Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - ZONE 7: Inside the Boston Strangler Case

Episode Date: April 19, 2026

Author and investigative reporter Casey Sherman long believed his aunt, Mary Sullivan  was the final victim of the Boston Strangler.  Her death has had a long lasting impact on his family. Today, Casey explains tp Sheryl McCollum why his family has long questioned the official story, pointing to evidence that, in his view, complicates what many people think they know about the case. Their conversation touches on DNA analysis, missing confession tapes, and alternate suspects that Casey believes raise serious questions about Albert DeSalvo’s role in the murders. Guest Bio Casey Sherman is a New York Times bestselling-author and investigative reporter known for revisiting major crimes and historic tragedies. He is the author of  "A Rose for Mary," which examines the murder of his aunt, Mary Sullivan, and the lingering questions surrounding the Boston Strangler case. About the Host  Sheryl “Mac” McCollum is an active crime scene investigator for a Metro Atlanta Police Department and the director of the Cold Case Investigative Research Institute, which partners with colleges and universities nationwide. With more than 4 decades of experience, she has worked on thousands of cold cases using her investigative system, The Last 24/361, which integrates evidence, media, and advanced forensic testing. Her work on high-profile case include, in part, The Boston Strangler, Natalie Holloway, and Tupac Shakur. McCollum’s work on the Moore’s Ford Bridge lynching led to her Emmy Award for “CSI: Atlanta” and induction into the National Law Enforcement Hall of Fame in 2023. Social Links: Email: [e-mail] X: @zone7squad Facebook: @sheryl.mccollum Instagram: @officialzone7podcast Enjoying Zone 7? Leave a rating and review where you listen to podcasts. Your feedback helps others find the show and supports the mission to educate, engage, and inspire. Preorder Sheryl’s upcoming book, "Swans Don’t Swim in a Sewer: Lessons in Life, Justice, and Joy from a Forensic Scientist," releasing May 2026 from Simon and Schuster.   Highlights: (0:00) Sheryl McCollum opens with the DNA dispute at the center of the Boston Strangler case (1:30) Sheryl welcomes Casey Sherman and explains why his work has changed how she views the case (7:15) Casey explains how Mary Sullivan’s murder shaped his family for generations and why his mother never accepted the official story (9:15) The missing confession tapes and the details that convinced Casey the official story didn’t hold up (11:30) Missing evidence, stolen case materials, and the long-term damage they can do to a major investigation (14:00) The DNA evidence Case says pointed to a prime suspect from 1964 and how that lead eventually took him to a golf course in northern New England (16:30) Why Casey believes the Boston Strangler case was not the work of one man and that similar killings stretched across multiple states (19:30) How sensational crime coverage in the 1960s may have helped shape false confessions (21:15) Casey’s theory that George Nassar may have helped feed DeSalvo information and why DeSalvo was never charged with the murders he confessed to (24:15) Casey on the pressure surrounding the case and why he believes too many important questions are still unanswered (27:45) F. Lee Bailey’s role in the case and the unlikely friendship that followed years later (31:30) The importance of revisiting evidence and challenging the accepted story  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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But it's so worth it. Visit bell.ca for more details and to check availability. Bell, connection is everything. The Boston Strangler gripped a community from 1962 to 1964. At least 11 women were found murdered

in the Boston city limits and surrounding area. Albert DeSalvo confessed to the 11 crimes. He was murdered in prison. Later, the family of Mary Sullivan got DNA from her exhumed body. Two DNA tests. One was taken from the exhumed remains of Mary Sullivan and the exhumed remains of Alper de Salvo.

The DNA found inside Mary's body did not match Alpert de Salvo. A decade later, the Boston Police Department conducted DNA testing on a blanket that was found inside Mary Sullivan's apartment, and that did match the DNA of a bloodline relative of Alper DeSalvo. When I got involved in 2010, that's kind of what we said, hey, you know, you've got a family here that got DNA from their relative Mary Sullivan. They've done half the work for you. Exume him, cross-check it, and that's it. Then in 2013, three years later, that's what they allegedly did. They got a water bottle from a nephew and then exhumed Albert Descartes.

