Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark - “BTK, The Zodiac, Ruby Ridge, Epstein & MORE.” - Interview with FBI Profiler Jim Clemente

Episode Date: May 27, 2022

Due to high demand, former FBI serial killer profiler and writer/producer for Criminal Minds, Jim Clemente, is back for a second, in depth interview with Alex Clark. They discuss Epstein, Waco, Ruby Ridge, The Vegas shooting, BTK, and why it seems like serial killings don’t happen anymore. Plus, Jim dishes all the details about his work on Criminal Minds, as well as the show’s return. This is the longest episode of The Spillover ever – consider the tea on all of Alex’s crime-burning questions...

My stomach is in my butt. In one week, you will either be having the time of your life surrounded by thousands of other key conservatives in Dallas, Texas, or you will be home, bored, scrolling through TikTok and Instagram like you always do. Right now, you could still make a last-minute decision and take a risk. Do something a little scary, a little crazy. Go to Turning Point USA's Young Women's Leadership Summit. Even if you're going alone, even if you don't know anyone, the first year I went, I didn't

either. So I'm telling you, it was the best thing that I ever did. It was so much fun. I'll never forget it. You'll hear from the biggest names in the conservative movement like Candice Owens, Ali Stucky, and more. Go to tpUSA.com slash YWLS and use code Poblitics for 25% off your tickets. This is your last chance to make it to the biggest event for conservative young women this year. TPSA.com slash YWLS with code Pauplitics for 25% off. There have been so many guests on the spillover that have made a very huge personal impact. But there has never been quite as big of a demand to have someone back for part two as today's guest. Part one with today's guest was so incredible and so intense that I found myself looking at the clock like, no, I need three more hours.

I couldn't even believe I hadn't even asked the guests like half of the questions that I had written down. So of course I had to bring him back to keep the conversation going. He's an expert not only on Hollywood's darkest, grittiest, most successful crime shows, but he's also a former FBI agent and profiled serial killers for a living. Any guesses on who he is? If you have literally no idea who I'm talking about, or if this is your first spillover episode ever, go to season one, episode 25 right now to hear part one.

Then come back here immediately because today's conversation goes even deeper into everything I covered in part one with him, plus some more juicy true crime stuff, including Epstein, BTK, Waco, Ruby Ridge, all kinds of stuff. Oh, in the Vegas shooting, which I feel like, why don't we know anything about that, really? Okay, I can't contain my excitement any longer. Please welcome him back to the spillover, former FBI serial killer profiler, TV writer and producer for criminal minds, and co-host of the True Crime Podcast, best case, worst case, and real crime profile, Jim Clemente. The Man, the Myth, the Legend.

We have never had so many people request me to have a guest. back on. So Jim, thank you so much for being willing to do Jim Clemente Part 2. Well, no problem, Alex. Thanks for having me back. I'm sorry that I caused so much confusion there. Well, you know, they loved it. And not only did they just love the stories that you had to share, but they loved your voice. Well, that's very kind of them, I'm sure. Yeah. So there's a lot of things. I mean, we talked for so long on the part one with you. There were still so many things that I didn't get to. So I just want to jump right into why does it seem like serial killers don't happen anymore? Because it seems like for a while in the 60s, in the 70s,

there were all these serial killers back to back to back. And then now we really never hear things happening like that. Well, I'm afraid to tell you that that's not actually true. When I was into BAU, we had about 25 serial killer cases open at any. given time. And I don't know if that was because there was about 25 profilers, but as we solved one case, we would always find out that there's another one out there. And the problem is that the smart ones are very good at hiding their behavior. And many times they disguise their serial killing behavior in, well, the choice of victims or how they get rid of the victims, what their body disposal mechanism is.

So many times they're not discovered until very late into their killing careers. Is it also, do you think there's something to do with the fact that maybe the media covers these cases different? Like they don't want to make these serial killer stars. So we're not hearing them as much? Well, I think that's a very stoop point. And yes, we have been advising from the behavioral analysis unit at the FBI. that serial killers are not given monikers. In fact, on my podcast, Real Crime Profile, we don't even

name the offenders. If we have to indicate them, sometimes we'll use their initials. But generally, we stay away from the offenders' names because we don't want to give them the spotlight. I don't know if you saw me on CNN this past week or so, but I was talking about the shooter in New York City. And I believe that when you have a man with a semi-automatic handgun who fires 33 rounds into a closed environment, a subway car that's moving and closed, that when he only hits 10 of them, that that's probably deliberate. And he probably did not mean, intend to kill people, although you could kill people by shooting them in the legs. He probably didn't intend to do it. he just wanted the spotlight and the platform that it provided them. And so there are those offenders who literally do it for the glory and for the 15 minutes of fame

because they feel so powerless in their life. They want to be heard. And so I think it's a very good practice for the media not to give serial killers a moniker and for them not to even mention their names once they're caught. Last time you were on, we talked about a couple cases, John Bonae Ramsey, Michael Jackson, to name a few. So there's a few more cases that Cute Servatives really wanted to hear your opinion on. I want to start with Epstein and Maxwell. So obviously, Galane Maxwell found guilty.

But all of the details of Epstein's network were ordered sealed by the judge. In your opinion, should the public be able to know who those people are? absolutely there is no question that this is only helping offenders this is only helping people that apparently were connected to somebody who was doing some extremely bad things and if their connection was innocent then let's get it out and and suss that out and prove it that's fine but if it wasn't then they should be brought to justice i don't care who they are the fact is that epstein got the sweetheart deal out of the Southern District of Florida, when he should have been prosecuted.

Instead, he was given basically what amounted to a misdemeanor plea. It was a 60 or I think there was a 54 to 60 page indictment. And it got pled down to a minor misdemeanor charge of soliciting an underage prostitute. What? What? I mean, there were so many identified victims in that case. The FBI had done a really good job of bringing that together. And the U.S. attorney gave it away. Why?

Right. I firmly believe that the only circumstances in which that occurs, and I did not work that case, so I don't know from personal experience, but I believe the only way that could happen is if there are national security implications, and those things trumped the criminal case. In other words, if Epstein claimed or did have access to information that was in the interest of our national security, that that was used to get him a sweetheart deal. And I think that's disgusting. And that clearly sets up the victims for further victimization and additional victims. And I think that's absolutely wrong.

I mean, we know for a fact that Epstein's friends that came to the island where people like Kevin Spacey and Bill Clinton, they flew there multiple times. So given that evidence, do you think that there could be something to that? Well, yeah. I mean, I don't know if they're the seven or part of the seven or eight unnamed co-conspirators. I don't know if those names are there. They haven't been released. But supposedly she's not going to protect them anymore. I don't know why they're not being released.

But clearly, having a connection to him and whether I don't care what side of the aisle you're on, having a connection to him is not a good thing. And he was doing extremely disgusting and dead. decadent behaviors. I mean, he was committing crimes over and over and over again with impunity. Would you buy it, though, if either Bill Clinton or Kevin Spacey, you know, said, well, Jim, like, we genuinely just had no idea that was going on. Like, would you buy that excuse? Well, I don't. If you look at the other, what you're looking for when you're doing an investigation is corroboration, right? And so if you have a history of allegations of being involved with, younger women or both of those people do or boys yes i would think that that would cross corroborate

any allegations that came out of the epstein matter i'm not going to say i'm not going to speculate or guess whether they did or not but if you have those allegations and then you have a history of other allegations that cross corroborate it that gives a lot of credibility to those allegations. Yeah. Well, speaking of like pedophilia and, you know, crimes against children, I have heard this. Well, I have to tell you, I have to correct you. We're not speaking of pedophilia. I don't know of any indications throughout the entire case where anybody was alleged to be a pedophile. Pedophile is somebody who was sexually attracted to prepubescent children, somebody who is not attracted to somebody once they hit puberty.

