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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 BTK. 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. Violent crimes in America have become an epidemic within the past decade or so, with more juvenile offenders taking to the streets. Homicide and murder rates have skyrocketed as science does their best to study the minds of
America's most horrific killers. Amanda Setan would like to invite you to delve into the world of crime and forensics as she provides an analysis of those violent crimes committed by juvenile offenders, mothers, husbands, roommates, ex football players, and one of the most famous sadistic serial killers of the nineteen seventies. The book explores the substantial problem the United States of America's facing with violent crimes not just committed
by adults, but juveniles offenders as well. The book that we're profiled in this evening is Violent Crimes in America and the forensic disciplines used to solve them with my special guest, journalist and author Amanda Setan. Welcome to the program and thank you for agreen to this interview. Amanda Setan, thank you for inviting me. Thank you very much much. A very provocative book, and let's get right to that
without getting too much away. Maybe you can maybe it's probably because of your background, but I don't want to put words in your mouth. Tell us exactly why what compelled you to write this book at this time? What brought you to the writing of Violent Crimes in America.
When I first enrolled into my bachelor's degree, I had a strong interest in homeland security, and throughout my studies I delved a little bit into the area of forensics that they had used in order to track down terrorists and or solve the terrorist crimes that have taken place
not just in America but across the world. And with delving into the world of forensics, it became rather interesting with all the unsolved murders and cases that have been going on, more specifically in the past decade, or so, and so I decided that it would be interesting to obtain the master's in forensics. And with starting the masters in Forensics, I realized that forensics is a very interesting category of science that is very young and a lot
of it is very unknown. Misconceptions often occur, and so I felt that by writing a book, I would be able to portray some of those misconceptions in the reality behind forensics to make it easier for people to understand.
Oh great, Okay, well that's a great segue. So let's get into exactly what forensic what you mean by when, what's the definition of in your mind, what forensic disciplines are, and then tell us about just go through a couple of the myths that people really do believe that about forensics itself.
Well, I believe that forensic discipline is the application of science and opinion put together in order to create the outcome of various different testing and the applications that they would use in court. Some of the common misconceptions that are used are the CSI effect, where victims and family members often believe that the police can solve a crime in an hour, where realistically it can take weeks, weeks, months, and years and sometimes I never solved it at all.
And the other one is the biggest one that I had, was that they're not able to get DNA out of fire victims or victims that have been submerged in water. So I felt that it was important to bring to the forefront that they are able to extract DNA from those types of victims.
Now, is there some hindrance? Is there some issue? I mean, I have heard about that water would destroy DNA or because of the composition. So tell us really what the truth is regarding DNA and being submerged or in water for a length of time.
Well, the problem with the victim being submerged in water is you have the fear of fish and other sea creatures eating away the soft tissue that would be needed in order to abstract that DNA. But they have found with finding victims and water that they are able to abstract it out of the bones themselves instead of needing the typical soft tissue that one would typically find.
I see, And what about what was the why did people believe I guess the serial killer might there might be a myth among serial killers as well that they just burned the body. But what I had read was that it's too low a temperature to destroy the body. So again just what you said, as long as there's bones, then there's possibility of DNA regardless of fire.
Exactly they had There was a case out in California of what they believe was caused by a group of gang members. But they had cut the foot off of a teenager with a machete and they had burnt it in the backyard, and when police had located the flood they had, they were actually able to extract DNA from the charm remains, which ultimately led to them being able to identify the teenager.
Now, of course everyone's heard of DNA, and DNA is a godsend to police and prosecutors and officials in law and security in every country. But what are some of the other some of the other things that are involved in forensics, some of the other disciplines themselves, not disciplines, but some of the other we'll say skills that are involved in forensics.
Well, with forensics being such a wide area of science, it really comes down to these special skills that the scientists and experts hold themselves, such as you have a pathologist, you have a biologist, you have a psychologist, and they are just simply a pathologist, a biologist, and a psychologist until it comes down to a crime. Then that's where the forensic actually comes into play. That's where they use their expertise in order to basically say that the likelihood
of this happening is great. So a biologist would or a botanist would study plants, whereas a psychologist would study the mind of the criminal and see the likelihood of them actually being able to commit that crime.
