WHEN SATAN WORE A CROSS-Fred Rosen

was discovered in the sacristy of a hospital chapel. Seventy one year old sister Margaret Anne had been strangled and stabbed, her corpse arranged in a shameful and stomach churning pose, but the police's most likely suspect was inexplicably released and the investigation was quietly buried. Despite damning evidence, Father Gerald Robinson went free twenty three years later. The priest's name resurfaced in connection with a bizarre case of Satanic ritual abuse.

It prompted investigators to exhume the remains of the slain nun in search of the proof left behind that would indelibly mark Father Robinson as Sister Margaret Anne's killer. The Sign of the Devil, When Satan Wore Across He is a shocking true story of official cover ups, madness, murder and lies, and an of an unholy human monster who disguised himself in holy garb. The book were featuring this evening is When Satan Wore Across by journalist and author

Fred Rosen. Welcome back to the program, Fred Rosen, and thank you to reading's this interview.

like science fiction or something. And so what I did was I, you know, I did my research, and I had written a book called The Historical Atlas of American Crime, which chronicle crime in America from fifteen eighty seven to the present. And I soon realized that this was a first an American criminal history, that there was no instance in American criminal history where a priest was accused, let

alone convicted, of killing a nun. And that got me interested in it, and shortly after that I got very friendly with Dave Davidson, who was the first police officer on the scene. Right, Sister Margaret Ann was killed and basically sacrificed his career and in some way sacrificed part of his life in order to get.

city we're here. We're talking about Ohio. But tell us a little bit more set the stage for where this occurred, and described the congregation that these people were involved with, and tell us a little bit about Margaret and Paul and father Gerald Robinson.

to the community in that area. And Sister Margaream Paul was working at a local hospital with Father Jerry Robinson or Father Gerald Robinson, and these two individuals had had words about differences really about the way that the services should be conducted on a regular basis in the parish. They in particular they worked in in a local hospital, and there were words between these two. We know about that.

And what happened was the there were words between the two and shortly after that Margaret and Paul, who had been a nun for many many years. She was born in the in the early part of the twentieth century. She was a dedicated nun and she believed in have

an orthodoxy within the religion and which is fine. And Robinson apparently did not, and he decided to cut short the service on during the it would be the Easter weekend actually, and he and and so eventually what occurs is that in the sacristy, which is right behind the altar, she was found dead. And she was found dead in a very strange position, with her legs apart. And at the time the police did not pick up on the pattern of the stab wounds which on her chest which

caused her death. And what occurred was that Dave Davidson, the first police officer in the scene, did his job and questioned the individuals who had come into the sacristy, the nuns, the doctors, etc. Upon the discovery of the body, and many of them said, take a look at the priest, and they meant Gerald Robinson, who was the priest who was in charge of the hospital chapel. And from that point onward it gets very very convoluted because Robinson will

eventually be arrested for meeting this crime. And then eventually as the case becomes a cold case for a variety of reasons that we can discuss, and it was quite perplexing to the police at the time because nobody could put together the fact that a priest could do this.

And upon my investigation, I discovered that the church in Toledo was complicit with the police department and covering up priestly abuses, specifically pedophilia for the previous so about twenty five thirty years and that led to what would later occur, which is the arrest of the priest and of course his eventual release isn't that it?

Maybe you can pronounce that property for me. What did he ask Jerald Robinson shortly after the Margaret and Paul was discovered murdered, strangled, stabbed and defiled.

And he immediately suspected Robinson and it would have under ordinary circumstances, it would have made Robinson the prime suspect. But because of an arrangement that had occurred informally between the police department and the bishop of the diocese. This wasn't even an arch diocese because it wasn't big enough. It gets, for lack of a better term, extremely political. And so Swya Techi actually would say that Robinson, he

accused Robinson of this crime. And at that point it all sort of goes into a black hole basically because people were protect individuals who work for the church who had been accused of crimes, and it was an arrangement between the police department and the diocese. And so what occurs is that while Dave Davidson and the other detectives on the case will do their job at the time, certain things happen such that Robinson, even though he is

brought in for questioning, is released. And I can describe exactly what happens.

