WHEN A KILLER CALLS-John Douglas

with a sophisticated and highly dangerous criminal. A letter arrived the next day entitled Last Will and Testament, in which Sherry, knowing she was to be murdered, wrote bravely and achingly of her love for her parents, siblings, and boyfriend, saying that while they would miss her, she knew they would persevere through their faith. The abduction rocked her quiet town, triggering a massive man hunt and bringing in the FBI,

which enlisted profiler John Douglas. A few days later, a phone call told the family where they could find Sherry's body. Then nine year old Deborah may Helmick was kidnapped from her yard, confirming the harsh realization that Smith's murder was no random act. A serial killer was evolving, and the only way to stop would be to use the study of criminal behavior to anticipate his next move before he

could kill again. Douglas devised a risky and emotionally fraught strategy to use Sherry's lookalike older sister Dawn as bait to draw out the unknown subject. Dawn and her parents

courageously agreed. One of the most haunting investigations of Douglas's story career, this case details how the eerily accurate profile he created, alongside his carefully crafted and stage managed manipulation of the killer psychology, combined with dedicated police work and cutting edge forensic science to end a reign.

Welcome to the program, and thank you very much for this interview.

saying goodbye or kissing each other. But little did they know that someone was watching them. This is in Lexington, South Carolina. And so she drives home and she gets to front of her house as a mailbox. The house sits back about two hundred yards from the mailbox. Mister Smith is in the front room. He has an office. He looked out. He sees she drives up in a little car chavette, and she's usually does that and checks the mail. So she's seen going to the mailbox. Really

doesn't pay attention anymore. He leaves the room and he comes back about five ten minutes later, and he sees the car down there, But where's his daughter. His daughter is not there, So he jumps in his own car and he drives down to the mailbox. The car is still turned on. Her handbag is on the front seat passenger seat. In that handbag besides her valuables, there's medication

that she must take. She has a rare form of diabetes, and if she doesn't take that medicine, she just will become dehydrated so quickly unless she just drinks really gallons of water at a time. There's a set of footprints she's coming from a pool party, shen't have shoes on, footprints from her vehicle to the mailbox, but not coming back away from the mailbox. And then there's mail on the ground in front of the mail bucks. She's nowhere to be seen. And so this is how it begins

that the family then contacts the police. The police right away they think, well, you know, maybe she ran away. Now, that doesn't fit the profile. The family says, there's nothing. You know, she would not be a runaway. She has graduating Sundays singing in the national anthem. So sheriff mets for Lexington County Sheriff's Department. They create the biggest man hunt at that time ever in the state of South Carolina. I'm back at the Chronico and at the time we're

not a unit yet. I'm the program manager. I have about six agents assigned to me to train them in criminal profiling. And I got these agents in three eighty eighty four, and most of them came in eighty four. In beginning eighty five, after I nearly died on the Green River murder case, those of Red mind Hunter I know collapsed on the on that case, had viral encephalitis, immune system, was shot and nearly died, came home paralyzed and had to go through rehab for months and months.

At the point in my life too where I thought, my I came so close to death that I have what it takes anymore, because the doctor said is as they were planning to bury me, that his brain has been fried to a crisp. I had such a high theater when I was in a coma. But anyway, so we get the call, and so we will provide a preliminary analysis, uh, you know, on the on the case. Not right away. It's going to be a couple of days, like within a day or so when because now the

the offender. I've never had a case like this in my career where the offender is calling the family. He's using some type of electronic device. We thought to change his voice tone and you know, and and pitch, and he is telling the family that that he has Sherry, you know, and here we're like together with one God and at giving them hope that their daughter is alive. You know, what is the motivation? Is it ransom? No,

he's not asking for money. Is a sexual motivation? Yes, it's probably going to be a sexual motivation and involved here. But why does the offender feel compelled to call the family, open, taunt up and taunt them believing that their daughter is still alive? And so at that point in time, the undershriff will come up to Chronica with crime scene because what will happen next is that he will give very detailed directions where her body is found a couple of

days later. And you could tell from first you can tell from the tape, you can audio tapes. You can tell that just when he speaks, he's very very obsessive, compulsive, and when he's talking to the family, if he's interrupted, it just he has to backtrack it. He can't, he loses his train of thought. And so but now he gives these directions to find the body of Sherry days smith.

