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Death Row's Worst Killers In Their Own Words | Christopher Berry-Dee | Modern Wisdom Podcast 190

Christopher Berry-Dee is a criminologist and a writer. Christopher has spent a career interviewing some of history’s most notorious killers including Peter Sutcliffe, Ted Bundy, Aileen Wuornos, Dennis Nilsen and more. This is his first ever podcast. Expect to learn what it feels like to look pure evil in the eye, what makes psychopaths tick, why victims fall for these killers' deadly tricks and much more. Sponsor: Check out everything I use from The Protein Works at https://www.theproteinworks.com/modernwisdom/ (35% off everything with the code MODERN35) Extra Stuff: Buy Dead Men Talking - https://amzn.to/3ex6l0R Get my free Ultimate Life Hacks List to 10x your daily productivity → https://chriswillx.com/lifehacks/ #serialkiller #tedbundy #psychopaths - Listen to all episodes online. Search "Modern Wisdom" on any Podcast App or click here: iTunes: https://apple.co/2MNqIgw Spotify: https://spoti.fi/2LSimPn Stitcher: https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/modern-wisdom - Get in touch in the comments below or head to... Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chriswillx Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/chriswillx Email: modernwisdompodcast@gmail.com

Christopher Berry-DeeguestChris Williamsonhost
Jun 29, 20201h 16mWatch on YouTube ↗

EVERY SPOKEN WORD

  1. 0:00 – 0:37

    Mind games in the interview room: staying fearless to keep control

    1. CB

      ... they'll never get scared. If I got scared, they'd smell it. They're like a beast in a cage, and if you get scared, you lose the battle with them instantly. It really is fascinating being up very close and personal, touching. Some are chained up, some aren't. Death can be a heartbeat away for you. They can lose the plot. Normally having corresponded with them sometimes for years, there is this interpersonal relationship. You know how far you can push them, you know what pushes their buttons, you know what annoys them, and it's about manipulation and mind control. They think they're in control, but I'm in control. (wind blows)

  2. 0:37 – 5:30

    What does a "serial killer interviewer" do? The job and the persona

    1. CW

      Chris, we have wrangled technology, and we've managed to make it work. We finally got ourselves down to set up opposite each other.

    2. CB

      Correct. Yeah. As I said earlier, I'm, I'm a, I'm a Skype virgin.

    3. CW

      (laughs) Well, there's a first time for everything, so, uh, this is gonna be this evening. So, my, my first question for you, you've interviewed some of history's most notorious killers, people like Peter Sutcliffe and Ted Bundy, Aileen Wuornos and Dennis Nelson and Joanne Dennehy and stuff like that. If you're out for dinner with someone new and they say, "So, Chris, what, what do you, what do you do for work?" How would you describe your job?

    4. CB

      Um, well, it's actually a bit of a... It- it- it- it's great at parties or barbecues because most barbecues that I've attended in the past are sort of state agents and lawyers, golf club types. And then when they ask you with their nose up in the air, "What do you do for a job?" I'll say, "I interview serial killers." And that instantly attracts a massive crowd, and, and I, I got a lot of fun of looking at these accountants, seeing their jaws drop on the floor. It's different, isn't it?

    5. CW

      It's definitely different, yeah. I mean, it, it must be, uh, uh... You're right. At a barbecue, it must be a very shocking thing to hear, especially just from, you know... Uh, I was prepared. I'm prepared to speak to you having done some research on your background when you were just expecting you to say, "Oh, well, actually I'm the area manager for this accounting firm," or, "I do..." Yeah, "I'm in, I'm in law," or whatever it might be. "Oh, no. I just speak to serial killers." Um, so-

    6. CB

      But, but just to clear one thing up, I don't normally go to dos where people don't know me. Most of the people I dine with, when I get a chance and I can afford it, is, um, people that do know me. Um, I, I mean, in the Philippines where I live most- a lot of the year, I mean, I dine with police officers and people like that, and they all, homicide cops, it's America, the same, but I do. But, um, occasionally somebody says, "Oh, I think I saw you on the TV. You know, you're the criminologist," or something. But to me it's just another job, Chris. I mean, it's just another job.

    7. CW

      (laughs) I suppose it is. It's the same for everyone, right? It's just par for the course. Um, so the first question, the burning question I've got for you is, what is it like to sit down and interview these people? Even having had this huge, long, illustrious career that you have with a lot of experience, is there still... Is it still quite an odd experience to go in? And, and also, do you get scared?

    8. CB

      Um, to answer the last question first, I never get scared. Um, if I got scared, they'd smell it. Um, they, they can sense it. They're like a beast in a cage. And if you get scared, you lose the battle with them instantly because they're control freaks, they're psychopaths, um, and the minute you do that, you've got to come down to their level straight away. It can be fascinating. It really is fascinating. Uh, they're all different, being up very close and personal, touching. Some are chained up, some aren't. Um, death can be a heartbeat away for you. They can lose the plot. But it's knowing their back history before you go there, normally having corresponded with them sometimes for years, so you- there is this interpersonal relationship. You know how far you can push them, you know what pushes their buttons, you know what annoys them, um, and it's about manipulation and mind control. So I, I never get scared. I, I, I'm in control. They think they're in control, but I'm in control.

    9. CW

      You, uh, you had a, a good example of that the first character in your new Talking With Serial Killers book, Dead Men Talking, John Robinson. I think that was probably a pretty good example of someone who thought he was in control-

    10. CB

      Right.

    11. CW

      ... and that you turned the tables on him, right?

    12. CB

      Yeah, yeah, yeah. Homicidal dough boy. Yeah.

    13. CW

      (laughs) Yeah, that was how you described him.

    14. CB

      I said that actually on a, a, a TV series. I think it was called Born To Kill or something, and they had the crew on the floor in stitches. And I said, "Are you gonna leave that in?" And they said, "Yeah, we'll leave it in." So that's great. But that's what he was. I mean, you do look at him, he was, he was, he was just full of bullshit. I mean, you know, he, he's a cartoon character really if you a- if you take away all the horror of his crimes and his manipulations, there is black humor there.

    15. CW

      Mmm.

    16. CB

      You know?

  3. 5:30 – 8:37

    Getting them to talk: bait, ego, and access through correspondence

    1. CW

      So why do these serial killers open up to you at all? Why, why you?

    2. CB

      Well, interesting question. Um, I think if we come away from serial killers, we go to John Cannan who murdered Shirley Banks in Bristol, definitely to Suzy Lamplugh, um, and certainly Sandra Court in Bournemouth. Uh, to give you an idea, um, when his case, when he was finally locked up for life, um, I, I wrote to him to say that I wanted to write a book about him.... um, and he came back very cocky and said, um, "Oh, well, no. I've got, I've got dozens of authors and publishers want my exclusive story." So then, I got John Blake, my publisher to, sort of, send me some pictures of my book covers, and I sent him those with a letter saying, "Well, thanks very much. I really wanted your assistance. I think you've been stitched up by the police, John. I'll write the story without your cooperation. Thanks a lot." So I put him between a rock and a hard place. And I tried to use the same fishing techniques with women and male serial killers in finding out what their wants and their needs are. It's like beach fishing. You, you know where the fish swim, like Robinson, you know what he wants, but it's a case of casting the right bait to catch him. Uh, with Melanie Maguire, who's in that book, The Ice Queen, she was in New Jersey, upscale woman, good lifestyle, chopped up her husband and threw him in bits and pieces in the Chesapeake Bay. But, but, but she had hundreds of letters and publishers wanting her, so I wrote on conqueror, cream conqueror paper, like this. This laid, laid stuff, this cream stuff, with an envelope, and then I put my family crest wax seal on it, and I sprayed it with, um, Chanel Egoiste. So when she opened the letter, she's got an airmail stamp from England, which makes it different. It's classy stationary. She opens it and there's this sense, this smell, that she remembers. Egoiste, oh yeah. And it's something that she'll come back to, because this, it's a sensory thing. So I used that bait with her.

    3. CW

      It's interesting that you managed to get yourself through the door using, by, um, finding out what these people want. What it is that they want and then dangling that. But how about when you actually sit down with them? Have you got a process? Obviously, you s- you tend to spend a lot of time corresponding back and forth.