Now do we have issues in terms of again you say about the CSI effects, everybody thinks in an hour that something gets solved and that inevitably everything will get solved because they have these wonder kinds of science and
these incredible labs. My question is is with the budget constraints, is every jurisdiction equipped with the kind of forensic abilities basically the budget to be able to conduct forensic testing very much not very much like CSI, But is that sort of considerate on these kinds of budgets for being able to have full forensic testing that's necessary for all kinds of crimes that might warrant it.
Money is definitely an issue, especially when it comes to smaller towns such as the small town in Utah with
the mother who had killed her seven children. The States did not have the money nor the technology in order to test the DNA and the remains of the children found in the garage, so they had to send the remains to the federal lab of the FBI in order to obtain DNA to try to figure out that caut the manner of death, which is a huge problem with smaller crime labs, smaller cities, cities that have a lower budget.
So really that can cause cases to go hold, cases to be unsolved, and ultimately criminals walking free because they do not have the time, energy, money, and the manpower that it takes to put the science behind their crimes and solve them.
So it's so science and forensic testing and laboratories and those kinds of budgets are even more than just personnel would normally be in equipment exactly. Okay, Now, tell us about some of the cases that you decided to write about in your book, and tell us I think the audience is interested in this most stadistic serial killer of the nineteen seventies, who it is and why did you
write about this particular serial killer. What was it about their signature, their characteristic, about their crime itself, their murder itself. What was it that you wanted to convey? Why did you pick this particular killer.
Well, America has seen hundreds of sadistic serial killers over the past forty fifty years, but I felt that one of the most interesting the study would be Ted Bundy. And it's not mainly because he was a serial killer. It was the manner of which he committed his crimes and the excuses and or reasoning behind his crimes that he had used and that he was so forthcoming to
explain during his interviews before his execution. And in researching Bundy, it interested me because he had stated that from a young age he had been addicted to violent pornographic images and he had an issue with his mother rejecting him throughout life. He was rejected, he was a failure in school, and so he really went back on that pornographic material in order to gain some control back in his life, which ultimately led to him killing dozens of women across America.
So this is an issue where has come up in because there's been endless conversation about Ted Bundy and how forthcoming he actually was and why he was not forthcoming originally, and a lot of people know about Ted Bundy. This program we've done, Kevin Sullivan examined Ted Bundy. I first interviewed Anne Rule, who worked of course at the Crisis Hotline next door to next to Ted Bundy. And it's great that the revelations that he did have, but I've what I as not issue, but some people have issue
with the drawing too much emphasis from that. Certainly he did view violent pornography and certainly a lot of serial killers would would say that same sort of thing. But at the same time, if you look at Ted Bundy and the life that he was dealt, he at a time when he was enjoying great success, almost self sabotaged himself and considering the things that you know, his mother telling me has adopted all these things and finding out
the truth, does it really still explain Ted Bundy? And sorry for getting away from you with Ted Bundy, But what did you really what could you really conclude from Ten Bundy looking at the research that you did for this book, well, the research.
Briand Ted Bundy, obviously there was a lot of that. A lot of people have their basic opinions on him, including experts. The bottom line is we do not know for sure whether or not the violent pornographic material and or videos were truly the cause of his violent crimes, which could also be said about the drug and alcohol addition that he claimed that he had. But we can say that it definitely did have a play in his behavior and it may very well have been the cause
of him committing his first crime. But after committing that first crime, he could very well have just gained control back into himself and he needed to keep feeding into that in order to keep feeling like he's in control since a good portion of his life he had not been.
Yeah, I mean, there's always the argument though, that people watch violent movies and aren't violent, or if they would be hard pressed to blame their violent behavior, they're murderous behavior on watching murderous movies, because otherwise we have a I mean, it would be never mind epidemic all the people that are playing violent video games and watching violent movies.