And those are called preferential child sex offenders. And that's what I believe the allegations are in these cases. And I think it's important that we stay on topic and not just use pedophilia because everybody knows the word. It's not what we're talking about here. Well, in the case of child pornography, I've heard this excuse. I don't know if you have of, well, look, some people are downloading child pornography online because they just have a pornography addiction and they become insatiable.

they just need really taboo stuff. It's not necessarily that they're attracted to children. Do you think that that is a real thing? All right. So let me address that. I believe there's one type of child sex offender that may, in fact, have that as one of the components of why they're downloading child pornography. But pornography in it of itself is for the purpose of sexual arousal. And what these offenders do is they look at it, they get sexually aroused by it, they masturbate to reinforce that sexual arousal pattern, and that increases the risk that they will actually commit hands-on crimes against children of that nature.

So even if that were the case, it's illegal for a reason. But the vast majority of people who download and collect child pornography and produce child pornography and trade child pornography, the vast majority of them have a specific sexual interest in children. And they pursue that with their fantasies and they reinforce that arousal pattern. and in the studies, they have proven that between 57% and 85% of those who are arrested just for child pornography offenses also had completely undetected hands-on sex offenses against children. And in the Butner study, that was at least 14 victims per offender. And that's probably a low number based on what we know about how these. offenders operate. As someone who specializes in crimes against children and is a survivor yourself, was it concerning to you, Justice, Kintanji Brown, Jackson's, you know, light sentences that she

was giving to predators at all? Well, you know, certainly if you look at some of the cases, they looked to be outside the norm, below the norm, and some of the statements she made. I think one offender, in fact, had sexually assaulted a child, and there was some talk of, well, the pornography was really of, I'm sorry, I'm conflating two of those cases, but I'll get back to that one. But the one who had sexually assaulted a child and then got a light sentence went on to sexually assault another child. And, of course, we never want to see that happen ever. So we should probably give them the highest sentence possible. They need to, you have to understand if they have a sexual interest in children, that sexual attraction is not just a choice. The choice to act on it is theirs, but they are actually sexually attracted to children.

And you can't change that by slapping them on the wrist. You have to keep them away from children. And so in those cases where she didn't put the highest sentence possible on these guys, she obviously increased the risk that they're going to actually do something more to offend against children. And so, of course, I don't agree with that at all. But then there was another case in which apparently it was an 18 or 19 year old offender who was looking at images, some of which were 16 and 17-year-olds. And there was a distinction between that and somebody who looks at kids who are much younger.

Well, the fact is, some of what he was looking at was kids who were much younger. And it doesn't matter whether he's 18 or 19 and they're 16 or 17. It's still just as illegal. And when you have somebody like that who's downloading and viewing child pornography, they're creating a market. So people produce that stuff and they produce it by sexually victimizing and sexually exploiting children. There is no non-victim crime there. And judges need to educate themselves about this. And I think everything that Justice Brown was talking about just showed that there needs to be.

much more education on the part of justice. They have a responsibility to understand the actual crimes that are being committed, the motivations behind them, and the research that tells you exactly what those crimes mean. Do you think it was concerning knowing that information that they went ahead and confirmed her as, you know, a SCOTUS anyway? Well, I think it takes her out of the position where she's ever going to be able to do that again. Yeah. That's a good point. So another case that is interesting to me, and I thought, oh, I should ask Jim about this because this is such a unique one. Richard Kuklinsky, the Iceman. Do you remember this case? Yeah, I know. Dr. Park Dietz interviewed him.

Yeah. So for those of you who don't know, this is a guy who claimed to have murdered several hundred people in mafia killings in the 80s. He's like this famous hit man. He's been the subject of multiple HBO documentaries. He did multiple interviews with criminologists, writers, psychologists, tons of people. So we know a lot about him because he was actually willing to talk about his crimes, which a lot of times that doesn't happen. But I guess what I want to ask you, Jim, is is someone like that a serial killer who just happened to find the right job or did his job make him a serial killer? I would say it's called sublimation. And that's when somebody who has the propensity to do that finds a profession that allows him to do that or encourages him to do that.

And you could have somebody who's sadistic who becomes a dentist because they cause people pain all the time. You also have lots of dentists who bend over backwards to not cause people pain, but there are people who find a profession that actually allows them to carry out their deviant desires. And so I don't think any job makes somebody a serious. killer. I mean, we distinguish between somebody in the military who kills multiple people over time because that is their job. That's what they had to do. But that doesn't make someone a serial killer. Now you can have somebody who's in the military who's killed multiple people who gets off on it and continues to do it after they're out of the military. But again, they had that potentiality.

And remember I told you genetics loads the gun, personality, psychology, aim it, experiences pull the trigger. You have to have all three for that to happen, for there to be a serial killer. And if you'd never had the genetic potentiality, if you never had the personality and psychology that embraced that side, pulling the trigger wouldn't have happened. Now, I know, Jim, that you're going to be really defensive over this, and it's totally fine. So you're mad at me and you're like, I want to get on the defense on this. It's fine.

But I have to ask you. I don't even know what it is yet. I have, well, I have to ask you about a few cases that just seem like shady business from the FBI or where the FBI completely dropped the ball, okay? Okay. Absolutely. I'm happy to answer any questions. I hope I know enough about the case to actually say something intelligent about it. Well, two cases that I have talked a lot about with key conservatives, because remember, a lot of young people listen to my show that really don't know anything about some of these cases that happened in the 90s, being Ruby.

Ridge or Wago. So I have sort of, you know, kind of summarized the cases for them before in Poplittics episodes. But I'm curious your take. I mean, in my opinion, those are two cases where the FBI just screwed up royally. Would you agree or disagree with that? Well, first of all, how? What do you mean they screwed up royalty? In what aspect? Let's try, let's start with Ruby Ridge. Okay. Well, I mean, Ruby Ridge, they felt like this guy was a neo-Nazi, right? They were following him. They felt like he had, am I correct in saying that they felt like he had illegal firearms and things like that? I just don't understand the escalation of that leading to a shootout. Well, I'll tell you. And that it's a good question because you don't know the facts then,

because this was an ATF case. And so was actually Waco. But Ruby Ridge started when ATF agents went to the property because they believed that he was collecting guns that were illegal. I don't know what the what the specific models were or why they were legal but that's why they went there the ATF at some point decided to put up a camera to see who was coming and going as part of their surveillance while they were doing that the dog came out and started i mean i guess was threatening them or whatever for whatever reason they decided to kill that dog when that happened it then became a shootout between the father, the son, and these ATF agents. So that is what precipitated it. The FBI didn't even go to the scene until after that had all gone out. The son had already

been killed. And an ATF agent had been killed by the son. So this is now FBI jurisdiction. FBI investigates any case in which a federal agent is assaulted or killed. So the FBI now takes over. And now they want to arrest this guy because he was involved in a shootout in which an ATF agent, a federal agent, was killed. And because he's in the United States of America, he has to go with the FBI. He's not allowed to bunker himself and just stay there and live the rest of his life okay. So they set up snipers around.

And they many times told him to come out and be arrested and he refused. The thing that was screwed up, the thing that happened that was horrible, was that he was outside. The father was outside. And one of the FBI snipers said, I think it was Lon Harucci, who said, I have a clear shot. Do I have authorization to take a shot? because they had said, look, we need to take out the threat. And he's, you know, we don't know what's going on in there. He could be holding his family hostage.

We don't know. But he is not submitting to the FBI jurisdiction after an FBI, excuse me, an ATF agent was killed. So Lon Harucci was given the okay to take the shot. And as he was aiming, the father started running inside the cabin. And as he passed by the door, the agent followed his trajectory and shot and it went through the door. It hit him. But the mother was on the other side of the door holding her baby. It killed her.

And it didn't kill him. And that was very unfortunate. And it was a judgment call made by somebody who was in the position where he literally thought he was. going to take out the bad guy and not hurt anybody else. But that's not what happened. So he has to live with that. And I know that that really bothered him. But I don't know of any other thing that occurred that even smells of the FBI doing something wrong or misconduct in that case. Now, now you also mentioned Waco. Right. Yeah. Waco. One of the things that the FBI did was they set up surveillance. And I know some of the snipers who were sitting around

taking turns surveilling the compound through scopes. And one of those snipers saw a 50-caliber machine gun that was being aimed out at law enforcement. Now again, this was an ATF operation. And And in that operation, they, the ATF basically made a raid on the property. But was the raid even justified in the first place? Wait, wait, wait. But there's, yeah, but that, that has nothing to do with the FBI. The FBI doesn't authorize the ATF, another federal agency to make a raid or not. Well, why?

