You are now listening to True Murder, the most shocking killers in true crime history and the authors that have written about them.

Gasey, Bundy, Dahmer, The Nightstalker VTK Every week another fascinating author talking about the most shocking and infamous killers in true crime history.

True Murder with your host, journalist and author Dan Zufanski.

Good Evening.

They blended in, they raised families, held steady jobs, and hid in plain sight.

But behind the mask of normalcy, they were monsters responsible for decades of terror, pain and death.

Every Killer Leads a Trace is a chilling now of nonfiction thriller that exposes moments that led to the shocking, unmasking and ultimate capture of twenty six of America's most elusive killers.

From accidental slips to cutting edge forensic breakthroughs, each chapter reveals how justice caught up with the murderers who thought they'd never be found.

Meticulously researched and drawn from court records, autopsy reports, FBI case files, and first hand interviews with investigators and victims families, this book is a haunting journey through deception, violence, and the relentless pursuit of truth.

These are not just stories of murder.

They are blueprints of how justice, though often delayed, is never truly denied.

They got away with murder until they didn't.

The book they were featuring this evening is Every Killer Leaves a Trace, The fatal mistakes that fire expose the most elusive killers, with my special guest author Dennis Carson.

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

Dennis Carson, You're very welcome and thank you for having me.

Thank you so much.

Now, this book, Every Killer Leads a Trace, The fatal mistakes that finally exposed America's most elusive killers.

You're right that Every Killer Leads a Trace offers a compelling exploration of the darkest recesses of human behavior.

Chronicling twenty six chilling true crime cases from modern history and is a tribute to the pursuit of justice, the resilience of survivors, and the relentless efforts of those who seek truth in the aftermath of horror.

Each chapter dissects the final fatal act that ultimately exposed the murder on unraveled their ability to hide in plain sight.

Tell us why you wrote this book.

What are the origins of this book?

Well, that's a really important question.

I wrote Every Killer Leaves a Trace because I wanted to challenge the myth of the so called perfect killer.

You know, for years we've seen this narrative that some murders are just too clever, too elusive to ever be caught.

But when you look closely, every single one of them made a mistake.

And that mistake is whether it's a trace of DNA, a careless decision, or a small clue investigators refused to look at.

That's finally what took them down.

But you know, actually, Dan, there's another side to it.

The book isn't just about crime scenes and evidence.

It's about the families and the investigators who refused silence, mothers who wouldn't let their children's stories be buried, to refuse to give up even when the case went cold.

You know, in interviewing all these people, it was their persistence, combined with the rise of forensic science, that ultimately forced the truth to come into the light.

But clearly, I didn't write this book to glorify killers.

I mean, there's not a chance in heck.

I wrote it to honor the victims, to shine a light on resilience, and to remind readers that justice is never really out of reach.

The dead do speak if we're willing to listen to them.

Now, give us a little bit of your background before you endeavored to do this project.

I know that you had a book under a pen name that you had written previously.

But also you speak about this team that you have of specialists.

Can you tell us about this team that supports you in your writing.

Unfortunately, this gentleman has died about two years ago, and that was the La County Corn to the Stars, Ed Winter.

He handled cases like Whitney Houston, Michael Jackson, Kobe Bryant, Nipsey Hustle, blah blah blah blah.

But like I said, unfortunately, my friend Ed did die two years ago.

In any event, to ensure the autestent, authenticity and depth of my narrative, I work with Dottie Owens.

She's the renowned former Idaho coroner.

She retired about eight months ago, and Lina Evans, Alabama's current coroner.

I love Lina because she's known for her on wavering pursuit of justice.

I mean, she's a real dog in and you know, don't let go kind of person.

I also work with a judge in New York who was a former district attorney, and another two other members of the team are Wesley Jennings, one of the world's leading criminologists, and doctor Ashley Wellman.

She's a certified forensic death investigator.

So Dan, that's basically the team.

And as we move on.

As I moved on in each case, I did interview different investigators, corners and the like, and families for that matter.

Now tell us the criteria for better for lack of a better term, or the reasons for including all of these twenty six stories, And with that, could you give us the contents of this incredible collection.

I looked at it that, Okay, some of these people are household names.

Ted Bundy as an example, you know, we know about him, but so many of them are just not household names.