Salvo and said there was a match. But y'all listen to me now. We have a guest today. And when I tell you, nobody knows this case better, I don't think anybody knows this case better. I met our guest in 2009. And at that time, we talked about the geographical area of the crime. We talked about DNA, tapes, families working on the case. You know, I went to Boston so that I could meet with him and meet with the children of the lead detective. I've even talked to Flee Bailey about this case when he was alive. And I'm just so excited today because you are going to be able to hear this story like you've never heard it, ever.

And again, for us in 2010, after I met with our guest, Casey Sherman, and I'm going to get to his intro in a minute. I met with the kids that were the sons of the lead detective. They allowed me to see their dad's entire case file. There was really no other option, in my opinion, than to take the DNA from Mary Sullivan and cross-check it with Albert DeSalvo. That was it. Forget whether or not he admitted to it.

Forget what each family thought. That to me was the easiest plan. I had an opportunity to go to Boston number one, it's a great town. It's a fantastic town. And when you've got somebody like Casey Sherman, who is a New York Times bestselling author,

y'all, he's written over 13 books, two of them are my favorite books of all time. One being the finest hour. That was made into a motion picture with Casey Affleck and Chris Pine. The second one, Boston Strong. That was also made into a film Patriots Day with Mark Wahlberg. So when I tell you this man can tell a story, honey, he can tell a story factually, but not losing the heart of it.

Y'all remember the bombing at the Boston Marathon? Casey Sherman is the one that came up with Boston Strong. He wrote about it as only a son of that town could. I'm telling you. gifted, brilliant. But when I met with him, he says, okay, you know, come here, we'll talk about it, I will meet with you. But he didn't just meet with me. He said, yeah, let your students read the book, A Rose for Mary, that he wrote.

Now, Casey Sherman, again, y'all, he's a writer. He's written for Time Magazine, Esquire, the Washington Post, the Boston Herald. He is a family first person. He is gifted, he is smart, he's a storyteller, but I'm going to tell you, he's also one of the most devoted investigative reporters I've ever dealt with. So I just want to welcome him to Zone 7, Casey Sherman, thank you, thank you for spending any time at all with us. And before you even really get rolling, thank you for telling this case like nobody else can. Well, Cheryl, I appreciate you having me on the show today. And, you know, I'm very excited to talk to you and talk to your wide audience about, you know, one of the biggest cases in the history of American crime.

And, you know, I remember our first meeting. You were like, hey, meet me at the, you know, prudential building. We're going to have lunch at legal seafood. I have never had a more sophisticated lunch with any meeting person on a cold case. Best clam chowder I've ever had in my life. but, you know, I found you to be so open and so willing to share and so just up front with this is what needs to happen on this case and you cannot look at it black and white. You told me that then, even though I was like, Casey, look, sitting with you, you have

convinced me. It's not Albert DeSalvo. But when I sit with the sons of the lead detective, I'm convinced it was Albert deSalvo. So again, for me, let's cross-check that DNA. But here's what happened, y'all. I'm just going to tell you all straight up. I followed Casey after that, became a huge fan because of the way he writes and the way he tells stories,

and it's undeniable when you sit with him. On any case, the bombing, no matter what he's talking about, he's going to captivate you. But again, Boston Strangler, we did what we did what we, we did, the Cole Case Institute, we were satisfied, we moved on. Until Casey Sherman, we're speaking at a conference, you're speaking ahead of me, so I thought, I'm going to go to his talk. This will be fun.

I can't wait to see him. And you freaking knocked me out. I could hardly even concentrate that I had to speak next for wanting to hear every word coming out of your mouth. So again, today means a lot to me because in any cold case, y'all, there's going to be twist, there's going to be turns, there's going to be things you don't know. What I thought was black and white might not be. So Casey, why don't you take us just a little bit of background of how you got involved with Mary's case and then what you did with it and kind of where we're headed today? No, happy to, Cheryl. And, you know, as an investigative reporter, you're always learning new information.

