Escaping the Drift with John Gafford - Meet the Serial Killer Whisperer with Tony Ciaglia EP 43
Episode Date: March 23, 2022The Power Move Episode 43Learn and burn Entrepreneurship from serial entrepreneur John Gafford and his band of mayhem makers. From stripper poles to the oval office, business lessons are everywhere. T...his Week:OK, Seriously this is some wild stuff. This week we meet Tony Ciaglia, the subject for the best selling book "The Serial Killer Whisperer". Here his incredible tale of going from a brain injured teen, to the trusted confidant of some of America's most notorious serial killers and helping the FBI and local law enforcement solve cold cases. With Tony Ciaglia, Chris Connell and Colt Amidan
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From the art of the deal to keeping it real.
Keeping it real.
Live from the Simply Vegas studios, it's The Power Move with John Gafford.
Back again, back again, back again, back again.
Thanks for joining us for another episode of The Power Move.
I am John Gafford.
I am your host.
With me to my left is Colt El Scorcho.
I'm a Dan. What's up, El Scorcho? Not much, not much. How's everybody doing? the power move i am john gafford i am your host with me to my left is colt el scorcho emma dan
what's up el scorcho not much not much how's everybody doing
i thought el scorcho was strong today right i actually like that i know it's another one i thought it was good some of these i want to get tattooed on my back i think so dude back tattoo
i think is what our move episode yeah yeah colt gets a back tattoo i think it's
gonna be good and but this is always is the counselor chris connell chris how are you
living the dream and in studio today special guest tony siaglia tony man guys i'm telling
you right now we've talked about some wild shit on this show we've talked about some amazing stuff
on this show but today we're going to talk about wild and amazing. And it's a great story of adversity and overcoming. It's just,
it's an amazing story to me that I can't wait to get to, but you're going to have to wait a second.
So hang on a second. I mean, this is going to be filled with, I mean, overcoming adversity.
It's a suspense. I mean, I'm talking about, about i mean we're going to help the fbi
get some serial killers today is what's going to happen because that's legit i mean it's it's
going to be crazy and that sounds like a joke it ain't that's kind of what the show is about today
which we're very excited about so don't look at me welcome i don't know what you looked at me
no when you said well let's face it After last week's psychological test, I think if anybody hears a serial killer, we know
we're cult ranks on the list.
I mean, I'm not out of everybody.
I'm number three on the list.
I agree.
I agree.
I know.
I don't.
I mean, God, guys, I think I'm the one you want to leave your kids with.
If you want them serial killed.
If you want them serial killed.
No, as I sit here and I look at the monitor, I got to man fabulous i'm looking tan today i'm looking tan yeah i woke up saturday
my wife was like okay you're you're clear you're literally clear today you got to do something
about it so i went and got my 480 spray tan and that seems like a lot for a spray tan but let me
explain to you what happens i pay them 39 a month and I go like once a year, that's what happens.
And so,
but when they go there,
they get you with like the best sales pitch ever,
which is like,
well,
you know,
if you cancel,
you're never going to get this rate again.
And the,
and the incredible cheapness that is just buried deep inside of me is like,
well,
I can't let the rate go.
I mean,
it's just too good of a deal.
I'm grandfathered.
No,
no,
no,
no,
no,
no,
no,
no,
no,
no,
no,
no,
no,
no,
no,
no,
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no,
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no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,
no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,
no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,
no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,
no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,
no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,
no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no what you're supposed to do, and it just goes, just sprays my face.
That's it?
It goes, bing.
And I look at it, it says, face tanning session over.
And I'm like, I mean, I want more.
I mean, I didn't pay $480 just to get the face tan.
I mean, no, I need the whole thing done.
So it was a 240 tan.
Yeah, it was 240.
Yeah, there it is.
It looks pretty.
I thought somebody actually sprayed you.
No, you stand there in the machine.
You hold your arms up.
Right.
Really?
So then I'm like, I go out there.
I'm like, I call up there.
I literally call them from the cell phone.
And I'm like, something's wrong.
It's a stupid machine, right?
You got to fix it.
She's like, oh, yeah, it's broken.
And I'm like, oh, okay.
Well, what do I do?
Because I'm standing here with just a spray.
She's like, no, we're going to put you in the machine next door.
Then I'm like, all right.
So now I've already been sprayed on my face. I have no idea what got sprayed on my face
at this point. Could have been anything. I mean, Colt knows what I'm talking about.
But no, but it could have been anything and I didn't know. So I'm like, I'm just going to have
to try to block my face. No, the next one I do the full body. Yeah, it didn't work out. I got
sprayed twice. I come home, my wife was like, your face is very tan.
I'm like, yeah.
So I got rusted.
You look great.
I did good.
I did.
I think you look good.
I did.
But I do want to mention this.
I don't know if I told you this,
but Colt said the funniest thing
I've ever heard in my entire life this weekend.
Maybe I just think it's funny.
But maybe it was.
Colt and I were at the hockey game on Saturday.
Colt, did I tell you this?
No, but I'm ready for it.
Colt and I were at the hockey game. Colt and I were at the hockey game on Saturday. Did I tell you this? No, but I'm ready for it.
Colton Dyer at the hockey game.
Colton Dyer at the hockey game on Saturday.
We're watching hockey.
And we weren't talking about anything about this.
You know why?
There was no precursor to this.
Yeah, somebody came on the jumbotron.
And what did you say?
What did you say?
No, I'm not.
I'm mean.
Can I say what you said?
Colton Dyer's like the Skolkos.