rushes downstairs. And it was the job of the police to investigate his claim and decide whether it was a valid claim or not, whether he was a viable suspect. And they do find out that about the fact that he and sister Margaret and Paul had disagreed on the course of the regular service, and they also found out they had some other disagreements. And at that point you would I think that Robinson would become the prime suspect and that the police would be centering in on him,

which is what they did. And then what occurs is that Robinson would eventually be brought in for questioning shortly after the crime takes place. And he goes into an interview room and he's there with detectives and they're talking to him. They give him his rights, and at that point he seems like he's ready to open up, and then suddenly the door to the interview room opens up and in walks the chief of police, and the chief

of police tells Robinson, you're going home. Basically well, and the chief of police was a Roman Catholic, and the detectives were very very beside themselves for lack of of any other way of describing it. They'd never seen anything like this. I personally never heard of anything like this where monsignor could walk into an interrogation with the chief of police and walk the prime suspect out. And at that point Robinson literally disappears into the parish. Until the millennium,

they move him around a lot. And now we see that that is a fairly common situation when a priest is accused of a crime, primarily, of course, pedophilia, and he's moved around a lot until later on it becomes a cold case and then somebody claims. A woman comes forward to claim that she was ritualistically abused by a number of individuals, including Gerald Robinson. When we say ritualistically,

we mean satanically. And at that point the police in two thousand and five, they really launch a full scale investigation, including exooming Margaret am Paul's body, and they take a much closer look at the pattern of the wounds on her chest, the stab wounds which had caused her death, and they come to the conclusion and it's pretty obvious when you look at the photos and I've got those in the book, that she was stabbed in the shape

of an inverted cross, which is a Satanic symbol. And the police then call in an actual exorcist who from the Archdiocese of Chicago as an expert, and they discuss the situation with him, and he gives them a lot of information about ritualistic abuse, and simultaneously a woman it comes forward to claim an other woman that Robinson was involved in a Satanic cult and that she was also

ritualistically abused, and so it becomes very, very scary. I don't know any other way of putting it, that a priest of the Catholic Church could in some way be involved in a Satanic ritual. And at that point they continue their investigation until eventually Gerald Robinson is charged. By that time, we're about sixteen years it's sixteen years later from the time the crime first took place, and of course it gets a lot of headlines in the United States.

I don't know how it was in other venues in other countries, and it goes forward from there.

and in front of the judiciary. So tell us who this woman is and tell us a little bit about her and how she was involved.

off their keysters and go after him. And she's one of the individuals who helps to get him at least

brought in to be questioned one more time. And at the same time, because of what Claudia does, and again because of Davidson, who was again the first comprom the scene, the police then go back and take a look at what evidence they had originally, and lo and behold, they find that when they had searched Robinson's quarters back in nineteen eighty, they find that he has a very well funded publication from the Catholic Church about ritualistic abuse and Satanism,

and at that time they didn't release any of that information. And so it's a combination really of a number of individuals who come forward to pressure the authorities. Now Claudia is somebody who's very outfront and would be able to get a lot of headlines. On the other hand, Davidson was literally drummed out of the police department because he kept pressing to investigate Robinson and charge him, and that's not what his superiors wanted at the time, wanted to do.

And so result Robinson, I'm sorry, Davidson, eventually, because of his continued petitioning to look into this thing, not only does he get black bull from the department, but he's looked at as being a wild card by the state prosecutor, somebody who's not reliable in terms of what he's saying.

And so what you have is essentially an old fashioned cover up, and there's nothing unusual about that, Dan, I mean, the only thing that would be unusual here is that in all of the instances that we have read about and know about in terms of priestly abused, it involves pedophilia. In this case, that's not what's happening. In this case, we're talking about murder and ritualistic abuse. Now, the woman who comes forward who I interviewed, who claims that Robinson

had sexually abused her when she was a teenager. She

then files a civil suit, which eventually gets dismissed. But she was very very specific about what had occurred and in terms of the actual abuse, and she also implicated other members of the Catholic Church in Toledo, Ohio, and the reason that I believe that this could go on for so long, this kind of a cold case, when you have this kind of strong evidence against a man who appears to be the bad guy, is because this particular section of Toledo I'm sorry of Ohio is very

very Catholic. It had been settled that way, and in fact Robinson is a priest who is fluent in Polish, so that a Polish Catholics in the parish, and Robinson's role within the parish was to conduct services in Polish, so he was actually an integral part of the structure of the parish and he served, as I said, a

very important role here. And in addition to Robinson, to the individuals I've already named, the other people that we see that become involved are the actual individuals who are heading the parish, including the bishop who has since died, the monsignor who since died, and these individuals, according to

the evidence, participated in a cover up. And it goes even more than that, because it was during my investigation that I discovered that there had been a papal edict that said that every parish was supposed to keep secret files. Every parish in the world and these secret files could be just about anything, and that would include personnel records, situations like the one we're describing where someone is accused of a crime and then transferred from one church to

another within the parish. And so it's a combination of individuals who come together.

ritual thing. Was Davison, was he convinced and who did some of this research other than or did you do the research about the Satanic Bible and the whole feasibility of the crime scene itself being ritualistic?