He doesn't say that she's dead. He just says that in fact was plural that like will be there, you'll find kind of like us, we will be there and he's telling the other sister this dawn the directions, and to give such detailed directions, it's kind of reinforced the research we were conducting how offenders will go back through the crime scenes that the victims aren't aren't found, you know, right away, for various reasons, some to symbolically roll in

the dirt and relive and fantasize about the crime like Ted Bundy did, and many many you know, others, but details that he had to go back to come up with these specific details. And so it's when now her body is going to be found and we're still we're not dispatched down there yet because at any given time, Dan, we're working you know, at that time, at the time, he could be working maybe a couple of hundred cases.

At that time when I retire from the bureau, we were doing a thousand cases a year, and these cases Linum just stay open until new leads are developed. So then now with the death of sheriffs, they smith the undershriff comes up. And what's advantageous to us is that the under sheriff and the sheriff both attended the FBI Academy's National Academy course and it's an eleven week course that they take from police from all They come in from all over the world to this eleven week program.

It's very prestigious. They take various courses from forensic science, firearms, to management courses and behavioral science. And it was in that behavioral science class that each of them took where they learned about this new investigative tool they're calling criminal profiling. And so it was because of that. You know, a lot of the cops when they take that course and they see these cases, they think, I will never have anything they need this and we have crimes like that.

Well they did, and so he comes up and they're very open and which will make it very easy for us to work with the police because because sometimes you're invited on cases and it doesn't necessarily mean they want you there. It's because the pressure may be put on them by the media, the general public, or maybe sometimes someone who tended the FBI National Academy want you there, but you got to happy working with other detectives don't

want you snooping around on their case. And just so the audience knows too, Dan, we get involved in these cases under a domestic police cooperation and it's a violation that calls sixty two D as in dog sixty two D. And if it's a Canadian case, it'll be international police cooperation.

And what you do, what you're doing here is if we have something that another country doesn't have or a local police doesn't have something, maybe forensically in this case, in this prime analysis, we can get involved in the case. We won't prosecute the case, but we will assist the

local police. So the Lewis McCarty, the un the sheriff comes up and we listened to tapes, have the crime scene, the crime scene, and then we start drawing up a profile based upon what evidence or information that has developed. And these crimes dan are. We saw this particular one is going to be a white male. It showed a degree of some criminals sophistication. First he's using the device

electronically to alter his voice. Also, we find when we found the body there was there was the duct tape residue on the face of it of the ferry faced myths, sticky substance from the duct tape. And also our hair had then cut and it was cut in our opinions to make it more easily to remove the duct tape, and the reason he removed the duct tape was because he didn't want to lead any evidence. Duct tape is a good way whenever it's used for the lab to

develop the fingerprints Slayton fingerprints off of the tape. So we come up with that. We come up with an age group general. Generally, when you get a case with me, I usually start off with violent crime around in the twenty five age bracket, and based upon the degree in the level of criminal sophistication that we will either deduct age or increase. As with him, with how the victim

was abducted clear daylight at her mailbox. Probably the offender has some type of weapon to control or gone nice to control, or so we had him placed somewhere in the late twenties into the early thirties. With someone like this, you would find a criminal history. We believe you just

don't start off perpetrating this type of crime. So there would be crimes from I've seen telephone calls to voyeuristic activities, to possibly other cases of abduction or attempted abduction based upon the device he was using electritronically to all through his voice we believe he would have some he's a blue collar, have some kind of background in electrical uh, electronics, some type of background there another thing, someone like like call me on sut. The unknown subject would not necessarily

be married. Someone like this cannot sustain a marriage. So you'll find I just married and then in divorce. Someone like this could not really survive in the military. They go in the military like someone particularly at that time in the eighties and in the seventies and eighties, a lot of some of the in the people I interviewed, they joined for the action they wanted to They wanted to shoot, They wanted to shoot people. So with Bell he we would find out later on arth Under would

join the military. He didn't get assigned to anything at words the scene action so supposedly accidentally shot himself in the leg, which got him out of the military. I believe he'd probably shot himself purposely because he was not