I mean, what are these?
I mean, it just pisses me off so bad with these people with
gaps between their
teeth don't get them
fixed.
He goes I mean I
got a gap between my
teeth I ain't getting
it fixed but what's
wrong with this guy?
I mean right I don't
know.
I mean.
Yeah dead serious.
Just angry at these
people.
You ever have
something like that
that makes you mad
that you don't do
yourself?
Yeah.
No I'm self aware.
But if I got my gap fixed I'd look weird without a gap.
You wouldn't be.
Everybody knows me as a gap.
So when I see people-
Why don't you think that guy in the jumbotron would feel like his personality would be-
I just-
No, sorry.
So that's like your signature.
Yeah, it's my signature.
Fat people make fun of fat people.
Some guy, yeah.
Like some random guy at the hockey game.
It's not his signature.
He probably works IT or something.
He doesn't see people.
His nickname could be El Gapo.
We don't know that.
Let's just all take a moment to think that El Scorcho is not running the metaverse yet.
That's exactly right.
The metaverse would be amazing if I ran it.
Just throwing that out here.
King of the metaverse.
I think a world would be a lot
better if you had people like me running it you know what okay at this point chris doesn't know
what to say after that he's about to say something at this point can it be any worse i you know i saw
an article i know this has been talked about to death but i gotta bring this up because i thought
this was batshit crazy day there's an article today in the new york times written by a professor of sexual studies at
purdue university and the title of this article was we should be celebrating this swimmer the
swimmer you know i'm talking about like we did jackie robinson chris i'm gonna get canceled go
ahead no no but it's not about being canceled because here's the thing there there's a point where things the eye test has to matter right
in life right and so what what this is going to do all pendulum shift right i've i'm genuinely
fearful that these are the kinds of stories that are going to hurt people that are going through
transitions and changes in their gender whatever because these stories are of stories that are going to hurt people that are going through transitions and changes in their gender or whatever
because these stories are the one that are going to take away from sort of.
Yeah, it's like if you're a police officer watching, you know,
the Rodney King, you're going, this is not good.
Like, I'm not obviously equating them because they're clearly different.
But I'm saying at some point you look at something and you go,
this isn't going to be ultimately good for the movement,
for people that just want general equality,
genuine equality of opportunities and whatever.
When you see something like that,
the person she presents like a very large man.
That's how she presents, right?
Because she hasn't gone through reassignment surgery that i'm
aware of i could be wrong she had to suppress for hormones for a year right and so you go online and
here is my problem is that you know we've talked about this you know i'm i'm the commie of this
group you are which is hilarious to me that i'm the left winger yeah i mean in any world where
i'm the crazy left-winger,
it's pretty far right.
But at the end of the day, when you...
It's far right?
No, no.
But I'm saying if I'm ever considered a left-winger,
like left, but you go on the talking point
that people are coming up with their own science now behind it
and trying to justify it.
So they're trying to square peg around a hole.
And you look at them, the studies about,
well, bone density actually goes down
when you're on suppressive estrogen therapy well this does this this does that and
i go well look you can say whatever you want but the eye test will never be matched because you're
never going to see women transition to male and competing against men ever it won't happen it's
never happened there may be some skills it may happen in billiards it may happen in something
where there's no physicality issues that was well put you know what i'm saying like it may be some skills. It may happen in billiards. It may happen in something where there's no physicality issues.
That was well put.
Do you know what I'm saying? Like maybe in something where physicality,
but the reason these sports were bifurcated into men and women's is to allow
for,
for individuals of that group to succeed in that area.
Right?
Well,
that was my point,
which is if you're going to go this,
why even have male and women?
Let's just have the NBA.
And if women can make it,
God bless,
but because it, because it's not fair fair but it hurts women exactly no that's my point because
it doesn't make any sense to do it and i'm called a turf for that opinion yeah a trans exclusionary
radical feminist and i look at it i go we haven't gotten to a place okay who's calling you that
well no no that's that's what you're called okay i'm sorry what do you said i'm being called that i'm like is that are they protesting you now the the response
from the left and i'm going to call it the left because it's not liberals it's from the left is
that if you don't say that a transitioning male to female is a woman for all intents and purposes
then you are a bigot you're a turf and i go that individual didn't grow up with
boys chasing her
and slapping her ass when she was a kid she couldn't defend herself that boy i have two
daughters i'm telling you women do not have the same issues growing up and developing or whatever
so we haven't done a good enough job protecting biological women yet i don't know why the bandwagon
needs to shift to protecting biological males transition to females unless they're being
objectively discriminated against and i don't see that happening get the minister of health
who's an objectively you know male to female transitioned individual so we need to move
things appropriately but not past the eye test yeah I just I think that comparing that to what
Jackie Robinson dealt with was obnoxious on a level that is insane.
Little different.
Maximum.
You know, and I hate to say it,
well, no, I'm not even going to say it because it was ridiculous,
but to compare those two things was so apples and oranges,
it was just, I couldn't even believe it.
It was nuts.
There's a lot of those issues, and again,
I'm not speaking on behalf of any culture, community, or whatever.
But I would presume, and I hate to presume things, but I would presume that any of my
black or African-American friends would not see those as equivalent at all.
No.
Because they're from a disadvantaged, underrepresented group of people.
Well, case in point.
Right.
Case in point, did you see the acceptance speech for the director that directed the uh the venus and serena williams movie did you see that
no she made the comment basically um in her except she got roasted for it but she made the comment
during acceptance speech for golden globe for best director where essentially she was saying
that you know you guys you worked hard but you never had to compete against the guys like I do.