And what occurs here is that when she is found there is an altar cloth over her, and the the whoever does this crime had put the altar cloth over her and stabbed her in the pattern of the inverted cross. Now, the important point here is to understand that none of the police at the time picked up on this. This doesn't get picked up on until the until relatively the present. And so I went back and I started researching Satanic

rituals Catholic rituals to understand what was going on. And the police posit that the murder weapon is a letter opener which Robinson had on his desk, And if you take a look at the pictures in the book, you will see that the pattern of the murder of the stand wounds on Margaret and Paul's chest, which again caused her death, were in the shape of an inverted cruss.

I mean, there's no way around that. And nobody, not Davidson, not Claudia, nobody, except perhaps for the person who comes forward to claim that Robinson had done some ritualistic abuse in her previous lik nobody really understands it. And therefore there's nothing to really believe Dan because at that point they don't have the evidence. But in the present what occurs is that when they disinter the body and they examine it, they're able to determine the pattern of the wounds.

At that point, the police in Toledo do the right thing and they go to the exorcist in the Chicago Archdioces. Chicago has an exorcist on staff who I interviewed and which was a great interview, because the first thing I said to him, I said, I said to him, I said, gee, what do you do? How do you get this job? And he explained to me that he got the job because he had actually done his doctoral thesis on exorcism.

And he also explained to me that he does most of his work on the phone, because nine out of ten cases, if not more, involved schizophrenia when someone thinks they're possessed by the devil. Of course, this brings up, you know, memories of the famous film The Exorcist and what So what happens is they work very closely with the with the with the monsignor from Chicago who's the exorcist, and they begin to realize the police that this was

some sort of satanic ritual. Now, the real question, and my feeling all along, was that Robinson had done this and done it this specific way to divert attention from himself and not necessarily because he was some sort of

committed Satanist or something. There's no evidence, there's no hard evidence to show that Robinson himself was a Satanist, except for this woman who came forward who claimed that he had committed the satanic ritual on her previously, but the police did the right thing at this point and they went with the evidence. And as I came and I came into it after Father Robinson was convicted. And by the way, Father Robinson still wears the collar. He is

still a priest even in jail. And as I got into it, that's when I realized that if you don't have corroborating evidence that Robinson was a Satanist, you therefore have the possibility that he did this deliberately in order to divert attention from himself. And so the police are putting all of this stuff together, including when they do

the second autopsy of Margaret and Paul. They're able to take this letter opener and match up the wounds themselves, because he stabbed her so hard it went to the bone, and they were able to match up that. They took the tip of the letter opener and they were able to put it into the bone that had been damaged when he committed this crime, and it was an exact match.

At the same time, they took the letter opener and they discovered what they think was blood underneath part of it, the handle, but they weren't able to make a positive ID so therefore that the fact that the letter opener is the murder weapon was something that was positive on the basis of circumstantial evidence, and the jury believed that

in addition to the weight of the other evidence. Oh and this one more thing, I feel like Colombo, one more thing, which is that in the present, as they conduct their investigation, what they find and this is the thing that cinsed it, certainly for me and certainly I believe for the conviction of father Robinson, was that back in eighty somebody was seen leaving the leaving the leaving the chapel shortly after the murder was committed, but there

was no identification of that individual except in the present. They tracked down a fellow who was an intern at the time or resident, I don't recall, and this doctor positively id Gerald Robinson and said he was the dude that I saw skulking around and leaving the chapel as I was going into it to treat her. Now she was already dead, but they didn't know that, of course, you know, he didn't know that. Of course at the time. You know, he's going in the chapel because he gets

call it. You know, there's somebody down and needs help, et cetera. And this individual, this this doctor sees Robinson and id's him in the present as coming from that direction, which completely contradicts what Robinson had said. Robinson claiming that he was always in his apartment at the time, and the only time that he's back in the sacristy is when he's notified what occurs. That's when he comes down, and that's when Swaye Techi accuses him of being the

bad guy. And I might add that Dave Davidson, even though he's not a detective, he's a good beat cop. And so Davidson continues to interview witnesses in the hospital despite the fact he's not supposed to do this. He's supposed to leave it to the detectives. And all of the individuals he talks to implicate Robinson and say Robinson had had problems with system, Margaret and Paul, so there was never any other suspect in this case except for the Gerald Robinson.