    4. CB

      Yeah.

    5. CW

      But when you eventually do get face-to-face with them, what, uh, you know, what is it that you're doing, what is it that you're saying or the way that you're acting which is encouraging them to give away more than they usually should?

  4. 8:37 – 11:30

    Interview tactics that police can't use: comfort, entrapment, and the end game

    1. CB

      Well, one of the tricks of the trade, if you like, is one thing that law enforcement, my friends in the FBI, um, uh, will tell you and British police, you can't, br- br- po- police can't use entrapment. They can't use, they can't entrap a, a, a person.

    2. CW

      Yeah.

    3. CB

      So, but I can. And, and it's really about making them feel comfortable with you, and you letting them know that although that you're on their side, but you know you're not on their side. And you are, you're chatting really. And now there could be an end game to it for me, like with Arthur Shawcross, I wanted him to, to confess to the murder of a little school boy called Jack Blake. And he, he, he told me, you know, he uses the language now, but he was inches away from me and, and the guard said, "If he loses the plot, he could tear your head off, Christopher, and we won't be in the room." Now, with Shawcross, he, he, he literally boiled over. He went white, his face went white, sweat pouring down his face when I mentioned Jack Blake. He told me not to ever mention it, otherwise he'd kill me. And he, and he was well, I leant forward and touched his knee, and I said to him, "Well, your girlfriend Clara is waiting outside, and she's asked me to be the best man at your wedding, Arthur. And she's going to go ape if you don't tell me the whole truth." And then his face, it's, there's in a TV, there's a TV interview or you can see it online on the program, and, and, and, um, he cracked. And the fury went, and he, he confessed. Uh, and it's a case of sometimes they'll eyeball you, and they will say something bragging about, like Michael Ross did, the strangulation marks, multiple marks around his v- victim's neck, so he got a kick out of that. He giggled. And then I looked at him straight in the face and said to him, "Mike, you know, you're not a big serial killer really are you? I mean seven or eight, you're not Ted Bundy, give me a break, come on boy." And he just looked stunned. And then he went on to try to describe more about what he'd done. You know? And, and I got two cold cases I cleared up with him, which were Xun Not Tu at Cornell University, and a, a little girl called Kimberly, Kimberly Logan in, um, Crystal Run. So, it depends how you play it. I mean, sometimes it's a serious matter because you're there to try to, try to bring closure to the next of kin.

    4. CW

      Mm-hmm.

    5. CB

      And you're the only person going to talk to him. So there is a heavy side of it.

    6. CW

      It seem, I mean, the s- the fact that you've said that you don't get scared and yet there is a guy that says "I'll fucking kill you," you know that the police or the, the guards are far enough away for him to be able to do some serious damage before they could get in. Like that takes, that takes some balls.

  5. 11:30 – 15:51

    Face-to-face intimidation and dominance: Kenneth Bianchi and pushing boundaries

    1. CB

      Well, with, uh, with Kenneth Bianchi, the notorious Hill- Hillside Strangler, I interviewed him at the Washington State Penitentiary in a small room. And there was only a wooden table between us, a small table. And he's got the eyes of a great white shark, black, and they don't blink. And it, you're looking into the face of evil. You can smell it. And he's a big guy. He's strong. They do weights every day at yard time, you know, they're a load of fucking idiots. So anyway, he's sitting across this table and he's eyeballing me. And I just kept looking at him, and I got up and I walked round to his side of the table and I put my arm round him and I whispered in his ear, and I said, "Listen, you fucking miserable motherfucker." I said, "Give me a smile. Come on."... and he cracked. And that was all.

    2. CW

      (laughs)

    3. CB

      But, but as he left the room after the hour, he turned around, and so the guards let him out, 'cause I was the only one in the room with him. He turned around and said, "If you ever come near me again, I'll kill you."

    4. CW

      Do you think he meant it?

    5. CB

      Well, I saw him... Yeah. But I saw him twice after that. I saw him one on exercise yard when it was snowing, and then he walked, he walked past in a sort of blue jacket with a baseball c-, uh, with a wooly hat on, a long, long row of cons. And I literally was within feet of him, and he just looked down. He wouldn't do, he wouldn't look at me. Then I saw him again up on the special housing unit, and he told me that he had a special house which he calls his cell. It was the best cell in the whole prison, in the penitentiary, because he was a top man. But really, it... And I wanted to see his house. So I had the run of the prison, even death row. I mean, I could go when I wanted to. And I walked out, and the guard said, "Christopher, do not step over that yellow line, because they throw feces and pee at you." And I walked down the tier, and I walked back, and then I crossed the line, and I walked up to Bianchi's tiniest little cell, and he was asleep on his bunk with headphones on. And I said to him, "Kenny! Kenny! It's your friend, Chris. I've come to see you in your house."

    6. CW

      (laughs)

    7. CB

      He went ape.

    8. CW

      You are a very ballsy man, an incredibly ballsy man.

    9. CB

      I've u- I've unlocked... I've had unlocked, because I had the run of the place, about seven inmates, six inmates on death row in the, in the Washington State Penitentiary, and I sat round with them in a semicircle on the floor. Got some gar- got some Coca-Cola, got some candy, and I sat down. I'd spoke to the shot caller, who, who... the number one con on the, that wing, and I said to him, "Is it okay if I unlock and we can chat?" And we sat down for nearly, what, three-quarters of an hour, maybe. Didn't discuss their crimes, just discussed life and everything. No threat at all. No threat at all. Because you've got to remember, and your listeners, your viewers have got to remember, these people, most of these men will kill innocent women and children. They will not front up to a man.

    10. CW

      Why?

    11. CB

      They're all mouth and trousers. They're all mouth and trousers. They're cowards. Any man that kills young children or elderly people or vulnerable gays is nothing more than a coward, a gutless coward. So that's the way it works. That's the way life-

    12. CW

      And that's why, that's why it's important for what you said at the beginning, for you to go in, to not show fear, to have this image, because that weakness is what they're looking for.

    13. CB

      Exactly.

    14. CW

      I get it.

    15. CB

      That's how they screw up, that's how they screw up the psychiatrists' brains and minds, because th- they know they can run rings around psychiatrists. They know a lot of the time they can run rings around the cops. But what they can't do is they get stuck in a corner with me when they think, "Oh, Christopher's gonna write a book all about me. He's gonna make a TV program. I'm gonna be famous." The, the, the s- the stuff before they start, that's the point. I can tell the next one, "I've been on a podcast with you and we're famous." They love it. (laughs)

    16. CW

      That's it, man. I mean, uh, p- probably, probably keep me anonymous. If, if it's, if it's okay. Keep my, keep my name anonymous.

    17. CB

      Oh. Cool.

  6. 15:51 – 19:52

    Death row culture and prison hierarchy: respect, lockdowns, and controlled comforts

    1. CW

      But I guess they're behind bars. What are they gonna do? Um, so your new book, Dead Men Talking, looks at killers that are on death row. Is there anything different about the dynamic with these people in that they're on death row rather than just potentially serving life in prison?

    2. CB

      Um, I've walked what they call many a Green Mile. You remember the film with Stephen King, The Green Mile? Of course, they're not green at all. They're pastel shades sometimes. Um, they are not no longer like we, we see in The Green Mile. They're not so antiquated. Uh, San Quentin, um, the, uh, condemned row at San Quentin State Prison is pretty grim. Um, but there is a certain amount of... They are dead men walking, and, and they are... They come to the end of the line. Th- their only hope is that the Lord will save them and get them a reduced sentence or off the hook before they're given the goodnight juice. So there is that certain quietness. Now, if you come down a level or up a level from death row, you get the special housing units where they're completely bonkers, and it's like being at London Zoo on a crazy day. They're screeching and throwing shit at each other and howling and spitting. It's like a madhouse. But-

    3. CW

      Is, is that with the ones with psychia- the psychiatric problems?