I mean, it's in a sort of American pastime. There's almost now the murder comedy, you know, a lightheighted murder mystery, or so it's I think there's something to be said that the desensitize being desensitized and being conditioned. If somebody were to look at violent child porn at a young age, at least they believe that there's other people that think like they do. Is it a break from reality? Do
they think that this actually occurs? But still does not really explain ted Bundy, I mean over and beyond one external thing being the creator of that. And I hate to argue about one thing creating this, but I've looked at a lot of serial killers as well, and I think everyone can say safely that, given that they share certain characteristics, despite that, there's no real explaining how people have the capability to kill ten or twelve or eight or people in this kind of manner. Wouldn't you agree?
I do agree with you, But I think that the same thing could be said about you know, Dahmer and Caacy, the Son of Sam, all the way down to the Green River Killer. They could sit there all day and say that they had addiction problems, but millions of Americans and people all over the world suffer from addiction problems, and they don't go on mass murder sprees.
Right, That's my point. Yeah, there's something unique about and I think that's why people are so fascinated by people that not only serial killers. I mean, you don't have to kill a bunch of people to be, you know, to terrorize people, like you say, there are terrorists there. People have traumatized people and they're never the same for the rest of their lives. And your book is not just talking about murder and serial killing, talking about violent
crime and the trends that are there. So what did you see in terms of the most disturbing trend You've talked about murder rates skyrocketing. From everything I've read, they seem to be downplaying that violent crime is on or murder is down from traditionally, say nineteen ninety or so. Tell us what you did find the most disturbing trends in your research for this book.
The biggest trend that seems to be skyrocketing across America's violent crimes where juvenile offenders are the ones being blame for it. Juveniles are taking away from the typical vandalism and stealing and they're committing horrific crimes such as rape, murder, all the way down to killing their own parents and their children.
And what's the trend in terms of are the perpetrators getting younger, are the crimes more savage, is it more a pack mentality, gang mentality, or are those in those trends as well.
I don't really quite think the gang mentality is quite bland for this. It is true the gang still do exist and they are quite bad, But in this case, I do believe they're getting younger children to be accused of murder all the way down to the age of eight. An example, you have two twelve year olds and Waukeshaw, Wisconsin who have just recently been arrested and charged with attempted murder for stabbing their friend nineteen times because they were addicted to some cult behavior. But again, I do
not believes that this is gang related. I just believe that parents are not involved in their children's lives as much as they used to be. They're not there for their titsulate they used to be, and juveniles are getting a common sense that committing these crimes are almost a way of showing who they are, what they're capable of, and they're not really taking in the consideration the consequences of their actions.
Yeah, you talk about how you're talking about the juveniles. Also, you did extensive research regarding juveniles and talked about the juvenile spends more time than the adult, that there's been changes in the judicial system as well that have not helped the juvenile as well. Tell us a little bit more about all of the things. Are some more of
the things that you've found. In terms of what you went in here, you wouldn't have assumed any of this, So tell us what you did really find regarding the differences now as previously regarding juveniles.
Well with the juvenile course, with them being as young as it really is, it's only roughly about one hundred and fourteen years old, the differences in the penalty phrase of the crimes that they had committed has changed drastically since they went from reform poems to placing juveniles and
juvenile detention centers. The problem that has been found with this is that juveniles do spend more time on average in a correctional facility than their adult counterparts, such as a fourteen year old gets in trouble for raping a fellow high school student and they get placed into juvenile detentions until the age of twenty one, where they had then moved to an adult prison, where they will sit on average another four to six years before they were
are reliefed on probation. Their adult counterpart can sit anywhere from no jail time at all with probation or supervision all the way up to a max of twenty five years to life depending on the aggravating factor. But six times out of ten, the juvenile is going to spend at least three to five more years in prison than an adult that had committed the same crime.
And the programming that could possibly possibly rehabilitate someone that will say that could be rehabilitated based on community support and just getting to them, I guess young right at least that's there are cases of this anyway, and that's the idea. Well, what about where's the programming go is it? Is it prioritized towards the youth offender with the with the distinct uh reasoning behind that to intervene at this young age tell us about programming.
Well, through my research, I have concluded that they do have rehabilitation programs for juveniles, both within the juvenile detention center and correctional facilities and in the community. But when
they placed the juveniles in the community rehabilitation programs. It's more more of the burden has put on the parents than the actual juvenile themselves, whereas in the correctional facility, the juvenile has to take responsibility for those actions and they must complete the rehabilitation program in order to be released.