It's like, um, what?
Like, like you're going to belittle to, uh, you know,
African-American women from Compton coming up through a very white world of
professional tennis.
And you're going to compare that to cause you got to compete with male
directors. Like, what are you like? It made no sense in it.
It landed really short.
And I think people are just always looking to compare their situation or their victory to someone else's.
And I think that's.
I don't need it.
I think that's true to the point.
That's almost a sign of the times when you have too much excess.
I was watching a Vice documentary about Haiti and just sort of what's gone on since the the killing of not only the president
but just um interventionism these individuals just want peace and freedom and you know security
all of which they don't have they're burying their children at very young ages and you look at you
know certain places and you go zero people there are debating these issues it means they can care
less it's it's a good thing to say that you're a prosperous society and that you have...
Do you think anybody in Ukraine gives a rat's ass about any of this right now?
No, absolutely not.
They just want to be alive.
They don't want their house to get blown up.
Yeah.
It's amazing how simple issues can be when abundance is removed from the equation.
How sometimes maybe we've lost certain clarity of issues.
And I welcome the debate.
I think that as long as the debate is alive and healthy,
that it's good.
Cause maybe I haven't considered some positions.
The problem is when people want to shut down debate.
Well,
echo chambers,
we've always talked about it.
It's just,
it's straight to bigotry.
If you're saying,
I don't understand how you see these as equivalent.
And they're like,
well,
that's cause you're a bigot.
Well,
that's cause you're lazy.
Cause you're so lazy.
If that's,
let me put,
let me put you in this box that I've designed to make my opinion correct.
My other friends will call me a hero.
Powerless friends.
Nobody ever does anything.
But within my own echo chamber, I'm a hero for piling on on people that maybe had legitimate questions.
Wait, look.
Let's talk about some real overcoming adversity.
Let's talk about some real stuff adversity. Let's talk about some
real stuff. I mean, you know, I'm excited for this. That's why I didn't hijack the show. Yeah,
you didn't hijack at all. He wants to get right to Tony. So guys, I'm going to give Tony a little
bit of an intro and then I want to hear from him what his story is because it's amazing. Now,
first of all, Tony is the brother of one of my dearest friends. Your brother is somebody that I love dearly.
I'm happy to call him a friend and any extension of him and his family is always welcome with me.
So thanks, John. But you know, you, so let's start at the very beginning. So talk about,
talk about, you know, you, you were a normal guy growing up. You were, you just had a normal
childhood growing up, played sports, did all that all that stuff good in school all of those things right yes i mean just nothing extraordinarily strange or interesting
about your child i was really big in theater and i was a jock yeah uh-huh um go on i'm sorry to cut
you off no you can cut me off all you like and then in then in a certain age something happened
to you that changed the trajectory of your life. What was that? Yes.
Well, on July 23rd, 1992, I was at a summer camp.
And there was a group of us in the lake about chest high.
And little did I know, my entire life was going to change in a major way.
A boy came in on a jet ski going 45 miles an hour.
And I don't remember any of this.
This has all been told to me.
And he turned and just sideswiped me in the back of the head right here. And so you went from literally one minute around playing in the lake, doing my thing with my friends.
And then you woke up in the hospital.
Yes.
And this was in between ninth and tenth grade.
How long were you out from the time you got hit to the time you can remember coming back to in the hospital?
Was it days, weeks?
36-day coma.
36-day coma.
You were out. back to in the hospital i was days weeks what was a 36 day coma 36 day coma you're out and i died three times on the care flight helicopter that came to get me and can i tell you about my out
of body experience everything yeah of course we got time floor is yours my friend yeah we want to
hear we're here to hear your story tony you tell your story i um i died and when i died my i left my body and i went up
towards and everybody's heard about this white light in the sky well it was there and it was going towards it
and I could look down
and I could see myself
and all of the medics
and the doctors
trying to get me back
and I got to this white light, guys,
and it exploded, okay?
And it went forever that way and forever that way.
And I was in the middle.
And I was just floating through it.
And I remember feeling warm.
I remember feeling no pain.
There was no blood.
But I felt like I had been there before.
Okay.
Right.
And so you were,
you were at peace at this way.
Very calming.
Oh yes.
I was at peace and I drifted through this tunnel and I looked to my left and I saw my family around the kitchen table and they were eating spaghetti.
So it wasn't just you,
you saw,
you saw your family. I saw my okay and i kept going and i looked to the right and i saw myself
playing on the 10th grade basketball team um with all my friends and i kept going, and then I stopped. And before me was this wall.
It was a huge wall, and it was so beautiful,
and it was so powerful, and it was like pure energy, okay?
And out stepped Jesus Christ.
He stepped out, and Jesus looked just like you guys think he looks from pictures.
He had a beard. He was tan. He didn't get a spray tan.
Yeah, he wasn't as tan as me.
Not as tan as me.
Not as tan as me today.
No.
Parallel.
But he was tan and he had long wavy hair and he was in a robe. And he came before me.
And he got right up close to me.
And he said, Anthony Siaglia, have no fear.
You are with your father in heaven.
And he said, I'm going to give you a choice, though.
I'm going to tell you, or I'm going to give you a choice. If you would like to go back to your
family. And he said, but if you choose to go back, he goes that my children take for granted every day.