I really, so, I really. A good friend of mine at the time worked for the Idiots Guys, and he sent me The Idiot's Guide to Catholicism. Oh yeah, And I devoured this. It was a very good book. And and I and I read up on Catholicism, and of course I read up on Protestantism to you know, to

understand the differences, to under you know, all that stuff. Sure, and and it was, it was it was quite a quite a learning experience, really, because the fact that he kills her in the sacristy on Holy Saturday with the host present, I mean, I can't give anything more and in the way he does it, I can't think of anything more sacrilegious. Yeah than that, but you in some ways you have to take out your emotions and look

at this as a murder case. Once you look at it as a murder case, it begins to come together. But when you let your emotions carry you away, especially when you're religious. And of course, there's nothing I'm saying here.

Go I answer the question, yeah, yes. About about her funeral was that Jerry Robinson presides over it, and suddenly in the middle of the funeral, the doors blow open. A big wind blows open the doors and will ly and it was from what I've read, it was quite dramatic. It was like, you know, God was present saying something whatever. And I and I do believe that by the way, I think that that, you know, the Lord does work

in strange ways. But again, the end of the because of the fact that and I'm going to use a term, the Catholic Church was mobbed up with the Toledo Police Department at that time. We know that this was something that was later exposed by the Toledo Blade, which is still a fine newspaper in the city, even though it's been beleaguered and besieged by cutbacks, just like every newspaper.

And but again, all of these clues, and they're really clues, are left unanswered and undiscovered because of the fact that the monsignor walks Robinson right out of the the interrogation and and literally into the millennium. In fact, by the time Robinson is charged, he's not even in charge of any parish. He doesn't have any I'm sorry, of any church. He doesn't have any real official duties. He's just he's not even listed on the official roster of church employees

within the parish. He's just getting whatever, you know, whatever his his salary is, or you know, to just hang around basically, and so and that that continues until two thousand and six or two thousand five. I guess when they finally charge him.

Uh uh and and they supported him, and those were his supporters, and that is is very strong in this particular section of the United States because Polish Catholics had settled that area going back into the eighteen fifties, and so they carried a lot of political clout. And so during the trial, these are the individuals who refuse to believe that Robinson could have committed this crime, and to this day still believed that Robinson didn't commit the crime.

And I might add that Robinson claims he didn't commit the crime.

capitalists because I didn't particularly think it was relevant. Because under our system of justice, every individual, just as it is in Canada and England and Australia and every place else, the people listening to us, you have the right to an attorney to defend you to the best of his or her ability. And so a couple of attorneys had come forward to offer their services to help him out because he was he was an underdog, and so the community raises some money. I think the parish put in

some money. Uh, it really wasn't It wasn't an issue. Let's put it that way, Dan. It wasn't an issue. And when you think about it, it can't be an issue because once you have a cover up, the cover up has to continue, because if the cover up doesn't continue, then people have to start taking responsibility. And once they start taking responsibility, I mean supposing there was supposing, for the sake of discussion, Robinson had had opened up to somebody and said, let's say Robinson opened up to the

month senior and said, I've done it. Well. If you then turn around and try to free this individual, you would be you could be indicted for being an accessory to murder. So once you have the cover up going, it has to continue all the way through because otherwise

people can get charged. So again what occurs during the trial is the church is supportive of him, many of the I couldn't tell you the exact numbers, but but there was certainly an appreciable portion of the Toledo Catholic community and particularly the Polish Catholic community that supported him because people don't, you know, and quite rightly, they don't

want to believe a priest kills a nun. Excuse me, you know, I mean it's you know, when I grew up, I was taught that regardless of who the person was, they were a person of the cloth. You give them that respect. I was always taught, you know, to sit and here I am a Jewish boy in Brooklyn, and so you know, I always you know, so you grow up believing that these individuals are above conventional law. Not

above God's law, certainly, but above conventional law. And and they're paragons just like doctors for instance, you know the you know it's it's only in the last maybe ten or twenty years. I once wrote a book called Doctors from Hell. It was my first true crime book. You don't want to believe that people that are so respected, people that have such standing within the community, could knowingly

commit murder. That's like you know, a a It's a disconnect because once you believe that, then it calls into question your other beliefs because you want to believe that these people are paragons of virtue. You want to believe

that they follow Jesus' path. You want to believe this stuff because if it turns out the other way around, what it means is you got conned by somebody, and nobody nobody wants to know that they will conned by anybody, let alone by a priest, and let alone that he conned his way into murder.

a criminal case. And people who are familiar with J. Simpson's case, but tell us what happened in terms of why the civil case. But also do you believe the prosecutor would have went ahead with criminal charges with the Satanic ritual thing if there wasn't these conditions that had forced it to civil court Because there is a difference.