And I felt that the general public interested in true crime should know about all these other people, and I picked twenty six.

You'll notice that twenty five of the twenty six are male.

There's only one female, and I only included her because she was the strongest of all the female killers.

Believe it or not, So would you like me to run down some of these twenty six cases, yes please, okay sure.

Starting off with Rodney Alcohola.

He's known as the Dating Game Killer.

He was a smooth talking predator.

He did his murders behind a smile on national television, so the girls, the women, you know, felt comfortable with him.

I mean, this clown was on TV.

He had to be okay.

Then there's Angel Risendies.

He's known as the Railroad Killer.

He was a drifter by nature.

He moved between the US and Mexico, blending into the shadows as he rode the trains.

He broke into homes along the tracks, turning ordinary houses into scenes of unspeakable violence.

I mean it was pretty dog on bad.

John Wacey Gasey the killer clown.

This guy really gets you.

He's a seemingly upstanding neighbor whose playful clown prosanna earned him trust at children's parties and community events.

He blended right in.

Everybody loved him.

He was the clown, you know.

But in the end, he abducted and lured countless men I don't remember, it was something like twenty into his home and brutally assaulted them and raped them, and the bodies were found in his addict for a smell by one of the neighbors discovered.

Then there's John Albert Gardner, the third, known as the San Diego rapist and killer.

He was a convicted sex offender.

He roamed suburban neighborhoods hunting for vulnerable young girls.

His predatory violence culminated with the murders of Chelsea King and Amber du Bois.

And they were a few years apart, those two murders, but they came together when the body of Amber was found and then the evidence tied back to Chelsea.

So that's how both of them came to be.

Cameron Hooker, this guy's known as the Girl in the Box kidnapper.

He was quite a family man.

He had a secret life of brutality.

And this is a case that Dan, I'm going to give you a little bit more on because it struck me as totally obnoxious.

He kept colleens Stan confined in a coffin like box beneath his bed for several years.

And how he got Colleen was she was on her way from northern California to attend a wedding here in southern California, and she was hitchhiking and she was stopped by Cameron hooker, and she looked in the car.

He offered her ride.

She looked in the car and she saw a woman who was Cameron's wife, holding a little baby in her arms.

So Colleen thought, what the heck looks kosher.

I'm going to go with it.

So he kept her in this box for three years some people some reports claim it was just under four years, but basically three years.

It all came to a head when his wife decided she was going to come clean and no longer support his doings.

This case struck me because of the gross brutality of one particular event.

Here's what happened, many many times.

He would invite his goofball friends over to his house to watch him abuse a Colleen.

One particular evening, he stripped her.

He put her in a chair, tied her down, spread her legs.

He warmed up some turkey gravy, and he poured it into her legs, into her vagina.

He had his dog lick the gravy.

I don't know if that's appropriate to include in this interview, but I just wanted to tell you why that case struck me so hard.

What else did you determine from this absolutely deplorable disgusting case.

What else is it an example of in your mind?

Well, I guess what it really comes down to is that he went unnoticed, undetected for god knows how many years.

I mean, there's reports.

I found reports telling me that it was three years.

Some say seven years.

I don't know.

I mean, I can't put my finger on an exact amount of time.

But it was many, many years.

And the neighbors didn't think anything of him.

Nobody thought anything of him.

He blended right in with society.

He was a member of the country club, blah blah blah blah blah.

But yet there he is, this incredibly terrible human being.

It isn't extraordinary that the only way anyone finds out is because the previously abused wife bonded with Colleen rather than her own husband, more so than her own husband, leading to a complete I will say, change of heart.

Yes.

So what she did, to be specific for your audience, is that she let Colleen out of the box and she took her to a neighbor, and the neighbor thought something was wrong because she could see all these people coming and going, you know, for years, and she never saw anybody except and the members of the family other than you know, him and his wife.

And she wondered what happened that all these people came and went, but yet there's no other members of the family.

So when Colleen escaped, she knocked on this woman's door and together they went to the police.

Yes, an extraordinary story, really is.

It's sad.

I mean, wow, think about that scene that I just told you about, whoa Hello.

Well, there's so much more to that story as well, because part of the captivity included a psychological twist in terms of not only are you in a coffin underneath a bed, but you believe that you are a sex slave, and that if you are to escape, then this corporation, the syndicate, would kill your in her entire family.