Right, You said too that judges have lost their discretionary abilities to to have discretion on w which juveniles would warrant in cases of murder and serious rape and robbery where they would be put up to adult court. Now, what's that from? Is that from sort of a continuum of the mandatory minimum and restrict sort of sentencing that's strict sentencing with guidelines. Tell us how that comes to be.
Yeah, the new truth and Sentencing laws does allow judges and jurisdictions to sentence juveniles that have committed crimes such as serious rape, aggravated assaults, murder, and stuff like that. So we tried as an adult, which then allows them to try them and sentence them to the max as
opposed to where they're charged as a juvenile. They would so long as a juvenile facility, and then they would be released back into the community where they would require undergoing treatment and rehabilitation services through the community.
What else did you find with your research with juveniles that was particularly disturbing.
I think the biggest thing that was disturbing me through researching juveniles is the manner in which they are treated. They are almost treated as an epidemic or applying that's going through the court system that needs to be dealt with, but they don't want to deal with it on the level of dealing with a child. They just want to deal with it on the level of them committing the same crime as an adult without taking to regard the
juveniles and more rehabilitative than adults are later. And I also think that with juveniles, they have lost sense or track, if you will, of what to do with them because the crimes are getting more severe, they're starting at a younger age, and they're really losing track of what punishment and or rehabilitative services really work in order to prevent them from continuing on with their criminality later in life.
What have you concluded at least how would you address this? What would you address first, and how would you address it.
I am a big supporter of taking juveniles and looking at their circumstances and really going on a case to
case basis. I am a big supporter of maximum penalties for juveniles who have committed serious felonies such as murder and rape, whereas I believe rehabilitations should really be at the forefront of juvenile punishment for bower level crimes as opposed to just placing them within the correctional facility, where I feel that they are not getting the help that they really deserve and or need to prevent them from continuing on the same path that they were on.
When you talk about you talk about the disintegration of the family unit as well from previous where two people in a household, two parents, and not to say that that's you know, there are families that have split up amicably and they share the care of their kids, but more often than not, it's more of a sad story of tragedy and broken homes and people affected negatively by this. So you say this is a contributing factor to juvenile crime as well, And if that is the case, then
you already have the disintegrating, disappearing family unit. Then you have these people with these heinous crimes at a young age. How then can those people be rehabilitated if they have to go then back into ideally back into a family unit, back to high school, back to school, back in with their family, if there really wasn't any anyway. So realistically, my question is, how do you really address this? Is it really possible? I mean, how would you again, how would you address that?
And I think that's where the case, the case basis really comes into play. If these juveniles came from a broken home, they don't have a support system, they don't really have a family, and they're not involved in the community, then it is going to be next to them possible
in order to rehabilitate them back into the community. But on the flip side, placing them into a correctional facility is going to be almost as dangerous as putting them back in the situation that they derived from to begin with. And I think that's where the child protective services and the state really comes into play, because sometimes they are able to rehabilitate these juveniles into a situation where placing
them into a subsequent home has actually proved to be beneficial. However, this does not happen of the time, but it has proven that juveniles can be rehabilitated into a new family, as long as they are given the support system that they need.
Not everybody as as much faith in it as other people. But psychology and psychologists are a big part of the courts now and they're realizing that they're a bigger part in society itself. And mental illness has shed a little bit of its stigma, and there are a lot of people that are at least under some kind of doctor's care for some kind of you know, I hate to use the phrase mental illness. So what about psychology? What did you find in your research? Did you find anything there?
Look into anything about organic brain disease or some of the causation of some of this. Did you see any what was the sort of some conclusions or something that you did see in terms of the psychology of this and its effect in terms of rehabilitation.
Possibly psychology really does come into play when we're talking
about juvenile offenders and they're in the rehabilitative process. One of the biggest problems is that juveniles do not receive the amount of mental excuse me behavioral health that they require, whether it be because their parents do not notice their behavior, they do not want to get involved, or the juvenile just hides their behavior from those involved in their lives, and because they don't receive the behavioral health that they their behavior typically gets worse and as they go on,
they're not really sure how to handle it, and so they take it out in a very negative way. And the behavioral health problems that they can oftentimes suffer from is ADHD, autism, aspergers, conduct disorders, schizophrenia, borderline personality disorder, and they can also suffer from post traumatic stress disorder and a wide array of other widely undiagnosed juveniles behavioral health disorders such as bipolar.
