to do. One thing is is to try to take a different angle with a lot of these stories because so much has been written about a lot of the cases, you know, so the funny things in it as well.
Okay, well, tell us what number one, maybe what your criteria was for picking the stories specifically it would be included in the book, and then give us that what was your twist? What was your angle that you approached the writing of this sort of presenting of these same maybe familiar stories differently, What was your approach?
Well, one thing I always try to do is to write about the underdog. That's always, you know, even with the Tupac Sha court case, you know, because he was murdered and nobody seems to be solving the crime. To me, he's an underdog. And and so I do you know, I do go after that sort of thing. And I'm trying to think of a case that Bertha Pippen is one murder case and and this was a family and in Oklahoma, and and her her son who happened to find her body. And this was an elderly woman, I mean,
she was in her eighties. It was very very sad, and two teenagers in the neighborhood who she given odd jobs to, and that sort of thing murdered her over something like three dollars and uh hit it, beat her with a baseball bat. It's really horrible and and very very lettle was written about that case. I mean it barely was a blip, you know, on the radar, and I found it because I knew somebody who knew the family,
and so I went after that. Took quite a bit to get the old articles and stuff because there wasn't anything available, and then I interviewed the son, Jerry Pippen, who happens to be on a radio guy, and it was a fascinating case. And what I wanted to do was kind of give Bertha Pippen a voice. You know, just went out like a light, so sad, and I
just wanted to give her a voice. A lot of times, when you write about murder, it's the last time these people are ever going to be written about, because not everybody who's murdered is famous, and so I always take it sort of personally and try to give them a voice.
Certainly, So what you mean by underdog as well is that you're taking low profile cases or no profile cases and then taking those stories finding out this kind of care.
Yeah, telling people about them. And I think that, you know,
and I'm really a person for detail. I mean, I I'm working on a case right now Barbara Cogan out of New York, and I just landed some documents from court that are like a Christmas present to me when I get things like that, and and I just love the details, and I pour through them, and you know, the documents and to find the details and and so that's what I try to do, is kind of tell the reader different things, you know, relevant details of course,
and something maybe they didn't know before. You know. I think that some of these I spent a lot of time.
For example, I've spent a lot of time in New Orleans, you know, after Hurricane Katrina, because I was down there for a rescue group and animal rescue group, and ended up writing Poprins of Katrina, a book about it, which was in depth, you know, reporting, because I had to follow the animals from beginning to end and and and being down there, I know what the New Orleans Police Department is, and I know they're trying to trying to clean up and change their image, but you know, there
I did cover the New Orleans Police Department in this book too. I have a personal interest in it. So some of it was you know, personal, some of it wasn't, you know, And I think people ought to know. You know, when you're going to a city that, you know, like New Orleans, it's not as as safe necessarily as you think it is. But I love that city, you know. So at the same time, I'm not going to you know, write anything to try to hurt them, but I do write the truth.
Sure, Well, that's that's journalism right now.
Yeah, yep, well journal as first.
Yeah, absolutely absolutely, And that's that's evident with the book that you've put together here and getting let's get back to that. Let's let's start with some of the cases that may be more more interesting to our audience and my audience is as the title of the program is the most Shocking Killers in true crime History. And despite you having some less of violent crime, will say and non serious crime will be better described non serious crime. Yes, you know, there is a.
Serious crime in here. There's some serious crime in.
Oh yeah, absolutely, it's it's it's all serious crime. But there is some stuff that is one's in here.
Yeah. Well, we tried to balance it with kind of off the wall, and but there are some big cases in here. Sure Pads is one, and and and then the you know, Barbara or I'm sorry, the Betty Broadreck case is an interesting one in the women who kill category. She was the one who sort of stood out from the other cases in that in that section because they really were they were either battered wives or or you know, had very mean husbands. And you know, she was a socialite and lawyer.
Okay, well, let's let's get back to that just in a little bit. I just want to go back to a little bit in the beginning. I'm really fascinated with and I know that some people too that that are true crime fans, are more current history, maybe the seventies or everything from in Cold Blood. But we've had the same psychopathic killer amongst us for many more years than
just the last forty or fifty. And you talk specifically about some of these characters of Billy the Kid, Mab Barker, and Bonnie and Clyde, some of the gangsters and some of the outlaws from the Old West. Yeah, maybe can tell us about a couple of the people from the Old West that or maybe even one person from the Old West that really the story really resonated with you and you felt it necessary to put in your true crime compilation. Tell us a little bit about one of those stories.