    4. CB

      Um, no, not all of them. They're just like... But the, the death row inmates are like a... Or l- let's just say, th- they're more... they've got more respect. They've done the ultimate crime. Now, if they may be a child killer, then they're gonna be sort of put to one side. But the point is there is that sort of a hierarchy in the prison system where a death row inmate is... When I go to interview a death row inmate, they lock down the prison if I want him out of his cell. There's a complete lockdown of the whole facility. Th- nothing moves. And then they bring the inmate shackled with guards, immaculately dressed guards either side of them, and he's shackled up. And they'll bring him to you, and it will be up to me whether I decide whether I want them comfortable and unshackled or, "I want to get them a bar of candy or Coca-Cola."... and quite often I'll tell the guards, "Get him this or get him that," and the inmate likes that because the guards are telling the inmate what to do every day, and here am I telling them what to do. But it's all prearranged. It's all like a soap opera, really.

    5. CW

      Mm-hmm. Mm. So, i- it gives, gives that impression that you're on their side, "Look, this is us working together. I'm one of you," et cetera, et cetera. So, do you tend to prefer to have the inmates without restraints to make them feel more comfortable when you can?

    6. CB

      Yeah, I think one of the only, I mean, sometimes they're behind a screen, like Kenneth McDuff, uh, death row Ellis unit before he was executed in Texas. Um, he was behind, some are behind screens, which is great. Douglas Clark, the Sunset Slayer, in San Quentin Prison, he was heavily shackled, but he, he was going ape. I mean, he was really in a foul mood. It took me ages to calm him down before we got the cameras rolling. But with Dougie, it was a matter of him attacking the guards, not attacking me, so that's the difference.

    7. CW

      Mm-hmm.

    8. CB

      With Michael Ross and some of the other killers, like Shawcross and some of the others, I will say, "Look, if you're gonna behave yourself, we'll get the shackles taken off and we'll get some Coke and we'll get some candy down here and we'll gonna have a nice comfortable chat. But don't mess me about, 'cause you'll go back down the hole." And then that's it.

    9. CW

      I get it. Okay, so we've got a good understanding there of the process of how you're speaking to them, how you build rapport, stuff like that.

    10. CB

      Mm-hmm.

  7. 19:52 – 22:40

    Are serial killers similar? Excuses, "psychopathologies," and dark humor

    1. CW

      I wanna get into the, um, actual pathology, the way that these guys and these women think. Um, first question is, is there a common theme among serial killers? U- upon reading this most recent book of yours, they, they come from all IQ points, there's different backgrounds, there's different approaches. You got one person, uh, one killer who's putting people into barrels to leave them to liquidate in their own fluids. You've got another that's eating the ears, uh, of the victims that he kills. You know, it, it seems to be all over the place. So, what are the commonalities, or are there any?

    2. CB

      Can I ask you a question? We're social distancing at the moment, aren't we?

    3. CW

      Yes.

    4. CB

      Presently now.

    5. CW

      Yes.

    6. CB

      Can I smoke? 'Cause I like a cigarette.

    7. CW

      Absolutely. That's absolutely fine by me.

    8. CB

      (laughs) I don't want the smoke to upset you.

    9. CW

      No, not at all. I can't s- I can't smell it through the, uh, through the microphone anyway.

    10. CB

      All right. Okay. Um, they have different psychopathologies. Okay? None of them are the same. They're all totally different. The- they are... Every single one of them, you try to look for something common amongst them and you can't find it. What they will tell you is that they were abused as a child, or had a bad upbringing, or they were badly potty-trained, or they were only allowed to drink green top milk but they wanted blue top milk. There's all sorts of bullshit excuses for why they do what they do.

    11. CW

      (laughs)

    12. CB

      You got Peter Sutcliffe saying it was the word of God when he was digging a grave to kill prostitutes. But then he didn't just kill working girls, did he? He killed, he killed innocent ordinary girls, c- classy girls. Uh, the same with Harvey the Hammer, the Carrig- Harvey the Ha- Hammer Carrignan in the Minnesota Correctional Facility. 50 victims. Um, when he went to trial, he, he said that God told him to kill these women. And he wore a white robe and some leather throng sandals. And when, when he got sentenced to life in prison, his lawyers... He had to go for another trial and his lawyer turned around to him and said, "Look, Harvey," he said, "God didn't help you last time, I don't think he's gonna help you next time." The- I mean, they are. Some... I mean, I know it's black humor, but, I mean, you're t- It's a serious subject, but, you know, when, when you're there when they're exhuming a body that you've helped get out of the ground, like in Waco, the cops are actually very, very loving and careful with the corpse and everything else. But there is a little bit of black humor going around. It has to, 'cause it releases the pressure.

    13. CW

      Mm-hmm.

    14. CB

      'Cause they're as well. So, they're all... The answer to your question is short, I- they're all different.

  8. 22:40 – 27:36

    The mask of normality: families, camouflage, and why partners miss it

    1. CW

      That's an interesting one. What I found to be interesting was that some of the murderers are so brutal toward their victims, and yet they have families and they have children that they care about. Or that at least they don't mistreat. For instance, John Robinson, who is, there's a full 80 pages dedicated to him, and he's got a wife of, like, 20 years, five children, and yet alongside that was committing all of these atrocious crimes.

    2. CB

      Yeah. But, uh, I think that's an easy one to answer, and I think your, your viewers were gonna love this bit. They don't love them. How, how can you love a woman and commit adultery for umpteen years, and going round raping and killing women that he's lured into his web of deceit? H- how, how can any man love a woman or love their children if they're doing that? BTK, another one, the Green River Killer. They've all got families. I've just written a book, coming out soon, called Sleeping with Serial Killers, about women who live with these men all the ti- How... Because the thing about Sonia Sutcliffe, God bless her, I mean, and I know she's caused a lot of problems, but she never knew that Peter was a serial killer until the police knocked on and, you know, arrested him. How can you love, how can you love a woman, or a woman love a man, and, uh, and then commit those terrible crimes? It does... It... I'll tell you what it is, Chris, it's a matter of wearing a mask of normality.... it's presenting yourself to your neighbors and your business colleagues, "I'm married and I've got kids. Look, we got a nice house. We mow the yard every Sunday. We go barbecues. We go church." But it's all bullshit, because it's hiding the monster living within.

    3. CW

      Hmm.

    4. CB

      It's the mask of evil.

    5. CW

      It's, um-

    6. CB

      It's their camou- It's like their camouflage. It's their social camouflage. It's like the ghillie suits that, um, a gamekeeper will use when he's shooting to hide himself. I was in the, I was in the, the... I, I, I've got really, this is really quite a, a lovely little thing. I was in Manila, um, and I went to this big, massive aquarium. It's one of the best in the world. And I was looking at all these little glass cases in the creepy crawly section. And as you notice, I've got glasses on. My eyesight was not the best, and I was peering through this glass trying to see something in it. And there was, like, sand and there was, like, twigs, and I couldn't see anything. I kept looking to see if the exhibit closed or something. But there, tucked away, little two black eyes peering out of the sand waiting for another creepy crawly to come along and kill it.

    7. CW

      Mm-hmm.

    8. CB

      Or a little twig thing that moved. And that's what serial killers are like. They're camouflaged. Nobody sees them, nobody knows they're there, nobody knows they're coming, and then they strike. (snaps fingers)

    9. CW

      It seems unbelievable that you could be the partner of a murderer, an abuser, someone who has this crazy other side to their world and not know, but as you've identified, there are examples where the partners-

    10. CB

      There's loads. I mean, Jerry Woodward.

    11. CW

      So how, how, how, how can you not... You know, it, it, to me, I just think, why didn't, why wouldn't someone have thought?

