Hidden True Crime - THE TRUTH ABOUT JIM: Dr John Matthias Interviews Crime Documentary Director Skye Borgman

Episode Date: February 13, 2024

SKYE BORGMAN is an winning Director and Cinematographer known for her films: 'Abducted in Plain Sight', 'Sins of our Mother', 'Girl in the Picture', and 'I just Killed My Dad'. She is also the Director of the latest Unsolved Mysteries series. Skye joins John Matthias with "Hidden True Crime" to talk about her upcoming HBO Max docuseries titled "The Truth about Jim" premiering on February 15th, 2023. John and Lauren had a sneak peak at the film prior to this interview. DR. JOHN MATTHIAS is a licensed clinical and forensic psychologist with 30 years’ experience in both clinical and forensic work. He serves as an expert witness for the federal government and has consulted on numerous high-profile cases for District Attorney’s offices and defense attorneys in several states. Dr. Matthias graduated with honors in philosophy from Princeton University, and he won the prestigious McCosh Thesis prize while there. In high school he graduated valedictorian from a large public high school in Chicago where he was chosen to participate in a ground-breaking valedictory study that continues to this day. HIDDEN: A TRUE CRIME PODCAST is: CRIMINAL PSYCHOLOGY REINVENTED. Join us on a journey into the darkest recesses of the human mind and the unconscious motivations that drive human behaviors in order to understand the world and ourselves. TO SUPPORT: https://www.patreon.com/hiddentruecrime https://paypal.me/hiddentruecrime Our Sponsors:* Check out Acorns: https://acorns.com/HIDDENTRUECRIME* Check out Acorns: https://acorns.com/HIDDENTRUECRIME* Check out Armoire and use my code HIDDENTRUECRIME for a great deal: https://www.armoire.style* Check out Effecty and use my code HIDDENTRUECRIME for a great deal: https://www.effecty.com* Check out Happy Mammoth and use my code HIDDENTRUECRIME for a great deal: https://happymammoth.comSupport this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/hidden-a-true-crime-podcast1836/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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We were honored to have a pre-screening of an HBO Max docu series that's coming out on Thursday, February 15th. It's called The Truth About Jim. The documentary director is a friend of ours, someone that has been at our dinner table. It's director Sky Borgman. You might know Sky from the documentaries, I Just Killed My Dad, abducted in plain sight, the girl in the picture, the latest or newest version of Unsolved Mysteries. And of course, the documentary where we met Sky, sins of our mother, which is why we got to know Sky.

We've interviewed her before and she'll be on here in just a minute with us. And Dr. John, you're going to interview her. It's a four-part docu-series, right? We binge-watched it. So I'm trying to remember how many episodes it was before. Four parts. It's going to be on HBO Max. Okay, HBO Max this Thursday.

and it's a wild ride, I'll tell you. And you know what I kind of liked about it, though? On these, I'll be honest, on these pre-screening, they don't have playback. You just got to watch it. It's special. You're in. And John couldn't pause it every five minutes. Yeah, that's right.

That's my specialty. Let's go back. Let's go back. Yes. But I can't believe he just said that. Right. Right. But it was, it was fascinating. In my opinion, got better with each episode.

And we can't wait to listen or talk about it with all of you. So we hope that you'll all watch it too. Sky should be here any minute. Well, I just want to say that it's good to see you again, Sky. Good to see you too. Always good to see you, John. Thank you. Yeah.

The last time we talked, I'm going to remind you of this because you probably don't remember. But the last time we talked was when you were filming for sins of our mother in Las Vegas, that's the last time I sell you in person. And I actually asked you what you were up to and what projects you were working on. And you said something vaguely about family trauma and the Zodiac killer. And you were pretty vague about it. But for the last 18 months or a couple of years, I keep saying to Lauren, I'm really curious to see what happened.

to that project. And here it is. Here it is. I learned, even though you were vague, I learned from that brief conversation and you have my curiosity for two years what you were up to and it's fascinating. So let me just mention what that project turned out to be. It's the truth about Jim, your new documentary. And I think I'm going to mention the subtitle too because it's so critical to understanding

this documentary, which is a very critical to understanding this documentary, which is a a fractured family confronts their dark legacy. And I think that's a really important part of this story. And actually, I kind of want to start there with you, one of the, Sierra says during this documentary that this process, she says, quote, changed our whole family. And that's a remarkable thing to occur during the process of a documentary. So in typical Skyborgman documentary fashion, you not only tell a story, but you affect change and you ask big questions and there's a lot of twist and turns. And so I wanted to start with that issue of the story.