Well, I think that everybody knows, you know, you know, Billy the Kid, and John Dillinger and pretty boyd Boy Floyd he was a pretty he was a pretty dark He was a pretty dark character. The thing about these like Bonnie and Clyde and and and Floyd and those guys in Babyface Nelson, they you know, it was a different time and in America, and and you know when when there was it was fairly easy apparently to just
go in and rob a bank. And these guys were actually they became famous by the news stories, you know that would be written about them. I don't think we had true crime books back then, did we per se and they and they actually there would be people who would give them a home for the night, or feed them or you know, egg them on, you know, because it was it was almost like living vicariously through them, you know. And they were they were, you know, for
the most part, pretty big bad guys. But you know, Ma Barker and those guys, I mean that was a dysfunctional family, you know, and and her boys and she she claimed she didn't know what they were doing, and of course she did, but they just moved from city to city and her boys rob Banks. But I think that's uh, you know, I think that was an interesting case to kind of look at Ma Barker. You know,
we could as the boys are written about her. Sons are written about a lot, but not necessarily her, And I think the things that have been written about her weren't. You know, there's nothing glorious about what they did and nothing glamorous about what they did. You know, these people could barely eat sometimes because they couldn't go anywhere, they couldn't be seen. And I think Bonnie and Clyde, I mean, these guys are all they're they're part of lore. But
Bonnie and Clyde too. I think that was an interesting, really an interesting case kind of looking at their their their story. And what I did was I went way back to how they met. They met at a friend's house, you know, and she was just a teenager. And I think that's I think it's interesting just to kind of go back into the history and kind of give more than just the standard fear of what you're used to hearing about that those cases, well, what.
Was unusual about their their teenage life that you thought maybe was a precursor to some of the crimes they did later, or or you thought, Jesus, that's unusual that they may have led a life of crime because of their ordinary we'll say teenage life.
Well, I think that it was. It was the times, I mean she was she was helping, helping a friend do housework, or helping a neighbor or whatever, and you know it, there wasn't an opportunity. Excuse me, there wasn't an opportunity for women back then other than to, you know, meet a man and marry him. And then she met Clyde and and he wasn't out for her, and she hooked up with him, and he wasn't out for her, and she got to leave the life you know that
she she you know, was in. And so I think in some cases women hooked up with men back then just just to get them out of the situation they were in and get them out of the town they lived in. And I think that was the case here and then. But I think there was a real attraction between the two and she didn't quite know who he was.
She didn't know who was an outlaw. When she hooked up with him, she could have left anytime you wanted to, you know, so she I mean there are those photos of her holding a rifle and smiling and that sort of thing, since she was a part of it. I mean, the women who hook up with these guys say they pretty much know what they're doing.
Well, I was going to say, as you were starting to say, I thought, well, geez, these people. There's always been people that are attracted by the dark side. Yeah, and you throw in romance and good looks. I mean, I think the media has always played a big part in this. You say, well, they probably weren't true crime books in those days, probably not per se, But the newspapers were the medium and people it was well read, and they were always sensationalistic, and they were always looking
for interesting characters. And I think the media's fascination with this has just been reflective of people's fascination with the criminal mind, because it is so deviant and so out of the ordinary compared to the way we may think. And some of it, when people are robbing a bank, I can see what are some of that there wouldn't be so much distaste for the type of crime as opposed to some of the serial killers and lust and torture killers and baby kidnappers and you know, so yeah, well.
You know, I think I think it's you know, people say, you know, crime has become more violent. It's always been violent. I mean they you know, they thought nothing back then of just blowing somebody's head off, you know, and then it would get headlines and the guys were you know, there were outlaws on the run and sort of you know, made to be heroes in a lot of ways. But I think I don't know that it's become any more violent.
I think that we just have more of it because we have more people, and then we hear about We have other ways of hearing about it now too. I mean, the internet is incredible how you hear about things, you know, and then of course they are the copycat crimes. But well, you know, as a newspaper reporter because I was one for a long time, you know, the reader's typical. We'll say,
you know, can't you give us the good news? Well, you know, it's not sexy, and people, you know, people do give the good news, but you know, crime cells people want to read about it, you know, and sometimes like in this book, you know, I write about kind of the dumb things people did too, And I'll never forget a cop telling me early in my career that, you know, most of the crooks are stupid, that's why they get caught. And so you get to write about
kind of the bungling burglaries too. And the FBI has they age it on a little bit because of a lot of cities, the bureaus when there's a bank robbery, the bureaus name them like there's you know, there's the bad breath robber, and there's the you know, pretty face or the ponytail robber. They give them names, the pink shirt, I mean, whatever it is, they give them names, and they sort of help, you know, kind of help sensationalize it a little bit themselves.