And what's the solution there? I mean medication and I mean really can. I mean there's hardly enough psychologists to speak to one on one with everyone, let alone the troubled use right.
Exactly. And the problem is at this point, there really is no solution. The only thing that we can do as parents and members of the community is we can make others aware of the growing mental health issues and juveniles, and we can help them with recognizing the red flags or the warning signs that these juveniles oftentimes give out and help them so that they are able to obtain the behavioral health services that they need. In the timely manner to prevent them from getting worse.
I found it quite interesting too. You don't hear this word too often, maladaptive behavior. Maybe you could tell us
what that really means. I kind of have an idea, but also I wanted to ask about how you Well, it was interesting what you say about it almost seems like a division between the certain kids that have that strong family unit and direction and really aren't succumbing to a lot of the other things and haven't been subjected to a lot of the other things like divorce and violence and drug abuse, alcohol abuse and worse and sexual and physical abuse that you're almost it is almost sort
of a cautionary tale in terms of that they will You say that kids will certainly encounter some kind of maladaptive behavior. Tell us a little bit about how you talk about in the book about sort of this cautionary thing about what kids can expect out there.
Well, first, it's important to understand what malodastic behavior really is, and essentially, it is dysfunctional and non productive behavior that one will engage in for a number of reasons, such as anxiety and other types such as depression. Melodative behavior is typically anything that is not socially normal. That can
include attempting, suicide, sexual promiscuality. It can also include criminality and basically other forms of behavior that one would typically not see in children that come from willa just homes.
And so, was I right in perceiving you sort of see a division between those people that have had this maybe generations of this sort of behavior sort of accepted to a certain extent, and the other people who have not even aren't even aware of it. Actually.
Yeah. It is important also to remember that children that do come from well adjusted homes that haven't dealt with divorce and crime, abuse and stuff like that can engage in maladaptive behavior as well. It is not fully seen in individuals who come from dysfunctional and broken homes.
No, no, no, certainly not. But it's just the the odds against you just become, you know, stack up a little bit more, that's all exactly. Yeah. That's the thing about crime that people are really part of. The horrifying aspect of it is it is the boy next door, It is that great family and that kid you thought really loved his parents, or vice versa, or a loving husband and wife, and so one never knows. That's what's
the really shocking part of violent crime, isn't it exactly? Now, we didn't talk so much about forensic disciplines, but what do you see on the horizon as truly one of the more it seems that DNA is progressing again when they used to be able to not have be able to take DNA from sources like they are today. They're using smaller and smaller samples and be able to get DNA from sources twenty five or thirty years or long past where they thought they might get something from that.
But other than the DNA developments, and if there are some developments in DNA that did you did find letter audience? No, But what are the sort of the more interesting bright spots in sort of forensics these days?
I would say it's some of the most interesting advancements in forensics that have recently been developed as the use of three D three D autopsies, which allow scientists to autopsy the body via kind of like a big MRI machine without risking the sample or decomposing the sample by having to typically cut into them. So they're able to save or preserve the body for further testing or further use by use of the three D autopsies.
And how common is that if they used it it successfully in in the prosecution of of cases or w W, as it stood up to any kind of scrutiny, is what I'm saying. I can't see where would come from, but just give it the defense lawyer a few minutes as uh is it passed that litmus test. So far.
At this point, three autopsies has not been used in America. At this point, it was developed by a group of scientists in another country. I believe it was Switzerland, And at this point it's still in the building stages that they have shown where it would be much more productive.
It would save on cost, and it would also provide scientists and or members of the court a way of showing the members of the court and the jury of the autopsy in person instead of having to rely on results on a sheet of paper.