So I think in many ways this is a story about family transformation. Could you talk a little bit about that issue from your perspective as a story. as the director and the filmmaker and kind of what you saw and how you viewed that entire process. Yeah, this, I mean, I guess it's probably safe to say that this family was already incredible before, you know, we came in. And it's women who are outspoken and brave and sassy and vulnerable and all of the things that make women incredible.

And they wanted to tell. their story in a public way. And I think that one of the things that I always talk about in telling these kind of stories is that people, I want people to be able to talk about whatever they want to talk about, in whatever kind of way they want to talk about it, whether it's in a very public forum like what we're doing here, or whether it's to your best friend or your spouse or your therapist, whoever that may be, I want people to be able to talk about their stories. These women are well versed at talking. They talk to each other. They talk about things. But, but, but, but, the next level is like being followed around with the camera, right? Like that's something that is a whole next level of like you're just imposing in people's lots. You're really, you're really taking a step beyond what typical people expect. And sometimes it can be very, very challenging in terms of people and close up. But for the most part, people end up opening up in front of cameras and people end up

talking about things. And maybe it's because I'm sort of there behind the camera just saying, we'll talk about this, talk about this, talk about this. And it's always a, look, it's always a very delicate balance because it can be retramatizing. And I think these documentaries are probably always a little bit retramatizing to people. But I also think that they, that some of that trauma or that re-trauma can end up being a good, thing because there's not there's not the blame and and hopefully there's not the shame i think that people carry with them sometimes when they're when they're dealing with talking about abuse and and coercive control and violence and so so this family i think it has been through everything the

filming process was very challenging for them it was long for them it was it was about a year in our entire filming process. And so they took a lot of time. We took a lot of breaks. We'd go back out and I think that was a helpful thing. But it's also an extended thing. And then now, let's face it, it changes again. Like their story, they were telling it with the anticipation that it was going to be

public. And now it's going to be public. So there's a whole other level that then enters into the equation again. I think there's always that potential for retramatization, but I think in many ways, though, you avoided that by kind of taking this family on their own journey. And even though there were cameras, I mean, you have to wonder, I wondered, would they have taken this journey with or without you? And the answer to me probably is that they would have.

I think they would have. I don't know that it would have been, it may have taken longer, actually, you know, because there's certainly us kind of going, okay, well, let's do this, let's do this. There were certain things that were kind of Sierra's idea. There were certain things that were my idea, but I think it was all, there were certain things that were Shannon's ideas and other peoples too, but all with the sort of, you know, the end goal being the same. Like, you know, how do we, how do we work through this family trauma, I think, for all of them? And how do we really ask these questions on whether or not Jim Mordecai could have committed

greater crimes. And none of them really necessarily having, wanting to prove that to be true, but just kind of going, this is something we thought about. Let's ask these questions and let's see if we can find answers. I don't want to, I'm trying not to spoil anything, but since you wrapped filming, have there been more answers? You don't have to answer that if it's. We don't have any more answers at this moment in time. Sierra and her private investigator, Nina, sort of delivered all of the information they had to the authorities, and they started looking into it. Okay. And so the process, the current stage is that they're still looking into it, presumably? They're still looking into it, yeah. Okay. And look, the other hope is that when this

show comes out, when this four-part series comes out, that people who maybe didn't know, know they knew something, can come forward and say, hey, you know, we have this piece of information. Look, if it points to Jim, I think the family would be open to hearing that. If it doesn't point to Jim, they would be equally open to hearing that. So in that regard, there's no agenda. But there is a hope that some sort of completion could happen to any one of these victims. And of course, you're going to engage all kinds of Internet sleuths and detectives, I'm sure. I'm sure.