Now speaking of people too, and you talk about the media aiming, say a bank robber, but they're more so after the FBI. Pardon me, yeah, but well the FBI. But media will also in a different example, name specific serial murders like the Green River killer or the Zodiac or well the Zodiac that was his own name.
Did he but up and carries it through? Yeah, And don't you.
Think that's don't you think that's a certain feature that we didn't always have. I mean, Jack the Ripper before the turn of the century loved and reveled in his
notoriety for the killings that he did. But it is I mean, you've just said that you don't think crime is any more violent, But we do have a more recent phenomena since probably the seventies, which include all of some of the killers that we mentioned and then that I wanted to talk about, and you've included in your book as well, Son of Sam, Jerome, Henry Brutos, Jeffrey Dahmer,
John Glover, Ted Kazinski, Richard Koklinsky, Gary Ridgeway. We the whole palette of different types of serial killers, insane serial killers, psychopathic serial killers.
They're all kind of crazy, aren't they they. Kazynski, that's a I mean, he's crazy as alone, you know, and then you look at you look at some of them that are I mean, Jeffrey Dahmer case something I had a hard time even writing that. That's just such a dark, dark story, you know, the cannibalism and the you know, luring luring young guys into his place and his apartment and some of them teenagers. It was horrible, I mean, such a horrible, you know, ghastly thing.
Well, you know, the court's uh part of his trial was whether he was insane or not. The courts deemed him sane and he received a penitentiary sentence. But I think that I think a lot of people will look at the types of crimes and say that that's insane.
And of course, you know how you know, how sort of justice was served in that case. You know, if it's looked at that way was you know, they had him and you know he was in high security for his own safety, right, Well, they led him, they lowered his security, and then a bunch of guys got him in the shower.
Well, he's one of the more reviled criminals ever so.
Served in that case. If anybody you know wanted wanted worse for him, he certainly got it. But yeah, it is, you know, and the laws are so I mean, I think the you know, I think justice is you sort of get justice by whatever, you know. The attorneys are. I think that some are better than others, and you know, it's I don't know if that's fair, you know what I mean, because it ends on if somebody gets off, it's it's because they had a better attorney.
Well, wouldn't it be much a much different situation if you were had a means to afford your lawyers and had the means to hire the best lawyers as opposed to being assigned a lawyer from the state.
Yeah, I think so. And then it depends on the case too, And you know how good it is. The thing that they do today is they try so hard to just plead everybody out, you know, instead of taking them all the way to trial. And I think that's a really typical thing. And I think some people plead guilty and they're not guilty, and we found that, you know,
we found that a lot. But in then other cases, you know, the people aren't they're not guilty, and they're not they don't have the funds to do it, and their attorneys are overloaded, you know, because they're assigned and they can't keep up with the cases they have, so well, you know, most of them are guilty.
So well. The thing is is, I think you have a system where you have a few states where you will not have a review of the case before say, a death penalty sentence is carried out. So you have that prospect of you know, that's you know, letting somebody out after a review after ten or fifteen years with a DNA review or something else came up in terms of new evidence. But if you do enacted death penalty,
then you have that you always have that problem. Yeah, you know, maybe I'll ask you this question here, Like I'm sitting in Canada and I won't go into our Canadian politics and our judicial system, which is based on the same system as yours, which is a British system and very similar to Australia and other jurisdictions in the world. However, there have been many changes and it is almost night and day when we look at serious crime in terms of the sentencing, the way things are proceed in court,
in terms of conviction, plea bargaining. Just for example, first degree and second degree murder are tiered differently. Manslaughter only has one manslaughter designation. There's not degrees of manslaughter.
Yeah, the rule is complicated, very complicated.
It's very complicated.
We've we.
Voted against the death penalty many years ago in Canada. So you know, I just asked you this question. I've asked my first two guests the same question. What is your opinion about the death penalty as a sentence in certain cases.