People I think will know that there's a difference between the burden of proof in terms of civil cases and criminal case based on the O. J. Simpson case, So explain exactly what happened in this particular case.

situation where it becomes a cold case. So in that case, what occurs is that Fred Goldman goes in, the Goldman family goes after Simpson for a civil verdict, and in civil court, as you point out, you don't have to the burden of proof is less act you don't necessarily even have a jury of twelve. It would be a

jury of seven. For example, in the Robinson case, what you have is and it is Robinson being convicted of killing Margaret and Paul, and they downplay there is evidence, of course, but they downplay the satanic stuff because once they go into that, you got to go it's a lot of stuff for a jury to take in sure, So they were primarily concerned with simply proving Robinson done it as opposed to how Robinson done it for the same time, and what occurs is that an individual who

sees this has a recollection, a repressed memory of having been a young person who had been.

to me. And she also claimed that there were other people who were present at the time, but the one ID she has is of Robinson. Now, again, the problem is corroboration, and if this was a criminal case, it would have been thrown out immediately because there was no corroboration. Was essentially her word against his right, and eventually the case does get thrown out. The case does get thrown out because there is no corroboration, and some people looked at her as a gold digger who's just trying to

make money off this whole thing. And the again, the problem is when you don't have corroboration, where do you go with it? You know, what do you where do you go with it? I mean, and and and And the answer here is that the the judge threw it out before he could even go to trial. Now, I might add something else, which is I saw I saw something in Toledo when I went to investigate the case. There was another priest. I'm sorry, he wasn't a priest. He was a layman who had been a teacher within

the parish. And they had already found this guy guilty of pedophilia. And he had a court date. And I was in the courtroom and it was just me and another reporter and and and this particular individual and the lawyers, and suddenly the judge goes, let's do this in chambers, and I and and you're not supposed to have a hearing in chambers. That's that's a violation of the United

States Constitution. We have public trials. And I saw this dude go into into chambers with the judge and they made some sort of a deal to let this dude go, and the guy snuck out the back way. And I would ask as this, and I mean, Dan, it was like I thought I was in the Twilight Zone. I couldn't believe I was in the United States of America. And I asked people about it. I asked the reporters and they said, oh, this is Toledo, And I go, what kind of answer is that? What do you mean

it's Toledo. You know, we're in the United States of America. That's why I always say that. You know, people will always talk about things that happen in the Southern States, you know what I mean, and the South get this bad reputation or repressing this, that and the other thing. Well, open your eyes. This stuff goes on all over the place. And in this particular case, you had a criminal proceeding that goes into chambers, which it shouldn't have shouldn't have had,

shouldn't have happened. And I have to believe that the only reason that occurred is because the church was involved. And this is the present. This is the present, and I just you know, I just looked at this, and you know, one of the problems is that when you're a journalist, as you know, you know, my job is not you know, Anderson Cooper can get on CNN all as much as he wants and advocate, but that's not

what a journalist does. What a journalist does investigate for the best obtainable version of the truth and present that to your reader or your viewer. And the the the reporters in Toledo were literally stymied by the court system in this particular case, let alone of course the parish, which didn't want to say anything about it, and of course the parish had little enoughing to say regarding Robinson's case.

Now again, that's pretty you know, it goes back to what we discussed before, which is what are they supposed to say? We covered it up? You know, what are they supposed to say? I think that if the individuals who did cover it up within the church there were not within the church, they would have been charged. They would have been charged with covering up a murder for God's sakes, which is probably a pretty good metaphor. And

it it was a very peculiar situation. And I might add one other thing, which is I've investigated murder cases throughout the United States. I've one in one instance in a book called Lobster Boy. I actually solved the case which led to the conviction of the killer who threatened me. I was never worried for my own safety as I was in Toledo. And I'm not paranoid. I'm really not paranoid. I can't be. I'm a New York met fan and and I really was concerned that people were paying too

much attention to what I was doing. And I was extremely careful about where I went. Now, granted, Toledo, much of Toledo is a high crime area, but that doesn't that doesn't phaze me because you know, that's again what reporters do. We go wherever we have to go to report on the story. But in Toledo, I had the feeling that people were watching me. And I couldn't be clear on who it might have been, whether it was it was the police or you know, individuals from the

parish or whatever. But I I was very, very very careful about where I went and what I did because I didn't I of course did you know, I'm there by myself. I'm the long ranger, you know, and tanto Is, you know, is off getting help. So I have to be very very careful. I felt about what I was doing and the individuals I was talking to, and I and even Davidson. I confronted the prosecutor, the prosecutor who

got the conviction, got Robinson's conviction, and this guy. I said to him, I said, why don't you call Dave Davidson as a witness. He was the first cop in the scene. He did, he did all of the basic investive investigative work. He said, well, he's not a reliable witness. I said, he's not a reliable witness. He said no. And I had my notebook and I from out of my notebook, I unfolded a piece of paper and I said,