But if you choose to stay with me, you will live for eternity. And one day you will meet up with
your loved ones again, but it's not their their time and then he put his hand on my shoulder
and he said because i told him i want to go back because i can't imagine my family without you
without me and and having the the surgeon tell them yeah you know sorry, Anthony is not going to make it. Going to make it.
And he said, but I want you to love, love,
and when you think you've loved too much,
continue to love all of my children.
And that was it.
That was the out-of-body experience. And then you went from there,
and you kind of right back to where you were?
You just blinked back to where you were?
I woke up then in the intensive care.
Not the intensive care, because I had gotten moved to the coma.
36 days later, though?
The coma.
36 days later, yes.
Now, when you woke up, when you first came out of the coma,
did you feel, were you immediately like,
something's not, I mean, obviously I've been hurt.
I've been there, but could you feel,
did you notice something was different?
The memory is kind of...
A little hazy.
Hazy, yes, but I do remember parts of it.
I remember the rehab. I was in rehab for seven months
relearning how to walk talk read spell swallow eat and i was paralyzed on the right side of my body
so i had lost everything um and but did you i i remember could could you could you tell at what point did you realize
that i mean of course all your motor function was on all those things yes but because i know
that you suffered a little bit of a personality difference from when before to now oh my god
so at what point did you notice that is that something you knew was happening? Or what happened? I know you know now, so.
My entire personality changed like 100%.
I tried to go back to school.
And guys, it wasn't the rehab that was the hard part.
It was how my friends treated me.
I went from a very popular, whatever the hell that means. Yeah the hell that means yeah at that age yeah yeah
and i was i was teased i was this is hard to say but i was spit on um they treated me
like i had leprosy yeah Yeah. And that was the hardest part.
I had to drop out of school after six weeks.
My parents, they pulled me out.
Yeah, that's tough.
I mean, that's so frustrating as a parent, too.
It's tough, yeah,
because you've got hormones going on at that age.
Since this is 92 that's okay do you think i mean like look i don't think that would happen today that's my question
do you think that would still be happening there's been a lot so like i said a lot of
but there's a lot more progress now i think people are a lot more accommodating
for differences now 30 years later yeah i think i agree with that there's a lot i agree too
thank god thank god yeah that's a good part of progress i mean you i mean i agree with that there's a lot i agree too thank god thank god yeah that's
a good part of progress i mean you i mean i you know you hear this and as a parent you know your
heart goes out to you for that uh-huh but you also think jesus you know thank god you know are my
kids capable of that of being the bad side of that are they capable i know that that's yeah
well the thing is i don't think any parent that their kids end up doing shit like that i don't think any parent thinks their kids
are capable of that when you tell them that they are and they defend them that's when you know that
that's why yeah my little billy wouldn't do that it's like if somebody came out to my house and
said your daughter has been picking on my daughter i'd be like one minute well that happened you know
no no no no that that's happened before i found out that my son was giving the little brand who's the next door neighbor boy who was like five years younger
my son was giving him a hard time at one point and they called me i wanted to murder my son i
made i made him i made him go next door and apologize not just to the boy but to his parents
and we've never had a problem since this is years ago so it wasn't i mean kids kids are assholes
until you correct them right yeah you gotta get today you have to have a guy get
your thumb on them so they pulled you out of school they pulled me out of school and
my adolescence really really horrible um because one thing i deal with now, even to this day,
is severe depression.
Yeah.
And that's due to the brain damage.
And I mean, there's days when I wake up
and I wish God would just come back
and give me that choice again. That option, choice again to go with him or come back.
And when I told my parents that it broke their heart.
But see, I think, I think, I think for me and people don't know the rest of the story
and we're going to get to the rest of the story.
Yes.
But how many families have you blessed since then because of, because of what you did?
And we're going to get to what you did in a
minute. But I think every time, you know, if I'm giving you any advice, which I mean, that's part
of what we do is we're sitting and give people advice. If I'm giving you any advice on that is,
on those days, man, this is for anybody. On days when you feel like you're not making an impact or
you don't want to get out of bed or you're not feeling good about you, always turn your focus
to the impact you're making on others i mean i
always tell people the definition of success for me is not so much what you would change achieve
going forward but it's reaching back to pull others forward and i know for a fact we're going
to get in that story in just a minute you have changed people's lives you have made it better
you have healed families because of what you've done how long we're going to get to that how long
was your motor skills off because i mean your your arm you said you right hand paralyzed and stuff i mean your speech everything's great so
how long did that take to get back you remember i swear in rehab i do remember it was like the
nurses and stuff they they would always tell me you know you're always like two steps ahead of where you should be and god i want to
say i was blessed and a lot of it was because i was really young i was 15 at that time so the
recovery rate was better and i have neural elasticity yeah well here's you know what this
is almost like dude and i'm not trying i'm not trying to trivialize trivialize your story uh-huh dude this is like your superhero origin
story because all of this created what is known now as the serial killer whisperer which is what
you're known as am i right or wrong by that that is what i'm known as you're known as the serial
killer whisperer and right now if you're in your car doing this i hope you just said what the fuck did you just say because yeah because we're going
to get into that now so along with this you started feeling you know was it compulsion was
it certain things that you were feeling you were trying to get a handle on and trying to understand
what started this the way the story goes and the way it happened was, I mean, I went to therapy, like psychologists,
for probably 17 years, like twice a week after my accident and everything.
And my psychologist told me, you know, Tony, you really need a hobby.
Yeah.
Yeah.
You really need a hobby.
And.
That's true for everyone,
by the way.
Yeah.
Everybody needs a hobby.
Go if you don't have one,
go figure one out.