Well, you know, like I just said, you know, in the domercation he got a death sentence, but it was you know, inmates who did it. I'm you know, I'm not. I hate to come out and stance asking if I'm pro life, you know what I mean, it's almost the same thing, and I like to kind of stay neutral as far as my opinion is going that sort of thing. But but I do like to see justice needed out. I think it's I think it's kind of an antiquated way to handle a criminal. Yet are you know, to
kill them? Yet? Our prisons are full of people. We're just overloaded with criminals, and we can't you know, we can't keep up with you know, housing them, and then the you know, in the way they're housed, and and you know, the recidivism is awful because they don't get a lot of rehab and you know, to prepare them for the outside world if they go out on parole. So,
I don't know. I think our justice system in a lot of ways is broken, you know, especially now with DNA tests going back and getting people where DNA was preserved, and you know, the evidence did not point towards certain people and their their release. You know, they get another trial on their release because they weren't guilty. I think that speaks volumes too about our judicial system. You know, I think it's the criminal justice system is a little bit broken, don't you.
Think, well, I mean, obviously the criminal justice system can't be perfect. And at the same time time, it's in response to, you know, very very serious criminals. We wouldn't I mean, it's idealistic to talk like this, but there are there are serious criminals that cannot be dealt with in any other way except incarceration. And even then, some of these people have broken every taboo and every boundary of humanity known to man.
And you look at Manson, I mean, he's a case. I mean, that's another dark case. But you look at Manson and you know, he didn't carry out the murders himself, but he had people do it. And I'm talk about crazy. And I've watched some parole board meetings of his, hearings of his on TV and it's creepy just looking at his eyes and somebody like that is I think they've got him more. In general, population right now too, and
he's should he have been killed? You know, I mean it's you know, he's going to stay there till he dies, you know. So I don't know, I don't know. It's a it's an interesting subject right now.
You talked about included in your book a section on women who kill, and you said it would be interesting to talk about this because this woman does come up for a parole hearing in March of this year.
She actually had it. They did it early.
Oh they did. Okay, don't give it don't give it away. We'll talk about it and you can tell. I think I know the answer here. And this is a story that a lot of people may have seen on American Justice. I know I've seen it, and it's it's riveting because they have, uh, they do have. They was televised a trial, and so they do have very good footage of the woman on the stand. And well, let's get to that and we'll we'll talk about that because that's again just
interesting that I had forgotten her last name. Anyway, So tell us a little bit about the Betty Broderick case.
Well, Betty was a socialite in Lahois. I'm friend san Diego. I have a cabin there, so I'll be there hopefully this year again living there. But Ohia is a very high end community and expensive. And her husband was an attorney and she helped put him through law school. And they had four children and two boys and two older girls, and she remained a housewife and you know, did everything
for him. And then he met He hired a young attorney or a young assistant or whatever she was at his law firm and started having an affair with her. And then he dumped Betty and for eight years they went. They tried to get a divorce and she he worked the court system, you know, the his friends and whatnot. She couldn't get a fair attorney. He put very stringent rules on her. And you know, she says he drove her crazy. I don't know if he did or not.
You know, some people do very well, and you know if there aren't any problems, and you throw a problem in and they can no longer function.
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No necessary day lost in terms conditions eighteen plus that he seems to.
Be one of those people. And she early one morning eight years later, and she was living in La Joya. He was giving her sixteen thousand dollars a month and that was twenty years ago, which wasn't a bad alimony.
Pay, but that was just till the divorce divorce.
Star finalized and she had a cle, She had an STV and that sort of thing that he paid for school. The kids went to private school, Lahoya Day School, and and she early in the morning before dawn went to had taken her daughter's and he had custody of the kids too, part of partial custody, I mean he had two of the two of the kids.
And well it was that now, how.
You don't want to be around her. All she did was trash their father.
Okay, no, But the thing is that that's you got to go back a little bit further. There's a little bit of information that may have drove a woman over the edge. One thing is that one thing is that he's having an affair with a younger woman, and she put him through college. The second thing is that now he's he's in the celebrity pages of society pages that she felt was real important.
Now maybe the last now she's in she replaced her.
But the thing is, I think that it's fair to say that maybe part of it was that this custody battle with trying to take the children away from her, and maybe that.
