Dark Downeast - BONUS: The Murders of Patricia Walsh and Mary Anne Wysocki (Massachusetts)

Episode Date: September 3, 2021

A special conversation with Liza Rodman and Jennifer Jordan, authors of The Babysitter: My Summers with a Serial Killer.This special companion episode of Dark Downeast is different from what you’re used to hearing on the show. This interview explores the work that went into researching Tony Costa, the process of digging into Liza’s often challenging and traumatic childhood, what they learned about the women lost to Cape Cod’s serial killer hiding in plain sight, and why Liza might’ve been spared a similar fate.Before you hit play, please listen to Murder on Cape Cod: Patricia Walsh and Mary Anne Wysocki on Dark Downeast.Buy The Babysitter by Liza Rodman and Jennifer Jordan at Bookshop.org. View source material and photos for this episode at darkdowneast.com/thebabysitterFollow @darkdowneast on Instagram, Facebook, and TikTokTo suggest a case visit darkdowneast.com/submit-caseDark Downeast is an audiochuck and Kylie Media production hosted by Kylie Low.

Hey Dark Down Easter's, it's Kylie. I'm so grateful to be able to share this special companion episode of Dark Down East with you. If you've listened to the stories of Patricia Walsh and Marianne Wysocki, you know that much of what I learned about these women and their stories, as well as the man who stole their lives, came from a book written by Liza Rodman and Jennifer Jordan called The Babysitter. Its pages are filled with part memoir, part investigative reporting. Liza Rodman walks through the memories of her childhood living in Provincetown

on Cape Cod. She and her sister were often left in the care of the hotel handyman who doubled as a babysitter, Tony Costa, the same man who would go on to be charged and convicted of the murders of Pat Walsh and Marianne Wysocki, and he's suspected of at least two others. This special companion episode of Dark Down East is different from what you're used to hearing on the show. This conversation with Jennifer Jordan and Liza Rodman explores the work that went into researching Tony Costa, the process of digging into Liza's often challenging and traumatic childhood, what they learned about the women lost to Cape Cod's serial killer hiding in plain sight, and why Liza might have been spared a similar fate. I'm Kylie Lowe, and I'm

pleased to welcome Liza Rodman and both here on Dark Down East. I would love to start first with introducing you to my audience. Who are you beyond the name under the title of the babysitter? Who are you? What do you do? What lights you up right now? Go ahead, Jen. No, I want to think about it. You go ahead. Oh, you do? Who am I? What a great question. What a hard question. It is a hard question. It really is. I'm a tax accountant by trade. Kind of accidentally fell into it, and I've been doing it all of my career, my professional career.

I'm a grandmother. You can believe that I can say that out loud. And that's one of the most important things I do, I think. I take that pretty seriously. I am a writer now, which is just a wonderful thing. Gosh, I'm a cook. I'm a gardener. I'm just, you know, out there slogging through it like we all are. Trying to make this my life. Yes. Yeah. And I want to ask you about that. But Jennifer, please, who is Jennifer?

I too am a writer. And I remember really distinctly when I wrote author after my name for the first time. And it was a heart-stopping moment of pride to look at that and go, oh, my God, I'm not a fraud. I have earned it. The book is on the shelf. And that was a wonderful moment. Before that moment, I was a radio broadcaster, producer, news director, talk show host for years and years. I was producing a segment for Channel 2 in Boston. And the host'd produced it. I'd set up the interviews. I'd done all the research. And my producer said, oh, lighten up. You know, it's her show. She gets the interview, but you've done all the research, write an article. And I did. And it became my first cover story. And so then I would transition from that, you know, full-time radio career into kind of,

oh, maybe I can be a writer. Maybe I can put that after my name. And so here we are years and years after that. And I, and good thing you didn't lighten up. And so now I'm a displaced Vermonter and Bostonian. I'm out here in Utah now. And even though I struggle with that, I also have about a quarter of a mile from my house, the Wasatch Wilderness. And so I get up in those mountains whenever my brain really needs a cleansing, which is often when, especially in researching serial killers. I'm a wife. I'm a dog mother. I'm just settling into the last third of my life, which is kind of startling to think of it that way. But it's kind of wonderful as well, because all those 60 years behind me are making the next 30, I hope, just full of a wisdom I haven't always had. So that kind of lights me