You know what Colt's hobby is?
It's ruining every text group he's in.
That's his hobby.
With the Android phone.
He just ruins.
I don't have an iPhone.
Tony,
you have a phone, right? An iPhone. You have an iPhone an iPhone. Yeah. Tony, you have a phone,
right? An iPhone. You have an iPhone, right? Yeah. So we could all be texting right here.
Right. And Colt would ruin it. Ruining it with the green bubble. Be ruining it.
Sorry. So sorry to interrupt you. So he says you need a hobby. Go ahead.
I need a hobby. And I said, well, you know, I'll take that home, that idea and kick it around and
see what I come up with and my
dad when he was younger wanted to be a criminologist so he had lots of books around the
house ted bundy john wayne gacy just lots of infamous notorious serial killers and stuff so
of course i looked at those books and i was thinking hey i'm a good writer I'm why don't I reach out to
these people not Ted Bundy he was already dead but to serial killers so
what I did is I went back and I told my doctor that and trust me he was not I I was thinking golf. I mean, stamp collecting. Pinochle, yeah.
Coin.
Serial killer pen pals.
Not what I was thinking.
And exactly the words out of his mouth were,
Tony, you're born with a clear lake of water.
And if you do this,
you're going to throw lots of shit into that water.
No kidding.
Uh-huh.
Darken the pool.
Oh, my God. But i didn't listen to him okay
with that uh they were they were they were actually interested to see what kind of response i would
get so i started out we're gonna take a quick break we're gonna take a break we're gonna take
a quick break and we come back we're gonna hear about you know we've heard the backstory now we
got the origin done. The origin story.
Now we're going to move into the hero's journey where we actually start moving through this
process to become the superhero you are, which is the serial killer whisperer.
We're going to be back in just a second.
Stay with us.
Hey, it's John Gafford.
If you want to catch up more and see what we're doing, you can always go to thejohngafford.com.
We'll share any links of things we talked about on the show, as well as links to the YouTube where you can watch us live.
And if you want to catch up with me on Instagram, you can always follow me at thejohngafford.
I'm here.
Give me a shout.
Back for part two of today's Power Move, where we talk about overcoming adversity to help others.
Today, we have an interview with the serial killer whisperer, Tony Siaglia. part two of today's power move we talk about overcoming adversity to help others uh today
we have an interview with the serial killer whisperer tony siaglia uh of course with me
as always i'm john gafford colt el scorcho el scorcho your group text
with my green bubble and the counselor chris connell and sitting in today if you didn't hear
that tony siaglia if you didn't hear the first part of this it was kind of a superhero origin story
go back and watch that this is also the portion of the show when i make my cheap pander so if
you're watching us on youtube take that hot second give us a subscribe give us a like on the video
give us a comment whatever it is and if you listen to us wherever you are through whatever podcast
listener you are give us a five-star review.
It takes two seconds, and it does help the cause.
So we were just talking about, we were picking this back up a second ago.
We were talking about, so after your brain injury, your doctor said you needed to pick up a hobby.
And you thought backgammon would be a little too much, so you decided to become pen pals with serial killers is what it is.
So how do you sit down?
Okay, so you've decided to do this now.
You haven't started.
So how do you decide who's the first person you're gonna,
walk me through the process of writing the first letter.
Well, John, what I did was I got on the internet
and I got all these names
and all these addresses and everything.
And I wrote like a base letter, like a mass mailing.
Got it.
Okay.
And I figured I've lived a very interesting life so far.
And I really think that these people, they're lonely you know death row wherever they may be yeah you
know they maybe they would like to share their life with me and what was that what was the context
of the base letter what was in it the base letter was basically about my injury and and it was about the out-of-body experience
and about how I was treated
and about how society treated me
and really at first wasn't willing to accept
a brain-injured survivor
because I did have problems.
See, that's really interesting because...
It's authentic.
Well, no, no, no.
It's not that it's
authentic it's you wonder how many of them were responding back because they sympathized with
being ostracized by society yeah yeah and how many might have responded based on the fact that you
had an out of spirit an out-of-body experience with god and that they're they're they're on the
fast track to meet him so maybe they wanted to do that so it's it's it's interesting trauma does unite people yeah you'll see that like a lot of groups a lot of
therapy like people that have experienced traumas often relate to one another right because i used
to speak at brain injured survivor groups sure because who else is going to understand you better
than someone else who's kind of gone through your traumas that's in general right so how many how many letters did you send out i sent out i'm glad you asked that question i sent out
40 letters to 40 different people and
i'll be damn my psychologist was not thinking i was going to get much of a response. How much did you get? But I did. I got 36 letters back.
Pretty good conversion rate.
Yeah, we need to let Tony write our sales letter.
Yeah, what are you doing?
So this letter turned a hobby into a full-time gig.
Okay.
I'm sure.
So your first, okay.
So did you start this with an intention?
Did you have an intention of where it was going to go?
Or did you just want to see where it was going to go?
What was the early intention of doing this?
I was, the early intention was a hobby, you know,
be kind of cool.
Throw it against the wall.
Just to see if you could get him to respond
just what he said what was it throw it against the wall to see what see what sticks yeah yeah
awesome who was all of life's interesting things start that my first first who was the one you're
excited about well the first person who wrote me back was arthur shawcross arthur john shawcross Shawcross, Arthur John Shawcross. He was a serial killer in Rochester, New York.