So go on because Betty wanted Betty wanted let him see the kids. So he went to court, you know, or he'd come to pick up the kids and they want to be there. She played as many games with
him as he played with her. The two of them played sort of the cat and mouse game with each other, and in one case, she was he came home late, and I think it was when she suspected he was having an affair and he wasn't home yet, and so she took his very expensive Italian shoes and suits and everything, put him in a big pile, and she had a bonfire with the kids and burned all his clothes, and she did crazy stuff when they were they were still together, and she made it she made it as difficult on
him as he did on her. I mean he really he contributed greatly to the dysfunctionality of their relationship. And the kids, the boys, they were younger, and one was nine and one was twelve. I think they wanted to live with their dad, you know, because mom was acting crazy, right, and she was just mean. She was obsessed and wanted to know every detail of what he was doing. And the you know, the kids didn't. They were providing her with information and they didn't want to do it anymore.
She became unobsessed woman, you know, she was driven and and it ended and ended quite ugly.
Telescope.
So what so what she did was she she got into her her daughter was the one was a teenager and the other was I think eighteen or nineteen, and she got her, got into her person, got her father's front door key into the house and Mission Hills in San Diego, a high end area as well, and early in the morning before the sun rose, she got into their house and went upstairs to the bedroom where Dan, her almost ex husband, and and well he was her ex husband at that point because this was his new wife.
So she finally did get the divorce after eight years. And she shot them, and she not only shot them while they were sleeping, but Dan, Dan was still alive and Dan reached for the phone and and Betty went and yanked at out of the wall, so he was still moving and still alive. And she emptied the gun into both of them, and then she drove fifteen minutes
twenty minutes to the beach. Laoya sat and watched the ocean for a little bit, picked up a phone and called Dan's best friend and said, I just shot Dan and Linda. Then she called her daughter, Kim and very calmly said I just shot your father. And that was how it went down. And then they used the defense of you know, she was driven to kill but she says she went to the house and she never intended to kill them. She took a gun with her and she did very early in the morning. She said she
went to talk to Dan. I mean she very quietly went up those stairs and opened fire. And those two people. It was a you know, he probably never figured she'd do something like that, but he did make it very, very difficult on her.
Now you talk about having the defense that she was insane at the time, were temporarily insane. It did result in a hung jury at first, so she did have some success with that. Did she testify at the first trial or was it the second trial? She testified at it, and give us a little bit of that. What happened when she did testify and if that did help her hurt her.
Well, she testified at both trials, and I believe she testified the second trial and she sounded more sane than she did the first time. But what she did during the first trial is she would get into the sort of screeching voice. And the assistant district attorney in San Diego was a woman and I can't remember her name off the top of my head, but she went for first degree murder, which of course is premeditated, and and it appears as if it was premeditated. I mean, all
evidence points to it. But she went blow by blow. And this is a woman who's stuck and you know, couldn't get past things. Obviously, you know, she was talking about it Dan like it had just happened. The you know, the problems with Dan. You know, she's the woman who was not living in the moment. And so she got up on the stand and just screeched and cried and literally sounded crazy. And but the way she was treated,
I mean it came across. I think there were some sympathizers, but she basically just sounded nuts and very self serving. She didn't seem in the way she treated her children and badgered them about their father, she justified in her own mind. I mean that I can't imagine those poor children, you know, who are all grown now, but having to live that day after day, and that's what she concentrated on, was their father. And so she still has no remorse.
She showed no remorse on the stand and easily admitted to doing it, and it gave great description of how she did it. And then just she went upstairs and all of a sudden, boom, the gun went off, like she didn't fire it. And the assistant DA tried to get her to admit to you know where you pointed it, you knew what you were doing, that sort of thing.
She had a hard time in that first trial getting Betty to admit to specifics, and because it was her first degree case, it was a hung jurney and she did go to a second trial and they went after a second degree murder.
Yeah, so a little bit easier to achieve, and yeah, lastly they did, especially with her testimony.
It's a sad case. It's sad for you know, it's sad for Dan and Linda who were killed. It's sad for the kids who had to endure that for so many years. Then they lost both their parents. So it's it just was, you know, sat all the way around. And Betty seems to have just very very well in prison, likes it. She's like the dead mother and you know, she's older and everybody you know comes to her, and she's very comfortable in that environment. So there have been
stories about it. She's interviewed about it, and she did go up for parole and what happened They denied it. Yeah, And she basically was very calm when she was talking and that sort of thing. And then it said that two lovely people are dad and there were people who love them. But she still didn't show any remorse. She didn't say she was sorry. You know, you want to be paroled. You've got to say you're sorry. And she said,
you know, she seems a little unpredictable. And like I said, a woman like her needs everything neat and tidy, and something gets thrown out and she can't adapt to it. I mean, she couldn't adjust to her husband leaving her. Lots of men go out on women and the women don't go kill them, you know. And and he did prolong it for so long. But they both contributed to it.