up to think about that and move forward with every new project. And one of the reasons I became a journalist and then a writer was I could always choose the subjects that fascinate me. And so just always looking and in wonderment that those fascinating subjects keep coming. I was just running the numbers real quick in my head. And I'm thinking, if you're in your last third, then I'm starting my second third. And I just had an identity crisis. Yeah, 30 was tough for me. 30 was a tough time. But when I hit 40, it was a wonderful time because it really allowed a freedom because I had never had children. But hitting 40 allowed a freedom of choice that I didn't feel I had up until the time that children were on the table. I feel like my 30s has become finding my purpose and kind of slogging through. I mean, I'm 31, so I'm barely in my 30s. But it feels like now I'm poised for what will be, what was meant to be, what I'm supposed to be doing. And so I've been constantly

refining my life, my career to find myself here as a podcaster, as a storyteller, and reclaiming the title for myself from my hard-earned journalism education to say, oh, no, wait, I can be that. And I think this goes back to you, Liza, being able to claim that title as writer. It's a conversation I have often as women, I think, at least for in my experience, giving ourselves permission to claim those titles. And so I'm curious for you what that experience was like, Liza. I think the most important thing to remember, especially if you're 31, about that, is that every one of us, and Jen highlighted it there. She said, I'm not an imposter. Every single one of us feels like one.

And even the most prolific writers talk about it. So I think that's how we're supposed to feel. We're not supposed to get too far out of ourselves. I can tell you that having a first book at 62 years old felt exactly right. And it didn't feel exactly right until it was in front of me. And then it was like, oh, right. That's what's supposed to happen here.

And it took me a long time to get this story to Jen, basically. You know, it took me a long time, a lot of research, a lot of writing that shitty first draft that's really important over and over. Just keep, you know, the stories in the book I've been writing all my life, the personal stories, writing, thinking about, dreaming about, you know, how they say you hold that narrative. I looked at myself as a writer for the very first time when I was 10 years old, after I wrote, wrote, wrote in longhand, 100 pages. I was convinced that's what I was going to do, 100 pages. So I wrote the story called The Boy Next Door, which it was exactly about. And at the end, I can still see my hand writing the end and feeling like there might be something there.

And it's taken me to 62 to be in this spot now, talking with both of you. So it's a hang in there and everybody feels like they're an imposter. And, you know, it's something you just have to battle, I think. What was that catalyst moment? You say it took you a while to get this story to Jennifer. Was there a catalyst moment or kind of this beautiful explosion of a creative idea that said, now's the time. This has to be out in the world and we're doing it together. I was on retreat by myself, house-sitting for a friend, and Jen called me.

And I don't usually answer the phone when I'm by myself retreating like that. I was working on another book because I'd put this one away because it just wasn't going to come together. I struggled with the structure. I struggled with it all. I had never done it before, And I'd never really had the kind of education where someone says, do it this way. And working with Jen really ended up being an MFA. That's what it ended up being amongst a million other things. Just, you know, this sort of joyful culmination of it all. But that being said, she called and I answered. And she said, and I'm

paraphrasing now, what are you, what are you doing about the babysitter? Because we had been talking about it for years leading up to that moment. I said, it's in a drawer. I'm not doing anything. I'm doing something else. And she said, well, I'm between projects. And I was thinking, what do you think about if we collaborate? And as she says, and she's right, I burst into tears and said, I would have never even thought to ask you.