And I think that is the responsibility of an investigative journalist, of an investigator, to continue to pour over evidence because there might be something that you missed, that somebody else missed, that might make that tangible connection that hadn't been made years prior. So the reason why I got involved in this case, Cheryl, as you know, but for your audience, my aunt, 19-year-old Mary Sullivan was, you know, for much of history was considered the youngest and final victim of the Boston Strangler case. She was 19 years old. She was murdered inside her apartment in Beacon Hill, one of the safest places in Boston on January 4, 1964.

Now, Cheryl, I didn't even know my Aunt Mary. I was born in 1969, five years after she was killed. But I do know that hole that her murder had left in my Irish Catholic family. A murder is multi-generational. So it has a ripple effect going down generations. And my mother was 17 when Mary was murdered in 1964. And she kept this, these questions that she had about the guilt or innocence of Albert DeSalvo for several years.

And I remember seeing the Boston Strangler movie, the first one with Tony Curtis and Henry Fonda when I was a teenager about to go to journalism. school. And I thought I knew the story. So I asked my mother to tell me about Mary the next day. And she said that she had doubts about the guilt or innocence of Albert DeSalvo, because not only was Mary my mother's sister, Mary was my mother's best friend. And they had planned to live their lives together. They were going to grow old, together as sisters, and all that was stolen from my mother. So at that very moment, you know, I made it my mission to dig into this case and take me where the evidence led me to, you know, be able to kind of find out what really happened

during those years in the 1960s. And for years, you know, as I was researching this case in literally interviewing every key witness that was still alive, including many of the murder suspects, the one key piece of evidence that had always been missing Cheryl was Albert de Savo's confession. He had confessed to the murders. He was already incarcerated. for unrelated crimes in 1965, and nobody could corroborate or contradict the confessions because nobody had ever heard them publicly before. In fact, they had been stolen from the evidence locker at the Boston Police Department, and they went missing for 40 years until I tracked them down. And they're 60 hours' worth. They're now the subject of a

brand-new documentary on Hulu Peacock called the Boston Strangler Unheard Confession. And for the first time, the viewers can actually listen to Albert de Salvo talking about these murders in detail. The question I had was, was he giving correct information in his confessions? And absolutely, he was not. He was confessing to events that never happened. And I'm so glad, Cheryl, that you mentioned DNA. Because in 2000, not only did I have the confession tape, which to me exonerated Albert de Salvo from at least the Boston strength. He was a bad guy.

He was a sexual predator. He was a con man. He was a thief. But was he a killer? I then exhumed my aunt Mary's remains for DNA testing. And I also exhumed the remains of Albert de Salvo for DNA testing. I've actually held Albert de Salvo skull in my hand, Cheryl. That's how close, you know, I got to this case.

And we were able to find DNA evidence of Mary's killer inside her body. And when I say we, Cheryl, I'm talking about Dr. Henry Lee. I'm talking about Dr. Michael Biden. I'm talking about Dr. Professor James Starrs, rather. These are the top forensic investigators in the world that worked on this case. And they found the killer's DNA and it did not match Albert de Salvo. Let me go back with one thing because I do want my audience to know this. It is not unusual in high-profile cases and unknown cases.

that things go missing. A lot of times a detective or somebody else associated with the case or that has access to an evidence room may take something. They may think they're going to write a book. They may think they're going to use it at the Academy for Training. They may take it because it's a part of American history and they want it. It's not uncommon for things to get misplaced, taken, or stolen. So I just want that out there.

That is true. It's not uncommon, Cheryl, but it is illegal. And, you know, this was, the evidence in the strangler case wasn't taken for future research. Oh, no, I understand. They were taken as macarve mementos. I understand. And the reason I laughed is because the way you said that is just so succinct and so correct. I mean, obviously, you should never take evidence.