And he was kind of a big name. He murdered 13 prostitutes, but first he murdered two children
and he got out. He slipped through the loopholes of the law in prison he did i can't remember how much time but he got out and six
months later he started murdering prostitutes and um i believe he killed 13 and they caught him then
android user i'm guessing he had an android he hadn't yeah he did he did
now this guy though he's going to write me a letter later.
The views of John Gafford do not reflect the Android.
When it comes to Android, they absolutely do reflect your thoughts.
We sympathize more with the 13 women he killed than Colt and his Android.
I'm sorry.
There you go.
This guy, though, we went and visited him.
Your family?
My dad, my brother, and me. i've visited lots of prisons over the years
i've been doing this for 15 years we'll get into that though yeah and i just the um
he was very grandfatherly like he was very kind very friendly but if you were on his wrong side yeah yeah and can i share
this really anything you want okay this is about him okay he's sitting about two feet in front of
me at a table here my dad me my brother and then he starts talking about the murders.
Okay?
And I don't think I can talk about it.
You don't, yeah.
I can't?
Anything you want.
Anything you want.
Open forum.
Well, two of the girls he murdered,
and he took his knife,
he cut their vagina out.
And his eyes were just going up and down like this.
And he was sweating, you guys.
This guy was sweating.
Drops were falling down his nose onto his lip.
And he took his fake teeth out.
And he threw them down on the table and he goes
i ate it i ate the whole thing from the inside out and then there was a silence
and you know what he said then i went to my favorite dunkin donuts and i got a cup of black
coffee to rinse it down with now that okay all Okay, hang on a second. At what point now does your dad go,
maybe we should have taken a backgammon.
Maybe this is not what we need to be doing right now.
Maybe.
Because they had to have had that conversation with you.
They had to have.
They really didn't.
There wasn't a general concern for this.
They monitored my correspondence with what these people said,
what I was saying to these people.
Because they're master manipulators in there too.
Oh, yeah.
Oftentimes, right?
Oh, yeah.
That's what they do.
And before I kind of got off on that tangent about Arthur Shawcross,
do you know what I was talking about, you guys you guys no we said how many responses you got who were who were like the top ones you were
excited about oh i was really excited about i'm sure you guys have heard of uh kenneth bianchi
and angelo bono they were the hillside stranglers yeah they responded
uh gary leon ridgeway oh wow yeah he's the uh the green river killer
and then there was two guys two killing cousins in uh vero beach florida oh yeah uh And Vero Beach, Florida. Oh, yeah. Fred Waterfield, who's still alive,
and his cousin, David Gore.
And...
Oh.
So...
Go on.
No, you can say anything.
Well, no, no.
I was going to say.
But at some point,
you know, these relationships you had with these guys,
it goes from more of a here's a quick pen pal back to creating a genuine kind of friendship with them that leads to some very positive results.
Yes.
So where was the first inkling that that might happen? I just started to feel like,
like, for instance, there's this one serial killer
named Harvey Kerrigan.
He's written me 50-page letters, you guys.
I mean, these people, they wouldn't just like,
they would share their entire life with me,
like their childhood, what made them into what they become, you know, and why they decided
to walk that road.
And, and I really felt that my, it's hard to be friends with a sociopath you can't really be that's yeah that's true
i've believed i've tried yeah can't date him either can't text him did you say you can't
date him either no you can't date him either that is awesome that was awesome
lord knows everybody's trying was there a common theme you saw between people and how they
grew up oh yes exactly um but could you write out a list of the top five things that they all kind
of probably had similar i don't believe you're born evil no i don't i believe and with my research
in getting to know all of these people um oh i have hundreds of hours of uh
telephone conversations with them as well and guys these people were all made yeah neglect and trauma
yeah horrible raped yep pimped out by their moms their I mean, things that you can't even believe kind of formed them into psychopaths, into
sociopaths.
Absolutely.
That's nuts.
So at what point?
Okay.
Okay.
So we're communicating with all these people in the story.
That's what we're doing.
We've created a relationship with them to where they feel safe enough to tell you their
entire life story.
So at what point do you get the first piece of information that you're like i should probably call somebody about this they started to share with me
uh my uh murders crimes that they committed that the law doesn't know about and they were writing
this stuff down they were giving me directions to where their treasure chests are and
common theme right yes yes and nobodies just like where they hid identifications
necklaces of all these victims and stuff and you know as i continued my dad said you know they could write in hell of a book
about your life story tony and and that's what they did yeah i we found an author and um well
i'm more i'm more concerned but when you started helping the FBI with some of this stuff.
That is, right now, is going on.
Right now is going on.
Exactly.
I'm helping two detectives in Vero Beach, Florida, find a suitcase of scalps that the serial killer, that was his fetish, hair. So he would kill his victims and he would scalp these ladies.
And there's like a hundred or so
Polaroid pictures in this briefcase.
And he gave me the spot where it's at.
And I have two detectives who heard,
I have a podcast, by the way.
We're going to promote it.
Yeah, we're going to help you.
We're going to push it, yeah. But these detectives, they i have a podcast by the way we're gonna promote it yeah we're gonna help you okay we're gonna push it yeah but these detectives they heard my podcast and they contacted me
and they flew out to las vegas and they um they've got they got all the directions
from me and that's going on right now to To help them out. Uh-huh.
Which that's what makes you the serial killer whisperer. Yes.
There's also a case where, oh gosh, brain fart.
I'm forgetting the name of the child.
Oh, it's okay.
What's the deal with it?
It's for children.