Yeah. That may have been an unintended side effect here, but it's going to be interesting to see from my perspective how people approach this and whether there's some pressure put on the police to do something. You're right. You're going to involve millions of, you know, internet floose in this process, which I think would be interesting. Very interesting.

So you kind of mentioned it just in your first answer. But I think one of the motifs here is the kind of the intergenerational transmission of trauma. And, you know, there's so many ways in which that kind of affects this family. Could you talk about that a little bit? Yeah. So it's very interesting because Jim died when Sierra was 15 years old. And she didn't really know him. I mean, she wasn't, he wasn't her grandfather that was around all of the time, but she experienced her mother who had been traumatized by Jim for a lot of her life, from her high school life on, in certain ways of relating.

They came to kind of figure out, right, because they're both pretty, pretty intuitive women and they both talk about their emotions. And they talk about their emotions with each other a lot. They came to kind of figure out that, that some of the way, the way. that Shannon had been acting and reacting were a direct cause of how she felt about Jim and how she felt about her own mother who had married Jim. And there was never a good relationship really between Jim and Shannon. But you see how much, how Shannon's emotions sort of were a reflection of Judy and Jim being married. And then how Sierra's emotions are a reflection of Shannon's relationship with Judy and Jim.

And so it is this, you know, I call the ripple effects of how Shannon deals with things, of how Sierra deals with things, and how this trauma really infiltrates the entire family in pretty different ways and without direct contact to the person who created the trauma in the first place. Yeah, right.

That's one of the fascinating things about the transmission of trauma across Jenner, is that it can have, it occurs in often subtle ways, unpredictable ways, unforeseen ways. And I think that's a really important part of the documentary and the story you're telling here. It can impact in terms of somebody's shame, right, or guilt or even in many cases in families where they don't even know the offender at all. Sierra knew him, but not well. Right.

And so that's another part of this, I think, is this issue of family secrets. You know, oftentimes family secrets will go hand in hand with family trauma. And there's certainly seems to be a lot of secrets surrounding Jim and his behaviors and how it impacted relationships and how people talked about it. And, yeah. It's definitely true. There were, look, I think there were a lot of secrets. I think there are fewer secrets now. I think a lot of those secrets have sort of bubbled up.

And I think in the family, everybody's pretty open about talking about everything or most things or, you know, the family members beyond even Sierra and Shannon and Judy into Sierra's aunts who were Jim's biological daughters and son. And, you know, so everybody's talking about it there. I think really it sort of starts at the family and sort of grows out, at least in this circumstance, it starts at the family and grows out. Now it's going to be, you know, people who were very much in support of Jim Mordecai in his small community, like where are they going to land on this? Are they going to still believe that he was a good, upstanding member of the community? Or are they going to kind of look back and go, oh, I recognize something in this memory I have,

I recognize something in this action that I witnessed Jim, or are they going to, you know, have the experiences where they never saw anything wrong? And so that's where I think the reckoning will be a little bit more substantial because the family, the family kind of knows. And there's, look, there's also family members, the Mordecai family members who are going to go through a lot when this, when this series comes out. Yeah, that was the question I had was how the, that his, family would react. And as you pointed out, there's a part of this documentary when Shannon

asked for some help around possibly other victims. And the response, I'm glad you included that. The response was not all warm and fuzzy, right? It was an interesting response. It was interesting in the fact that it wasn't all that surprising, I'll say, you know. I mean, it was, I think I know that Shannon was expecting other people to sort of come forward with similar stories to her own. And what she's met with is, is a pretty violent sort of response from many, many different people with only a couple of people saying, yes, I know what you're talking about. And that, I think that will be interesting. You know, when in the life that sort of happens beyond this series, the making of this series, what happens actually? after it airs? Are people going to change their minds? Are there going to be other people who come

forward with similar stories? Are people going to be able to come forward who are associated with other crimes that we bring up in this series and say, hey, I know something here. But ultimately, I really think what the series is about is believing women. It's very much about that. It's it's talking about different trauma that has happened to you in whatever way you want to. And it's about asking questions and it's about sort of seeking answers and trying to find the truth of what your family is. And ultimately at the end of the day, it's about the bonds of family. And sometimes those are unbreakable.