Oh, my God. And it was a watershed moment because that's when we came together to do this thing and get that book out in the world. And the reason I made that call was because the babysitter kept nagging me because I wanted her to really dig in because I knew it was a hell of a story. And so as I heard her struggle through the years with structure, she said, with structure, with narrative, with voice, and also just the personal aspects of it, which are so painful. I said, you know, and called her and said, I think I can help you with this. Let's do this together. I know, I know the structure and how it should be and how we're going to, you know, get this story out of you and on the page. And we've been friends 40 years, So it's not as if we hadn't talked. And Jen had all right from the very beginning when I first told her the story said, oh, well, it's going to be called The Babysitter.

And I said, no, no, it's not. I had all kinds of titles for it. No, she said, it's The Babysitter. So she always referred to it as that. What are you doing on The Babysitter? What are you doing on The Babysitter? And that went on for some time. Let's dig into this. I remember I started the book. I started the babysitter as an audio book. And I remember hearing the scene of you finding out from your mother

that Tony Costa was who he was. And I stopped the audio book and I came home and I wanted to be closer to the words and read it on paper and read it again and again. To set the scene for listeners who haven't had the opportunity to dig into The Babysitter yet, walk me through that scene that opens the entire book and story. I had been having this series of really violent, increasingly violent dreams. And when I, there was dream where Tony confronted me in the hallway of the Royal Coachman Motel, which was the motel we sort of grew up in more or less in Provincetown, Massachusetts. And that freaked me out. It was two o'clock in the morning. I woke up. I was absolutely panic stricken. So I set up this dinner. And at

the dinner, although it's just my mother in the book, it was my mother and my aunt, her best friend who owned the Royal Coachman. And I asked the question, I'm having these dreams. And she really was a dismisser, my mother, and she really said exactly what was there, which was you and your dreams. And why am I dreaming about Tony Costa? Well, and he said, what do you know about him? Well, I mean, you know, he became a serial killer. Like, you know, I'm asking about my high school boyfriend and she says he became a dentist and it was with that kind of sort of, well, I know he became a serial killer. And again, another watershed moment where time slows down. I've often described it as like a bad drug trip where all of a sudden

voices are taking on a different quality of hearing. And I thought, well, doesn't this explain a lot? And so after she said that and she sort of dismissed me, I knew I had to go look. I mean, it was apparent to me in that moment that I had to go and find out who this guy was because that is not what I remembered. So a serial killer. I mean, who says that anyway? Who says, well, you know, I knew I became a serial killer. No one, no one says that. As you're doing this research, I can't imagine what that first headline that you read, what

that made you feel. As you're examining your childhood and thinking back to your memories, was it strange to now have this new lens to examine those memories? It was energizing because suddenly some things made sense that hadn't made sense before. The very first thing I noticed was that he and my youngest son have the same birthday. And I was like, and those are the kinds of things that sort of spurred me on. So it was energizing to, I did go, I say this a lot, but I went looking for myself in those newspapers. I didn't know if I'd maybe been

interviewed by police, if my mother had my aunt, I mean, we could have so easily. And I found people from my life in those transcripts. Wow. You know, the last guy to see Tony with those girls, or I guess it was the next to last guy was a guy by the name of John Taylor, who was a larger than life figure in my life until I was an adult. So, I mean, John Taylor was there. Tony was picking up his check at the Royal Coachman. You almost have to say to yourself, did this really happen? And then you see that it did. And so the research was a process of that. Yep. Look at this. Look at this. Look at this.

One thing after another. Tony's mother, the sweater she wore, you know, all the images from my childhood just kept rushing at this. One thing after another, Tony's mother, the sweater she wore, all the images from my childhood just kept rushing at me. Sometimes I couldn't get it down fast enough when I was researching. It was exhilarating. So one of the things I tried to do and that I'm focused on doing with my show is leaning more on the stories of the individuals whose lives were stolen by violent crime. Another issue that I explore a lot is victim blaming, and that somehow they set themselves up to be a victim. And of course, we know that that is not true and does not make anyone deserving. And so if you could tell me a little bit about these women. A quick note before Eliza and Jennifer tell the stories of these women whose

cases are shared in their book. These women, Sidney Monzen, Susan Perry, Christine Gallant, they were all assumed victims of Tony Costa. However, he was only convicted of Patricia Walsh and Marianne Wysocki's murders. You'll also hear Liza and Jennifer reference a woman named Avis, who was Tony's wife. I think the victim blaming is a big deal, first of all. These women were, a lot of them from broken homes. And this is where you get into judgment you shouldn't. Because they were either from broken homes, they were from, they'd been assaulted. In Sydney's case, there's some evidence that she had been assaulted prior to ever meeting Tony.