Yes, are there any because what I think there is another sort of myth is that the forensically was my observation not fingerprinting, because there's been a few advancements in terms of taking fingerprints off difficult sources gunpowder residue. But the I think the other one was the eyewitness testimony has been luckily for that DNA has come to the rescue because now we know a lot more about eyewitness testimony and how people respond sometimes trying to recall who
might be their perpetrator. So tell us about any one of the forensics, because I know that you touch on one where we have an idea that that is inaccurate, but over the years that is proven to not be an acceptable or reliable forensic tool.
Yeah, forensic psychologists have actually shown that a good portion of witnesses that have testified to a crime are not able to accurately and fully reiterate these statements that they had made, which leads to false identification. And it has said that approximately about one percent of death row inmates are falsely executed and or falsely convicted of a crime, and a good portion of the time it is because of misidentification for witnesses.
Now, when you looked at more motivation for violent crime, we on this program have discussed the psychopath person without a conscience somehow that never really developed that empathy. Jeffrey Dahmer was one of those people said, don't blame my parents. I just wanted to do this. I just wanted to do it. So what did you any conclusions that you could find on all of this research in terms of a central motivation for people that would do the heinous violent crime over and over again.
I firmly believe that individuals that are capable of committing these type of crimes really black a lot of self control within their own lives, and that they do tend to psychopaths themselves, tend to stay away from blaming other people. They do blame themselves for their own actions. And that may not be because they actually believe that they can the crime. It may just be because they want to be the forefront of their own attention. They don't want
the attention plastered to their parents. Like Dohmer, he got verbally angry when they tried to blame his parents for his behavior. And that's because Delmer wanted the attention on himself. He didn't want the attention to be sprayed towards his parents, friends worked his childhood, the way he grew up. He wanted the attention on himself.
Well, I won't argue with that, because they are, you know, incredibly narcissistic and ego. There is an ego in terms of and I mean, you know, maybe Dahmer isn't the best example, but there's many of his contemporaries that are great examples of guys that just reveled in their crimes. Afterwards, they love the limelight, the spotlight. They really enjoyed the court cases, they really performed. So yeah, I'd have to
agree with you there. What do you did you find in terms of Bundy is such a complex character, you know, compared to some of the guys like Gacy and Dahmer, he seems downright more sophisticated. What did you find in terms of Bundy's central motivation? Because he could have got away, He escaped, escaped a couple of times. He maybe could have hidden. People noted it as a compulsion. But what did you see in looking at Bundy?
Well, with Bundy, he was extremely intelligent. He tried to go through college for psychology and for loss. He did end up plunking out, but it was not because he wasn't smart enough to do the work. It was more because he had self doubts on himself. With Bundy, he could have absolutely have gotten away. He escape from prison. He managed to stay away for I believe it was a two year period before he was picked up. I do believe the compulsion took over and he had to
keep going. He had to keep doing what he was doing to feel the control in himself. He had dealt with the life of being rejected no matter which way he went, whether it's his parents, his girlfriend, in school,
he was always rejected. The longer he stayed away, the longer that compulsion popped up, and the more he had to commit those crimes and do what he had to do to feel like he was in control because he couldn't handle being out of control, because he went right back to the whole rejection process.
Did you find in looking at Bundy and then looking at less serious violent criminals such as rapists, and then looking at the far less serious we'll say violent criminal juvenile. Is there us some common link in behavior between Do they share something those those that are capable of the most serious of crimes.
I do believe that mass murders, serial killers, rapists, and even sex defenders they do tend to hold a common trait that narcissism and their egotistical way of thinking really comes into play that prevents them from empathizing and really looking at people like their human beings, or that they're
just the same way as they are. That narcissism really comes out and it really takes over their way of thinking, and they really find that they have to commit these crimes in order to show that they are in control, that they have the control over other people, and that well, basically it just comes down to a control thing, you know, with stuff spenders, they have to be in control of their victims, With rapists they have to be in control
of their victims. Serial killers or in control of their victims. And even with mass murders, while they're not really out killing people, they kill people all in one, all at one time, without taking a break, they're still in control of the situation. And attention is another aspect that they crave, and with being in control, obviously they receive the attention that they're looking for.