Other times they are breakable. But in this circumstance, I think Sierra going out and talking to her family members and asking them really deep questions was a really, really great, great place for her to be hard, but it was helpful. Yeah, and I would add to that list, the importance of listening. Yeah. You know, towards the end, I think Sierra says something to the effect of when she's bringing this information to please. She says, it was amazing that someone listened to me. Yeah. Right. And, but I guess the other side of that is you can have someone listen, but if they discount what you're saying or dismiss it, then that's a problem too. Yeah, I don't know if I'd consider that listening if they dismiss it,

you know? Right. I mean, they may have heard what you had to say, but they may not have been listening. But look, I mean, I think that's our, you know, as women or as, you know, disenfranchised people, too, I think it's our experience a lot of times with law enforcement that that we aren't listen to. And I think it's getting better. I think, you know, we're, we've got a more complex idea of what trauma is, of how to listen to victims, how to hear victims, how to not blame victims. I think, I think understanding is getting to be better. I don't think it's there 100% yet. I wish it was further along. But, but I think, you know, that's why I do these shows, because you do see that people are still struggling with being heard, they're struggling with being listened to,

they're struggling with being believed. And it doesn't seem like that big of a shift to just believe. And it is, it is a big shift. Yeah, I mean, right, you bring up a really important point, which is that not just listening, but believing victims is foundational to our criminal justice system. And I think a lot of people don't understand that the numbers, that, although many people claim that there's these false reports of sexual assaults or, right, the reality is, and I've worked for victims, by the way, I worked with victims for years, for many, many years. And of the hundreds of victim interviews and reports I've read and evaluations, I've encountered maybe a few that I thought weren't real or weren't accurate.

And so the numbers are less than 1% of victims that will give false accounts. And then why are they giving false accounts? Like what's in their history that sort of led them to this place of giving a false account? Like there's just, it's just not black and white. You know, there's nothing black and white about any of it.

Right, right. And yes, exactly. And so many times when they're, you know, making false accusations, right, there's there's red flags to kind of indicate why they're doing it or you know it's it's pretty clear cut but yeah for the most part the system is is really amazing at acknowledging just i mean not as you point out it's not it's not completely there but it's for the most part and it probably depends on where you are in the country but certainly but it's the system is pretty good about

taking many reports seriously and with only the victim's account to go on. Yeah, yeah. And look, I think Sierra experienced that when she, when she, you know, ends up taking her and all of her information to law enforcement, she feels her. And it's such a weight because she goes in expecting not to. And she really does feel hurt at the end of it, which I think was really, really a powerful moment for her.

Yeah, I agree. And then you have this other issue of her own, her own traumas. Right. And that is really what sparked all of this was the assaults that happened to Sierra and her starting to really question kind of where she fits into this world. And that was really kind of the motivator, I think, for Sierra to start thinking about the world in a different way and thinking about her place in the world a different way and trauma and then sort of talking to her mother and talking to her grandmother about the trauma that had come from her step-grandfather. And it seemed like she had that this process helped out as well. I think it did.

I mean, I think, you know, at the end of the day, the process of doing the documentary was hard. It was hard for everybody involved. But everybody feels that it was a good process that you came out. I mean, everything worthwhile is hard, I guess, really. And so to be able to sort of come out the other end and say, yeah, this is, this is, I think they all feel that they're in a better place than they were before it started. Okay. Yeah, that's great. And that really comes through in the documentary. So I would highly recommend the people watch this if for no other reason than to see how a family goes through confronting past traumas and how they deal with it in a very, deliberate, emotional, sometimes way, but in a very productive way. Yeah, yeah.

And they're all very good at communicating. So it is an example of that, I agree. So the other side of this equation is Jim, right? I mean, he's obviously the title of the documentary. And so I think one thing, and this is something that I deal with in my work all the time. but just a reminder of the incalculable damage that narcissists and predators and people like Jim do to communities, to families, to individuals, to relationships, right? It's just, it's hard to really, it's hard sometimes to understand how deep the impact of somebody like Jim Mordecai can be.