That's exactly right.

He Cameron hounded that into her head for years, and she believed it.

In fact, there was a period of time that she begged if she could go see her parents, and he agreed, and she had a visit with her parents, but he told her, you open your mouth about anything that's going on, and when we get back home, I will kill you.

Period.

Let's use this as an opportunity to stop to hear the messages.

You say that this book examines also the rise of intinerant killers, killers who use mobility as a weapon, and how law enforcement's growing ability to detect and connect across jurisdiction has finally turned the tide.

Can you give us an example of a story in this book which demonstrates some of these critical issues.

Probably Tommy Lynne sells the Coast to Coast Killer.

Yeah, I would say so that because what happened with him is the cops got wind of what he was doing and they finally managed to make a connection with crimes that had happened, victims that were found dead and et cetera, and they tied it back to him.

He had a staggering body count.

He was one of the most horrifying nomadic killers.

I guess that's the best way of putting it.

You include Adam Leroy Lane talking about mobile killers, and this is what you titled the Highway Killer.

This is a fascinating story because of the intersection again of fate to stay, fluke of nature and the serial killer was intercepted in someone's home by the parents.

Can you tell us a little bit about this story, but most importantly, what it demonstrates and illustrates with this story.

Yes, so, how the story worked out is that Lane as a highway killer.

He went from city to city, state to state, and he stumbled upon a home and the back door was unlocked, and it was unlocked because the daughter of the family.

She had left the door unlocked because she thought her her boyfriend and maybe had forgotten the key and was coming in late, so she left the door unlocked.

He came in, he attacked the family.

He brutally assaulted the father, and it ended up that between the father excuse, between the mother and the daughter, they managed to nail the guy down.

I just have no way of saying it to you, but this guy was an animal in the way he brutally assaulted everybody.

And he was a big guy.

I mean, this wasn't some you know, one hundred and ten pound weekling.

He was a big boy.

And the father had a hard time holding him down that the mother had to participate in holding him down, but they did manage to do it, and they did nail him.

It's a very vivid scene when you have this smaller man with this bigger killer.

But this smaller man is determined to protect his family and his daughter specifically, and he's got this guy in a headlock filled the police outcome in that's right.

Yeah, an amazing story.

What were the most prevalent themes do you think that were contained in these twenty six stories?

Oh?

Yeah.

David Parker Ray the toy box killer.

He was a sadistic predator.

He took a sound proof trailer in New Mexico desert and he turned it into a chamber of horrors.

He lured women into his so called toy box, where they were subjected to unspeakable horrors that defied comprehension for years.

This went on for years, I mean, his hidden world of cruelty went unnoticed and I can't tell you.

I think it was like five to eight years.

And his toy box, there are pictures online that your listeners can can go Google search.

It was an amazing contraption, this toy box.

And he was able to hang the victims, shock treatments, all kinds of things in this quote unquote toy box.

What surprised you the most while researching these stories?

Which story or what surprised you the most?

I guess, Dan, that's a tough one because each case in the book carries its own kind of shock.

I guess if I had to pick, I'd say Israel Keys really stood out to me because he wasn't just a killer.

He was methodical in the way that he almost that was almost chilling.

You know, I guess you realized he buried kill kits across the country.

You know, he had guns, ropes, blah blah blah, so he could pick a state at random, dig up one of the kill kits, and commit a murder without leaving a trace of planning behind.

Despite all of that planning, he did did make mistakes.

He used the victims debit card, talk about stupid, left the digital footprint, and from there investigators were able to trace his trail.

It's a perfect example of what the book is about.

Even the most disciplined, elusive predator eventually reveals himself one way or the other.

I guess if I had to mention a second case, it would be Ted Bundy, because he crafted an image of being intelligent, charming, even trustworthy to some extent.

He was a law student and appeared to be from the outside world well put together.

That facade allowed him to lure victims right from college campuses.

That was both fascinating and terrifying how rapidly his mask started to crack.

One of his victims escaped by the way and provided a police with a detailed description.

Authorities later identified his car and they found hairs and fibers inside that that linked directly to the woman that he had murdered.

You know, for someone who considered himself so clever, it was simple traceable evidence then nailed them.