there's Davidson at the top of your list. How come you got them at the top of your witness list? And of course the guy couldn't answer. So even at the time that they're prosecuting, they're trying to cover up the fact that they didn't do their job initially, and they and in whichever way you come out on it,

whether you think Robinson's guilty or not. There's no only in the world you can say that the police did their job initially because well they were signing, you know, they were stopped, and nobody came forward for fifteen years to get justice for this individual who was was by all accounts, a very loving, good person, devoted to Christ and certainly didn't deserve, you know, what occurred to her. And I might add that the all of the nuns

in the hospital, they were all nurses. They were all trained in one of in one of in one of the orders as nurses. So this was you know, so these people had other duties obviously, in addition to being to their to their to their to their duties to the to the church, and so it was quite it was quite an eye opener, you know, it was quite an eye opener. And as you point out in the book, I'm an adjunct Associate professor of film at the New

York Institute of Technology. So when film is relevant in something, as I felt it was here, I pointed out and the fact is that many of us have our conception of what a priest is formed by what we see in the media, and for many, many, many years, the ideal of the priest was Bing Crosby in a film by Leo McCarry call Going My Way, and people thought this, including me, this is what a priest is. You know.

Granted I don't expect them to be singing the high notes like being, but you know, you don't expect that a priest to expect I mean, it doesn't even enter your consciousness that something like this could happen.

he would not have been indicted for murder. They would have been not the case would have not come back. So I ask combined with the idea that the holiest day of the year in the sacristy itself and the filement, the upside down cross, the altar cloth, the mark on the forehead. The filing humiliation is do you believe that there was a Satanic group operating in Toledo in the priesthood abusing people.

I don't believe that quite frankly. And the reason I don't want it well primarily because the police did do their job in trying to find when this when this other individual came forward in the present and claimed that she had been the kind of abuse she's talking about is the kind of thing where they would draw, they would rape her, they would they would draw satanic symbols on her body. The problem is no corroborating evidence. And usually in these kinds of situations, just like in situations

where you have pedophilia, it's more than one individual. One individual comes forward, says says something, and then other individuals who have either been repressing the memories or too ashamed to come forward, do come forward? That doesn't really occur here, and so I go on the I go on more

on the basis of the evidence. I also feel that Robinson, Robinson did not appear to me anyway to be that heavily to be to be involved within a And there is again in the years afterwards, and the police investigate him, and I did as well about what occurred afterwards, because now we're talking about fifteen years dan there is no evidence of Robinson or any other individual involved with the

parish committing satanic abuse. So my feeling is that based upon the evidence, Robinson had read about it and tried to throw the attention off himself in the way that he kills her. And again remember it's a very specific, ritualistic way of killing somebody. Now look, I'm the first one to say, I could be wrong, you know, And to me, it's more relevant that the evidence points to him once she got you know, and now I might add, I might add, now again it's circumstantial. We don't have

any you know. Robinson has always claimed he didn't do it to this day, and when Paula is On interviewed him for a show I was part of on the case with Paula is on. Robinson again insisted he had nothing to do with this, But he's not convincing to me because the weight of the evidence is that he definitely was the bad guy. That's the weight of the evidence. And so I feel that what you have to do if you're a prosecutor, is you go with the weight

of that evidence. And as far and again, that's why they downplayed the satanic stuff at trial, because they didn't have except for the way that the crime occurs, there is no other corroborating evidence, and so you know, they they and I think it was probably a pretty a

pretty smart move on their part. Now I might add one other thing, which is that I can tell you that there was an individual who, uh and I haven't spoken about this publicly, who was involved in the case, who actually said to me, I have evidence that nobody else has and if you give me half of what you're going to make on this book, like I'm making a lot of money, I'll give you the evidence. And and I was like, uh, sorry, I you know, I don't do that sort of thing, you know. So, is

it possible that Robinson was a Satanist? Absolutely? But do we have any evidence, not a nothing. We don't have any of you.

trying to, you know, get get a fast payday. I will also say that this is the first time that's ever occurred to occurred where somebody came to me and said, I have evidence, blah blah blah, if you pay me. I've had people say pay me for an interview, but I've never had anybody say, well, I've got evidence that wasn't shown there and blah blah blah. You know, and this particular individual was I thought pretty he was a pretty good source in terms of where he stood within

the hierarchy. But at the same time, journalists don't don't pay for information because obviously it's painted once you do that, So I mean that's sort of a sidelight to it, you know, more than anything else. What's interesting to me again is that is that father Robinson is still a priest. I had been under the impression that he had been to Frock, but I was subsequently told otherwise by Paul Azon's producer, who was present when they interviewed Robinson in prison in Ohio.