No matter what your logic may be, you may think, hey, this could help, you know, show young detectives a better way, the wrong way, a right way. you know, but you can copy something. You can, you know, make a prop. You don't have to take the actual evidence of things. So here's the thing, Casey, too, with me, you're putting in not just the work, but you're doing it scientifically using, no question, the best in the country. I mean, Dr. Bodden, hands down, no reason to even question his credentials. So, you know, you're not just going to your best friend from college, Fred.

I mean, you are literally going to the best that there is to make sure that you have the most correct information. Absolutely. You know, I mean, you always want to bring people in to an investigation, those people that have skill sets that you don't have. And certainly I did not have a background in forensic examination. So I reached out to the best in the business who did have that background and that expertise. And they were willing to work on the case pro bono because they didn't want to be beholden to, whether it was my family or the family of Albert Snav or anybody else. They wanted to be beholden to the truth, and that's exactly what they did.

Same with the Cold case Institute. We don't accept money from families. We're going to give our opinion, and that's it, based on what we find, what we believe to be the most likely way to move this case forward. The solvability factors are either there or they're not. If Bell 5 TV is now streaming, is it still TV? Is it still TV if there's no TV box? If I can stream all my favorite channels and pause and record shows, that's TV, right? A new era of 5 TV.

It's streaming, but it's still TV. Well, glad that's settled. Bell, connection is everything. you got the DNA back and they said it does not match Albert Sullivan. Was anything done with that DNA like ancestry? Well, here's here's the thing. So that DNA, this was before Ancestry.com was even a thing at that time, or 23 and me. This was 2000. We're at the cutting edge of forensic science at that time. And the DNA that was found on my aunt's remains matched the DNA of the actual a prime suspect in her murder from 1964.

That man was not Albert de Salvo, but he was a young, 19-year-old Boston University student who was now living in northern New England. And I was able to get his DNA surreptitiously and provided to the forensic experts, and they ran the testing, and it came back a match. Now you have all this information. You're getting pushback from law enforcement. you're getting pushed back from the family of the lead detective, but you stay the course.

I mean, you keep coming even though they've had a press conference, that they've solved it, that Albert DeSalvo's the Boston Strangler, but you're not done. So kind of where did you go? You've got this DNA. It's not a match. You've got now a match of one of the other suspects.

What is happening? What are you doing with all this? So, you know, for the prime suspect in Mary's murder, what I did is I owed him his story. I knew where he was. He was actually working at a golf pro at a golf resort in Northern New England. Had I gone to his home, he could have taken a gun or a knife or something and, you know, done bodily harm to me and goodbye Casey Sherman. So I had to confront him in a public place. I learned that he was, you know, a golf pro. So I booked a golf lesson under an assume name. And I met him on the golf course. I was wearing a disguise. I took the disguise. I took

the disguise off, and it was like the ghost of Christmas past had come back to haunt him. And we spoke for about an hour. He gave me his alibi that I was able to eventually disprove. And I walked away that day knowing that in my heart, I had found the killer of Mary Sullivan, my aunt. Now, did Boston or Massachusetts law enforcement want to hear that? Certainly they did not. What people don't realize, and you do, Cheryl, is that Albert de Sabaab was never even charged. with any of the Boston strangler murders. They're still considered open but not active today. What I've learned subsequent to that time, Cheryl,

and this is the most frightening discovery of all, is that you mentioned 11 strangling victims at the beginning of the show. Well, I now can point to at least 47 women strangled with Boston strangler-style murder techniques and tools, not across a span of years from 1962 to 1969 across the United States. Now, people compare the Boston Strangler case to Jack the Ripper, but I think it's more comparable to the Salem witch trials. And what I mean by that, Cheryl, is these murders created a hysteria

amongst men in the United States who wanted to commit Boston Strangler-style murders. The most terrifying thing of all, Cheryl, is that these murders weren't committed by one man. They were committed by over a dozen men across 11 states. All right, I told y'all he was going to knock you out. So let me ask you, of the 47, do you believe 5, 20 might be copycats? Do you think it might be, hey, somebody realized, I want to start killing women. There's no better place than Boston right now. If I use Stonkins to Strangler, they'll blame it on that guy.