I think the other thing you have to remember for all of these women across the board is, is that drugs were an issue. And the drug culture was really burgeoning at the time they were coming into adulthood. And so Sydney, she was a hard worker. She had nicknames like everybody else. She loved her mini skirts. I think she was funny. She was beautiful. She worked for her money. I think she was compassionate. And I think she was working as a waitress at the Pilgrim Club when Tony was there trying to keep an eye on Avis's house to see who was going in and out. And she also was a local. She knew other locals who were associated with him. And we don't know at what point, we don't know for certain at what point she met Tony. But what we do know is, is that he, what came from his prison diary and from interviews the police did,

that's what we know. And that's what we've taken our cue from. So she met him interviews the police did. That's what we know and that's what we've taken our cue from. So she met him at the Pilgrim Club. She was waitressing. Her sister was in the kitchen. Her sister knew he was a drug dealer and she was kind of into doing some drugs. There is some speculation in some unpublished manuscripts that they were lovers. I don't know. We don't know for sure. But what we do know is they met there. They had a very short relationship. It was right after Avis filed divorce papers, his wife and her ex-wife, and he was spiraling down. He was taking a lot of drugs at the time and they pulled a heist together. They robbed a pharmacy together. She drove the getaway car. So there was some interest on her part in drugs. But again, there's an interest in a lot of people's part in drugs. It doesn't mean you deserve to be the victim of this man. And for whatever reason, which we don't know, she was his first victim.

But she was a whole human. And then we talked to one of her ex-boyfriends and still talks about her fondly. And also, I have some people who went to school with her in my own extended family. But I didn't find that out until after writing the book. So she was a whole human, just a young woman, working at the stop and shop, riding her bike through town. And his second victim was even younger than Sidney, Susan. And Susan was, again, as Liza was saying, from a very, very troubled home. Her mother was kind of laughed at as the

town drunk. Her father got custody of, what was it, six kids in the family, Liza? Six children, yeah. Six or seven. Susan was the oldest. So she was in charge at age 14 of all of her younger siblings. And she hated it. And she was looking for an escape. And her father was a fisherman. So he was gone at sea for weeks to months at a time. And she was in charge with, you know, a dwindling pile of, you know, one and $5 bills on the table. And at that point, she couldn't have been more than 14 years old. Right. And at some point, you know, she meets Tony and Tony's older and Tony's charismatic. And she thinks Tony's going to be her ticket out of that hellhole.

And so I think it's possible she met him at the Royal Coachman. Yeah. Yeah. She was working at the Royal Coachman as she was working as a chambermaid there. She was desperate for love and acceptance, and she thought that she'd met it in Tony. And she kind of insinuated herself into his life. At that point, he was living in an apartment up in Dedham, Massachusetts, off the Cape, working a job. And she kind of moved herself in. And the last time she was seen alive, her friends had visited for P-Town with a duffel bag of clothing for her. And she and Tony were standing on the porch and she had her arms around him, kissing his neck. And from what we know from the forensics and from her autopsy report, she was probably killed that night. Hers was the body that was first found. It wasn't identified for months because

of its state of deterioration. And she, you know, again, she's got a lot of relatives still alive in P-Town. When the first body was found, her mother, six months after Susan was last seen, finally filed a missing persons report. And when the police asked her, what took her so long? Your daughter's been missing since Labor Day and this is, you know, February and you're just doing this. And she was like, you know, kids these days. And so that was kind of Susan's sad life, that even her mother didn't notice or care or really have any concern that her 16-year-old daughter was missing. And that takes us to Christine. I have issues about Christine because I think Tony loved Christine.