getting anywhere doing the things he wanted, you know, to do. Also, we believe as time went on that if we get a suspects that they'll change their appearance after the crime or I mean by that, I mean they could if they're heavy, they could lose weight, clean shaven, and grow a beer. They have a beerd they'll get rid of the beer, try to maybe perhaps establish an alibi, you know, as you know as well, we're also looking we have subjects,

and he will do this. We already know this. He's injecting himself into the investigation, like Dennis Rader, who I interviewed, like David Berkowitz's son of Sam, or I interviewed like the Zodiac case, whose case remains unsolved. So we provided that to him and then he took it back to Lexicon, told the sheriff and they went public and they said, we went to the FBI, we got we know who we're looking for. We just now we just have to find him. We just have to find him. I will

not personally get involved in the case. We'll provide on site consultation until Sharry's sister Dawn gets a call because he's focusing in on the other sister now, and he tells her, do you know about this Deborah Helmet case? And she's what a Deborah Helmet case? A nine year old? Yes, and then he gives directions. This little nine year old was abducted in front of her trailer her and her parents just moved into her dad was home that day and she was adductive about fifty sixty feet from the

front of that trailer and drives off with her. So he's giving directions now to Dawn on where to find just like he did with Sherrif Fay Smith, the specifics of where we can find her body. And that's what happened. Cops went out there, they found the body. Now the call comes in from the Lexington Police to to South or South Carolina FBI office in Columbia, South Carolina, requesting on site consultation. And so that's when I go and I get a relatively newer agent in the unit, Ron Walker.

It's real solid guy, but relatively new in the unit, to go with me down to South Carolina. We go down to South Carolina, they meet the sheriff again. On the sheriff, they take us to all the different locations and particularly that the last case held in the case and the problem that sheriff says is that the killer stopped calling. He stopped calling. We need him to call. And this the subject on sub here new enough to

stay off the phone. He'd have to stay on the phone fifteen minutes for us to do at traps and trace on the telephone back. Then he would he would get off the phone and within minutes, sometimes knowing that would be out there and we would find you know where he called from a pay telephone booth. We process that and send it to the last have the coins and everything, looking for any potential, you know, anything for instically off him. But so I tell this, he tells

me he stopped calling. I said, I'll get him to call. You'll get him to call. Yeah, I'll get him. I'll get him to call. But one thing I want to do is I want to meet the family. And number two, I want to meet with an investigative reporter. And so what happened is I go out to that to the family and Robert Smith is a late lay minister. He works in the counseling inmates. Even he was a potential suspect.

At one point we're thinking, or or someone he came in contact with in the prisoner is his retaliation perhaps against him, But we quickly eliminate, eliminated that the idea. So me, I mean, it's it's a terrible situation. People, everyone's destroyed, obviously crying and you're coming in on this. And and I meet everyone and they thank us, thank me, and you know, for trying to help. I said, I think we can. I can come up with some idea. But I'm kind of hemming and hawn dan, I'm not

really you know, you know, should I tell him? I should? I suggest this idea? And the idea is, and I say, mister Smith, is that I can tell and you can probably tell, is that if this person is on sub here is focusing his attention on your other daughter. Now, don I think we got to get him to talk. I think we can. We can get him to talk if I can work with don and give her some skills that we use in hostage negotiation. He was afraid, he said, what if he comes and tries to kill

my daughter? I said, this is not this. This guy's a coward, Missus Smith. He's not the type. He's going to pull up into your your your driveway here and everyone will be you know, be uh protected. And so he agrees to this, and then Down takes me into Sherry Fay's Smith's bedroom and where she's collector of Koala bears. She had dozens of Koala bears. I see what I'm kind of thinking in my head, what can I do

here proactively? And I'm thinking ahead of the funeral memorial service, So I take one of the koala bears are real small and about three inches where the type week. If you squeeze the back of the shoulders, the paws open up and then you'll let go and they close. And so that koala bear I'll be using at a memorial service where I'm going to have Dawn place that Koala bear on a flower, and I'm going to have a podium painted white and going to have a picture of