You include a story that you titled the Amazon Review Killer, particularly not lesser known story, but an incredible story.

Nevertheless, this is a todd coal hip, and this is a wealthy, successful real estate agent with about one hundred acre estate.

And this is more recent cases when you talk about Ted Bundy or Israel Keys.

A lot of these lesser known cases that you include in this book are more recent.

This one's twenty and sixteen, and a story and trial evolve afterwards, so very very recent incredible crimes and killers.

Tell us a little bit about this Amazon review killer and what this story straits.

Here's the thing with this guy.

He after every kill that he performed, he would post on Amazon.

As an example, this knife is the best dug on knife for slicing a throat this bag is perfect for stuffing a body into and dumping it into a lake.

I mean, that's how he got caught.

We also the correspondence, and again you write in this book that advances in forensic technology, but also in things like detecting phone locations through pings on towers, and also just the recovery data recovery of text messages which are incriminating and damning and provide crucial evidence to investigators.

So in this particular case, investigators were able to look at previous his text and then be able to get a search warrant.

That's correct.

Yeah, he made His big mistake was going on Amazon.

That was the mistake.

What you read about, though, is this extraordinary case is that this murderous person could have been stopped at least he was recognized or at least be recognized.

This person had moved to Germany with his parents, with his father specifically, and committed crimes in Germany at that time.

Because of his age, he was not given a lengthy term.

He was given a six year reformatory sentence rather than the tenure minimum that he would have faced as this juvenile in Germany.

From that if he would have been stopped.

If he would have been imprisoned for life, none of this rest of this story we'd be reading right now.

That's absolutely true, And there is no explanation that I can find anywhere of why his sentence was that light.

Well, it seems like I know from many jurisdictions outside of the US that there is a difference in manslaughter and murder and the criteria for manslaughter versus murder, so that possibly would be a reason for the lenient sentencing.

But you also say that because he was a juvenile he received a lighter sentence.

That's also true.

But you know, I don't know how your listeners feel about a murderer, but to me, a murderer, whether he's eighteen years old or seventy eight years old, he's still a murderer and needs to be dealt with that way.

Well that I think you would get a lot of people to agree with that, And that is a contentious issue in so many American states, is what exactly is that age that you would give someone a life sentence with no possibility of parole.

So there are various states where certainly people of eighteen or less would be given sentences that were in that sort of range murder, first degree murder, second degree murder, but given a life sentence with no possibility of parole.

So I believe many jurisdictions Canada, Germany to UK many countries have maximum sentences that do not include no parole eligibility whatsoever, actual life, actual life sentences.

You have a story entitled Tagged and This Khalil Wheeler Weaver.

This is a fascinating story with some complex issues at heart.

Can you tell us a little bit about Tagged?

Yeah?

He he basically weaponized social media to identify and lure of vulnerable women.

He used in online interactions to gain their trust and their comfort level, and then he set deadly traps where he brutally murdered them and across all of New Jersey.

His crimes exposed a dark intersection in my humble opinion of digital anonminity and real world violence, which showed how easily technology could be twisted into a pool of violence.

Also, the issue that comes in this story dramatically is that when a woman is this Tiffany Taylor is attacked, she goes to police with evidence, with damning evidence, and the police turn her away and dismiss her claims.

Completely.

That's correct.

So this story doesn't get a resolve.

The killer is not apprehended until the community sympathizes with a victim who is not a sex worker.

Can you tell us about this dramatic difference in how police and society treat victims of crime.

Well, from what I have learned writing this book is that if there's an obvious appearance level of a woman being a sex worker, some cops will discount her testimony of what she claims happened.

I don't believe that's the right thing to do.

It's back to what I said before.

A killer is a killer regardless of the clothes he wears or how old he or she may be, and that's really a problem in our society.

In my opinion, this story is fascinating for readers to discover because there really are people that are looking out for their family member and they take action.

And what they do is that they go to social media and they try to set up this person, to get this person to reveal himself.

It's very fascinating this effort that this family puts towards seeking justice for themselves and their family member.

That's right.

The family played a very important role and it worked.

That Jesus has an opportunity to stop to hear these messages in all of these case I know it must have been hard doing that this original investigation and research.

Was there any case that affected you personally?

Yeah?