You know. She wanted agree to certain things. She wanted a lot of money, and he didn't want to give it to her, and so it went very, very badly. And she does well in prison, and I think that's why, because it's you know, she's got rules and regulations and she operates very well in that environment.
Well, how old is how old is Betty? And she still has other prospects of potential parole help.
Yeah, she comes up again in fifteen years. I think she's around sixty one sixty two, And she does come up again. But in fifteen years she got a sentence of something like thirty two years to life, I believe.
So it's their option, and you know, at the end of the thirty two years, which she was you know, in her what early forties, late thirties hour old she was when when it happened, And so she'll be much much older, you know, So she'll probably die in prison, which she'll be what seventy five when she comes up again, So ye be interesting most of her life. I let someone like her out, you know, because what do they do? And and and she does seem to be doing well in prison.
Sure, sure now you talked to You have a section called the unsolved Murders in the homicide section, and you include a story about Jimmy Hoffer for our audience that may be younger or doesn't know about Jimmy Hoffer. Give us a little bit about Jimmy Hoffa. And I know it's a legend, but nobody really seems to have specifics of what happened to who he was.
Hafa was the union leader. Let me cooted that section real quick.
Sorry, Seamsters Teamsters.
Union, thank you. And I'll also had a relationship with the mafia, you know, because the mob was all involved with the Teamsters for years, and you know, and it isn't unsolved murder, and there there are rumors that you know, he was you know, buried inside a wall of one of the casinos here when it was built. You know. But but it's it's you know, it's hard to solve
mob related cases sometimes, you know. But he I think he he you know, in Haffa's case, there was a lot of there was a lot of controversy going and and on at the time, and and he ticked off a few people and and the word is it was the mafia that did it. But you know, I mean Maya Lanski and all those guys and uh, the Italian mafia. But uh, but uh it you know, nobody will ever
get to it for sure. It's one of those old mob stories, you know that you it's you know, it's the brotherhood, and they don't talk about you know, they don't admit anything, you know. But I do cover a new book where there was a low level a low level criminal hanging out with those guys and with the Union and the mafia in that sort of thing, very low level, and he claims that he uh helped kill him. And on his deathbed he uh he talked about it,
so you know, whether it's true or not. And then he was buried out in a under you know, in a in a backyard of a house, and that house, you know, the FBI two years ago went to it and dug up in everything and never did find never did find a body. But the book was h Charles
Brandt's book I Heard You Painted Houses. As supposedly you go up to mafia guy and say, when you want somebody killed, Then you say, I heard you painted houses, and so he yeah, it's kind of interesting, and so he uh, he writes about a guy by the name of Sheehan and he claims he you know, he was there when he was killed, and it was the mafia that didn't. Whether it's true, I'll ever know. And the guy on his deathbed told him this, so.
Knows right now. Of all the cases that that you cover in this and I mentioned a bunch of these cases obviously, from organized crime to famous serial killers and and even outlaws from the Old West. Now what you had mentioned a couple names eaten paths you had mentioned and the ChIL Chilla case. Tell us about these cases.
I know we spoke just before the program. These are the kinds of cases or these are cases specifically that you that are not so well known and are cases that you really found interesting and really fit into this compilation that you put together, and you felt it necessary to put in there maybe and cut off the wall.
You know, cases the chel Chilla case, want me start with that. Okay, the child Chilli case was out of central California, and it was a group of students out for the day to go swimming and their drivers driving down a uh, you know, a quiet highway and and they see somebody in trouble and they stop or the the guys barricading the street actually, and they stop and they you know, some two guys get on, get on the bus, take it over. They drive for a long time.
And what the driver did was he paid attention to the distance and the sound of where he was going. And they they drove for several hours, and then they drove the They drove the the bus into a school bus into a hole in the ground, and then they buried it. And they put mattresses on top of the They put mattresses on top of the well. They put
mattresses inside for the kids to sleep on. And then they put and then the the roof was covered in dirt, and they put something on the roof, but I can't remember what it was, and then they covered an in dirt and then they put pipes down so the kids could breathe. So with this, after several hours, they left him food and water too, and they were planning on doing a ransom. These two guys. Well, what they did
was they drove. They had they had dug a hole on the property of a construction site that one of the guy's fathers owned, and they just thought they'd go ahead and they'd get ransom for these kids and then
it would all be over in twenty four hours. And what the driver did was he took those mattresses that they gave him inside the bus and he stacked them and he and he pushed and pushed on the roof and kept taking whatever sharp thing he could do, and he busted through and they merely climbed out and walked and they walked down and they went to a construction worker on the site who called the police. Everybody knew they were missing, but it it, you know, anyway, it
was a stupid crime. And those guys got put away for you know, twenty one kids. There's one count each, so they'll never see the light of day. And it's nobody got hurt. Nobody was killed, you know, and it just is a miracle really that they got out of there, and and it was the driver really who saved them, because who knows how long they could have lasted down there.