    12. CB

      Well, the thing is, in a lot of cases, um, in a lot of cases, the red flags pop up. A lot of cases, the woman will know, "Hang on. He, he's doing something strange today," or, "He's not acting right," or, "There's money missing out of the bank. I wonder what he's doing." There are red flags. Unfortunately, a lot of women don't spot those red flags. That's what this book about, Sleeping with Killers, is about. It's looking at the red flags. Um, Michael Sams, who killed, um, the young prostitute in, um, in the Midlands, up in the Yorkshire way. Um, there were so many red flags with Tina Sams, who I interviewed. I met p- I met, uh, Michael Sams in Full Sutton Prison. Um, there were so many red flags there. She just ignored him. He trod all over her. He conned and lied and everything else. He didn't love her, but the minute he got locked up in prison, out come all the love letters. "I miss you," blah, blah. "But can you send me some money, Tina?" "I want these railway magazines." At the same time, in the Sunday newspaper, there's a picture of a woman called Vi- Vicki Vincelli, who had bust about a 44, parading herself outside the prison gates for visits, and it's Michael Sams' piece of stuff. (coughs)

  9. 27:36 – 32:02

    True crime obsession and "murder groupies": fame, fixation, and exploitation

    1. CW

      I- I'm blown away by this. I, um, I... Since reading the book, I've been thinking a lot about our modern day obsession with serial killers, with true crime. The popularity of series on podcasts like Serial and Up And Vanished. It's huge. There is this resurgence or asurgence in popularity in this, and, um, I put a tweet out about it and got sent, literally just before we came live, I got sent a photo of a T-shirt that a girl said to me, "This is exactly what you were talking about." And it's a girl's T-shirt that says, "Probably eating or thinking about serial killers." And I was like, "That's it right there," like, that... I know so many girls that love true crime, that adore it. What do you think it is?

    2. CB

      Well, but it's great, but the extreme, the extreme of that, I mean, everybody's entitled to that, but what are called murder groupies. So you've got hundreds of women are writing, and men are writing to women killers as well. Like the retired major from Badley Salterton, he's writing to some hooker in prison serving life. He's seen a beautiful, she sent him beautiful pictures which are really fake of ones of a girl in a... Russian model. He thinks he's falling in love. He's sending her money. You got the murder groupies. You got the murder groupies that marry these people in prison. They want the killers babies, for God's sake.

    3. CW

      Why?

    4. CB

      But they don't see... Well, because they're just posses- they're just possessed. I mean, look, Keith Hunter-Jespersen, The Happy Face Killer, another one of my guys. He has hundreds of girls. He's six foot seven, I think, a truck, interstate trucker. He sent me files of love letters and photographs of the girls boasting about, "Oh, look, another one wants me. Another one's coming to visit next week." And one of them, and this is quite disgusting, was what I thought was a lipstick imprint on the note paper. In fact, I've written about this in the book. And I, I thought, "Oh, somebody's given a, a kiss with lipstick on." And he wrote underneath, when I first saw it, he said that, "Oh, that's not lipstick. That's menstrual blood." (laughs)

    5. CW

      (laughs) Well, that's two firsts that we can chalk up this evening, Christopher. Your first podcast, and the first time in about 200 episodes that the term menstrual blood has ever been used. So, I mean, what is going on? What is the obsession here? Is it that the, the women find this level of dominance and aggression, uh, and, and, um-... undiluted masculinity attractive? Is that what it is?

    6. CB

      Jim, now, the- you asked me a question I haven't got the answer 'cause I can't get inside. I mean, I don't understand women at the best of times.

    7. CW

      (laughs)

    8. CB

      Let alone somebody that writes to some cannibal who's been in the vagina of some woman. I mean, that was Arthur Shawcross. I mean, the girl wanted to marry him. But the thing is, they don't seem to get it. They don't think, "Oh, I better go and look at the scenes of crime photographs and see if I can get those through the Freedom of inform- information Act in America, or I'll go online and see what, what he did to these people." That's stupid. That's it. Thick. Stupid.

    9. CW

      It's dangerous, man. It really is, I suppose-

    10. CB

      That's what 80 year- 80-year-old women are writing to some, what they, a big black hunk in Florida who calls himself Florida's finest chocolate. And she's in love with him. And he's, he's, she's sending him money every week, but he's got a dozen or so women like sending him money. It is a lunacy. They ought to be locked up. They ought to sit in an electric chair for 10 minutes and see what it feels like.

    11. CW

      I'm doing something wrong here because-

    12. CB

      (laughs)

    13. CW

      ... I'm, I'm, I'm 32 and single, and these guys have just got harems of women chasing after them, giving them money, real chocolate, or whatever he's called over in Florida, having a whale of a time.

    14. CB

      Yeah, but there's, there's a big difference. You're imprisoned in your own home like I am right now. They're gonna sit in an electric chair.

  10. 32:02 – 33:55

    Victim selection and sexual motive: victimology, patterns, and exceptions

    1. CW

      That is true. Um, so we understand that there aren't necessarily any commonalities between the killers, the way that they, the reasons that they kill, their justification for it, both publicly and privately are all different. What about commonalities between the victims that they go for? You mentioned that they tend to be weaker people like women, children.

    2. CB

      Yeah. Women, children, the elderly, the vulnerable in society. Um, most serial killers have what they call their own victimology, their own preferred victim type. And now your viewers can go online and they can look up Ted Bundy's victims, and you'll see they almost look all of them like sisters, sorority sisters, in fact. They were, most of them were sorority sisters. You couldn't have they, you line 'em up, they'd all look the same. Long hair, same looks, same ages, that sort of thing. That's what turned Bundy on. That sort. You've got Henry Lucas and Otis Toole. Now, I interviewed Henry, um, when old dear old Henry down in, um, Flo- in Texas, um, while he w- was on the row. He was subsequently, um, uh, given a life sentence then he died of natural causes, by the then, um, president who was buh- uh, the governor then was Bush, I think it was. But, but they went for everything. I mean, they mur- they, they, they raped and murdered chickens and dogs and cats and young girls and children and old men and old ladies. I mean, they, they went through the whole shebang. They did everything. I mean, there's a lot of frightened chickens in Texas, I can tell you.

    3. CW

      (laughs) That's, that is that dark humor that we were talking about again, isn't it? Um, why is there often an element of sex involved in the crimes, and is there, is it almost always that there's some sort of sexual gratification going on?

  11. 33:55 – 43:03

    Executions and capital punishment: from Singapore hangings to deterrence debates

    1. CB

      With serial killers, certainly. Um, the, the, I think the only serial killer I've ever interviewed that wasn't sexually motivated was, um, John Scripps from the Isle of Wight. Uh, he was 34 years old. Uh, I watched him being hanged in Changi Prison years ago. It was on my birthday, the 18th of April, funny enough.

    2. CW

      Happy birthday. (laughs)

    3. CB

      Um, the police, the police, the police gave me a presentation mug when I left the country with, um, with a picture of, um, a man hanging from a tree. But, but John, he, he killed for money. He, he, he, he'd gone to Cancun and he murdered a, a young, um, uni guy called, um, Timothy McDowall, um, got him to give him his PIN numbers, and then he chopped and fed him to the alligators. Then later on in his, he went to prison then years later for drug smuggling. Um, he got 15 years, but he walked out of a prison, an open prison about two years later, after telling everybody he was gonna escape. He just walked out of the gate. Nobody took any notice. Um, and he was taught butchery skills on the Isle of Wight by a prison officer called Quigley, and he learned how to dismember carcasses while in prison. So the prison taught him how to dismember victims. So he then went to, um, Singapore where he met, uh, a South African businessman called Gerard George Low, who was in Singapore buying electrical stuff 'cause it was cheaper back in those days. It's not anymore, it's more expensive, but then it was. And, and, uh, they shared the same hotel room, and then John hit him with a camping hammer and then got his PIN number, extracted his PIN number out of him, and then he took, dragged him into the bathroom, and then he stuck a knife in his neck and bled him to death, chopped him up, put him in suitcases and dumped them into the, into the Singapore Bay. Then he went straight to t- did a bit more shopping, went to the opera on his business card. He went to Thailand, he went to Phuket, he met Sheila and her son, Darren Damude, who was on a gap leave 'cause he'd broken his leg. Uh, he stayed at Nilly's Inn w- uh, Nilly's Marina Inn in Phuket on the beach there. Uh, he killed them both. He stunned them with a stun gun, dismembered them, put their bodies down a mine shaft. But like an idiot, he went back to Singapore, and by then the body bo- the body parts of Gerard Low had popped up in the Singapore harbor. Gerard Lim, Detective Superintendent Gerald Lim, who I know very well, he put out a hotel call for anybody not paying their bills, the name of Low.... and he trapped, they caught John, and then they hanged him. And I, I interviewed John, um, on the Monday before his execution. And I said to him, "John, why didn't you appeal?" He said, "They won't hang me, Chris. I'm British." (laughs) By Friday, they'd tore his head off.