What really stays with me isn't just the killers, it's the families.

Because reading about the investigation is one thing, but you know, hearing how the family fought for answers, how they lived with that uncertainty, and then how justice finally arrived, it's impossible not to feel the weight of that.

These are not just crime stories, they're human stories.

You know, behind every headline there's a daughter, a sister, a friend whose life was taken and families who carry that grief forever.

I mean, they can't get rid of that grief.

It's there forever.

And for me, that's what makes this work meaningful.

It's about giving those voices space, not just they killers.

And that's really important to me.

So if you ask me which case really affected me the most, it would probably Bundy, because behind his infamous reputation and mythological image, there was a real young woman who lost her real young women plural, who lost their lives.

Bundy projected this aura of charm intelligence, successfully deceiving a lot of women for god knows how long.

But what the most important haunting thing to know is how he targeted his students.

They were women with bright futures.

They trusted him during what was seemingly normal everyday moments.

He invited him for a drink out to dinner.

Bundy is a class act by himself.

In so far as serial killers.

You read about a lesser known sterial killer in chapter sixteen, International serial killer Harold David Hallman, the third.

This is very interesting.

Again a more recent case December fourth, twenty twenty.

This is very interesting in that the perpetrator decided to pick on We talk about sex workers, we talk about people that matter less in society.

Families not always support of.

This is a different type of vulnerability that this perpetrator decided to take advantage of, didn't he.

Yes, that's right.

He was looking at women.

He would stop a woman and analyze her, whether it was at a restaurant, bus stop, whatever, and say I.

Could do her.

And he just had this instantaneous picture in his mind that she was his next victim.

And that's what he did.

And I mean he did it internationally, like you said, international serial killer, United States and abroad.

So he was really a piece of work.

It's interesting that this there's correspondence.

She had spoken to her friend, This Erica Jeen Schultz, twenty six year old, she had met someone online and she had shared that information with a friend.

So police were able to see that there was this correspondence with Harold David Hallman.

They didn't get to him right away, but they were able to track his movements because his phone was found.

And so as I mentioned this developments in being able to use this new type of digital evidence to be able to crack and to also convict a serial killer like David Hallman.

The third well, you know, talk about cereal excuse me, cellular that was one of the elements and pieces of evidence in the Idaho murders.

Give us some examples of some of the dramatic mistakes that were made by some of these killers that even in your research, seemed to be so unique that you included them in this book.

You know, I think some of it is just back to what we were just talking a couple seconds ago.

It's about the advantages in technology in forensic science.

As I mentioned, earlier, my good friend, the late Ed Winter, we talked about at length what the La County Corner was able to put together through advancements in forensic science.

I guess let me elaborate a little bit.

When Ed first joined the LA County Corner's office, God knows, I guess that was ten fifteen years earlier, that science wasn't to the point where it is today, and that science has helped did help him immensely in solving some of these cases.

And so some of these cases are stupid.

Dan, I'm going to digress for just a second and tell you about a case that I did not write about that involved in.

Is that okay, absolutely okay, this might bring a smile to your face.

So here's the scene.

So this given day, I was supposed to have lunch at Philipe's French Tip sandwich place, very famous in downtown LA and I was supposed to have lunch with d that day.

So, as the story goes, he was in his office alone early that morning, very unusual that nobody was there to answer the phone but him.

He picked up the phone and this gentleman identified himself and he said, my name is and I'll just use the first name David, and I'm a chef here in Los Angeles, and I had an argument with my wife and I cut her up into pieces, a lot of pieces, and I have been boiling her in the large vats that I have in my kitchen, and I boiled her for her gaudy parts for four days.

As I'm talking to you, I'm eating her arm.

Wow.

Okay, So now I'm going to fast forward to Felipe's and Ed walking in the door and couldn't wait to tell me the story.

Okay.

So when he finished, I looked at him with a tiny smile on my face and I said, you didn't happen to ask him if he made a side dish to go with the arm?

Wow?

Yeah, yeah, I mean these people are straight.

And you know what his answer was, Yes?

What are some of the most dramatic mistakes?

Are the most common mistakes that these killers make?

In this research that you've done for this book.

I guess two things surprised me the most.

First, the arrogance of the killers.

So many of them believe they were untouchable.

That's a case closed.