bit more. And that's the point where the monsignor and the chief of police come in and walk them out into the millennium.

written about bad guys. I wrote about a serial killer in a book called Body Dump where he was questioned by the police and he passed the lie detector test, and then you know, a year later they arrest him for killing eight prostitutes and he confesses and they have all the corroborating if nets. So the to me again, the light detectors, they're not very good. So I don't realize here one way or the other whether Jerry Robinson

passes it or not. Because people have to remember that if a person is a psychle path or sociopath as it's now called, the individual doesn't feel guilt. If you don't feel guilt, then you're not going to register on the machine. So any you know, there are many individuals that we pass every day in the street, whether we're in Winnipeg, Sydney, London, New York, wherever it might be, or or you know or or Toledo, who are psychopaths.

I mean, I always say the same thing, which is you ever wonder why your boss is such a creep? Why he gives you all those problems and and and doesn't feel anything about it. He's a psychopath, but that doesn't mean he's going out and killing somebody. You know, for every for every psychopath that goes out and kills, I'll show you a million that don't. But Robinson was different. Robinson was somebody who a jury felt committed this crime as as I do.

prohibit identification. He also beheaded a woman in and killed her in and this was all done post mortem in Georgia. But and so those are the two crimes he was convicted of. But there were two other murders of the of the Bryants, Irene and John, in North Carolina, which were committed in the murder. The murders were committed in the fall of two thousand and seven, and that case, those those cases did not come to trial until this

past March, and they were actually scheduled for trial. And what occurred was that the federal government decided they were going to prosecute for death, which is sort of a difficult thing to do when he already has death in Florida, right and he has life in Georgia. And I remember and I couldn't. I remember thinking like, you know, like why are they wasting my money on this? You know, why don't they just make a deal. And that's exactly

what happened. So in March, the federal government made a deal. And the reason it was the federal government is because Hilton preferred killing people in National Forest. The subtitle of the book is the National Forest Serial Killer. And so they made a deal with Hilton that he would confess to these two murders in return for getting life in prison,

which they gave him. And in fact, nobody even knows at this point which prison system he's in, because now you've got the FEDS involved, you got Georgia, and you got Florida, and he's he's under of course, he's under a death sentence in Florida, and he will be he will eventually go to the electric chair there. He's sixty six, sixty six I think, and so it usually takes about ten or eleven years to wind its way through the system, and eventually I believe he will be executed because he's

in very good health. He was he was a runner, and but the federal government made a decision in this case, and I think it was the right one to make a deal and not go for death.

I mean, so it's a waste of public money. Yeah, to go forward, it would only be a political situation, you know, somebody trying us prosecuted, trying to score points. And so I think they made the right decision in that case to make the deal with Hilton.

ending their suffering by executing them. Plus, it costs a heck of a lot more money to execute because of the appeals process, than it does to wear. Now, so you know, again it comes down to what do you want, you know, what kind of system do you want? How much money are you willing to spend on revenge? That's what it really comes down to, how much money? And if you know, people say to me, well, if it

was your child, how would you feel? And my answer is always the same that it would never go to trial. I'd kill the individual first and take the responsibility, you know, which is what Michael Dukaka should have said in nineteen eighty eight when they asked him that question. But that's another story. Yeah, yeah, no, it's just interesting that not

all states have that necessarily that device. And I get news stories where overcrowding budget concerns are letting criminals out, and criminals and killers and heinous and criminals have been let out of prison early in certain states. So it seems ridiculous to be in a rush to put them in prison and then somehow or rather not to afford to be able to keep them there. And I think the states are realizing the appeal process just bankrupts the

state itself. You know, it's to no avail. Really, I think you're right, especially now with with you know, everybody suffering. I mean, you know, despite the fact that the economic recovery is underwagh and it's slow, it's slow, and you know, we don't even have you know, I just had a discussion tonight with somebody about health insurance, which is not something that you guys would ever have because you get

national health insurance. I know individuals who were you know, having to drop it because they can't afford it, and so you have to take to me. It's all the same, you know, it all comes out of the same dollar, you know, and you got to figure out what are your priorities are? You know, what are your priorities. I'd rather see the ten million dollars that they would spend to execute somebody put into health insurance for individuals personally. That's my personal you know what.