    4. CW

      (laughs)

    5. CB

      Well, they hung him between two Thai bandits. He r- refused to be weighed for the drop. He put ... he did put up a spirited fight, but they broke his nose and his jaw. They put ... they stripped him naked, and then they put him on the drop between two Thai bandits. And they-

    6. CW

      What's, what's a Thai bandit, sorry?

    7. CB

      Thai, Thai, T- Tha- They were Thais. Two, two, two-

    8. CW

      Oh, Thai bandits. Sorry. Yeah.

    9. CB

      Yeah. Not, not the ones you get from a shop like 2 Club's a Thai shop.

    10. CW

      Yeah.

    11. CB

      And, and then, and then what happened was they ... I, I was doing some stuff with APTV at the time, and I was g- ... I covered the execution. And, um, and then I went to the cremation and, um, interviewed the Thai ambassador. And then they had to bring his ashes back to England. So we, we had a little draw who was gonna keep the ashes in their bedroom, but I rigged it. I didn't want 'em.

    12. CW

      (laughs)

    13. CB

      But they, they hanged John. Yeah. They, uh, because he refused to be weighed, his head was nearly whipped off.

    14. CW

      Broken nose, broken jaw, naked, hung.

    15. CB

      Crapping himself. The other two guys were standing there as good as gold. He, he put up a fight. The priest at the time had been there for years and years and years, and he came outside and he wept, and he said to me, "Chris, Chris," he said, "I'm never gonna go to an execution again. That was terrible." Yeah.

    16. CW

      The struggle and the, the, the fact that it didn't go down smoothly, is that what disturbed the priest?

    17. CB

      Yeah. It was awful. I'd, I'd ... I've, I've seen a few executions in my time, shootings. I mean, I was in the Marines for years. I've seen a lot of executions and terrible things, but that was an execution that, you know, you look back at it and you think, "My God." The reason he was naked was because they, they, they told him to get out of his prison shorts. He had flip-flops and prison shorts. Because if you went to the gallows with those, you soiled the shorts, and then they gotta wash 'em. So they told him to put his civilian clothes on, and he said no. And with that, they just dragged him out of his cell, whole load of 'em, beat the hell out of him. He didn't ... he, he put up a fight.

    18. CW

      (sighs) Whether capital punishment is justified or not is a, uh, sort of a much longer question for a different time, but that does seem a little barbaric to have-

    19. CB

      Well, they-

    20. CW

      ... someone naked ho- in the 21st century-

    21. CB

      Yeah.

    22. CW

      ... being hanged.

    23. CB

      Well, yeah. I mean, Jesse DeFero in America, he went up in flames 'cause the, the electric chair was al- ... it was like, um, Edouard Delacroix in, in The, in The Green Mile. It was exactly the same scenario. The bloke caught fire, screaming.

    24. CW

      It wasn't, wasn't, um, properly calibrated, wasn't wetted?

    25. CB

      No, no. No, they just ... it was a botched up old electric chair. They tried to fix it, but they wouldn't repair it properly, and they fried him to death. I've seen ... I mean, uh, uh, that happens. But, but the point is- (coughs) on the matter of capital punishment, I'm quite often asked that question, and I always say, "Look, it's none of our damn business if the people in Texas are sick and tired of having their little babies and their mothers and their wives and their elderly people killed for a pocketful of change by scum." And these people know, like John Scripps did when he went to Singapore, there are signs everywhere, "You, you, you break our law, be it drug smuggling or murder, we will hang you don't matter what." Now, these people aren't insane when they commit these crimes, Chris. They know what they're doing is wrong. All the ... all ... and, and why should I legislate for people in Texas? That's up for them to decide, just like we wouldn't expect people to tell us to bring back hanging here. It's none ... it's, it's, it's horse courses. But these people ... I mean, Hill, Hindley and Brady should have been hung. No doubt about it. What horrific crimes they carried out, they shoulda been hung. But there are people out there saying, "Oh, no, no, God wouldn't like that. You know, we're all equal in the eyes of God." Well, you tell that to the parents of those murdered children, see what they say.

    26. CW

      I think the, the most ... the only compelling argument that I think I've heard against capital punishment is to do with the retribution versus a rehabilitation argument, that on one side it is a ... it's the law enacting revenge on behalf of the public, as opposed to it being, uh, an opportunity to try and rehabilitate people. But as you've mentioned there, there are crimes that are so heinous and people who are so far gone that you think, "Well, what's salv- what is left to salvage of this person?"

    27. CB

      Well, the first thing that your viewers must understand is you cannot reform or rehabilitate a psychopath. It's impossible. That's a fact of life. The second thing you should realize is that when these people commit these crimes, they know exactly what the punishment could be. Whether it acts as a deterrent or not, that ... in that knowledge is another matter. It didn't act as a deterrent for John Scripps. So the offender makes the decision. Judge Stewart Nam in Long Island one day ... and he's a hard-nosed judge. He s- ... No, it was Judge, Judge Stark. He told me ... he said to me, "Chris, society makes the laws." We have to live by these laws, otherwise it's anarchy. If an offender commits a heinous crime and knows that the death penalty is applicable-... then we really, we merely provide the rope. He's made a decision, and it's up to him. A simple analogy would be if you park your car on a double yellow line and get a ticket, don't complain about it. You knew what you were doing was wrong. That's a simple analogy.

  12. 43:03 – 56:03

    Who disturbed him most—and why: extreme evil, Bundy’s vanity, and justice failures

    1. CW

      You're right. You are right. Um, I want to ask, uh, across your very long career, re- kind of hitting the big, the big players in the world of murder and depravity, who are some of the ones that disturbed you the most or that played on your mind the most?

    2. CB

      (inhales) None of the ones I've interviewed have played on my mind. None at all. I'd, I think, I mean, John Blake, another one of my pub-... I mean, I'm, I'm published by Blake-Bonn here, but John Blake, my old publisher, John Blake, has just commissioned me to write a book called The 10 Worst Serial Killers in the World. I mean, uh, uh, yeah, I'm doing it. But I think one, one of the most heinous killers of all time was Peter Kürten, German guy. I mean, there are, there is, there are de- pre- pre- prey monsters and there are the devil's spawn. And Kürten was one of them. Bianchi, he murdered also two little schoolgirls in Los Angeles with Angela Buono. Um, I went to the body dumping site, um, above the canal there. Um, Dolores Rapida and Sonja Johnson, 12 years old. He, while, while Buono raped one little girl, the other girl said to Ken outside the bedroom door, "Where's, where's Sonja?" And Bianchi smugly looked at her and said, "You'll be seeing her in a minute." The last thing that little schoolgirl saw was her dead mutilated little friends laying on the bed beside her. They dumped the bodies naked on the hillside, and I've described, I've gotten to see the crime photographs. I've described it. I went out with Leroy Orozco, the lead detective, with a film crew. And, and the bod- the dumping site was a place where they dump trash, (paper rustles) and there was a sign right next to it all that says, "No dumping of rubbish here." And yet there's all this garbage scattered and two little girls. I mean, that is so sick. You can't imagine it.

    3. CW

      That's not the German guy though, right? Or was that the German guy?

    4. CB

      Oh, no. That was not... The last one, no, just before, that was Kenneth Bianchi, the Hillside Strangler.

    5. CW

      Yep.

    6. CB

      Now he, he's married three women in prison, and they've divorced him, and he's fleeced them of money. And he now is an ordained priest and a member of the American Bar Association. Now get your head around that.

    7. CW

      So this is, this... The multifaceted life that serial killers seem to lead, Ted Bundy re- uh, self-representing, you know, saying, "Oh, I, I, I'm gonna put my own case forward. I'd like to do my own..." Getting rid of his, um, representation at the time and then deciding that he was gonna step up, and, you know, someone that then becomes ordained and then passes the bar. Like, these, there's obviously a lot of momentum behind these individuals. They have capacity to do things. It's just that it's directed into such a heinous, destructive path.