You're never going to get me.

Second, the persistence of the families and the investigators that I spoke with, some mothers, sisters.

Detectives spent decades fighting for answers, But it was their resilience and technology, not the killers violence that define their stories.

The persistence is what finally forced the truth into light, and that really truck me.

You know, it was the truth that brought them down.

The truth brought them down.

But there are cases in this book as well where dogged law enforcement that never gave up, family members that never gave up.

That's right, victims that utilized We didn't talk about some of the efforts that some of the people did that would have ended up being dead.

But they had a plan to convince that killer that they should be let go, that they wouldn't be able to inform on them to police, right, did anything, employed any technique and tactic to escape the one person was again closing up to the killer, at least in his mind, but at the same time was double jointed and was plotting her escape.

She did get into this room, locked the door because she was able to free herself from those handcuffs, so she had the wherewithal and the state of mind to be able to think that I'm going to be a survivor.

I am going to survive and I'm going to do whatever it takes to escape.

And she did.

That's right.

You know, you got to look at the at the victims.

And I said it a few minutes ago.

One of the things that the thing that really got me more than the killers themselves was the victims and the victims' families, how they participated in providing you know, support, evidence and et cetera.

It was just amazing, it really was.

And you know, I can't tell you how many detectives in my career I've interviewed.

I've lost count, but some of them are were very forthcoming and others were don't bother me.

I'm a detective, and you know that doesn't work.

What works is cooperation between law enforcement, the judicial system, and the families.

And if you don't have that, you're not going to get anywhere.

But Jesus has an opportunity to stop to hear these messages you talk about that these killers make clear mistakes because many of them, many many of these stories feature a killer that believes he's invincible, and he believes he's invincible because he's getting away with murders.

You have one where the person again a disgusting, deplorable murder, but the next day he's back at it.

There's many killers that don't spend much time.

They are dedicated to their murderous activities.

So you really have a lot of cases where, especially in the past, where jurisdictions didn't communicate the state of technology was primitive, and so these people felt emboldened.

Ramarrez, Richard Ramirez felt like he had the luck of Satan behind him because doors were unlocked.

Many of these victim's mistakes were that they were unlocked doors.

That's right, that's right, and innocent, innocent people, just girls walking down the street that one of these predators would see and go, oh, there's my next Mark.

Honest to god, Dan, this book really took a lot out of me.

I'm going to digress on this book for just a moment.

My next book is going to really shock you because it's proof positive that the judicial system failed.

Case closed, and this.

Is a case involving the death penalty.

Okay, I have to be vague obviously, because you know the book is not out yet, but it involves it's two cases.

One was a woman that was found and murdered and the corner ruled it as accidental death.

The second case involves a gentleman who was left handed, could not hold anything in his left hand.

He was found in his recliner with a bullet hole to the left side of his head, which means that he would have had to hold the gun in his right hand, put it around the back of his head and shoot himself.

And let's assume he was even able to do that, the gun would have flown out into the room.

But the pictures that the detectives have of the crime scene shows him in his recliner with that gun in his lap.

Wow, impossible, And that same corner ruled that accidental death.

Incredible.

Yeah, I think you're going to like this next book.

It will set you aside, It really will, because you're going to say, how the hell did this happen?

And when is that slated for release?

Any kind of rough idea?

Sometime next year I'm about I'm saying, maybe two months away from handing it in to the publisher.

I have spent three years researching the evidence and talking to God knows how many people, interviewing God knows how many detectives corners.

And by the way, let me give you a tidbit to this, that same corner medical I should be technical, that same medical examiner has come forward saying that that person lied because they were pressured.

To do so.

Wow, we look forward to that.

Yeah, it's it's pretty damn heavy.

I gotta tell you my girlfriend, who I think I've mentioned before, you know, maybe on the phone or whatever.

Tell you we've been together for almost forty years, and she sees so many of these things across my desk, and she hears the zoom calls and the zoom calls involving these two cases.

She walked out of the office and started crying.

Yeah, blame her.

The you cover no dispute some of the worst killers in history, they were serial killers in history, and their deplorable actions.

In researching this book, again we talk about how it affected you personally and how far you went into the investigation into these stories to be able to do them.

How much did you feel doing these stories, feel for the family the victims, and also frustrated law enforcement and prosecutors with these stories.