These other two victims, he did not. He'll tell you that. His diaries tell you that. But for whatever reason, he fixated on Christine. Again, she was very beautiful and looked a lot like Sidney Monson and had been in a relationship with someone who was physically abusive at the time she met Tony. So, and I think they went back and forth for a couple of years. And then finally in 1968, he met her in a bookstore. He followed her. He saw her on the street, thought she was beautiful and followed her into a bookstore to strike up a conversation with her. And in the end, again, drugs were involved, a lot of drugs.

But again, not unusual for the time. She was spiraling down herself during that summer of 1968 and into the fall. And he, we think that part of the reason he killed Susan and the way he did right after her being seen on the porch with him in the denim apartment was because he was in love with Christine and he was afraid Susan was going to get in the way. So because Susan was now moving herself into his apartment and Christine was moving to New York. After he killed Susan, he went into a three-week, way more than a funk, that's the only word I can think of, but a real down, like, crying all the time and stoned all the time and kind of wandering the streets. And we also think that he buried her a little while after he killed her.

It was a quick, she was buried differently than the others. And so when it came time to, he thought he was going to be in love with Christine. He was going to move to New York or she was going to move back with him. And all of this is going on. He's feeding her drugs. They're traveling back and forth from New York to Provincetown. And we think he got wind of the fact that she had decided not to be with him. And so he went to New York and he gave her a triple dose of the drugs he normally supplied her with, which was Nevitol.

And so three times the dose and she ended up face down in the bathtub and they called it a suicide. What did you speak to about? I spoke to a homicide detective in the Lawson Police Department and I described it to him and I said, does it sound like suicide to you? And he said, no. I said, why? He said, for a simple reason, that that's an uncomfortable position to be face down naked in a half full tub. And also, she had cigarette burns on her chest. And Tony, our synopsis is he overdosed her, put her in the tub, and then left. And went down to try to score some drugs in the village, and then went right to the bus station and returned to Provincetown. So there's no explanation as to why he was in New York, I think it's less than 24 hours, and left behind a woman naked, face down, kneeling face down in a half full tub of water

with cigarette burns on her chest. None of that was ever really examined because it was labeled a suicide. And so he was never even questioned about it. He went into another breakdown, but he was never questioned about it. Right. Right. And never charged. And even when they did initially arraign him for four murders, Christine's wasn't one of them. Right. And the police also were not about to add another investigation into a four-part

investigation that was already overwhelming them because none of them had had any kind of experience with this kind of a killer. So they were out of their element to begin with. And the last thing they wanted to do was add Christine Gallant's death. The coroner in New York reopened her case, but there's no evidence they ever closed it again. There's no evidence they ever investigated it. But there are newspaper reports saying that in light of Tony, after he was arrested, they were going to reopen the investigation into her death. But there's no, there's no, we don't have anything on that. There's not one single shred of evidence that that ever happened.

Does it feel like unfinished business with Christine? No evidence that it was ever closed. We knew, remember, we knew that she had written to a friend who got the letter the next day after she died saying that she'd decided not to be with Tom. So we know all those things. I think it's unfinished business for Christine and Christine's family because they don't know. Right, but we also know that the man

that she was going to marry, she had called him that day and he was in Florida and he got in his car to come back. He was so worried. And of course, he didn't make it in time. So there was just a lot of pieces that nobody really put together until we were looking at it through Tony's lens. In my head, it's crystal clear as to what he did. And also the breakdown that he had after and sitting on somebody's kitchen counter sobbing, saying, I've done things that I can never be forgiven for. And they asked him, was Christine one of them?

And he said, yes. So we have all this anecdotal evidence and physical evidence and autopsy evidence that for me, for me in writing it, it was never a question in my mind whether he actively had a part in killing her. Her family never gets to know. They never get a trial. They never get a full, an autopsy that makes sense. They never, you know, there's so much they didn't get. And they have to live with that. So I'm curious, were there any aspects of the book?