    8. CB

      Coming back to Bundy, he was too clever for his own good. Um, when he eventually faced trial, when he eventually was arrested down in Florida, and, and I went to the, I've been to the Kiamega House where he killed, um, Liza Levy and Bowman and attempted to kill another one. And, um, I interviewed the cops there as well, quite interesting, um, thing. But I met his lawyer. What was the prosecutor or the lawyer? And he said, "Oh, Chris, here's something you might be interested in." He said, "This is what, what got Bundy the electric chair." And I thought, "What's this then?" And he held out a pair of white dentures, casts, white casts. He said, "Yeah, old days." I said, "Whose are these then?" (laughs) A pair of some teeth. He said, "That's Ted Bundy's original dentures that were taken after he was arrested." And I said to the lawyer, I said, "Well, he didn't have to give those to you, did he?" You know. He said, "We conned him." He said, "We told him because he was famous and the press would be in front of him, in front of the cameras all the time, he should look his best, and his teeth really needed some work." So they took... And he agreed because he was vain and he was a narcissistic little pig. And so they took these dentures, but then they compared those dentures with the bite marks on Liza Levy's buttocks.

    9. CW

      Mm-hmm.

    10. CB

      And that was the death sentence, too clever for his own good.

    11. CW

      I remember, I remember watching that in the documentary and, uh... I- hearing you speak about these individuals and, and the way that you write as well in the book, um, it's very evocative. Um, you, you put your own opinion into the way that you describe them as well. And I don't know whether it's simply because it's not my profession and I've never been exposed to them, but I just can't get over how ballsy it is. It, to me, it just f- it seems like such a brave thing to do, to spe- And I know it's stupid. Like Ted Bundy's gone, I can say whatever I want about him. But there's part of me that fears, still fears even the essence of them. Does that make sense? There's part of me-

    12. CB

      Yeah.

    13. CW

      ... that wants to almost distance myself from, from saying anything for fear that this creature in the night's going to somehow come and enact retribution.

    14. CB

      No, well, you're not... If you're a God... I'm a, I'm a pretty God-fearing person, believe it or not. I mean, I've, might not... I have, I have got a nicked copy of Gideon's Bible, which I carry with me.

    15. CW

      (laughs) You're not supposed to nick it. Christopher, come on.

    16. CB

      Well, no, sorry, I beg your pardon. No, it found its way into my suitcase. So it-

    17. CW

      (laughs) I promise, your honor. I promise.

    18. CB

      ... I didn't ... N- No, when the maid came and cleared out the room, and she was asking me, I said, "Oh, um," you know, I said, "I'm a God-fearing person." And I think she probably thought it was, it was my Bible, and she was very kind to put it in there. And, uh, a- as I was on a flight back to the UK from the Philippines, I, I thought, "Well, I better, better keep it." And I do, I do pray every night. I mean, I do, I do pray. I mean, I, I was on, um, a particularly horrible homicide in Manila, um, was it this year? Late last year, yeah, Halloween last year, um, a friend of mine, I won't say who he is, works at the American Embassy asked me, um, could I go and visit head of homicide in McCarthy in Manila. Um, it was a working girl that had been axed, tortured. Um, we did some pro... c- well, I did a bit of crime profiling. I've got some photographs of me with the major. They treated me like gold, and he's got some of my books now. But, but we caught the guy. He was a German guy. It was, it wasn't hard. But they're not particularly crime profile oriented out there in the Philippines. What they do is they catch somebody, then they shoot them dead. They don't worry, you know. And, uh, but this was a particularly high... I mean, I saw the... I, I, I... The girl died. She, she was beautiful. She was a working girl. She was only 32. She had two kiddies. She had to go on the streets to earn money. She was absolutely stunningly beautiful in life. And, um, they tied her up, tortured her, and the last thing that she did was one, one eye opened, and a tear ran down her cheek. And, um, and she died. Um, and when the, we, we got the guy within three days. I mean, it wasn't difficult to profile him because her body ended up a long way from where she was last seen in a nightclub. So that stands that the person must have had his own car. And then with... I, we got the CCTV, and there were other witnesses, and there was a tall guy they thought who was German with a tattoo on his shoulder. And me and the guy from the embassy, American Embassy, sat down with his girls 'cause they were reluctant to talk to the police. And one of them happened to mention in passing, "Oh, he's friends on Facebook." Thought, "What a crack." So went through the Facebook, and there's a list of contacts. And this girl says, said, "That's him." Now the thing was, I was flying back on the Sunday, on the 7th, I think it was. Um, business class flight to, uh, um, Em- to Dubai and then back to London with, uh, Emirates. And that morning, the police were gonna raid. They were gonna catch him that m... They, they said, "We're gonna get him, Chris." And they, and they said, "We're gonna smash it if it goes SWAT teams out there to go for him." And the, and the major said, "Look, Chris," he said, "you can have my gun," he said, "and you can shoot him if you like." I mean it. Don't mess about out there, I tell you.

    19. CW

      They are not messing about at all.

    20. CB

      No, I'm telling you this is God's truth. Later, I, I, I learned. I said, "Well, he'll get a life sentence." They said, "Oh, well, not really." And, uh, what they do is they take them to court in, in, like, a pickup, a truck with a, just a tarpaulin on the top and wooden benches. And the sides are up 'cause it's hot.

    21. CW

      Mm.

    22. CB

      And two motorcycles with a pass- pillion passenger drew up alongside with crash helmets on and shot his, blew his head off. That was it. Peace. Why bother with a trial? (coughs)

    23. CW

      It's a lot, (laughs) a, a lot quicker and simpler to just kill them on the way there.

    24. CB

      Yeah, well, yeah. Saves all the problem with the embassies and all this sort of stuff, and that was all done and dusted.

    25. CW

      That is insane. And so tell us about the, the German fella that you mentioned, the one that you said was pretty disturbing.

    26. CB

      Peter Kurten. If you look up evil and depraved in a Roget's Thesaurus for depravity, and then look at all the synonyms that go all the way down that list, he's one of them. In fact, if you look up depraved in the dictionary, Peter Kurten's face will be looking back at you.

    27. CW

      Why?

    28. CB

      He was... I can tell you 'cause I've just started a chapter on him. I'd put, "How can one possibly sum up sadist sexual serial killer Peter Kurten? In an effort to answer this question, one might require Roget's Thesaurus and look up depraved. Since, to the synonyms running along these lines, sexual pervert, beastly and evil, genius, vile, base, corrupt, contemptible, murderous, et cetera, et cetera. A putrid, nauseous, loathsome, diabolic example of the devil's spawn might be our starting point."

    29. CW

      Fairly big headline. Fairly big headline.

    30. CB

      A very nasty little man.

  13. 56:03 – 58:31

    Psychiatry, parole, and lethal mistakes: Shawcross and the failure to detect manipulation

    1. CW

      Well, you mentioned earlier on, you said, "Psychopaths are essentially irredeemable."

    2. CB

      Yeah.

    3. CW

      That there, there's nothing... And, um, I think it was Ar- I wanna say Arthur Shawcross but it might not be, someone that was part of one of the series that you're involved in I was watching earlier on, and, um, they were let out after s- serving 18 months of good behavior, and upon that happening then reentered into society.

    4. CB

      Well, Shawc- Shawcross, Shawcross did 15 years of a 23-year sentence and, and the psychiatrist said at the parole board, "Oh, he's fit to be released," and he went on killing about, well, prostitutes.

    5. CW

      Very well may have been that. So I mean, what, like, what, what does this mean for the... How, how are we supposed to litigate against this, you know? What do we do?

    6. CB

      Well, the problem is, what you've got to remember, and um, and I say this in my books and I'll say it to you now and I'll tell all the readers when I say it on TV as well, half the time these psychiatrists that let these people out haven't got a clue. They live on another planet. They live in a world where lead balls bounce, fairies reign supreme, and elephants fly. They're fools. In, in fact, in some of the cases, the psychiatrists are more mad than the people they're representing or analyzing, and that's a fact.

    7. CW

      Getting it wrong, the price of getting this sort of an assessment wrong, or being outwitted by a serial killer, is-

    8. CB

      Yeah.

    9. CW

      ... 15 lives, as you just identified with Arthur Shawcross.