And so you asked me about the FBI. Okay, okay. Well, I'll tell you, all right, I'll tell you a major mistake that was made. Okay. The ATF told the media that they were making this raid. The media was covering the raid. The people on the inside were watching the news. And they could see exactly where the raid was happening

and exactly where the guys were positioned on the roof. Should have been blind to them. But they just shot this 50 caliber weapon through the roof and killed a bunch of ATF agents. Again, now the FBI is called in. You can't kill a federal agent in the United States and then say, I'm going to stay in my home and you can't come in. You can't do it. And so a siege happened. And it was, I think Janet Reno really wanted to sort of take the temperature down and wait this out. But we have things called spike mics. And it's basically like putting a nail into a side of a wall. And they put them in all over. the compound. What does that do? Well, it allows them to hear what's going on inside.

Oh, okay. And what happened and what was reported to Janorino and why she then authorized the actual attack on the compound was because he was molesting children. Children were being sexually abused. And she said we cannot because what we're trying to do is where, the possibility of escalation over the protection of these children. And she made the call. And she made the call thinking this was going to help protect children.

But these children, and I don't know whether you want to believe it or not, these children were told that the end was coming and that they were going to die, they were going to perish because he had a plan to take everyone out with him. And some people still think that an FBI grenade or smoke or something they were trying to insert caused the fire. But it's just not true. I mean, it was started in multiple places. And the recordings actually exist where the people inside, this is because of the spike bikes, we heard them say, he said to get the gasoline, he said to light it.

And that's when right after that is when the blaze began. So you can say from the outside it looks terrible. Yes, every single FBI agent, every single person that was involved in that cringes at the thought of all those people dying and kids dying. It's not what anybody wanted. But also, when do you stop prosecuting somebody for murder? When do you stop whether that was a justified raid by the ATF or not? Your privacy doesn't trump the life of somebody else. And especially not. a federal agent. This is a federal crime that the FBI will always investigate and nobody will ever apologize for investigating that crime. If the raid was wrong, if the people who are doing the raid were doing something wrong, absolutely that should come out in the trial that follows.

But you don't have a right to kill federal agents just because they're executing a warrant on your property because a judge gave them the authority to do this. that and that's what they were doing. And so it's to me, it's a completely apolitical thing. It has nothing to do with politics. What it has to do was with the information that we had and the situation that we were confronted with. And had I been in Janet Reno's shoes, I probably would have made exactly the same decision, even knowing that it was a risk of escalation. But I think she thought the risk of escalation was that there would be a firefight, not that that they would set the whole thing on fire.

Right. And succumb to it. You know what's crazy? You know what's crazy, Jim? Is that a couple months ago, I went to Waco and I wanted to see where the raid happened. And so I drove out to the Branch Davidian compound. And it is still a place that you can go and visit and talk to people. I guess, you know, the Branch Davidian, I don't know if you want to call it a religion or whatever,

but there's still people that are involved in that. and they have on the property you can. A little museum. Yes, it's a little museum. And so I went in because, you know, I'm into this stuff. I want to hear what they have to say. So I went into their little museum and listened to this guy who's a part of the branch of video and talk about it. And, okay, this isn't going to make conservatives look great.

But they had in there, I mean, Trump flags and all this stuff and everything was anti-clinton. They hate the Clintons. And I was like, that is really interesting. And I wanted to ask you about that. They're making it political. Well, they're making it political, but also, obviously, it's very like they want as small government as possible. So to them, they probably love Trump because, you know, he's very anti-big government. And they hate the Clintons.

And I didn't know if the hatred of the Clintons is because Bill Clinton was president at the time or why do you think they have like all of this? It's like a, it's like, what do you call that, a shrine of how much we hate the Clintons in there? Well, I think it did have a lot to do with the fact that Bill was president at the time. And as I said, Janet Reno is the one, she's the head of the Department of Justice. And he relied on her to make that decision. And I don't know how you sit back and let the kids be sexually abused over and over again and not do anything about it when you're the head of the Department of Justice. So, I mean, people can choose whatever enemies they want.

They can hate whoever they want. You know, everybody has the freedom to do that. It's when they take actions and when they hurt other people that law enforcement. and the FBI needs to step in. And that's what their jobs are. But it's so incredibly sad that whether it's because they believed in this faith or whether they were forced to not go. I mean, a bunch of people were rescued, obviously.

A bunch of people got out before the flames. And there were a lot of agents who were there who were trying to rescue people, who did rescue people and some people got dragged out and ran back inside. And so that's really unfortunate. But I don't at all, I'm not angry at you at all for asking the questions. And I'm, you know, and I have, I literally, I have my entire career, I was a political. I don't have a, I mean, I did investigations against people who were in multiple parties and not just one or the other. there's many parties that that I've also investigated people of. And it's never been, ever been even an issue because you are a professional.

And I feel like you're able to be unbiased when you're, you know, when you were doing investigations as an FBI agent. Do you have any concern at all that today's FBI agents, some of them are going into cases and investigations with a political motive? I think there's more protections against that today than existed when I was in the FBI. and certainly years ago when when Hoover was running it. I mean, he had no, there were no protections. No, there were no protections. He basically ran rampant. He did whatever he wanted.

And he had a lot of, I mean, he was extorting a bunch of people, apparently. But when you're talking about today, the upper echelon of the FBI might have gotten involved politically to extent that they should never have done. But you will find that the vast majority of the 14,000 FBI agents that are on the street, that they have no political agenda at all, they are trying to protect life and liberty, and they are trying to get home to their families every night. That's what's important to them.

And, you know, the directors come and go, presidents come and go. we all were FBI agents over many administrations. And it didn't affect the investigations we did. Yes, somebody at the top may make some political decisions. They're actually appointed by the President of the United States. Sometimes the President of the United States asks them to do things. Sometimes those are legit and sometimes they're not. So those things need to be scrutinized.

but the people on the ground, boots on the ground, people, I've not seen it. And I would be surprised if it has changed. Obviously, I haven't been in the FBI for, I don't know, 12 years now. So I don't know, but I do still know agents and I do still know they're very motivated. Because remember, one of the things that FBI agents investigate is public corruption. Right. And you don't get to choose. what party they are in. Right, but that's why I don't understand things like Russiagate, for example.

Like, that was just clearly bullshit. It was clearly. Do you think that things shouldn't be investigated? They should, but they knew it was phony. They knew the whole dossier was phony. And so that's when I see things like that. I think for conservatives, we see things like that and we lose our trust in the FBI. Okay, well, you see, you say they knew it's phony.

they may have had to get evidence that it was phony. They had it sooner than they let that investigation go on for, though, don't you think? Who they, who they had that information? Who are you talking about? Are you talking about the president? Are you talking about the director? Are you talking about the people that? The director, Mueller.

Well, look, I know Mueller personally, so I can't be unbiased in this. but everything I know about him and what he did, he absolutely does it by the book. And it doesn't matter. If there's an allegation, a credible allegation, and that's where it starts, there has to be a credible allegation, you have to do the investigation.

And it doesn't stop on the day you find out information that cuts against the credibility of it. It stops when you finish the investigation. So you might think it's great, but if you don't turn over every stone and there is a trial, the first thing the defense attorney is going to say is, wait a minute, you stopped it here when you got to my client. But you didn't do this, this, this, and this. And the client gets off when he's the one guy that was doing the wrong thing. So you just have to complete the investigation.

Maybe it takes a little more time and money, but it has to be done. Otherwise, it wasn't done. That's all. Two cases that are very, very hard that have happened recently, for me to wrap my mind around, number one would be, I would say, the USA Gymnastics Larry Nasser case. How do you reconcile those? It's exactly what I was saying earlier. So the head of that division that was in charge of that investigation was apparently also applying for a job with the Olympics.

He totally discounted and completely let down the victims in that case and most likely created more victims. gave Nasser the opportunity to have more victims. That is a criminal offense in my mind. That is something that should never have been done. That should be investigated further. Now, I wasn't there, but all I'm saying is that conflict of interest, and there's other cases like that, where there's a conflict of interest, that has not been addressed, it should not ever happen.