It absolutely is. And I think, I think it, especially in this series, it becomes very, very clear because you see sort of Sierra and her immediate family and then you see Jim's daughters and how they talk about their relationship with Jim. And then also there's Michael who is kind of the male victim of the family and he carries a fair amount of guilt along, you know, with him.

And it's just, and it trickles down, you know, I think about how Jim's abuse of behavior trickles down to Sierra's relationship with her mom. You know, when Sierra has children, how is that abusive relationship? I mean, it may be a lesser sort of trickle that happens between Sierra and any of her children she may have. But I think it's still going to be there, you know, in terms of how she knows how to relate with people. And it's, you know, it's with people that you end up, you know, in relationships with it, just as trickles down everywhere. Right. Yeah, absolutely.

and communities too, right? Yeah. Yeah, it'd be very interesting to see the Half Moon Bay community and what happens in that community after this comes out because it's a small community. It's, look, it's very distant from this time when Jim Mordecai was there as a teacher. But it's going to, I mean, just the fact of this documentary

is sort of coming out is going to, it's going to upset that community. Yeah, well, it seems like you planted the seeds for that a little bit with Shannon. Yeah. You know, kind of putting it out there. But, yeah, the response, I didn't expect that much of, you know, that much backlash with her request.

But maybe it's just that I'm used to working with victims. Right. Yeah. Yeah. It didn't surprise me in terms of that it is a pretty insular community. It's a pretty, you know, they kind of, they, it's a small community. Look, it's not far from San Francisco Bay. I mean, half an hour drive, you know, a way.

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impact of GM, one of the things that Sierra said was that he quote, intimidated the family into silence. So I think that's a big part of this. And there's several of the victims that were clearly assaulted and impacted by that. And none of them filed a report or none of them came forward, right? And so you kind of have that underlying issue of victims speaking openly about their crimes and the age-old thing about why, you know, why aren't they coming forward? Why aren't they talking? If they're not talking, does that mean that this didn't happen?

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the fact that some of these victims were children, you know, were, and so, and looked up to this either father figure or person of power, teacher figure, you know, know, this, he definitely had a position of power, both in his family and at the school. And so there's, there's that that sort of complicates things as well. And just this, look, I would imagine, or I would at least think that people, young adults, children now, you know, have more agency to sort of tell someone that they know, love or trust. But at the same time, I mean, Jim was one of those people. He was one of those people that would fit into that category of tell someone that you know love or trust.

And that's, that's, that's, that's part of the reality of that situation. Yeah. And I, I think you, you made it clear that this is someone who's a very intimidating guy. He's threatening to, to slit people's throats. He's, right? He's, this is not, he's, he's not, he's not being subtle. No.

About his threats, right? That he's, he's got guns. He's got knives, right? So, I mean, in addition to, I think, the shame. Several of the victims mentioned the deep shame they felt. There's this overarching fear. Yeah. Yeah.

There's a lot of fear. Everybody experiences or who knew Jim sort of that we spoke to experience a lot of fear in his presence and fear of retaliation, if anything, if they did talk about it. Yeah. Right. I mean, to me, he just comes across as this really angry kind of belligerent guy who who hides behind, I don't know, I guess we don't have time to get into his delusional belief system, but maybe we can save that for some other time.

Yeah. But on this note, too, the mention the word grooming was brought up a lot, right? And I think that it's important for people to understand the importance of what that means and how he did groom his victims here. Yeah, I mean, I'm sure you know sort of the. stages of grooming in a much more sort of specific direct way than I do but but there's there's definitely a way of sort of isolating these people and making them feel special and then making them feel like they that he is is a person that can deliver

whatever they want I mean Jim was known to you know take them take some students on trips you know where they were alone in their car together and giving them special attention and making them feel you know much more special than maybe other people in the class but really sort of making them feel special and pulling them away from other people and offering them something that nobody else could offer them you know these are all pretty classic grooming grooming techniques and then to the point where it makes people feel like nothing wrong happened or i kind of wanted it to happen or i let it happen and so that chain that they carry with them sort of as an insurance plan you know to to make them or to ensure that they're not going to talk

And so there are a lot of these things that Jim did, I think, within the family and within students that he had in his class that are absolutely greening techniques. Yeah, for sure. And in addition, I would mention that a lot of the offenders I've worked with are masterful at finding victims that are a little bit more passive. And they come from families that are broken often, right? And that was a theme here. Absolutely. I'm glad you brought that up because, you know, and Jim's position in the school. He kind of knew what family structures were.