Now. I agree with you, and many of the experts will as well. But when you get a Bundy going back to the graves to visit the graves and commit necrophilia, isn't it you know what I mean? You know what I mean? Just in terms of stand I just think that it almost seems like some people are beyond our comprehension of what could happen under any circumstances. I understand control, but you know, I didn't really want to be known
as a necrofile. But part of his compulsion was to go back and have sex with the dead.
It could you know, he could, he could have velved into the world in necophilia simply because he felt that he needed to have control of that victim even in death, just like Dahmer had stated that the reason why he ate some of his victims is because he felt like he then had control of the the victim and that he would forever have control of the victim if he had ingested the body parts.
Yeah, and Dennis Nilsen wanted the company and Dahmer wanted to be people to stay and yeah, incredible, and Jacy had him under his floorboards in the base.
And I think Dean is a very interesting example of that as well, mainly because he had to wear his victims.
Yeah, yeah, that's absolutely so. Through this all this research, how hard was it? I guess you know, it's what asking somebody that's interested in this if it was, you know, affected them. But was there anything that is there still optimism that the human that you can understand this sort of behavior and that there is some there is some hope that this kind of behavior can reverse somehow or no.
Within my honest opinion, I'm not I'm not positive. I think as a race or as a society, we can only do so much and until I mean it, really, it really just comes down to until we see one another as being equals and we look at each other like we're human beings, the violence is just going to continue. Violence has been a part of the human race since the beginning of the time, and if you look throughout history,
one thing remains the same. The violence is getting worse, the crimes are getting worse, the human beings are being dehumanized for whatever reason, and it all it all comes down to the fact that everybody wants to be number one.
In your research, you're based in the United States, Am I correct? Yes, in America. I know some statistics and I looked up for this interview as well America. What they say is that it's hard to compare violent crime in America because of the sum of the the charges the official criminal charges designations, and say, for example, in Canada, what might be aggravated assault might be three different separate potential charges in Canada, so they're hard to be comparable.
So when they do compare violent crime, what they use is more as they say, reliable factor, and that or factor or statistic is murder. And so America has three times the murder rate of Canada and sometimes up to five times the murder rate of countries like France and Ireland and England, Italy. Yeah, and you know so and countries with a fair population too. I mean, America is much bigger. And unless you're going to say that country means that means murder has to increase two or threefold
or fourfold. What do you attribute as the number one reason why America seems to be not seems to be factually is two or three or four times more violent than any other country in the world except South Africa, which is incredible, but really it really is much more violent than almost any other country in the world. Why would that be.
I think it comes down to the sentencing guidelines, that legislation that legislators put into play. The amount of prison time that violent criminals will receive in the United States is drastically declining as the crimes get worse. The amount of individuals spending life in prison or receiving the death penalty are drastically declining, whereas a number of years ago they would receive an automatic life sentence for committing murder. But now you can walk away from a murder charge
with simple probation. And that's where that's where it really lies. They need to up the ant on the sentencing guidelines and they really need to put into place punishment for the crimes that are committed because basically Americans are no longer afraid of the justice system.
Is there any are you going to put any weight at all? Because I mean, it's we talk about this in Canada because one of the issues, one of the conversations in Canada is that you know, America is a violent place, and America is out of control because of their guns and they have no gun control. It's easy access to guns six times as many handguns, will say,
for example, as Canadians three times as many rifles. But the kind of weaponry you can buy in the US is maybe not unique or exclusive to the US, but like a country like Canada, then again, Canada's sort of the same murder rate as France and Ireland and England a little bit maybe a little bit higher, but I know it's a sensitive issue, but luckily I'm sitting here on the other side of the border. Are guns part of your reason that you got to rethink some of this?
I mean, I don't want to get into a big debate on the constitution or you know, if you have a gun, and if I would have had a gun, then another guy with a gun, and I would have killed that guy with the gun or protected myself from the guy with the gun. But is it a stretch to say that guns might be part of this reason for such a violent, seemingly violent society.