You should never be in that position. And so that is one of the worst things that I've ever heard happened since I heard about the FBI. That is, that is, it is blatantly flying in the face of, of what we know. This guy probably knew nothing about the field of child sexual victimization or nothing about the fact of how hard it is, how incredibly difficult it is to prove a, child sex case against doctors because they have the excuse of, well, I'm just doing an exam. I'm just providing treatment. And so it's very difficult because they have access and authority. And what do most parents tell their kids? This is your private area and only mommy and daddy and the

doctor is allowed to see it and touch it. Well, what if the doctor is the one that has those sexual proclivities. How do you think parents should be explaining to kids when they should be worried about, you know, unwanted touching? Like, because you can't say strangers because a lot of times it's not a stranger. Exactly. The most prolific offenders are going to be non-stranger. They're going to be acquaintance molesters.

Nice guy, nice girl, acquaintance molesters known to the victim, like 90, 95% of the offenders are going to be known to the victims. So, yes, the parents should say. obviously beware of strangers, but that's a whole different thing. What they should tell their kids is, look, these are your private parts. And you know what? We're going to always talk about it. We're going to be open about it. We're going to talk about it. And if anything happens related to that, it doesn't matter what. I'm going to be relaxed about it. You're going to be relaxed about it. And we're just going to have a discussion. And it's never going to change how I feel about you. It's

never going to change the fact that I love you and I want to protect you. But we are always going to be open and have a dialogue about it. That dialogue is what's going to protect your kids, not fear mongering, not saying, you know, bad things are going to happen or bad things, but being loving and caring and supporting and open. If you're nervous about talking to your kids about sex, they will find out about it from somebody else. And that somebody else could very well be a sex offender. Vegas Mandalay Bay shooting, 2017, 59 people were murdered. How in the world, Jim, do we still have no idea about why or how this happened five years later? Well, you may not have no idea, but that week I got on TV and said, this guy was suicidal.

There's a very thin line between suicide ideation and homicide. And he felt through a series of events disempowered. And so he made a plan to go out in the biggest way possible by making the biggest, as splash he possibly could. This was a suicidal event, and this is his entire motivation that people are still talking about him today because he wanted to go out and have some kind of legacy. And we need to rob him of that legacy and never mention his name because the fact is that it's transparent why he did what he did. You're never going to have what I mean, did you expect him to I don't know, make a manifesto. Well, that's not.

really quite this offender. There's a history. No one in his family, everyone that knew him, his family members and everything, am I right? They were just shocked by this. Well, I don't know. And there's no camera footage of him going into the hotel room, one of the most video takes place in the world. Yeah, there is.

There is plenty. I've seen plenty of pictures of him loading large numbers of bags, oversized bags, onto a cart and and passing, you know, cameras. I don't think they're out in the public much, but I've definitely seen them. And the fact is that we as a society made some kind of choice that we are not going to treat hotels or casinos like we treat the airport. We could do it.

We could have much better security there. Should we? Oh, well, this is not a, a very frequent event, but it certainly could happen again. Yeah. I hope it doesn't, but it certainly could. And any kind of mass transit should be treated exactly the same. And any kind of place where there's a lot of people, you know, I think we need to have

that kind of security. It's just it's better than not having it. And the inconvenience, if everybody's doing it, it's equally inconvenient for everybody. And that way, nobody gets hurt by it. You know, nobody's not going to. come to your place because of that. You write for true crime shows, you work on true crime shows and television. Have you ever seen Dexter before? Yes. Okay. So do you think that a vigilante serial killer like Dexter would ever happen in real life? All right. Those are two actually different questions.

Do I think there's ever a vigilante serial killer? Yes. Like Dexter, no. Okay. Why do I say that? Because, well, Hollywood. It's, it's fantasy. The ability to carry that out and and basically continue that kind, that level of offending under the guise of, of being a professional. It just, it just stands out too much. I don't believe that it's possible. And especially in today's day where, where there is so much social media coverage and, and, you know, outside of traditional media, there is there's a lot of information sharing. Now, one of the most insidious kinds of offenders, and it's kind of parallel to this, and I do believe this exists today, and I believe I almost became the victim of one of them,

is the sort of angel of mercy, angel of death type offenders. These are people who work in the care industries, whether it's hospitals or elderly care or some other place where vulnerable people exist who might be going through suffering and sadness, Some of these people justify their behavior where they kill these people because they say they're taking them out of their misery. There's been doctors, there's been nurses, there's been assistants. And when I was in the middle of having my bone marrow transplant, I had no immune system. I was waiting to see if the stem cells would worm their way into my bones and start producing blood cells for me. or if I was just going to die.

And I woke up in the middle of night to a nurse whose face was literally inches away from mine with no mask on. She had the port in her mouth that she was going to, she took off the one on me. And when she did, when she popped that, I woke up and I saw her.

And she was taking the one out of her mouth and she was about to plug it into my, the stent that I had going into my aorta, had she done that, I would have absolutely died because I had no immune system at the time. And the germs in her mouth are plenty to kill me. She was not supposed to enter the room without coming in with a mask and gloves and then going over to a cart and opening up a surgical pair of mask and glove and a screen and double masking and double gloving. And then she was supposed to approach me. She had none of that And my sister who was in the room, asleep on a chair, she was my intermediary.

In other words, they wanted to minimize the number of people that came into the room. So normally they would just hand it to my sister and then she would be the one in my room, right? She was a nurse. She's a nurse practitioner and very careful. You know, it woke her up. She got the nurse out of there and immediately reported it. And they said, oh, she's just a traveling nurse. She didn't know what she was doing.

Yeah. And I was like, no, that can't be. And she claimed that it fell out and she was just putting it back in. First of all, how could you even know? You're, you know, there's a screen around my bed. There's a door. There's no way you could know that. And you should not, you know, because it has all these red signs and everything. Do not come in here without all this protection. And I believe that that could have been what she was doing. And it's very easy to get away with that. Because of If I had died of an infection, well, a certain number of people who are going through the transplant die because they get an infection. They get a germ from somewhere. And literally, if I had not woken up, we wouldn't have ever met. And a lot of this story would never have happened. I know.

So what happened to her? Is she still a nurse out there? I have no idea. I have no idea. You're always telling you these stories. You're like, I don't know. They could be out there. I'm telling you the truth.

I mean, I was kind of in bad shape at the time and didn't have a lot of, you know, energy or a lot of my faculties around me. I'm, you know, for 11 days, I was waiting to see if I was going to live or die. And so I'm lucky that I got through it. But I hope that Johns Hopkins, and if you, if your listeners want to write to Johns Hopkins and ask them about this and see what happened to that nurse, that would be nice. because somebody should answer for it. Yeah, I agree. That's really freaking scary. I would give anything to be in a room with a detective when they grill a potential suspect.

Like, I want to sit behind that two-way glass where I can see them, they can't see me, and I can be on a little earpiece in the detective's ear being like, say this, say that. You know what else I like to see grilled? My moank meat. Oh, yeah, baby, I went there. How's that for a segue into an ad read? No one doesn't like me. It is Memorial Day weekend, and on Memorial Day weekend, we're supposed to be honoring those who gave all so we can have it all.

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who find out that their parent was living a double life. And Dennis Rader, who was nicknamed BTK for Bind Torture Kill, comes to mind. You know, on the outside, this was the guy who was married. He had two kids. He was involved in the Lutheran Church. and secretly he spent decades raping and killing people. Do serial killer kids, when their parents get caught,

do they grow up and are they able sometimes to have pretty normal lives? Or are they really struggling with lots of issues typically? Well, I can imagine that they are struggling with issues. And many of them will change their names and things like that to try to get away from it. And I think that's fine. It shouldn't be a problem. Yeah. But I have to say,

I don't, as a rule, follow up with, you know, victims or survivors or family members of people that we lock up. Wait, why is that? And you say you don't as a rule. So does that mean this is a gym rule and other FBI agents or profilers can reach out to people if they want? If they want, I suppose they could. But if victims or the family members reach out to me, then I will be happy to interact with them. but I do not as a rule do that because generally my interaction with them comes at the worst time of their lives. And I don't want to be a reminder of that. And I don't want to put them back in that situation or sort of out them if they want to want to remain anonymous. And so that is, that's why I have that general rule. But again, there have been times when either somebody has reached out to me or I've read about.

somebody who is a survivor and you know that it's it's nice to know but generally I don't do that you know what is really freaky and crazy that I kind of discovered just being a fan of criminal minds is that okay so BTC gets caught in early 2005 I believe it was February 2005 criminal minds the first episode of criminal minds you guys started airing in 2006. Am I right? First season? Okay.