And with friends of his kids, he knew what those family structures were. And so he was able to sort of target his victims in a much more sort of specific way. Maybe some victims or people that see this documentary, maybe a little feel somewhat more empowered to come forward. Or hopefully that can be a positive outcome here too as well. Yeah. And just to even, you know, even just the greater understanding of it, what was happening. You know, maybe they can see some similarities between how, how they were treated

and or how Jim treated somebody else in class and, and either come forward or, or share their story with somebody that they trust. So I'm trying to be cognizant. I think we're, I got a question. You're killing me. You're killing me. It's like the elephant in the room, like the whole ending. Like we're all, you know, we're waiting with baited breast guy. John and I talked about whether we think, you know, what we think about Jim, John has obviously done some profiling and he's like, you know, it laying it all out. Yeah, I get it. We know that you did hundreds of hours that we never got to see.

What do you think? What do you think? Do you think we're going to find some surprises after this airs? I think anything is possible. Would we spoil the whole documentary if we might if we mentioned too much? Guys, watch it. That's all I'm saying. Just watch so that we can speculate together here, a hidden true crime.

What do you guys think? I think there's a really, the hog-tying part is just too specific. That's what I think, too. That's a very specific. And look, the location of things is very specific. The hog-tying is very specific. There are a lot of specificities that point to a certain thing, whether or not there will be proof or whether or not it's actually true.

Who does? To be determined. Yes. We'll all be watching it. We'll be discussing it with our gems later, the truth about Jim. So we want everyone to watch it so that we can then talk freely about this with all of our gems and all of our listeners and viewers. We're so grateful that you joined us today.

so much for having it's so good to see you again you too you're welcome at our house anytime again okay i'll come back sometime okay we'll see you okay all right bye bye sorry i jumped in there babe i i i couldn't uh not ask guy that question you're killing me there i just wanted to know what she thought and i know you're avoiding the spoilers i'm trying to stay away people aren't going to watch it if we tell them right so i i was trying to be respectful to her with spoiler alerts Without, yeah, without any spoiler alert. So if I jumped in and say, hey, did, you know. I mean, she kind of said there's no updates.

So that's, that was good. But I mean, they don't want updates, right? Like she- We want updates. I want an update. I want an update now. No, I know. But I mean, as you, like the true crime community is going to jump on this thing big time now because.

I hope they do. I hope you do. Hidden gems. They're probably going to put some pressure on the. police to do. Anyway, anything else you missed wanting that you were talking to her about or wanting to clarify? I noticed that you said, I had a question for you. You said that the system is pretty good now at listening to victims, and that actually

confused me because so many times I feel like they aren't. Or what did you mean by that? That was a question I had for you. I mean, the judicial system will take seriously reports of sexual assault or abuse based on the victim's statements. Okay. So, I mean, obviously it's preferred if they have evidence and they can back things up. I mean, that's generally speaking, they're going to look for evidence to support any statements.

We're not going to just go on the statement alone. So they'll corroborate information for sure before they'll make charges usually. But oftentimes the statements will lead the process. Okay. And the statements are sufficient for them to begin the investigations. And, you know, that they're not, they're not just throwing out every statement from a victim. That makes sense. Whereas I think back in the 70s, 60s and 70s, they would have, you know, in the documentary,

Shannon goes to the school guidance counselor and says, hey, this guy's abusive and they laugh at her. Right. So that's what I mean is that that I think, over time, the system has improved in terms of taking victim reports and statements more seriously than, say, 40, 50 years ago or even 30 years ago. Okay. Thanks for clarifying that. That makes sense. Yeah, it was disheartening to hear how many people were not believed. The other thing I wanted to ask you about to, or no, not ask you, I just want to talk about it. I was more with Sky, not surprised that there was not all these victims

wanting to come forward. But I actually think that's because even though you work with victims and that's your job, you don't always see social media, which is the way so many people communicate now and it's so public and people can be so, I don't know how to explain it. Well, You've seen some of our comments, but I feel like. So opinionated? Polarized? Polarized? That's a good.