I think you just mentioned one, you know, you learned something after the book came out. But were there aspects of the case that didn't make it into the text for one reason or another? We had 10,000 pages of evidence, of testimony, of interviews. A lot of pages and information didn't make it into the book. But I don't think anything that was germane, anything that was important, we wouldn't have left it out. And it's one of the reasons why I'm just so glad that we were able to solve the three cold cases before the book was finished so that we were able to add those women into the story and not have them yet again, cut and paste with the sentence, they were never seen

alive again. Yes. That is my, I guess, pet peeve of this space where a story is left and they were never seen again, the end. It's endlessly frustrating for me. And so hearing that was part of the book that I did listen to on audio audiobook. I was driving to actually go do an interview with a family for my show. And you walked through all of those cold cases because as a reader, I was waiting. I was like, wait, what about those girls that he drove across the country? Wait, we're not done here yet. Smart reader. Yeah. And I had tears in my eyes when you talk about the woman who saw a picture of herself and her mother for the first time. I had tears in my eyes, too, when she told me. I can only guess, but I'm assuming that it was as gratifying for you as writers as it was for me as a reader. Oh, it was incredibly gratifying. Each of those cases, and as you know, each of the women who survived Tony did die subsequently.

Not at Tony's hands, but they were all deceased by the time I found their stories, found them. And each of those women's daughters and sisters were just so amazed that this erroneous history existed in relation to their sisters and mothers. They had no idea. They had no idea, never heard the name Tony Costa, had no idea that Wikipedia and all these murder crime sites and all these other podcasts had those three in his kill column. And so in one fell swoop, they realized this and then were told a chunk of the women's history that they did not know. And then, as you said, in the case of Barbara's daughter, Barbara Spalding's daughter, was able to see an aspect of her mother's youth that she never, ever knew existed and never had seen, never, never saw a picture of her mother as an, as an adult. She never saw a picture of her mother and last seen her mother alive 20 years before.

So, so yeah, it was left out of the book. That's something we left out was the identity of her son because that little boy bobby we found him but we left that out because we he'd want anything to do with it and we didn't want to have a problem right so that's something we left out but we do know who that was and it's it's a public figure he's a a public figure. He's a hugely public figure. And his father, who was the ex-husband of Barbara Spalding, didn't threaten me, but said, do not contact my son because he doesn't know anything about his mother. And I said, I'm sorry, sir, but this is why you can't keep secrets for 50 years, because I found your son first and he hasn't responded to my emails, but now he knows that I'm, you know, I'm trying to find his mother. So, yeah. So that was one of those kind of like, oh, gee, you know, I'm sorry

to be the one to do it anyway. It wasn't germane, but we did have to leave it out. Right. And we also, I mean, as you kind of tick my memory about this, Liza, we also, there were not several, but certainly a handful of people in Provincetown who were very, very, well, ugly about us even contacting them. And so we, and some of them threatened us with writing if we used any aspect of their story. And we had to say, you know what, you're part of the public record. So part of this we'll get in, but we chose to not divulge everything we learned about them and their involvement with Tony and their interactions with him and what they possibly might have known and and some of the lies they told us to take us off the trail so we yeah and remember the one that told us a complete lie for four hours right complete lie yeah yeah we removed that too know, and this is another aspect of the trickiness of forensic research, because you unearth a lot of other people's darkness. And we chose not to put it in, as we're saying, because it had nothing to do with the story. And why expose that person's dirty laundry?