So in the first season, you guys worked on an episode of a serial killer who is exactly like BTG. And the reason he gets caught is because he goes 10 years without killing. And then all of a sudden he resurfaces and then he gets himself caught like an idiot. And then a few months later, you have BTK getting caught that way. So basically what I'm saying is the writers, you guys, you guys, writers, it's almost like you predicted how BTK would get caught before you got caught. Well, let me just say this. First of all, no episode of criminal minds is a one-to-one

relations to a real case. I made every effort to avoid that and to put in real teaching points in every episode. I wrote an episode called Big C. SEA, right? And while we are shooting it, I actually played a role in it as an FBI agent, who was a evidence, ERT person, going through bones that were found on the beach. We were shooting that.

And when I got done, I got a call from Don Lemon, from his producers to ask if I would go on to talk about the Long Island serial killer. Oh my gosh. That had just been discovered. So I literally am sitting there talking to Don Lemon on CNN. And he asked me, do you ever write about stuff like this when it?

And I said, Don, I wrote about this case six months ago. We're producing it right now. He said, what do you mean? I said, we just shot a scene of us recovering bones on a beach. And why is that? Well, because I did, I was an FBI agent for 22 years. The guys before me were 20 and 30 year FBI agents. We have a lot of institutional knowledge that we share with each other and that we store in the back of our minds.

And although it is not a one-to-one comparison, I mean, clearly because we wrote it before it happened, it is within the realm of human experience. And we've seen little snippets of it, and we put it together. We put it together in the writer's room. And some of it is the imagination of the writers, and some of it is me sort of reining in that imagination and putting it in the real world. Obviously, the reason that Dennis Raider took a break from killing for a while was because he was raising a family. But what are some other reasons a serial killer would just stop killing out of nowhere?

So one sublimation. Remember we talked about that? He may have found or she may have found a profession that satisfies that urge. Like what would be a profession that would satisfy the urge of killing? Well, it might not just be killing. It might be, I don't want to disparage an entire group of people, but maybe somebody who worked in a funeral home would have. you know, gain some desired things from being around dead people. Maybe somebody who went off into the military. There's those things. There's people who get arrested, so they have a period of time where they don't offend. There's people who move to other countries, states, countries, continents.

And they continue their crimes. but people just don't realize they're connected. So there's a lot of different reasons, or they could be in a relationship that actually, like let's say you're a sadistic person, a sexual sadist, and you actually find somebody who's into S&M and you get to play out those fantasies

without killing somebody. That might satisfy somebody for a while, and they might come out of that at some point. It could also be chemical, excuse me, it could also be chemical reactions in their brains. You know, I mean, remember, it's a perfect storm between biopsycho and social that has them killing. So a change in one of those things can put them off for a while.

Is it rare for a killer to have the ability to maintain relationships and a semblance of a normal life apart from killing? No, not at all. And that's why I keep saying you can't just use the terminology monster predator. It just misleads everyone. You know, when everybody says, oh, he's evil, he's this, he's that, she's a monster. All they're doing is allowing cover for the next one. The next one that's your next door neighbor, you know, the person on the block,

that, you know, is just the most gregarious. No, people have multiple facets. And you have to understand that just because they appear to be a good person doesn't mean they have a lot, they don't have a lot going on in their mind that is completely contrary to their public image. Well, I feel like a lot of people really understand at this point, the more we've learned about human trafficking, that it really could be anyone. It could be a really rich neighbor and a wealthy suburb.

who's married and has a family. You know, it could be them operating out of a college dorm, whatever. There's no rules on who could be perpetrating human trafficking. And so the same thing really could be said about serial killers. They could look or be anyone, really, is what you're saying? Absolutely. There's just no way around it. I mean, the smart ones will mimic normal human behavior because they're bright and they see it

and they use people. they manipulate people. They have absolutely no qualms about what they're doing. Did you ever profile somebody who you actually found likable? Like, oh my gosh, this guy wasn't a serial killer. We could be best friends. Best friends? You know that one of the best way to actually interrogate somebody

and get truthful and accurate information is to build rapport with them. And so I've had to build rapport with people whose actions I've despised. and I'm horrified by. And I guess no better example than when I discovered they were torturing people in Guantanamo and not getting any information from them, I said, give me the worst guy here, and I'll show you how to do it properly and legally. And after 11 days of meeting with him, he said, Jim, my friend, what can I do for you? but because I gave him dignity and respect and I gave him choices and I treated him like a human being

and he was used to being treated inhumanely and so that's how I built a bond of rapport with him and it is literally how you get somebody to cooperate with you rather than fighting against you show him that we're both human and build a bridge of human kindness. And so I've had to do that. Makes my skin crawl and some of the people that I've had to sit in a room with and be friends. And I'm using air quotes around that with. But, you know, we also went into prisons and and interviewed serial offenders throughout my time in the BAU. And again, you know, obviously some of these people are extremely skilled at what they did. That's how they got away with it for so long.

So they're good at building rapport. They're good at faking you out. So, yeah, on the surface, but when you know what they're actually capable of, I'd be very reticent about actually having them as my best friend. If you were a betting man, do you think that the Zodiac killer has been dead for a long time, or do you think that he is living among us and he also has a family? It's getting kind of old.

And although I'm not going to say his name, or the Golden State Killer, you know, That was a pretty long cold case. That's why I wonder if the Zodiac could also get found soon. Well, and I can guarantee that the same thing that caught the Golden State Killer will identify the Zodiac. You think they know each other? No, no, no. I said the same technique.

Oh, okay. Forensic genetic geology. I thought you were about to say maybe. I thought for a second, I thought you were going to say the Golden State Killer is going to identify the Zodiac. Like they've been hanging out. The same technology that identified him is going to identify Zodiac. That makes me like really weirded out the way they found the Golden State killer using, you know, 23 me like DNA analysis.

That makes me not want to do that because it's kind of freaky. I don't know. It's just kind of weird that they're using that to then find if you're related to any serial killers and things like that. I'm just like, I don't know if I want my DNA being used for weird stuff. Okay. Well, if I, well, I'll just tell you this. The two guys that did that, the FBI side of that with. Paul Holes.

They're called the steves, Steve Kramer and Steve Bush. They are, they every day, every week solicit people to actually do that, donate their DNA so that they can expand the database that's growing so that we can make sure that we cover everybody on the planet. You don't have to have everybody on the planet. You just have to have a sampling of everybody. but anyway, they said when they sit down with them and explain to them how they use it and how your name is never going to come out of it,

but they have never once had a single person say, no, I don't want to donate my DNA because they explain it. So it's not all smoke and mirrors. And, you know, because let's face it, it's basically, I think he explained it to me. it's something like it would be, the closest it would ever get to you would be sort of like a second cousin, something like that.

And, you know, if you don't care if your second cousin is raping or killing little kids, then you're probably not a good person. Well, when you put it that way, Jam, maybe. I know.

I know. Well, that's how I have to put it because that's what it's being used for. That's a good point. It's not being used to, you know, see if you're genetically pure enough

or something like that. It's being used to see if somebody, if your DNA will actually lead to somebody who actually committed these horrific crimes. They're not doing it for parking tickets. Okay, that's fair. I guess I got a lot of those. Okay, well, then you don't have to worry about it, and you should probably cut that part in this show.

You probably already know anyway. I'm sure you already know all the dirt on it. Right, right. I'm sure I did all the research in the world on you. Right. Okay. So could you share with us a kill? who was just the most fascinating for you to profile personally,

even if it's not a name that we publicly know, like a famous case, just one that you were like, man, that was just crazy. All right. Well, yeah,

you know, you have to understand that I don't memorize the names of the bad guys. Like, to me, they're like, R&Gol get that person and stop them from doing it. So I don't even know. I barely even know the names.

of half a dozen of the people that I profiled. And remember, profiling is when you have an unknown offender and you look at the circumstances surrounding the case and then you basically reverse engineer back to the type of person who committed this crime. So it was an abduction of a seven-year-old girl. And I'm not even going to say the location, all right? but she came out of school with like 200 other kids,

and they described it as, it was like an alien abduction. She just disappeared off the face of the earth. And, you know, 30 seconds into this briefing in the morning when I got there, I just raised my hand and said to the sheriff, I know exactly what happened. And he just looked at me like I was crazy. and then there was a lot of murmurs from the other officers in the room.