Yeah, opinionated. Humans have always been opinionated. I love opinions. I love a good debate. Yeah, polarizing is maybe a better word or angry or. But I was, so my surprise was that. she put out there the fact that there were a number of victims. And I don't know how much,

how many details she provided, but just the, I didn't expect the responses to be so strong. And, you know, that there was, there's, there's, there's,

no, he's a great guy, you know, he's dad. You know, this is, you know, you're slandering.

dead guy, he can't defend himself, right? I mean, I get that. Those were some concerns I had about the documentary to begin with. But on the other hand, like, Sky's point is the victims are saying that they were assaulted. Why aren't they, in their responses, why aren't they respecting that a little bit? In other words, they're dismissing that outright and they're defending him. They're defending this guy that could very well be. that seems to me there's a high probability who could be the Santa Rosa hitchhiker killer.

Right? Like you can bet they're all going to change their tunes if the DNA comes back and matches his. You know, they're jumping on this bandwagon that's really dismissing victims without that much evidence. They're just, you know, they're in, and in a peculiar way, they can end. up trying to defend a horrendous serial killer. Sure. I guess. If that's the way it turns out.

Yeah. Yeah, I guess. So from my perspective, going back to social media, what I see and how I see people argue, you know, the way that the victims from Tim Ballard are being dismissed right now, because Tim Ballard is a hero. Tim Ballard is a great guy. And he's a victim of these victims. or his alleged victims,

I feel like history to peace itself. And when people, I feel like, especially people, you know, we're always watching true crime documentaries and we're always hearing about this one person who was this great community leader.

Yet what it happens to us or in our community or someone that we believe is a great guy, we are so quick to dismiss anyone that tells us otherwise. Like you'd think that we'd learn. I was taking notes during it on my phone. signs of a psychopath to me, the most charming man you've ever met, or your worst nightmare is how they explained him to be.

The line, the manipulation, the mask, the pointing the finger at the victims, the good guy persona that no one can imagine is anything like this mask. There was religious and spiritual abuse. He was a religious giant to many. He felt like he was going to change the world. I'm like, that sounds familiar to so many of these people. always being the victim to gain people's sympathy. You know, it's all about his pain, being misunderstood, being bullied.

All he wants to do is do good. We all think we can see this good person and we won't be manipulated. I'm just reading my notes like I'm in high school again. Here's my book report. Here's my book report on what we just watched. We all think we can see a good person and we won't be manipulated. And people who shut down victims because they know that this person just couldn't be who these victims say he is.

I feel like I see this every day covering true crime. Every day. And I guess out of all of the cases we've covered most specifically with Tim Ballard, but when we put out a lot of our Jody Hilda Brand stuff, people wrote us and said a lot of the victims were coming forward were bad and wanting fame too. You know, it's just, it's just pattern that I see every day. Well, one thing I didn't have a chance to talk to Sky about was, so you're getting into this issue of confirmation bias.

And I think that's a theme throughout this documentary as well. In many different ways, by the way, it manifests itself quite differently depending on how you see this documentary. But that's certainly one place where people that knew him, even if they didn't go to school with them or have any direct contact with him, they already had an opinion. They were already biased and they were going to support that opinion. Even if you showed them evidence that this guy was a serial killer,

they weren't going to believe that. Right. So I don't know, maybe if you match his DNA to a serial killer, maybe then they believe it. But even then, I'm not sure. They'll say that the DNA was corrupted, right? I don't know. I mean, you're right.

We live in a world where it's so polarized and there's so much confirmation by, that people just they can't see out of their narrow perceptions of the world. So you see that in this documentary as well, not just in terms of how the community reacts to Shannon's request to potentially identify other victims from Jim, but also you kind of see it with Sierra,

that she might be chasing phantoms to some degree. at some point, right? Like, she kind of wants him to be something too. And maybe he's not. Right. So, yeah, he's a Zodiac killer. Right, that she goes down the rabbit hole, you know, is he the Zodiac, right? And I don't know the Zodiac case that well, but I know that the main suspects that have

been identified are not this guy. And his crimes are primarily. he seems to be more of a sexual predator, right? And zodiacs were not. So that's which is not, which is not to say, as Sierra says in the documentary, it's possible that the Zodiac graduated to these other types of crimes. And maybe that's true. You know, it's not, there is, by the way, a partial DNA profile of the Zodiac.