Dawn in the podium. Why am I doing that, Dan, Is that from so many of the interviews I've done fenders, they will take souvenirs and trophies we call them from there from the victims, and when they go to they go back to the scenes or they go back to the cemeteries for various reasons. In the case of Ted Bundy and some others I am My Holley's interview, they have sex with the victims even through advanced stages of

the decomposition. Others go back to symbolically kind of roll in the dirt that this nobody, this in significant nobody now is becoming infamous as this a serial killer, so they kind of fantasize and you know, and relive it. So here the goal was to get the guy to call, and I worked with an investigative reporter to poetically describe what was going to be taking place and what took place at that cemetery. And then we're going to have

we're going to be monitoring all the vehicles. Unfortunately from and we had no control over. This should be buried very close to the road within they within say one hundred feet. We should be risky on the part of the subject, but the police would be taking down a license place and we would later moving ahead for a second. We will later know if we won't catch them the

way we will ultimately catch him. We would have came up with his name, because he did in fact drive by and he stopped and we got his plate, and then we would have done promote on all these people and would have found out that this guy Larry jene

Belle had called criminal history one of the things. If you don't mind me ke talking only she wanted to jumped in stand But is the with the calls where and the last will and testament that he made Sherry Fay Smith wrote saying goodbye to her mother, her father, her brother Robert, boyfriend Richard, and she's going to be with Jesus now. And I want to have a closed, closed casket, not an open casket. So she knew she

was going to die. She knew, you know, what was going to happen to you know, to her, to her body. And how someone could write a letter, you know like this. When I talked to mister Smith. Even to this day we communicate with each other. There's no such thing as closure in cases like this. We always talk about closure and an arrest been made the guys, but it really never really closure. How can you okay, you have an arrest, but that doesn't bring back my daughter. But the only

thing he felt somewhat a bit of closure. It was from that last one. Testama knew how strong her daughter, his daughter was, when to write that, and knowing that, you know, she's going to be with God, and that helped him psychologically. It didn't not so much with the mother, and she would die not too many years thereafter. And I've seen that in so many cases where it's just unbearable, but they go through like Patsy Ramsay and the John

Benny Ramsey cases, Who's cancer Answer Return? And what made this guy, this guy not just a serial killer but a sadistic serial killer was the taunting of the family. And then when he talks to the mother, Hilda on this one call and he and he tells, she asks him, did my daughter know she was going to die? And he says, yes, And I gave her a choice. And your daughter was given the choices of a gunshot, drug overdose, or suffocation, and your daughter selected suffocation. And that's when

he duct tapes. He duct taps her head and she says, Oh, my God, how good you could you do this to my daughter? Oh, please have God forgive us all and forgive me, and then he hangs he hangs up on her. And so this guy is not a type generally a

type of serial killer would work. He goes beyond the killing, the sexual assault, to the taunting, the police, taunting the family and giving them false hope, and then to the middle of all this and he's calling out, He's he Then he calls and speaks with Down and he says, in so many words, what he's telling her is, you can't be protected forever, you know, one day, one month, one year, like you're next year, you're going to be uh, you know, be next So it was important, you know,

so important to solve the case. The pressure it was, it was just you know, you know, I'm unbelievable. Meanwhile, at the lab, the letter, the last will and testament that was that the victim, Sherry Smith wrote, is being processed in the lab for air and fiber evidence. And they're also using the technique where which will will attempt through some electrostatic device. They put a chemical on the on the paper they searched for indented handwriting, and so

we have the last will and testament. Maybe there was there were sheets of paper on top of that that on sub ripped off before we made her, you know, write the last will, you know, in testament. And so so we're you know, we're on site work with the family,

police and everything. It's about two o'clock in the morning, one to two o'clock in the morning when they contact us in the motel we were staying at that They got a great lead, you know, on the case, and the lead is is that the lab was able to come up with what appeared to be first a grocery list on a sheet of paper or that was on top of that last hole and testament, maybe several sheets on top of that last whole in testament, as well

as a telephone number. The telephone number the area code would take him to Alabama and the prefix so the number would take him to Huntsdal, Alabama, and then all but one digit was missing and to the prosible in the nation. They came up with a telephone number that would take him back to the Lexington, South Carolina, to a family known as a Shepherd family, and everyone is

a static, you know this Shepherd family. The under sheriff goes out with detectives and knocks on the door, believing that they're going to be knocked on the door of the killer here. But here comes to the door a middle aged man, he stiffish, and his wife same age, and they're kind of initially they're disappointed, go inside and they pretty much they don't this guy doesn't fit the