Well, the first thing is I felt for the families because interview in interviewing them, it struck me that they relied on our judicial system, on the detectives, on the courts to make it right, and they didn't, and so many of these things, these cases, the predators went on for months, years and were never caught, and the families along the way suffered, and they really suffered.

I mean, I got to tell you there was there's one mother and I still speak with her periodically the last five years.

She has cried on the phone to me, Dan, I got to tell you at least five times about the case and how she feels and her loss and the emptiness in her heart and in the family.

And you know, you've got to be a piece of wood, not a human being not to feel for those people.

You really have to, yes, And you know, it's an interesting thing.

The first year I was into that case with that mother, I sent a Mother's Day greeting to her via email and we were having my girlfriend and were having breakfast, and I got a response from her and she was crying, and she was crying.

She she you know, my daughter's gone.

Nobody wants to believe it, blah blah blah blah.

And you know I own and that's my only daughter.

And I mean, this went on and on and on and it's mother's day.

You know.

All I could do is listen, and I tried my best to console her, but it's hard to do.

I mean, you can't take away from the facts of what happened.

All he could do, and all I did do was tell her that, you know, life will go on and you'll find some comfort as the days go by, the years go by, and please never lose my phone number.

And she hasn't.

She calls me all the time.

Do you have a certain responsibility, don't you?

Yes, you do, and you can't ignore that.

You absolutely cannot ignore that.

I will tell you an instance.

So, as I mentioned earlier, my backyard is the golf course.

So one day I was on the putting green and my cell phone I forgot to turn it off.

Usually I will always turn it off playing golf.

My cell phone rang as one of the other people in the forsome was putting his ball into the hole, and I answered it and it was this woman crying.

She says, today would have been my daughter's birthday.

Oh my god.

I didn't know what to say, Nan, I really didn't, you know, And I excused myself and I said, you know, I'll forfeit this hole, blah blah blah blah, and I stepped to the side and I talked to her for a few minutes.

But what could I say to lighten the load?

There was really nothing.

Yeah, it's a testament too that there are a lot of stories where victims are emboldened, they become activists, they go on to careers even though they've been victimized, or families of victims go on with their lives.

But not all victims go on, do.

They No, absolutely not, absolutely not.

Well, anyway, this particular victim, she was really brutalized in the desert and she managed to survive, and they caught the guy.

And in the trial, the guy's defense attorney asks her, what are you doing today?

He was trying to get her to say nothing, right, I've been hurt, and I don't know how he was planning on using that to his benefit, but that's what he did.

And her response was, guess what, I went back to college.

Guess what I got my degree, Guess what I just got engaged two months ago.

Guess what we bought a house.

Guess what I'm going to have a baby.

And the judge just smiled and said, good for you.

Yeah, admitst that there are the impact statements that trial, heartbreaking statements by families affected forever, but also that the families I always sympathize with the families that have to go not only once often, but with the pellet decisions, have to go to trial more than once.

And at that trial things like autopsy photos, crime scene photos blown up on huge screens, brought to the attention of the jury while family members are in the seats.

I know this mother, I referred to.

She in the trial, they showed autopsy pictures of her daughter and how she was brutalized.

And the woman had not seen those pictures, and the defend excuse me.

The prosecution insisted on showing them to in the court proceeding, and the judge allowed it.

She couldn't believe what her daughter looked like.

And I've seen the pictures, and I'm going to tell you what dan I would have if that had happened to my relative, he wouldn't be walking and talking today.

I want to thank you so much for coming on, Dennis Carson, for coming on and talking about your new incredible book, Every Killer Leaves a Trace, The fatal mistakes that finally exposed America's most Elusive Killers.

For those that might want to find out more about this book and your other work, can you tell us about any social media website that you have.

Yeah, I do have a Facebook page and it is simply called Dennis Carson.

Your listeners can get a copy of this book on Amazon.

It's available as kindle, paperback, and hardcover and it was just released this last week.

That's fantastic.

Thank you so much, Dennis Carson.

Every Killer leaves a trace, the fatal mistakes that finally exposed America's most elusive killers.

It's been a fascinating interview.

Thank you so much for this and have yourself a good night.

Thank you and so much.

Jan I appreciate you too.

Thank you.