And Robert Hansen. Okay. the child oh it's okay what's the what's the deal with children and uh robert hansen okay yes he was
the worst serial killer in alaskan history well he killed two girls and they didn't find these two
girls and they're young and it's out by his cabin and i'm working with the Federation for Missing and Exploited Children.
They've come out to my house three times to get information and stuff like that.
On everything you're doing.
Yeah.
So the fact that you got connected with all of these people.
Yes.
And now you're using this information.
There's still families out there that are hurting because of the victims of these people.
And having the ability to help, you know, hopefully find them have peace that that's got to be the reward for all of this. And it is John. And I, I can't imagine,
I don't have any children. Um, but if I, if I had a child or not even a child, somebody in my family
who went missing and they vanished and there's no answers
i couldn't imagine living without an answer yeah so i might be able to give these people
answers and there's one serial killer who's given me like seven cold cases that we're working with
or working on right now so So what's their motivation?
So a part of me wonders if it's for their own closure their own senses of guilt their own
You know whether they believe what's happening in the next life, you know
I mean to kind of cleanse their own consciousness their conscience or is it something about just your relationship with them where they feel comfortable?
And in like all criminals every criminal talks about what they do eventually so do you think it's a part of absolution or do you think it's more about
is it bragging or absolution bragging or absolution is a good way to put it that was an
awesome question and they're different some of them want to do the right thing and do what i just
said for the families and some of, they don't give a shit.
Just total sociopaths.
Yeah, exactly.
And those people don't mean shit to them,
but I think with my friendship over the years,
and I think I've been able to work it out of them.
Yeah, wear them down a little bit.
Yeah.
Is that your intent,
or is it just a byproduct of the conversation of friendship?
Like, John tells me sometimes where he's buried a few prostitutes,
but I'm not his attorney.
I can't tell anybody.
No, no, no.
But the point is, listen,
but we've worked on the statute,
and they had Android's defense as viable.
We've talked about that.
They used Android phones.
It's completely viable defense.
You can hate, but...
I told Colt, you know, having an Android is a lot like dying.
The people around you are sad, but you're oblivious to it.
It is.
I didn't mean to take away from you,
but your thing is it's just sort of like a byproduct of the friendship.
Are you genuinely developing these relations for people i don't like even if you're a true
psychopath i mean like i said i can't understand i carry guilt with me i almost hit a rabbit on
the car like oh shit like i don't want to kill anything it's just to me death is finality and
i just it creeps me out has since i was a kid touch a mummy though but i was an emt when i was younger okay and so death to me is not an area i want to be around
because it it it darkens my pool like you were saying with your dad seems like to you it's been
an area where you've been able to thrive and lighten up other people's pools yeah and i want
to um interrupt you really quick it's all done. It's all you. Okay.
Feel free.
Feel free.
And I like that question,
especially at the end.
It does get to me,
especially when I deal with assholes
that kill children and rape children.
Now, that's a whole not other level of evil to me.
And when it gets to that level, I back away.
And I'm very spiritual, obviously.
I met Jesus.
I pray a lot.
And I also, I look at pictures, you guys, of the victims before they're dead.
So wait a second.
Is there a point with this where it's really, you stay focused with these people and it's
all about helping the families of the victims, but if it gets too dirty, the water gets too
muddy, you got to get out?
That's exactly fair to say.
That's, yes.
So has there been a couple of people that you are like
i'm done talking to oh yes too much uh yes especially i'll just be really quick guys
especially the people that um that won't admit to killing even though it's in black and white
yeah yeah like randy craft one. He's killed like 67 people.
And I was friends, you know, whatever you call it, with him for quite some time.
But then, you know, after a while, I was like, yeah, this is dry.
I can't.
There's nothing.
There's no.
You stare into the face of like evil.
It's blank.
Yes.
A lot of times, you know, because if there's fire and anger, at least there's emotion. But these the face of like evil it's blank yes a lot of times you know because
if there's fire and anger at least there's emotion but these guys yeah just numb and randy craft he
was a homosexual and he killed gays um just like jeffrey dahmer he was before me though how many
of these people are you talking to right now right Right now, I don't have time to,
because I used to write like all night,
like tons of letters.
And I write, I take my time.
I write like six, seven, eight page letters to these people.
Because you got to kind of be all in with them
if they're going to be all in with you.
Exactly.
And I'm sorry.
No, that's an interesting point. It's a lot out of you but yeah you you are
approaching these as genuine almost friendships and it's not a it's not one of those things how
could you be friends with somebody kills people it's like well because um humans are complex life
is complex yes you can see past their traumas so is your intent to develop genuine friendships with
these people and then it leads
to other things or are you kind of now at a point where you realize your gift and you're going at an
angle and you're going kind of at an angle you know is there both can be true too i suppose yeah
i'm sorry john i didn't answer your question i'm talking to about 10 now i'm talking to one woman in california on death row she murdered her five children
yeah susan eubanks is her name she's a real fucking piece of shit if i could say that
she did it all at once all at once she went in the house her house and just started shooting him in the back of the head
and i'm talking to pam smart she's i've been talking to her for 15 years she's very infamous
and and i do say i have a genuine friendship with her i like her those other guys fuck them
i mean it's it's too hard to you know right right yeah well what intrigues you
about her what intrigues me about her the fact that she has made a difference she went to prison
she's gotten like two or three diplomas you know and she has a life sentence but she's dealing with the governor who I might talk to on her behalf.
The three other boys,
the guys that actually did the crime,
they killed her husband,
they're all out of prison.
Even the guy that pulled the trigger.