Now I said, oh, no, wonder they are so they're adamant about these people spending the rest of their life in prison or worse because they add insult to injury by being a victim and being revictimized by having to pay for their own health costs attributed to the cycle. So they were talking about in this particular case, the county sort of some people went under their way to

get these victims as much compensation as possible. But I can really see why Americans want to hang them high when the victim is already has this all the other things that have happened to them. But the absolute insult injury that drove home for me was that they got to pay for their own health care. It's long standing,

so it's incredible, absolutely absolutely incredible difference. I want to just we're going to have to wrap up, but I also wanted to mention why I found incredible is that you're also the author of There but for the Grace of God, and tell us of what news you have regarding this book, and just tell us a little bit about the book and what is happening in regards to the film adaptation of that.

that God had a hand in their survival. And what happened. What happened was the book has been bought by actually by Judy Copage and Mark Powell, and they're producing it as a movie. And the script has already been written and they're in the process of getting a director together and getting the financing and all that stuff. And in the film, Mark, who's a former police officer in Los Angeles,

he basically takes my trip interviewing these individuals. And he's doing this because he's got some stuff in his background that he wants to put to rest, and in order to do that, he needs he needs to he needs to talk to these individuals. And the working title on it is Surviving Evil That Could Change Again, you know. And I'm I'm sort of an associate producer, which means I get to carry the coffee and stuff like that, and you know know, and.

to make a film, it doesn't it doesn't happen. But in this particular case, they they they've already done the script and I actually got to read it and they ask my opinion, and it was the strangest thing in the world, because I'm reading there's scenes in the book where where one of the characters read the scenes in the movie where one of the characters is reading out of my book, and I'm going, this is weird, man,

you know, this is very very strange. And they're they're putting it together and they're planning on shooting if they can get it all together in Louisiana because there's certain tax breaks there and probably the book takes place and such down there, and so hopefully you know, as my mom says, your mouth to God's.

to do a book about it. And eventually a publisher, Turner Publishing, decided that they liked the idea, and we decided to turn it into a novel and it'll be out sometime next year. And in that book, I'm going to name the real killer. Even though it's fiction, I will be naming the real killer of President Garfield.

is that things tend to be repeated. Times tend to be repeated, and I try to deal with what the motivations are, because that, to me is really it's not so much who done it, as it is why done it? Because unless we can unless we know why, we can't stop it, you know, and if we know why, then we can do something about it.

So I make a lot of jokes about it, you know, I make I make a lot of jokes about it about how this Australian played the Jewish boy from Brooklyn.

above the law. And I I just got involved in that case because I was very close to the to the family, and the family lied to me and I was able to come up with the evidence that led to the conviction of the killer and as I said, I got threats and stuff like that, but you know, after a while, you just sort of throw it off. You know, I'm not that I'm brave or anything like that, but you just say to yourself, look, if somebody, you know, somebody shows up, I've got an axe by the door,

you know. I mean, I you know, I'm not Abraham Lincoln vampire hunter, but you know I still got the acts. Yeah, you know.

exploit of this or that. Yeah, well I think I think I think you probably we have gotten your vindication and your you know, your support from your readers, because basically, that's really what we're doing this for is for the readers, for the audience, the people that appreciate this kind of stuff, the people that are very very interested in these cases. And some people even that read true crime. I've met them and they say, oh, people think I'm weird, but

I go, I don't think you're weird at all. I think it's history. I think it's current events, and I think it's true. Crime is a lot of things, but it really is one of the best forms of nonfiction because really you're not trying to it's not fluff, it's not entertainment. You're trying to elicit a serious response because lots of times these cases are very important.

there's not that much. There isn't any more murder. Well, there are some bizarre murders when you know, the very first program I did, a woman is carving out a baby out of a womb, you know, and then you realize, well, there's been five or six of those case is in the last few years, and you're going, really well, you know, so there's a lot of information.

I mean, I saw bowling for column mine. You know, it's it's we're much more violent culture because it's much more embedded here, and and and and the availability of handguns is something that you know, our legislatures have been working on forever, you know, So it's it's it's obviously a different culture, but what it all comes down to is murder's murder, you know, and you've got to do something about it, and you've got to get the bad guy and prosecute him, and then we get to write about it.

rather than punish people, that we can rehabilitate them. Now, I do believe in rehabilitation for certain types of crimes, like you cannot rehabilitate rapist, stophiles and killers and violent people. You just cannot.

so yeah, it's fred Rosen dot com. And of course if somebody wants to contact me through Facebook, I'm on Facebook. I'm you know, I've got a pretty public presence and I love to hear from people because, as you well know, this is who we do this for. And without people, who are the people who are listening. Uh, I'm not

in business. You're not in business. You know, we rely on you and we and I also rely on the readers to tell me what they think, not just about the book, but as we've had this discussion about crime, about these social problems, what they you know, this is this is what this is how you learn, you know, you keep yourself open to people, and the more people communicate, the more we get someplace.