And then Eaton Pat's case is is you know, he's a Manhattan boy who was six years old and for the first time walked from his walk up apartment in Manhattan to the corner with his mother looking out the window, and he begged or that he wanted to go alone to school, and somebody grabbed him. And that is the case that they had. It was a kidnapped case and a ransom, I believe, and they never it's unsolved, and and it's just a very very sad, uh sad case.
When you see cases like that, there's like a Lindbergh baby almost, But the Eaton Pat's case wasn't you know, wasn't as famous. But it's just a sad story a beautiful little boy and the parents who had to deal with that.
Now, how many of these cases, some of the obviously you had to do an incredible amount of research to put this book together. Were there cases that you were already familiar with that you just simply were able to include from your true crime research the stories that you were familiar with and what stories specifically were very surprising
to you. And in doing this research and putting this book together, which ones really stuck out at you and you'd never done the research before, you weren't so familiar but were quite interesting to you.
Well, I think there was a jewelry heighst out of out of Europe. Was an interesting case because it was so orchestrated the way they planned it. I had no idea.
I mean, you know, you hear about the jewelry heist and you read a little bit about them, but the planning, the months and months of planning to go in and rob you know, the the jewelry districts in Europe and or the jewelry district and and go in and actually pull it off and wear black clothing and and you know, have vans waiting and that sort of thing, and wiring and and everything else they have to do to pull it off. It's pretty incredible. I didn't know that they
were that sophisticated, you know. That was one thing I learned in it. A case that I was very familiar with was that Tony Spilatro and the Hole in the Wall gang case. I covered Herbie Blitztein. He was Tony Spilatra's right hand man.
And was tell us about that because I'm not familiar with I'm familiar with mobsters quite a bit, but tell us about this Hole in the Wall gang.
Well, they were the the you know, it's they. You know, Tony Spilatro was was hooked up with the Italian mob here the Chicago mob and and ran and ran the skim you know, at at some casinos, and and he was sort of being forced out, but not yet. And so what he did was he formed this Hole in the Wall gang. And what they would do is they would find out from their moles, like insurance agents, who had what in their houses and like the Las Vegas Country Club, which you need a pass to get in there.
I've got a friend who lives there, and they've got high rises in there. They actually had their own They rented a place there, and at one time, I think Tony's flatter owned a house. So what they would do there are houses there, and there they're the high rises, you know, these huge skyscrapers and apartment buildings, and they would go in from either the outside door or a hole in the ceiling or whatever and drop in and
take jewels and whatever the people had. And they would find out from mad or D's at restaurants, you know, when they were coming and going, when they went to a restaurant, when they were on their way out, so they could get in and out very quickly. And they did this right and left. It was pretty incredible. And they had like, you know, seven burglars or something, eight burglars,
and and they'd have a lookout guy. And the lookout guy was was a cop, you know, because they pulled out the cops too, so they who would listen to the radio traffic so they could tell who was coming, if any cops were coming or whatever. And they got they got caught in the middle of a middle of a highst and it shut the whole thing down. But they had a jewelry store and and that's where they would fence every thing from. And Herbie Blitstein was an
incredible fence. I mean he could he could ship jewelry to Chicago and and wherever else and get high numbers for them, you know, for whatever they would take and they'd dis fence everything. And it was his side job.