profile here. And they find out that this missus Shepherd is is an electrician and he's been away for six weeks in California, and he tells him that they've while he was gone at someone house sitting here. It was an employee of mine as an electrician. His name is Larry Jean Larry Jean Bell. They provide him a profile, the FBI profile that we did, and the family, the husband wife, They look at each other and they say,

that's described. You're describing Larry Jean Bell. And then they played a sample of the audio tape tape of the call that he was making and they said, you know that's him, you know, you know that's him. Can we see his bedroom? And they said yeah, and he slept over here. So they go into the bedroom where Belle was staying. Also, he looked for a gun. Mister Smith. Shepherd left a weapon, a gun, and it wasn't in this usual place in the house when they did find

he did find the weapon. It was recently discharged, they determined, and we felt that she was probably when the sheriff was abducted, a knife, you know, or a gun. There they removed a mattress and under the is a woman in a and a bound up and spread eagles with with with tape on her. And this is in between the two mattresses. So, now, what's going to happen next? He iss Unless you want to jump in, Dan, I'm talking. I'm talking a lot. I'll tell you how he proceeded now to the to the interrogation.

So pretty much you know they had they know there, they got the guy. Now they got Bell. Now whether or not he's going to testify, that's another question because in South Carolina you have the death penalty, and it makes it really difficult to get a confession out of somebody unless you provide some type of faith saving scenario. So they're going to haul him into to the police station. But I tell the sheriff to the they didn't have a task force room, So I said, you have to

create a taskforce room. And so what they had was a trailer outside back that they got in a in a drug deal and they were able to confiscate that from these drug dealers. What we did we made that trailer into a command center within within a couple of hours. And how do you do that? You put on you know, signs a major crime task force. The office you've you

inside the trailer. We had files upon files of pure just to show how thorough the investigation was, with his name on the on these file cabinets, victims' names on the file cabinets, maps showing with like tape from the point where Bell lives where the abduction of the victim took place, down back to where the shepherds lived, all these these lines everything leading to Bell. And so we

did that in a couple of hours. We're not going to be initially involved in the interviews because of the if you got involved so involved in all the interviews, all you'd be doing. You wouldn't be able to work your cases back in a chronica, you'd just be testifying, you know, you know, all the time flying around the country. So we try to pick you pick some who would best be the right person, you know for a particular interview, was to be male, female, a certain age group. Whatever

we do, you know, something like like that. And we had two very experienced detectors and who we felt could provide, you know, maybe some type of face saving scenario. So they make arrest an arrest of Bell early in the morning. He's back living with his with his parents. We actually included that in the in the profile as well, and they take him the thirty five years of age. Everything fits.

The other thing too, when I left out, is that what the Shepherd family said is that when when Larry Gendal picked us up at the airport, and we picked us up at the airport, we hardly could recognize him. And why is that? Because he lost weight and he grew a beard, and he looked so different, and he was just seeming pre occupied and he was just obsessed about this case about these two young girls being murdered. In fact, when he got back to our house, he

had newspaper clippings. He should he saved us news paper clippings to look at these and read about these, you know, these two two cases. So they make their arrest. They and that is where they arrest them. They find because he was so obsessive compulsive, and that was part of the analysis too, and how structure he was that when he went looked in his closet, everything was lined up and neat and orderly. Everything in his vehicle same way, highly,

highly maintained and rigid. In the garage tools it would be like guys like him, we would say, would outline a screwdriver like in paint. And so the screw guy, screwdriver goes here and the hammer goes there over here. They rest him without incident. They take him to the trailer. We're not in the trailer. Who are at least going to do this. We're with the sheriff and on the sheriff, the prosecutor which he calls solicitor. Donnie Myers is his

name down in South Carolina. His nickname was doctor Death. He had so many death murder and death convictions down there, capital punishment conditions. So we're waiting, wait and waiting, getting we're getting debriefed and they're really not getting, you know, anywhere,

and we leave. We're me and my partner. We're in the under Sheriff's room, and everyone else now is in the sheriff's room, and solicitor, sheriff Mets and the under sheriff, and all of a sudden, without warning, the door opens up, and here is the prosecutor, the solicitor, with the sheriff, under sheriff and the subject Larry Jene Dell. You know, we're not even know what was going on. And so the solicitor character and Donnie Myers real southern drawl, says Larry.