What is your problem? Let him finish, you know, and all that kind of stuff. And I said, look, take me out to the scene where she got out of school and I'll show you exactly what happened. And even though there was a lot of, you know, colorful language thrown at me at that point, I convinced him to do that and he took me there. And I walked the scene where she was last seen. And I got to a point where everybody said she just disappeared off the face of the earth. And I said, the offender lives in one of these five homes.

And he's in his early to mid-20s. He hasn't been able to hold down a job or a relationship. lives with his parents and left town for some emergency and won't come back until everything calms down about this case and because they were searching across state lines by at this point for sex offenders and all this other stuff and I said no this guy isn't going to be on a sex offender list but they said no he said no this is impossible because this house is a construction site nobody lives there this family moved to another state when they're house got foreclosed on. Nobody's been there for months. This family, both the parents work for the

city and the kids are both teenagers and they, they're at, they're at school for another hour, so they couldn't have been out here at that time. This is an old elderly man and this is a blind woman, which one of them did it? And I said, those are the people that you know about. There's somebody else, maybe a caregiver or somebody else who works there who's there every single day. And I know this because she wasn't abducted like an alien abduction. She went to the guy. She thought he was a friend. She was crying because she had an argument with her sister. She ran ahead and she disappeared because he smiled at her and waved and said, come here. He saw in that instant that she was alone for the first time. He saw her every day. He knew this is where things changed. And that's when he decided

I'm going to do this. So when that happened, when I told them that, there was actually a guy who was, his early 20s, who was an assistant at the, at the construction site in one of the houses, right? And they bought him in. And he's looking at his watch and he's left in a room and they're watching him.

and he basically, you know, said, how long am I going to be here? I'm supposed to take my girlfriend to the movies at 3 o'clock. And they said, you'll wait here as long as we have you here. Right. And he sighed and he put his head down. And the prosecutor next to me said, look, he's falling asleep.

I'm going to go for the death penalty. And I said, this kid doesn't have the mental acuity to commit this crime. This kid is more concerned about pissing his girlfriend off than he is about being a suspect in the abduction and murder of a seven-year-old girl. This is not the offender. And she just looked at me like, because she had heard that if somebody falls asleep in the interrogation room, they're guilty.

Could have a lot to do with whether or not he slept last night and had nothing to do with the case. And I told them that and eventually they were able to prove that he was actually X number of miles away and was nowhere near the crime scene. Had I not been there, who knows what that prosecutor might have done. But two months later, well, and then I wrote the sheriff a media statement and I said, just read this exactly as I say. And I said, you want to send some detectives to the landfill because I can see the garbage cans at the end of the driveway. Children's bodies are very easily disposed of that way and you're probably going to find her backpack her other belongings and probably her body at the landfill. And so I did the media strategy.

I gave it to him. What did you tell him to say? Well, that exactly what I said. described him his age where he lived, his relationship situation, and the fact that he left for an emergency and won't be back for, you know, until everything calms down about this case. You weren't worried that that's too on the nose where he's going to be like, oh my gosh, they know exactly who I am now. I want to see, I want to see him change his behavior. And I want, and I had him say to the people, if somebody, if somebody leaves down, if somebody, if somebody just left town, if somebody's behavior changed, please call the sheriff.

department. So anyway, two months later, the sheriff called me and said, remember those two kids that I said were in high school? And I said, yeah. And he said, well, they came into my office today. So I said, all right, what did they say? Well, remember when you were on TV sheriff and you talked about this guy and where he lived and that he would leave town for emergency and then not come back to later? Well, our friend left town that day and said that his grandmother was dying in Texas. And he came back today. And he's acting really weird. And the sheriff says, well, what do you mean? He's acting real world. Well, we asked him about his grandmother. And he said, oh, she just had a cold. And he's just acting weird. And the

sheriff says, well, where does he live? Well, you know that house that the parents got foreclosed on? Well, they moved to another state. He moved into the shed in the backyard and was stealing electricity. from the construction site next door. Oh my gosh. They kicked in the door and they found blood and hair from the victim. They had found her body in the dump exactly where I said it would be. And it was next to construction debris. So the reason why I picked this as you said,

one of the most fascinating because it was so exact. And I did it in 30 seconds because it was so predictable. Because this was the only time the girl could have been vulnerable like this. He could not have been somebody who planned this over months. It had to be somebody young and impulsive. And it had to be somebody who would take these extraordinary risks in a situation where he could have been caught in a second. But he took the risk and was lucky nobody was looking because nobody saw any.

kids screaming or anything like that. In fact, he was the nice guy and nobody noticed. He waved to her every day because he was focused on her. And he saw the change in her behavior, the change in the pattern, and he saw her vulnerability. So the reason why, like I said, that he was so fascinating was because it was just 100% on the money. His behavior was exactly as I would predict somebody like him to be. Yeah, that is incredible.

Absolutely incredible. Just speaks to your talent as an FBI profile. Well, it's not just, it's not talent. It's the fact that, look, I, you know, unfortunately, was in this situation where, I mean, we did thousands of these cases and my predecessors did thousands more. And, you know, over time, you educate your subconscious so that you literally can see through all the crap and notice the nuances. And it just points you in the right direction. And if you trust that, if you're, if you've done enough cases, that you trust your, quote, gut instinct, then you actually can operate on a much higher level.

And that's all it really is. Is there a famous unsolved case that you would really like to see solve the most? Because mine is the Johnny Gosh case, the 12-year-old newspaper boy in the early 80s, who was abducted in Des Moines. And allegedly, his mom thinks, was put into a pedophile ring.

Yeah. And I'm familiar with that case. I did not work that case. I don't even know who did when I was there. I'm not sure. What was the date of it? I think it was 1982, I think. Yeah.

Yeah. So, I mean, that was, you know, John Douglas's time and so forth. But, and Royal Hazelwood and Robert Wrestler, Dick Alt, you know, I don't know who actually worked that case. But, you know, there is one. And I have to tell you, I'm going to have to look at my manual. Ooh. Ooh, that's fun.

I wish I could look at that. No, this is not. Is that like every case you've ever worked? No, like the first 200. Oh my gosh. That's like the Kaylee McInney book of data that you've got there. Alex, the unsolved case that I would like to see solve the most is the Morgan Nicky.

case and I promised her mother that I would never give up and I know there's been a bunch of leads but I don't believe that it's ever been solved but it's from June of 1995 and she was six years old could you tell us about it from Alma Arkansas and her mother is Colleen and she has become such an advocate it's amazing she's spoken across the country, probably around the world. But she was at a baseball game, and she was running around catching lightning bugs and went missing.

Other kids that were there said she was talking to an older man in a pickup truck, a red board or orange pickup truck. and that was it. And I think they took down a partial plate. It was like SK-25 or 5K-25, something like that. But that was it. I mean, and as far as I know, it's never been solved,

although they had a couple of good subjects. I wish that we could bring her mother some peace. But, yeah, if anybody who was in Alma, Arkansas, so if any of your listeners are in that neighborhood, I'm sure they know the case well, but somebody knows something out there. Do you think that armchair detectives, you know, men and women that sit at home

when they try to solve cases from the comfort of their living room, do you think that they can be helpful for cold cases or hurtful? Absolutely helpful. The case of don't F with cats is perfect proof of that. They did some amazing detective work. They literally, they saw a picture of the guy sitting on some steps and they saw the light kind of looked like, the lights that are in a particular city in Canada,

and they literally walked down the street with Google Maps and did 360 views as they were walking down the street. And they identified the steps. Turns out he was living in the apartment building right next door. That was an amazing, amazing effort on the part of people who literally had no training. They were just armchair internet sleuths, and they did an amazing job. and help bring a killer to justice.