She's the only one left in prison.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
She does a lot in prison to working with other inmates and stuff and path to forgiveness so so when did when did the book come up well you mentioned earlier let's
get back to the book so if you want to if you want to read the book you want to hear all about this
what's the book called the book is called the serial killer whisperer right by uh pete early
okay they buy it on amazon or anywhere books are sold i'm imagining
yes okay there you go yeah and so he so how did he hear about this what was that process like he
approached you what happened there to to get a hold of peter early yeah so how the book how'd
the book come to come to pass uh there there was a doctor that i knew and um you know what?
My brain injury, I do have certain problems,
like dates and stuff like that. He does date.
So he called you, and you guys just started doing interviews
and started working through it.
Yeah, he wrote the book for two years.
For two years.
And then it took two years to publish the book.
And when it came out, it became a bestseller right away.
And I was on a show called The Doctors. I that yeah of course yeah uh-huh and and that was great they were all really cool
um and i've done like a dozen radio shows and it became really big but this is the best podcast
you've ever been on besides your own right right? I mean, hands down. John, of course.
Why ask? Obviously.
Hey, John, is water wet?
And I love the fact you
said you can't date a
sociopath eater. That's hysterical.
You can't. You can't. Believe me, I think
in our younger days, we've all tried.
Although, you know what?
Not to make it weird, but Colt's
wife is trying to kill him on a regular basis.
We might need to have a big...
Huge difference between serial killers and justifiable homicide.
That is a good point.
Justifiable homicide.
Okay, I get it.
I get it.
I get a probation.
Were there anything that really shocked you?
I mean, for that guy to sit there and say, cut out the girl's vagina and ate him, that's got to be top top like that was hot oh yeah that's gotta be very tough very tough and
shout out to dunkin donuts i mean i know this is the same coffee a choice for after that hey you
guys this is the same guy though oh jesus that would call my house and talk to my mom too much
too much coddle too much too much okay she would call your mom and talk to your mom? Too much. Too much, Connell. Too much. Too much. Okay. Bad Connell. He would call your mom
and talk to your mom?
Oh, yeah.
These guys call my house
and they talk to my mom
and they give her recipes
and stuff.
Holy shit.
Really?
Not vagina recipes.
I didn't say it, John.
Duncan Bell.
I held back to it.
Oh, Jesus.
So now,
so talk about the podcast.
Let's talk about that.
Obviously,
we want to give you
a little bit of information.
We might get sponsored
by Dunkin' Donuts after that story. We could. We could. It was a good plug. Tell talk about the podcast let's talk about that obviously we want to get sponsored by dunkin donuts we could we could we could it was it was a it was a good plug
tell me about the podcast the podcast we've done season one it's 16 episodes they're an hour long
um the podcast is called murder phone murder phone and you can get it wherever they do podcasts
yeah wherever it is so search around for this,
wherever you're listening to this,
take a listen from Murder Phone.
And we're about to drop season two.
Okay, that's awesome.
It's a lot different than Dream Phone,
which is...
Yeah, listen, listen, listen.
Here goes Connell.
Connell's thinking out the rails today.
John, can I say something really quick?
No, whatever you want.
I just want to say,
what makes this podcast so special is all three of
you guys you all have like way different personalities so it really goes well yeah i
appreciate it i appreciate hopefully none of the personalities line up with who you've been talking
to but it's like you kind of remind me of just so you know what started kind of the whole podcast
was i don't remember who it was but somebody just we're all three in a room joking at one point somebody's like man i'd love to go
get a drink with you guys and effectively this is going to get a drink with us there's just no
drinks sometimes there's but not today it's pretty much what it is this is going to get a drink with
us for the most part just like my podcast my dad is the co-host and he says welcome to our table
so it's kind of like the same thing what is. Do you do like a serial killer per pod?
No, we do like a serial killer or another serial killer.
And we go the whole season on them because I have that much.
He's got hundreds.
It's like a serial.
I've listened to it.
It's really good.
Your dad's really good at it.
You guys have such a good connection.
It's a great podcast
yeah yeah so definitely check that out but again man this is one of those things you know whenever
we do a podcast here we like to do a couple things which is motivate you to either give you tips give
you direction in business or you know tell a story where it's like what is wrong with you what's wrong
with me you know i could be doing more what it is, that's, this is a guy that was in a coma for 36 days, had to relearn literally how to do everything in his
power. Um, and now has turned a limiting, a limiting thing in his life into a force for
good to help others. And it's a, it's a wild story, man. I'm not gonna lie. It's out there.
It's wild, but that's what makes it good. And, uh, yeah. So check out Tony's podcast,
murder phone, Tony. Thank you for joining us today, brother.
I love you guys.
Thank you.
You guys are great.
Appreciate having you on.
Give that a listen.
And we're going to wrap it up as we always do.
Guys, if you didn't like what we did today,
tell two people or if you tell somebody,
wait, what am I doing?
See, Tony's got, this has been so wild today.
John needs some more caffeine.
I do, I do.
Dunkin' Donuts.
What I meant to say was
if you like what we're doing, tell a friend.
If you hate what we're doing, tell two because it doesn't matter
if you're talking good or bad as long as what?
As long as we're talking about you.
We'll see you next time. Hey, it's John Gafford. If you want to catch up more and see what we're doing,
you can always go to thejohngafford.com where we'll share any links that we've,
things we talked about on the show,
as well as links to the YouTube where you can watch us live.
And if you want to catch up with me on Instagram,
you can always follow me at thejohngafford.
I'm here.
Give me a shout.