So Boston was the epicenter for sure, Cheryl, and there were actually more victims in Boston than just 11. I always thought my aunt 19-year-old Mary Sullivan was the youngest victim when in fact the youngest victim was only five years old. A young girl named Ellen Gamage, who was abducted from a playground, strangled, assault, and then left in a blueberry patch 40 miles south of Boston. And while that murder was happening, Albert de Salvo was already incarcerated on unrelated crimes confessing to the Boston Strangler case. You had a number of teenagers younger than my Aunt Mary murdered all over New England. And the newspapers and the police departments at the time were investigating these homicides. Then these homicides start to happen outside of New England, Oakland, California, upstate Michigan, Austin, Texas,

Hollywood, California, Cincinnati, Ohio, where five women were strangled in 1966. There was actually a Cincinnati strangler. If you do your Google research, you can come up with all the newspaper reports at the time. Pensacola, Florida, even Paris, France. It was an hysteria, a strangled mania, if you will, that took hold of men, you know, who wanted to do harm against women. And so, yes, most of these stranglings were copycats. Okay. So we're looking at multiple people, multiple states, even countries,

that knew enough of the Boston Strangler's MO because it was in the newspaper. It was celebrated. And you raise a good point. Now, today's news media does not get that explicit in their reporting of homicides because they can't. But back in the 1960s, every detail of a murder was basically reprimed. printed in the newspapers. And oftentimes journalists looking to get a headline or to have more people read their newspapers would invent information and put it in the newspapers. And why I mentioned that is because when Albert de Salvo began to confessing to these murders, he was regurgitating

misinformation that had been printed in the newspapers at the time. Now, you mentioned the family of the lead detective and John Dean Attali or Phil Dean Attali, who was one. of the detectives in the Strangler case. He wasn't the lead detective. He was just one of the detectives. You look at families like that, and I think that they don't want to necessarily, you know, revisit the past because their entire, you know, family history has been based on their loved one catching the Boston Strangler, but that's a myth. Nobody caught Albert DeSalvo. He was already in jail, and he was confessing to crimes that didn't happen. person that actually took the interrogation wasn't a seasoned investigator at all. His name was John Bottomley, and he was the Assistant Attorney General of Massachusetts. John Bottomley's history, he'd been an eminent domain lawyer from Massachusetts. A real estate lawyer

had no experience ever investigating or investigating or interrogating a suspect in any criminal matter. And here he is confronting what, you know, some believed at the time, was the most dangerous serial killer in American history. So how did Albert DeSalvo get all this information? I've heard it from you, but I want the audience to hear how he started confessing and how we got any of the facts. Well, you mentioned definitely Bailey, who, you know, had been one of my arch nemesis, you know, during my course of my investigative career,

but we actually later became dear friends. And I wrote the prologue to Lee's last book before he passed. passed away. Well, F. Lee Bailey was representing a young, cold-hearted killer named George Nassar in 1964. Nassar was one of the real Boston Stranglers, who had, in fact, murdered maybe four to five of the murder victims in the general Boston area. And George Nassar was cellmates with Albert de Salvo. And Nassar needed money to support his defense, because he He thought he was going to be getting out of prison for murdering a gas station attendant. So he needed to pay F. Lee Bailey.

And the only way he could do that was getting a guy like Albert DeSalvo to confess to the crimes because there was a what they believed, a $100,000 reward for information leading to the Boston Strangler arrest. And so DeSalvo and Nassar had kind of dollar signs in their eyes. DeSalvo confessed with information handed to him by Nassar. he confessed to the crimes and oftentimes went off script giving false information in his interrogation, which is one of the reasons why he was never charged with any of the murders because they would never have been able to convict him in a court of, in a criminal court, because all the information or most of it was inaccurate.