So I absolutely encourage that. What I don't encourage is interaction with the bad guys. They killed before they could kill again. You don't want to put yourself in danger, but just make sure that you're safe, but sure. Call in the tip lines with serious information. And that can only help. I mean, with Morgan's case,

how do you, because you told Morgan's mother that you would never give up, but obviously you have other cases that come up throughout your career, you're working on other things, how do you simultaneously not give up on a case but also work to solve other cases? Well, I mean, keeping her in mind and also using this, the circumstances here in future cases and teaching people based on it. And what needs to be done? This helped us develop the child reduction response plan because we know what has to be done immediately.

What has to be done immediately. What has to be done in the first hour, what has to be done in the first 12 hours, the first 24 hours, why these things are important to do and document all along the way. Cases like this help us to solve other cases. So you always keep it in mind. But you always want to keep your ears and eyes open for some indicator that, wait a minute, this next crime seems a lot like that crime. Perhaps this offender is good for both of them. Do you think that that offender could still be in that area?

Or is that a case where you're like, I think that he might have left that state? Well, I think people are incredibly mobile these days. So yeah, he absolutely could have left that state. And given the amount of attention that this case got at the time, it's probably a high likelihood. It just depends on what his profession was and how he basically survives. But it's possible that he's no longer alive. Who knows? But it would still be great to solve the case.

and, you know, and let Colleen know. And what was the little girl's name again in the city in case someone listening wants to look into it? So this is Morgan Nick. She was a six-year-old girl who was abducted from a baseball field in Alma, Arkansas. Thank you. There was a story in the last couple years

about a serial killer or I don't know, maybe he was just a killer. No, I think it is serial killer because he's killed more than two people, which is what qualifies who a serial killer is, right? Well, there's, so there's the definition, the federal definition is three or more people in different events. But in the BAU, we use two or more in separate events

because we look at it more as a qualitative analysis rather than just a quantitative analysis. Okay. So there's this guy, Harvey Marcellin, I don't know if I'm saying his name right, Who cares, right? So he murdered a woman in the 60s. He eventually got out of prison, murdered another woman in the 80s. He was arrested, eventually let out again. Then in the last couple years, killed another woman, literally wheeled his little motorized scooter around Brooklyn with the victim's leg because he had dismembered her and was making jokes about eating people, whatever. I mean, so really, this just gets worse, in my opinion. And this is where. I want your opinion. So this man, Harvey Marcellin, now identifies as a woman and if convicted, he could be sent to a women's prison. I have to know your thoughts on these violent male offenders

claiming to be transgender and then actually getting to stay in women's prisons. Well, certainly anybody claiming to, that's not, to me, that's not the standard, right? claiming, I don't, I am literally just way out of the loop on what the standards are. But I think there needs to be a tremendous about a research in this area rather than just saying, well, we'll go with whatever somebody says. There's a difference. But in terms of putting somebody who is a danger to women with other women, that should be a no-brainer. That's what I think. But I've just, that's why I wanted to ask you because I'm just curious when it comes to this kind of social justice stuff. I know that politically you lean more liberally than I do. So I just didn't know what your thoughts were on stuff like that. I don't look. I, look, I am, I am not a political person. I, I may be, I don't really know your politics well, but, you know, or how you lean. But, you know, I have, there's a number of things that. I firmly believe in that are strongly conservative.

And there are a number of things that I firmly believe in that aren't. And that's why I will never put myself in one political party. I'll always vote with my conscience. And I try to act with my conscience too. Nobody's perfect, but I do try. But there are some really complicated issues. And the whole transgender issue, I mean, I do believe that there are some people who are legitimately trapped in the wrong body.

In other words, there are people, there are some famous, there's at least one famous person who was born with both sets of genitals. And they made a decision at birth to get rid of one and keep the other. Who? Well, I don't know if I want to, if just look it up. Oh, it's not public? Well, no, it may be public, but I just don't, I just, I just look it up. But the fact is that when that happens, I could see somebody like that feeling that way.

Now, if that is, if that's capable of happening, then I do believe it's also possible that there are people who, because, you know, genetics, they're so complicated. Is it true that every fetus, that at conception, and for a period of time, everyone is, female and gender and then eventually if they're going to be a male they the the was it the Y chromosome kicks in I don't know that actually

all right well that's something that I've heard it I don't know it but there's a lot of chemical interactions that are going on in a woman and in a in a baby when it's still inside of a woman so there's a lot of stuff that happens and I just I look if that's what I decided to do for a living then I would know the answer to your question, absolutely.

I just think that there's a lot of violent offenders that are just taking advantage of this. Well, any one of those who tries to take advantage of absolutely should not be allowed to. You can't just per se say anybody who says is. I think there has to be some discernment. There has to be some, at least some research into what's really going on in that in every individual case. So it's a very difficult thing to write laws for now because I don't think people know. I don't think lawmakers know. They don't.

And I think that the general consensus is just go with it. Well, you can't just go with it if you know that there's a chance of one person lying so that he can get access to victims. What we want to do is protect people from victimization, not just catch them after they victimize people. And I think prevention is an extremely underrated thing in law enforcement. United States of America. And I know, like Laura Richards, who's my podcast partner in Real Crime Profile, she was the head of the Homicide Prevention Unit, where they studied people who were

about to be let out. And they made sure that they weren't doing things when they got it let out that was leading towards them committing crimes again. They were trying to prevent it. And I think they cut the homicide rate in domestic violence cases by 60%. Now, that's something that, we should be doing. Why aren't we doing that? And I think this is one area that if we studied it better, we could prevent people from malingering and pretending and therefore prevent people from being victimized. I will be hung if I do not ask you more about criminal minds while I have you. So one thing I didn't get to. Wait, wait, wait. Let's not even use that because I don't want anybody threatening to hang you for any reason. I don't care what happened. So let's not be violent. I'm a pacifist.

So many huge criminal minds fans. And they were like, Alex, how can you not ask about the fact that you guys had a 15 season run, correct? Is that right? Or 15 year run? 15 seasons. 15 seasons. Wait, wait. Season 16 is coming. Well, that's what I want to ask you about. So you guys were like, okay, the series is over. I mean, that was the shortest, the shortest stint of a, you show being over ever and then all of a sudden you guys actually just kidding we're coming back so what happened did you guys just realize oh this is not time for this show to be over it's not uh when you say you you have a tendency to sort of say that and and that's a lot of people involved in that you got to read on me okay so basically the network and the studio because it was ABC studio CBS network every year had to

decide how much money each one of them was going to get and how much they were going to get from advertisement and how much they were paying the actors and all the crew. There's like 300 people on the crew, right, cast and crew. So it becomes like a business proposition. They said, well, we think it's over. So they canceled them. We didn't cancel it. The writers and producers didn't cancel it. Well, right. But wait, but in the interim, what happened? COVID. Yeah. And you know what else happened? TikTok. Did you know that to date, there are over 4.6 billion TikToks using the hashtag criminal minds? Four point six billion. Do you understand why they're bringing it back? There's a whole new generation of younger people who couldn't watch it. Gen B, save criminal minds. I do believe that because

there's a whole new generation of people who couldn't watch it. Because there's a whole new generation of people who couldn't watch it because they were too young before and now they're discovering it and they're loving to do TikToks about it and that proves to networks and studios, hmm, maybe the show was even better than we thought and it has another life. And so that's what they're doing now. It is one of the best, it is one of the best crime shows ever. I wonder what is what is the most difficult crime to capture for TV because it's just so dark or maybe so emotional? Okay, well, let me ask, let me answer the exact opposite. Why is criminal minds so popular? Because even though serial offending is extremely dark, what did we do at the end of almost every single episode? We saved the next victim. We stopped them

from doing what they've been doing, which we knew they were going to keep doing. So there's a silver lining. So all that darkness at least had an uplifting thing at the end. I think that is the secret to success. And the fact that they actually cared enough to have somebody like me and Jim Fitzgerald and Bobby Chaconne and Maureen O'Connell and who else? Well, Kathy Canning, I know came in and Emily Vatcher. these are all FBI agents that helped teach the actors and the writers and producers what profilers actually did and do. And we talked about the real learning lessons from the cases.