    10. CB

      Um, well, Sh- Sh- Shawcross wheedled his way into the prison psychiatric unit and he learned the, the psychobabble speak, and he, and he was counseling other inmates. This is a fact. And so, when he came up for parole, oh, he's reformed, he's tweaked, spun, and he onto them. Next minute, he's killing prostitutes by the handful (chair creaks) , chewing their vaginas, he's spitting the bones out, and going eating Dunkin' Donuts with the cops and listening to who they're trying to catch.

    11. CW

      Yeah, that was it. So, there was this story about one of the cops that was part of the investigation came and sat next to him on the stoop, right, and he had shiny shoes on. A- Arthur had shiny shoes and, like, he looked quite smart, and because this investigation was so wide-ranging, the cop came and sat next to him and started-

    12. CB

      Yep.

    13. CW

      ... sort of telling him about all of the different things that were going on-

    14. CB

      Yep.

    15. CW

      ... they said, "Oh, we're, we're looking for him because he just presumed he's got shiny shoes on, he must be a policeman."

  14. 58:31 – 1:08:32

    Letting a killer into his home: Paul Beecham, mental illness vs psychopathy, and compassion

    1. CB

      Yeah. I mean, it, it just, it, it, the psych- (chair creaks) I mean, I interviewed Paul Beecham at Broadmoor Hospital years ago. I interviewed Ronnie Kray as well, funny enough. But he was a mass murderer, Paul. He was a great artist, he loved painting, we struck up a good relationship and then he, he met a woman called, I think Paula Riddlesworth, who was a social worker, went to the, went to the hospital. Um, and then he was released, but, um, I, I tried... you know. And, and this is a true story. And he came to stay with me at my cottage in lum- in Curdrige in Hampshire, and we talked about painting. We took my two gun dogs. I had guns, funny enough, I kept them in the garage when he visited. But I went, and we went on, along the river at Winchester and we talked about stuff. And then that night I went to bed and in the morning I woke up and the kitchen was spotless, and there was a note saying, "Christopher, I'll never be as good artist as you." He said, "I've got to go now. I'm, I, I've got to go, enough is enough." A week later he, he bludgeoned his wife to death and buried her under the patio, then he took the shotgun and blew his head off. Now, what I couldn't understand was, when I was visiting with Paul in the autumn, we were walking around the grounds at Broadmoor and there was a guy raking up leaves. And Paul said to me, "That man's a psychiatrist." I said, "No he's not, Paul. He's one of your mates in here locked up." He said, "Chris, he's a psychiatrist." He said, "He turns into a fly at night and watches me." He picked up... he walked over to this guy, took the rake off, and smacked him round the head with a rake. And he said, "He won't come into my cell tonight and buzz around." (laughs) And they let him out of Broadmoor. They let him out.

    2. CW

      But then you let him, you let him into your house.

    3. CB

      Yeah, because there was something about Paul that I felt very, very safe with. Um, he was very funny, he had a very boyish laugh about him, but he was fascinated with oil paintings and he produced some of the most beautiful copy oil painters. And I, I, I had one for years actually, The Green Lady. Um, and I am quite a well-known oil painter as well. And, um, we both hit it off. I mean, I hit it off with Peter Sutcliffe because Peter Sutcliffe was doing watercol- uh, watercolors at the time in Broadmoor, so we had that...... thing about painting. So, you don't always go in like a bull in a china shop. Sometimes it's finding out, like I said, what paint to use.

    4. CW

      I get that, but letting someone into your house that you know is capable of this, and by definition-

    5. CB

      Yeah.

    6. CW

      ... the fact that within a week or a couple of weeks later he then-

    7. CB

      Yeah.

    8. CW

      ... went, committed a crime, committed suicide. Like, it's ob- it's obvious that it wasn't... he hadn't rid himself of this. I've just, again, I just keep coming back to the fact that I can't... it's a big pair of brass balls-

    9. CB

      Well-

    10. CW

      ... that you've got on you.

    11. CB

      Well, all I can say is, I was in the Marines for 11 years and I don't give a rat's about anything. I was a Green Beret. But the thing is, your viewers can look up Paul Beecham, B-E-E-C-H-A-M, Paul Beecham, on Google. Um, he... while he was... when he came out... uh, he was on... he was heavily sedated when he was released under supervision. He- he married this woman, by the way. Um, and then he started... when we were walking along the river, he said, "Chris, they're watching me all the time." He said, "In my..." He had a sign writing business. And he said, "Chris, they're watching me all the time. They talk about me in the local pubs, mate." He said, "My- my wife, she's- she's gossiping behind my back." And, um, he had two sons, funnily enough, and they... uh, she said, "Well, I think you ought to sit down with my boys and tell them what... your history, 'cause I know." And he did. He sat down with his two sons and told them that he was a mass killer and he'd come out of Broadmoor, and they accepted him. He was a good dad. He turned into a good dad. But he was a schizophrenic, and when the medication wore off and he refused to take more medication, he became more schizophrenic, more paranoid. I met him in that period where he was... and what I- we were doing, we were a form of escapism, with the paintings. We talked about canvases, pigments, brushes, sables, bristle brushes, palettes. We talked about it. You know? And he loved dogs, so that was it. So, there we are. But the fact that he cleaned up the kitchen tidy and he left a note meant a lot to me.

    12. CW

      I think the crazy thing to take away, or at least the th- one of the things I'm taking away is that, these people are so multifaceted. You look at- you look at someone like that gentleman, or Ted Bundy, or this John Robinson or whoever it might be, and I think it- it seems safer to presume that they are across the board crazy, that you would be able to pick them out a mile off because they'd be walking down the street pulling the heads off birds and- and wearing a big yellow T-shirt, dancing upside down. But I think the fact that someone who's capable of that sort of atrocity is also capable of doing good watercolor and will clean your kitchen and leave you a note saying thank you in the morning, the fact that you have that juxtaposition between the incredibly normal and the incredibly abnormal, I think that's-

    13. CB

      Yeah.

    14. CW

      ... that's what- that's what's really disturbing me.

    15. CB

      Well, the thing with Paul, he was genuinely mentally ill. Peter Sutcliffe conned himself into Broadmoor. He wasn't mentally ill. He conned the psychiatrists there for years before they moved him to a secure prison because he was too mouthy. He wasn't mentally ill. But- but Paul- Paul Beecham was mentally ill. There's no doubt about that at all. He was a sick man. And, you know, I have to have some compassion for somebody that is mentally ill because it is not their problem. He's not a s-... he wasn't a psychopath. He wasn't evil in the sense that we... that he went out to rape and kill and torture people. He- he just felt th- the worms inside his head, eating inside his head. You... that is a sad situation to be in, and I- I've got every sympathy for somebody like that. So I felt safe with him. I knew where we were together. You know? But- but the scum that I work with generally and research and write about are just pure evil.

    16. CW

      They're in control of their faculties. They know what they're doing. They know why they're doing it.

    17. CB

      Yeah. 100%. 100%. And, you know, you could be sitting... like, a woman could be sitting on a bus and a man could be watching her from- from a seat back. Next day, he might- she might see him again in the supermarket and think, "I s- I saw him on the bus." That guy could be a stalker. I've just written a book about homicidal stalking, comes out next June.

    18. CW

      You are on fire at the moment.

    19. CB

      Well, I've got another four- five books to write. I mean, I'm a brand with WHSmith Travel now. I'm the same... I'm in the... I- I just can't believe it. I mean, I'd never written a book for money. I wrote my first book about Craig and Bentley years ago called Dad Help Me Please. Robin Odell, the criminal... uh, the great writer, um, went as a lead title, like, Teaching Me To Rope, but I was the lead author. That book got Derek Bentley a posthumous pardon. It made the film Let 'Em Have It starring Christopher Eccleston. And the following year, it was the Reader's Digest non-fiction hardback number one title. And I said, after the stress of that, I thought, "I'll never write a book again." About 38 books later... (laughs)

    20. CW

      (laughs) You're a glu- you're a glutton for punishment, Christopher. I have to say, you know, you- you write... walking through WHSmith, especially because of the way that your covers are designed, I think the Talking With Serial Killers stuff particularly really stands out. I don't know what it is about it-

    21. CB

      Well, tha-

    22. CW

      It's very grabbing.