He said, you know who these boys are. These boys are from the FBI, and they profiled you right down to he you know, everything about you. And and so Bell is just looking and he's just looking at us. We're you know, I'm looking at Bell. And this was you know, this was not rehearsed or anything. And then they they take off, leaving Bell behind. They leave him

behind for us to talk. You know, you know tu nim so I said, you know, take a seat, And so he sits in a couch and I sit on like a coffee table in front of him by not really violating space, you know, five feet four feet away and five feet away, and my other agent is back, you know, behind me's just standing leaning up against a bookcase.

That day, when I got the call early in the morning, you know, one or two in the morning about developments in the case, I threw out a pair of light colored pants, like white, almost white, and in a white shirt, so which turned out perhaps a good thing because they look almost clinical and in retrospect when I look back on the case kind of like a clinical like I'm like a first sponder type of thing. So I got him in front of me, and what am I going to What am I going to do? What am I

going to say? So I'm going to tell him I was going to talk to tell him about the research that that I am a colleagues that he's conducted going into prisons around the country, avoiding words like titles like murderers and a rapists or whatever, you know, just say interviewing inmate surround the country. He's different for different crimes.

And I talk about myself and you know, in my background, I want to have I don't want to have an interrogation, and I just I just want to have this, like I try to have a conversation and let's see how intent he is. Because what he's doing, dan is is that he's looking past me. He's looking he's looking to trial. He's he even said one of his telephone calls to the family, he can't turn himself in anyone, you know, they'll electrocute me. I'll go to prison and electrocute me.

So that's what what when you have somebody like you know that they're looking to that or or how they're going to be seeded in prison. Here, this guy is a child killer for portraying two homicides and he's going to be suspect to this day, to this to this day is today and two other two other homicides that are unsolved in South Carolina where he had close contact

with each of these of those victims. So I go through all this and I tell him, I said, one of the things I found out when these interviews when he and uh, they said it was like almost like two sides of them when he that one side of them didn't even know the other side, like as if you know, do you ever hear multiple personality where old I told him, I said, Larry where one side just does something to the surprise of the other, may not

even have any knowledge you know, of it. They wake up and have blood on them, or you know, something happened, something terrible happened. So I'm trying to provide him this space faving scenario. The only way is going to try to get out of this is going to try in my opinion, is and during that period of time in our toun tree, multiple personality was kind of in vogue, and then a lot of different killers used this biance.

The Hillside Strangler he tried to, you know, use this as a as a defense, and many many a ferial rapists tried to use this, you know, as the defense was kind of in the end thing back then it was all bs, but they tried, they tried it. So when I went through this whole process with him, and I then segue into when did you start feeling bad about the case, and you know not and then I asked him did you do it? When did you start

feeling bad? And he said when I looked in the newspapers and I saw the the memorial service and the family.

it's you. I recognize your voice, I know it, I know it's you know it's you. So the family comes in in the Sheriff's office and then we bring him in too, to the family. Miss not missus Smith. Mister Smith wasn't there Missus Smith and Kilda and Dawn. He SAIDs right in front of them, I'm kind of between them and right in front of the family, and he starts talking, you know, just to say who your name is, Larry Jean Bell, And he starts talking, and as he's talking,

she makes the comment about it's you. I recognize your voice, you know, the one I spoke to, And then he went into that the good and the bad, Larry Jean Bell. You know, once again, what's amazing to me, Dan is how the family I couldn't. I could. I don't think I could do it. Their faith though, is just so so strong. But they're able to sit in front of in front of him like like that. And I think I mentioned it in the book. I'm pretty sure I did.