It's not ours to expose. It has nothing to, as I say, nothing to do with our story. And it's obviously a very sad and a very tragic aspect of their lives that they're trying to escape and have been there for the past 50 years. Something I run into too, it's, you know, the journalistic instinct to wanting to run down every last pertinent detail to tie up every last loose end. And then the ethical dilemma of, well, is it really as pertinent to this final story? Does it lead me to my why, you know, the ultimate goal and the point I'm trying to communicate? So I run into that too. I'm curious, how was your mental health impacted? How did you care for your mental health in digging up the this trauma Liza I worked with a therapist and I was I've been in it you don't

have a childhood like mine and not suffer something from it so I've been in therapy in and out of therapy most of my life and when it gets tough and I knew when I went into this partnership with Jen, I knew that I would try and sabotage it. I didn't know how, but I just didn't trust myself entirely to emotionally engage every day for two years and not find myself in some kind of crisis. So I worked with a therapist. And even then it was difficult, but at least it was, you know, these people are these sociopathic personalities of which my mother was one and of which we now have confirmation of that. There's a lot of gaslighting that goes on. And I know that's a term we throw around a lot, especially now. But trying to undo that and unravel that is a lifelong process. So I worked closely with someone I trust.

And I got shingles. She got shingles. My goodness. I mean, I can imagine even, you know, myself as I'm doing research, telling these stories, I as a empath, taking on the pain and the stories and the trauma and from a place where I get to shut it off, like I can find a way to shut it off because it's not my pain. It's not my certainly when I sit up to the table with families, and maybe you can relate to this as well, but you're deliberately walking them through something that's upsetting. And it's much more important now that it got written and that it's out there than I imagined it would be. So that's a real benefit. And the people that we hear from and the people we talk to and the people who had similar experiences and the people who feel compelled to reach out and say one thing or another to me are incredibly meaningful.

And they're meaningful because I think as a writer, you're not in there slogging through this material for yourself. That's not something you're, you know, I think you're called in there doing slogging through this material for yourself. That's not something you're, you know, I think you're called to do it. I think it has, you know, it's either your strength or your weakness, but you're not in there for yourself necessarily. And so when other people reach out and say, it's, it's good, it's good for people to see themselves on the page, right? When you read any book, that's what makes it a good book for you. You can see yourself in that situation.

You can relate to that person, relate to that character. So for people to see, being able to see themselves on the page of this book is really important to me. And I know it was important to Jen. And I remember talking about the empath and being an empath as I am as well. I was able to really put my journalistic hat on most of the time in digging into the horror of what happened to Tony's victims. But it's interesting because his last two victims, Pat and Marianne, because they were the last two that we know of, there was a lot more forensic information about

exactly what happened in those woods. And my writer's brain created a scene and I could see the interaction between those women when they realized what the hell was going to happen when they you know saw the gun and I in that that for me probably is what gave me the shingles because I I would get up out of my bed and have to you know do laps around the house going on there was no sleep going on. Because I was in those woods with those women living through that horror, because for some reason, and as I say, I think because I had more information about, you know, where the bullet, how the body, that I was able to piece it together. And that was one of the hardest aspects of kind of living through

and recreating this horror in order for the reader to understand what went on as well. I would love to close out with, I think, is a probably frequently asked question for you, Liza. How did you survive, Tony? Why weren't you on his list? Well, we have differing opinions about this, although I think it had to do with my age. I think I was too young. I think there were too many, because I certainly fit the bill in every other way. I was without a dad, and that was something I talked about. There wasn't a lot of supervision, so we would have been easy prey. But there were four of us a lot of the time, and I think that may have played a role too.

Jenny really feels like he was grooming me. I have real trouble with that because I can't envision myself. I just can't. Maybe it makes me think about how close I came. And so therefore, I don't want to sort of take that on. To me, he was just a kind person. And that was the great juxtaposition of the book for me, was that my mother wasn't and he was. That was the great irony of the book.

He was not a pedophile. He was a killer, but he was not a pedophile. She was still, had not come of age yet. And, but the fact that she was an acolyte, the fact that she hung on his every word, the fact that she looked up to him the way Susan did, and the way that he paraded himself around town, and there's Liza behind the Pied Piper as well. But I also think that she did not think about him for 35 years. You know, he disappeared. Oh, well, nobody told her where he went.