So now that they have Jim Mordecai's DNA, You'll have a bet. Let's, you could match him to Zodiac and you could match him to other potential serial killers. So I guess in theory, they could find out. Law enforcement could find that out if they wanted to pursue it. Yeah. Yeah. You're right.

So much to be determined. This will not be the last time we talk about the truth about GM. One thing I want to say to just the point I brought up, yes, confirmation bias. I agree. But I think you also have the benefit of being a psychologist and I have the benefit of living with you and learning so much from you. But I also think there's something just simple, like the goodness of human beings. And I remember reading a quote once about how, you know, almost like nobody really believes in a psychopath or let's say psychopathy or whatever or or anti-social trades or so, you know, sociopathy until they experience it because they just

can't believe that people like this exist. And I also think that's a part of it, which is also why understanding true crime and human beings are so important because I think it's not just, it is confirmation bias, but it's also not being able to comprehend that that criminal we watched documentaries about could be that guy you go to church with and that guy you really like in that there's a part of humanity that maybe you or me or my friend can't fully understand, which is why we can't wrap our head around the fact that Chad Daybell buried two children in his yard. I'll never forget his neighbors defending him until those children were found or the fact that his children still defend him.

So I also think there's maybe a part of that too and that you have that benefit of having a PhD in understanding these things. And it's so hard for a regular human being to grasp it too, that these people are not normal like you and me. Right. Sorry about a little soapbox. But that was something that I kept thinking about during this documentary. True. That's, that's, you know, it's that. issue is actually, historically, it's a part of the field of psychology in the sense that actually,

I talk about this quite a bit or enough, but that when Freud was developing his ideas back in 19th century, Vienna, that he had this thing called the seduction hypothesis. And the seduction hypothesis essentially said that a lot of families, families had that a lot of the clients that were coming to him were sexually abused. And so the seduction hypothesis was based on the idea that there was a lot of sexual abuse going on in homes in Victorian Vienna back when Freud was developing his main ideas. And there was huge backlash to that in the sense that people couldn't imagine all these for him and proper families, you know, middle class, middle, upper class,

middle upper class families, mainly middle upper class families, that these people were coming to Freud for help. And he was seeing this, but they refused to accept the fact that that type of abuse could happen in their community. And so Freud actually then changed his theory to saying that the abuse wasn't actual, it was imagined. that it was the fantasy of the abuse that was creating a lot of the problems and not the actual abuse. And so that was something that the community apparently could live with a lot more than the reality.

And the term Freud used to describe that was what he called the family romance, which is that families develop these narratives about how everything's perfect and there's no abuse, right? And it's a way of glossing over the fact that families are not always perfect and that oftentimes there is or can be abuse. So I think you have a version of that here. Wow. I agree. Thanks for sharing that. Anything else before we stop recording, we talked a lot longer than we thought we would after Sky Left.

Anything else you wanted to talk to Sky about that you want to bring up here? Or you're feeling good? So the confirmation bias issue was something I did want to talk to her about but didn't have a chance to. But we talked about it. So I think I'm okay. But not really. I think if we had a little more time or if I had a little more time with her, I might have gone a little bit deeper into some of the issues we did talk about. but other than that, I think I covered most of the talking points I wanted to discuss with her.

Yeah. Yeah, did great. We were honored. She even gave us 30 minutes today. She's appearing many places today. And we're so grateful, Sky, that you made time for us. And really, watch this HBO Max documentary, The Truth About Jim, so that we can keep talking about it. And then, yeah, then dialed down some rabbit.

holes because there are definitely some rabbit holes now. All right. I'll just hit this and we'll see you guys. Okay. Goodbye. Bye-bye. Hello, Hidden Jems. It's Lauren with Hidden a True Crime podcast for exclusive content.

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