I think guns have a good portion of the reason why Americans are so silent, mainly because guns are so easy to get in this country. Whether you're a child's adult, a felon, it doesn't matter. If the criminal wants a gun, they're going to get a gun. Like I reside in the state of Wisconsin. Wisconsin has some of the most lenient gun laws in the country. You can purchase a gun at a gun show, no license, no nothing, and
it's completely legal. And with laws like that, it becomes very dangerous because anybody and their brother can receive a gun from another person and it's not even to be in track, so authorities don't even know that these dangerous individuals have weapons, weapons are being smuggled into the country and in an alarming rates, such as drugs, and the government doesn't step in, doesn't do anything to stop the growing gun problem within our country because Americans really put
their foot down and they hold to their Constitution and their Amendment rights in orders to their arms to protect themselves. And that's really where the problem lies. So yes, I do believe that the growing gun problem in our country does contribute to a lot of the growing crime in our country as well.
Yeah, I wouldn't blame the gun, but I would blame the lack of regulation. That just makes sense in terms of the sanity. I'm not a big wave flagger here in Canada. We do everything right. But when you just start looking at hard statistics, it's not like people say all Canadians are polite. We're not polite, We're violent. I'm living in the murder capital of Canada, and trust me, it's not polite here. And there's murder and there's drugs.
You could say, well, there's drugs in America, there's drugs here, same drugs, same mafia, same mafia. Same gangs or same gang mentalities that you know, a guy will kill you here for initiation probably too. So so you can only attribute it to guns themselves in terms of that lack of regulation, loopholes at these gun shows, and you know,
in insane lack of regulation. In terms of a guy gets you know, he gets out of a nuthouse after ten years and still no check, no background check, No you can't wait three days and you get this guy gun.
Now.
I know there's state the state, there's differences, but I would say that this is this is certainly has to be a major contributing factor. Is that not to say take away guns, because in this country you have the right to have guns, lots of them. You want to be a collector, you want to shoot, you want to go with all kinds of gun, you know, fans of guns, hunters, people that like to shoot. So so that's all I can say, and I go ahead.
I'm gonna say it really comes down to the way people treat their weapons. If they're going to use their weapons appropriately, use them for self defense, use them for hunting, collecting and stuff like that, then there's no problem. But when they're using them as a means of control power and to ultimately take another human's life. That's when the power of gun control really needs to come into play.
Yeah.
Well, I won't harp on that, but I mean that, I know, you know that I can't deny something like that. I know it's a political hot potato, big issue. I mean, after the Sandy Hook massacre, I mean incredible. I thought for sure that that would be your pivotal moment where there would be some movement, not drastic, but some And that's all. I thought it would happen, that there would be some movement because of that event, and you know,
didn't happen. So I thought, well, I don't know what will be the catalyst for a change in the US, but I think that really it did.
It comes to the banning of the AR fifteen and the high caliber weapons.
M well, that's something that it did be some of the the bigger guns out of the hands of violent criminals to an extent.
Yeah, yeah, something happened from it as a result. So this book took you in. How long was this entire research for this book and when did it come out? And if people are interested in this book other than Amazon, where when they might be able to get a copy of the book, and how would they be able to contact you if they feel so inclined.
The actual research of the entire book took me about six years, so roughly between two thousand and nine and March of twenty fourteen. It was published on April second of twenty fourteen through the light Switch Press. The book can be purchased on Amazon, Barna, the Noble, the light Switch Press website, and as of right now, those are the only three places to purchase it.
Do you do? You do the Facebook if people are interested in contacting you, commenting, giving you feedback or anything like that.
Yes, I actually have a Facebook page called true Crime with Amanda Seaton.
And that's seat o N Yeah, with the in visual write about this moment. And so you also have another book also about forensic forensic disciplines that do you published last year? Am I not correct?
I did?
Yes?
I unpublished that so I could rewrite it and I integrated all that information into this book.
I see, Okay, I got it. Okay, great, Well. I want to thank you very much for coming on and talking about violent crimes in America. Was very interesting conversation and very provocative book. Some interesting facts about juveniles that I had no idea, and I thought I had read quite a bit about what was going on. So interesting take that you have on some of the solutions and where we might best focus our energies at the very
least if resources are limited, which they are. So thank you very much, Thank.
You again for inviting me.
Thank you, Amanda. I've been listening to Amanda seton violent crimes in America. Thank you, Amanda. Have a good night.