Okay. Well, you have done the lion's share of the work gathering, collecting, and reporting on this case. What do you think is the most critical piece of evidence to show there was more than one killer? Just one thing. There are several things. You know, not only the DNA test of my aunts remains, but going back to the original case files. Looking at these cases, going back to the original reporting and the public statements made by police at the time, I worked with one of the Boston Strangler Homicide detectives, Jim Mellon, who was adamant.

that Albert Salvo was not the killer. In fact, Osavo told him he was not the killer, and he had serious suspects in at least six of these Boston homicides. Now, as I mentioned, there are dozens of unsolved homicides across the United States, Boston strangler-type murders that still need to be adjudicated and solved. There's no statute of limitation on murder, Cheryl. So these cases are still open and should be looked at with a clear eye. I would press your audience to just go on to NBC Peacock or the USA Network and watch Boston Strangler unheard confession and hear DeSalvo in his own words and make your own judgment on whether or not he was confessing to events that never happened or whether he was the killer. Do you have a prosecutor open to listening to you? No, I mean,

It's ancient history as far as the prosecutors in Massachusetts are, you know, how they believe things are happening. So, and what they're, I think, afraid of is lawsuits. Lawsuits, not by my family, but other families that will come up and say, you knew you got the wrong guy in the 1960s, and you let my, you know, loved ones murder or go free. So I think there's a lot of political pressure to keep this case kind of under wraps a little bit. But as I say, you know, we're all students of this case. Even I'm a student of this case. Yes, I'm an expert, but I'm learning new things every day. And I would just ask your audience and ask any investigator, be open to new material that may change your mind on, you know, how you think these cases were not only investigated at the time, but how they may have also been covered up over the last.

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Visit bell.ca for more details and to check availability. Bell, connection is everything. So I know you've lost your mama now, but I know. what your work meant to her. I mean, you showcased her sister, you talked about her. We didn't really know anything about all of the victims like you presented Mary to us. I can tell you my students, reading a rose for Mary, changed the way they investigate cases now at their respected departments.

So, you know, that had to mean so much to her that you would do that. Well, I think it did, and I appreciate you saying. that, Gerald. You know, she wanted justice for her sister. My mother is the real hero in this story. It's not me. I may be the conduit of some of the information, but she was the person that didn't back down, that refused to give up hope that at least you'd find some answers to the murder of her beloved sister. You know, and you talk about, you know, Albert DeSalvo being stabbed to death in prison in 1973. well, he was stabbed to death just days before he was going to recant his confession to the entire world. So this was really to keep him quiet.

I interviewed the actual prison guards who were on duty in November, 1963, and they were, I'm sorry, November 1973, and they were paid to look the other way. They saw the killer get in and get out of the prison infirmary with a knife, covered in blood, and nobody saw a thing. Now, I also uncovered Cheryl dozens of letters written by Albert de Salvo in his own hands. And one of the smoking guns that also leads me to believe he wasn't the killer is that he wrote a letter telling people that he was going to recant the confession, that he was going to name names, that he was going to blow up this entire case. And within days, he stabbed it up. You know, we both have mentioned Effley Bailey. When I talked to him about this case, I said to him, you know, this case kind of elevated your fame and you even bought a helicopter.

And he grinned and he said, I bought a helicopter company. Yeah, that sounds like that. Yeah. So, I mean, it did elevate him. There's no doubt. It made him famous. Oh, no. I mean, he became an international name at the time.