And she's a few years old. Oh, well, Tony's gone to California. He was always talking about going to California. And then to have a series of violent nightmares where you're being hunted. And finally, you have a nightmare where you see a face you haven't seen since you were nine years old. And you've only seen that face in reality in kindness and in fun buying you popsicles. And all of a sudden that face is the face of a wolf with a gun at your head. For me, that bespeaks an experience that her psyche is protecting her from. And the dreams and the process of her journaling opened up a door that allowed her brain to release some of that memory. That's, that's my pop psychology

take on it because there's no, it just, it, it makes too much sense that once she was in a safe enough spot as an adult, as a 45 year old grown woman to, to, to realize, hmm, maybe Tony wasn't always this kind, gentle adult. Maybe I did see something in those woods that petrified me, but that I can't even now today process and look at. Was her life threatened at that point? No, I don't think he threatened her, but I think she saw something in those woods. And to bring the conversation full circle, I think part of what went on with those dreams is what Elizabeth Gilbert talks about. The stories will find you.

And she's not wrong because it's not as if we set out either one of us, hey, over coffee, let's write a story about a serial killer. You know, we did not set out to do that. We were drawn into a situation where that became the subject matter, and my childhood fit right in. And so I think the story, that part of what was going on with those dreams, and maybe Jen's right, but I think also the story was finding me. The book was finding me for the first time. it took Liza a lifetime to trust her voice and to,

and to listen to those dreams and to, to look beyond her mother's dismissive, you and your crazy dreams are so melodramatic. We girls and we women at every age are kind of given a subliminal message of just sit quietly, be good. Don't raise a ruckus. Don't be too anything. Right. Don't be too proud. Don't be too loud. Don't be too angry. Don't be too anything. And I think it's, it's a wonderful, I think we're in a, I think we're in a, a very important tipping point for women of learning to respect our voices, learning to listen to our own voices, because once we listen to our own voices, then we have more power and more confidence

in saying, this is what my voice, you know, this is what I'm saying. And please listen. And yeah, I think that, I think that for too long, women have been told to voice. Your voice is somehow unseemly, little, not ladylike, little to this, little to that, little too bitchy, little too this, little too that, little too bitchy, little too demanding, little too whiny. And it's all these labels we have put on us about being strong personalities. Because I think that that's really what was going on in this entire process of getting this book on the page. I agree 100%.

Yeah. I wonder of all the cases I've covered, how many of them wouldn't have been cases I'd cover if a woman's voice had been heard and legitimized. I am so grateful for your time this afternoon. There are so many reasons to read The Babysitter, but really take time with The Babysitter and figure out what it means, how you identify with that story. And I've been having a lot of grapplings with myself, the why, why am I drawn to this content? Why am I drawn to these days. The more I learn about my why and my driving force and how to do this better myself. So thank you for both providing a story, a true story, but also it felt like a lesson to me and how to be a better content creator in this space and do it the right way.

And I thank you too. And I wish you so much luck. Thank you. And you're not an imposter. I appreciate that. That's a long question though. The why you may take a lifetime. I love talking to women about their lives and experiences and hearing the behind the scenes of writing their book from the eye-opening research to the truths they uncovered and even the mental health challenges that each of them walked through while putting this story on paper in honor of the women whose lives were stolen and Liza's own traumatic childhood. All of it. I learned a lot and I hope you enjoyed this very different kind of episode.

If you'd like to read The Babysitter, My Summers with a Serial Killer by Liza Rodman and Jennifer Jordan, shop at bookshop.org to support local booksellers. I'll also include a link in the show notes at darkdowneast.com. If you'd like to hear more raw conversations and interviews like this on Dark Down East, send me an email at hello at darkdowneast.com or a DM on Instagram at darkdowneast. Again, thank you for supporting this show and allowing me to do what I do. I'm honored to use this platform for the families and friends who have lost their loved ones. And for those who are still searching for answers in cold missing persons and murder cases. I'm not about to let those names or their stories get lost with time. I'm Kylie Lowe, and this is Dark Down East.