And if we're lucky, you might see more of that. I'm very excited. So excited. And I think that's really cool that you bring up that it was really ticked. talk who might have played a part in saving criminal minds because I'm definitely played a part. There's so many other shows. Did you know? Did you know that criminal minds was the number one streamed show in all of entertainment

over the last year? Really? More than the office? More than any other show in all of entertainment. Not just crime shows, not just prime time crime shows. all of entertainment, which, you know, really says a lot for those actors and, and, you know, maybe a little bit about the writers and producers and tech advice. Do you think that it is really beneficial for shows that are covering crimes like this to have

working professionals or people that have, you know, work for the FBI, for example, or profilers on their writing teams? Do you think more of them should be doing that? Absolutely. And that's why my brother and I started XG production. former G men and G women who who are making sure that there's some authenticity because Tim and Jim. Tim and Jim Clemente, right. And you should have him on your show because he's a fascinating guy and he has a totally different career than me and a different outlook on life.

But he's, yeah, he's an incredible guy and he has nine kids and, you know, he's done extraordinary things and you should have them on your show. But he also, by the way, worked on criminal minds beyond borders. He was a writer on that show. And he was in several episodes of criminal minds. I love that. A cameo. The mothership. Not just a cameo.

He is actually the the, he played the killer who abducted Reed and Garcia. Oh my gosh. And he played it so well. I'm just telling you that you just got to see it.

You just got to check it out. So anyway, the point is that I can't remember what the point is. What was I saying? Can you tell me? Why? Or what was I saying? You get me off on these topics. We were talking about Jim and Tim.

Jim and Tim. Oh, why we started actually. So, yes, I do believe it's incredibly important because what Tim and I found was because we got involved in, you know, I got involved in criminal minds in 2005 and Tim got involved in, I think, what was it, the unit, probably in 2007.

What is his specialty or whatever that he focused on in the FBI that's different than you? He was in counterterrorism and he was also the SWAT training coordinator. He was a sniper and a SWAT guy. So he did the tactical side, and he did counterterrorism and he did international drugs,

cases and incredibly gifted inventor. He created these SWAT assault platforms that are used by the FBI and military that help increase the chances that the SWAT guys will go home at night because they increased security and access and take them away

from, you know, kind of choke points where that are mostly most dangerous because you can actually assault a building or an aircraft up to three stories high without having to run inside and go up the stairwells. So it's actually a pretty effective tool that he created. He, out of his own mind, him and his son, who was a engineer at SpaceX created this thing called, well, the first one was called the harass. And then the next one. Geez, now I can't remember the name of it. He's going to kill me. But anyway, good Lord, why can't I remember it?

Oh, I can't remember it. Sorry. You know it'll come to you. Yeah, it will, like as soon as this is over, yes. Anyway, yeah, we created XG productions to do exactly that because we kept seeing that everything that was on TV and movies about law enforcement was just rehashed with somebody else had seen before and had no relationship at all to reality. And one that pissed me off the most, I guess, in a movie that I really loved, you know,

when, when basically when in Diehard, when the FBI came in and the local detective from L.A. was saying, hi, I'm detective so and so. I'm in charge here. And the FBI agent takes out a cigarette and says, not anymore. And, you know, That's that the FBI sweeps in and takes cases away from the locals. And that just didn't happen. We worked together, you know, and that's one thing that Ebrenaro promised me. You know, he was the showrunner, the original showrunner of criminal minds. And then Erica Messer, who continued after he left, promised me that they would never do that

kind of crap where they just prevented people from understanding what the FBI did and instead put out this crap. now, I mean, that show really showed the cooperation between the FBI and law enforcement, and that's how we get things done. Yeah, and that probably is part of, you know, the special sauce that makes everybody love that show so much is that it is so much more realistic than all the other ones out there. So for conservatives who are like, well, I'm fully up to date on criminal minds, I'm just waiting with bated breath for the new season to come out.

What are the podcasts that you host that they can listen to in the meantime if they want more Jim. Okay. Well, first of all, real crime profile and best case, worst case. So real crime profile is myself, Laura Richards, who's a criminal behavioral analyst from New Scotland Yard, and then Lisa Zambetti, who's the casting director from criminal minds. We talk about cases in in the news, in media, and, you know, fictional things, too, if they cover the topics, you know, we are totally victim focused and we don't want to give a platform to the bad guys. What we want to do is give the victims their voice back. And best case, worst case, I know you know very well because Francie Hakes,

who's also been on your show as my co-host on that. She's a former federal and state prosecutor. And we talk to law enforcement professionals across the gamut about their jobs and the best case and the worst case of their career. so you can see basically the spectrum of the different cases they work. But also, if you have Audible, you should check out our audio original series on Audible. I listened to After the Fall. It was excellent. Didn't I tell you?

Yes. It's all about 9-11. And what the FBI didn't know about 9-11. Right. But it tracks the global investigation after 9-11. and some of my good friends who were fighting really hard to try to get information about particular terrorists and they hit a stone wall.

But unfortunately, a couple of them were hijackers on 9-11. And, you know, it really was difficult for those guys and men and women who were trying very hard. But you hear right from Mary Gallaghan, who's the assistant director in charge of that investigation. And you'll see just it's fascinating. I mean, you can say what you think about it, but that's one of them after the fall, the FBI's investigation, a 9-11 investigation. That's the full title. Evil has a name is about

the Golden State Killer. Call Me God is about the DC snipers. One of my personal favorites is one that I did and just learned so much in the process, even though I knew the case, is called where the devil belongs. And that's about the Unabomber case. And the fact is that that statement where the devil belongs is from one of the victims, the surviving victim, the only person who was actually there to witness her husband being blown up

and almost was killed with her 18-month-old daughter at that same time. But she held her husband together, his body together as he died in her arms. And she said to the judge, judge i want you to bury that guy the defendant the unibomber in the deepest darkest dungeon you can find because that's where the devil

belongs and i just thought that was so poignant and and really said everything so that's why we titled it that but we have another a number of other ones Midwest monster will be coming out soon and i'm telling you it's it's it's narrated by a really good friend of mine and criminal mindsperson Padgett Brewster oh cool

She's amazing and she was amazing in this. So I can't wait for that to be released. It will be released fairly soon on Audible. And also somewhat on the lighter side, am I dating a serial killer? That's another one that's on Audible. And it's, I think the first 10 episodes are out and hopefully we'll be putting more up. But it's people who really came to us and said, you know, something's wrong with this guy. and a couple of them, you know, I profiled and there was serious problems with those people.

And some of them are just sort of anecdotal kind of lighter stuff because it's hosted. Like he puts ketchup on his steak. Am I dating a serial killer? Yeah, there's some of that. But, you know, so there's lots of stuff out there. And if you just put my name in or XG productions into Audible as a search, you'll find, I think we have 13 or 14 titles up right now. So fantastic. Thank you so much, Jim, for coming and doing a part two. We absolutely love you. Thank you so much. All right. Well, I can't wait to get you on my podcast. I would love that. I'll come out and talk about Johnny Gosh. This, all right, that's great. But we're going to ask you the hard questions too.

Oh, great. All right. I'll be in the hot seat. Thank you so much, Jim. All right. Take care. It was great being here. And thank you. buddy for listening. Thank you. And for watching Criminal Minds. That's true. Thanks, Jim. Bye. All right. Take care. If this is your first time hearing an interview with Jim Clemente, you must go back to season one, episode 25 of The Spillover, where we discussed what happened Jim when he was a

kid that led to him becoming an FBI agent. It's one of the craziest stories you'll ever hear. Plus, in that episode, we talked Michael Jackson, the Clintons, and John Bonae Ramsey. My goal is that every week you hear from someone on the show who has a fascinating story to share or is an expert in a certain field. And Jim is such a fun guest because he really is both. If you are going to Turning Point USA's Young Women's Leadership Summit in Dallas next week, there will be a new episode of The Spillover that you can listen to either on your way to the conference or on your way back. It's funny, encouraging, and also five orange juicy. That drops next Thursday at

9 p.m. Pacific, midnight eastern on Apple Podcast and Spotify. And if you're subscribed to Poplix on YouTube, you can watch it. I'm Alex Clark, and this is The Spillover. Love you, mean it. Bye.