He had just defended Dr. Sam Shepard, which inspired the TV show in the movie The Fugitive, but the Boston Strangler case really put him on the map. And as I mentioned, he and I battled on cable TV for years. Finally, we got together for lunch, a mutual friend of ours put us together. And I said, well, when hell freezes over, am I ever going to sit down with Lee Bailey? And fair enough, we did. And, you know, we each learned a little bit from each. other. It helped that we were drinking heavily at that time and do Irish guys start singing Irish

fight songs and we're stumbling out of the bar with our arms wrapped around each other. And as I said, we became great friends after that. Bailey is a crafty, crafty attorney. You know, I had to give him his props in terms of how he was able to kind of manipulate this case, you know, in the 1960s and elevate himself in doing so for his own reasons. But, you know, do I believe what he was doing was wrong? Certainly, and I told him that. And so there was never any dancing around how we felt about the case with each other, but we did become friends, you know, unlikely friends, if you will, after that.

Well, it's hard not to get drawn in by just his charisma and his stories and his life. I mean, he, I mean, you know, let's face it. I mean, he was who he was. But as far as American history and famous crimes go, His name is there a lot. As a tribute. And he was, as you mentioned, a very charming guy. You know, I kind of, you know, thought of him as my crazy uncle at the end, you know.

Yeah, that's a good way to put it. Yep. Well, let me just say one thing about Zone 7 that I love is I try to have something that a young detective or a rookie can take and just kind of put in their mental toolbox. And one thing you said that is just hauntingly accurate. is the case, the investigation doesn't end. It doesn't end at arrest. It doesn't even necessarily end after somebody's convicted. If there's any loose ends, anything that needs to be tied up, you need to tie it up.

And I'm telling you, in 2010, this was the biggest case, the Cole Case investigative research institute had ever worked on when it was, quote, solved in, you know, 2013, we thought this is awesome. You know, we said that they need to exhum him and cross-check the DNA. We thought that's great. We had an action plan. We had a solvability factor,

and we were done. And I had followed you. I mean, I've seen all the movies. I've got all your books. But I had not heard you talk, honey, until we were at the Hamptons. And I'm like, what have we missed? I've got to get him on Zone 7

because people need to know there is more of the story. And I also love the fact that you keep saying, listen to his words and make your own mind up. And that is, to me, one of the best things that you can tell anybody, whether they're a detective or not. Make your own mind up. Yeah, you know, 100%. And, you know, this documentary that is out now, I actually ask the producers, I said, interview John Deinatale. He's got a different, you know, viewpoint than I do. You know, I want, you know, I want these different, you know, conversation is productive.

As long as it's productive, it's great. You know, let's go over the evidence again and again. There may be something I miss there. They may be something you miss, but be open to it. Be open to, you know, a change of the paradigm, if you will. That's what separates the real investigators from, you know, the not so real investigators, in my opinion. Yeah. And I believe in going to.

the source. I don't care who the source is, whether they're a criminal or a police officer or a prosecutor, go to the source. And, you know, when I met with John, he said of all the movies, all the books, all the magazines, he said, do you know you're the first person that's ever coming here? And I said, well, that's what I'm saying. You got to look at it. And when I looked at that file, I was so impressed by just the, you know, seen drawings that their dad had done and the painstaking work that he had put in sitting at their kitchen table that he drew by hand. Like it was insane.

Yeah, no, he was a draftsman. And, you know, when I've said that at every police academy that I've talked about cold cases, I said, you know, y'all, like y'all can't do a sketch. It ain't got to be good, but you act like he can't do one, much less what he did to scale with no computer equipment that we have today. So it's all a good lesson. But, you know, Casey Sherman, I appreciate you. I appreciate you being a part of my Zone 7.

I appreciate you answering the phone in 2009. I appreciate you buying me lunch because that was, I'm telling you all the best climber I've ever had. And I just appreciate you sharing Mary's story. I think it's powerful and important. Same here, Farrell. Thank you. And again, thanks to your audience for listening.

And as I said, make up your own mind, whether it's the case that we're talking about today or a case that somebody might be investigating or on their own. I'm going to end Zone 7 the way that I always do with a quote. There was not a single serial killer. There were several Casey Sherman, author, and nephew of Mary Sullivan. I'm Cheryl McCollum, and this is Zone 7. This is an I-Heart podcast. Guaranteed human.