As I'm sitting I'm thinking to myself, did they search the family to make sure that they're not armed? Right before they brought they brought Missus Smith and Dawn in I'm thinking about my god, so now my toes. But just in case, you know, if they didn't they they're armed, and you're here right before me, it'll be this guy would be shot and killed by the by the family. And so yeah, so that's as far as he went there. And then the other thing you provide to and people

think all you do is just profiling. It's really a lot of cases you just can't do it. You can provide so many aspects to an investigation. Was the prosecutor Donnie Myers, And I told I told her, heyes, what do you think is going to happen? John? I said, well,

what's gonda happened? He's good disrupt the very first day because he comes in here, he's going to disrupt hoop and holler and yelling, and and why because he's only there's only hope is he He's got to act like he's insane, that he's that he's you know, it's crazy. I mean, he got his goose is cooked, he got wet, so much evidence, you know, you know, on him, and true enough, first day of the trial he comes in screaming, yelling and saying he's God, He's Jesus and all this stuff.

And then the trial proceed and in there during the trial and you go watch him. He's just like when he was writing the script when he would talk to the family, he followed the script. Here he is taking notes, real copious notes. During the trial. He would be convicted, convicted of you know, two counts, well, the helmet case would be tried separately, so abduction murder two counts, and he would he would be convicted about I think it's like forty seven minutes or so that the jurors came back.

It was really really quick. And then when we later on we had the helmet case, it was the same same thing as a very quick turnaround for the jurors. The thing that surprised me is how he died. Bell is that he got the death penalty. You could take some space's choice. Nowadays, the space would have the capital punishment, lethal injection, or the electric chair, and he's selected the

electric chair. And it was just surprised me that this coward would pick the electric chair until I started thinking about it, and I thought, now it's more or less fits because because when you commit a crime like this, committing young perpetrating crimes against young young people like this, you are low on the totem pole in prison. I think, in fact, you're not only going to get it from other inmates, but even the correctional guards are going to be treating you like crap when you get in there.

And I just believe that he just wanted to show at the very end how tough he is, and that he's a real tough guy. He's you know, inadequate, you know, type and so he's the the electric chair and then, like I said, ten years later, he was he was executing.

Had a criminal history too, involving you know, all kinds of had he went to prison for for a period of time for abduction, and he had another he's just busted for I've seen telephone calls against young children, and he had not been caught, he would have gotten on and on, you know, and on. And what I really like about the case and is really the police did a great job. And all you're doing is providing, you know,

an investigative tool and to help them. And that's why when I when I was in the bureau, it was really difficult in the beginning because the relationship. Hoover died in seventy two. I came back to Klantico in seventy seven. I was the youngest agent at thirty one, just then just turned thirty two. And cops, you know, in those days, you know, the europe maybe basically looking for credit where credit isn't and wasn't wasn't doing cases that really the

locals did. And so what my goal was accomplished. And for us and the people, we always give credit, even if you think we played a bigger role than we did. Give credit to it, you know, to the police and the work, the work they've done, and they did, they did do a great job in the laboratory. And unfortunately it doesn't always. All cases don't always happen, you know, you know that way, but it was a tremendous case.

But emotionally, I had a daughter, aged Deborah Helmet at the time, you know, upsetting, you know, like I said, I'm just trying to get over all the stuff I went through in nineteen eighty three and eight nineteen eighty four, the stress and nearly dying. And now I'm back from back in again. I have people in the unit, which is great, but it's like any business, it takes a

while to learn the business. Takes you probably about two years to feel kind of good about it, and then maybe five years before you feel real comfortable and in my job. And people who didn't do what I do, usually about five years they start getting burned out and they want out, they want to can't take it anymore, they want to move on to somewhere else. In my fave my organization, and it just that's probably it took an emotional toll and to this day. I had contact

with mister Smith. They established a a fund for the daughter, a scholarship fund. It was in music and art, that's what she was going into. She would go to the university. A wonderful man. Just just their faith is so strong and just very I mean even forgiving, forgiving, uh you know him and even Hild at some point too, which before she passed away, forgave him, just to get it out of her brain and try to try to move on with the you know, with their lives. And then

Dawn is today, she's this spiritual leader. She's she sings the gospel and she's made albums, she's affiliated with churches, she's just done public speaking. Just a wonderful family.