And and the Chicago bosses told him to knock it off and not do it anymore, and he kept doing it, and then he was Tony was ending up in the papers a lot, you know, and he ended up getting killed, you know, in a in a in the cornfield actually with his brother by the mob, which isn't those are unsolved murders as well, but everybody knows what, you know, what happened basically, And then Herbie went to prison a year after after Tony was killed, and and Herbie blitstain
and when he got out and he was ninety I don't know, ninety three or whatever it was, he he started fencing and set up his own fencing outfit, you know, and doing insurance fraud and that sort of thing. And he hooked up with an Italian partner who did him in and Herbie I was at the scene of his crime. And that was about I think Herbie was killed in ninety six and weird, weird case and that never you know, seven people were convicted in connection with this murder, but
nobody was convicted of murder. And at the same time, here's an interesting side thing on it. At the same time as that Oscar Goodman who was a mob attorney, previous mob attorney and now mayor of Las Vegas. Oscar Goodman was running for office of mayor and he gave a news conference in the middle of this mob trial. He gave a news conference saying that the mob has been out of Las Vegas since the early nineteen eighties, and here we were in the middle of a mob trial.
It was just I guess if you say it, it makes it true. It's hilarious. Yeah, And I wrote a story for Reuters about that actually, But Herbie was it was kind of a sad ending for him, you know, if you can think of a sad ending for a guy. He's a nice guy. He didn't have any other trade. Who wasn't a killer for the mob. He was a fence and he was Jewish, so he couldn't be a maid, you know. He wasn't a made mobster, so he fenced.
And he gets out of prison. That's my dog. And he gets out of prison and his you know, what's he going to do? He doesn't have any you know, his partners are all gone and he doesn't have anything to do, so he starts up with the rackets again and gets himself killed. Over it because he started mixing with the wrong people.
Yeah.
Sure, it's an interesting story. So I know that story well.
And well, it looks like we've had some technical difficulty here with Kathy going offline here for a second. We're nearing the end of our program. Anyway, you were listening to Kathy Scott with the Rough Guide to True Crime, Organized Crime, serial Killers and Expert Psychological Profiles. And that's Penguin book available just a couple of years ago. I believe I want to tell you about next week's program.
My guest will be Nick Prawn and he is a journalist with the Toronto Star for many, many years and he was one of the few people that was a witness to the incredible trial of Paul Bernardo and Carla Homolka in Toronto. And for those that don't know about Bernardo and Homoalka, I suggest going to crime Library and just getting a little bit of background on these people. It is one of the most sensational true crime stories ever. Obviously, some people in America aren't so familiar with the story,
but I think true crime buffs definitely are. It's a real Marvi and Ken kind of story, a couple that most people would have never thought would be capable of anything like this, which included the rape and killing of their own sister, of Carla's sister, and the eventual plea bargain that was given by the Canadian government negotiated by
her lawyers. The Canadian judicial system gave her a plea bargain which ended up her originally going to be able to be out in eight years and then find she was released in twelve years, to a lot of outrage and protests from the public, considering that her crimes were
not really known when the deal was struck. There is an issue of a videotapes of the torture and rape of certain victims that was discovered not by the police in their search, but actually by Paul Bernardo's lawyer, and that tape depicting Carla's contribution and participation in these heinous crimes, including her own sister, was withheld from the Canadian judicial system, and hence the deal was done before full disclosure of information was achieved. So it's a very very interesting case.
Don't let me get you with the impression that this is a real dry case and it's all about the lawn and be very complicated. It is a fascinating case, but all kinds of twists and turns, from the somewhat bungling police to the ego of separate police forces. This is the stuff that fiction has made, except fiction is never this horrifying by any means. Nick Prown was privy to information that was that no one else had. There is really only three or four books on the subject,
and Nick Pron's is one of the best. It's called Lethal Marriage. Paul Bernardo and Carla Jimalka. In the following weeks, we have Catherine Casey and she's going to be talking about her book The Scent into Hell. We're going to be privileged to have such prestigious guests as Philip Carlo who did The night Stalker and also a book about Richard the Icemankoklinsky. I'm really looking forward to interview with him. Have a fine journalist named Stevie Cameron, who was the
journalist that covered the Robert Pickton trials in Vancouver. This is another incredible crime, another true crime historical footnote. The Robert Picton murders, incredible trial that still is in the appeal process. But Stevie Cameron has given us a wonderful book called The Picton Files, and so we're going to have her on the show in the following weeks. Sue Russell that's done Lethal Intent about the woman famous serial
killer woman in the US, Alien Wernos. We are going to have a number of guests that are going to be talking about their incredible crimes. Everything that will be coming up in the near future. I will keep you posted. You've been listening to the program True Murder, the most shocking killers in true crime history and the authors that have written about them. Join me every Wednesday at eight p m. Central Standard Time for this program or any
time on demand in archives. Thank you very much for listening. I will talk to you next time. Good Night,