    23. CB

      ... tha- tha- that's a- that's a brand... years ago, uh, 19- 19... 2001, 2003, I'd done all these serial killer interviews and I approached a number of publishers. One was Virgin, who I'd been published with before, to say that I've got... I'm gonna use all the killers' own words in this lot.... and in those days, I mean, the, the serial killer series we made, 11, 12-part series, 11 part, made with Fraser Ashford, they, they, they'd never ever been imprisoned before. You, uh, we broke the mold. We were the ones just sitting there with the killers face-to-face, and it'd never been done before. That was a groundbreaker. And then I wrote this book, and of course the, Virgin turned around and said to me over the phone, um, "Well, Chris, I'm sorry, but it's not for us." (microphone static) It's not the sort of book, it might upset our ladies with gray rinses." And then 10 minutes later, John Blake phoned me, he said, "I'll have it." He took a brave move, 'cause the first time a book ever been published in criminal history that, uh, contained the killer's own terrible words. Then an hour later, Virgin rang back and said, "We've reconsidered, we'll have that book." (microphone feedback) I said, "Sorry, I've sold it." Now it was John, it was John Blake who, who came up with Talking With the- Talking With Serial Killers brand, if you like.

    24. CW

      Mm-hmm.

    25. CB

      And now it's, that's what it is.

    26. CW

      Absolutely fine. I, um... The mad thing is, the serial killer, true crime obsession appears to skew quite heavily female, in my knowledge, in any case. So Virgin perhaps letting that one slide, perhaps that was exactly the sort of thing they needed to just reignite their ladies with the gray rinses and get them back into the, the book buying force.

  15. 1:08:32 – 1:16:09

    Why he does it: closure for families, purpose over profit, and building a publishing brand

    1. CB

      Yeah. I think, the one, the one thing I'm always keen to stress in all our books is, is empathy and sadness (microphone static) and for the grieving next of kin. I think you can never ever make these peop- Well, there's a movie called Bundy, Ted Bundy: The American Icon. Icon? They don't, what does icon mean? He's not, they're not, he's not iconic, he's just a scumbag. But the thing is, I've always got this thing, because when I, uh, interviewed Arthur Shawcross about Jack Blake, I'd been to see his sister, and his, her family, and they lived in a little, little place, it was a bit of a tip. And they went out and they got some British tea. Had a camera crew with me. And his sister and his family were there, and she'd gone to have her hair done, Chris, specially, and she said to me, "Could you please try to get out..." She said, "No, Arthur hasn't killed Jack," she said, "because every day we, we look out the window and then whis- we're gonna see Jack walk down the road one day." Well, I, that's why I got that confession out of Ge- Shawcross for Jack Blake. And I went back, uh, to his sister and her family, and they were shaking, and I said to the fr- the camera crew, "Outside." And I sat down with her, and she burst into tears. When I did one, uh, a girl called Melissa Moore down in Texas with Arthur Shawcross, I interviewed the mother, the body hadn't been recovered, uh, it was, um, Kenneth McDuff, a little girl. And I sat with her and her husband in a motel with a crew, and she told me that she'd been ra- walking round the dirt roads of Texas every night with a spade, looking for her child. She was a rep. I got her to look at the camera and plead with McDuff to, "Please give me my daughter back, as your mother would want your body back after you've gone." And I went to, I got a confession, uh, it's in one of my books, I wheedled a confession out of him, and, uh, we found the body trussed up in a drain hole, within 100 yards of a freeway, where if she screamed nobody would've heard her. This poor little kid, trussed up. I went back to her mum, and I said, "We've found your daughter." And her mother burst into tears. And I went outside and I smoked, and I must have had about 20 cigarettes in 10 minutes.

    2. CW

      (laughs)

    3. CB

      Seriously. And I started to cry, 'cause I've got daughters and I've got a little boy, and her husband put his arm round my shoulders and he said, "God bless you," he said, "You've just done, uh, you've done it all for us, thank you." Now, if, if all of that, all my writing career just brings one result like that, I'm happy. Period.

    4. CW

      It's a noble cause. I honestly, that closure, bringing some end, you know, to the torture of not knowing, for families like that, it's worth the time, it's definitely worth all of the time and the effort and the dan- well, the danger that you put yourself in still blows me away, absolutely blows me away.

    5. CB

      Well, I wanna get back to that last point. I never wrote a book for money. I wrote that first book because I wanted to. I wrote my second book, The Long Drop, 'cause my grandfather was one of the lawyers in the cra- in the, um, murder of PC Garthwaite in Essex in 1927. I wrote it 'cause it fascinated me. I wrote it because I was an intelligence officer in the Marines and I knew how to interrogate, and I knew how to get inside people's heads. I knew about, a certain amount about torture. And, and I knew it, and I thought to myself, "This is so fascinating." But I never ever... You can't write like this and research like this and do these things unless you, you want to, 'cause the money, you never get, you wouldn't get it back. By the grace of God, I've had some bestsellers, that's all it is. And that's because my publishers and their lawyers and their promotion people, I'm just there, one of, I just push the pen around. I tell Toby Buchan, my executive, um, editor, and he, he's Lord Buchan of Tweedsmuir, his, his grandfather was, um, Sir John Buchan who wrote Thirty-Nine Steps. We've been working together on about four or five books now. I'm just part of a team, that's all it is.... and the most important part of the team, the people that watch your podcast, and the people that buy our books. They are the most important, and we must never forget that.

    6. CW

      What a lovely way to end, Christopher. Thank you so much. I think it's a really nice way to put it across as well, like the fact that, as you say, pursuing something which is difficult and challenging, and worthwhile, and has this higher calling, and you haven't, uh, you're adept at it, and it- it brings across more ... You know, how much value millions and millions and millions of pounds, billions of pounds for that one woman to have that closure. There is no price that you could put on being able to bring that to someone, and there is no amount of books that you could have sold that would have matched the amount of satisfaction a- a- and pleasure and sense of purpose that you derive from being able to give that to someone.

    7. CB

      Well, I wanna leave you on a humorous note. When I was being interviewed by an Australian firm recently, I get, they, uh, a TV company come over to interview me, and (coughs) it's the same stuck question, "Christopher, does this ever affect you?" And I say, "No." And they say, "Why not?" I say, "I've come from Portsmouth."

    8. CW

      (laughs) Well, I- I- I- I don't know, I don't know what to say. Portsmouth, I've been to Portsmouth once, but yeah, w- I probably wouldn't mess about too much down there. Uh, look, Christopher, it's been awesome. Uh-

    9. CB

      Yeah.

    10. CW

      ... your new book-

    11. CB

      I love it.

    12. CW

      ... Talking with Serial Killers: Dead Men Talking, Death Row's Worst Killers In Their Own Words, will be linked in the show notes below. Pick it up on Amazon. Is there, uh, audible versions and stuff like that as well?

    13. CB

      I think, yeah, we've got some audible versions out, uh, the talking books are out, but I don't think it's that title.

    14. CW

      Got you. Okay. It'll be linked-

    15. CB

      There are two, there are two by ... Hang on. There were two by the actor, um, these ones, um, Colin Mace.

    16. CW

      Okay.

    17. CB

      He- he's done these talking books, and I tell you what, he's got me to a T.

    18. CW

      (laughs)

    19. CB

      He's got me there. Brilliant, brilliant man.

    20. CW

      I love it. I love it. Look, Christopher, thank you so much for your time. I really appreciate it. First podcast, you've done fantastically well. I absolutely love the book. Everyone that's listening, you need to go and check it out. It's fascinating. Um, I- I really like the, uh, the idea of you serving a higher cause as well with this, Christopher, I think putting your talents to use and-

    21. CB

      Oh, it's an absolute touch, Chris. I- I've loved every second of this. And all I want to say to you is, sweet dreams and no nightmares please.

    22. CW

      (laughs) I'm gonna try. Thank you so much for your time, man. I'll catch you later on.

    23. CB

      God bless. Bye.

    24. CW

      Outro: Love ends. Yeah. Oh, yeah, love ends.

Episode duration: 1:16:10

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