you know too. But this guy goes his way, his way beyond, you know, way beyond you know that, and just never never had a case. I don't know of any other case quite, you know, quite like that. You'll have cases, you know you're from You're from Canada originally, right, yeah, Dan, Yeah, And the Clifford Olsen case up there. You're a Clifford Olsen who killed the children. Yes he can again. He killed like ten children and then he paunting the police. He would call me at the FBI. Uh, and I

guess it was. The Canadians were up in air about because they paid it. They didn't know where the victims were. He killed like ten children, and they offered them, made a deal with them, giving them ten thousand dollars per victim. At The Canadians were up in arms about that. I didn't like that, but they never would have found these victims had they not done that. But this guy, he thought he was Hannibal Lecter with Theidolson when he was contacting me. They had him in a plexiglass sell like

Hannibal Lecter. And the only reason he was in the place he had last cell is because the other inimates would throw cups of urine and feces on him. Was because he was some badass guy. And then I couldn't believe it. He was calling me on a cell phone he had. He was called me on the phone. He would give him a phone even at that time. This is this is in the nineties. He had not nineties even yeah, in the nineties. He had some type of

TV computer. But he was trying, he was trying to tell me that he was the Green River murdering and trying to convince me. And why do you want me convince me? Is because he wanted out of prison. He wanted like a little break. And he following him around and the detectives and out in the Surgene County. Who'd you know, trying to where the bodies are. What a manipulator, you know he was. He died not too many too many years ago in prison. Good riddance to him.

in the community. But he had her write out this last Will and Testament, which she, as you write, showed such incredible composure and courage in the last note to her family, trying to make them feel brave and said things like I don't want this to ruin your life. And that correspondence, like some energy from beyond was the thing that sealed this killer's fate.

then getting back to the last Will and Testament. Yeah, and then she knows she's going to be dying, and she talks about having she wants to close casket, a closed casket. She knew because what was going to happen to her and how she would end up. And one of the reasons too, Dan, it was tells you that this guy had his criminalsphistication or certainly knowledge of crime.

He would wait several days, three or four days, and it was really hot when we were down there, really hot and humid, and by waiting several days like that before pointing out the bodies, and we knew he had to go back because he gave these these precise directions where we can find the victims' bodies, that he wanted the bodies to be in an advanced state of decomposition, which they were in. So we really couldn't determine whether or not there was a sexual assault, or how the

victims were, how the victims were killed. With dawn On with Sherry, we had that some residue on the face and we could tell the duct tapers was used with her and probably suffocation was the cause of death. But missus Smith, even with the last will and testament, Dan thought that there was still hopes that she may still be alive. And he just you know, he's calling the family thing. I know who you are, I know the family,

and that's why I can't give myself in. And then he gives a description of his car, which was not his car.

It wasn't until a stupid jackass communicating with the police asking the police do you think we can would you be able to if I submit a disc to you, could you trace it back to you know, to me? And he's doing this, they're sending messages in the newspaper and so what do you think the police are going to say, Oh, oh yeah, we can trace it back to you. Now he says, no, we can't do that.

So just his stupidity, and he pretty much had about the same I Q. They're not bright, neither raider or this guy Bell or not, you know, not any bright lighting in the attic, not at all. And they were lucky.

They were lucky up to a point. But that was his downfall was that when he sends says, you know, you know the case backwards and forward, and you've had other guests on talking about the case that that case, that was the sloppy disk, and you didn't have to be any kind of a computer was to decipher it.

it's it's difficult. I don't know if you probably don't know this or your listeners for the Zodiac. The only time we got involved in the Zodiac is when they leave contacted us because a letter we hadn't heard from the Zodiac in a long time, and they said, we got this letter from the from the Zodiac, but we're going to send it back to you. We no sooner get the letter. It's followed up by a telephone call to get the letter and forget about it. Why because

the detective work in the case. We're involved in the case. When the detectives wrote the letter, why it to perpetuate the case. It hadn't heard anything from the officers. So he was trying to create, trying to create you know, you know, some new kind of new kind of lead leads because they have you have nothing. You know, David Burke was writing the letters, you know, you're having something to you know, analyze. But the device that was used, the device that was used in this case, it wasn't

developed for the back then yet. On the Burke was like analyzing the letters like you know, like the indented writing type of the type of stuff or the finger printing. It wasn't as sophisticated as it is today, like back you know, back then, so today's all automated analyzing prints.

I want to thank you very much John Douglas for coming on and talking about When a Killer Calls, a haunting story of murder, criminal profiling, justice in a small town. I want to thank you very much for coming on and doing this.